NEWCASTLE — Even today, Dale Warner can’t explain why he did it.
Warner was 14 when he took two handguns into Sage Valley Junior High School in Gillette, Wyoming, having voiced threats of shooting six students and three administrators.
He never planned to actually go through with it, Warner said. He was hurting and didn’t know what to do with that pain.
Regardless of intentions, Warner brought the guns and dozens of rounds of ammunition to school Nov. 13, 2018. As a result, he was charged as an adult with nine felony counts of attempted first-degree murder.
Those charges were eventually whittled down to two lesser counts of felony possession with unlawful attempt and one charge of felony assault and battery as part of a plea deal.
He received three consecutive sentences for each charge for a total of 12-20 years in prison.
He’s now served six years and remains incarcerated at the Wyoming Honor Conservation Camp, a minimum-security prison about 3 miles outside Newcastle in the northeastern corner of the state.
He will be eligible for parole in October 2026, according to the Wyoming Department of Corrections.
Warner talked to Cowboy State Daily from the Newcastle facility.
Charged As An Adult
A lot has changed in the six years since Warner has been in prison.
For starters, he’s shot up a couple inches since his arrest. Now 20, Warner is a solid 6 feet tall and 195 pounds. He’s also more mature and has had a lot of time to ruminate on his actions.
Warner was soft-spoken and thoughtful Oct. 4 as he discussed the crime and his day-to-day life in prison.
He spends a lot of time working at his in-facility job and playing basketball with fellow inmates.
In fact, he broke his pinky finger earlier this year when a ball jammed it during a pass. Warner ignored doctor’s orders to sit out until its fully healed, so his finger is a bit crooked, he said, demonstrating the slight bend when compared to the other.
All in all, Warner said he’s grateful to be incarcerated at the Newcastle facility, which is way better than the others in Wyoming.
After spending nearly two years locked up in the juvenile section of the Campbell County Detention Center in Gillette following his arrest, Warner was sent to a maximum-security prison in Virginia authorized to take teens in a separate section of the facility, where he was the sole teen inmate for the first six months of his incarceration and not giving any schooling. From there, he was shipped back to the medium prison in Torrington when he was 18.
Because he was charged as an adult, he was not eligible for juvenile facilities in Wyoming.
Why 20 Years?
This still grates on Warner’s father, Scott Warner, who fought to have his son tried in a juvenile court but was denied by both a district court and the Wyoming Supreme Court.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Scott Warner told Cowboy State Daily. “What Dale did was wrong, and he deserves to be punished. I just think he got a raw deal.”
Scott Warner was initially told Warner would be sent to a facility in Nebraska that took 16-year-olds but was instead sent to Virginia without the knowledge of his parents.
Apart from being charged as an adult, Scott is still upset by the severity of his son’s sentence, which he said was much tougher than that of other teens accused of similar crimes in Gillette.
By comparison, Scott notes the recent sentencing of 17-year-old Dominick Argue, who received a three- to five-year sentence as part of a plea deal for bringing a gun into Campbell County High School in February and showing it to another student in the bathroom.
Argue, who had been suspended at the time, snuck into the school and fled from police before ultimately getting nabbed in a nearby condo development, according to court documents.
“Seems about right,” Scott told Cowboy State Daily of the length of the sentence. “Now explain why Dale got 20 years. That's my question.”
For his part, Dale understands his father’s response, but said he disagrees that he was treated unfairly.
“Everything happens for a reason,” he said. “You know, they say I was an example, and if I'm that example and someone else doesn't have to be, I'm OK with that.”
He’s had some tough times, Dale said, but understands these are the consequences for his actions.
If anything, he’s more concerned with the lasting impacts on the students and staff he scared the day he brought the guns to school.
“I find a way to keep my head up and, you know,” he said. “I pray every morning, just trying to stay strong.”
A Made-Up Story
Even today, Warner is hard-pressed to explain his actions Nov. 13, 2018, when he brought the two handguns to school with 36 rounds of ammunition that he took from Scott.
He’d told several students that he had the guns, and even flaunted them to his peers between classes in the hallway. Finally, one of those other students informed Sage Valley Principal Terry Quinn, who found Warner in a classroom and disarmed him without incident.
When the police arrested him, Warner told them that he’d brought the guns to school to honor his biological father, Delbert, who had recently died.
He also told them that Delbert, too, had brought guns to school as a teen for which he’d gone to prison.
