Her Body Was Hidden on the Family Farm for 3 Years... The Dee Warner Case

In April 2021, Dee Warner disappeared from her home in Lenawee County, Michigan. Her sudden disappearance immediately concerned her family, who refused to believe she had simply walked away from her life. For more than three years, they fought for answers... until Dee’s remains were finally discovered hidden inside a sealed tank on property belonging to her husband. What followed brought long-awaited answers about what happened to Dee and ultimately led to a murder conviction. This episode is sponsored by: Square: get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at square.com/go/TCKR http://square.com/go/TCKR! #squarepod Merit Beauty: right now, Merit Beauty is offering our listeners their Signature Makeup Bag free with your first order at merit beauty dot com. SmileSet: listeners of our show get an additional 35% discount when they go to smileset.com/tckr http://smileset.com/tckr Rocket Money: let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at rocketmoney.com/kenallrae http://rocketmoney.com/kenallrae Quince: get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns at quince.com/tckr http://quince.com/tckr Check out my foundation: Higher Hope Foundation: https://www.higherhope.org/ Watch my documentaries: 530 Days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjUWkmOjNLk Apartment 801: https://bit.ly/2RJ9XXr True Crime with Kendall Rae podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3rks84o Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3jC66pr Shop my Merch! https://kendallrae.shop https://kendallrae.shop/ Check out my other podcasts: Mile Higher (True Crime) @milehigherpod YouTube: https://bit.ly/2ROzJcw Instagram: http://instagram.com/milehigherpod The Sesh (Current events, a little true crime, pop culture, and commentary) https://bit.ly/3Mtoz4X @the_seshpodcast Instagram: https://bit.ly/3a9t6Xr *Follow My Social!* @KendallRaeOnyt Instagram: http://instagram.com/kendallraeonyt Facebook: https://bit.ly/3kar4NK True Crime TikTok: https://bit.ly/3VDbc77 Personal TikTok: https://bit.ly/41hmRKg REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://zfrmz.com/yg9cuiWjUe2QY3hSC2V0 Form for people directly related/close to the victim: https://zfrmz.com/HGu2hZso42aHxARt1i67 Join my discord to chat with other viewers about this video, it’s free! https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN C O N T A C T: For Business Inquiries - [email protected] Send me mail: Kendall Rae 8547 E Arapahoe Rd Ste J #233 Greenwood Village, CO 80112

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kendall Rae?

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• 0:44Kendall Rae?

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• 1:01Speaker 01

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• 2:02Kendall Rae?

  Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of True Crime with Kendall Rae. Thank you so very much for joining me today. And if you're new to the show, then welcome. Make sure you click Subscribe or Follow if you're an audio listener so that you never miss an upload from me. Now, today, you guys, I'm quite emotional because this is my last recording in this studio. And as excited as I am for you guys to see my new studio, it's gonna be really cool. Definitely a couple of levels up from anything that I've ever recorded out of. But I don't know, so much has happened in this studio. I feel like from the time that I started recording in here to today, I have become a very different person.

• 2:47Kendall Rae?

  I have learned so many different things. I just feel like, yeah, a completely different version of myself. I've covered so many interesting cases here, had so many emotional moments here. I've worked with wonderful families over the years and recorded their stories out of this studio and have had so many great times with all of you. So it's really the end of an era and the start of a new chapter. I'm also gonna be recording, sounds weird, but out of my house, which sounds like I'm recording in the house, but I will be in an actual workplace setting over at my office building. I'll have a studio over there, which means that my cat Lily, who has been with us through so many recordings over the years,

• 3:31Kendall Rae?

  even before this studio, will no longer be here for recordings because she's too old for me to drag her over to my studio every day. That's just not fair to her. In fact, I'm sure you're wondering where she is. I don't know. She's somewhere in my house. My cat would never leave my home, but she's hiding right now. And I'm like, really, girl? This is your last day? You were retiring today and you decide just not to show up? But everyone in my house is looking for her right now. And it's quite possible she will make an appearance throughout the episode, which I really hope because I'm very sad that she's not here. We have been working on studios for all of the Mile Higher Media shows. They are all getting new studios. And we have been working on them all of 2026, even before that, actually. So it's been a long time coming,

• 4:14Kendall Rae?

  and I cannot wait to unveil, unveil, reveal, unveil them all to you. So yeah, very exciting things ahead. Now, of course, I am here to tell you guys about a case today, and it is one that is going to blow your mind. It certainly blew mine when I started looking into the details of it. It's just truly unbelievable, and it is one that needs coverage because of things that are currently unfolding. But wow, I could not believe what I was seeing when I started looking into this case. And it was actually a suggestion from many of you. So thank you to everyone who recommended it. The betrayal in this case is just absolutely devastating and infuriating.

• 4:57Kendall Rae?

  And I cannot tell you guys how grateful I am that justice in this case was finally served, although way too late. And this justice happened quite recently, actually. Today, we're gonna be talking about the disappearance and murder of Deanne Warner. And I know her case has been covered by a few major streaming platforms, but most of that coverage came out before there was a conclusion. And not to be a hater, but I thought a lot of the professionally-produced coverage of this case was pretty poorly done. It missed so many details, all of the coverage that I had seen on it. You know, the professionally-produced ones, not, you know, not trying to diss on any other creators,

• 5:42Kendall Rae?

  but the ones with the big budgets really messed their coverage up, surprisingly. But anyway, that's besides the point. There is so much more to go over, so much more to this story than people even know. And as of early 2026, the beginning of this year, Dee's case finally concluded, giving her family the peace that they so badly deserve and needed. Before getting into this episode, I just wanted to thank you all for listening to and supporting my show and also any of the Mile Higher Media shows. Your support makes it possible for us to continue funding grants through my foundation, Higher Hope, which supports victims of violent crimes, their families, and like-minded nonprofits. And with that, let's get into today's case. I am eager to tell you more about who Dee was

• 6:25Kendall Rae?

  because she was a very dynamic and fun person. And before Dee Warner was Dee Warner, she was Dee Hardy. She was born on July 29, 1968, in the rural farming community of Lenawee County, Michigan, where she spent her entire life in and around farm culture. Now, she came from a long line of farmers, really part of her heritage. And with that, she grew up learning what it took to work in that industry. Now, I cannot say that I know much about farm life, farm culture, but I do know just, you know, from what I have heard and in research that I've done on many cases, that it is no walk in the park.

• 7:07Kendall Rae?

  It is a very time-consuming, demanding life to live. There are very long, grueling days with little to no time off, and there's always more that can be done, right? And I'm sure some of you understand exactly what I'm talking about. And that was something that Dee and her older brother Greg truly understood. Greg was actually 19 years older than her, so he was almost like a father figure to her in a lot of ways. But despite their age gap, he says they were quite similar, personality-wise at least. And a big part of Dee's personality throughout her entire life was her involvement in 4H, which, if you didn't know, is a youth development organization rooted in farming and agriculture.

• 7:50Kendall Rae?

  Dee was involved in 4H from a very young age, and she was particularly drawn to participating in the local fairs. She absolutely loved the fair, and that remained true into her adulthood as well. In fact, Dee was really involved in 4H pretty much her entire life, and she dedicated a ton of time and effort into the youth in the program in her area, which I really think, from my research, that is a perfect representation of who Dee really was. If there was something or someone that Dee cared about, you would be damned to get in her way of helping that person or that thing. And she also really seemed to be that type of person who just put her everything into all things that she cared about

• 8:35Kendall Rae?

  and had a lot of pride. Now, some, I guess, describe this as almost to a fault because, according to her loved ones, Dee could definitely come across as a little abrasive to some people. But that tough exterior was just an exterior. She was described as having the biggest heart in the world. And once you were able to see past her harder shell, she was nothing but love. But don't get me wrong, she could, however, rip you to shreds if she needed to. I mean, we're talking about a woman in a male-dominated field, and that meant acting the part, right? I will say, I think some of that toughness probably just came from living the farm life.

