S3 EP6 - Unmasked

Summary

American Nightmares – S3 EP6: Unmasked

Podcast: American Nightmares – Gardens of Evil: Inside The Zion Society Cult
Host: Gamut Podcast Network
Episode Air Date: November 8, 2022
Summary by: [Your Name]

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Episode Overview

In this gripping episode of American Nightmares, host Paul Wagner takes listeners through the breakthrough and arrest in the infamous Potomac River Rapist case—one of Washington D.C. and Maryland’s most haunting unsolved crime sprees. The episode, “Unmasked,” chronicles the dramatic DNA-driven investigation that led to the identification and arrest of Giles Daniel Warrick 28 years after the first attack. Through interviews with detectives, victims, journalists, and criminologists, the episode explores how Warrick remained undetected for so long, what ultimately brought him down, and the devastating impact on victims and their families.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Breakthrough: Advancements in Genetic Genealogy

• DNA-driven Identification

  • Detectives, with significant assistance from Officer Steve Smugareski (“Smuggs”) and Parabon Nanolabs, utilized genealogical databases to match crime scene DNA to family members, slowly constructing a family tree (03:00–05:00).
  • After months, this led them to Giles Daniel Warrick, living in Conway, South Carolina.

• The Arrest

  • Detectives visited Warrick’s home and collected a cheek swab under the guise that results would take weeks, though the sample was immediately rushed for expedited analysis (05:00–06:00).
  • The evidence produced a 1 in 1 quadrillion match, effectively confirming Warrick as the perpetrator (06:00).

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2. The Press Conference & Law Enforcement Reaction

• Public Announcement

  • D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham announced the breakthrough, highlighting the tragic arc of violence and honoring the collaboration between agencies (06:07).
  • Notable Quote:

    “The suspect in this case attacked at least 10 women in and around Washington D.C. His last known victim...was a 29-year-old congressional fellow who was murdered.”
    – D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham [06:07]

• Investigator Reflections

  • Detective Joe Madonna expressed the sense of closure and relief after decades of work (10:12).
  • Notable Quote:

    “Probably one of the best closures that I think that I’ve had... just because of how active this guy was and how frustrating it was to catch him.”
    – Joe Madonna [10:16]

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3. Victims’ Experiences & Immediate Emotional Impact

• David Hakos (Victim’s Husband)
  • Described receiving the news after years of rebuilding his life (09:22).
  • Notable Quote:

    “I'm so happy that they were able to catch the guy.”
    – David Hakos [09:56]

• Kelly (Babysitter/Survivor)
  • Recalled being informed just prior to the arrest and her overwhelming disbelief (10:45–12:10).
  • Notable Quote:

    “When I looked at that picture, it’s just like pure evil.”
    – Kelly [12:10]

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4. Who Was Giles Daniel Warrick?

• Personal History

  • Warrick, born 1959, had a difficult upbringing, and worked blue-collar jobs before starting a landscaping business in the 1990s (18:00–19:50).
  • Court and family records reveal a history of minor criminal charges, complicated romantic relationships, domestic violence allegations, and custody battles (20:00–22:00).
  • Significant detail: Warrick’s name did briefly appear on police suspect lists in the early 1990s, but he was never questioned due to the absence of a DNA sample on file (38:36).

• Parallel Lives & Psychopathology

  • Former FBI profiler Brad Garrett explains how individuals like Warrick can “live in parallel universes”—being attentive partners and parents while committing horrible crimes (25:27–26:40).
  • Notable Quote:

    “Serial offenders...can literally live in like parallel universes...They can think in ways...where they can run up and down these tracks and jump from one to the other, and the rest of us have a block in between.”
    – Brad Garrett [25:27]

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5. The End of a Crime Spree: Why Did He Stop?

• Discussion on Offender Patterns
  • Garrett emphasizes that it is not uncommon for serial offenders to stop as they age or achieve a “stable platform” in life, referencing cases like BTK/Kansas’ Dennis Rader for comparison (27:39).
  • Notable Quote:

    “I do think that offenders that stay alive, don’t go to prison, and...reach a certain age and then...just stop.”
    – Brad Garrett [27:39]

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6. Reactions from Warrick’s Colleagues and Neighbors

• Gary Gill (Workplace Supervisor)
  • Described Warrick as calm, competent, “never saw this coming”—someone who blended in seamlessly and was even respected (31:07–36:07).
  • Notable Quote:

    “I didn’t get it. He may not have been well educated, maybe had a bad life, but he learned and he moved up the line...but I had no idea of his history.”
    – Gary Gill [33:13, 35:41]

• Neighborhood Reaction
  • Warrick attended barbecues, helped with chores, and had a “gentle giant” reputation; neighbors were “absolutely in shock” (37:14).
  • Notable Quote:

    “They never suspected that he would have committed any kind of crime...especially suspicion of committing a series of crimes like these.”
    – Darcy Spencer [37:14]

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7. The Missed Opportunity: Warrick on the Suspect List

• Detailing how Warrick’s name surfaced in a 1992 police suspect pool but was never cross-checked due to the lack of a DNA sample (38:36).