None of that was true, Warner said, nor did he have any intentions of using the guns. In fact, he said his plan was to shoot himself in the bathroom, but he’d dropped the bullet on the floor and didn’t go through with it.
He has no idea why he told police the story about his biological father, only that he was acting out, which he continued to do when he was initially incarcerated.
He talked a tough game, he said. Truthfully, though, he said he had no experience with handguns.
When given the chance to go to the shooting range with Scott, Warner had no interest. He hadn’t even brought the correct ammunition for one of the two handguns.
In the years since, people repeatedly have asked Warner if his actions were in response to being bullied to which Warner resoundingly replies, “no.”
In fact, he liked all of those people he said he intended to shoot that day, including Quinn, who took the pistol from him.
And Quinn has been one of Warner’s staunchest advocates, including speaking on Warner’s behalf during sentencing and telling the court that he did not believe Warner had any intention of going forward with the plan.
Quinn continues to write and visit Warner to this day.
In Pain
Regardless, Warner’s had a lot of time to sit and think about his actions, but said time doesn’t bring clarity.
“I can’t explain it,” Warner said, crossing his hands on the table. “I feel so sorry for all the people I scared that day and how they’re still affected. It weighs heavily on me.”
The closest he can get to an explanation is that he was in pain and didn’t know how to talk to anyone about it. His biological dad had just died, and the two had been making headway on forging a relationship.
His death hit him hard.
In the days leading up to his arrest, Warner had also been turning to substances to numb his feelings.
He’d recently started hanging out with some older kids and was drinking and huffing gas and glue. The weekend before the incident, he had smoked meth for the first time, which he said really messed with his head.
“Everything just kind of built up in the moment,” he said. “I was hurting so bad, and I didn’t know how to talk to anybody about it.”
Warner said now he’s just eager to move on, pay his debt to society and then try to rebuild his life.
If anything, he wants to apologize to those students and teachers who he hurt and to ask for forgiveness.
He reiterated that he never intended to hurt anyone and the whole broken series of events haunts him to this day, he said.
“I really hope someday everybody can forgive me,” he said. “You know, you don't gotta like me. I made a mistake. I’m not saying it's an honest mistake, like spilling water or something else, but it's a mistake.”
In a weird way, Warner said he’s grateful for the way things turned out and for the opportunity to turn his life around.
“I mean, this is God's work, and I honestly believe that,” he said. “I could be dead if it was not for this because I was going in a bad direction.”
Standing By Him
Mostly, Warner said he is grateful for the opportunity of a second chance and the fact that his adopted family has stuck by him, despite what he did.
Warner and his older brother, Delaney, are of Lakota-Sioux descent. Both were born on reservation in Cherry Creek, South Dakota, with fetal alcohol syndrome that left lasting learning and behavioral disabilities.
Scott and his ex-wife, Ronda, adopted the boys from the Black Hills Children’s Home Society in Rapid City, South Dakota, when they were 8 and 10.
Prior to this, they had cycled through 29 foster homes, which Warner doesn’t remember.
“We were there for probably a couple of weeks before we got shipped out,” he said of his experience in foster homes.
The couple divorced about three years after the adoption, though they maintained an amicable relationship and shared joint custody of the boys.
Scott remarried, and he and his wife Andrea and Delaney have since left Gillette and returned to Andrea’s home state of Tennessee. Delaney took his brother’s incarceration hard, Scott said. The two boys had never been split up before.
Ronda is still in Gillette and visits Warner frequently, he said.
As a kid who grew up in the system, Warner appreciates that his adopted family has stood by him, which continues to surprise him.
“It feels great,” he said. “Because when everything happened, I was like, ‘Here we go. They’re going to get rid of me. It’s a pretty big mistake I made,’ but they said, ‘We love you son, and we’re going to stick by you.’”
Second Chance
Regardless of what he’s been through, Warner said he’s very grateful to be incarcerated in Newcastle.
Now, he works as a movie clerk and takes college courses onsite through Eastern Wyoming College. So far, he’s taken five classes and is doing well, he said, and plans to continue with a goal of studying business.
He still needs to go through the intensive treatment unit, he said.
Some people lie on their assessments, Warner said, but he was honest.
He’s forced to be sober while incarcerated but wants to make sure has the tools to cope on the outside when he is released, possibly as early as two years from now.
He would like to join the Smokebuster’s forestry program in the future, he said.
For now, he’s taking it day by day and counting his blessings.
Jen Kocher can be reached at jen@cowboystatedaily.com.
