Show full transcript 0:48 and earn unlimited 3% cash back 0:51 with the Saver Card, Capital One, what's in your wallet. 0:54 Terms apply, see capitalone.com for details. 0:59 Tonight on Date Live. 1:01 Got a knock on my door that changed my whole life that morning. 1:06 You don't know what to do when somebody goes missing. 1:09 They didn't want to believe it. 1:12 D has just disappeared. 1:14 Just disappeared. 1:15 Drone team, infrared cameras, K-9s, zero physical evidence. 1:21 She owned a farming company, a strong, independent businesswoman. 1:26 They definitely both really wanted to build this big empire. 1:30 You always have to look at the spouse. 1:31 Right. 1:32 I hear your wife is missing. 1:34 I don't know if she's missing or if she just left. 1:36 It was not uncommon for her to leave the home. 1:39 Both her vehicles were still there. 1:41 Did somebody come and pick her up? 1:42 There was this rumor of somebody that she might have been having an affair with. 1:45 An employee is seen on the farm in the middle of the night. 1:48 Mm-hmm very suspicious. You get word that an x-ray has been done. Yes. It was starting to become terrifying 1:55 What the hell is going on here? 1:57 It's a wholesome farm life in a safe little community. Was this not supposed to happen, right? 2:04 Mystery on the farm a frightening disappearance and fertile ground for secrets. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline 2:21 Here's Andrea Kenning with the day D disappeared 2:29 There's a certain rhythm to farm life 2:31 in Lenaway County, Michigan. 2:35 Tilling the soil, planting the crops, 2:38 tractors criss-crossing the fields at sunrise. 2:41 Dee Warner knew that cadence by heart. 2:48 She really cared about the farm. 2:49 She did. 2:50 It was in her blood. 2:52 A six-generation farmer, 52-year-old Dee 2:55 ran the sprawling farming enterprise with her husband, 2:58 Dale. 2:59 She was hard-charging, fiery. 3:03 Dee drives a Hummer. 3:03 I mean, do we need to say anything else? 3:07 Oh, yeah. 3:08 Well, you know, she drove a Hummer in an Escalade, so you can see her personality would go either 3:13 ritzy or rugged, right? 3:16 Dee's brother, Greg Hardy and his wife, Shelley, say she was reliable too, especially when 3:21 it came to her five children. 3:23 So when Dee missed a standing breakfast with her daughter Raquel on a Sunday morning 3:27 in April 2021, the kids were alarmed. 3:30 Raquel came and said, have you seen my mom? 3:35 And I said, no, she hasn't come down. 3:38 And they said, well, we can't find her anywhere. 3:41 Dee's husband said he was at a loss as well. 3:44 Raquel had called Dale and asked him if he knew where Dee was. 3:48 And he said, no. 3:49 No idea. 3:49 No. 3:50 He said she was sleeping on the couch, 3:52 snoring like a baby when he saw her in the morning. 3:55 Greg and Shelly didn't panic at first. 3:58 Dee would often get away for a day or two 4:00 when she needed time to think. 4:02 But when their calls went straight to voicemail. 4:05 I knew something was wrong 4:06 because she would always answer me. 4:07 We weren't the people, brother and sister, 4:09 who chatted about the weather every day 4:11 or anything like that. 4:12 Yeah, there was a purpose. 4:13 Always a purpose. 4:14 And I'm sure she saw it sometimes 4:15 when I called, oh, it's Greg. 4:18 But we would always answer or immediately call back. 4:22 Greg and Shelly offered to help look for her. 4:25 We started searching everywhere, 4:27 every place we could possibly think of. 4:29 If we searched at our offices, we came to the barns. 4:33 We went back to Dee's, went through her farm. 4:37 At Dee's farmhouse, a couple of things caught Shelly's eye. 4:41 She didn't see Dee's purse anywhere 4:43 and strewn across the furniture, tissues. 4:46 Tissues like she hit, like you blow your nose. 4:49 Yeah, her nose was running and, 4:50 but they weren't rumpled up. 4:52 They were just like maybe wiped her nose 4:55 and put it down, wiped it. 4:57 It was just an unusual thing. 4:59 It was very odd. 5:01 And outside, both of Dee's vehicles were still there. 5:04 So she didn't leave in her car? 5:06 She wouldn't go anywhere without driving her car, 5:08 or the homer, or the Escalade. 5:11 Early that evening, Dee's kids called the police. 5:15 Deputy Austin Hall arrived at the farmhouse, 5:18 body cam rolling. 5:20 When I got there, I knocked on the door, didn't get an answer. 5:23 I saw Dale out in one of the barns. 5:26 Are you Dale? 5:29 Excellent. 5:30 I am Deputy All from Lonely County Sheriff's Office. 5:32 How are you, sir? 5:33 So, I hear your wife is missing? 5:36 Well, I don't know if she's missing or if she just left. 5:39 Dale told the deputy his wife was stressed over a recent argument with two employees. 