Episode 01 Vanished in the Heartland
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00:00What happened to Dee Warner?
00:02That is a question state police hope to answer.
00:06You had dive teams, cadaver dogs, aerial searching, geographical profiling.
00:11I don't know if she's missing or if she just left.
00:13Dee is alive and she's run off with some mystery man.
00:17Somebody went missing 50 feet from where you had to be at 3 in the morning.
00:21That's bad timing.
00:22Oh, I'm involved like a f*** right up to my ear.
00:26How does someone simply vanish?
00:27And as a family, what do you do?
00:29I can remember him saying, I just can't believe she'd leave us in this mess.
00:33I f***ing know that.
00:34And he's f***ing trespassing too.
00:36I just knew they found something and it wasn't good.
00:40It's disgusting to think how someone would be that evil.
00:43It seems like he was that close for a perfect crime.
00:59My house is about a half a man.
01:18My house is about a half a mile from my childhood home where my mom lived, and now to visually
01:36see it every single day and drive by it is hard, mainly because I see devastation.
01:48Here at PEOPLE, we've been tracking this story from the beginning.
01:56The case is as fascinating as it is terrifying.
01:59What does a family do when one of their own just vanishes off the face of the earth?
02:04And it's all the more disturbing when you learn the truth about what really happened.
02:13My family settled here in 1831.
02:17We've continuously been farming some way or another all these generations here in this
02:21little town of Tipton, Michigan, which I respectfully call a half-horse town.
02:26It's not even a one-horse town.
02:28We're safe, wholesome, God-fearing people.
02:32My mom, Dee Warner, grew up on the farm.
02:38Farm life is hard.
02:40She was definitely a tough cookie, but she was the type of person that when she walked
02:44into a room, everybody looked.
02:47She had a vibrant personality.
02:50Her laugh was very loud.
02:53Dee and Tim Bach got married when she was 18, and they had their first child within a year.
02:59They ended up having four children together.
03:02My mom was a very strict mother, but always comforting when you needed it.
03:07She was always there to support and always had our backs.
03:12When my mom and dad were a young married couple, they started a farm from nothing, from the ground
03:17up.
03:18And my mom worked with a lot of men, and she didn't let anybody walk all over her.
03:24Most of the time, she walked all over people when she needed to.
03:28Dee was, without question, an extrovert.
03:33Her husband, Tim, was a total opposite.
03:36Their marriage had its ups and downs.
03:38I think she wasn't getting the attention she wanted from Tim.
03:43I think that was the start of the breakup.
03:46I do remember them fighting a lot.
03:48Obviously, it was very upsetting as a child.
03:52Dee finds herself drawn to another ambitious farmer, 33-year-old Dale Warner.
03:58One thing that drove my mom and Dale together was them both being ambitious.
04:02The Warners and my mom's family, the Hardys, have always been kind of rivalry farmers.
04:08The Warner family here in Tipton, Michigan, is also a large farming operation.
04:15They have been aggressive people in agriculture.
04:17And so we do compete for the same resources.
04:21The Hardy and Warners didn't really talk.
04:23It was always kind of described as the Hatfields and McCoys.
04:27We put our differences aside when Dee began dating Dale Warner.
04:32In 2003, Dee divorces Tim to be with her family's rival, Dale Warner.
04:38By the time they marry in 2006, the ambitious couple already owned several businesses, including
04:44a 1,500-acre farm.
04:46Their companies have revenues of well over $10 million a year.
04:50They would farm and spread fertilizer for other farmers.
04:53They raised steers and processed the beef.
04:56And then Dee had her trucking company, and then she started from scratch.
05:00She was the sole proprietor of the trucking business, and it was a very, very lucrative
05:04business.
05:05She had more than a dozen trucks, each of which could be worth up to $250,000.
05:12The combination of the two families, Dee and Dale had eight children, and then all of a
05:17sudden, Dee becomes pregnant with Angelina.
05:21And she was everything to Dee.