• 9:19Kendall Rae?

  And I also know that seemed to run in their family. Like I said, she and her brother Greg were a lot alike. And he says that they both were the kind of people who'd rather tough through something themselves than ask for help. Dee was someone who liked to take charge, but she did it from a place of wanting to help the people that she cared about. And of all the people she cared about in the world, there was nobody that meant more to her than her children. Now, Dee first married a man named Tim Block, who she had four kids with. Their names are Amber, TJ, Zach, and Raquel. And man, does it sound like they were lucky to have her as a mom because she was not only deeply devoted to them,

• 9:59Kendall Rae?

  but as they grew older and started to have kids of their own, she was the best Nana to her grandkids as well. And she insisted on being called Nana and she was the first person to help out with babysitting and planning fun activities. She wanted to be a big part of their lives, too. And another thing about Dee that you should know is she loved to have a good time. And it sounds like she was a very fun person to be around. She was described as the life of the party. She loved the glitz. She loved the glamour of getting dressed up and just overall was a very happy and lively, fun person. Her nephew Parker said that she was always done up. Anytime that she left the house, even if she was just, you know, going to the gas station or the grocery store, something like that.

• 10:42Kendall Rae?

  She loved shopping. She loved clothes. She loved cheetah print and just had a strong sense of self and wasn't afraid to be herself. Bottom line is dull is not a word that you would use to describe Dee. And so I think that's why people were so shocked and a little confused when she got divorced from Tim and married another man named Dale Warner. Now, the divorce on its own was shocking for many reasons, but one thing that really surprised people was Dee, as I just said, was the opposite of dull and she was now marrying Dale, who was the definition of dull. But what was even more shocking to people was the fact that Dale and his ex-wife were rival farmers.

• 11:27Kendall Rae?

  And you want to know something even crazier? Dale's ex-wife later ended up marrying Dee's ex-husband. They kind of just swapped. Pretty wild. So as you could probably put together, it was controversial to say the least.

• 11:51Kendall Rae?

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• 12:32Kendall Rae?

  I always love when any small businesses use Square because I know it's reliable. I know it's easy for me. I know I can trust it. But what I didn't know about was the Square Go app. And I just have to mention this because as a customer, it made the experience of seeing her just so much easier. I can set up all my appointments through there. I can automatically add my appointments to my calendar through the app. And then not only that, and this is why I think it's such a great selling point to other small businesses, it recommended similar small businesses in my area that also are on Square. I've also used Square on the other side as a business owner. When we sell merch at events and it's always a very smooth, very easy process for us on that end. Square works whether you're just starting out or growing from one location to many. You can sell online, in-store, or both, and customize your setup as your business evolves.

• 13:18Kendall Rae?

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• 14:07Kendall Rae?

  Now Dee and Dale met when they were working at a custom application company. And eventually they got married and started a business of their own. And actually, they started three businesses, two farming businesses and then also a trucking company. And then they also had a daughter of their own, Angelina, who everyone called Lena. So I will be referring to her as Lena in this episode, but Lena meant everything to Dee. That's really important to note. But anyway, like Dee, Dale had four kids from his first marriage. And to be honest, I'm not sure how integrated all of their children were or how like close they were. But from my understanding, they were all teens or young adults when their parents got together. But that's kind of besides the point.

• 14:49Kendall Rae?

  What I'm trying to say is that Dee and Dale had really started a new life together. And according to many, it didn't appear like this relationship was really built on a foundation of love. Of course, some people saw that in them and thought that they were a very happy and very loving couple. But others thought that Dee liked Dale because Dale shared her motivation for success. She wanted to work hard and play hard and she wanted a partner who was interested in building an empire alongside her. And so it seems like he was the kind of person that she thought she could do that with. And I think what threw people off was despite their shared drive and ambition,

• 15:33Kendall Rae?

  their personalities were truly complete opposites. I mean, you heard how I described Dee. She sounded super fun, but Dale was more boring than unflavored jello. I mean, the dude really did not have much to him. He really lacked personality and also a hairline. But yeah, it appeared like their marriage was more of a business agreement. But I will say their businesses were very successful. Dale was in charge of the farming operations and was sort of the muscle behind the operation. And then Dee was the brains and the financial manager. And of all their businesses, their trucking company was by far the most profitable.

• 16:15Kendall Rae?

  I mean, big time stuff. They were bringing in like $10 million a year or something like that. Now, I'm pretty sure Dee owned that trucking business 100% or at the very least, I know that she felt a very strong sense of ownership of it. And I'm bringing all this up because it is important to the case, so keep all of that in mind. And another super important detail here is the location where these businesses were run. And that was on their own personal farm, which was often referred to in this case as the Munger property because it was located on Munger Road. Now, to my audio listeners, this is a great part to pay attention because I'm going to be describing how all of this was set up and you're sort of going to have to visualize it.

• 17:00Kendall Rae?

  But I will have pictures on screen for my YouTube viewers. And if you want to pop over to YouTube and, you know, check it out, it's a lot easier to picture. You can actually picture it, right? But to illustrate it for you, they lived in Tipton, Michigan on this big farm property that included a home and an external office, as well as several metal barns, which housed all of the equipment and materials they needed to operate their business. And it was on that property on April 24th, going into April 25th, 2021, where Dee vanished. That day was a Sunday and it started out the way that all Sunday mornings did on the farm. Dee's daughter Raquel lived just a few miles down the street and their routine was that she,

• 17:45Kendall Rae?

  her kids, and her boyfriend would always go over on Sunday mornings to make breakfast. And then after breakfast, her boyfriend would typically go home and then she, her mom, her kids, and Lena would all go grocery shopping. So when Raquel showed up around 9:30 that morning, she was confused when her mom wasn't there. Although truth be told, she wasn't immediately panicked. She poked around a few rooms and didn't see her. So she ended up just popping some toast in the toaster and figured that her mom would, you know, walk in any minute. Now, for reference, Raquel had seen that her mom's Hummer was parked at the office building and not at the back door where she usually left it. So she assumed Dee couldn't have been far.

• 18:26Kendall Rae?

  She also noticed that Dale's JCB tractor was parked over at the office. So she thought he may have been in there, too. Now, I'll get into this shortly, but Raquel was aware that her mom was planning to have this very big, very heated discussion with Dale the night before. So when she saw those vehicles at the office, she figured maybe they're in there arguing about that conversation. And for some visual context, the office was no more than 100 yards away from the house. But Dee was notorious for never walking anywhere. So it made sense to Raquel why the car would have been moved, even if her mom wasn't going very far.

• 19:08Kendall Rae?

  So anyways, she ends up texting her mom, you know, trying to just figure out if the plan was still the same for the day, but she didn't get a reply. So her boyfriend and her kids and her all left to go back home. And as soon as she pulled into her driveway, though, Raquel just got this, you know, gut feeling that something was off and she needed to keep looking for her mom. And that feeling only got stronger when she tried calling her and her phone went straight to voicemail, which is something that never happened because Dee was absolutely glued to her phone. She was sort of at this point having that, oh shit moment when her mom was not answering, when the phone was going right to voicemail and that kicked off Raquel.

• 19:53Kendall Rae?

  Being a little more concerned and making some other calls. So she first calls her brother Zach, who said that he hadn't heard from her either. So she then calls her mom's personal assistant, Stephanie, who said the same thing. Then she went back to the house and walked over to her mom's office, thinking that if Dee and Dale were fighting, then Lena was probably there and she didn't want her to witness that. But anyway, the office was empty and that was a big concern. So from there, she continued calling her other siblings, TJ and Amber, as she made her way down the road to her uncle Greg and Aunt Shelley's house. Now, it doesn't sound like Raquel thought that her mom was there because both of her cars were at the Munger property.

• 20:36Kendall Rae?

