The "No Body" Case of Dee Warner

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Speaker 5 Where's mom?

Speaker 7 I called her phone and it went straight to voicemail.

Speaker 5 I've never seen my mom not answer her phone.

Speaker 8 Where are you?

Speaker 7 What are you doing? No response.

Speaker 5 Something's not right.

Speaker 7 Something wasn't right.

Speaker 5 My name is Zach Fock.

Speaker 8 I am Raquel.

Speaker 5 My mom was Dee Warner.

Speaker 7 Dee was my mom.

Speaker 6 Raquel called me.

Speaker 5 She was at mom's house and she couldn't find her. Her cars were there.
She wasn't there.

Speaker 10 There's no chance that she would not drive the escalade to wherever the hell she was going. Not my sister.

Speaker 7 My mom was a very bubbly, outgoing person.

Speaker 11 She made you laugh. There wasn't a day that I was in the office where we weren't laughing.

Speaker 7 She's a very, very good businesswoman.

Speaker 12 She's very smart.

Speaker 7 She could be very tough.

Speaker 8 You didn't want to be on her bad side.

Speaker 7 She was a good sister-in-law. She spoke the truth.

Speaker 13 You knew where you stood with her.

Speaker 7 She was always done up. Her nails were done, her hair was done, her eyelashes were done, always ready to go and beautiful.

Speaker 7 we report her missing at night sunday night

Speaker 6 hello

Speaker 6 are you dale

Speaker 6 next one

Speaker 6 i hear your wife missing well i don't know if she's missing or if she just left

Speaker 14 that was not unusual for your mom to pack her bags and disappear for a day right right This isn't the first time she's done this, guys.

Speaker 14 Why is this so different?

Speaker 7 Because nobody knew where she was at.

Speaker 6 I don't know. I think until another day goes by, I'm right.
I'm concerned, but I'm not, you know, alarmed yet.

Speaker 10 I began searching and searching.

Speaker 5 We were running around, looking at all the credit cards to see if there was a charge on it.

Speaker 15 Dee Warner hasn't been seen since late April.

Speaker 6 She had an altercation with one of my employees and two of them. She just really am sad.

Speaker 11 She's just a mess that day. A complete mess.
Hyperventilating and throwing up and crying.

Speaker 15 The FBI searched Warner's Franklin Township property.

Speaker 7 They've looked everywhere.

Speaker 10 5, 6, 700 acres. We all went on foot.

Speaker 8 The first year was a struggle.

Speaker 15 Authorities say they are constantly following up on tips.

Speaker 14 It's been more than two years since Dee Warner's disappearance.

Speaker 13 There's not a day since she left that I don't wonder what happened to her.

Speaker 14 When you're you're driving through here, are you still wondering where Dee is?

Speaker 10 Yeah, you know, it sort of haunts you.

Speaker 14 She was reported missing more than three years ago.

Speaker 13 She never would have left like this. Never.
Never.

Speaker 6 Never.

Speaker 14 When do you miss your mother the most?

Speaker 6 When life gets hard.

Speaker 14 Do you think Dee Warner was murdered? Yes.

Speaker 6 Wholeheartedly.

Speaker 10 Absolutely.

Speaker 13 We had been struggling because everybody said, you don't have a body, you don't have a body.

Speaker 7 I know a no-body homicide is very hard.

Speaker 16 Maybe you'll find the body.

Speaker 6 Maybe you won't.

Speaker 16 But don't sit around waiting for Santa Claus to come.

Speaker 16 You got to solve this case.

Speaker 10 Aaron Moriarty reports the nobody case of Dee Warner.

Speaker 7 I remember riding my bike around there, riding the four-wheelers around there, just being a kid. That was where I grew up.
So it's home. It'll always be home to me.

Speaker 7 But it's home in a different way now.

Speaker 14 It was Sunday, April 25th, 2021, a spring morning in the farmland of Lenaway County, Michigan.

Speaker 14 Raquel Bach drove the short distance from her house to her childhood home for her weekly breakfast with her mother, Dee Warner.

Speaker 7 Sundays we would go to my mom's first thing.

Speaker 14 Raquel says that when her mom was not there and not answering calls or texts, it just didn't feel right.

