NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — DuWayne Warren thought the birth of his son, Damere, was God’s way of giving him a second chance to be a father.
“I wanted to see my son grow up. He looked just like me,” Warren told Norfolk Police Department detectives according to transcripts of a December 2020 interrogation, which were recently obtained by 10 On Your Side.
Warren and his then-girlfriend, Epifani Andrews, found out they were expecting their second child while they were still grieving the sudden death of their first, a 3-month-old baby girl named Evonne who died on Dec. 19, 2019.
Warren and Andrews told police they were co-sleeping with Evonne when they woke up and found her unresponsive. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) determined Evonne likely died of suffocation, and the baby’s autopsy showed signs of abuse. She suffered from multiple blunt force trauma injuries to her neck, head, abdomen, and ribs, some of which were in different stages of healing. She was also “nutritionally and medically neglected,” court records show.
Although Evonne’s body showed signs of abuse, the OCME couldn’t determine if those injuries contributed to her death. The NPD continued to investigate the case as a “suspicious death,” but made no arrests in the year that followed.
“I would hold her and sing to her for hours, and then in the next moment, I would just be angry out of nowhere,” Damere told Norfolk detectives about his time with Evonne. “Like something was wrong when nothing was wrong. I’d mess it up.”
Damere was born one year after his big sister, and he died one year after she did, too. Police discovered Damere’s lifeless body in the same Norfolk apartment where his mother was brutally beaten and stabbed to death on Dec. 29, 2020.
“I murdered her. I love her, though. I don’t know why I hurt her,” Warren told Norfolk detectives, referring to Andrews.
Just like Evonne, Damere’s autopsy showed signs of abuse: The 3-month-old boy had extensive bruising and scarring on his body and several rib fractures that were in different stages of healing. Damere died of blunt force trauma injuries and may have also been smothered to death. The OCME determined that his death was a homicide.
“Like, something be telling me to do it. Like hurt him. Hurt him. Hurt him. I don’t know why,” Warren told detectives about Damere.
Warren was arrested and charged with murdering Damere and Andrews immediately after their deaths, and seven months later a grand jury also indicted him for the second-degree murder of Evonne. He pleaded guilty to all three murders on Nov. 8. The plea wasn’t part of a deal with prosecutors, and he’s scheduled to be sentenced in Norfolk Circuit Court in February.
Warren told detectives he doesn’t understand the aggression and rage that overwhelmed him and led to him murdering his family.
“It’s just always there. It’s like I can never really be happy. It’s always something in my head, like something’s wrong,” he said.
“I hate myself,” he told detectives. “I thought this was good when I had her, and I thought it would be better. I’d think I could stop them thoughts and that feeling finding me, but it just didn’t stop. It got worse. Like whatever it is, it’s just in my mind. It’s just like why? Why am I? Why? Why? What — why am I so angry?”
Download the WAVY News App to keep up with the latest news, weather and sports from WAVY-TV 10. Available in both the Apple and Google Play stores.
