Murder of Warren Barnes
Sixty-nine-year-old Warren Barnes was from Grand Junction, Colorado. On the night of February 27th, 2021, while he slept in a small encampment he kept under a bridge close to downtown, a nineteen-year-old drove around looking for someone to murder.
In the Murder of Warren Barnes, I’ll tell you who Warren was before anyone knew his name as a headline about a beheading, and what it says about society that a teenager could look at a sleeping, unhoused man and assume no one would miss him.
Photo Credits: William Woody, Special to The Colorado Sun, Nancy Lofholm, Special to The Colorado Sun, Monique Lanotti for The Colorado Sun, Mesa County, McKenzie Lange for The Daily Sentinel
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Lofholm, Nancy. "Killer of Warren Barnes, Grand Junction's 'Reading Man,' Sentenced to Life in Prison." The Colorado Sun, 7 Feb. 2023, coloradosun.com/2023/02/07/warren-barnes-reading-man-killer-sentenced/.
Lofholm, Nancy. "A Sculpture Will Pay Tribute to the Murdered Reading Man of Grand Junction." The Colorado Sun, 4 May 2021, coloradosun.com/2021/05/04/reading-man-grand-junction-murder/.
Lofholm, Nancy. "Tribute to 'Reading Man' Warren Barnes Is Installed in Grand Junction." The Colorado Sun, 22 Nov. 2021, coloradosun.com/2021/11/22/reading-man-grand-junction-sculpture/.
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"Warren Bruce Barnes (1951–2021)." Find a Grave, www.findagrave.com/memorial/251570369/warren_bruce-barnes.