Missing Wife for 3 Years, Body Found in Husband’s Tank
At exactly 10:52 p.m. on April the 24th, 2021, D. Warner’s phone sent its final message. A single letter that would haunt investigators for years. K. Lenway County woman who’s been missing since 2021. Would it help to have answers? Absolutely. Even if they’re bad. Even if they’re bad.
At this point, we’ve gone a year not knowing. Not knowing is so much worse than knowing. If we had answers, we could grieve and mourn and continue with life, but this consumes our life every single day. The mother of five from Lenway County has been missing for 2 and 1/2 years now. And her brother believes that the man behind bars is someone he suspected all along.
We got a warrant for your arrest, buddy. Put your hands behind your back. Are you serious? Yes. Hi everyone. My name is Sophie and today we’re going to take a look at another horrible case with you. D. Anne Warner woke up Saturday morning, April 24th, 2021, with a secret burning in her chest.
At 52 years old, this mother of five and successful businesswoman had finally made a decision that would change everything. Today was the day she would tell her husband of 15 years that their marriage was over. For five generations, De’s family had lived in the farming community of Lenoi County, Michigan. She had grown up surrounded by the rolling fields and close-knit relationships that defined rural life.
But now at 52, those same fields felt more like a prison than a sanctuary. Born in 1963, D had always displayed an entrepreneurial spirit that set her apart. She had built DDW Investments from the ground up, creating a thriving trucking company that operated from the barns in her backyard. Her success had earned her respect throughout the community, where she was known for her infectious smile and generous heart.
On that fateful Saturday, De had an appointment to get her eyelashes done. When she arrived at the salon, her aesthetician, Kelly Joe Stace, immediately noticed something deeply troubling. De was crying, her eyes puffy and swollen from what appeared to be hours of tears. Stace later recalled in her affidavit, “When D.
Warner arrived, she was crying and her eyes were puffy. She was upset about the disagreement she was having with her husband, Dale Warner.” Despite her emotional state, D scheduled a future appointment for the following week. The actions of a woman planning for tomorrow, not someone preparing to disappear forever. The appointment served as more than just beauty maintenance for D.
It was a small act of defiance, a way of reclaiming control over her own life. She was getting ready to face the most difficult conversation of her marriage, and she wanted to feel strong doing it. Throughout that day, De made her rounds to her older children’s homes. She visited with her daughter, Amber, and spent time with her son, Zach, at Amber’s house in the late morning.
When Zach saw his mother, he could tell immediately that something was wrong. De was visibly upset and had clearly been crying for hours. D then took her youngest daughter to a soccer game, trying to maintain some semblance of normaly even as her world was falling apart. To anyone watching, she looked like any other soccer mom cheering from the sidelines, but inside she was preparing for war.
The fear in De’s voice was unmistakable when she confided to her daughter Rickle earlier that day. Rickle would later testify that her mother had said, “I watch Dineine like every night, and Dale could do something like that to me. The words were chilling in their precience.” D told multiple people that Saturday, including her adult children, that she was done with her marriage and planned to initiate a divorce.
She texted her son Zach that afternoon, declaring she was done with this and would sign all her portions of the Warner businesses over to him. But De’s day was about to get infinitely worse. That evening, she found herself in the middle of a heated three-way argument with her husband, Dale, and an employee named Todd Naink about the trucking business.
The dispute centered around business operations and money, with de feeling that Naink was actively betraying her, while Dale consistently sided against her. Naink had been working for the Warner businesses since the mid 2000s and had eventually taken over running the trucking operations. But de suspected something was wrong. She felt he was backstabbing her, making decisions behind her back, and undermining her authority in her own comp
any. At 8:34 p.m., knowing the confrontation about divorce was imminent, D made a crucial decision that may have saved her daughter’s life. She sent their 9-year-old daughter, Angelina, to stay with a friend for the weekend, ensuring the child wouldn’t witness whatever was about to unfold between her parents. What de didn’t know was that she had just signed her death warrant.