5:44 Still upset Saturday night, she picked a fight with him before going to bed with a migraine. 5:49 She's got some migraine pills in there that she takes. 5:53 She took quite a few of those and then she finally passed out on the couch, went to sleep and got her calmed down. 6:01 The next morning, that Sunday, Dale said she was asleep on the couch when he got up to spray the fields. 6:07 By the time he returned, he said Dee was gone, along with an overnight bag and some beauty products. 6:12 Does Dale seem concerned? 6:14 No. No, not really. 6:17 I mean, I would think something was off, but she took her stuff. 6:21 So I mean, it's not like somebody forced her to go anywhere, it's just... 6:26 He explained it that, you know, she does this all the time. 6:29 This is something that is a routine thing where she gets mad and goes off. 6:34 I don't want to get everybody all fired up. 6:35 The kids are all fired up and called police and get her. 6:38 This isn't the first time she's done this, guys. 6:40 Was there any sign of foul play? 6:43 Did you see blood anywhere? 6:44 Did you see a struggle anywhere? 6:46 No. I didn't see anything that remotely made me say, 6:49 you know, something nefarious had occurred there. 6:53 Even so, he took a close look at Dale's hands. 6:56 One of the first things you do and are taught as a deputy 6:59 is you look at some of these hands, you know. 7:02 And if somebody was in a domestic situation, 7:06 they're gonna have some kind of self-defense marks 7:08 that would be left on their hands. 7:10 Did you see anything on Dale? 7:11 Nothing, yep, nothing. 7:13 Deputy Hall wasn't sure what to make of the situation. 7:16 I called my supervisor and said, 7:18 said, hey, this is what I got. 7:19 This is weird, but I don't have really anything to go off of. 7:23 So they said, you know, file your report. 7:26 Somebody will follow up at some later point. 7:28 You got a card? 7:28 Yes, yes, I'll give you that. 7:30 Did you think she was gonna be found? 7:31 I thought there was a good chance for sure. 7:35 The deputy was right. 7:37 Dee would be found, but not for a very long time. 7:42 This was consuming you. 7:43 Oh, he was very consumed. 7:46 This image from the X-ray was going to change everything. 7:51 It changed everything. 7:53 I couldn't even breathe. 7:54 It was like five years of emotion just burst out. 8:12 Shelly, what was it like for you as the sun is coming up the next day 8:15 and still no one has heard from Dee? 8:22 Just difficult because you don't know what to do. 8:26 You just keep thinking, where in the world would she have gone? 8:29 What can we do to find her? 8:32 Dee Warner's family couldn't imagine why she would walk away from her life. 8:36 But her brother, Greg, says she did have that rebellious streak. 8:39 She was a feisty girl, and so she was a lot of work. 8:44 I've heard. 8:45 Yeah, yeah, it's true, yeah. 8:47 She had a mind of her own too. 8:50 Dee was fun, loud, and just as likely to show up in full makeup 8:54 as she was in work boots. 8:56 That woman would not go to the gas station 8:58 without being made up. 9:00 Parker Hardy is Dee's nephew. 9:02 I love the thought of her in the middle of farm country 9:05 made up at all times. 9:07 All times. 9:08 Delivering lunches to the tractors, working in the fields. 9:11 And her fashion sense was kind of matched her personality. 9:15 Very much so. 9:16 Very blingy, very lots of cheetah print. 9:19 Very flashy, very professional too. 9:21 Like to shop? 9:23 Oh yeah. 9:23 She loved to shop, but she earned the money, so it was more work, the more shopping. 9:32 Making money was important to Dee. 9:34 After raising four kids with her first husband, she fell for Dale, a fellow farmer who shared her ambition. 9:41 She and Dale both were what I call empire builders. 9:45 And they both wanted that. 9:46 Yeah, so this was something they could build a worker and they worked together very well 9:53 Dale who was also married with four kids came from another farming family in town 9:57 So when they left their spouses and married each other. Oh, that was a huge deal 10:03 Catherine Adams is Dee's lifelong friend 10:05 That was a very big deal because they were you know competitive farm families and you know, they didn't get along 10:12 And then the real thing that iced the cake was that Dale's ex-wife, Mary D's ex-husband, 10:19 stopped it. 10:21 It was messy. 10:21 It was very messy. 10:22 It was messy for a long time. 10:26 Despite the drama, D and Dale's partnership paid off. 10:29 They pulled their resources and built a multi-million dollar farming empire. 10:33 It included growing crops, seed and fertilizer sales, and a fleet of 18 wheelers. 