05:23By 2021, Angelina is nine years old, and the other children are now young adults living
05:28on their own.
05:2952-year-old Dee Ann Warner seems to have everything she dreamed about, but tragedy's about to strike.
05:39And Sundays, we'd eat breakfast as a family.
05:42So I showed up to my mom's house, but we couldn't find my mom, and we couldn't find Dale, and
05:49we couldn't find my little sister, Angelina.
05:53We looked around.
05:55I called her, but her phone went straight to voicemail.
05:58So I called all of my siblings to see if anybody had heard from mom.
06:04Nobody heard anything from her.
06:05I think the last time was the day before, right before dinner time.
06:09Around 11 o'clock in the morning, my wife calls me and said, have you seen Dee?
06:15We can't find her.
06:16I said, what are you talking about?
06:17You can't find her.
06:20And I said, has anybody checked the security cameras?
06:22I said, well, I'm going to go down to the office and see.
06:26We looked at video footage from the day before all the way to current.
06:31There were a lot of holes as far as coverage of the facility, but that's because they were
06:36meant to watch only major areas.
06:39But there was just no Dee whatsoever.
06:43While looking at video footage, Dale came in.
06:46He said the night before they had an argument.
06:48You know, she got mad, but she had a migraine.
06:54So I gave her medicine and, you know, gave her a massage on the ground and she fell asleep.
06:59So I picked her up and put her on the couch.
07:01And she was there at 6 this morning when I left.
07:05And then things just kept getting worse.
07:07He showed me my mom's ring that she left on his desk in the office.
07:13It was Dee's wedding ring that she always wore.
07:16By leaving her ring, I guess that was a final note to Dale that she was fed up and done.
07:22Their marriage, it was over.
07:24And she upped and left.
07:27I asked where my little sister Angelina was.
07:30You know, she was 9 years old.
07:32Dale said that Angelina was staying with a friend of Dee's and a friend had picked her
07:37up that night before.
07:40Her Escalade was still parked in the garage and her Hummer was there.
07:45She would not go anywhere without those cars.
07:48She literally would not go from her home to the office, which was like a hundred yards
07:52away without driving her car.
07:56Maybe somebody picked her up.
07:57I latch on to that, but who would she be close enough to, to possibly give her a ride?
08:07I looked around inside again.
08:09There were a couple things that, you know, could indicate that she took off.
08:13Her phone was gone, her purse was gone, makeup bag, some of her hair stuff.
08:19You know, I thought maybe she did leave.
08:21But my mom had her phone on her at all times, always, and it was going straight to voicemail.
08:29So something didn't sit right with me.
08:32Eventually the conversation led to, do you think we should call the authorities?
08:36And my response was absolutely.
08:42The children and the family of Dee Warner contacts the sheriff's department and they came to
08:47investigate.
08:48Hello?
08:50One of the deputies shows up on that Sunday, takes a report from Ben, and Ben goes and
08:57talks to Dale.
08:58Are you Dale?
08:59I'm Dale.
09:00All right, so I hear your wife is missing.
09:05Well, I don't know if she's missing or if she just left.
09:08Quite often, if Dee had an argument with Dale, she would just stay at my house for a day or
09:14two and then she'd go back home like nothing happened.
09:18We've got three different businesses here, so the tensions are high all the time.
09:21Sure.
09:22Dale told the deputy that Dee was extremely upset on Saturday, April 24th, because of
09:28the problems with her trucking business.
09:31She had an altercation with one of our employees, two of them, yesterday, came home last night
09:37and she was really upset.
09:40She was talking about killing herself.
09:45We're all human beings, we all have pressure.
09:48She was running three businesses.
09:52And is suicide a possibility?
09:54Absolutely, it could have been.
09:57I saw her just the day before she disappeared and she was definitely different.
10:02Just the amount of emotion, it looked like she was defeated.
10:08And so I thought she could possibly take her life.
10:13You wanted to think that she was okay somewhere.
10:15You didn't want to let your mind go that Dee had gone out on a field and committed suicide.