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Memorable Moments and Quotes

• “When I looked at that picture, it’s just like pure evil.” – Kelly (babysitter victim) [12:10]
• “The suspect in this case attacked at least 10 women in and around Washington D.C.” – Chief Newsham [06:07]
• “Serial offenders...can literally live in like parallel universes.” – Brad Garrett [25:27]
• “Absolutely in shock...he was a good neighbor.” – Darcy Spencer [37:14]

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Important Timestamps

| Segment/Event | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------------------|:--------------:| | Detectives collect DNA sample in Conway, SC | 03:00–06:00 | | Press conference: Suspect identified | 06:07–07:51 | | Victim’s reactions: David Hakos & Kelly | 09:22–12:10 | | Detective Joe Madonna on closure | 10:12–10:45 | | Brad Garrett: Parallel lives of serial offenders | 25:27–26:40 | | Discussion: Why some serial offenders “just stop” | 27:20–29:29 | | Warrick’s personal and work background | 18:00–22:00; 31:07–36:07 | | Neighborhood shock and reactions | 37:14–38:36 | | Revelations: Suspect list and missed DNA check | 38:36–end |

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Conclusion & Takeaways

This episode masterfully blends investigative reporting with deeply personal interviews to unravel how Giles Daniel Warrick was finally unmasked as the Potomac River Rapist after decades of terrorizing communities. The detectives’ relentless pursuit, powered by new DNA technology, ended a nightmare for victims and their families—but also exposed the eerie reality of how offenders can move unseen in everyday life, hiding in plain sight for decades. The story also raises haunting questions about missed opportunities and how many other “unknown subjects” might still be out there, shielded by the banality of the lives they lead.

For more chilling insights and the next step in this investigation, stay tuned for episode seven.

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Transcript

[Steven Deaner]

Let's face it, more people are seeing UFOs, and some of these sightings completely defy explanation.

[Paul Wagner]

You have things that going hundreds of knots under the water, anti gravity.

[Steven Deaner]

But it has to be something like our own secret tech or maybe even adversarial, right?

[Brad Garrett]

So the claim that it's our tech or that it's an adversarial tech. No, it is not.

[Steven Deaner]

This is Steven Deaner from the hit podcast uap. And I have conversations like that every week as I keep up with all the latest relating to UFO topics. Just search UAP wherever you get your podcasts. As we continue to ask the question, are we alone in the cosmos?

[Paul Wagner]

Previously in episode five of WTOP's American Nightmare series. Unknown subject. I don't care if he found God and a good woman. This guy has some sick impulses.

[Dean Combie]

I was gonna call my. My buddy in, in Cold Case at midnight and I was like, nah, he's probably asleep.

[Paul Wagner]

Because you're excited of this.

[Dean Combie]

I'm excited at this point I'm like, I think I got something. But, you know, I don't know. I haven't been doing this all that long. Some of the stuff to find is really difficult to find. And sometimes I think I got somebody up there pointing me in the right direction.

[Paul Wagner]