10:39 Dale was in charge of farm operations, 10:42 D managed the money, the employees, 10:44 and her brainchild, the trucking business. 10:47 D had to really fit in with men. 10:49 You know, because like in business, 10:51 you know, where she's the boss, 10:52 men don't always love that, 10:54 especially maybe in this business. 10:56 I think that's where she got her real tough shell 10:59 and her real fiery personality. 11:00 She wasn't afraid to tell it like it is. 11:03 She made it happen and by any means necessary 11:05 and she didn't care whose toes she stepped on. 11:08 At work and at home, there was one person who was rarely far from Dee's side, her nine-year-old 11:14 daughter Angelina, the only child she shared with Dale. She was a little mini-D, just a total 11:20 diva. Makeup, glitter, cheetah print was a, it, yeah. It was, it was both of their signature? 11:28 Yes, definitely. Angelina became the love of her life as a little girl and she drug her 11:35 everywhere. She's in the office, she's in the car, she's in the truck, she's in whatever. 11:40 Which made Dee's sudden disappearance all the more perplexing. 11:43 Angelina wasn't home when Dee went missing. She was at a sleepover. 11:47 She would never leave Angelina. We couldn't understand. 11:51 Dee's relatives expanded their search of the family properties. 11:55 It must have been so daunting. I mean we're talking about thousands and thousands of acres 11:59 of land. Yeah, we just keep looking and that's all we could do. 12:03 They began to wonder about Dee's mental health. 12:07 Was she upset enough because we knew we'd heard that she was upset the days before? 12:12 Arguably. 12:12 Over some employees, et cetera, that maybe she just had enough 12:17 and maybe she did decide to do some self-harm. 12:20 As successful as the Warners were, running the business was a lot for Dee. 12:25 She told her kids she was worn out and wanted a break from it all. 12:29 Could Dee have taken her own life? 12:30 As they searched, Parker was afraid of what they might find. 12:35 I thought for sure that I was probably going to see her propped up against a tree. 12:39 That was what I was bracing myself for. 12:42 Wow. 12:42 But, um, we saw nothing. 12:45 On that second day, another investigator followed up with Dale at the farm. 12:49 I'm Detective Greco from the Sheriff's Department. 12:52 Can we just step inside and talk? 12:54 Dale still didn't seem to share the family's anxieties. 12:57 What do you think? 13:01 But by mid-week, after a couple more visits from detectives, even Dale seemed worried. 13:13 Something else Dia had never done, he said, leave her wedding ring behind. 13:18 And when I walked through the office, her ring is on my desk. 13:22 That's what just something is f***ing wrong. 13:25 Did you think that was a sign of trouble in the marriage? 13:28 Absolutely. 13:28 That that was her message? 13:30 Yeah. 13:30 Right. 13:30 You always have to look at the spouse. 13:32 Right. 13:32 And at this point, he had been cooperative with us. 13:36 He was willing to sit down and have an interview with us. 13:39 More than welcome to invite us inside. 13:42 Investigators looked into Dale's story, and the farm's security cameras seemed 13:46 to back it up. 13:47 Footage showed Dale heading out to spray the fields the morning Dee disappeared just like he said. 13:53 Employees and friends also told him Dale was a loving husband. 13:56 He's the nicest guy. He wouldn't harm her. She was the hothead. 14:00 I was going to say, he's the calm, cool collector. 14:02 She was like the bad cop. He was the good cop. 14:05 Yes, right. He's just not capable of it. 14:07 We're with Dale right now. 14:09 Dale occupied himself with farm chores while investigators worked around him. 14:12 They searched the property with cadaver dogs and drones with infrared cameras. 14:18 They watched hours of that security camera footage, frame by frame. 14:23 And that's when they spotted something. 14:25 A middle-of-the-night visitor who would soon become a key focus of the investigation. 14:30 Three in the morning. 14:31 Three in the- that's an odd time. 14:33 Very odd. 14:33 To be showing up to a farm. 14:35 Yes. 14:40 There's a freedom in South Dakota. 14:43 One that reminds you how travel is supposed to make you feel. 14:46 No crowds, no rush, no pressure. 14:48 Just the freedom to explore on your own terms. 14:52 South Dakota has a way of surprising you. 14:55 Five million acres of forest, mountain lakes, national monuments, and prairies. 15:00 Get your hiking boots dirty in the black hills. 15:03 Chase a clear sky full of stars in the badlands. 15:06 Or cast a line into the Missouri River. 