  Her Hummer was at the office and then her Cadillac was parked in the garage. But still, she wanted to see if her aunt and uncle had at least heard from her, maybe. But when she was over at their property looking for them, she happened to get a call from Dale. Now, he wanted to know if she had spoken to her mom because he was saying that he couldn't get ahold of her. He also mentioned that they had gotten into a fight the night before, which, you know, Raquel already knew that was probably the case. And now he was concerned because she wasn't answering his calls, which is a very, very key detail here. So hold on to that. Okay? So she is over at her aunt and uncle's place. And after talking with Shelley, it didn't sound like she knew where Dee was either.

• 21:20Kendall Rae?

  And then from there, Raquel drove to another property that Dee owned called Cedar Point, but that was empty too. Which, yes, very strange, but something you must know is there had been other times where Dee sort of just left for a few days. With the pressure of running her businesses and all that, sometimes she would just leave for a bit. However, the difference this time though was Dee was not reachable and the other times she was. And another difference was anytime she would leave, she would always take Lena with her, but not this time. And turns out Lena had actually spent the night before at a family member's house.

• 22:03Kendall Rae?

  And Raquel learned that Dee never came to pick her up, which was very unusual. So next, Raquel returns to the Munger property. I believe Shelley was with her too, and that's when she started to search inside the home. And I know it's a lot, it's probably getting a little confusing. This case in general is a little confusing, but stay with me because it is just absolutely wild how all of this unfolds. But while Raquel was looking through all of the bedrooms, her two brothers had shown up as well. And they started to search the office building. Now, their property, as you can imagine, had a handful of security cameras. So they were in the office going through that footage to see if anyone came to pick up their mom that morning.

• 22:44Kendall Rae?

  And nothing ended up being found, but while they were there looking, Dale showed up. Dee's personal assistant, Stephanie, had called him about 30 to 45 minutes prior, telling him that everyone was looking for Dee. And he told her that he was out spraying a neighbor's property and would be home in about that amount of time. So when he came back to the Munger property, the office was the first place he went. And when he was there, he made what seemed like a pretty big discovery, Dee's wedding ring. He said that it was just sitting on his desk and that she must have left it there before leaving. And I'm sure some of you who follow enough true crime coverage can see where this is going. But anyway, Dale then brings that ring into the house where Raquel was still looking around.

• 23:28Kendall Rae?

  And he told her the same thing, that she had probably left it on his desk and then left. And he was also kind of just word vomiting about how she was on all these pills and basically making it seem like she had ruined his life and that all of this was proof that she had just walked away on purpose. Plus, to support his own theory, he pointed out that a lot of Dee's personal belongings were missing too. Her makeup bag, some of her hair tools, her hairspray, things like that. They were all missing from her bathroom. Apparently she also kept a go-bag that was missing and that was just a bag filled with clothes and stuff in case she ever wanted to leave quickly. So he's like, yeah, she just dipped out intentionally.

• 24:11Kendall Rae?

  Clearly that's what happened, but why would she leave? Well, according to Dale, it was because of what happened the night before. And this is super important, so time to lock in if you're a little distracted. This is the time to focus. Okay? And actually, to explain what happened on Saturday night, I have to first explain what happened on Friday. So I know we're jumping around a little bit here, but that night on Friday, Dee was on the Munger property as usual. And that's when an argument sparked between her and her two employees this time, Todd and Terry. This fight was multi-tiered, but the big issue was that Todd was accusing Dee of not paying $360,000 in payroll taxes. And it was such a bad fight that one of them ended up quitting.

• 24:55Kendall Rae?

  Then flash forward to Saturday morning when Dee was at Lena's soccer game and she got a really hurtful text from Terry's girlfriend, whose name also happened to be Terry. So Terry with a Y, Terry with an I. Anyway, it was a longer message, but the part that matters reads, "You're evil, nosey, miserable. Your husband said you take Xanax because you're a mess. That's the truth he told me and Terry." And this really understandably upset Dee. And she was literally hyperventilating and sobbing that entire day, which many people can attest to. She even threw up from how much she was crying. So she was, I mean devastated by that message.

• 25:36Kendall Rae?

  And the reason that she was upset is because she felt like Dale had betrayed her. Not only did she feel like he was siding with the employees in the fight, but she was angry that he was talking about her personal business with them too. And I'm guessing this wasn't the first time that something like this had happened either. But according to everyone that spoke with Dee that day, this was sure as hell going to be the last time that it ever did. Dee spoke to her daughter Amber, her lash tech, her sister-in-law Amy and Raquel over the course of that Saturday. And she told each of them that she was not only planning on divorcing Dale, but she wanted to sell the trucking company too. She had enough of all of it and she wanted out.

• 26:18Kendall Rae?

  And honestly, this wasn't the first time that she had told people that she wanted to divorce him, but it was the first time that everyone could sense that she really meant it.

• 26:34Kendall Rae?

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• 27:17Kendall Rae?

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• 27:58Kendall Rae?

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• 28:42Kendall Rae?

  Amy, Dee's sister-in-law, was actually over at the Munger property that Saturday around 7:45 PM, and she was the family member who took Lena for the night. She could just see how angry Dee was, and she knew that that divorce conversation was going to happen that evening, and it was going to be intense. So they decided it would be in nine-year-old Lena's best interest to not be home during that. And as we know, based on what Dale had told Raquel on the morning of the 25th, that night ended in a big fight. And he told her that they fought about the Todd and Terry situation. And during that fight, Dee developed a terrible migraine, and she had taken some migraine pills. And because of that, he said

• 29:27Kendall Rae?

  that he gave her a massage, and that she fell asleep on the ground as a result. And he claimed he moved her to the couch, where he claims she slept the entire night. He also said that when he left in the morning between 6:00 and 6:30 AM to begin his farm duties, she was still snoring on the couch. And that, you guys, would end up being Dale's story throughout all of this, or at least some variation of that. Over the coming days and weeks, the severity of that fight would change based on who he was talking to, but more or less, that's what he said happened. Now, another very key part of his story is his

• 30:06Kendall Rae?

  suggestion that Dee had left with another man. He was telling people that she had a burner phone that nobody knew about, and that this guy must have picked her up sometime that morning. Now, to be clear, to be very clear, nobody believed that this was true. Now, it did eventually come out throughout this investigation that Dee was having an affair. But that man was cleared because he was out of the country at the time. Plus, I think we all see where this is going, right? However, before it was 100% clear what had happened, there was a period of time where Dee's brother Greg thought that she may have

• 30:49Kendall Rae?

  taken her life. He just knew how much stress she was under, and how unhappy she was in her marriage, so it definitely crossed his mind. The more he spoke with Dale, though, and the more things weren't adding up, he eventually formed the opinion that Dale must have done something to her. And it definitely didn't help that Dale was the only person who didn't want to report her missing. He told her kids that he would think about reporting her missing the next day after taking Lena to school, but none of them wanted him to wait. It just made no sense. Why wait? In fact, they all left the Munger property and went over to Zach's house, where they ended up just making the missing persons report

• 31:33Kendall Rae?

  themselves. And thank God they did, because the Lenawee County Sheriff's Office took this seriously, and they began investigating her disappearance right away. That same day, a deputy came to the property to speak with Dale, and I'll let the footage speak for itself.

