In an Idaho prison for a DUI, he was murdered. Why was he in maximum security?
BOISE – Milo Warnock could have been released from prison by July.
His fourth DUI had put him in the Department of Correction’s custody in its prison complex south of Boise, with a two-year minimum sentence. But his decision to hold prescribed pills in his cheek at night, instead of swallowing them, had landed him in a maximum-security cell, housed with a man who had a history of attacking his cellmates, prison records showed.
Three months later, a correctional officer found blood seeping out of his cell door during a routine check, the guard wrote in a report. Warnock had been severely beaten. An hour later, he was dead.
Just after 11 a.m., Dec. 10, 2023, IDOC Officer Davis began count, a process to make sure all prisoners are present, on the fourth tier of G Block at the Idaho State Correctional Center, and walked by cell 16 with his head down filling out the paperwork, according to a disciplinary report.
He looked up, and when he saw James Johnson standing at the cell door’s window, he noticed a small drop of blood on the right side of his chest, the report said. Davis then saw blood on the window, on the walls, and pooling underneath the cell’s door where Warnock, 45, was lying face up.
Both Warnock and Johnson had received internal violations for possession of drugs or alcohol in a secure facility, IDOC records showed. While this was the first and only sanction filed against Warnock during his incarceration, Johnson had a lengthy, violent and well-documented disciplinary history dating back years, according to dozens of records obtained by the Idaho Statesman.
Despite the differences in their records, both Johnson and Warnock were classified as close-custody offenders – one of the highest possible custody levels – under the prison system’s housing classification system. Warnock’s parents questioned how IDOC could have housed their son, a non-violent offender, with Johnson, knowing his violent history.
Kathy and Mike Warnock said IDOC not only failed their son – but also failed Johnson.
“I don’t absolve James of any guilt, but I can forgive his insanity before I forgive the system that orchestrated this horrible scenario,” Kathy Warnock said in court. “They were pawns in a system run amok, and James played his part.”
IDOC did not respond to requests for comment on this story, or questions about its policies that resulted in the two being housed together.
Warnock knew “he was in over his head” after being transferred to the higher-security unit, according to his family, but he tried to make the best of a bad situation. For 90 days, Johnson “harassed, badgered and intimidated” Warnock, and then he “kicked the life out of him in a vicious attack,” Kathy Warnock said in court.
It took nearly nine months before Johnson, now 34, faced criminal charges. He was indicted for the first-degree murder in Warnock’s death in September and sentenced to at least 35 years in prison in April after he accepted a plea deal with the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office. Johnson could have faced the death penalty if prosecutors pursued it, but Warnock’s family said they didn’t want capital punishment to be on the table.
“Milo didn’t stand a chance,” Kathy Warnock said. “He spent his last days and hours in anguish as James threatened him, and then he died alone in the presence of evil – in that evil place. No one in that hell on Earth had enough humanity to help him.”
Her son’s “tragic murder” has left the family with a “quest to seek change,” Kathy Warnock said. His family has since filed a nearly $500,000 tort claim against IDOC, its private health care provider Centurion Health, and several employees, accusing them of failing to provide appropriate supervision or medical care to prevent their son’s death.
Tort claims preserve the filing parties’ right to file a lawsuit, but it doesn’t always mean someone will sue. The Warnocks have until December 2025 to file a lawsuit.
Kathy and Mike Warncok also placed blame on the judicial system for the harsh sentence their son received for drunken driving. They said they want the criminal justice system to find alternative options for non-violent offenders. Milo was required to spend at least two years in prison on the DUI charge, but he could have been incarcerated for up to 10 years.
“He was killed by the judicial and prison system,” they wrote in a letter to IDOC and the sentencing judge in their son’s DUI case. “Worst of all, he feared that he would not survive prison, and he didn’t.”
IDOC revises disciplinary policy following beating
Both men were transferred to the Idaho State Correctional Center’s G Block – which is as restrictive as the state’s maximum security prison – after receiving disciplinary sanctions for hiding their prescribed medication.
Warnock received the sanction after he “cheeked” his pills because he said his antidepressant kept him up at night and he preferred to take it in the day, a disciplinary report showed.
He was charged with the highest possible disciplinary offense, a Class A, which brought his housing classification up from a minimum-security custody level to maximum. Had Warnock received the sanction now, he would have received the least serious offense after IDOC changed its internal policies, which were last updated in February 2025, a review of IDOC’s policies showed.
He would not have been moved to a maximum-security cell.
IDOC had moved Johnson to G-Block several times over the course of years. Two weeks before Warnock arrived, he was written up for hiding a syringe in a lotion bottle, according to the disciplinary reports. That type of offense would have kept him in maximum security even under the new policies. IDOC did not respond to questions about why the agency changed its policy.