Speaker 7 If my mom could glue her phone to her hand, she would. If I didn't respond to a text message, In five minutes, I was getting another one.
Hello?

Speaker 14 One of Dee's cars, a Hummer, was parked at the farm office just down the road. What about your mother's car that she drove all the time, the Cadillac?

Speaker 7 It was parked in the garage.

Speaker 14 So all your mother's cars are there?

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 14 And she's not responding to any kind of calls or texts? No.

Speaker 14 The fertilizer sprayer, usually parked in a barn, was gone. And Raquel's stepfather, Dale Warner, was out on it working.
Was that normal?

Speaker 7 Yeah, it was pretty normal for him to work

Speaker 7 any day, any time of day.

Speaker 14 Raquel went down the road to Dee's brother Greg and his wife Shelly's house.

Speaker 13 She said, we can't find her. And I'm like, what do you mean you can't find her? They said, her car's here.

Speaker 18 We have called everybody.

Speaker 13 We don't know where she's at.

Speaker 10 First thing I did was call her number. If she was somewhere, she would answer my phone call.
And then I text her.

Speaker 14 And did you find that? And nothing.

Speaker 14 Raquel and her aunt Shelly went driving to look for Dee. They returned to her house with only more questions.

Speaker 13 There were blankets laying on the couch and tissues. Tissues everywhere.
Everywhere.

Speaker 14 There were these tissues.

Speaker 14 They looked upstairs in the bedroom and bathroom for clues.

Speaker 7 Her makeup bag was gone, her curling iron and all of that stuff was gone.

Speaker 14 Later, they learned Dee's phone and passport were missing too.

Speaker 7 The feeling that I had in my stomach was nothing but fear.

Speaker 14 Zach Bach, another of Dee's four children from her first marriage, soon came over to join the search. He went down to the farm office to look for any sign of his mom.

Speaker 5 There's cameras here in the office. I'll look at the cameras.

Speaker 14 There was a security camera inside the office and a few more outside.

Speaker 5 I never saw her walk to the office. I never saw her drive a vehicle.
I didn't see her.

Speaker 14 And there was something else out of the ordinary. Their nine-year-old sister Lena, Dee and Dale's only child together, had stayed at her cousin's house the night before.

Speaker 14 And Dee hadn't yet called or come to get her.

Speaker 7 Lena went everywhere with my mom.

Speaker 17 They were very, very close.

Speaker 14 And would she ever leave Lena behind with Dale? Never.

Speaker 5 I called my siblings. We met up at my house and we called the Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 14 By now, it was late in the day on Sunday, and the Lenaway County Sheriff's Office sent a deputy to talk to Dale.

Speaker 14 The conversation was recorded on a body camera.

Speaker 6 Hi, I'm Kenneth Yall from Lenaway County Sheriff's Office.

Speaker 18 How are you, sir?

Speaker 14 This and other body cam footage has been adjusted at times for clarity.

Speaker 6 She was sleeping on the couch.

Speaker 14 Dale told police he had last seen Dee that morning before he went out to work.

Speaker 6 And then this morning around 6 o'clock, I got up and, you know, she was snoring away. I texted her and she didn't answer, so I figured, well, she's still asleep.

Speaker 14 Dale seemed to believe his wife was alive and well

Speaker 14 and that she left intentionally.

Speaker 6 Well, her hair curtain was gone.

Speaker 6 Her hair dryer is gone, her makeup bags gone.

Speaker 6 I went and seen all that stuff gone. I wasn't real concerned.

Speaker 14 He said she might be using another phone.

Speaker 6 I told the other kids she's got a second phone. We even have a phone with her.
No, it's a secret phone that she doesn't know that I know she has it.

Speaker 14 Dale also told police that D had been upset and suffering from a migraine the night before after an argument with two of her employees.

Speaker 6 I came home last night. She was really upset.

Speaker 6 She was talking bad things as far as employees and one employee decided to quit.

Speaker 6 We got three different businesses here, so the tensions are high all the time.

Speaker 14 Dale and Dee ran three main businesses from their farm. Zach was their bookkeeper.

Speaker 5 My mom ran essentially the office for all three businesses.

