Kriti Mehrotra
When 14-year-old Gloria Pointer was found dead in the basement of an apartment complex not far from her school on December 6, 1984, it left the entire community baffled to the core. As explored in NBC’s ‘Dateline: A Promise to Gloria,’ she was on her way to school when she suddenly disappeared that fateful morning, only to be found partially clothed and dead mere hours later. However, arguably what’s worse is that despite witnesses having seen her with a man mere moments before her passing, her killer wasn’t identified until 2013.
Hernandez Warren Has Been In and Out of Legal Troubles His Whole Life
A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Hernandez Warren has admittedly had his fair share of legal troubles, starting when he became heavily involved with drugs and got into the wrong crowd. According to records, he resided right near Gloria’s home back in late 1984, but by the time the winter of 1985 rolled around, he was an inmate in state prison. After all, he had been convicted of felony assault and rape during the commission of a robbery and subsequently served a total of 16 years behind bars. As if that’s not enough, he had many other drug-related convictions as well.
Therefore, when authorities decided to reopen Gloria’s cold case and try advanced DNA technological advancements in the hopes of finding her killer, they actually succeeded. Thankfully, the evidence from the 1984 crime scene had been well-preserved, so officials were gradually able to build a profile of her killer. It was in 2013 when this profile gave them a hit upon being cross-referenced with various databases, and it was a 100% match to Hernandez. He had sexually assaulted a 14-year-old Gloria before heinously beating her to death, so his DNA was all over her, and it helped bring him to justice. He was 29 at the time of Gloria’s murder.
Hernandez Warren Confessed to His Crimes in Tears
Despite investigators having a DNA match, they chose not to shock Hernandez with an arrest – he was 58 and leading a rather comfortable life in the community following his prison stint. They believed that if they let him know he was in trouble, he would be able to talk and manipulate his way out of it, owing to the kind of personality and life experiences he had. Instead, they pretended to go around the area asking residents for help on cold cases, so he willingly agreed to come in for an interview in May 2013. It was then that they brought up Gloria to him, only for him to vehemently maintain that he had never even seen her, let alone harm her.
Hernandez was even given a polygraph test, which he failed, so he was interviewed all over again the very next day, but this time, he was already handcuffed to a chair. When a detective placed pictures of Gloria and her body in front of him, he actually asked them to be turned over because it was rattling him, and ultimately, he cracked. He got emotional and said he has been thinking about her death all these years because even he doesn’t know why he did what he did.
Hernandez then confessed that on the fateful morning, he had seen Gloria walking towards her school, so he approached her before strong-arming her to the basement of that apartment complex. Then, in a drug-induce haze, he raped her before deciding to leave, only to turn around, push her down, and grab a brick or a pipe to beat her when she also tried to leave. “I killed her, but why and how, I don’t know,” he said. “I was f—– up. I was f—– up.”
Hernandez Warren is Currently Serving His Sentence Behind Bars
During Hernandez’s confession, he actually made it clear that he knew the gravity of what he had done, but he wasn’t ready to face the consequences of it because he believed it would be death. If it wasn’t the death penalty following the legal route, he believed he’d be killed by fellow inmates in prison because his victim was a minor at merely 14 years old. “They’re going to kill me… cause she was so young,” he stated. He later also added, “I’m a punk. I ain’t got no heart … I deserve to die. I’ve been thinking about this since I got out of the joint.”
In the end, to avoid the death penalty, Hernandez plead guilty to one count of aggravated murder and one count of rape, for which he was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. In March 2019, though, he did try to withdraw his plea, citing he had not been informed of his rights before his arrest and alleging he had been coerced into his confession, but it was denied. Therefore, at the age of 70, Hernandez is currently incarcerated at the mixed-security Southeastern Correctional Institution in Lancaster, Ohio, where he is expected to remain until at least he becomes eligible for parole in May 2043.
Read More: Gloria Pointer Murder Details and Investigation Timeline