As evening fell over the Warner property, tension filled the air like an approaching storm. D had spent the day preparing mentally for this moment, but nothing could have prepared her for what was actually coming. Dale Warner, at 56, was a man who had grown accustomed to control. Over their 15 years of marriage, he had systematically isolated D from her support systems and monitored her every move.
He had installed tracking devices on her car, demanded access to her phone, and used both physical and psychological intimidation to keep her in line. The argument that night was unlike any they had ever had before. Dale would later admit to investigators that they fought about money and infidelity, describing it as the worst argument of his life.
But this wasn’t just another marital spat. This was De finally standing up to her abuser and demanding her freedom. Earlier that day, D had been in contact with her business manager, Stephanie Vulkler, via text messages about the ongoing issues with Todd Naink. In their text conversation about Todd and Terry, Vulley later testified that D told her she was hyperventilating and throwing up and that she had told Dale she wanted to sell everything.
The conversation revealed just how desperate D had become. She wasn’t just talking about leaving Dale. She was talking about liquidating everything they had built together and starting over completely. For a man like Dale, who viewed his wife as property rather than a partner, this represented the ultimate betrayal. At 10:24 p.m.
, De’s friend sent her a text message asking how things were going. For someone who was known to be very talkative, very expressive, and who texted a lot, what happened next was completely out of character and would become one of the most haunting details of the entire case. For 29 agonizing minutes, there was silence. Then, at 10:53 p.m.
, De’s phone responded with a single cold letter. K. Private investigator Billy Little, who would later work with De’s family, explained the significance of this response. She was very talkative, very expressive. She texted a lot. Never once, not one single time was her response the letter K. So after the friend says, “How are you doing?” No response.
Half an hour later, the letter K and the phone gets turned off. That single letter would haunt investigators for years. It was so out of character for D that her family immediately knew something was terribly wrong. But by then, it was already too late. According to Dale’s version of events, a story that would change multiple times over the coming months, the couple somehow reconciled by the end of the night.
He claimed that D fell asleep on the living room floor while he was giving her a massage for her chronically sore neck and that he then carried her to the couch before going to bed himself. But investigators would later discover that this story was just the first of many lies Dale would tell about that night. Looking back, the warning signs had been there all along.
Dawn broke over the Warner farm on Sunday, April the 25th, 2021. But D would never see another sunrise. According to Dale’s account, D was still asleep on the couch when he left for work at 6:30 a.m. snoring peacefully as if nothing had happened. >> And then this morning around 6:00, I got up and, you know, she was snoring away.
I texted her and she didn’t answer, so I figured, well, she’s still sleeping. But investigators would discover that this seemingly innocent detail was actually one of several inconsistencies in Dale’s story. Around 900 a.m., De’s adult daughter, Rickle, arrived at the family farm with her boyfriend and young daughter for their traditional weekly Sunday breakfast.
This was a routine they had maintained for years, a time for three generations of the family to come together and share a meal. But when they knocked on the door, no one answered. They called out for D, but the house remained eerily silent. This was unprecedented. D never missed their Sunday breakfasts, and she certainly never failed to answer the door when her daughter arrived.
When Rickle finally tracked down Dale on the property, what happened next would chill her to the bone. Dale approached her holding something that shouldn’t have been in his possession. De’s $50,000 wedding ring, a symbol of their marriage that De wore every single day. Dale claimed he had found the ring on his desk in the office, explaining that de had left it there before she disappeared.
But Rick knew her mother would never remove that ring, especially not if she was simply going away for a few days, as Dale was suggesting. The ring was just the beginning of Dale’s elaborate story. When questioned about De’s whereabouts, he told people that his wife had taken a travel bag, her purse, her phone, her curling iron, and hairspray with her when she left.
