The Girlfriend in the Cooler: The Wade Allen Case

On May 19th, police and Sturgis, Michigan got an anonymous call about a body being in an apartment on North Maple Street. When they knocked on Wade Allen's door that night, he told them his girlfriend was an hour away in Kalamazoo. But when officers spotted two closed cooler sitting in his living room and asked to look inside those coolers, they discovered something that would haunt them forever. When someone with a stable routine vanishes, the alarm bell rings within hours. But Kelley Jean Warner, 43 years old and spring 2019, lived what investors could do. She moved frequently, had periods without regular contact. She was diabetic with other health issues. This was her reality, and it became her killer's great friend. When Kelley disappeared, there was no frantic employer calling emergency contact numbers, no landlord wondering about rent. Her absence folded quietly into the background and started to be a little more complex. What Kelley had was a sister who refused to accept that silence. Lisa knew something was wrong. She kept pushing, kept asking questions. That relentless pursuit is why we're talking about this case. Wade Allen was 35 years old when police came knocking in May 2019. He lived at 2.29 North Maple Street in Sturgis, small town near the Indiana border. His apartment was apparently always a mess, which becomes relevant when you realize that mess was perfect camouflage for concealing a murder. A forensic psychologist who analyzed the case was a killer. A forensic psychologist who analyzed the case labeled Allen a classic sexual psychopath. Psychopaths get stimulated by harming or manipulating people. They have no remorse. They have no empathy. The psychologist theorized that Allen may have a small amygdala, the brain region that processes emotions and fear. People with underactive amygdala's display fearlessness. They don't process punishment cues. They require extreme stimulation to feel anything. She pointed to the strangulation and dismemberment as indicators of this need for extreme stimulation. According to the law, the victim was a victim who was a victim. They don't process punishment cues normally. According to this theory, cutting up Kelly's body after killing her wasn't simply about disposal. It was potentially a source of gratification. Whether you buy biological determinism or see it as an excuse for a monster is up to you. But what we know factually is that Wade Allen had a documented history of abuse toward Kelly and other partners stretching back years. According to what Allen later told Selmaids, Kelly said something that set him off. He claimed he "backhanded her" and then strangled her. Strangulation is one of the most intimate forms of homicide because you maintain sustained physical contact for minutes while the person dies. After Kelly died, Allen kept her body in the bathtub for what he described as "a little while." Then he dismembered her using a hacksaw. He stored her remains in two different coolers in his living room. Not fancy freezers hidden in a basement. Coolers sitting in his living room, the same cooler someone might take camping. For weeks, Wade Allen lived this normal life with these coolers right there. Neighbors saw him. Life continued around him while Kelly Jean Warner decomposed inside plastic containers 10 feet from his couch. On May 22, 2019, someone identifying himself as Stephen called dispatch. Stephen said Wade Allen had killed his girlfriend, Kelly Jean Warner, or KJ. He dismembered her body and stuffed her remains in a cooler in his apartment. He provided specific details about the location and Allen's appearance. Officers arrived at his house a little after 11pm when they knocked Allen stepped outside and closed the door. When police ask about your girlfriend's whereabouts and you choose to close the door behind you, you are concealing something. That's the way they took it. The officers asked if Kelly was inside. Allen said no, claiming she was in Kalamazoo about an hour away. When officers asked for permission to enter, he declined. He said that his apartment was too messy. The officers told Allen to put some shoes on because they were detaining him outside while securing a search warrant. At that point, Allen changed tactics and agreed to let one officer take a quick look. One officer entered with Wade Allen. He saw the coolers, closed, sitting in the living room. He asked him what was inside. Allen said he was getting ready for summer. The officer asked for permission to open one. When he did, he later said on body camera footage that he'd never be able to unsee it. Kelly Jean Warner's dismembered remains. I don't know. I heard from that person in a few months. We just need to talk to her. Do you mind if we come and look, make sure she's not here? I can tell you she's not. I mean, you know, what's in the cooler? Well, that's where one of the summer comes around. I'm going to have parties and stuff. So I don't know if you can open that for me and then we'll get out of here. Well, not right now I can't. I mean, I want to save that for later. But I showed you she hasn't been here in forever. Okay. Well, you don't want to just open that cooler and we'll get out here. I just want to make sure anywhere that she could be hiding. She's not going to