15:09 Craving arts and culture? 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17:14 Absolutely. 17:15 There definitely was the thought that there would be foul play. 17:18 Dee's cell phone data didn't help narrow it down. 17:21 Her phone went off the grid around 7 a.m. the morning she disappeared. 17:25 She hadn't used her credit cards or made a withdrawal at a bank, either. 17:29 But Dale said she might not have needed to. 17:32 The couple routinely kept a lot of money around the house. 17:35 He says, well, she's got cash on her. 17:37 He's like, oh, look, how much cash were you talking? 17:40 You know, is it enough to go out to eat a few times, get your nails done? 17:42 and he goes probably 50 to 100,000. 17:45 What? 17:46 It's like 50 to 100,000. 17:48 Who walks around with cash like that? 17:50 Right, right, so later Dale explains 17:53 that they had a shared safe. 17:55 With money like that, they thought D could be anywhere. 17:59 Maybe she's out of the country. 18:00 Maybe she went to her favorite vacation destination. 18:03 At this point, we had started contacting the FAA 18:06 and finding out if there was any site of her 18:09 going through an airport. 18:11 I mean, they have records of all that, nothing, nothing, nothing at all. 18:15 What about international? 18:17 International. 18:18 Passport run through the system. 18:19 She had a passport, but it had not been used at all. 18:23 Since both of Dee's SUVs were at the farm, investigators wondered if someone picked her 18:27 up. 18:28 Maybe another man. 18:30 Greg says Dee had no shortage of admirers. 18:33 Dee is an attractive woman. 18:34 She has a flirtatious type personality for everybody. 18:39 I asked Dale. 18:39 Is there a history of affairs? 18:42 What does Dale say? 18:43 Dale says, no, I'm not concerned at all that she'd be having an affair. 18:46 Okay. 18:47 Okay, well, I'd be far from the first gentleman to have no idea that his wife is having an 18:52 affair. 18:53 He might not know. 18:54 Absolutely. 18:55 Sure enough, through their interviews, investigators discovered that Dee had been seeing someone, 19:01 a married builder from town. 19:03 So that goes back to, okay, if she either ran away with him or maybe she wouldn't 19:07 run away with him and he came in and did something bad. 19:10 When you have a married lover, it could be the lover. 19:15 It could be the lover's wife. 19:17 So we traced that lead down as well and contacted him. 19:21 Did he have any reason to be angry with Dee? 19:25 No. 19:25 Had she broken up with him and he was resentful? 19:27 He said it was more just a fling kind of a thing. 19:29 So just a casual fling or something more complicated? 19:33 While investigators pursued that lead, they were also hearing about Dee's tell-it-like 19:37 it is personality. Had she angered someone to the point of wanting revenge? 19:42 There were a lot of people who did not like Dee. 19:44 Yeah, definitely. Everybody knew Dee, you know, and they all either hated her or loved her. 19:51 Or they hated her but still said she was a nice lady. 19:54 Maybe someone had come to the farm looking for her. 19:57 Investigators took a close look at that security footage. 20:00 That's when they noticed something. 20:02 Someone driving onto the property in the middle of the night. 20:05 shortly before Dee disappeared. 20:08 How early? 20:09 Like three in the morning. 20:10 Three in the morning. 20:10 That's an odd time. 20:11 Very odd. 20:12 To be showing up to a farm. 20:13 Yeah. 20:14 So that immediately, red flags were going off everywhere. 20:18 Turned out it was Dee's right-hand man from her trucking company, Todd Nurek. 20:22 He was one of the employees Dee fought with right before she went missing. 20:26 Now, here he was in the pre-dawn hours, picking up a truck and driving it off 20:30 Dee's farm. 20:31 Not only that. 20:32 He signed in on the electronic truck log with a different person's name and 20:39 driver ID number. This is very suspicious. Very suspicious. Was he 20:43 interviewed I'm assuming? Absolutely. And what does he say he's doing there in 20:47 the middle of the night? On the first interview it was very very cold. He 20:52 didn't want to give out a whole lot of information. He explained you know I had 20:55 nothing to do with this. I didn't hurt her. I don't know where she is. 21:00 Detectives talked to Todd again, pressed him harder. 21:03 This time, Deputy Hall says he admitted to lying but said it had nothing to do with Dee's disappearance. 21:09 He was just taking a load out of state somewhere, and he was driving longer than he was supposed to. 21:16 And so that's why he was kind of being cold about it, 21:20 because he was bending the rules to take a load further than he should. 