He suggested she might be staying with another man. perhaps even leaving the country. But there were immediate problems with this narrative. Both of De’s vehicles remained parked on the property, one in the garage at home and another at her office about 100 ft away. How could she have left without transportation? More disturbing was what Dale told investigators about De’s supposed escape plan.
He claimed she had a secret phone that she used for clandestine activities. Deputy Hall captured Dale’s exact words on body cam footage. I told the other kids she’s got a second phone. >> Do you even have my phone number? >> No, it’s a secret phone that she doesn’t know that I know she has it. >> This was a classic tactic used by abusers, projecting their own secretive and controlling behavior onto their victims.
Dale had been tracking De’s movements and monitoring her communications for years, but now he was suggesting that she was the one with secrets. When De’s son Zach arrived at the property later that morning with his sister Rickle to search for their mother, Dale’s behavior became even more suspicious. Surveillance footage captured Zack arriving at the office where D kept her desk, searching through the building and the surrounding areas.
When Zach finally encountered Dale on the property, Dale asked him something that seemed strange under the circumstances. You really don’t know where your mom is? When Zach replied that he had no idea, Dale’s reaction was notably calm for a man whose wife had vanished without a trace. After that Sunday morning, every electronic trace of D. Warner ceased to exist.
Her phone records showed no activity. Her bank accounts remained untouched. Her social media profiles went silent. There was no evidence she had used her credit cards, called anyone, or accessed any of her online accounts. D’s cell phone had switched from Wi-Fi to cellular service around 11 p.m.
on the night of April the 24th, then went completely dead at 2:30 a.m. on April the 25th. Null. For a woman who was constantly connected to her business and her family, this sudden silence was deafening. That text message would be the last anyone heard from her. To understand what happened to D. Warner, you need to understand the life she was desperately trying to escape.
This wasn’t just a marriage gone wrong. It was a carefully constructed prison that had taken years to build. De’s daughter, Rickle, would later testify in court that her mother was trapped in an extremely toxic relationship with Dale Warner. She described a household filled with constant tension.
Rickle testified that her mother had actually shown her the tracking device Dale had placed on her vehicle. The psychological manipulation was perhaps even more insidious than the physical control. Dale had convinced D that she couldn’t survive without him, that her business success was somehow dependent on his involvement, and that leaving would result in her losing everything she had worked to build.
In December 2020, just 4 months before her disappearance, D had tried to leave Dale. She confided in a friend about what happened when she attempted to escape. She told her friend that Dale had turned into the devil and that he wouldn’t allow her to take their daughter, Angelina, if she left. Her final words about that incident were prophetic.
I literally thought he could kill me. The physical violence was becoming more frequent and more severe. Sometime around November or December 2020, D had shown her business manager Stephanie Vul a disturbing injury, a large bump on her forehead that Vulair described as a goose egg roughly the size of a quarter. De’s hair was covering the injury, but it was clearly the result of blunt force trauma.
About 5 months before that incident, De had told Vulkley something that now seems tragically prophetic. She said she didn’t want to leave Angelina alone with Dale. Even then, D sensed that her husband was dangerous, but she felt trapped by the custody arrangement and her financial dependence on the family businesses.
The control extended to every aspect of De’s life. Dale monitored her movements, tracked her communications, and even attempted to isolate her from her adult children from her first marriage. He demanded to know where she was at all times and became increasingly agitated when she spent time with her family or friends without his supervision.
Vulkley later testified that D seemed uncomfortable when Dale tried to massage her neck and shoulders, especially after a fight. This detail takes on sinister significance when you consider Dale’s claim that De fell asleep during a neck massage on the night she disappeared. Dale had also allegedly asked a farm employee to buy a GPS tracker for De’s car and to install surveillance cameras around their property.
He asked another employee to clone the contents of De’s phone, giving him access to her private messages and communications. The financial control was equally devastating. Despite D being the primary owner of DDTW Investments and the driving force behind their business success, Dale had systematically gained access to their joint accounts and business operations.
