DNA to Be Tested Decades After Warmus' Conviction

Killer spent 27 years in prison for killing her lover's wife in 1989
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 4, 2021 3:13 PM CDT
Prosecutors Agree to DNA Tests in 'Fatal Attraction' Case
Paul Solomon, center, talks with an unidentified woman in 1992 as he leaves Westchester County Courthouse in White Plains, N.Y., after a jury convicted Carolyn Warmus.   (AP Photo/Andrew Savulich, File)

Prosecutors in New York have consented to DNA testing of evidence from the 1992 trial of so-called "Fatal Attraction" killer Carolyn Warmus, who was paroled two years ago after serving 27 years in prison for the murder of her lover's wife. Westchester County District Attorney Mimi Rocah consented on Monday to the testing of three pieces of evidence used to convict Warmus in the 1989 death of Betty Jeanne Solomon, who was shot nine times in her home in suburban Greenburgh. Warmus and the victim's husband, Paul Solomon, began an affair when both were teachers at a school in Scarsdale. Her first trial ended in a hung jury in 1991, the AP reports, but she was found guilty of second-degree murder a year later.

Warmus, now 57, has always maintained her innocence and has sought to have three pieces of evidence tested to determine if they can exonerate her by pointing to another suspect. Most significant is a glove found at the Solomons' home that was a key piece of evidence in the second trial. Prosecutors said Warmus left the glove there at the time of the killing. Warmus' lawyers have argued that testing of the glove could prove that someone other than Warmus was present when Solomon was killed. The other evidence is semen recovered from the victim and blood found in a tote bag belonging to Paul Solomon. The slaying of Betty Jeanne Solomon attracted wide media attention and was dubbed the Fatal Attraction killing after the 1987 movie starring Glenn Close and Michael Douglas.

(More DNA evidence stories.)

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