10:30Over the next few days, we searched everywhere looking on the property for my mom.
10:37We knew that Dee didn't take her car, so there was a limit to how far she would go.
10:43We assembled a search party of probably 40 people, family and friends.
10:48I was thinking maybe she had taken her life and if she did take her life or she started
10:54to take her life, maybe we would find her body walking around the property.
10:59We carefully went through the woods, a lot of the leaves went on the trees so we could
11:03see very clearly right through the forest and we saw no sign of her.
11:08We probably covered five, six hundred acres, maybe even a little bit more and we came up
11:14with nothing.
11:17I didn't know what to think.
11:19I was really hoping that she maybe got picked up by somebody and she needed time to gather
11:25her thoughts.
11:26A couple of days after Dee goes missing, the Sheriff's Department files an official
11:32missing person report and begins a more thorough investigation.
11:40The Sheriff's Department shows up.
11:42They search the property looking for information on Dee's disappearance.
11:48As they're processing the scene, they're not finding any type of physical evidence that
11:53would indicate foul play.
11:56Bookshelves weren't turned over, glass broken on the floor, blood anywhere, so there didn't
12:00appear to be a struggle.
12:04During the search, the detective on the case does a recorded interview with Dale at his
12:08kitchen table.
12:10She says, you don't care about me, nobody cares about me, and what does it matter if I'm
12:13even here?
12:14And I says, Dee, you can't talk like that.
12:17And she kept saying the jabs, and I says, do you still love me?
12:21She couldn't tell me no, because she couldn't tell me yes either then.
12:25You know, she's sitting around that she wanted to sell everything.
12:27And I says, it's not your decision, Dee, to sell it.
12:30It's not.
12:32This is ours.
12:33It's not yours.
12:34Allegedly, they fight.
12:36They argue.
12:38They're running businesses together.
12:39They may not agree with businesses.
12:42Those were the dynamics Dale was trying to explain here.
12:46Her bags are gone, curling iron and that stuff.
12:48And when I walk through the office, her ring is on my desk.
12:52Somebody picked her up.
12:54Dale is convinced that Dee is alive and that she's run off with some mystery man.
13:00And that man picked her up and took her somewhere.
13:04Where that might be, no one knows.
13:08Investigators learned through her phone records that her cell phone died around 3 o'clock that
13:12morning and hasn't been turned on since.
13:15So there's no way to trace her location.
13:21Later that week, sheriff's investigators start talking to employees at her trucking company.
13:25Todd and Terry are brothers.
13:29They both worked at Dee's trucking company.
13:31Todd had the idea that he kind of built that business and so Dee owed him a lot.
13:37He essentially confronts Dee about this.
13:42According to coworkers, the argument got so heated that Todd accused her of failing to
13:45pay $360,000 in payroll taxes.
13:49Todd and Terry contact Dale.
13:52Apparently, he took their side and said, don't worry about her.
13:55And she's crazy.
13:57So Dee felt like Dale was stabbing her in the back.
14:01That was the part that hurt the most.
14:05So if you had an argument where two employees were involved, now you have to ask the question,
14:11right?
14:12Is there a possibility that Terry and Todd can be involved in Dee's disappearance?
14:18Employees tell investigators that despite the blowout, Todd was still scheduled to be at
14:22the Warner Farm on Sunday, the day of Dee's disappearance.
14:28Just after 3 a.m. Sunday, the 25th of April, Todd is seen on the security cameras at Dee's house
14:36as he's coming to get his truck and go on a run that morning.
14:40Then, while reviewing company records, investigators uncover an alarming detail.
14:45Todd, he logs into the truck under a different name.
14:50Why are you violating federal law by doing that?
14:55Somebody went missing 50 feet from where you had to be at 3 in the morning.
14:59That's bad timing.
15:01Or something else is going on here.
15:03But there's no clear evidence of their involvement in Dee's disappearance.
15:08So sheriff's investigators can only keep an eye on them while they explore other leads.