be hiding. Well, I, okay. I just need to know that. Okay. No, I mean, I can help you out there, but I've shown you everything. Okay. Now remember, we'll open this because it's something that we're never going to be able to unseek. She has her arms, her breasts. She's been going for a while. Yep. She's a leg, her knee-touch. It's above the knee. The bugs have me doing. Yep. Definitely a treatment. Here should be Caucasian. They get no clothes. I want to close this back up. Allen's defense attorney argued that the initial apartment entry was unconstitutional. If the judge had agreed, all physical evidence could have been thrown out under the fruit of the Poisonous Tree Doctrine. A murderer could have walked free on a technicality, but the trial court ruled that while the initial entry might have been problematic, the subsequent warrant affidavit was strong enough to establish probable cause independently. Allen's confession to Selmae's later became insurance that the case wouldn't collapse. After his arrest in May 2019, Wade Allen sat in St. Joseph County jail for 1,470 days before sentencing. During that time, Allen told Selmae it's about strangling Kelly. He provided details about keeping her body in the bathtub before dismembering her. One or more Selmae's reported this to authorities. That testimony became crucial to the prosecution's case. Then something inexcusable happened. The jail re-housed Allen together with one of the informants who had snitched on him. Officials later cited securities lapses in lack of space and small-ruled jails. That explanation is both true and completely unacceptable. The absolute baseline rule in jail management is keeping violent suspects away from people testifying against them. When Allen discovered the betrayal in October 2020, he retaliated by sexually assaulting the inmate. At sentencing, that victim appeared via video from a state prison where he was serving his own sentence. He told the judge that the assault was not consensual and that Allen was a monster. The judge added 38 months to 5 years to Allen's sentence for specifically that assault, making it consecutive to the murder sentence. On January 30, 2023, the day before his scheduled trial, Wade Allen pleaded no contest to second-degree homicide, attempted dismemberment and mutilation, and attempted third-degree criminal sexual conduct. A no contest plea has the same legal effect as a guilty plea, but allows defendants to avoid verbally admitting details in court. At his sentencing on June 1, 2023, Allen gave a rambling six-minute statement. He cried. He claimed he never wanted KJ to die. That he should have taken better care of her. He asked her family for forgiveness, while saying he had to forgive himself, whether they forgave him or not. He never actually admitted to killing her. The judge sentenced Allen to 39 to 60 years for murder, two to five for that attempted dismemberment, and 38 months to five years for the sexual assault, with that last sentence running consecutive. He was ordered to pay restitution for Kelly's burial expenses and to register as a sex offender for life. The assistant to Attorney General Carl Dallan, a Minus 2 Society, she was prepared to present evidence of his long established cycle of abuse toward Kelly and other partners dating back years. Lisa, Kelly's sister, was in the courtroom. After years of pushing for answers, she finally saw some measure of justice. This case leaves you with some uncomfortable questions. If Kelly Jean Warner had lived a different life, life as she had stable routines, which she had been found sooner. Does someone's instability make them less visible when they vanish? There's also the question of Wade Allen's brain. If he truly has a small amygdala, that requires extreme stimulation, does that make him less culpable? Or is neuroscience just giving us more of a detailed map as to what evil looks like? And there's the catastrophic failure of the St. Joseph County jail. Inmate did the morally right thing by reporting Allen's confession. The system repaid him by locking him in a cell with the murderer he betrayed. Wade Allen is currently incarcerated in the Michigan Department of Corrections. His earliest possible release would be around 2060 when he'd be about 76 years old. Given his consecutive sentences, he will almost certainly die in prison. Kelly Jean Warner's remains were finally laid to rest. Her sister continues to keep her memory alive. Sometimes we talk about cases being solved, but solved doesn't mean healed. Kelly's family will carry this loss forever. The informant who was assaulted will carry that trauma forever. And somewhere in Michigan, there are police officers who still can't forget what they saw when they opened those coolers on a spring night in 2019. Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, bingeable true crime stories. I'm Joe, I'm the host, and here's an email subject not a question. Joe, I like that you don't overexplain. You assume the audience is paying attention and that keeps me paying attention. That's all, grants and Helena Montana. Grants, it's weird that you picked up on that because that is exactly what I do. I do it on purpose. I don't overexplain things because we don't have enough time. It's just 10 minutes. 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