Speaker 14 There was a trucking business with about 15 employees that Dee managed.

Speaker 5 She always referred to it as her trucking business.

Speaker 14 And there was the farm itself and a chemical company that sold fertilizer and seed.

Speaker 14 Which was the most successful? Which did the best?

Speaker 11 100% the trucking company.

Speaker 14 Stephanie Vogel worked for Dale and Dee and describes Dee as a good business person, tough, generous, and hardworking. But Raquel says that running that trucking business was not easy for Dee.

Speaker 7 I know that she had a hard time getting respect. from some of the farmers because she was a woman and younger and pretty.

Speaker 14 Dale told police that conflict between Dee and their employees was nothing new.

Speaker 6 I mean, she had all occasions with quite some people, but she's pretty wired. You know, my wife,

Speaker 6 I don't know, but

Speaker 6 she's in your face and tell you how it is.

Speaker 14 On Saturday, the day before she went missing, Dee had texted Stephanie asking her how to block the driver who had quit from the company's Facebook page.

Speaker 7 I told her how to do it.

Speaker 8 That was at 4.34.

Speaker 14 On Saturday afternoon, April 24th. Yep.

Speaker 8 And then at 4.44, I said, did you tell Zach?

Speaker 8 At 7.43, I said, how are you?

Speaker 11 And she never answered.

Speaker 14 That's the very last time you ever heard from Dee Warner.

Speaker 14 Dee's sister-in-law, Shelly, wondered if the pressures had just become too much for Dee.

Speaker 14 You're thinking at that point she might have taken her life?

Speaker 13 I did.

Speaker 10 We were worried because of everyone's report of her emotional behavior.

Speaker 13 She had been upset and had an argument on Friday and Saturday.

Speaker 10 The crescendo was building up. There might have been a breaking point.

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Speaker 14 Can you think of a day when no one knew where your mother was? A full day? No.

Speaker 14 After hearing nothing from Dee Warner, some of those closest to her feared she may have harmed herself.

Speaker 14 And they noticed that Dale, her husband, didn't seem very worried.

Speaker 6 home.

Speaker 14 Dale had told police that Dee, when upset, had a history of spending the night elsewhere.

Speaker 6 She took all her bags, so somebody picked her up.

Speaker 14 And he said he thought she might come back eventually.

Speaker 6 I mean, I don't know what else to do other wait a day or so and see what

Speaker 6 she goes on.

Speaker 14 But the sheriff's office did not wait for Dee to show up. They came out on Monday and Tuesday to conduct interviews and search the property.

Speaker 14 On On Thursday, four days after Dee disappeared, they searched the farm again and Dale agreed to talk to them at length at the kitchen table.

Speaker 6 This certainly went out on Saturday morning.

Speaker 14 Dale now told investigators that he and Dee had had a fight on Saturday. He said she had accused him of talking about her behind her back.
to the employees she had fought with, which Dale denied.

Speaker 6 And she hang up the phone and I had no more contact with her the rest of the day. I tried calling her several times and she wouldn't answer her phone.

Speaker 14 He said he didn't talk to Dee again until that evening at home when their fight continued.

Speaker 6 She says you don't care about me. Nobody cares about me.
And what does it matter if I'm even here?

Speaker 14 Dale and Dee had been partners in life and business since they started their first company together in 2005, the year before they got married. Was this a love match? Did you feel that way? No.

Speaker 10 She had a desire for success. Yes.
I believe that's what her attraction was. I really do.

Speaker 14 They weren't an obvious pair.

Speaker 14 Dee's family and friends say she loved to have fun, dress up, go out, and dance.

Speaker 14 Dale, they say, just seemed to work a lot.

Speaker 11 I don't know what she's seen in him. I really don't.

Speaker 11 He doesn't like to do things with her. I went on a cruise with her because he didn't want to go.

Speaker 5 Dale was fairly quiet, kind of distant from all of us kids.

Speaker 7 When he did communicate, it was usually he kind of liked to poke at people where he knew would hurt the worst.

Speaker 14 Raquel says Dale helped feed Dee's insecurities.

Speaker 8 I don't think she ever felt good enough.