He was spending money at an alarming rate while DE worked multiple jobs to keep their ventures profitable. But perhaps most telling was Dale’s reaction to De’s previous attempt to leave. According to court documents, Dale had told De that he had already been through one divorce and did not want to go through another one.
This wasn’t the sentiment of a man hoping to save his marriage. It was the threat of someone who viewed divorce as an unacceptable option. Every new discovery seemed to pull investigators deeper into the nightmare. When Lenoi County Sheriff’s Deputy Austin Hall arrived at the Warner property on Sunday evening, April the 25th, for a welfare check, Dale’s behavior was telling.
Remember his bizarre claim about D having a secret phone that she doesn’t know that I know she has it. This statement revealed Dale’s mindset more than he probably intended. He was essentially admitting that he had been spying on his wife and monitoring her activities without her knowledge. The idea that D had a secret phone was pure projection.
Dale was describing his own secretive and surveillance-based behavior. Dale also told police that De had been upset the night before, suffering from a migraine after the argument with employees. He told Hall, “I came home last night and she was really upset. She was talking bad things as far as employees.” The one employee decided to quit.
Dale continued his explanation, painting himself as an innocent bystander in workplace drama. >> We got three different businesses here, so the tensions are high all the time. >> But the most disturbing aspect of Dale’s conversation with Deputy Hall was what he didn’t say. There was no urgency in his voice, no desperate pleas for help finding his missing wife, no emotional breakdown at the thought of losing the woman he claimed to love.
Instead, Dale seemed more concerned with explaining why De’s disappearance was actually quite normal and predictable. When De’s brother, Greg Hardy, asked Dale directly what had happened to his sister, Dale’s response was disturbingly matterof fact. Hardy later recalled that Dale mentioned D had taken a travel bag, a purse, her phone, and her curling iron and hairspray.
It was as if Dale had prepared a shopping list of items that would support his narrative of voluntary departure. But Greg Hardy knew his sister better than that. He knew D would never leave without her vehicles, her business, or most importantly, her 9-year-old daughter. The explanation made no sense, and Hardy immediately suspected something terrible had happened.
As the investigation progressed over the following days and weeks, Dale’s behavior became even more suspicious. Instead of cooperating fully with law enforcement or hiring private investigators to find his missing wife, Dale’s first priority was protecting himself legally. On Monday, just one day after Dappeared, Dale secretly met with someone to change the password on the property’s security system.
This action suggested consciousness of guilt. Why would an innocent man need to restrict access to surveillance footage that might help locate his missing wife? That same day, rather than organizing search parties or offering rewards for information about De’s whereabouts, Dale went shopping for an attorney. Not a detective to find his wife, an attorney to protect himself.
The pieces of the puzzle were starting to fit together. But the picture they formed was absolutely chilling. As months passed without any sign of D, investigators began uncovering a complex web of financial crimes and deception that painted Dale Warner in an increasingly sinister light. What they discovered was a systematic effort to steal De’s life’s work while eliminating the woman who had built it.
According to family friend and spokesperson Katherine Adams, Dale had been embezzling equipment, money, and trucks from DDW Investments, the company that D owned and had built from nothing. He was transferring these assets to a new company he created called DDW Transport, leaving DE’s legitimate business with mounting debts and depleted resources.
Private investigator Billy Little, who began working with De’s family in March 2022, discovered the scope of Dale’s financial manipulation was staggering. Using what appeared to be a forged power of attorney from 2014, Dale had transferred virtually all the assets of DDW Investments into a new entity called DDW Transportation LLC.
In August 2021, just four months after D disappeared, little explained the implications of this transfer. You can’t even sell your car if both your names are on the title. Yet somehow, Dale had managed to divide assets and transfer ownership of a multi-million dollar business operation without the consent or knowledge of the woman who owned 50% of the company.