• 31:52Speaker 02

  Are you Dale? Yeah. Hi, Deputy of Lenawee County Sheriff, it's time for you, sir. Alright, so I hear your wife is missing? Well, I don't know if she's missing, or she just left, so, okay, she had an altercation with one of our employees, and I have two of them. Um, it was yesterday, I think it was last night, and she was really upset. She was talking a lot of bad things, as far as employees, one employee decided to quit, talking about killing herself, taking off leaving, but she had COVID. Ah, three, two, three weeks ago, she just got her COVID

• 32:36Speaker 02

  a couple weeks ago. She ain't back to the medicine center. Her glands are swollen up, she's like got an infection, and she's got migraines. And Saturday night, she's coming out with real bad migraine. So she took, she's got some migraine pills that she takes. She took quite a few of those, and then she finally basically passed out on the couch, went to sleep, and got her calmed down. And I thought, you know, that was close to midnight when she finally went to sleep. I said, I got bad hands, I gotta get up more. So she was sleeping on the couch. And then this morning, around 6 o'clock, I got up, and, you know, she was snoring away, I was gonna wake her up. So then, I went out and got my chemicals

• 33:20Speaker 02

  and got the sprayer loaded up, and sprayed a batch. And I texted her, and she didn't answer, so I figured, well, she's still asleep, and she's not answering. So I loaded up another batch, and I went back up my house, and I said, now I'll spray it. And then Raquel called me, her daughter Stephanie called me, said Raquel called her, she can't find her mom. And I said, she's at the house, she's in there laying on the couch. Excuse me. So she couldn't find her, and then I called Raquel, and I says, your mom's not there? She was just there, you know, when I was 30 or 30-2. She said, no, she's not here. And I says, well, I'll be on the sprayer, and there shortly, and I'll be back. So about around a half an hour, 5:30, I got back here, and I went in the house, and she was gone.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  And I walked around the house, went in the bathroom. Well, her hair dryer was gone, her hair dryer's gone, her makeup bag's gone, and she has a gold bag packed all the time. I mean, this is the first time she's changed stuff. Usually, she takes out those, she's at the house, and stays there. It's all pissed off, takes off, and it's all there for days. This time, the difference is, she ain't answering anymore. Alright. I was, when she said her mom wasn't here, I wouldn't see all that stuff going on. I was real concerned, because she makes it up all the time, she goes over to Zach's house and stays there, so she'll cool off, and she'll come back home. Well, nobody get home with her.

• 34:45Kendall Rae?

  Then Dale suggests that someone must have picked her up.

• 34:49Speaker 02

  I don't know. But then she was gone, she took all her bags. So somebody picked her up. So she's with someone somewhere. Do you know of anybody who? I don't. They called everybody, that, you know, like I said, I figured she was with Zach, but there's someone. Right. I don't know what else to do, other way to date, or someone see what? Sure. She shows up. Yeah. I know, we get her all wired up, the kids are all wired up, I call the police again. This isn't the first time she's done this, guys. The first thing is, she's not communicating with anybody. But the only thing that's really strange, too, is this time, she put her way, you know, in the house.

• 35:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, she's never done that before.

• 35:30Kendall Rae?

  Dale also said that Dee's second phone might be something worth looking into.

• 35:35Speaker 02

  Is she a person who's normally keeps your phone on her hip, or she's? She's never without it. Never without it? But I told the other kids, she's got a second phone, but she doesn't let anybody know she's got another phone. Do you have a phone? No, it's a secret phone that she doesn't know, that I know she has it, but. Why would she have it? I have no idea. I haven't confirmed her about it, because I didn't want the confrontation. But I know she has another phone. Okay.

• 36:01Kendall Rae?

  Now, listen, if you took Dale at his word, there was nothing in the actual house that suggested foul play. There was no sign of a struggle, and a lot of her personal belongings, including her wallet and passport, were missing, almost as if she took them with her. So on that front, he sounded believable. Also, his hands appeared to be completely free of scratches, or anything to suggest that he had been in a physical altercation. So actually, at first, the officer was pretty certain that foul play wasn't an issue here. But the more that they dug into everything, there was eventually just no evidence that

• 36:42Kendall Rae?

  she had left on her own accord or on purpose either. Her phone stopped reporting data around 3:00 in the morning, and there was no activity in any of her bank accounts and her social media, which she was notorious for posting every single day on, had just gone silent. Not to mention the fact that both of her cars were still on the property, and their security cameras never showed anyone picking her up. So it was kind of like, it doesn't look like she ran away, but it doesn't look like she was murdered either. And Dale definitely seemed to push them towards the theory that she ran off. And at one point,

• 37:22Kendall Rae?

  he even told investigators that $100,000 was missing from a safe in their house. According to Zach, though, Dee had her own secret stash of money in her desk that Dale didn't know about, and that money was all still there. And it was a lot of money, and if she had left on purpose, I mean, you would think she would have taken that, right? Doesn't really add up. All that to say, pretty much everyone, except for Dale, of course, was in agreement that something bad likely happened to her. So of course, over the next several days, searches took place in and around the Munger property. And the only strange thing

• 38:03Kendall Rae?

  that anyone really noticed was this one set of tire tracks. On the morning of the 25th, when Raquel was first looking around the property, remember how I said that she saw her mom's Hummer parked over at the office? Well, that car was normally parked at the house, right outside of the back sliding glass doors. And since it wasn't parked there, she happened to notice that there were tire tracks in that exact spot, and those tracks were from Dale's JCB tractor. And that is important to remember, guys. But in the commotion of that morning, Raquel eventually Noticed that her mom's Hummer was moved back to the house and it covered those tire tracks.

• 38:44Kendall Rae?

  Still though, she vividly remembered seeing them and thankfully detectives remembered seeing them too. And I will explain why that matters so much here in a little bit. It would be jumping too far ahead if I explain now, but just remember that. But for the context of those early search efforts, those tire tracks were really the only thing that stood out to everyone. But anyway, as the investigation continued, detectives of course ended up speaking with employees of their businesses. After learning that Dee had gotten into an argument with Terry and Todd, they obviously had to pursue that as a possible lead. And for a minute there, things looked a little bit sketch with Todd.

• 39:25Kendall Rae?

  Terry, on the other hand, had an alibi and was cleared, but Todd took a little while longer. It turns out that he had been on the Monger property just after 3 a.m. on April 25th, which was around the time that Dee's phone shut off. He had gone there to pick up a truck, which he was driving out to Chicago. And rather than logging his name on the record sheet, he used another employee's name, which is definitely sus as fuck, right? And investigators also interviewed him and they felt like he was not really forthcoming. So that really made them question if he possibly could be involved.

• 40:01Kendall Rae?

  But eventually in a second interview, he ended up confessing why he had lied about those records and why he was being so shady.

• 40:17Kendall Rae?

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• 40:57Kendall Rae?

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• 41:40Kendall Rae?

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• 42:01Kendall Rae?

  Apparently that night, he had taken one of their work trucks to drop something off further than he was technically allowed to go. Hence why he says he lied. And investigators also found out that he was the kind of truck driver who liked to pay women for sex at truck stops. And there was this one woman that I guess he was known to visit quite often. And they ended up actually having her go undercover with a wire to see if maybe he would confess to anything. But through that, they realized he was actually totally torn up about the whole thing and probably innocent. And honestly though, there was only one person who reasonably could have done something to her and that was Dale.

• 42:42Kendall Rae?

  I mean, he was the last person to see her and by that point, everyone knew that they had gotten into this giant argument the night before she vanished. Investigators, on the other hand, of course, still had quite a long way to go before they felt the same. And thankfully, a few days after she was first reported missing, deputies spoke with him a second time to see what more they could learn. And this time he finally opened up about the fight that they had. And he detailed the events he said transpired that night.

• 43:15Kendall Rae?

  So did you guys have that conversation? She didn't say anything about something?