Speaker 7 Like she felt like she had to prove constantly everything in her life. Her looks, her money, her businesses, everything.

Speaker 14 Dee's family later learned she had been having an affair. It didn't surprise them, they said, given the state of her marriage.

Speaker 14 But police say her affair partner was out of town the weekend she went missing and could not have had anything to do with the case.

Speaker 14 A week after her disappearance, Dee's brother Greg organized a search of the land around her home.

Speaker 10 We all went on foot and we walked

Speaker 10 probably

Speaker 10 five, six, seven hundred acres.

Speaker 10 Wow.

Speaker 10 We came up zero.

Speaker 14 By now, Dee's family was growing suspicious of Dale.

Speaker 14 On the day Dee went missing, Dale told each of them what happened, but they say they all heard slightly different versions.

Speaker 10 She had a bad migraine headache. She was laying on the floor.
He gave her a massage. She went to sleep.
He picked her up and put her on the couch about 12.30. He got up around 6, 6.30.

Speaker 10 He left, but she was snoring on the couch.

Speaker 14 Zach says Dale told him he had had a fight with Dee.

Speaker 5 He said that they had a really big fight the night before.

Speaker 14 But Raquel says Dale told her the fight was no big deal.

Speaker 7 He said that they had a little fight the night before

Speaker 7 and she was all mad and she won't answer him now.

Speaker 14 And there was another odd detail in the story Dale told Dee's family and police that Sunday.

Speaker 6 The only thing that's really strange, too, is this time she put her wedding ring in my dress.

Speaker 6 Yeah, she's never done that before.

Speaker 14 Raquel, Zach, and Greg all say he showed them that ring on Sunday, too,

Speaker 14 seeming to offer it as proof that Dee had left intentionally and maybe for good.

Speaker 14 But Greg says that ring is worth as much as $40,000

Speaker 14 and leaving it behind didn't sound like D.

Speaker 10 That's not my sister. Not only would she not give him the wedding ring back, she probably would have thrown a Molotov cocktail in the house on her way out.

Speaker 14 As time passed, the family's suspicions that Dale had harmed his wife only grew.

Speaker 14 About six weeks after Dee went missing, Greg says he confronted Dale about how he thought the investigation was progressing.

Speaker 10 I asked him point blank, Dale, what do you think about your wife's still missing? She just

Speaker 10 disappeared on thin air.

Speaker 10 And he said to me, Well, it could be a little faster, but I think they're doing a good job.

Speaker 10 And that's when I told him, I said, You know what?

Speaker 6 You're a liar.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 10 I told him, I'll get you.

Speaker 5 You told him that. Yeah.

Speaker 14 But believing Dale had something to do with Dee's disappearance was very different from being able to prove it.

Speaker 14 The Michigan State Police and the FBI helped the county sheriff conduct a large-scale search of their properties again in October. But there was still no sign of Dee alive or dead.

Speaker 13 We had been struggling because everybody said you don't have a body, you don't have a body.

Speaker 14 In February 2022, 10 months after Dee had gone missing,

Speaker 14 Shelley was watching an episode of 48 Hours featuring an investigator named Billy Little.

Speaker 16 You don't have a body, so what? You don't get to get away with murder because you're good at disposing of bodies.

Speaker 13 And so I thought, oh my gosh,

Speaker 8 I got to have Greg see this.

Speaker 14 So he watched it.

Speaker 13 And immediately when he said that, he said, get me that guy's number.

Speaker 14 Every time you go by here, does it hurt a little bit?

Speaker 10 It hurts a lot every time.

Speaker 14 Greg Hardy was convinced Dale Warner was behind his sister's disappearance. Did she love living here?

Speaker 6 She did.

Speaker 14 Although the sheriff's office had conducted at least seven searches and interviewed Dale several times, Greg was growing impatient by what he saw as a lack of progress.

Speaker 14 Authorities, says Greg, told him that without a body, it would be difficult to charge Dale with murder. Which is why Greg called Billy Little.

Speaker 16 Maybe you'll find the body.

Speaker 6 Maybe you won't.

Speaker 16 but don't sit around wait for Santa Claus to come. You got to solve this case.