I can see you're emotional about it. It's November 12, 2019. A small south Carolina city not far from Myrtle Beach. A couple of detectives from Washington, D.C. and Montgomery County, Maryland, are working the case that has taken them far outside their regular jurisdiction. The search for the serial rapist the FBI had dubbed the Potomac River Rapist. The detectives that day were following a lead from Officer Steve Smugareski, or Smuggs as he's known, who I told you about in the last episode. The officer with a talent for using genealogy to close cold cases. His work led them to a modest ranch house on Oak Log Lake Road in Conway, South Carolina, where the detectives believed they would find their unknown subject. I've already told you, Smuggs wasn't allowed to talk to me about his attempt to identify the Potomac River Rapist. But here's what we know about that morning in South Carolina. Based on public reporting at the time, there's a lot more to say about what happened that day. But for now, here's an outline. With the help of Virginia based Parabon Nanolabs, Smuggs and the detectives in the Montgomery County Police Department's Cold Case Unit entered the rapist's DNA into a large database of profiles from people who had submitted their DNA in hopes of Learning more about their family history. Smugs didn't get an exact match, but there were enough shared characteristics to suggest the names of potential robbers. From there, investigators began building out a family tree of their still unknown subject. They spent months on it, and by that November day, the detectives believed they knew the identity of the man who killed Christine Marzion on Canal road in Washington, D.C. in 1998 and assaulted eight women in Montgomery County, Maryland, throughout the 90s. But they needed proof. They needed a DNA sample from the unknown subject, a man who had no idea they were coming. It wasn't known then exactly what those investigators said when the man opened the door that morning, but in the end, he let them swab his cheek with a Q tip. The detectives told the man it would take weeks to get a result. But that was a lie. They had a car standing by, ready to rush the sample and back to the crime lab in Montgomery county for a quick turnaround. Two officers, including Smuggs, pulled out of Conway that morning and hightailed it north with the DNA sample tucked in a manila envelope. By 4pm the evidence was in the hands of the biologists at the lab. Then they waited. It took seven hours to analyze the sample. In what can be a painstaking process, special chemicals are applied, and then it's put in a centrifuge device that heats and shakes it into a readable genetic profile. By 11 o' clock that night, their work was done. The biologist examined 24 target areas of the DNA sample, comparing it to a sample of the unknown subject from One of the 1997 rapes in Montgomery County. The calculated result? There was a 1 in 1, quadrillion chance of randomly selecting that DNA from an unrelated person. In the general population, A quadrillion is 1000 trillion. Or in other words, it was a match. Back in South Carolina, in the middle of the night, officers had the house under surveillance and watched as a light came on inside the house. We only found this out later, but it's at that point the man may have been writing a letter to the woman he lived with, his fiance. I'll tell you more about that letter later. Then the man suddenly headed for the front door, dressed in gray sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt. Was he leaving? The officer sprang into action. Finally, 28 years after the first attack in Montgomery county and 21 years after Christine's murder, an arrest back in Washington, D.C. i was on a different assignment that week when I got a call from an executive producer at Fox 5, the DCTV station I was working for. Then police were about to hold a news conference announcing an arrest in the Mirzaion case. I was stunned, surprised and excited. My only thought was who is it? Who did they arrest? Inside what's known as the lineup room on the third floor of D.C. police headquarters. Then D.C. police Chief Peter Newsham stepped to the mics.

[D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham]

The suspect in this case attacked at least 10 women in and around Washington D.C. his last known victim in Washington D.C. was a 29 year old congressional fellow who was murdered. Forensic evidence linked the man to these crimes and was instrumental in leading detectives to his location in Conway, South Carolina where he was placed under arrest. I want to thank my colleagues at the Montgomery County Police Department, at the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Washington Field Office and our colleagues at the U.S. attorney's Office for their assistance and unwavering commitment to find this man who so hopefully we will be he won't be able to terrorize another community again. I want to give a special thanks thanks to Montgomery County Police Officer Smugareski. He's also known as Smugs. I think the Chief will talk a little bit about him. Sergeant Finkelman, Detective McBean and Detective Williams of MPD and Sharon Donovan of the U.S. attorney's office. I al also want to thank the team at the DNA laboratory in Montgomery County. They were able to expedite the DNA testing process that matched our suspect to these cases. Based on the investigation, 60 year old Giles Daniel Warrick of Conway, South Carolina was identified as a possible suspect through forensic genealogy. On Tuesday, November 12, Warwick was arrested in Conway, South Carolina. He will be extradited to the District and charged with first degree murder. He will also face additional charges stemming from the multiple sexual assaults that he committed, police said.

[Paul Wagner]

Warrick was living in Montgomery county at the time of the attacks, working at a landscaping company and as a contractor for a utility company. That gave him the ability to move around, montgomery County Police Chief Marcus Jones said at the news conference. Suddenly it seemed like some of those puzzle pieces that had frustrated Detective Joe Madonna all those years ago were falling into place. Chief Jones praised the detectives who had worked the case for so long, but he had special praise for Officer Steve Smugareski, the cop who was solving the seemingly unsolvable.

[Joe Madonna]

I do give special thanks to our Cold Case unit and Officer Smugareski who has done some significant work in the genetic genealogy field. He has also helped us to solve a string of elder rapists that occurred in our community in the Germantown area of Montgomery county in the late early 20102011 period. And he has been just bringing forth some fruitful evidence for us to be able to resolve these cases. So, again, I want to thank him.

[Paul Wagner]

David Hakos, Christine Mirzaion's husband, also got a call from Todd Williams, the D.C. detective who was part of the task force that had been working to close the case for more than 10 years.