15:18The family's starting to get really, really nervous because the longer Dee is missing,
15:22it means that the chances of finding her alive are very slim.
15:27And Dale is still saying that he believes that Dee ran off.
15:31But he's acting kind of strange.
15:35After the long few days of searching, when I went down to Dale's place,
15:41as I was entering into the barn, I noticed that there was this smaller fertilizer tank
15:45that's half painted.
15:46But I said, what the hell are you doing with this tank here?
15:50And he goes, oh, I just haven't been able to sleep at night.
15:53He said, I'm worried about where Dee is.
15:56And so he said, well, I've been working on these tanks in the middle of the night
15:59when I couldn't sleep, definitely a little bit of an anxious feeling to him.
16:07I can just remember him constantly saying, I just can't believe she'd leave us in this mess.
16:12Dee was such the face of the company, the farming and fertilizer business,
16:17the beef business, and the trucking company.
16:20And it was an eerie feeling, almost like the spirit had just left the place.
16:28I think for my siblings and I, we lost hope of my mom being alive.
16:34There was no way that my mom would be gone from our lives without any communication.
16:40The night before, my mom went missing.
16:43She was upset and crying about the fight that she had with some employees in Dale.
16:48There was a part of me that wondered if maybe the fight had something to do with her being
16:52missing.
16:53And somebody did something to my mom.
16:55And this is a woman who couldn't stop talking to everybody via Facebook, literally nonstop.
17:08There was nothing after Saturday the 24th.
17:12She was always on social media.
17:14And so all of a sudden, it was like she vanished off the face of the earth.
17:18And I remember my father said that his mother came to him in the middle of the night and said
17:28that Dee was with her and that she wasn't coming back.
17:33Your dad is like your big soldier, you know?
17:36And when you hear him like that and seeing him emotional, it just kills you.
17:42I remember the one night I said to Greg, what were some of the avenues that we could look
17:48at?
17:49He said, Shelly, I think you have to come to grips with it that that Dee's gone and she's
17:57not coming back.
18:02There was a long lag for months after my sister went missing where there was no other new information
18:08involved in the case.
18:10And then finally, all of a sudden, there became this major event.
18:19Warner has been gone missing since April.
18:21Tonight, federal agents and local police searched her home and the nearby property.
18:26Sheriff Troy Bevere says they haven't gotten any new leads, but...
18:30We wanted to make sure that you covered every base and did a thorough search one more time.
18:37They don't talk to us very much or give us any details.
18:40So obviously, when you see excavators and stuff, we're thinking we're going to find a body.
18:45We've had some hope that we're going to find some answers.
18:48Not answers that we wanted, but some answers that we needed.
19:01After the serious search of the property, we were expecting that there would be a full-fledged
19:05investigation, but there was nothing of significance that would give you encouragement.
19:12The Lenawee County Sheriff says it did not find a missing woman during a two-day search
19:16near her property.
19:18The family told us they struggled to make sense of this lull in the investigation and independently
19:23do what they can to find some answers.
19:25I was unmercifully on the sheriff, demanding accountability.
19:31It became more and more and more frustrating, and I decided that that was the time for me
19:36to hire professional help.
19:38When the family first contacted me, this case was added to the cold case file.
19:50We started making a list of witnesses, of evidence, searches that we needed to do, experts that
19:56we needed to interview.
19:57I handed over volumes and volumes of information for all the evidence we have been collecting
20:04as a family up to that point.
20:07One of the things that really stuck out was this argument that had taken place between
20:12the trucking company employees and Dee.
20:16All the drama that took place leading up the argument between Dee and Terry and Todd, it
20:22was obviously suspicious to me.
20:25One of the investigative considerations that you have to take in is that big question.
20:30Are these guys motivated to murder?
20:34The brothers needed to be eliminated from the suspect list before we could go forward.
20:40I did some research and fairly quickly discovered that Terry was nowhere near the property, even
20:46tangentially, the day Dee disappeared.
20:49Through security video, they rule out Terry.
20:52He was at home with his girlfriend.