21:24 But Deputy Hall says Todd told detectives if he'd been evasive, it was because of that 21:29 and nothing else. 21:31 But Dee's friend Catherine wasn't so sure. 21:34 I thought Dee might have been in that truck. 21:37 Despite those leads, there were no immediate arrests. 21:41 Weeks turned into months. 21:42 Dee's story went national. 21:44 Dateline featured it in our Missing in America series. 21:48 Catherine organized rallies, put up billboards, and formed a Facebook group called Justice 21:53 for Dee. 21:53 We had Justice for D bracelets. We would hand out. We had flyers that went up. 21:59 Shelly put a bracelet on her wrist too and made a vow. You were never gonna take 22:04 it off until you got justice. Until I got justice. Dale told Parker he was 22:09 struggling so he threw himself into mundane tasks around the farm. He said 22:14 I'm worried about where DD's at so I told the guys to bring in some 22:17 tanks, and I would paint them at night when I can't sleep. 22:23 The lack of progress with the investigation was driving Dee's brother crazy. 22:27 This was consuming you. 22:29 Oh, he was very consumed, I can tell you. 22:32 Every day there wasn't a day that Greg didn't work on him. 22:37 Luckily, help would soon be on the way, but it came with a warning. 22:42 I said, hey, I'll go wherever the evidence leads me, so if it leads me to you, be 22:46 careful. 22:46 Almost a year after Dee's disappearance, investigators had no answers or suspects. 23:06 Dale had been cooperative, sitting through interviews and searches of his property. 23:11 But he'd grown tired of people poking around the farm. 23:14 By now, police had cleared that employee, Todd, who took the truck. 23:19 And as for the married man Dee was seeing? 23:21 He was out of the state on a family vacation. 23:24 Was this a rock solid alibi? 23:27 Rock solid. 23:29 Shelly and Greg had lost hope of ever seeing Dee again. 23:33 Greg said, Shelly, you've got to come to reality that Dee's gone. 23:39 And that was really hard for me that day because it was such a final, like, 23:46 I knew he was right, but I didn't want to believe it. 23:50 Now convinced, Dee met with foul play. 23:53 One night, something caught Shelly's attention. 23:55 You're up in the middle of the night watching some type of true crime show, and you see 24:00 a private investigator. 24:01 Right. 24:02 All the time, we had been told, you know, nobody, homicides are never proven. 24:09 You can never prove them without a body. 24:10 And I saw this guy on there, and all I can remember is him saying, just because you're 24:17 good at hiding a body doesn't mean you're not a murderer. 24:22 Shelly tracked the PI down, Billy Little Jr. 24:26 Did you think that this was something that you could help with? 24:29 I did, and so after talking it through with them, I gave them the standard warning. 24:34 I said, hey, you know, I'll go wherever the evidence leads me. 24:37 So if it leads me to you, be careful. 24:39 Billy, also a successful attorney, occasionally took on cases pro bono. 24:44 This would be one of them. 24:46 He drove 10 hours from Missouri with his sleeping bag and a whiteboard 24:50 and moved on to Greg and Shelley's farm. 24:52 I'm old school, so I'd start laying out the steps, 24:55 some of the people I need to interview, 24:56 some of the places I need to look. 24:58 He sent up drones looking for Dee, 25:00 spoke with dozens of people in her circle, 25:03 and walked acres of the family property with Greg. 25:06 One day, Dale pulled up. 25:08 He wasn't happy. 25:10 So now you're face-to-face with Dale. 25:12 Yeah, and Dale goes zero to 100 in a split second. 25:17 He has words with Greg, then he turns on his heel, gets in his truck, and leaves. 25:23 To Billy, it seemed an odd reaction. 25:26 Greg had his own growing suspicions. 25:29 Dale never joined a single search, seemed detached. 25:33 And as for that diamond ring D supposedly left behind? 25:36 The wedding ring thing didn't make sense at all because D would never leave him anything. 25:42 Billy took a closer look at their relationship. 25:44 He learned there were frequent fights over money. 25:47 There were people who witnessed aggressive arguments. 25:51 That argument the night before Dee went missing? 25:54 Dee's friends believed it was bigger than Dale let on. 25:57 Dee planned to tell him she was selling the trunking company and wanted a divorce. 26:01 Billy could only come to one conclusion. 26:05 Dale killed Dee. 26:06 Dee's family agreed. 26:08 Parker, who lived next door to Dale, was on pins and needles. 