ANCHORAGE — A 26-year-old Navy veteran who served as a medic in Afghanistan pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges he injected two Alaska teens with drugs on separate occasions, giving one of them a fatal dose.
Sean Warner initially was charged with injecting one girl — a 14-year-old from Anchorage, who authorities say died from the heroin dose almost a week later. Court records show he also faces a new charge of injecting another teen with heroin sometime between Dec. 14 and Dec. 21.
Police Lt. Dave Parker said the other teen — identified as R.H. — is a 17-year-old girl. He said she was injected multiple times by Warner.
Anchorage authorities believe Warner didn’t intend to harm the girls.
Warner entered his pleas Thursday, and a trial was set for March 27. He is being held on $100,000 cash bail.
Warner was indicted Tuesday on a manslaughter charge in the December death of Jena Dolstad, 14. He also is charged with evidence tampering and two counts of misconduct involving a controlled substance.
Warner’s uncle, Doug Tweedie of Bend, Ore., told The Associated Press that Warner served as a Navy field medic in Afghanistan and now suffers from post-traumatic stress.
Tweedie said he and his wife helped raise Warner and that Warner did very well in school and was ambitious. Warner also did well in the Navy, he said.
Tweedie said he spoke with Warner through Warner’s father.
“He’s terribly remorseful,” Tweedie said Thursday. “He’s in a very difficult spot.”
According to court papers filed before Dolstad’s death, two other men went with Warner to pick up the girl the evening of Dec. 22, and they took her to Warner’s home to hang out.
Warner was sharing a gram of heroin with the men, and Dolstad said she was willing to try something “new” but didn’t want to inject herself, according to the court papers. Warner tried to inject the girl but failed, so he had her lie on his bed and hold out an arm. He then used his belt as a tourniquet and shot 25 to 30 units of heroin, taking several times to find a vein, the papers say.
The two witnesses told authorities they left the girl — identified as J.D. in court papers — on the bed and found her the next morning, face-down in her vomit.
Warner initially balked at calling 911 because he feared authorities would find drugs, and instead gave the teen Suboxone, a prescription drug used to treat opiate addicts, the court papers say. He called 911 after the girl began to convulse a couple of hours after he gave her the Suboxone, the papers say.
Warner locked his bedroom door, and responding officers didn’t search it when he told them it was his roommate’s room, according to the documents. After police left, Warner and one of the witnesses put needles and other “related evidence” into a box then tossed it behind a trash bin at a nearby business, according to the papers, which say police later recovered paraphernalia, including syringes.
Dolstad was found to have heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine in her system when she was brought to the hospital, charging documents said. Medics told authorities she sustained damage to her brain and heart.
Authorities have said the heroin used is known on the street at “China White,” considered more potent than common tar heroin.
As far as Tweedie is concerned, no one really knows what happened.
“At this point, two addicts are blaming another addict,” he said. “I don’t know if I believe another addict.”




Comments (19)
Add commentpost-traumatic stress
See, here's the problem. Every scumbag, like this guy, who has served our country in the military, and now chooses to do stuff like inject 14 year-old girls with heroin, will be playing the PTSD card.
I'm not buying it. This guy has a moral/character flaw that predates his military service. And blaming it on PTSD dishonors every veteran who is truly suffering from this ailment.
hang them both
book um both dano,murder one..
Injections
Im sure he will be getting his own injections in prison
Inject him with the drugs he
Inject him with the drugs he injected into his victims and provide no medical assistance.
Good idea, IceQueen. While
Good idea, IceQueen. While we're doing this eye for an eye thing, let's find everyone you've ever wronged and make you suffer the exact same things you did to them. I bet you'd change your opinion.
Also, I do believe the article states he had done heroin as well.
Agree Lat:
I agree with you Lat. I say if found guilty lock him up for a very long time.
Question though, was he a medic or a corpse-man.
Corpsmen= Navy
Medic= Army
Suboxone Kills
My 14 year old was given Suboxone by a friend for $100,00. He almost died too. He never tried coke,weed,meth,or heroin prior to that pill. He seized for two days after he took it. He had no memory of activities he did while on it (about 2 hours after he took it). Later I found out it could only be prescribed by 3 Psychiatrists in this state and that they got to pick who got it and who did not. I asked they guy who gave it to him (a heroin addict) why and he said he found the high from it to be intense and wanted others to experience what he had because it was so awesome. I asked the prescribing Psychiatrist why she would prescribe something so dangerous to patients who were unstable. She replied "to help heroin addicts". Go figure...
