Brutal Marshfield road attack detailed
Victim was shot, stabbed, run over
PLYMOUTH — A Plymouth District Court judge ordered Allen Warner to undergo a 20-day psychiatric evaluation after prosecutors said he shot, stabbed and ran over his estranged wife Monday night, leaving her to die on the side of a Marshfield road.
The attack, which left Shana Warner with lacerations so deep her chin was nearly severed, was followed at about 6 p.m. by a desperate 911 call in which the 48-year-old mother of three told a dispatcher her husband had jumped into her car and she was “very hurt,” Assistant District Attorney Jessica Elumba said.
When officers arrived on Main Street, they found her Toyota Scion with its engine running and the victim lying unresponsive on the ground a few feet away, bleeding heavily from the chest, left shoulder and chin, according to a police report. She was rushed to South Shore Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
A 50-year-old witness later told police she had been driving by the intersection of Main Street and Old Main Street Extension when she spotted an SUV and, nearby, a woman repeatedly yelling for help, the report said.
The victim started to walk away, stopped and was hit by the SUV, which dragged her a short distance, police said; a man then got out of the vehicle and ran off, the witness told police.
Another witness, a 58-year-old man, told officers he was driving by the Scion when he saw a man carrying what appeared to be a stick get out of a small, silver sedan and approach the Scion, the report said; he then heard one “bang,” which was immediately followed by a woman screaming.
The witness, who told officers he occasionally hunts and has a gun license, realized the noise was a gunshot and stopped until the man he had seen got back into the sedan and took off, police said.
The witness then followed him until he could get the license plate number, which was broadcast to local, state and federal authorities.
The sedan, according to the police report, turned out to be owned by Sandra Warner, the suspect’s mother, who told officers, “I’m sure Allen did it. I’m sure he did it. She just drives him up the wall.”
Warner told officers that her son and the victim were divorcing and that he had beaten her up about 15 years ago, the report states.
A massive manhunt ended with Allen Warner’s arrest Tuesday after Whitman police officer Mark Poirier spotted the 47-year-old Rockland man driving past.
At his arraignment on a murder charge yesterday, a not guilty plea was entered on Warner’s behalf, and Judge James Sullivan sent him to Bridgewater State Hospital for evaluation.
The victim’s boyfriend, John Tallent, said Warner is competent to stand trial, pointing to a police report that said he was found in the area of the landscaping business where she worked with her father in the days leading up to the killing.
“He’s not incompetent; he was stalking her where she works,” Tallent told the Herald yesterday. “She blocked his number.”