On August 26, 1989, Velma Faye Gray, a 42-year-old White female, found herself in a vulnerable situation after suffering a traffic accident roughly five miles from her hometown of Travelers Rest, South Carolina. While she was stranded on the roadside, a vehicle approached, driven by a man named Lesley Eugene Warren. Under the pretense of acting as a Good Samaritan, Warren offered her assistance.
Trusting his offer of help, she entered his truck, unaware that he was a serial predator who would later be known as the "Babyface Killer." Instead of taking her to safety, Warren drove Gray to a secluded, wooded area where the situation turned violent.
In the isolation of the woods, Warren brutally beat and strangled Gray to death. Following the murder, he transported her body to Lake Bowen in Spartanburg County, where he disposed of her remains in the water. Her body was discovered the following day by two fishermen. Meanwhile, her vehicle was found abandoned in Greenville County, having been stolen by an individual unrelated to the murder, which initially complicated the timeline of events. The investigation into her death eventually connected her disappearance to Warren, who was active in the Carolinas and New York during this period.
Law enforcement officials from multiple states coordinated to build a case against Warren. He was taken into custody in July 1990 in North Carolina for separate crimes, and during interrogations, he confessed to multiple killings, including that of Gray. In August 1991, he was extradited to South Carolina to face charges specifically for her death. Warren was subsequently tried and convicted of first-degree murder in South Carolina, receiving a sentence of life imprisonment for the crime. This conviction preceded his later death sentences in North Carolina for other murders he had committed during his spree.