[David Hakos]

I was actually dropping my son off from middle to middle school at that moment. I got the call and I called them back, and, yeah, I was in shock. And it brought the whole thing back to me, you know, because I, you know, it's been a long time since Christine's death, and I have my own family now and my own very busy life, so. But it brought everything back. And I was in this state of kind of shock for about a week after that happened, but I. I'm so happy that.

[Brad Garrett]

That.

[David Hakos]

That they were able to. To catch the guy.

[Paul Wagner]

An investigation that took more than 28 years to close, a time span in which the two main investigators, Joe Madonna in Montgomery county and Dean Combie in D.C. had already retired.

[Joe Madonna]

I was almost, like I say, ecstatic.

[Paul Wagner]

That's Joe Madonna.

[Joe Madonna]

I mean, this was a case that I had worked on for the better part of 20 years, probably more than that, from initially investigating these cases as current cases and then again later on as cold cases. So, you know, so it was probably one of the best closures that I think that I've had or I would want to have just because of how active this guy was and how frustrating it was to catch him. So, yeah, it was good news.

[Paul Wagner]

Kelly, the babysitter who was attacked in 1991, says she got a heads up from a detective in the hours just before the arrest. She described the call as very surreal.

[Kelly (babysitter victim)]

You know, first it's just disbelief. Like, really, Is it really him? You know, are you sure? Just all the questions and just like, shocked. The detective that I spoke with was very empathetic, just very, very nice and gentle and tender and just really, you know, like, how are you doing? And, you know, we really feel like 99.9% sure that this is him. And she explained to us that there was some DNA involved and that my DNA had been cross matched or however they do that. So in, you know, in my particular situation. And so then, yeah, you're just like, wow. And my husband and I were actually away on a little weekend anniversary trip. So, you know, we just kind of sat there looking at each other like, wow, is this really, really happening? And then, of course, just like you had mentioned as well, you know, the next thing you do is, like, pictures and what does he look like? And, you know, who is he? You want to know? Where has he been? You know, how did he go all these years without being caught?

[Paul Wagner]

And when she finally saw his face,

[Kelly (babysitter victim)]

when I looked at that picture, it's just like pure evil.

[Paul Wagner]

And as for Dean Combi, who had worked so hard to solve Christine's murder, well, he. He says he heard it on the news.

[Dean Combie]

Might have been the news conference when. When they announced it. And because I remember looking, pulling it up on the. On the net, looking at it, you know, because they. They had pictures of the rock in the article, and. And pictures of him. Giles. Giles Warwick. And because I was looking, I was like. I was like, man, this dude never came up anywhere, you know, so you're

[Paul Wagner]

looking at his mug shot.

[Dean Combie]

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[Paul Wagner]

And listening to his name.

[Dean Combie]

Yeah.

[Paul Wagner]

And you're going.

[Dean Combie]

Never had a. Anything on that. On that dude.

[Paul Wagner]

Giles Warwick, once just an unknown subject, now arrested in custody after 28 years. But who was he?

[Steven Deaner]

Hey, it's Stephen Deener from the hit podcast uap. And you never know who might show up to talk to me about the alien topic. Like Snooki from the Jersey Shore.

[Paul Wagner]

You literally are my favorite UAP alien

[Darcy Spencer]

UFO podcast, or Nick Pope from the

[Steven Deaner]

popular show Ancient Aliens from the temple walls in Egypt.

[Paul Wagner]

The way in which there are similarities

[Brad Garrett]

between that and how scientists now think we might open a wormhole. It's un.

[Steven Deaner]

Find out why millions of others have already downloaded uap and listen now just by searching uap, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Paul Wagner]