20:54But who they can't rule out is Todd, the other brother.
20:58The day Dee goes missing, Todd was at Dee's house at around 3 in the morning.
21:05He said he saw lights on in the house and the TV was going.
21:09So he's near the home within hours of when Dee disappeared.
21:13And it's right around the time her phone went dead.
21:16So it's very suspicious.
21:18Chris McDonough and I looked at electronic data from the truck Todd was driving, which showed
21:23his location.
21:24The day Dee disappeared.
21:26Todd, he goes back to his house with the truck, stays there for a few minutes, and then goes
21:31and makes another stop in sort of a truck stop-ish area.
21:35Then Todd goes up near Chicago to do a run.
21:40Todd had a reputation for looking for ladies who provide companionship with the truckers.
21:48And there's one who he's seeing on a regular basis.
21:52When I talked to her, she agreed to record the conversations that they had.
21:59I wanted her to talk about the crimes, and women, I think, are better at that than we
22:05men are.
22:06I mean, you feed our ego, and we'll tell you anything about anything.
22:11She knew how that game was played, so she did a nice job.
22:14So I was going to ask you, is it still an ongoing...
22:17Oh, yeah.
22:18Did she disappear?
22:19Was she killed?
22:21It just seems weird.
22:22Oh, yeah.
22:23It's the ugliest thing in the world, and the worst thing for me is not knowing exactly
22:27the world.
22:28You know, because there's no reason for anything to have been done physically to her.
22:32Yeah, I was mad at her, but I was moving on.
22:36Despite the fact that Todd had been on the property around the time Dee disappeared, there's
22:39no other evidence pointing to him, and he seems genuinely distraught.
22:44You poor thing.
22:50I just don't know.
22:53No, I don't either.
22:54That's the worst thing about this.
22:57You know, like her kids.
22:59Because I saw them grow from the time they were like from 10 to 15 years old.
23:05I've been around these kids.
23:07That's the worst thing about this.
23:11The recording helped us to believe that Todd didn't have anything to do with Dee's disappearance,
23:16although his timing couldn't have been worse.
23:19And later on, Todd passed a polygraph, so I'm confident Todd is not a suspect.
23:25He was eliminated.
23:29In March of 2022, Chris McDonough and myself, we're riding around the property with Greg
23:35Hardy, and he's showing us some locations that could be searched.
23:38Look right out there.
23:39You see that wet area?
23:40We're standing out in the field, and I see another truck.
23:43I say, OK, who's that?
23:45And he says, that's Dale.
23:47And so Dale drives out to the field where all three of us are.
23:50Howdy.
23:51What's going on, you guys?
23:53How are you, sir?
23:54Oh, you're trespassing.
23:55You know that, right?
23:56Yeah, you know, I just realized that when-
23:58No, you didn't just realize that.
23:59You know that.
24:00Well, I-
24:01I got Mr. Hardy here with you.
24:02OK.
24:03And he's trespassing, too.
24:05Essentially confronts us, so he went from zero to 60 in a split second.
24:10What would you do, Greg, if I was down to your place and you didn't have permission?
24:13You could still call me and ask.
24:16Sorry.
24:17No, you're not sorry.
24:18That's not intentional.
24:21And Dale, he just has this fit.
24:23Then he turns on his heel, gets back in his truck, and leaves.
24:29We saw that piece of his personality, which Greg Hardy told us, you never see.
24:34We saw it that day.
24:37I was feeling very unsure of what to think.
24:41I just didn't want to believe the worst.
24:44I wanted to believe that Dale didn't hurt my mom.
24:47So I tried to listen to everything that he had to say about what happened and what he
24:53was doing to help find her.
24:56Every conversation I had with him, I lost hope.
24:58He said to me at one point that she ruined his life.
25:02Your wife's missing, and that's what you're concerned about.
25:06I felt like, you know, he wasn't worried about her.
25:10He seemed angry with her.
25:14Eventually, there was no outside communication between me or Dale or his children.
