oct 12, 1968 - Nancy Warren & Clyda Dulaney BREAK-IN, ROBBERY, & DOUBLE HOMICIDE

Description:

Clyda Jean Dulaney (24yo) was married to Officer Don Dulaney (49yo), and was pregnant with his child at the time of her death. Don was a California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer at the time. Clyda had three sons from a prior marriage, who all lived with her: Johnny Ussery (7yo), Lane Ussery (5yo), and Brett Ussery (4yo). Johnny was the one to find the bodies. Clyda’s first husband, John Ussery, was in Oregon at the time of the murders. Early reports mistakenly listed Clyda as the daughter of Nancy Warren (64-65yo), and Clyde Warren’s sister. However, this was later corrected. Clyda is Nancy’s granddaughter and Clyde’s daughter.

Clyda was 7-8mo pregnant at the time: because of this, it is sometimes described as a triple murder. Clyda’s family lived in trailers behind Warren's Antique Shop, which is 800ft off of Highway 101, 6mi south of Ukiah. Nancy operated Nancy Warren’s Antique Shop in a sparsely-settled area on the west side of the old two-lane section of Highway 101, just south of Burke Hill. Don lived in a Ukiah apartment while Clyda & her sons temporarily lived in a trailer home while they were trying to find a house for all of them to live in.

On the morning of Monday, Oct. 13, Johnny was woken up at about 7:30am by Clyda's alarm clock. Not seeing his mother, he ran outside. Shortly after 7:30am, he found his mother right outside their trailer home, lying on the ground beside a small nearby shed. Johnny then ran into the adjoining house (Nancy’s trailer), and found her lying dead on the floor, either in her living room or in her bedroom; or he found her lying dead in bed. Lane & Brett were still asleep in their family’s trailer at the time.

Johnny then went back into his family’s trailer, got his brothers Lane & Brett dressed, and got them to walk south with him to the home of their neighbors, Donald T Torell and his family, almost 0.25mi away. They arrived as Mrs Torell was getting ready to take her kids to school.
Johnny told Mr and Mrs Torell that “Mommy and grandma are dead.” (Nancy was their great-grandmother, but they may have simply called her “grandma”). Mrs Torell then notified the sheriff’s office, and police rushed to the scene.

After calling the sheriff, Mrs Torell reportedly tried to find out what happened from the children. She asked Johnny if they had any company the previous night, and Johnny said yes. However, they “got interrupted somehow and [Mrs Torell] never got to find out who it was.” The Ussery children also told Mrs Torell that they went to bed at ~8pm on Sun., Oct. 12. Mr & Mrs Torell were awake until ~11pm that night, but never heard anything unusual.

The victims were both found fully-clothed, with leather boot laces/thongs tied around their neck, having garrotted them. “Two turns had been taken around the neck and the laces were knotted in back.” Neither woman had been sexually assaulted. There were at least two (2) dogs at the murder scene: one tied to Mrs Warren’s trailer, and the other inside Mrs Warren’s trailer. Both were barking as sheriff’s deputies prowled the area, but Mrs Torell didn’t remember hearing any barking during the night. The coroner was unable to positively set the times of the killings, though it was believed that both women died between 10pm and midnight Sunday.

A small cash box was found on a table in Nancy’s trailer, open and having been rifled through; $100 was missing from it. Robbery therefore may have been a motive. However, nothing else was taken. A plastic box and a glass jar containing ~$300 was left untouched: it was in plain sight in Nancy’s trailer.

$100 in 1968 is equivalent to $904.03 in 2024, due to inflation. $300 in 1968 is equivalent to $2712.09 in 2024.

It began to rain hard either Sunday night or shortly after 4am Monday; this rain “obliterated” any footprints at the scene. No footprints were found in the mud around Clyda’s body, causing police to believe that the murders occurred before the rain started.

One newspaper clipping stated, “at the scene was Clyde Warren, owner of Warren Trailer Sales on N State St, father of Mrs Dulaney and son of Mrs Warren.”

Don Dulaney was the last to see Clyda & Nancy alive. He stated that he & his family watched television early Sunday evening at his home in Ukiah. He then dropped Clyda & her sons off at Mrs Warren’s at 9:30pm that night on his way to Sacramento, where he was to attend a special course at the CHP academy. He had driven as far as Highway 20 when he realized he had forgotten his uniform and returned to his Ukiah home to pick it up before continuing on to Sacramento. He signed in at the Academy at 1:45am Monday.

Dick Austin, a neighbor who lives 0.25mi south of the Torells (and therefore 0.5mi south of the Dulaneys & Warrens), reported seeing a pickup with five boys in it sitting in his orchard at ~7:45am Monday morning. “When I asked them what they were doing, they said they had just pulled off the road to sleep for the night and then left.”

A passing neighbor reported seeing three men in a white 1956 Plymouth station wagon leave the murder scene around 8am Monday or 8pm Sunday night, and head south on Highway 101. The first woman to see the wanted car reported that it was halted by a flat tire shortly after it returned to the freeway. The car had paper license plates; one newspaper stated that this meant that the vehicle was likely purchased recently. Later, a Hopland waitress said that at ~10pm Sunday night she saw the three men get out of the station wagon and reportedly overheard one of the men say to the other two, “We will get away with this the same as we did in Oregon.” The waitress could not identify the make or model of the car. Despite all this, the sheriff stated that these men were not suspects, but were instead sought to find out what they may have witnessed. There were never any suspects in the case.

According to Charles Manson's Wikipedia page, the murders of Dulaney & Warren are considered a possible suspected crime done by the Manson Family.

LUNAR PHASE: waning gibbous
ZODIAC SIGN: libra
DAY OF WEEK: Saturday
EVENTS: Columbus Day
Moon North Decreasing 19:41

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