Denton man under investigation after his mother found dead

DENTON, Texas - A man is being investigated for the death of his mother after her body was found Monday in her Denton apartment.

The suspect, 22-year-old Isaac Israel Warriner was arrested in Oklahoma after police say he led them on a chase across the border.

Warriner is being held in Oklahoma on charges unrelated to the death, but Denton PD wants to extradite him.

Warriner was arrested after a high-speed chase on I-35. It ended around 10:30 a.m. Monday after authorities say they chased him from Gainesville, Texas, to Love County, Oklahoma. But it started in Denton roughly 12 hours earlier.

A neighbor in the Providence Place apartment complex near Stockbridge Road called police Sunday night about a suspicious person in their building. Officers arrived and didn’t find the person, but they went into an unlocked apartment and found the body of a woman in her 60s with signs of trauma. Her car and her son were missing.

Denton Police Chief Frank Dixon says investigators sent out an alert to be on the lookout for the victim’s car. About 30 miles away, officers with Gainesville PD spotted the Volvo station wagon and approached the driver. He then took off, reaching speeds of up to 115 miles per hour, before Oklahoma authorities caught him.

“I don't’ think we’ve seen a case like this in Denton County in quite some time if ever,” said Denton Police Chief Frank Dixon.

Oklahoma deputies executed a search warrant for the car.

“There was evidence found in the car, but I’m not at liberty to give that evidence at this time,” said Love County Sheriff Marty Grisham.

Denton Police believe Warriner lived with his mother and say there was a report filed last week at their apartment for a non-violent family disturbance. Public records show the 22-year-old worked had worked as an RA at UNT in 2016 when he was enrolled as a student. He has since graduated.

It’s still unclear how long Warriner’s mother had been dead inside of the apartment. Investigators are not yet releasing specific details on the state of the body and are waiting for the medical examiner’s ruling on the victim’s cause of death.

Warriner will face charges on abuse of corpse and tampering with evidence.

The Denton police chief believes it was an isolated incident.