25:21And Dale had cut off communication with my little sister Angelina as well, which was really hard.
25:29Highly suspicious of Dale after his outburst, the private investigators take a look at the
25:35Warner's financial records and uncover some disturbing information.
25:39The family kept their own meticulous records with regard to Dee's finances during the time
25:45she was missing.
25:46So the private investigators and Greg start looking into Dee's finances.
25:50The first thing they realize is that Dale had created a new company, DDW Transportation,
25:58that has a very similar name to Dee's trucking company, DDW Investments.
26:04A few months after Dee goes missing, Dale starts to transfer all the assets from Dee's
26:09trucking business into that business.
26:12The reason why he's able to do this is that Dale had a power of attorney, which meant that
26:17he had complete control over Dee's assets, so he could do whatever he wanted with any of
26:23her businesses.
26:25But that's impossible to accomplish without Dee Warner's signature on it.
26:30I got a copy of the document, and I get to the signature line.
26:34I said, there's no way in hell that's my sister's signature.
26:38I took it to the Sheriff's Department, and I hired a professional handwriting expert,
26:44and I had him analyze the signature.
26:47And without question, it's a total fraud.
26:50It's a forgery.
26:52Instantly, I became suspicious, and I decided that, hell, I can't trust Dale Warner.
26:58Your wife goes missing, and you're moving around assets through illegal activity, forgery.
27:05That's not a good look.
27:07He was taking steps to take total control over a lot of different things.
27:13I mean, that's a huge red flag.
27:15The question is, why would Dale be doing this?
27:18What does he want?
27:19And what he wants is the money.
27:21Dee and Dale's businesses, which they shared, were not doing well.
27:27Other than the trucking company, that was the cash cow.
27:31Dee owned the trucking company 100%.
27:34So if the trucking company goes away, the money goes away.
27:39I think at that time, I probably had to face it, that Dale might have done something with her.
27:56As time goes by, despite evidence of forgery and financial fraud, the police investigation stalls.
28:02It's a dead end.
28:03And so the family's starting to get really, really frustrated.
28:08I would often go to the prosecutor.
28:10At one point, he openly said to me, Greg, listen, I will never sign a warrant for his arrest until there's a body.
28:16If we're not able to get the sheriff or the prosecutor to move on this case, we're going to need public pressure.
28:23That's when I reached out to the press to cover the case.
28:30Billy was giving talks at public events that put a lot of extra pressure on the law enforcement agency to continue moving forward.
28:38The sheriff knew when he went to those rallies for Dee, people were just going to have at him because he hasn't gotten his case solved.
28:46I stood right next to him at one of the rallies and told him, do your job or I'll get somebody here who can do it for you, and then handed him the mic.
28:54What happened to Dee Warner?
28:56That is a question Michigan State Police hope to answer.
28:59They are now taking over the investigation.
29:02We're hoping Michigan State Police can materialize something for the prosecutor.
29:07Michigan State Police, they invested a tremendous amount of resources.
29:11You had dive teams, cadaver dogs, aerial searching, geographical profiling.
29:17We were both encouraged, as well as the family, this is going to go in the right direction.
29:23I mean, they all suspect Dale, but there is no arrests, no charges filed.
29:28And so nearly two and a half years after Dee disappears, the family was worried.
29:35You know, this case may never be solved.
29:40It was just very hopeless.
29:42You don't know where to turn.
29:43You're wanting the police to drag the person in that you think did it and interrogate the hell out of them.
29:49And that's just not how the system works.
29:51In November of 2023, I was at work, and I heard the phone ring.
29:59And it was my boyfriend.
30:01And he said, Dale's been arrested.
30:04It was just a flood of different emotions.
30:08I didn't know how to process it.
30:13Murder charges against the husband of missing Lenawee County woman Dee Warner.
30:17Michigan State Police remaining pretty tight-lipped about what evidence moved them toward filing those murder charges against her husband, Dale Warner.
30:24Billy calls me, and he says, hey, Dale's in custody.
30:27They're charging him with Dee's murder.