Speaker 14 Missouri-based attorney and investigator Billy Little made his first trip to Lenaway County in the spring of 2022.

Speaker 16 My goal is always to just discover the truth, find out what happened. The nice thing about the truth is it doesn't have a side.

Speaker 14 Billy Little got to work on his own investigation and learned from Dee's family that the couple argued frequently, especially about money.

Speaker 16 This was not a happy marriage, a marriage of endless love.

Speaker 14 Dee's adult children told him their mom had often talked about divorce, but that she didn't want to split custody of their little sister Lena with Dale.

Speaker 14 Still, the day before Dee disappeared, they say something had changed. Had you really seen your mother like that before?

Speaker 7 Upset, yes.

Speaker 8 But this was just very different.

Speaker 6 She was was like almost calm.

Speaker 14 Dee's kids say that she had finally had enough and was going to tell Dale that night she wanted to sell the profitable trucking business and end her marriage. This was Dee's life.

Speaker 14 Why did she want to sell the business?

Speaker 16 Because it had become too difficult emotionally and personally for her.

Speaker 16 That's how bad the marriage had gotten.

Speaker 14 Greg told Billy Little that he thought Dale was moving money between the businesses after Dee disappeared.

Speaker 14 Greg had already filed a civil suit to protect Dee's interests and to get more information about what Dale was doing.

Speaker 10 Call it gut feeling if you'd like, whatever you'd call it.

Speaker 14 In court documents, Dale says he did move money on the advice of professionals.

Speaker 14 The more Billy Little learned, he says, the more he liked the family, became convinced that Dee was no longer alive.

Speaker 16 The evidence that she's dead is the absence of evidence that she's alive.

Speaker 16 No surveillance cameras, no electronic signature, her phone's not found, her bank accounts were never accessed, cash wasn't taken from the house, even the ring.

Speaker 16 She didn't even take that.

Speaker 14 Greg and Billy Little tried to increase the pressure on Dale.

Speaker 14 Friends had started a social media campaign called Justice for Dee, and Greg paid for this billboard that he says he wrote sarcastically saying,

Speaker 14 Help Dale find D.

Speaker 14 It went up at a big intersection near Dale's farm, where Greg says drivers from the trucking company would be sure to see it every day.

Speaker 16 Help Dale find D.

Speaker 5 It was part of almost psychological operations.

Speaker 14 But Little says he and Greg were mostly focused on trying to find evidence to help build a murder case without a body.

Speaker 16 You've got a lot of equipment, you've got a lot of chemicals, there are a lot of ways to dispose of a body on a farm.

Speaker 14 And they continued to search relentlessly for any trace of Dee.

Speaker 10 You can see there's a silo right over there. That's the location of where the buildings were.

Speaker 14 This property about three miles from Dale and Dee's home is one of the places that stood out to Greg.

Speaker 14 Six months after Dee disappeared, there was a fire where the old farmhouse used to be. And Greg says the neighbors told him they thought Dale, who owned the property with Dee, had set that fire.

Speaker 14 The fire was determined to be a controlled burn, which are common in the area. Police searched this site in October 2021, just a few days after that fire.

Speaker 14 It's not known what, if anything, they learned. Greg and Billy Little came here themselves the next year.

Speaker 10 We used a drone to fly not only this site, but every site we could find around here. We flew a couple thousand acres of drone footage.

Speaker 14 They found nothing conclusive, but that old farm was just one site they thought was suspicious.

Speaker 10 There's basically three or four major sites that bother me.

Speaker 14 There was a field near Raquel's house that Dale had farmed. Which one? Where is he?

Speaker 10 It's right around the corner here.

Speaker 14 And another field two towns over that Dale had access to.

Speaker 14 And many more places Greg wanted police to check further. And isn't the really hard part about this, Greg, is there's just so many places.

Speaker 10 There are so many places.

Speaker 14 In August 2022, the Michigan State Police took over Dee's case. Greg and Billy Little had pushed for this because they say the state police had more experience and resources than the county sheriff.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 6 And what do you do after that?

Speaker 6 I had back to the house and emails for you.

Speaker 14 After the state police took over the case, they interviewed Dale again and pressed him on his story.