• 43:18Speaker 02

  Well, she tried to start an argument about my system. I says, no, we're not going to argue today, Dee. What, what, sorry, what was she not writing about? Yes, she wanted to, because of Terry, she had the altercation with Terry. And they went over and she kept saying, you won't back me up. You won't back me up. Nobody cares. This is one of these, you know, you were in the wrong. And he wants to agree with you. And I says, we're not going to argue tonight because it gets us nowhere. It doesn't, you push my butt down. I said, we're not going to argue. And she kept her system and nobody cared about her and, you know. And I didn't back up with Terry and Todd. Terry quit. I said, Dee, we're not going to argue.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  And she did bring up, oh, let's just celebrate. And I says, Dee, it's not a good decision to celebrate anything. This is our business. This conversation's never came up until, she's at the soccer game and she got a call now on the phone and she calls me and says, just out of the blue, I'm telling all the help that she's on, Zan.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  You've talked about that. I've never talked about Zan. So then it was, I think it was around 8:30. And then I come in, I kept asking her, because I know she didn't eat anything. I says, you want me to make you some meat? And Amber, I said, I'll make you some meat if you need to eat. She didn't want anything. She didn't want anything. She kept wanting to talk about Terry and how I don't back her up. Right. And she started getting her migraine. She took medication and she started calming down. I said, I told her to land on the floor, slide over her back. And then she says, I'm hungry. So I made some toast. So I sat down, she ate. I said, lay down on her back and started getting calm down.

• 45:03Speaker 02

  She didn't want to. Then she finally laid down, I rolled her back. And that's when she finally started to calm down. And she started to sleep and I helped her get on the couch. She was sleeping good in the car. I think it was like midnight, 4 o'clock. And then I went and got in bed, got up roughly around 6 o'clock. I didn't, never hear nothing all night. So I figured, you know, she's asleep, the dog's not working. And she's somewhere.

• 45:26Kendall Rae?

  Dale then talked about how he left through the back sliding glass door, but he said he came back into the house because he forgot something. And then after leaving a second time, he said he went to one of the barns to start his work for the day. And he was actually seen by the farm's security cameras, driving his JCB, moving liquid fertilizer. What was strange though, was Dale said he drove the JCB back to the house again because of something else he forgot. Which would in theory, explain why his tractor tires were found out by that back door. And I know this is complicated, but stick with me. Okay? So he ends up telling detectives that he went back inside the house.

• 46:08Kendall Rae?

  And when he did, Dee was still asleep on the couch and she remained sleeping when he left for the final time. And then after that, he took his JCB back to one of the barns and swapped it out for another tractor. All of which he said was completed by 7:30 a.m. And by 8 a.m., Dale said that he got into the sprayer, which is yet another tractor for those who don't know. And he went to spray a neighboring field down the road. He returned once to fill up the sprayer and then he was back out there for another few hours. Now, if you remember, Raquel had shown up for breakfast that morning around 9:30 a.m. So by that point, Dale was already gone.

• 46:51Kendall Rae?

  Now, I won't go through that whole saga again, but he was out spraying when he got the call from Stephanie that Dee was missing. And we all know how the rest of that morning went, right? And according to Dale's recollection in that second interview, he had tried to reach her that morning. He said he texted her a few times while he was out and about and just assumed that she was still sleeping.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  7:45, I texted her. That was when I loaded up, was heading out the second time. I'm going to be spraying, call you later. That's at 7:45. And she didn't answer. So I figured she's still asleep. And then I went over to Brooks Road, that's pretty office, 65 acres there. Can you remember, fellas, when I finished at that field, I called her, I texted her, and I said, "Are you up yet?

• 47:35Speaker 02

  Is your migraine better?" And I said, "Yeah, I'm fine." "You know, it's up here for the last year, must be still." That's when Stephanie called me, who said, "Duh, what's going on with Dee?"

• 47:44Kendall Rae?

  After going through the timeline of that day, detectives pushed a little more about this fight they got into, but Dale just continued to downplay it. And what I find most interesting here is he coincidentally just never mentioned the part where Dee had asked him for a divorce.

• 48:03Speaker 02

  So how would you rate that night as far as, you guys have been married 20 some years, you've gotten in plenty of fights, I'm sure, out of scale, the 10 being the worst fight you've ever had? It was, it was on a five. Okay. And she was upset, but it wasn't, it wasn't. That's what's weird, it wasn't like the worst fight we've ever had, it's like, it's just a mediocre, it was over 30 minutes. Right. And she's like, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna sell her." I'm like, "No, Dee, no."

• 48:30Kendall Rae?

  Now, I would be here forever if we went through this footage play by play, and honestly, most of it is quite, you know, irrelevant, but I think you guys see the point I'm trying to make. Dale was clearly withholding the truth, but there was no evidence to call him out on. He just kept saying the same story that Dee must have left on purpose because all of her personal belongings were gone. And with that, the search for her continued. For weeks and then months, the Lenawee County Sheriff's Office was handling the investigation, but there were times they called upon other agencies for help. For example, in October of 2021, there was a massive search effort conducted on the Munger property.

• 49:12Kendall Rae?

  The FBI and Michigan State Police were called in to assist, and they brought with them cadaver dogs and ground penetrating radar. And there was definitely a lot of hope associated with these efforts, but unfortunately, nothing of value was found. Greg said that there was a burn site nearby that was of interest to him, but nothing was found there either. And I just want to take a quick moment here to send a big shout out to Greg because he is just incredible. He worked so, so hard not to just physically look for his sister, but to keep her case active, to keep up awareness, and just made it clear that they were never going to give up on her.

• 49:51Kendall Rae?

  And he would organize really large scale searches, and he and Shelley were the ones who brought in this guy named Billy Little to help push Dee's case forward. Now Billy seems awesome, just from the interviews I've seen with him, and this was really cool to learn. There was one night where Shelley was watching Dateline, and Billy Little, who's a private investigator and attorney, was featured on that episode. And he had talked about how criminals shouldn't be able to get away with murder just because a body hasn't been found. And since Dee's body hadn't been found, there was an understandable amount of frustration within the family that not enough was being done to go after the person who killed her. So Shelley showed this episode to Greg, and he was like, "Oh yeah, absolutely, we need

• 50:36Kendall Rae?

  this guy." And by this point, Greg was very, very convinced that Dale had killed his sister, so he was going to stop at nothing to try and bring her justice and bring Dale down. He even confronted Dale a few times and asked him what he thought of the investigation so far, and not surprisingly, Dale said that he thought the investigators were doing a good job, probably because they hadn't caught him yet. Greg wanted him to sweat though, so he actually called him a liar, and he told him that they were going to get him. And with Billy Little's help, they were getting closer. He joined the effort in March of 22, and after a thorough investigation of his own,

• 51:17Kendall Rae?

  he came to the conclusion that Dee truly intended to divorce Dale, and that she was serious about selling the trucking company, which is a motive if I've ever heard one. And then listen to this, okay? When Billy started going through Dale and Dee's finances, he realized that Dale created a new company under a name that was suspiciously similar to the trucking company's name. He created DDW Transportation, and the existing company was DDW Investments. Then, a few months later, after she disappeared, Dale started moving assets from the existing business to the new one. In order to do this though, what would he have needed? Dee's signature, right?

• 52:02Kendall Rae?

  And guess what? He totally forged it. I mean, think about it. If Dee sold the trucking company, all that money would go away, and the trucking company was the only company that was making a massive profit. So if he moved all the assets into his own name, he could continue running it without her. And it was later learned that he forged her name on other things too, including a $1.4 million loan through that same company. So Mr. Dale is a giant piece of shit, which we already knew, right? But law enforcement at this point was pretty much saying that without a body, there likely wouldn't be an arrest, which was very, very difficult for her family to accept.

• 52:45Kendall Rae?

  But with the help of Billy Little, Dee's family turned up the pressure. They started a Justice for Dee social media campaign. They held rallies and vigils to help keep her name in the news, and they even put up a billboard that said, "Help Dale Find Dee." Billy and Greg even held a press conference in May of 2022 to present the evidence that they say proved that Dale was involved in her disappearance, and it was clear that they were not going to stop until justice was served. And I don't know if this was a reaction to their efforts, I imagine it was, but in August of 2022, the Michigan State Police took over the case. And they of course just had far more resources than the local police department did, and

• 53:29Kendall Rae?

  those resources were immediately put into action. In December of that same year, Dale was interviewed for a third time, and this time investigators were finally able to call him out on his bullshit. After suggesting that Dee's own children were the ones who were acting strange on the morning of her disappearance, Dale's entire story of what supposedly happened that morning was called into question, specifically as it related to that damn JCB tractor. And as we know, Dale admitted to driving it to the back of the house on the morning of the 25th because he said he had forgotten something inside, which based on his own timeline was around 7:30 a.m.