26:12 What was that like living so close to him? 26:14 It was treacherous. It was terrible. They put a lot of stress on me. 26:19 His fear that Dale might target him to derail his father Greg's campaign for justice. 26:25 You say you slept kind of with one eye open? 26:27 Always. You know, I never thought that I would have to sleep with a gun on my nightstand, but I did. 26:33 Greg couldn't keep quiet any longer at a vigil for Dee with the community listening. 26:39 Publicly he announced that he thought Dale was the one that murdered Dee. 26:43 The intensity of this domestic dispute between D and Dale 26:50 had elevated to a point which seemed of no return. 26:54 It is my opinion that D does not leave her home voluntarily. 27:00 Okay, let's call it like it is. 27:01 On Saturday night of April 24, 2021, 27:03 there are two people in our house. 27:04 On Sunday morning, there was only one. 27:07 Greg is now publicly calling out Dale. 27:10 It kind of put the pressure on because we all thought it, but now we're saying it publicly. 27:19 While others around town, like Dale's children, customers and employees supported him. 27:24 The tight-knit community split in two. 27:27 It was truly more than it ever had been the Hatfields of McCoy's. 27:30 There was no mixing. 27:32 You were either a Justice for D warrior as people refer to it, or you were Team Dale. 27:37 Dee's family and friends pressured the sheriff with rallies and impromptu visits. 27:43 Finally, 15 months after Dee disappeared, he handed the case over to Michigan State Police. 27:49 That was a huge relief. That was probably one of the best moments of the entire case, 27:54 because that was when we finally felt heard. 27:58 Investigators came in with fresh eyes and big resources. Teaming up with prosecutors 28:03 Peter's Jackie Wise and David McCready, 28:06 they set out to rebuild the case from the ground up. 28:09 I think they searched over 3,000 acres of land 28:12 looking for Dee's body. 28:14 They didn't find her, but searches on Dale's devices 28:17 turned up some troubling digital clues. 28:20 He is searching how to cremate someone 28:22 using liquid chemicals. 28:25 And why would you be doing that? 28:27 And the morning de-vanished, 28:29 Dale logged onto the farm's security camera system. 28:32 Investigators suspected he was checking the footage 28:35 for anything that could implicate him. 28:38 When does this really turn in your eyes 28:40 from missing woman to murdered woman? 28:44 Early in 2023, Michigan State had police sat me down 28:48 and they went over the case from top to bottom. 28:51 And by the time that they were done, 28:53 I was fully convinced. 28:57 But trying an entirely circumstantial case 29:00 wouldn't be easy. 29:01 And without the body, you've got a mountain to climb over. 29:05 So prosecutors consulted the family before moving forward. 29:09 What did the family say to you? 29:11 Let's do it. 29:12 How's it going? 29:13 Two and a half years after Dee disappeared, Dale Warner was arrested and charged with 29:17 her murder. 29:22 With Dale behind bars, investigators continued to look for evidence. 29:27 and the break they'd been waiting for was closer than they knew. 29:31 This image from the X-ray was going to change everything. 29:36 It changed everything. 29:42 Hey, it's Kelly Ripa, and if you don't know, 29:44 I have a podcast where I get to say whatever I want. 29:48 Hold on, let me get a shovel in a body bag. 29:50 I envision doing a podcast with the conversations that happen 29:53 in my dressing room off-camera where people feel free to talk. 29:58 No hair, no makeup, this is my kind of job. 30:00 Only Kelly Ripa can ask me these questions. 30:03 I'm flipping the script and saying what's really on my mind. 30:05 We're seeing a different side of you. 30:08 It's a little bit more honest. 30:09 When the cameras go off, the real fun begins. 30:12 Get my hair done over here. 30:13 Hey! 30:14 This is an off-camera podcast, so it doesn't even matter. 30:17 It's unfiltered conversations and unexpected confessions. 30:21 My mom says, 30:22 Woody, I knew you're dead. 30:24 Stop the press. 30:25 I would like to volunteer to administer any and all DNA tests. 30:31 Maybe that should be part of the show. 30:33 Let's talk off-camera with me, Kelly Rappach. 30:35 You just put that in the universe! 30:38 Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts. 30:41 With the Vivgard-Hitrulo, F-Gar-Tigamot-Alpha 30:45 and Tyloronidase-QVFC pre-filled syringe, 30:48 self-injection is in your hands. 30:50 It's your treatment routine. 30:52 Use at the time and same day each week. 30:55 Take the pre-filled syringe with you on vacation. 30:58 Or have it handy for cozy staycations. 