30:32Why they made the decision at that time to make the arrest, honestly, I don't know.
30:39One of my family members called me.
30:41Obviously, it was shocking.
30:43You wanted to yell at the top of your lungs that we were right.
30:47Now we need to move forward and get justice for what's been done.
30:53Living next to Dale was nerve-wracking.
30:57To learn that he was arrested for murder was really overwhelming.
31:03But in my heart, I believe that, you know, he did murder my mom.
31:07And even though we didn't have a body, I was so thankful.
31:12Sorry.
31:13It's hard.
31:16This isn't about somebody against somebody.
31:19This is about right and wrong.
31:21She was a fighter.
31:23She would be specifically very proud of her.
31:28There were people that fought for her.
31:36April marks three years since Lenawee County woman Dee Ann Warner went missing.
31:41Dee Warner's death certificate was released just over two weeks ago,
31:45which is something the family says they needed.
31:48They will now have a small ceremony at their family plot in Tipton, Michigan.
31:52She's going to have an official gravestone.
31:54Her children's names will all be on there.
31:57We didn't have her body, but we wanted a little bit of closure for her
32:02and to celebrate the person that she was.
32:05My mom was hardworking, selfless, a generous person.
32:10And she was so good at being a mother, a businesswoman, and a grandmother.
32:15She was very dedicated to each and every one of those.
32:19Yes, we celebrated her life, but it's an unsettling feeling.
32:26Not having her body or remains with us is difficult.
32:32It's very bittersweet for the family, but the question still remains, where's Dee?
32:40We've searched all over the place.
32:46We've come up totally empty.
32:48So I was going through the case over and over and over again.
32:52And I remembered early on, right after my sister went missing,
32:56I was down at the property loading fertilizer when no one was around.
33:01And when I walked the building, for some reason, this haunts me.
33:06I always had a very eerie feeling.
33:09Greg Hardy remembers that the sheriff's department
33:13never searched the fertilizer barn.
33:15Dale had said the dogs couldn't go into the fertilizer barn
33:19because he had had a dog himself
33:22that had gotten some chemicals on the feet
33:24and it poisoned the dog and killed the dog.
33:27So they never searched the fertilizer barn.
33:30He also recalls Parker saw some things that are unusual in hindsight.
33:36Parker told me that he went down to Dale's fertilizer barn
33:41very shortly after Dee went missing.
33:43I noticed this old small little tank that Dale was painting.
33:48This anhydrous tank was sitting on the ground.
33:51It looked like it had been in a swamp forever.
33:54It was all rusty, covered in kind of an algae.
33:57It was basically just trash.
33:59The type of effort he was making on something
34:03that didn't have any value was very unusual.
34:06He was doing it in the fertilizer barn
34:08rather than in the workshop.
34:11It was so strange.
34:14I remember Greg telling me about this
34:17and he said,
34:19you don't suppose he would have put her in there, do you?
34:23And I said, that would be a perfect crime.
34:28And so I called the state police
34:30and I said, you know, it sounds crazy,
34:32but there's this particular fertilizer tank.
34:35I'd like you to investigate at my sister's property.
34:41At that point, the state police searched the property.
34:44They subsequently found the fertilizer barn.
34:48There's a small fertilizer tank with somewhat fresh paint
34:51and a non-factory weld on it.
34:54It was missing that beaded seam for your factory welds.
35:01It became clear that the tank had been re-welded.
35:05But it was too big and there's no X-ray machine
35:10to look at that tank.
35:12So it was removed from the property on a truck
35:14and brought to a weighing station
35:16where they actually did a X-ray.
35:19That day, I went to work
35:23and they were doing another search of my mom's property
35:27and I pushed it in the back of my mind.
35:29Like, it's just another search.
35:31Don't get your hopes up.
35:35And at the end of my work day,
35:37I got a call from my brother that said,
35:38we need to have an emergency meeting tonight
35:41with the Michigan State Police detectives.
35:44And I knew they found something.