Speaker 14 Dale told them that the argument with that employee just before Dee disappeared was partly about Dee taking money from the business.

Speaker 14 He just said he called her all and said, I know what she's been doing.

Speaker 6 She's been taking this money. I know you've been doing this.

Speaker 14 But police did not have evidence that Dee had stolen money. In September, the family filed another suit to have Dee Warner declared legally dead.

Speaker 14 Greg says he wanted to be able to file a wrongful death suit against Dale one day. The family waited for news on the criminal case.
And then.

Speaker 10 It was pretty crazy because we had a meeting with the prosecutor the same day and she gave me no indication.

Speaker 14 On November 21st, 2023, two and a half years after Dee Warner went missing, the news came that her husband Dale

Speaker 14 was under arrest.

Speaker 14 Stephanie was preparing for her mother's funeral when she got the call.

Speaker 17 Maquell's boyfriend called me, and he said Dale was arrested for murder.

Speaker 17 And I fell to my knees at the funeral home,

Speaker 17 just so happy.

Speaker 14 Dale Warner was charged with the murder of his wife, Dee.

Speaker 19 Mr. Warner does enter a plea of not guilty.

Speaker 14 He pleaded not guilty,

Speaker 14 and Dee's family braced themselves for a long legal battle ahead.

Speaker 7 However long it took, we wouldn't stop fighting.

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Speaker 14 You had to testify? Were you nervous?

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 7 I mean, all you do is tell the truth, so that's what I kept telling myself.

Speaker 14 On May 1st, 2024, just a little more than three years after Dee Warner disappeared, her friends and family gathered here at the Lenaway County District Court for the first day of Dale Warner's preliminary hearing.

Speaker 6 All right, please.

Speaker 14 It would be up to Judge Anna Freshauer to decide if the case should move to trial.

Speaker 7 I was worried because there is so little physical evidence.

Speaker 23 There is

Speaker 23 no body. There are no body parts.

Speaker 14 Dee had been recently declared dead in civil court, but Dale Warner's defense attorney, Mary Chardier, said this was a fact prosecutors would need to establish themselves in the criminal case.

Speaker 23 Whether Ms. Warner is dead is something that the government needs to prove.

Speaker 18 Raise your right hand, please.

Speaker 10 Do you swear to tell the truth?

Speaker 14 But the state was determined to show that while there was no body, there was also no evidence that Dee was still alive.

Speaker 12 Since April 24th, 2021, have you seen Dee Warner?

Speaker 11 No.

Speaker 12 Have you heard from Dee Warner? No.

Speaker 12 In the months leading up to Dee going missing.

Speaker 14 And prosecutor Jackie Wise worked to show there was no evidence that Dee had taken off on her own.

Speaker 6 She's got a second phone.

Speaker 14 She asked Stephanie Vogel about that secret phone that Dale claimed his wife had.

Speaker 12 Did she ever discuss getting a second phone with you?

Speaker 24 She did. She had asked me to look into pricing and trying to find one for her, yes.

Speaker 12 Okay, so up until April 25th, 2021, did you ever purchase that phone?

Speaker 11 No.

Speaker 14 Could she have bought the phone on her own?

Speaker 8 Yeah, she could have bought it on her own, but she would have had somebody else set it up.

Speaker 17 She was not tech savvy.

Speaker 12 People would call Daniel Druyer.

Speaker 14 Michigan State Police Detective Daniel Druyor is the lead investigator on this case.

Speaker 14 He testified about the exhaustive searches law enforcement did to find any trace of activity from Dee over the three years she had been missing.

Speaker 18 We did search warrants for healthcare records, phone records. We searched numerous vehicles.
We got records for social media. We did several land searches.

Speaker 14 All their searches came up empty. But Dee's daughter, Raquel, had noticed something curious at the Warner home.

Speaker 14 On the sand, she said that on the day her mother disappeared, she saw tire tracks by the back of the house.

Speaker 8 There were two tracks that led up to the siding glass door.

Speaker 14 There were no security cameras pointed at this part of the property, but the prosecution suggested that the tracks Raquel saw were left by Dale using the farm's JCB front-end loader to remove Dee's body from their home.

