Dee Ann Warner's Brother Reaction to Day 3 of Preliminary Exam

Dee Ann Warner and her brother, Gregg Hardy. Photo courtesy of Parker Hardy.

Yesterday was the third day of Dale Warner’s preliminary exam to determine whether there is enough evidence to proceed to trial. Dale was charged with the murder of his wife, Dee Ann Warner, in November 2023.

After Dee’s adult children reported her missing from her Tipton, Michigan home on April 25, 2021, Deputy Hall of Lenawee County Sheriff’s Office went to the Warner farm to question Dale. The prosecution showed a body cam video. It began with Dale walking up to the house from the direction of the office he shared with Dee and their employees.

“Well, I don’t know if she’s missing or if she just left,” Dale said. He told the deputy Dee had an altercation with two employees the day before. When Dale came home, he found Dee very upset. “She was talking about killing herself and taking off and leaving.” Dale said Dee had just gotten over Covid. “She ain’t acted right since.”

Dale said Dee had a migraine the night before and had taken medication. She fell asleep on the couch close to midnight. When he got up around 6 AM, Dee was snoring on the couch. Dale left to spray chemicals on the fields. He texted Dee but didn’t get a response.

When Dale received a call from Dee’s friend stating that Dee’s daughter, Rikkell, couldn’t find her mom, he called Rikkell and returned to the house to look around. He noticed Dee’s hair curler, blow dryer, and make-up bag was missing from the bathroom. According to Dale, Dee always had a “go bag” packed. It was missing as well.

“This isn’t the first time she’s left,” Dale said, noting she usually went to her son’s house for a day or two. “This time the difference is, she’s not answering anybody.” Dee’s vehicles were still on the property. “Somebody picked her up. She’s with someone, somewhere.”

Dale didn’t call the police because he didn’t want to set off alarm bells if she was going to return. “I don’t know what to do except wait a day or two until she shows up,” he said. “This is the first time she hasn’t communicated with anybody. The only thing that’s really strange is she put her wedding ring on my desk.” The video shows Dale holding up the ring. Dale also admitted Dee had never left without their minor daughter.

“It’s really weird. I mean, I would think something was up, but she took her stuff. So, I mean, it’s not like somebody forced her to go anywhere,” Dale said.  

In the last three days of the preliminary exam, witnesses have testified Dale installed a tracking device on Dee’s Hummer and put a secret trail cam in their kitchen. Devin Newell, a General Motors Senior Technical Expert, testified that between January 2020 and April 27, 2021, there had been over 2000 vehicle location requests made from Dale’s cellphone or iPad to find out where Dee’s Cadillac Escalade was located.

Yesterday, Gregg Hardy, Dee’s brother, reacted to the evidence presented thus far. “The question I have for the defense is if Warner can track his wife a couple thousand times with geotechnical equipment, why couldn’t he find her Sunday morning in his own driveway in broad daylight? That’s my real question for them,” Gregg said.

As to the body cam footage taken the evening of April 25, 2021, Gregg said, “He wasn’t making any effort to find her and that was illustrated in the video today. For me, it’s so obvious that with all that technical information he had from tracking the Hummer and all the OnStar information he had, he would have used it.”

Two days after Dee vanished, Gregg had some hard questions for Dale. “I asked Warner Tuesday morning about OnStar. I said, ‘Dale, if you have tracking information, let’s find that. Let’s follow those areas up and see if there was possibly a video camera of any of the locations she frequented. Then, we can see if she was meeting with someone, because obviously she wasn’t picking someone out of the Yellow Pages at 7 AM to pick her up. Let’s see if we can find that person, see if there’s really another person involved here,’” Gregg said. “But he wouldn’t do it.”

Gregg continued to press Dale to act. “I asked him where the OnStar maps indicated where she had been coming and going. He said, ‘I printed them off and gave them to her. She burned them.’ So, I said, ‘If you got them once, let’s get them again. Let’s go to these places. Let’s see if there’s a surveillance camera. Let’s ask these people to see the recordings,” Gregg told me, shaking his head. “But he’d never do it.”

For summaries of the first three days of the preliminary exam, you can go here: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3.

For background information on the disappearance of Dee Ann Warner, you can start here. Join the Justice for Dee Facebook page for the latest updates.

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