By the time the Chiefs held their news conference, Giles Warwick had been behind bars in Horry County, South Carolina, for about two days. When he finally saw a magistrate, the 60 year old waived extradition and the U.S. marshals brought him back to D.C. where he went before a judge on November 21, 2019. I was in the courtroom that day in a miserable place called C10 in the basement of D.C. superior Court. A room without windows, where people in the gallery are forced to sit on wooden benches and wait, sometimes for hours, for a case to be called. No one except the lawyers, the judge, and the defendants are permitted to speak. I had been in C10 hundreds of times over the years, and I was willing to wait to see for myself the man who allegedly killed Christy Mirzaion in 1998 and raped Kelly that night in 1991. When Warwick finally walked out in handcuffs and leg chains, I only caught a glimpse before he turned to face the judge. As I recall, the proceedings lasted just a few minutes before the judge found Probable cause and the 60 year old was ordered held without bond. For the rest of November, December and January, Giles Warwick remained locked up in the D.C. jail. It wasn't until February 27, 2020, that he appeared in court again for a preliminary hearing. It was just a few short weeks before the coronavirus seemed to shut everything down in March of 2020, and life seemed to come to a screeching halt. In the District of Columbia, a person facing charges is entitled to a hearing where the defendant's attorney is permitted to cross examine whoever prosecutors put on the witness stand. An initial probing of the evidence against them. In this case, it was Detective Todd Williams. Williams ran through the events the night of Warwick's arrest in South Carolina, telling the court about that letter Warwick wrote to his fiance. Police found it in his kitchen. It was tucked in between two boxes of freezer bags. The letter said, I'm so sorry this ended this way. I left you in a mess. I never meant for this to happen. All I wanted to do is love you. Please forgive me. Please don't cry. The letter ended with all my junk is yours. Judge Todd Edelman said the letter was consciousness of guilt, evidence that Giles Warwick knew he was guilty and ordered Warwick held without bond until trial. I have a vivid memory of being in the courtroom that day, specifically because of the way Giles Warwick was acting. He had a smirk on his face that, as I recall, never went away. It was chilling when I spoke with David Hakos for this podcast. It was nearly a year after Giles Warwick had been arrested. We were wrapping up the interview when his wife Lauren joined the Zoom Call. You'll hear more from her later. David has rebuilt his life on the west coast, marrying Lauren, with whom he now has two children, 8 and 12 years old. David and Lauren had clearly been following the case, but were interested in learning more about the man who was charged in Christine's murder.

[Joe Madonna]

It's shocking to me that he was in a relationship with someone, that he was able to reinvent himself somehow. Like, how did it go from what happened to Christine to where he was when they found him?

[Paul Wagner]

Yeah, well, what we know is that he was married to a woman and living in a very nice house in Iamsville, Maryland, in Frederick County. I'm still digging into where he had been after 1998 and what he was doing. I'm trying to do some more investigating on that. There's a lot I don't know. Since I've started working on this podcast, I've tried to learn as much as I could about Giles Warwick Let me start with the woman Warrick was living with when he was arrested in 2019. Online records show she ran a bookkeeping business out of a home Warwick owned in Iamsville, Maryland before the two moved to Conway, South Carolina where they purchased a home in June of 2018. Although I know her name, we've decided not to use it in this podcast because she's not charged with a crime. But I wanted to know if she would talk to me and so in the summer of 2020 I gave her a call.

[Brad Garrett]

Hello?

[Paul Wagner]

Oh hi, this is Paul Wagner calling. I'm trying to reach. She politely told me she had no comment and told me to reach out to Warrick's lawyer. That was the first of what would be many dead ends as I tried to dig further into Giles Warwick's background. Some people who knew him wouldn't talk to me. Others ignored my letters and emails. Some agreed to talk on background as long as I did not reveal their names, and I was able to learn quite a bit about the man from court records and other online databases. This is what I've learned. According to a family member who asked not to be identified, Giles Warrick was born in October of 1959 and never knew his father. He spent his childhood in Oxon Hill and Fort Washington, Maryland where he attended Friendly High School. Fort Washington is in unincorporated section of Prince George's county near the Potomac River. Prince George's county borders Washington, D.C. in January of 1980, Warrick became a father for the first time. It was a boy. He would later father three more children with another woman, a woman we are only calling Aleda a woman he got to know through friends in the neighborhood where they lived. Court records show Warrick and Aleda never married and had a rocky relationship. More on that in a minute. According to that family member at the time, he made his living working for a towing company and driving trucks. Court records also show Warrick getting into trouble when he was in his mid-20s. In June of 1984, he was found guilty of battery in Prince George's county, but the records are so old and incomplete it's unclear what sentence he received. In February of 1986, Warwick was charged in Prince George's county with assault and battery, but the court records show it was placed on stet or inactive. Again, the case is so old it's unclear why. And then In September of 1991, four months after Montgomery county police began investigating the first rape, Warrick was charged in Prince George's county with theft, where he was given probation before judgment. Pbj, as lawyers call it, allows a person convicted of a crime to have their conviction expunged if they successfully complete their probation. In March of 1992, court records show, Warrick went on trial in Prince George's county for theft. He was found guilty and spent some time in jail. By then, Montgomery county police Detective Joe Madonna was investigating five rapes he believed were carried out by the same man. Now, back to that rocky relationship. According to a family member, Aleda and Giles Warrick began dating in 1985, and by 1990, they were both living in Montgomery County. At times, they lived together in Potomac on Prairie Landing Court, but it wasn't, quote, very traditional. Warwick also had an apartment on Mahogany Drive in Gaithersburg, addresses that are located in the same area of Montgomery county where the women were being attacked. Sometime in the 90s, Warrick began a landscaping company he called Giles Landon Lawn, an occupation Detective Joe Madonna always thought would have been one of those jobs that gave the rapist access to the neighborhoods where he could blend in and go unnoticed. By then, court records show he and Aleda were fighting over child support and custody. An affidavit for a search warrant for Warwick's home in South Carolina also says Aleda filed for a protective order in 1996. When, Aleda says Warrick cut the cable to her house and began banging on her door. She let him inside, where he attacked her with a knife, but she was able to get away unharmed. According to a family member, Warrick and Aleda ended their relationship in 1997. Court records show Warwick was accused of domestic violence in July of 1997, and in August, Aleda filed for a protective order. That same month, the two filed lawsuits against each other. Warrick filed for custody of his children, while Aleda filed a claim for child support. He lost, and she won. In fact, the judge in the case found Warwick in contempt of court and ordered him to pay Aleda $4,872 and and sentenced him to 30 days in jail. A source familiar with the matter says Warrick spent no more than a day in jail after paying what he owed in the year. The lawsuit was being litigated in court, and the relationship was apparently breaking down came the final attacks carried out by the Potomac River Rapist, the attack on the cell biologist in Silver Spring in November of 1997, and the killing of Christine Rezaion in August of 1998. I wondered if there could be a tie in between the battles Giles Warwick was having with Alita and the rapes. And murder in 1997 and 1998. I talked about this with Brad Garrett, a former profiler with the FBI and a legendary crime fighter in Washington, D.C. sure.