Speaker 18 When parking the front-end loader, the JCB in this spot, the bucket attached to it fits between those two pillars, and you can set it on the deck. up against the back door.

Speaker 14 Remember, Dale said his wife was asleep in the living room when he left that morning, close to those sliding doors.

Speaker 14 I didn't see anyone in the house.

Speaker 6 He was so sleepy.

Speaker 14 In his 2022 interview with police, Dale had an explanation for those tracks. He said he thought he used the loader to go back to the house and get his worksheet for the sprayer at around 6.30 a.m.

Speaker 6 Say I had to run in and grab my name sheet, my load sheet, I don't remember for sure.

Speaker 14 And I come back to Chasey D the loader, hold her on by the house and i run in a hand grab something out of the house and i run back out cap and blow her back back up no evidence that ms warner is dead and no evidence that she was murdered was found correct yes ma'am the defense emphasized there was no evidence dale warner had anything to do with d's disappearance and in fact his statements about what he was doing that morning were supported by security videos around the farm the videos played in court showed dale at 7 7 a.m.

Speaker 14 using that front end loader. At 7.45 a.m., police say he texts D,

Speaker 14 going to be spraying, call you later. He is seen three minutes later driving a sprayer onto the road and returning at 8.13 a.m.

Speaker 23 So you had the sprayer records for the John Deere, and then did you actually even do a sprayer reenactment? We did, yes, ma'am. Consistent with what Mr.
Warner said, right?

Speaker 18 Consistent with the time that occurred on that morning. Yes.

Speaker 14 The defense also argued that Dale had not acted like a guilty man.

Speaker 6 Are you Dale?

Speaker 14 He allowed police to search his properties and spoke to them many times after Dee disappeared.

Speaker 14 Only parts of a few of those interviews were played in court, but his attorney said that Dale had repeatedly denied harming Dee.

Speaker 23 Of all the phone calls and interviews with Mr. Warner, he never once said he harmed his wife, correct? Correct.
He was always adamant that he did not, correct?

Speaker 16 Yes.

Speaker 14 Over and over, the defense underscored the lack of physical evidence in the case.

Speaker 23 Do you have a murder weapon in this case? No, ma'am. Big pool of blood, anything like that?

Speaker 18 No, we have no forensic evidence of that nature. No, ma'am.

Speaker 23 They hone in on Mr. Warner from the beginning.

Speaker 14 In her final statement to the judge, Mary Chartier argues that there is no basis for the charges.

Speaker 23 If he murdered his wife, where on earth is Ms. Warner?

Speaker 12 Since 4-25, 2021,

Speaker 12 nobody has heard from or seen Dee Warner.

Speaker 14 Prosecutor Jackie Wise maintained that the state's case was strong.

Speaker 12 All we're required to prove at this stage is probable cause to believe that Dale Warner killed Dee Warner and probable cause standard has been met.

Speaker 14 The decision was now with the judge and Dee's supporters were worried. Would Dale now face the murder charge at trial or would he walk out as a free man?

Speaker 7 The thought of him getting out was just scary.

Speaker 6 Do we have enough?

Speaker 6 All right, please.

Speaker 14 How nervous were you before the judge issues the ruling?

Speaker 7 So it was horrible. It was so horrible.
I felt like I could just

Speaker 7 curl up in a ball and

Speaker 14 on June 7th, 2024. Judge Anna Freshauer returned to court with her decision.
She first spoke about Dee.

Speaker 24 Dee Warner was a woman with a big heart and a temper. She cared for her children and grandchildren and employees.

Speaker 24 There was nothing in the evidence that suggested she would disappear intentionally, especially from her children.

Speaker 14 And there was nothing she heard, the judge said, that made her feel differently.

Speaker 24 The statements by Dale Warner of a secret phone

Speaker 24 and someone coming to pick up Dee Warner

Speaker 24 were not supported by any facts or evidence in this case.

Speaker 14 But there was enough evidence, she said, to believe that Dee Warner was dead and that her husband was likely the one behind it.

Speaker 24 There's probable cause that Dee Warner died by homicide at the hands of the defendant, Dale Warner.