Latiude58
I agree
Tough Call
This is a really tough call. I believe the drug charges are in order, but manslaughter charges? That's the tough part. The deceased girl wanted the drugs and was willing to take them and would have done it herself but she was a novice. If the facts were different, where she was not a willing participant, I'd say manslaughter is the appropriate charge. Holding the heroin addict accountable for assisting her is marginal considering he was probably pretty toasted himself. It is a sad story. I don't believe being in the military had anything to do with the ordeal other than he was trained to give shots (but with all of those dry holes, maybe not?). Maybe manslaughter is the right call, not because he is guilty of it, but because hopefully he will clean up while doing time. The other kid needs help too. Something tells me these teenage girls were exchanging some "services" for the drugs, so maybe statutory rape charges are in order as well. One thing for sure, I would not want my child to party with Sean Warner and his buddies.
Dumb
Does anyone else find this sentence as dumb as I do?
"Anchorage authorities believe Warner didn’t intend to harm the girls."
Perhaps he didn't mean to kill the girl by helping her get high, but injecting drugs is not a non-harmful event - especially into the body of a young teen.
Well Daffy, yes and no
I tend to agree that he did not mean to harm the girl, but shooting up was not something he believed to be harmful. Yes, it was a stupid thing to do (and obviously incredibly harmful), but no, in his mind, he was only trying to "help" her get high. I hate to say it, but when you ask someone to inject heroin into your arm FOR you, it's not that much different than doing it yourself. I am sure the girl trusted him since he was a "pro". Trusting a heroin addict is a very big mistake.
Agreed...
PTSD didn't make him inject a 14-year-old girl with heroin. His addiction and probably his perversions did. What was this man doing hanging out with minors in the first place? If you're an addict, whatever, climb in a closet and do your drugs. But 26-year-old men hanging out with 14-year-old girls... I hope they take the time to investigate possible statutory...
And where the ... were her parents? I can understand the 17-year-old girls parents having a hard time keeping up with her, but 14???
it don't matter
Sorry wren, according to planned parenthood a girls a woman as soon as she can conceive. No need to inform parents about abortions or where they are hanging out for that matter.
Kinda sad ain't it?
Sound reasoning
Sound reasoning, CommonCents, except that even addicts know that drugs are bad and ruin lives. Perhaps this man was at the point in his drug use where he still thought it recreational instead of habitual.
Also, I meant to make comment on one of your earlier posts, you said, "The deceased girl wanted the drugs and was willing to take them and would have done it herself but she was a novice. If the facts were different, where she was not a willing participant...". I heard this arguement applied in a case of a 17 year old student and the adult male teacher she had a sexual relationship. Since the age of consent in that state was 18, he was criminally proscuted.
The author of an editorial that I read made an excellent point. He said something along the lines of, "Being young and having poor judgment isn't a criminal offense. After a certain age, however, society expects more of you."
Interesting
Interesting that Juneau authorities have charged Ryan West with a much more serious offense for what amounts to a car accident. Hard to say which of these crimes is more tragic...
Sympathetic Persnickety Persimmon
Gee Whiz Persnickety you seem rather sympathetic towards this monster who has killed one kid and is actively looking for another one to help OD. Would you like to just get him a counselor to help him over come his PTS so he can be back on the street in a week or two? Lethal injection if he is found guilty would be appropriate.
PTSD doesn't make this ok...
PTSD doesn't make this ok... All veterans have medical help for this. So now that this man has killed someone he shouldn't be able to say he has PTSD! If they have it in his records already fine then the PTSD can play into this. With or without PTSD he still needs jail time. As well as the other people with him at the time!
PTSD doesn't make this ok...
PTSD doesn't make this ok... All veterans have medical help for this. So now that this man has killed someone he shouldn't be able to say he has PTSD! If they have it in his records already fine then the PTSD can play into this. With or without PTSD he still needs jail time. As well as the other people with him at the time!
The PTSD defense doesn't work
The PTSD defense doesn't work for me. I have several friends who were in the thick of things in Vietnam and haven't broken the law (except for maybe minor traffic violations) in all the years since. A few of them have been diagnosed with PTSD and are receiving treatment for it. Quite possibly this guy's military experiences helped to send him over the edge; but, this guy had serious character flaws from the beginning.
My uncle was in the 101st Airborne during WWII--he dropped into Normandy and fought at Bastogne. He saw some serious stuff. He never hurt anybody after he got out of the military. However, he did develop a serious ice cream addiction later in life