Dale Warner Faces Murder Trial

Dee Ann Warner. Photo Courtesy of Parker Hardy.

Dale Warner was charged with open murder and tampering with evidence in November 2023. His wife, Dee Ann Warner, was reported missing from her Tecumseh, Michigan farm on Sunday, April 25, 2021. Dee was legally declared dead in March 2024. Yesterday, the Hon. Ann Frushour determined the prosecution provided enough evidence to bind the case over to Lenawee Circuit Court for trial.

Yesterday was the fourth day of the preliminary hearing. Body cam footage was shown of Det. Greca, Lenawee County Sheriff’s Office, interviewing Dale on April 29, 2021. Dale said the day before she disappeared, Dee was still upset from an argument she had with two employees the night before. She called Dale and told him she was done and wanted to sell everything.

When he got home from work, Dee was sitting in a chair. “Her face was red and all puffed up. I could tell she’d been crying,” Dale said.

Dale and Dee were alone in the house that night. Their nine-year-old daughter was having a sleepover with her cousin.

“She was insistent on starting a fight,” Dale said. “She knows how to fire me up and I know how to fire her up.” Dale theorized Dee wanted to fight so she had a reason to leave.

“We got married for better or worse,” Dale said to Det. Greca.

Dale told Dee it wasn’t her decision to sell their businesses. It was theirs. When he asked her if she loved him, she didn’t answer.

Dee, prone to migraines, hadn’t eaten and looked dehydrated. She took three pills and began to calm down. Dale said they ate and went to the living room. Dee fell asleep on the floor. Around midnight or 1:00 AM, Dale picked her up and put her on the couch. “I tucked her in,” Dale said.

The next morning, Dale left to work in the fields around 6:00 AM and Dee was snoring on the couch.

When Dee’s adult daughter, Rikkell Bock, and her family arrived for their usual Sunday morning breakfast, Dee was gone but her vehicles were still on the property.

Dale said he first learned Dee was missing when Dee’s friend, Stephanie Voelkle, called him that morning and said Rikkell couldn’t find Dee.

 Dee often left the house after arguments and went to stay with her adult son, Zack Bock, for a night or two. But this time was different, Dale told Det. Greca, because Dee always took their minor daughter with her, and she had left her wedding ring on his desk.

Next, the prosecution showed a portion of an interview between Detective. Sgt. Drewyor, Michigan State Police, and Dale in December 2022. Dale changed his story about lifing Dee to the couch and tucking her in. Instead, he told Drewyor both he and Dee slept on the floor all night after watching a movie and him rubbing her neck.

Dee’s Hummer was parked behind the house when Dale left for work in the morning, but when Rikkell arrived around 9 AM, it was parked in front of the office on their property. Dale didn’t know how it got there.

There were tracks made from a front-end loader from where the Hummer had originally been parked leading to the deck on the back side of the house. Dale said he had used the front loader that morning to take trash to the burn pile.

Detective Sgt. Drewyor was the first on the stand yesterday, continuing his testimony from May 3, 2024. Drewyor said Dale inferred that Dee drove the Hummer to the office the morning of her disappearance and then left it there because Dee thought Dale could track the vehicle. (Previous witnesses confirmed Dale had put a tracking device on the Hummer.)

When shown a picture of the back of the Warner home where the front loader tracks were made, Drewyor said, “The bucket fits between those two pillars and you can set the bucket on the deck.” On that side of the house, if you walk in the door, the living room is to the left and the kitchen is on the right.

Drewyor revealed a series of text messages sent from Dee to a friend on December 7, 2020 that began with Dee saying Dale threw her into a dresser. She then sent more disturbing messages including: He turned into the devil, I’ve never seen him this bad, and I literally thought he could kill me.

A text message from Dee to Dale sent February 23, 2021 said, I am ready to be done with this. You treat me as if I’m not worthy of anything. If you love someone you want everything for them. You do NOT! You want to be in control so that the other person is powerless. I’m not going to live like this. Either you stop or [daughter’s name] and I will move out. I’m sick of it.

 “Dale told me that Dee was in the hills of Jamaica living with a drug cartel,” Drewyor said. “My follow up question to him was how she would have gotten there without the use of her passport and driver’s license and Dale stated that she could have got to Florida and taken an illegal boat ride or crossed the border for $10.”

Dale told police Dee was having suicidal thoughts the night before she vanished. Drewyor confirmed other people said Dee had made suicidal statements. When Mary Chartier, Dale’s attorney, asked him how he was sure Dee hadn’t committed suicide, Drewyor replied, “If someone was suicidal, finding the body is not difficult. A person can’t hide themselves post mortem.”

Ryan Heethius, Secret Service Agent was the next to testify. He conducted multiple database searches to find any sign of life for Dee. They included financial, business, legal, travel, and facial recognition. He found no electronic footprint of Dee after she disappeared.

The preliminary examination lasted four days, beginning on May 1, 2024. The prosecution called 14 witnesses to testify. Judge Frushour ruled the prosecution had shown enough evidence to proceed to a murder trial. Judge Frushour said, “He told the police he was looking for Dee, but according to his other statements, she wasn’t missing yet.”

Dale said he first learned Dee was missing when Stephanie Voelkle called him at 10:31 AM, but he was using apps to unlock her car (where she always kept her purse) and find her phone between 7:14 AM and 8:49 AM. Dale texted Dee to say he was spraying the fields at 7:45 AM.

Judge Frushour also made her decision based on witness testimony of domestic abuse, stalking, and Dee’s close ties to her children and grandchildren.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 20, 2024, at 8:15.

Kathryn Adams, Dee’s lifelong friend, reacted to the court’s decision. “I believe the judge made an articulate and fair ruling today. She heard evidence that points to one conclusion for why Dee went missing and that is Dale Warner. I know we will have a long trial ahead of us, but the wheels of justice are finally turning. I know Dee is looking down on us all and is so proud of her family – just like she’s always been.”

Gregg Hardy, Dee’s brother, told me, “As my old football coach often said, ‘You won, but it was ugly.’”

To review each day of the preliminary hearing you can go to Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3. For background information on the disappearance of Dee Ann Warner, you can start here. Join the Justice for Dee Facebook page for all the latest updates.

If you have an opinion on this case, I’d love to read it in the comments!