35:48D Warner's family meets with Michigan State Police detectives
36:01on the evening of August 21st, 2024.
36:04It was about 8.30 that night.
36:07All the children and all of us met here at our house.
36:11One night we'll never forget.
36:14I was so anxious.
36:19I just knew they found something and it wasn't good.
36:24The detective said, we think we've found D's body.
36:30And we were like, oh my gosh, I can't believe it.
36:34And he said it was in the anhydrous tank.
36:39The detective had scans of what was inside the tank
36:44and it clearly showed a human body in the tank.
36:52It was horrible.
36:57There was D's body placed inside of the anhydrous tank,
37:01which turned out to be a good thing for the prosecution
37:04because he made an airtight seal.
37:06Medical examiners confirmed the remains found
37:09on her husband Dale Warner's property belonged to D Warner.
37:16After three and a half years of being encapsulated in the cold,
37:19dark, sealed environment of a fertilizer tank,
37:22D's body is very well preserved.
37:24And authorities conclude that she was probably put there
37:27just a short time after her death.
37:29We certainly have positively identified my sister.
37:33There's no variance in it.
37:35It's 100%.
37:36So there's nothing to not accept this fact.
37:39The medical examiner is able to determine
37:41that D Warner's death was a homicide
37:43caused by strangulation and blunt force injury.
37:46My sister was dead.
37:55And after three and a half years,
37:57I was in absolute disbelief.
37:59I mean, it's disgusting to think how someone would be that evil
38:03that he might have done that with his own wife,
38:06putting her in a frigging fertilizer tank like that
38:09and making it into a tomb.
38:11I think he's an absolute piece of human trash.
38:15Nobody deserves to be murdered
38:19and put away like she was.
38:21That's awful.
38:23It's an awful feeling.
38:25Seems like Dale thought he was that close to a perfect crime.
38:32In August of 2024, D's family could finally put her into a grave,
38:38let her rest in peace,
38:39and then simultaneously feel that same peace themselves.
38:45We did have a burial for D.
38:48We celebrated her life.
38:51And it does give you a feeling of closure.
38:59The children of D Warner have filed a $100 million lawsuit
39:04against D's husband, Dale,
39:06who is accused of murdering his wife and hiding her body.
39:09Todd Flood with Flood Law
39:11not only says the money is rightfully their property,
39:14but says it's only fair after D's family
39:16spent years in legal fees trying to prove D was dead
39:19while Dale knew the whole time.
39:21He was missing all during that timeframe.
39:24Dale knew where the body was,
39:27knew how he strangled her.
39:29The prosecution and the defense are currently preparing for trial.
39:34We hope and pray as a family
39:38that the state has strong evidence
39:40that shows what he truly did,
39:42but we're going to be there to see you in the trial,
39:44every moment of it.
39:45If he's found responsible for D's death,
39:49I don't know how he could live with himself
39:51knowing and seeing her last few minutes.
39:54He must live with that,
39:55and I hope he does every day.
39:57It's been about seven or eight months
40:23since we buried my mom.
40:25It is nice to have a place to come to,
40:29but I feel like I always have her with me in my heart
40:33so I can always talk to her when I need to.
40:47She deserved more than just what she went through.
40:50She was way more than that.
40:53She was a mother and a grandmother and a friend
40:57and a sister,
40:59and she was a wonderful person.
41:02It'll be a long, long process,
41:05but we're going to get the justice that my mom deserves.
41:08She was a mother and a brother and a girl.
41:12But it was also waiting for her to come and see her.
41:16She was completely different.
41:17The nature of my father and a father and a brother,
41:18is she is probably the only one?
41:20I don't know.
41:21At the time I look like fallait,
41:22this is really nice.
41:23I have a long life.
41:24She is one of my dreams.
41:26I am my brother and I do.
41:27She is really good with her.
41:28She is really good for her.
41:30You are really happy with me.
41:31I am young for her,
41:32she is very beautiful!
41:33She is a good-to-do-do-do-do-do.
41:34You
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