31:01 For more information, visit livevividly.com. 31:05 That's L-I-V-E-V-Y-V-I-D-L-Y dot com. 31:10 Brought to you by our GenX. 31:25 certain GLP-1 shots. 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Rx only for side effects of GLP-1 medications, including boxed warning, 31:40 go to Rowe.co.slash safety additional Rowe membership fee required. 31:51 The case against Dale Warner headed for trial, even as the search for D continued. 31:57 Her brother Greg kept coming back to something he'd noticed right after she disappeared. 32:02 There too, after she went missing, we were down getting fertilizer, and I went into 32:07 the sprayer barn. 32:08 I saw a rusty old anhydrous tank sitting in that building, and Dale was working on it. 32:13 Remember, Dale told Parker he would paint tanks at night when he couldn't sleep. 32:18 I said, Dale, what the hell are you doing with this tank? 32:21 Greg says he mentioned it to the Sheriff's Department right away. 32:25 Now, he brought it up again with the state police. 32:28 And a few days later, a detective called him. 32:31 He said I want you to know that we are doing some more investigation about that tank thing 32:37 They came to this location. They found a tank that actually was freshly painted 32:41 It was found on another of Dale's properties about three miles from his house 32:47 Investigators worried if they cut the tank open whatever chemicals were inside could be dangerous 32:52 They said listen, do you know anywhere? We could get a tank like this 32:55 X-rayed and I remembered that when we crossed the Canadian border they have an X-ray of trucks Wow 33:02 Okay, so they took the tank to customs at the Canadian border. Yeah, they loaded it right here in this driveway 33:07 One look at the X-ray and the lead detective immediately called the prosecution team and as he's telling me this I can feel the hair 33:15 On the back of my neck rising 33:17 The images revealed a clear silhouette of a body a person lying face down 33:22 They opened the tank and there was Dee still in her pajamas, wrapped in a tarp. 33:31 You're so happy that you have her, but it's sad that you know that she's in there. 33:40 I couldn't even breathe. I got in my truck and I just absolutely lost it. 33:46 It was like five years of emotion just burst out. 33:50 The medical examiner concluded Dee died of strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head. 33:56 There's some amount of vindictiveness too because not only did he kill her, 34:00 then he wrapped her mouth and nose in duct tape before he put her in the tarp. 34:05 I'm shutting you up forever. 34:07 Shutting you up for good. 34:08 If he did this. 34:10 Prosecutors had the final piece they'd been hoping for. 34:13 In February 2026, Dale Warner's trial began. 34:17 It had been nearly five years since Dee's disappearance. 34:21 This is Dee Warner. 34:23 April 24, 2021. 34:27 She went home to tell her husband, the defendant, that the marriage was over. 34:33 Dee's close friend testified that she'd seen her that afternoon. 34:37 I could tell she had been crying. 34:39 She had like red blotchy spots on her, on her neck. 34:48 She said she was done. 34:50 Dee's son told Jures his mom was ready to confront Dale. 34:53 She was done with everything. 34:57 She didn't want to do the trucking company anymore. 35:00 She didn't want to be with Dale anymore. 35:03 She wanted to sell everything and be done. 35:06 Prosecutors theorized Dale snapped, strangled Dee, then staged an elaborate cover-up. 35:12 The motive? Money. 35:14 They suggested that selling the farm operation would especially hurt Dale 35:17 because only the trucking business was profitable, and Dee controlled that. 35:22 They showed the court a video of Dale telling police how costly another divorce would be. 35:27 I've been through one divorce. 35:29 I sure as hell don't want to go through another one. 35:31 No matter what. 35:32 It's not worth it. 35:32 When you go back and look at his first divorce, he lost his farm. 35:36 He had to pay hundreds of dollars for in child support every month. 35:42 After killing Dee at their farmhouse, prosecutors said Dale worked fast to hide her body. 35:48 We're pretty confident that at that point he'd put her body into that front end loader 35:52 and moved her to the spray barn. 35:55 We also know that there is a humongous safe that had been in that spray barn for months. 36:01 And there's not a place in there that you could safely 36:03 stow a body, other than the safe that was in there. 36:06 Then they said he moved her from the safe to that tank, 36:09 tank number 34, welded it shut, painted it, 36:13 and applied inspection decals. 36:15 Now, all that footage deputies collected on the farm 36:18 took on a new meaning. 