Speaker 11 All right,

Speaker 7 this is reality. They think that there's enough evidence that he killed our mom.
to go to trial.

Speaker 14 Dale Warner has been ordered to stand trial for the murder of his wife, wife. But Billy Little knows the real work is still ahead.

Speaker 16 My fear for getting past a preliminary hearing was probably a one out of 10.

Speaker 16 My fear of getting a conviction at trial is probably an eight out of 10.

Speaker 14 It's a high bar. Yeah.

Speaker 14 Law enforcement was still searching for physical evidence. And in August 2024, two months after that preliminary hearing concluded, that's exactly what they found.

Speaker 14 Breaking news in the case of Dee Warner. Dee's family heard about it first.

Speaker 7 I received a message that said we need to have an emergency meeting with the detectives.

Speaker 14 They met detectives at Greg and Chelly's farm. Police told them they had gone back to a property that Dalen Dee owned.
and taken away a large metal tank that was used to store fertilizer.

Speaker 14 According to a search warrant, that tank had a non-factory weld on the back and a sign on it that said, out of service, do not fill.

Speaker 14 When the tank was scanned, investigators finally found what they had been looking for.

Speaker 7 It was my mom.

Speaker 6 Well,

Speaker 7 it was a body in a tank.

Speaker 14 It took just days, authorities say, to confirm that the body inside that tank was D. Warner.

Speaker 14 Her death was ruled a homicide. And how did she die?

Speaker 10 They're not sharing that with me.

Speaker 14 Authorities are not granting any interviews about this case before the trial, but that warrant also says that security video from the day Dee was reported missing showed Dale in one of the farm buildings searching for something near the welding equipment.

Speaker 14 For three years, police have been looking for Dee's body underground, and now they had come to believe that she might have been concealed above ground.

Speaker 10 The tank was in this agricultural storage building right behind me.

Speaker 14 And was the cylinder right in here?

Speaker 10 Yeah, it was parked here.

Speaker 14 So Dale would have access to all this. He did.

Speaker 14 Greg says he has no doubt now that Dale killed Dee and hid her body.

Speaker 10 All these things point in one single direction, clearly, without any question.

Speaker 14 And that's a Dale.

Speaker 16 That's correct.

Speaker 14 Dale's defense attorney declined to speak to 48 Hours on Camera, but she told us that Dale maintains his innocence and said in this email, they're prepared to vigorously fight for him in court and present his defense.

Speaker 14 Isn't it likely that Dale's going to argue, well, that was a cylinder sitting out in a barn. Anybody had access to that cylinder?

Speaker 14 someone could have come into his own barn and put your mom absolutely i mean he he can say

Speaker 7 anything

Speaker 14 raquel says finding her mom's body after these three long years gave the family a sense of peace i wanted to shout from the rooftops to everybody

Speaker 7 that she didn't leave us willingly.

Speaker 14 Dee's family laid her to rest in a private burial soon after her body was identified. Her daughter Lena, now 12, was with them.

Speaker 10 The one thing that she knows for sure that was her mother there, that her mother didn't leave her.

Speaker 6 It was real.

Speaker 13 It's like you get hit in the stomach every time.

Speaker 13 I miss her laughter and

Speaker 13 her comfort.

Speaker 11 You miss her very much.

Speaker 11 I miss her every day.

Speaker 14 Raquel and Zach say they miss their mother deeply and that her death has changed them in profound ways.

Speaker 5 I'm now three years sober

Speaker 5 and shortly after she went missing, I

Speaker 5 started my own real estate company. I stopped being scared of failing on something because there was nothing nothing left to lose.

Speaker 7 He's my mom's spirit.

Speaker 7 Very hardworking and driven and

Speaker 24 determined.

Speaker 14 Your children will grow up hearing about Dee. Yeah.
What will you tell them about your mother?

Speaker 6 Oh.

Speaker 7 My mom enjoyed being a grandma so much.

Speaker 7 They will always remember how she would have been there. My mom would have been there for everything.

Speaker 10 Dale Warner's trial is scheduled to begin on September 2nd, 2025.

Speaker 1 Join me Tuesday for post-mortem from 48 Hours, where we'll dive even deeper into today's episode and answer your questions about the case.

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