Warnock’s sister, Hallie Johnson, called the revision a “good change, but also heartbreaking since it came too late.”
“I’ve surprised myself by not wanting terrible things for this person who murdered my brother heinously,” she told the Statesman. “The message I want for people is that when you’re in this situation, you have to put aside all of your desire for retribution and spite, and think about what’s the best thing for the community as a whole.”
Records detail Johnson’s history of violence
Until December 2023, Johnson’s criminal history wasn’t violent. He first got into trouble with the law as a teen, and was sent to prison on three separate occasions, all for crimes related to drugs, theft or fraud.
Records in the prison system showed a different story.
His first interaction with the state’s prison system was for a nine-month stint in 2014 for possession of a controlled substance. While he was housed at the North Idaho Correctional Institution, his case was under the jurisdiction of the 6th Judicial District, after Judge Stephen Dunn, who presided over cases in Bannock County, placed him on an alternative sentencing option known as a rider.
But after he was released, Johnson continued to violate his probation, which sent him back to prison. That’s when his violent history within prison began.
Less than a month into his second prison stint, in April 2016, Johnson fought his cellmate at the time and sent him to the hospital with a broken nose, disciplinary reports showed.
He denied hitting his cellmate at the time, according to a report, and told a correctional officer that his hand was red and swollen because he’d punched a wall after a bad phone call. But a review of his calls since he’d been incarcerated showed that they were all “upbeat, positive and supportive” calls to his mother, the report said.
Months after that, Johnson got into a fight with another prisoner. He was involved in a gang fight in 2019, another altercation in 2021, and then another fight with a cellmate later that same year.
From 2016 until he killed Warnock, Johnson was involved in more than a dozen incidents, many of them related to assaulting other prisoners, according to the reports.
His public defender, Amy Smith, during his sentencing detailed a childhood and adolescence fraught with abuse and poverty. She said Johnson has struggled with addiction and mental illnesses that he himself doesn’t understand and hasn’t been treating. His childhood trauma and untreated mental illness led him to “snap” and kill Warnock, Smith said.
“This is not the work of a cognizant individual who planned a murder,” Smith said.
Ada County Deputy Prosecutor Sean Phillip summarized Johnson’s well-documented disciplinary history as someone “prone to aggression and violence” who questioned rule and authority not just in IDOC. Alongside his violent interactions with other incarcerated men, Johnson had a history of refusing to take urine analysis tests, and most recently was caught hiding a syringe inside a lotion bottle, records showed
While Johnson was housed in the prison’s general population, he “participated in numerous negative activities,” which moved him to a close-custody unit, according to an information report filed out by IDOC Cpl. James Huffield. There, his behavior didn’t improve.
Because of Johnson’s participation in violence, drug use and his refusal to take drug tests, along with IDOC’s suspicion at the time that he’d killed Warnock, an internal investigation recommended that he be placed into solitary confinement for a prolonged period.
“Inmate Johnson has demonstrated that close custody is not an appropriate housing level,” Huffield wrote. “With more one-on-one supervision, inmate Johnson will have an opportunity to develop his pro-social behavior.”
Judge flagged Johnson as high risk to other prisoners
Fourth Judicial District Judge Nancy Baskin, who handed down Johnson’s prison sentence, raised concerns about the safety of other incarcerated people if Johnson was housed with them, particularly because the assessment tool used by the judicial system to determine someone’s likelihood of reoffending indicated an “extreme risk” that he’d turn back to criminal activity.
Baskin, who was appointed to the bench in 2016, said she’d never seen someone have a score as high as 47. Anything over 31 is considered high, she said.
Prior instances before the murder showed Johnson’s “violent tendencies” toward other prisoners, and that information was known to IDOC, Baskin said.
“As a member of society, I hope that we all understand that a person who is incarcerated deserves and should be made safe during that term of incarceration,” she said. “In this case, it appears that did not happen, and that there was some notice to the Department of Correction that this cell situation was not safe for either you or Milo.”
Today, Johnson’s still being held in solitary confinement at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution.
Hallie Johnson, Warnock’s sister, said she thinks James Johnson needs to be housed alone “for at least a time.” But she hoped one day he’d be able to engage with society, and be freed from solitary confinement. As time passed, she grew less angry about her brother’s death. Now, she said she hopes Johnson finds purpose in his life, through kindness and helping others.
That’s how he could pay her back for killing her brother, and the “goodness” he stole.
“This is how he will repay me for what he had no right to take,” Hallie Johnson said.