[Brad Garrett]

I mean, the case that I can think of is Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer. So Gary, who was married three times, but the first two marriages were both apparently quite difficult. A lot of controversy, a lot of issues. And if you look at the volume of crimes he committed, it seems they generally fell into when he was involved in those two difficult relationships. Because, let's face it, people who attack women, it's all about anger, resentment, revenge against women for a complexity of reasons as to why they. But so it would sort of make sense. He's in a relationship, he's angry about it, it's difficult, and so he vents it.

[Paul Wagner]

You may know Brad from ABC News, where he works as an analyst on major crime stories, or you may know him as the agent who captured Miramal Qazi, the terrorist who opened fire with a rifle outside the CIA in 1993, killing two and wounding three others. I've known Brad for about 25 years. If you work the crime beat here in Washington, D.C. like I do, you tend to get to know the people working high profile cases. In February of 2022, we sat down for an interview at his D.C. home.

[Brad Garrett]

There could be some sort of tie between what's going on domestically and the volumes of crimes. Serial offenders commit, their crimes, you know, because, you know, let's face it, serial offenders are. They're interesting because they can literally what I would call live in like parallel universes. In other words, they can, and I can think of a number of serial rape cases I've worked where the person is married, he has kids, he has a job, and he goes out and commits these horrible acts. He comes back home, he goes to bed for a while, he gets up, he feeds his kids, he makes their lunch, he sends them to school, he kisses his wife, she goes to work, He. He goes to work, whatever it might be. And then because of his own compulsions and desires and so forth and fantasies to commit these horrible acts, he gets up and does it again at some point. So because their minds are so unique, because they can think in ways of. Do they really have empathy? Well, they must have some empathy the way they're treating in this example I just gave their own child and their wife. But they can also then be totally have no empathy, no feelings, no caring. And they're overwhelmed by their own compulsions and desires and fantasies to commit these acts. And for the Rest of it's just like, how could you do that? And that's because everything's in boxes and is in their head, basically. And they can run up and down these tracks and jump from one to the other and the rest of us have a block in between. Like you may think horrible things about, but you never act on them. And clearly this type of offender does.

[Paul Wagner]

I guess probably the most intriguing part of the story in at least my mind, is that it just ends. I mean, there's these horrible, awful crimes connected by DNA, allegedly carried out by this guy, and then they just stop. How unusual is that?

