An Idaho prisoner was beaten to death 6 weeks ago. His family seeks answers | Opinion

One after another, friends and family of Milo Warnock stepped to the front of the packed conference room at the Hyatt Place hotel in Meridian on Saturday, Jan. 13, and tried to explain what kind of person Milo was.

“I’ve never been able to explain my brother to anyone,” said Hallie Johnson, Milo’s sister. “So much about him and his life is simply inexplicable, and I’m grateful to be in a room of people where no explanation is necessary.”

By all accounts, Milo was a hard worker, curious, kind-hearted, funny, intelligent and intellectual, someone who reveled in deep thoughts and deep discussion about deep ideas.

“I know Milo wasn’t perfect, but I also know he was remorseful, cheerful, kind and thoughtful and wanted the best for his family and others,” said Aaron Bowers, who worked with Milo at YMC Inc. in Meridian, where Milo was a sheet metal worker and press brake operator. “Milo inspired me with all he was able to overcome. I had hoped he’d be able to reenter society and live the life he wanted to live with the past behind him.”

That was not to be, though.

Milo Warnock, 45, was beaten to death by a fellow prisoner Dec. 10 in the Idaho State Correctional Center, according to the Idaho Department of Correction.

The Idaho State Police, which is investigating, has not released any information or the name of the suspect. ISP spokesperson Aaron Snell declined to provide a timeline for the investigation.

The suspect was moved into administrative segregation, or solitary confinement, immediately after the attack, and he’s now at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution, according to IDOC spokesperson Jeff Ray.

But no one has officially released the suspect’s name or announced charges.

Meanwhile, Milo’s family waits for answers.

“I just don’t understand why that’s taking so long,” Milo’s dad, Mike Warnock, told me in an interview.

‘Hard-luck Milo’

The circumstances leading to Milo’s incarceration and eventual death are part of a series of struggles that Milo experienced throughout his life, some of his own making and some as a result of what Mike Warnock referred to as being “hard-luck Milo.”

“Milo was the most hapless person I know,” Milo’s mother, Kathy Warnock, told me in an interview. “He had no luck.”

Milo had previous charges of domestic violence and driving under the influence.

Milo was arrested in August 2021 for driving under the influence, with a blood alcohol content of 0.11, according to the police report. Milo had four previous DUIs, the most recent a felony conviction in 2013. Since it was Milo’s second DUI within 15 years, it was considered a felony under Idaho law.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Milo’s court proceedings were delayed until 2023.

During that time, Milo converted an old bicycle into an e-bike, which he used to get around. He showed up for work every day and showed up for urinalysis. His employer, YMC, an HVAC contractor in Meridian, vouched for Milo during his case.

“Milo was just a good-hearted, he was a kind person with some mental issues,” Kathy said.

Milo had depression and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, according to his parents. He was referred to mental health court.

Milo missed his first mental health court appointment because of a flat tire on his bike, his sole form of transportation, according to his parents. He tried to get a cab and still wasn’t able to make it in time. On the rescheduling of his appointment, he misunderstood when he was scheduled and arrived 22 minutes late.

“That was just hard-luck Milo,” Mike Warnock said.

But Milo took responsibility.

“It is entirely my fault that I am here,” he wrote to his family from prison in October. “They were going to give me mental health court. All I had to do was show up on time, and I blew it.”

Still, Milo wrote to the court, trying to plead his case.

“I don’t want to sound pathetic, but please allow me to continue taking care of my loved ones,” he wrote.

He had two sons from his first marriage, which ended in divorce in 2011.

“I don’t care about myself,” he wrote. “I can be on probation forever and I can live the rest of my life without a driver’s license. Take everything from me, but my ability to keep meeting these obligations, and I will be happy and indeed profoundly grateful. I know that they would be grateful, too.”

Despite those pleas, on July 26, 2023, 4th District Judge Peter Barton sentenced Milo to 10 years in prison, with two years fixed.

“I’m not condoning it (Milo’s DUI), and I’m not saying that there shouldn’t have been consequences,” Kathy Warnock said. “And I know it sounds strange, but it’s still, you know, the guy had a job, he didn’t miss any work, he was always on the job, he was able to do his job, he had a place to live, and he was paying his bills the best way he could.”

Milo was sent to the Idaho State Correctional Center, a 2,128-bed men’s prison south of Boise that houses minimum- and medium-security residents and residents in “close custody,” or those under constant supervision.

“He never did hard time before,” Kathy Warnock said. “And he was really worried about it. He felt that hard time would be very, very difficult for him.”