• 54:12Kendall Rae?

  And according to Dale, Dee was asleep on the couch when this took place, right? But you guys, think about it. In order for him to even have been able to park that tractor in that spot, that would mean that Dee's Hummer would have had to already been moved to the office, meaning that Dee, of course, would have already been awake and left the house, but by his own account, she was still sleeping.

• 54:48Kendall Rae?

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• 56:14Kendall Rae?

  So something's not adding up here, right? It's not like he could have parked his tractor on top of her Hummer. And we know from several people in her life that that spot is always where she parked. Meaning that someone moved her car. And we know where it was moved to because Raquel saw it at the office. So who moved it? Dale or Dee? According to Dale, she was the one who moved it. She was the one who drove it over to the office. And that's where she, according to him, took her wedding ring off, put it on his desk and then vanished. But of course, when you think about it, that directly contradicts his own statement

• 56:56Kendall Rae?

  that Dee was asleep on the couch when he came inside looking for whatever it was that he forgot. Which by the way, the reason that I'm saying the thing that he forgot, I mean, you would hope that there would be an actual account of what it was. The reason it's still just referred to as the thing is because he has changed what it was multiple times across multiple different stories. But anyway, she could not have been asleep all morning and also have moved the Hummer before he drove the tractor right up to that back door. Doesn't add up. Also, if you remember, Raquel said that at some point that morning, the Hummer was moved back to its original spot. And Dee was already gone by that point.

• 57:39Kendall Rae?

  And on top of all of that weirdness, the farm's security cameras never captured the driver of the Hummer. And that's strange because if the car had taken the most direct route from the house to that building, a camera would have captured that. And instead, investigators came to believe that whoever drove it took the long way, which would have avoided the cameras. And then another wild discovery by investigators was the fact that Dale tried logging into the security camera system that morning to check the footage before 9:00 a.m. In this third interview, he admitted that he checked the cameras in order to try and find his wife.

• 58:23Kendall Rae?

  But you guys, he didn't get the call from Stephanie that Dee was missing until 10:32 a.m. He also used an app on his phone to access her Cadillac that morning, which he denied in the interview, but of course, data doesn't lie. And this matters because everyone says that Dee always kept her purse locked in that car. So investigators believed that he accessed it to get her purse in order to hide it and make it seem like she left on purpose. Now, this whole interview was basically just Dale trying to double down on what he had been saying, but it was obvious now more than ever that he was lying. Still though, no arrest was made. And Dee's family understandably was so upset by this point

• 59:08Kendall Rae?

  that they'd started the process of filing a wrongful death suit against him. That way they could at least get justice in some way. In order to do that though, they would have to get Dee declared legally dead, which wasn't something that happened very quickly. And her brother Greg had also petitioned the court to appoint a conservator to protect her business interests because, as we know, Dale was doing some shady stuff with that as well. And get this, in September of 2023, he was arrested after being found in contempt of court and sentenced to 93 days in jail as a result.

• 59:46Speaker 03

  Dale Warner, the husband of missing Lenawee County woman Dee Warner, is behind bars again tonight after being found in contempt of court criminally. Christie Girlette was in Adrian today and joins us now live in studio. Christie, there were several matters the judge heard regarding the Warner case today.

• 1:00:07Speaker 04

  Yes, there was. The first one was something that we've been reporting about for some time on whether Judge Catherine Sala would declare Deanne Warner officially dead. Take a look at this video from inside the courtroom earlier today. Judge Sala found Dale Warner in contempt of court, stating he intentionally and deliberately sold his wife's assets after being instructed by the court not to. She marked several examples of Dale's contempt, the most egregious being the selling of Dee's trucking company, which was the most profitable portion of her estate.

• 1:00:39Kendall Rae?

  Now, obviously, this was a little victory for Dee's family, but it wasn't the arrest that they were really looking for. Thankfully though, that was just around the corner. Because on November 21st, 2023, Dale Warner was finally arrested and charged with Dee's murder, as well as tampering with evidence. He was arraigned the following day and given a whopping $20 million bond, which secured his nasty ass behind bars.

• 1:01:08Speaker 05

  An emotional day for Deanne Warner's family.

• 1:01:10Speaker 02

  My sister was a gregarious person. Sorry, but it's hard to talk about.

• 1:01:19Speaker 05

  Her brother Greg Hardy pushing law enforcement the last two and a half years for a development like the one we're seeing today. This is in the matter of the people versus Dale Warner. Deanne's husband Dale Warner facing Lenawee County District Judge Laura Shadler for the first time since being arrested in connection with her disappearance and murder. Mr. Warner does enter a plea of not guilty to both counts. And with bond set at $20 million, 15 million for the murder charge, 5 million for tampering with evidence, Dee's nephew Parker Hardy quoting her response. Mr. Warner is just fine where he's at. And that was about as good as she could say it right there. Dee's son Zach Box still in shock with the recent developments. I still kind of feel like I'm in a bit of a dream.

• 1:02:03Speaker 05

  Like I can't really believe that it's happening right now. He says he's mostly looking forward to a guardianship hearing over Dee and Dale Warner's daughter, who is still a minor. It's been two years since I've been able to see my sister. Still a long road ahead for this family. Hearings, trial, reliving tragedy over and over. But they're hopeful for a conviction. One step closer to closure, yes.

• 1:02:27Kendall Rae?

  And I cannot imagine what this felt like for their family. For Dale to have been arrested after all that time, it had to have felt so good. And even though Dee's body still hadn't been found, with all of the evidence against him, state prosecutors were confident in their ability to secure a guilty conviction. In order to get that though, a preliminary hearing was required. So a judge could say for certain whether or not the evidence they had was enough to move forward with the trial. And let me tell you, the testimony from that hearing alone was all the evidence that I personally needed to know that Dale is a guilty sack of shit.

• 1:03:10Kendall Rae?

  Just this comment alone from Raquel tells me everything I need to know.

• 1:03:15Speaker 06

  Did she make any other statement to you during that conversation that would indicate any fear on her part? One of the last things that my mom said to me was, I watch Dateline like every night and he could do something like that to me. And what did she mean? What did you take that to mean? She, he could do something like that to me? Objection, speculation. If you know. Make her disappear.

• 1:03:40Kendall Rae?

  There is just something so chilling, so disturbing about the fact that Dee knew what Dale was capable of. And she said that only hours before he took her life. It is just heartbreaking, truly. It was definitely powerful, as was all of the testimony that came from that hearing. The judge heard from her family members regarding her troubled marriage and also from investigators regarding the evidence collected. And ultimately, it was ruled that there was enough evidence to move forward with a trial. And even better news than that, although bittersweet I should say, is that they wouldn't have to go through that trial to prove Dee's death without a body.

• 1:04:23Kendall Rae?

  And that's because on August 18th, 2024, Dee's remains were found. And the story of how they discovered her remains is absolutely insane. Now, the details go back to just a few days after Dee was reported missing. And it was her nephew Parker who first made the mental note that something he had seen didn't seem right. Right after she disappeared, Parker, who was Greg and Shelley's son, was on the Munger property. And it was sort of late at night and he ran into Dale, who appeared to be painting this old fertilizer tank. Take a listen.

