Carolyn Warmus Trials: 1991 & 1992

When Paul Solomon took the stand he cataloged a bizarre marriage. While acknowledging that neither partner had been faithful—there had been "ups and downs"—he maintained that the union was basically sound. Responding to questions about his affair with Warmus, Solomon said that for some time he had been trying unsuccessfully to terminate the relationship. Even so, he admitted meeting Warmus on the night of the killing and having sex with her in a car. Afterward he had gone home and found his wife murdered. Unnerved by Warmus' subsequent and, he said, unwanted pestering, he confronted her in a bar. "Did you have anything to do with Betty Jeanne's death?" he asked. She replied, "No."

For five days Solomon underwent a battering at the hands of defense counsel Lewis, who insinuated that it was actually Solomon himself who had arranged the murder. "You told your wife you'd be home early, but you didn't come home early because you knew your wife was dead!"

Finally Solomon erupted. "You twist and turn words, manipulate facts … to make them what they aren't," he shouted. But Lewis scored heavily when he drew an admission from the witness that he stood to profit significantly from his wife's death, having already signed a movie contract worth $175,000.

The star prosecution witness was yet another private investigator, Vincent Parco. He testified that one week before the shooting he sold Warmus a. 25-caliber pistol—the kind used to kill Betty Jeanne Solomon—equipped with a silencer. (The murder weapon was never found.) Parco claimed he had done so only after considerable badgering by the defendant. "Almost every time I'd see her she'd bring it up." The silencer had been his idea, so she could practice in a "house, woods, or garage, and no one would know."