[Brad Garrett]

Well, I don't think it's. I don't think it's like, I don't think unusual is the right word. I do think that offenders that stay alive don't go to prison and, but they reach a certain age and they reach a certain sort of stable platform in their life, relationships, job wise, etc. And I think the more maybe the biggest thing is the physical ability and maybe even the desirability to do it because of testosterone, etc. Then they, they stop. And so it doesn't make sense on some levels, but there are enough examples of people that have done that. Another one that comes to mind is Dennis Rader, the BTK killer, right? Yeah, yeah. And so the BTK killer, you know, committed these acts from like the mid-70s up to about 91, and then he stopped and then, you know, he got himself caught basically because he starts interacting and sending letters and they figure out who he is and they go back and charge him for all these things that he had committed back in the 70s, 80s and 90s. And so he's another example. So it's really not that uncommon. I would be willing to bet if we could pull up serial rape cases even in the Washington metropolitan area and look at the unsolved ones. If in fact we could figure out who the offender was and if it's a serial, tied to a serial case, they may be living around here, have a job. I mean, again, that ability to lead these sort of parallel lives and where in effect the, the autoerotic compulsion side maybe is still there, but not to the degree it was 5, 10, 15 years before that.

[Paul Wagner]

It seems surprising to me. But according to Brad Garrett, it wasn't all that unusual for a serial rapist, one who doesn't wind up in prison or dead to reach a certain age and then. Just stop. I've already told you. Giles Warwick, the man police as the Potomac River Rapist, started his own landscaping business in the 90s called Giles Land and Lawn. In 1997, Warrick also took a job with a small construction company in Rockville, Maryland, called Utility Systems C and E, an outfit that laid conduits underground, sometimes digging up streets or running cables from manhole to manhole. It's owned by a man named Michael Niakhani and his wife Mickey. Mr. Niakhani declined to speak with me about Warwick. He didn't offer an explanation. However, I did find a man who worked at Utility Systems who knew Warwick fairly well. Gary Gill was the operations manager for the company. He remembers the day of the news conference In November of 2019, the day police announced they had arrested the Potomac River Rapist. Gill was in the company office when someone called to say, turn on the tv.

[Gary Gill]

Yeah, we were sitting in the office. We have a large TV screen that we use for our computer, so bring up our spreadsheets and plans, etc. Somebody called into the office about five after five, Michael picked up the phone and I guess they told him, turn on the tv, you're going to want to see what's on tv. Sure enough, there was Giles all over the. All over the television. And we were shocked. We're just, oh my God. Could not believe it, could not believe it. And then even friends of Michael's or people that he's done business with were calling in and it was just a major shocker.

[Paul Wagner]

And what did Michael Niakhani say? Because apparently he employed him for quite a long time.

[Gary Gill]

Michael is a tight lipped guy.

[Paul Wagner]

Maybe that's why he won't come.

[Gary Gill]

He doesn't. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, there's other things too, but I don't know. I have no idea about their relationship. I know, as I think I told you before, that Giles used to go over to Michael's house and do landscape work and do work around the house. Also in the house where Michael's wife and two daughters were. So that was one of the first things that came out of Michael's mouth. He said, I can't believe it. He was in my house.

[Paul Wagner]

Gary Gill says he and Warrick talked daily discussing the work that had to be done.

[Gary Gill]

I mean, to me it still doesn't compute. I don't understand. I don't see. I never saw any of this from him, from my experience. And I worked with him for six years. Five, six years. So I never saw that.

[Paul Wagner]

I mean, so when you, when you heard about the crimes he allegedly committed and then you tried to square it with the man you knew, what you

[Gary Gill]

think I I didn't get it. I, I mean, I tried to reason how it could happen, but I, I mean, I did think that. All right, he, he does seem like the guy that's holding back some sort of frustration or some anger or something, but I never saw him grab someone or get violent or not even. He wouldn't even say an expletive to somebody in the field. He would turn around and walk away. He might. I saw him get a little bit angry, but he would never. I never saw him or saw him get close to a physical confrontation. Never, ever. And he was a big guy? He was a strong guy.

[Paul Wagner]

Yeah. Describe his build.

[Gary Gill]

I think he was probably 6ft, about 220. I know they used to lift weights a lot in his house, but, you know, he was big arms and chest, not a real overly bulky guy. He was a fit guy.

[Paul Wagner]

Gil says he remembers the day he and Giles met for the first time.

[Gary Gill]

When I was hired, I went that next morning, the start time, and go to the field, to the shop where all the guys, they start the cruise and then leave every morning from the shop.

[Paul Wagner]

And he was there as a.

[Gary Gill]

He was kind of the director of field operations. So like every day there would be instructions or he would answer questions to get the field guys in the vehicles have the right materials and then go to each respective job.

[Paul Wagner]

So he was basically a supervisor.

[Gary Gill]

Yes.

[Paul Wagner]

So he had an important job there with the company?

[Gary Gill]

Yes.

[Paul Wagner]

And he'd been there for a while, hadn't he?

[Gary Gill]

Yeah. When I got there, he was one of the longest employees he had been there for. I was told for over 15 years when I got there.