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  When I pulled in to get fertilizer in this special fertilizer shed that has all these pumps and everything in it, he was, had this rusty and hydrous tank sitting on the ground. And I kind of chuckled. Normally they have what's called a running gear on them, which is the wheels. But this was just the tank sitting on the ground. And I kind of chuckled. I said, Dale, what the heck are you doing with that tank? I said, it looks like it's, I said, somebody had an accident. I've had him, we've had him, the bolts break and they roll off the cart if somebody turns too sharp. And I thought it rolled off the cart and ended up in a pond or something. People left it. And he said, oh, he said, that rusty thing. He said, I told the guys that I haven't been able to sleep at night. And I would, they bring a few of these rusty tanks in. I would paint them at night when I couldn't sleep down here in this fertilizer barn.

• 1:05:46Speaker 02

  No cameras, no nothing. He said, but I didn't mean that rusty tank. He said, I meant one of the ones on wheels that just had a little bit of rust. That had your, is very corrosive. So it will rust the outside of the tank. And every so many years, you paint the tanks, just lather some white paint on them. And so that's what he said he was doing. And I thought, this seems kind of strange to me, especially the rusty tank. I'd never seen it before laying around, just kind of appeared out of nowhere. I didn't think much of it. I, in the back of my head, it was just very weird. But I drove out of there and kept working.

• 1:06:17Kendall Rae?

  My dad goes down the next day and he's got that tank that he said he wasn't going to paint is still sitting there, half painted now. And like you heard, he didn't think all that much of this interaction. However, there were a few things that stood out to him as strange. For starters, this tank was in the spray barn, which I'm not an expert on farming, so this will probably make sense to some of you out there. But I guess this wouldn't normally be where you would store a tank if they were being worked on. And like he said, it was very rusty. And this is the kind of tank, from my understanding, that you would just get rid of, not the kind that could be revived with a fresh coat of paint. So the fact that Dale even painted

• 1:06:59Kendall Rae?

  it was weird to him. And both of his parents agreed. And in those early days, Greg and Shelley even talked about the possibility that Dee's body could be in there, but it just seemed too far fetched to them. In order to get her in there, Dale would have had to have opened the tank, put her in there, and then he would have had to re-weld it shut. And apparently Dale wasn't a very good welder. So they kind of just let this fall into the back of their minds. Now, to be clear, they did tell the police about the tank and why they thought Dale's behavior was strange, but for reasons we'll never know, no follow-up was ever done on it. And that's why it ultimately took years for

• 1:07:42Kendall Rae?

  the discovery to be made. And another huge shout out to Greg here because he ended up bringing this back to their attention. In August of 2024, he had sort of just been going through everything in his mind once again. And after the Michigan State Police shared some evidence with him, it reminded him about what he and Parker had seen. Greg says he remembers seeing Dale the day after the painted tank ordeal. And he said that Dale looked like he hadn't slept all night. Dale had even told him that he would, weirdly enough, paint those tanks whenever he couldn't sleep at night. This dude is unbelievable. Who would believe that? Like, oh, I can't fall asleep. Let me go out and paint the

• 1:08:25Kendall Rae?

  tanks. But anyway, Greg also knew that the cadaver dogs never searched the fertilizer barn in those early days because Dale, of course, had once made a comment that his dog died from being exposed to the chemicals. He basically said that his dog had walked around in there and the chemicals had absorbed and the dog had died because of it. So long story short, Greg tells investigators about what he and Parker witnessed, and that kicked off an all new search effort. Investigators say they were specifically looking for anhydrous tanks that appeared to have a fresh coat of paint. And basically, a non-factory weld just looks sloppier than a factory weld would. And that is exactly what they found

• 1:09:10Kendall Rae?

  in a barn on Paragon Road, a property owned by Dale, a few miles down the street from the Munger residence. The tank also had a sign on it that said, "Bad dip tube, do not use." And at first, the fear was that cutting the tank open would release harmful gases. So they actually took it to be x-rayed at, weirdly enough, a Canadian truck stop. I guess this was the nearest place they could think of to have something as big as a tank x-rayed. So when they did this, it revealed a tragic discovery. And I'm about to share that with you.

• 1:09:50Kendall Rae?

  So this weekend, me and a bunch of my girlfriends went out on a party bus to celebrate some of our friends' birthdays. And me and my bestie were freaking out the night before. We didn't know what to wear. We went to the mall and we could not find anything. And then I remembered I had a new Quince package. And her and I are the same size. So I FaceTimed her up. I showed her the options I had. It was the same shirt, a really nice silk blouse with a little lace on there. And I happened to have it in two different colors. So we weren't fully matching, but we had the same vibe and we were feeling good. And when I told her the price of that top, she could not believe it. You would not expect the price that you would pay for silk when it comes to Quince. Now, Quince is truly one of my favorite brands. I am currently wearing Quince yoga pants as I record this. Quince

• 1:10:34Kendall Rae?

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• 1:11:19Kendall Rae?

  same everyday elevation to everything they offer, from high-quality bedding and bath to kitchen staples, essentials, and thoughtfully designed furniture. I sleep with one of their comforters every single night, and I cannot believe the price that I paid for it. So upgrade your everyday. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com/tckr to get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com/tckr.

• 1:11:55Kendall Rae?

  When they x-rayed this tank, it was clear to them right away that Dee had been left in there. Now, I just want to warn you, I'm going to put the image on screen. It is not super graphic. You can't see much. It's more of a heat x-ray, but it just allows you to see the shape of the body. This is important to be able to see, and that's why I'm putting it there. But it is pretty wild to see that. And this is super upsetting to say, but when they opened that tank, they found that she had duct tape over her face and her neck, and she had been wrapped in a blue tarp. The medical examiner says that she died of strangulation and that she also had blunt force trauma to her face and her head. And

• 1:12:39Kendall Rae?

  do you want to know that evidence I mentioned earlier that investigators shared with Greg that jogged his memory? It turns out that's security cameras on the property captured Dale moving welding equipment into the spray barn not long after Dee went missing. And what's super freaky about this, too, is they believe she likely hadn't been put into the tank until a few days after she died. So she was somewhere on the property when friends and family were looking for her, and we don't know where. They think it's possible that she had been kept in a safe, but not totally sure on that. And I'm sure

• 1:13:19Kendall Rae?

  a lot of you will be able to guess how they believe he moved her body. That fucking JCB tractor. That was the reason for those tire tracks. They don't think he forgot something inside. They think that he drove right up to those sliding glass doors and put her body in the bucket of the tractor and then transported it somewhere else until he eventually moved her to the tank. And they're pretty sure they have a video of him doing it. When investigators were going back over all that body cam and drone footage from those first few days, they realized that they had captured footage of Dale on Tuesday, the 27th, using

• 1:14:01Kendall Rae?

  a tractor to move a white anhydrous tank toward the spray barn. There was also body cam footage from that same day, and they're pretty sure the tank her body was found in could be seen on video. So he was literally moving evidence right under their noses. And on top of that, body cam footage from Dale's second interview showed that he had a pretty significant sunburn on his arms. Now, mind you, this is April. And if you've ever been to Michigan in April, the UV is not going that hard, right? But I didn't know this. I guess welding, if you don't use proper protection, can actually give you a sunburn. And it makes sense, right? And not only that, you guys, Dale's fingerprint

• 1:14:43Kendall Rae?

  was also found on the ammonia sticker on the tank she was found in. But I don't think you need any more convincing at this point. It's pretty obvious what he did. And since I'm already going over a lot of evidence here, we may as well go ahead and jump into the trial, which began very recently in February of 2026.

• 1:15:03Speaker 06

  April 24, 2021. She went home to tell her husband, defendant, that the marriage is over. They were selling their businesses. They were through. She was never seen or heard from again. August 17, 2024, over three years later, she was found in an anhydrous ammonia fertilizer tank. Well, the medical examiner examined her body. She'd been strangled. She had blunt force trauma to her face and had her face and neck were wrapped in duct tape. She was in her pajamas, wrapped in a tarp, welded into a tank.

• 1:15:45Kendall Rae?

  In the rest of that opening statement, the prosecuting attorney did a really good job of laying out all the facts of this case. And the fact of the matter is Dale and Dee had a very troubled marriage.