The timing was no coincidence. By August 2021, it was becoming clear that D was not coming back and Dale needed to secure control of the business assets before questions could be asked about her prolonged absence. Even more disturbing was Dale’s decision to sell DDW Transportation to Laid Law Carriers Bulk in 2022.
This sale generated substantial revenue, but instead of that money going to De’s estate or her children, it went directly to Dale. He had essentially stolen his missing wife’s company and sold it for his own profit. The employee who had argued with D on her final day, Todd Nyink, also benefited significantly from these transactions.
When Dale sold the trucking business to Laidelaw, Naink was immediately hired by the purchasing company as a finance employee. This wasn’t a coincidence. It was a reward for his cooperation in Dale’s scheme. But Naink’s involvement went much deeper than anyone initially realized. Little’s investigation revealed that at exactly 3:30 a.m.
on April the 25th, 2021, just hours after Disappeared, Naink had logged into the company system under a false name and removed lime from the Warner Farm. He then drove this lime to Burns Harbor, Indiana before traveling another 50 m to a wastewater plant in Chicago to pick up compost. The timing of this early morning activity was impossible to ignore.
What legitimate business purpose could Naink have had for accessing the farm at 3:30 a.m. on the morning D was discovered missing? And why did he use a false name to log his activities? Little had obtained recordings of Naink speaking to his massage therapist about his involvement in the case. In these recordings, Narink admitted he was involved up to his ears in the D. Anne Warner case.
He also revealed that detective Kevin Greer, who was leading the local investigation, was romantically involved with Naink’s first cousin, a conflict of interest that should have resulted in Grier’s removal from the case. The financial discoveries extended beyond the business assets. De’s son, Zach, testified that he had tried to access an electronic safe at Dale and De’s home before her disappearance, but the combination he normally used was no longer working.
When he used a backup key to open the safe, he discovered that a substantial amount of money De had stored there was missing. Only Zach and D had known the combination and had access to the backup key. Even more revealing was Dale’s behavior regarding property division after De’s disappearance. Little discovered that Dale was attempting to split off a piece of property where Todd Nearink lived, despite the fact that this required approval from D, who owned 50% of the Warner farming operation.
Little questioned this decision. How could Dale divide the land without the approval of D and Warner, who owns 50% of Warner Farms? The answer was simple. Dale was operating under the assumption that D would never be able to object to his decisions. The property where Naink lived had been sold to him under a land contract, but he was nearly $50,000 behind on his payments.
Little noted, it’s funny that after D goes missing, guess who stops making payments on that land contract? Todd. Every new lead seemed to pull them deeper into a nightmare of greed, betrayal, and murder. After 20 months of intensive investigation involving hundreds of hours of detective work by Michigan State Police and Lenoi County prosecutors, authorities finally had enough evidence to act.
The breakthrough came not from a confession or a witness, but from the methodical accumulation of circumstantial evidence that painted an undeniable picture of guilt. On November 21st, 2023, Michigan State Police announced that they had made an arrest in connection with D. Warner’s murder. Dale John Warner, 53, was taken into custody at his home without incident, charged with open murder and tampering with evidence.
At his arraignment on November 22nd, 2023, Dale appeared in Lena County’s 2A District Court to face the charges against him. When asked how he pleaded to the charges of open murder and tampering with evidence, Dale responded firmly, “Not guilty.” The prosecution requested a bond of $20 million, arguing that Dale posed a significant flight risk and danger to the community.
Dale’s defense attorney requested that he be released on a reasonable bond, but Judge Anna denied the request. Dale was ordered held without bond pending trial. The arrest validated what De’s family had believed from the beginning that Dale was responsible for her disappearance and death. But it also meant confronting the reality that De was never coming home alive.
De’s daughter, Ralbach, expressed the family’s determination to continue fighting for justice. This is not over. It’s only beginning. We will fight even harder to make sure we get the justice she deserves. But the most devastating discovery was yet to come. For more than 3 years, D. Warner’s body had been hiding in the most obvious place imaginable, right under the noses of investigators, family members, and the community that had been searching for her.