[Paul Wagner]

Gary Gill says Warwick was making a good living in the shop. One day he says he came across one of Warwick's pay stubs and estimates he was making around $150,000 a year.

[Gary Gill]

He seemed like he was a self made guy. He may not have been well educated, maybe had a bad life, but he learned and he moved up the line and I mean, I respected him for that, but I had no idea of his history. I met his son, I know he had a daughter. He spent lavishly on both of them.

[Paul Wagner]

Describe his personality.

[Gary Gill]

He was, he was pretty calm. He was a cool guy. He would joke around a little bit, talk with sports on a couple days with the guys. I didn't get to know him real well, but I mean, he liked his, he had his hobbies of. I mean, from what I understand, he spent a lot of time with his family, his girlfriend, and then he had a whole bunch of toys like motorcycles. What are these? Four wheel drive ATV, ATVs, stuff like that. He spent a lot of money on his free time.

[Paul Wagner]

In 2004, property tax records show Warrick purchased a single family home on a large plot of land in Iamsville, Maryland, a rural community in Frederick county, about 40 miles outside of Washington, D.C. he paid a little over $350,000. After Warwick's arrest, reporters had a difficult time getting neighbors to talk. None of them would talk to me, but one neighbor did speak with NBC4's Darcy Spencer.

[Darcy Spencer]

Yes, I did speak by phone with a neighbor of his in Iamsville. This person did not want to have their name used or appear on camera, anything like that. So it was really just a background interview over the phone. But he was telling me that neighbors were astonished. They knew this guy. They called him a gentle giant. He would attend barbecues, neighborhood barbecues. He would do things for people. He was like the, like people might say, living in plain sight. They never suspected that he would have committed any kind of crime and generally viewed as a good guy, a good neighbor. So they were really shocked. And, you know, when you find out something like that about someone and again, he's a suspect at this point, you start to think back, was there anything that he did that may have triggered something or thinking back, and really they couldn't think of anything that would remotely cause them suspicion or especially suspicion of committing a series of crimes like these. So, yeah, he. I feel based on the one interview I did, that he was well regarded in the neighborhood and that he was considered to be a good neighbor. And they were absolutely in shock to hear that he was arrested for these crimes.

[Paul Wagner]

A good neighbor, a supervisor in an important position making good money. It seems like those who knew him in his later years would never have considered Giles Warwick a possible serial rapist. But there is one place Warwick's name did turn up. Remember that list of possible suspects Detective Joe Madonna built from a list of construction workers and contractors, a process he described as being like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I've always wondered if Giles Warwick was one of those needles. Well, in my research for this podcast, I've combed through hundreds of pages of court documents. Buried inside one of them is a surprising revelation. In fact, it's the search warrant. Detectives got to search Warwick's home in Conway, South Carolina. In the affidavit, police wrote that Warwick's name was on the suspect list all the way back in 1992. At the time the list was compiled, Warwick could not be ruled out, but Giles Daniel Warrick, it went on to say, did not have a DNA sample on file in the state of Maryland. That means that just a year after the attacks began, the name of the unknown subject was known to police. What we don't know is how many names were on the suspect list. Maybe it was hundreds, or maybe police were looking into other potential leads. But there is nothing to indicate detectives ever spoke to him. Joe Madonna is certain of that. Coming up in episode seven Remember that letter I told you about? The one police found in Warwick's house the morning he was arrested? The one addressed to his fiance? Well, here's a little more of what he had to say. Warrick wrote, Please forgive me, please, you are my love and it's been that way since the day we met. All the titles have been signed, so a couple of grand is better than nothing. Missing you all the mess you are about to go through. I hope you don't hate me. Season three of WTOP's American Nightmare series has been written by me, Paul Wagner, with editorial assistance from Jack Moore, Julia Ziegler and Craig Schwab. This episode would not be possible without the help of Dean Combi, Joe Madonna, Kelly, David Hakos, Brad Garrett, Gary Gill and Darcy Spencer reporting and production of this podcast was supported by a grant from Spotlight DC Capital City Fund for Investigative Journalism. For grants, Please apply to spotlightdc.org Our show relies on people like you leaving ratings and reviews on Apple to help us climb the podcast charts and attract new listeners. We hope if you do like what you hear, you will take a minute to do so. If you have questions or comments about the show, send us an email through our website, American Nightmare podcast.com We are also on Twitter and Facebook at AM Nightmare Pod. The music in the show is ethereal, thoughts by Olive Musik and stuff steadfast by moments. And as always, thanks for listening.