36:20 What looked like routine work? 36:22 They argued that was actually Dale covering up a murder. 36:25 Here with Dale right now, you know several things. 36:28 Here he is speaking with investigators in the barn, just a few feet from the tank. 36:34 Later, he warned them about chemicals in the barn. 36:37 A ploy, prosecutors said, to keep cadaver dogs away from the body. 36:49 Prosecutors believe from there, Dale only became more brazen. 36:53 They played footage of him on the front loader moving the tank around the farm, 36:56 right in front of them. 36:57 Those men on the pad are part of the search team. 37:01 They're running a drone. 37:02 Here comes the JCB, there's Dale behind the wheel of that JCB. 37:07 And here it comes with the tank. 37:10 Hearing the court testimony, Parker realized 37:13 there had been clues all along. 37:15 Looking back all these years now, 37:17 I was such an untrained eye 37:19 because all I was looking for was D. 37:21 And now that we know everything that we know, 37:23 there was so much more. 37:23 There were so many clues in the surveillance footage 37:27 from all those cameras. 37:28 like little Easter eggs. 37:30 Exactly. 37:31 Prosecutors played a call dail made from jail 37:33 to his son, Jaren, shortly after the tank was seized. 37:37 So they took that tank and not our, 37:39 you know, X-ray or something, 37:40 but if they don't get the X-rays, they're cutting it open. 37:43 I'm like, what the f***, I would've wasted a f***ing time. 37:56 You know, it's not good. 37:59 Investigators wondered if Jaren was involved. 38:02 We got a warrant for your arrest, buddy. 38:03 Put your hands behind your back. 38:05 Even arresting him as an accessory 38:06 before dropping the charges. 38:08 They said that jailhouse call proved Dale knew Dee was in the tank. 38:13 At trial, a forensic scientist testified that Dale's fingerprint was found on a decal. 38:20 What was the result of your comparison? 38:22 My result was that it was Dale Warner's left middle finger. 38:26 Another expert took the jury through those internet searches Dale made in the days after Dee disappeared. 38:31 This is on gizmodo for what is liquid cremation and why is it illegal? 38:37 This is from Google. 38:39 What to do with 1,000 gallon propane tank. 38:45 After 12 days, the prosecution rested. 38:48 The defense had its work cut out for it. 38:51 But in Dale's camp, one of the best defense attorneys in the state, some of your clients 38:57 have described you as a pit bull in high heels, Mike Tyson in the courtroom. 39:02 They have. 39:02 They have it a lot more. 39:03 And a lot more than that. 39:18 Inside the packed Lenaway County courthouse, Dale Warner faced the 39:22 fight of his life, charged with murder and evidence tampering. At his side, high 39:27 profile defense attorney, Mary Chardier. Some of your clients have described you 39:31 as a pit bull in high heels, Mike Tyson in the courtroom. They have, they have it 39:36 a lot more, and a lot more than that. This case is an incredible tragedy and 39:40 there's no doubt about that. There was no witness, there was absolutely 39:44 nothing tying Mr. Warner to Ms. Warner going missing or being murdered. Her 39:51 strategy convinced the jury of reasonable doubt. Chardier argued the 39:56 state presented an entirely circumstantial case. The lack of any sort of 40:01 forensic evidence that Mr. Warner committed this crime at all, so no DNA, 40:05 nothing like that, as well as the timeline of the day where she is 40:10 missing. She told jurors there just wasn't time for her client to 40:14 commit murder, move the body, and weld the tank shut, 40:17 and the surveillance cameras prove it. 40:20 When you really look at the surveillance video footage 40:22 from that day, he is both on the property 40:25 and off the property all day long. 40:27 He's on camera dozens and dozens and dozens of time 40:30 throughout the day doing his farm chores. 40:32 The defense also said Dale didn't limit 40:34 where family members could search when D first vanished. 40:38 You would think that he would want 40:39 to put some restrictions on people 40:40 and be like, well, don't go in there 40:42 because there's a body in there 40:43 or there's a tank in there. 40:44 He puts no restrictions on anyone at all. 40:48 Then, Chardier poked holes in some of the state's most compelling evidence. 40:52 That jail call about tank number 34, she said it wasn't a confession. 40:57 Just a farmer reacting to news that investigators were back on his property. 41:01 Of course someone would be annoyed or frustrated 41:04 by property being searched yet again that had already been searched.
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