“And he told me, ‘Boy, that’s the last thing I ever want to do,’ ” Mike said.

Problem with medication leads to ‘cheeking’

Once in prison, Milo had a problem with Effexor, an antidepressant drug that he had been taking for years and self-administered in the mornings with breakfast, according to the Warnocks.

The problem was that the prison was administering the drug at night, but the drug kept Milo awake, so he requested to have his medication schedule changed from evening to morning.

Milo filled out a “health service request” form to request changing his medication time and placed the form in a well-labeled drop box, according to an email from Milo to the Warnocks, who communicated with Milo every day while he was in prison.

What Milo didn’t know was that as of June 2023, before his arrival, the hard copy health service request form and physical drop box were no longer being used, and requests had to be submitted online, according to the Warnocks.

Milo told his parents he was never provided an orientation or any information that would have let him know that the hand-written form and drop box were no longer being used, according to the Warnocks. (Even as late as October, Milo said the drop box was still up on the wall at the prison.)

Because Milo’s death is under investigation, the Idaho Department of Correction declined to answer several questions sent by email, including questions about the drop box and Milo’s hand-written health service request.

While Milo was waiting for a response to his health service request, he was “cheeking” his medication — keeping it in his cheek without swallowing it at the time of dispensing to make it appear he had taken it. Then, he would save the pill for the next day and take it in the morning.

That was a violation of the rules. A random bed check one night revealed what he was doing, and Milo was put in solitary confinement for a week, according to Milo’s prison records that were obtained by the family and shared with me.

Milo originally was classified as a Level 2 minimum offender, but cheeking his medication added 22 points to his rating, putting him one point over a medium-level offender and making him a maximum-level offender, according to the Warnocks.

“It just seems strange,” Kathy Warnock said. “It really seemed like overkill punishment to me. But I said to him, ‘Milo, I’m going to advocate for you, so you’ve got to be telling me the truth, because it’s going to be embarrassing if this isn’t the way you say it is.’ And he wrote back, ‘I swear to God, this is what happened to me.’ ”

Cell block G: ‘It was a bad place’

Once Milo was removed from solitary, because of his higher rating, he was placed in cell block G, sometime in September.

“He looked around and knew that he wasn’t like the rest of the offenders there,” Kathy Warnock said. “And he was appalled, and I’m sure he was very frightened.”

Mike Warnock said Milo joked that the “G” in G block stood for “gangsters.”

“There were a lot of gangs in there, prison gangs,” Mike Warnock said. “It was a bad place.”

It was there that Milo became cellmates with a new person, according to messages the Warnocks shared with me.

We still don’t know who killed Milo, but Milo said he had troubles with his cellmate and was trying to help him, reading “Catch-22” to him, buying a $300 television to have in their cell and spending 12 hours making a shelf out of folded cardboard for him.

“I have tried to help him, so that I can feel good about myself (philanthropy is self centered behavior, as Dickens points out in Bleak House),” Milo wrote to his mother Dec. 7, three days before he was killed. “I can’t help him, tho. ….”

“Milo was trying to get along with this guy,” Kathy Warnock said. “Going the extra mile and doing things for him. He said he saw himself wanting to help people. Maybe he wasn’t the best person to help people but that’s what he saw himself doing. He was idealistic. He wanted to make a difference. And so he was really trying to help this guy.”

‘One of the kindest souls’

Since Milo’s death, there has been an outpouring of support and stories about Milo.

“Your son had one of the kindest souls we have had the pleasure of working with,” Steve Boatman, operations manager at YMC, wrote to the Warnocks. “His hard work, dedication and attention to detail was second to none.”

Bowers said Milo was an expert at what he did and could “squeeze more accuracy and consistency out of the (press brake) machine than anyone thought possible.”

Mike Warnock said working at YMC was one of the best things in Milo’s life.

“They just treated him like family, and he loved working there,” Mike Warnock said. “The people there have written all kinds of letters, you know, on his behalf, trying to get a lesser sentence and all kinds of sympathy letters afterwards.”

That include Carl Marcum, YMC vice president.

“When Milo was going through his court issues this summer, I would check in on him every few days to see how he was doing and if he needed anything, offering to provide a character witness as I truly believe in him,” Marcum wrote to the Warnocks. “He was such a caring and upstanding person I would have done anything to help him out.”

Their words provide some comfort to the Warnocks.

But the fact that Milo is now dead seems incomprehensible.

“Mike and I are just kind of coming to grips with all of this,” Kathy said. “It just seemed excessive. Everything seems excessive. Obviously, he was an offender. It’s just that he wasn’t as bad as what he got.”