A Cobb County judge has found Jesse James Warren incompetent to stand trial for killing four people at a Penske Truck Rental Store, putting an end to the capital case that has been pending for years.
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After hearing from two state doctors, Judge Mary Staley Clark ruled Tuesday that prosecutors could not move forward with the death penalty case they hoped to bring against Warren for shooting five men, killing four of them, at the Kennesaw business where he had once worked, in 2010.
Her decision came 20 months after the Georgia Supreme Court ruled the state could not force Warren to take anti-psychotic drugs.
The two experts told Clark that Warren continued to refuse to take medication while maintaining his belief that he had invented wifi for the military and that Penske had stolen some of the $500 million he said he was paid for his creation. The doctors said Warren did well in a hospital setting but could be dangerous if anyone challenged his delusion.
Credit: Phil Skinner
Credit: Phil Skinner
On Jan. 12, 2010, Warren — wearing camouflage clothing and armed with two guns — allegedly walked into a Penske Truck Rental on Barrett Lakes Boulevard near Kennesaw and started shooting.
Customer Jaider Felipe Marulanda, 43, and Penske employees, Van Springer, 59, and Roberto Gonzalez, 31, were shot dead. Zachariah Werner, 35, another Penske employee, was paralyzed and died three years later. Joshua Holbrook, Gonzalez’s brother-in-law, survived his wounds but continues to need medical care, according to a prosecutor.
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Warren will remain institutionalized and doctors must report to the judge every 12 months whether his mental state has improved.
Warren, a mechanic, was first diagnosed as delusional in 2009 when Penske, his employer, sent him to a psychiatrist. Warren had told a co-worker that "Penske was stealing money from him, that 500 lawyers would go to jail for computer hacking and that Penske was involved in computer hacking," according to a report filed in the case.
According to one report, Warren told a psychiatrist that churches and religions were trying to kill him. He had “grandiose delusions that he is the son of God, vague hallucinations of the Holy Spirit speaking to him and beliefs that thoughts were inserted into his mind and that his thoughts were being broadcast,” the report said.
Eventually, Penske fired him.
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