A Michigan woman told her friend she was going to meet up with her husband one night in 2021. She was never seen or heard from again.
Dee Warner, 52, was reported missing on April 25, 2021. Months later, her husband, Dale John Warner, was charged with open murder and tampering with evidence in her disappearance.
Three years later, after countless searches, Warner’s remains were found on August 18, 2024, entombed in a large anhydrous ammonia tank that was hidden inside a barn in Lenawee County on property owned by her husband.
Both Dale Warner and his son, 28-year-old Jaron Dale Warner, appeared in court on Monday, just a week after the younger Warner was arraigned on charges of tampering with evidence and accessory after the fact, according to Michigan State Police.
During the court hearing for Jaron Warner, who is Dee Warner’s stepson, a judge scheduled his preliminary examination for April 4, 2025. He is free on a $125,000 bond.
Dale Warner also made an appearance, where his attorneys filed a motion to dismiss his tampering with evidence charge, arguing that evidence was not presented during the preliminary examination to explain why he was hit with the charge and that prosecutors were attempting a “trial by ambush,” ClickonDetroit reported.
The judge overseeing the case said he would release his written decision at a later date.
Dale Warner is set to stand trial on September 2, 2025.
Here’s everything we know about the case:
Dee Warner’s disappearance
Dee Warner, a mother of five, who ran a trucking company and a farming business, was 52 years old when she was last seen on the morning of April 25, 2021, on a road in Franklin Township, south of Detroit.
According to police information and court records, Warner was planning to discuss divorce with her husband before authorities suspect he killed her.
Lenawee County Sheriff Troy Bevier then told Dateline in 2022 that there had been a business dispute on the night she disappeared between her, Dale Warner and one or two of their employees.
Dale Warner admitted to fighting with his wife about “money and infidelity,” but cops said at the time that every statement he made on the subject was inconsistent.
Despite extensive searches, including excavations at the property, K9-led efforts, and ground sonar, it took years for her body to be found.
Human remains found in tank
Police found Warner’s remains inside a large anhydrous tank that was hidden inside a barn in Lenawee County.
The property belonged to her husband, but it wasn’t where she lived before her disappearance, police said. It was about four miles from their home on Mugner Road in Tipton.
Searches were conducted at several of Dale Warner’s properties, but it’s unclear if the one where Warner’s body was found was searched previously.
Her brother, Gregg Hardy, told ClickonDetroit that he had asked authorities to look in the tanks because he believed his sister’s body was hidden inside.
“In the dark of night, in a building that had no cameras -- slide her body in there, put the end cap back on it, and weld it completely shut,” Hardy said.
“Then attach that to a chassis, paint it, even have the gall to put his logo on it to make it look like it was normal, and then took it and stored it with other tanks so it would look like it was just another one of the fleet.”
He said investigators showed his family an X-ray of the tank with a body inside of it. It was a sealed, empty tank meant for anhydrous ammonia, which is used as fertilizer for crops.
The tank where Warner’s body was found, described by Hardy as a “steel tomb,” had been sealed with a tag that said: “do not use.” There were no chemicals inside the tank.
