As Brandon Beau Warren walked into a courtroom Monday for the first time after being charged with killing two people, he smirked.
"He just smiled," said Tiffany Chambers, sister of shooting victim Stevan Chambers. "... It's sick."
Warren, 25, is charged in 3rd District Court with two counts of first-degree felony murder, accused of shooting Stevan Chambers and Shelli Marie Brown last August in Magna. He is also facing 11 firearms-related charges.
Charges were filed in late October, after a year-long investigation.
The court case, however, became stalled almost immediately because Warren had been found not competent to stand trial earlier this year in an unrelated case. He won't be back in court on the murder case for nearly a year — Sept. 11, 2017 — as officials at the Utah State Hospital try to restore his competency.
Tiffany Chambers said she has been waiting a year for homicide charges to be read aloud in court, and she was disappointed that Warren was smiling and not taking the proceedings seriously. She said she expected the delay because of his competency issues.
"I'd like to have him spend the rest of his life in prison where he belongs," the sister said, crying. "Not in a hospital."
Stevan Chambers, 26, was found dead in a roadway near 2880 South and 9100 West in Magna on Aug. 17, 2015. He had been shot four times.
Brown, 26, who had been shot three times, was discovered two days later in a park about a half-mile from where Chambers' body was found.
Shell casings from a .380-caliber gun was found near both bodies, according to charging documents, and ballistics testing later found that the casings were all fired by the same gun.
Witnesses told police that the day before Chambers was found dead, he had been held in a garage and was "confronted by several people" about an allegation that he had given a woman intravenous drugs "in order to take sexual advantage of her," according to a search warrant affidavit.
After the confrontation, Chambers left with that woman and Warren, according to charging documents, and was later seen in front of the Magna Library, still arguing with the woman. She later reported to police that she told Warren "he should stand up for her."
After Brown's body was found at Magna Park on Aug. 19, 2015, police found two bags containing Brown's paycheck stub and a partially consumed Gatorade bottle. Both Warren and Brown's DNA were found on that bottle, according to charging documents.
In addition to allegedly killing Brown and Chambers, Warren is also accused of firing a gun outside a Magna bar days before the two homicides.
Warren was found incompetent to stand trial in four cases unrelated to the homicides, which include charges of car theft, criminal mischief, assault by a prisoner and possession of drug paraphernalia. Mental health examiners at that time found Warren suffered from bipolar disorder with psychotic features, according to court documents.
A document filed with the court on Oct. 13 states that Warren claims there are no criminal charges against him and that "the judge is against him and that everyone on his legal team [are] terrorists."
Warren also "periodically ramble[s] on about bizarre ideas" and has "expressed delusional thoughts" to mental health examiners, the documents states.
But the document also states that mental health examiners believe there is a possibility that Warren is feigning mental illness, a possibility that needs to be ruled out.
jmiller@sltrib.com
Twitter: @jm_miller
| Courtesy Stevan Ryan Chambers