The location was so audacious, so brazen in its simplicity that it had taken over 1,200 days to discover. On August 17th, 2024, Michigan State Police executed a search warrant on Dale Warner’s property on Paragon Road in Tipton, approximately four miles from the home where D had lived and died. This wasn’t the first time law enforcement had searched Warner properties, but new evidence and refined investigative techniques had pointed them toward a specific location.
What they found would finally bring D home, but in the most horrific way imaginable. Hidden inside a barn on the property was an anhydrris ammonia tank, a large metal container typically used for storing fertilizer chemicals for agricultural operations. But this tank contained no ammonia. Instead, investigators discovered that the tank had been resealed and repainted to conceal its contents.
When they opened it, they found D. Warner’s remains welded inside what had become her tomb for over 3 years. It was my mom. Well, it was a body in a tank. >> The discovery was both a relief and a new source of anguish for De’s family. On August 22nd, 2024, the Jackson County Medical Examiner positively identified the remains as D.
Warner through dental records. There was no doubt. After more than 3 years of uncertainty, D had finally been found. Dr. Susan Schmunk, the medical examiner, officially ruled De’s death a homicide, though the specific manner of death was withheld, pending further investigation. The confirmation brought a sense of finality that the family had been seeking, but it also raised new questions about the cruelty of Dale’s actions.
The discovery of De’s body in the Inhydrris tank revealed the calculated nature of Dale’s crime. This wasn’t a crime of passion or a moment of lost control. It was a premeditated murder, followed by an elaborate coverup designed to hide the evidence permanently. The tank had been professionally welded shut and repainted to match the other equipment on the farm.
To anyone passing by, it looked like any other piece of agricultural equipment. Dale had hidden De’s body in plain sight, gambling that no one would think to look inside what appeared to be a routine piece of farm machinery. For over 1,200 days, as search parties scoured the countryside and investigators followed leads across multiple states, D had been less than four miles from where she was last seen alive.
She had been there through every anniversary of her disappearance, through every birthday her family celebrated without her, through every holiday when her absence was felt most acutely. The silence in that inhydrris tank was louder than any scream. With De’s body finally recovered, prosecutors began building their case for trial. In May 2025, De’s family filed a $100 million wrongful death lawsuit against Dale, providing the most detailed account yet of what they believe happened on the night of April the 24th, 2021. The lawsuit alleges that Dale
fatally strangled his wife in their home, then transported her body to the Anhydrris tank, where he welded her inside and repainted the container to conceal his crime. The filing details the systematic pattern of abuse that preceded De’s murder, painting a picture of a man who viewed his wife as property that he could dispose of at will.
The case took another disturbing turn in March 2025 when authorities arrested Dale’s son, Jarn Warner, on charges of evidence tampering and accessory to murder in connection with De’s death. While the charges were later dismissed, the arrest suggested that the coverup may have involved multiple family members.
Prosecutors alleged that the conspiracy to conceal De’s murder extended beyond just Dale himself. The involvement of other family members and employees suggests a network of complicity that allowed the crime to remain hidden for over 3 years. In June 2024, during Dale’s preliminary hearing, Judge Anna Fusau ruled that there was sufficient evidence for the case to proceed to trial.
Dale’s defense attorney, Mary Chartier, has argued that the prosecution’s case relies primarily on circumstantial evidence and that there are alternative explanations for the evidence against Dale. She has requested a change of venue, arguing that pre-trial publicity has made it impossible to find an impartial jury in Lena County.
However, in August 2025, Judge Elsa denied the change of venue motion, ruling that while there had been significant media coverage of the case, he was confident that 12 impartial jurors could be found. The trial was rescheduled to begin in January the 2026. The truth was about to come out, and it was worse than anyone had imagined. However, D.
Warner can rest in peace knowing that her story has been told, her killer has been caught, and her family will never stop fighting to ensure that other women don’t suffer the same fate.