• 1:15:57Speaker 06

  I'm going to talk a little bit about Dee and Dale's relationship, which the witnesses will testify was never good. Constant verbal disagreements over text, face to face, a pattern of stalking by Dale towards Dee. She Dee, her main car was a Cadillac Escalade. Comes with OnStar. So you can go on your phone and you can find out where the car was. Well, you'll hear from the person from OnStar. They were able to pull up their records. How many times that Dale tracked Dee over the period from January of 2020 through April of 2021? And it was over 2,000 times that he tried to get her or did find her locations, over four times a day.

• 1:16:42Speaker 06

  She also drove a Hummer occasionally. That was also a GM product, but it didn't come with OnStar. His then son-in-law, Brian Bush, will testify that he wanted to track her in the Hummer too. And so he had Brian, he Dale, had Brian buy off Amazon a tracker that could be installed in the Hummer. They had their, they had an IT person from the farm. Kyle Wagner will testify. Dee was scheduled for a medical procedure. Dale approaches him and says, can you clone Dee's phone for me? Basically download everything that's on there, all her texts, all her phone calls. And Kyle says, no, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna violate her trust. Last thing he did with Brian

• 1:17:25Speaker 06

  was to try to set up cameras in the living space so he could monitor Dee in the, in the home.

• 1:17:32Kendall Rae?

  And that only scratches the surface of Dale's efforts to try and control and track his wife. He was clearly a jealous, very unhappy person. And more importantly, rather than risk losing millions of dollars from the trucking business, the prosecution argued that he murdered Dee and put her body in the tank to try and conceal his crimes. Now, the defense, on the other hand, argued that the state's theory was purely based on speculation, assumption, and innuendo, and that they had no physical evidence to support their theory. And yes, the state's evidence was largely circumstantial, but based on what I've already told you so far, it was as good as circumstantial gets. And every person that testified

• 1:18:17Kendall Rae?

  really solidified the facts of this case as I've already been presenting them to you. And I believe it was easy to see that nobody other than Dale had the motive, means, and of course, the opportunity to commit this crime. At the end of the day, Dee was planning on leaving his sorry ass. And with that, she would be cutting off his supply of money. And he was the only one there that night who could have possibly made her disappear. And this was separate from the trial, but his son Jaren was actually arrested in March of 2025 and charged with tampering with evidence and being an accessory after the fact in Dee's murder. But those charges were later dropped when prosecutors couldn't locate a witness that they needed to support their case.

• 1:19:01Kendall Rae?

  They can refile those charges at any time, though, and I hope they do. And there also was a jailhouse call where the two of them appeared to be talking about the tank being x-rayed, which is why they thought he was involved. But I guess not anymore. I don't really know what's going on with that. But obviously, that's a huge piece of information to just drop on you. But unfortunately, nothing has come of it and there's not much more to say. But going back to the trial with the caveat of Jaren possibly being involved, Dale was the sole focus. And I'm not going to make you sit through all the evidence and testimonies since, you know, we've gone over it throughout this episode. But there are a few more things that came up that I think are worth mentioning, including the fact that in May of 2021, Dale, like the blockhead he is,

• 1:19:45Kendall Rae?

  searched the internet for what to do with a 1,000 gallon propane tank? Chemical cremation? What is liquid cremation and why is it illegal? Widower's dating site? 10 widow dating sites? Widower dating page? Fucking moron. And not only that, he also apparently forgot to remove his Apple Watch that night, which revealed he had a higher heart rate than usual. Can't imagine why. And there was some shady shit that he had asked his IT guy to do only a day after Dee went missing. And just to be clear, not shady on the IT guy's part, but on Dale's part. Take a listen to that.

• 1:20:21Speaker 06

  Did Dale contact you regarding the IT system? Yes. Okay. I received a phone call early in the morning. It probably was between 8:00 and 8:30. He requested that, that we meet. And what are the things that he wanted you to do? He wanted the cameras put back on his phone. So the, the milestone server allows you to be able to access it through the milestone app that can be installed on your smartphone. And I needed to update some settings with, within his phone so that way he could be able to, to, to view the footage. Okay, so the surveillance, that's what you're referring to as milestone? Correct.

• 1:21:03Speaker 06

  Could you view the surveillance footage from the office? Yes. How so? You could access it from the, the computer that was at the reception desk. All right. And then tell us about the phone. You said that he wanted to update it on his phone? He wanted to be able to view, to be able to access the cameras from his phone. What else did he ask you to do when you met with him? He wanted access to the camera server taken away from some of the other people that had it. Okay. And so who was left with access to the, the server access? I believe it was, was Parker Hardy and Zach Bach. So they were, they were removed or they were left? Oh, they were removed. Sorry.

• 1:21:47Speaker 06

  Okay. And so who was left with access at that point? At that point, it just would have been Dale.

• 1:21:52Kendall Rae?

  And then, of course, there were days worth of testimony related to Dee and Dale's relationship, the fight that transpired between them and how Dale could be connected back to the tank her body was found in. You know, stuff you've already heard me talk about. Now, as for the defense's case, they called into question much of the state's claims, of course. And one thing that his attorney really argued was that Dale's fingerprint being on the tank wasn't that strange because this was his farm after all. So it wouldn't be unusual for his DNA to be anywhere. She also argued that none of the footage of Dale moving the tank during investigator's search proved he was moving the tank she was in. According to her, it could have been any tank.

• 1:22:35Kendall Rae?

  And ultimately, she said that Dale simply didn't have the time to do everything the state was accusing him of. But in the end, the jury found him guilty. In the end, Dale Warner was found guilty of second degree murder, tampering with evidence, and was sentenced to 70 years in prison. Now, he is eligible for parole, but not until he's 91 years old. And I hope he, maybe I shouldn't say what I was about to say. I'm sure you guys could guess, but anyway. But one thing I really want to highlight here is that Dee's case is really such a reminder of the importance of family advocacy. I can't say whether or not investigators would have given up, you know, trying to get justice for Dee,

• 1:23:18Kendall Rae?

  but I know for a fact that their family pushing so hard was a big reason that things moved forward the way that they did. And who knows if she would have gotten justice without them doing everything they did? No part of the last several years for them has been easy. I am grateful, though, that they were finally able to lay Dee to rest properly. After her remains were found, they had a proper burial for her and they were able to say goodbye to her officially. And her headstone reads, Dan, of course, without the Warner. And with Lena being so young, I can only imagine how hard this has been on her, knowing that her dad was the one that killed her mom. I'm sure it's very hard for her to even understand

• 1:24:01Kendall Rae?

  everything that's happened and what's going on now. But as she gets older, I'm sure she will put more and more pieces together and family will clue her in. And that's going to be very, very tough if she doesn't already know those things. And I've been trying to figure out whose custody she's currently in. You know, obviously, I'm concerned for her. And I believe she's in Jaren's custody of all people. I guess Dale had signed custody over to him before his arrest. And I believe there's been a custody dispute over her ever since. And I can see why. I just hope that she ends up in the best hands possible and that their family can all be at peace about where she ends up. Very tough situation. And also a quick note, speaking of disputes,

• 1:24:45Kendall Rae?

  the $100 million wrongful death lawsuit is still in the works, but Dale's conviction will definitely help their case. And I will be sure to pin a comment or put an update in the show notes of this episode if you're listening on Spotify or Apple when updates come on that as well. And I really, really hope they win that lawsuit. Just an absolutely wild case, though, right? I mean, Dale truly could have gotten away with this. And that is a very scary thought. But thankfully, Dee has an amazing family who would have never given up on her. And their efforts truly paid off, which is really beautiful to see. Definitely want to hear your thoughts on this one, you guys. So let me know in the comments below.

• 1:25:29Kendall Rae?

  That is going to be it for me this week. But of course, I'll be back next week to discuss another case. And until then, stay safe out there.

• 1:25:58Speaker 03

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