Was Keith Warren Lynched?

The Case

One summer afternoon, a family in Silver Spring, Maryland would face a tragedy that no family should endure. On July 31st, 1986, Keith Warren’s body was found hanging from a tree in a wooded area not too far from his home. Keith was slated to start college in just one short month. Keith’s immediate family at the time consisted of his mother (Mary) and his sister (Sherri). In the beginning, both his sister and his mom had a belief in line with that of the local police. That belief was that Keith had committed suicide by hanging. While the police would stick with that theory, Keith’s family would soon start to change their minds about how he died. For starters, two ropes were used to hang Keith. The tree was also too small for him to have killed himself by hanging. Lastly, Keith’s family was not even officially notified of his death, there was no autopsy done, and his body was almost immediately sent to a funeral home.

The odd occurrences don’t end there.

In the days leading up to his death, a large group of people started searching for Keith… even though — as far as everyone knew — Keith wasn’t even missing. When asked why they were searching for him, the group gave no real explanation. One of the people searching for him was a boy by the name of Mark Finley. This was extremely strange according to Keith’s friends. They explain that Mark wasn’t even a close friend of Keith’s. It was known that they had both gotten into a fight the last time that they saw each other.

The last straw for Keith’s mother was when she visited the scene of his death. Rodney Kendall, a close friend of Keith’s, took Mary to the area. To their surprise, the tree had been cut down. It turns out that the police had taken it down for evidence. This would normally be standard procedure for an investigation and not something that would raise any eyebrows. However, the police had told Mary that they closed the case before they decided to cut down the tree.

The Developments

After 6 long years of attempting to find answers, Mary got an interesting piece of mail on April 9th, 1992. Interestingly, this was Keith’s birthday. Mary received a manila envelope containing pictures of what appeared to be the undisturbed crime scene. In the photos, however, Keith was wearing clothes that weren’t even his. The clothes that were returned to the family — his jacket and a pair of brown boots — weren’t being worn by Keith in the pictures. The photos were shown to investigators. They confirmed that they were the actual crime scene photos. Curiously, there were leaves on the back of Keith’s shirt in the photographs. This would suggest that he was laying down on his back before his body was pulled up into the hanging position in which he was found.

Keith’s body was then exhumed for an autopsy. It is important to note that this was the first autopsy done on Keith’s body, even with the fact that the police had crime scene photos questioning the possibility of a suicide. Once the autopsy report was completed, the results were concerning. Keith’s body had several different types and amounts of deadly chemicals in it. While some postulated that the chemicals were due to the embalming process, one examiner shut down that theory. Some of the substances found in Keith’s body had no relation to the chemicals used in embalming fluids.

Then, this case offered one last mysterious twist.

Mark Finley, who had preemptively searched for Keith before the need for a search presented itself, was put at the center of the case. Along with the photographs of the crime scene that Mary received was a strange letter. Ominously, the writer stated that “Mark Finley will be next”. Soon after she received that letter, Mary got a call from Mark himself. He told Mary that he wanted to visit her and open up about something. Unfortunately, he never made it. Mark Finley was found dead a month later. It appeared that he was the victim of a hit-and-run. Whatever he wanted to tell Mary, it remains as much of a mystery as the murder of Keith Warren.

The Status

In August 2014, it was determined that the investigating officer used “hearsay” from a source that was not named, not documented, and not related to the case in any way to classify Keith’s death as a suicide. That classification allowed the officer to bypass the autopsy process and have the body sent to a funeral home of his choice. Sherri Warren was able to use that determination to have her brother’s case officially reopened in June or 2014. Sadly, Mary died in 2009 without knowing what happened to her son. To this day, the murder of Keith Warren remains unsolved.