Husband of missing Michigan woman charged with her murder two years after she vanished

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Twenty months after a Michigan woman disappeared without a trace, her husband has been jailed for her murder, and the mother of five's family says the charges are long overdue. 

Dale Warner, 53, was charged with open murder and tampering with evidence Nov. 21 after a death investigation of his wife and business partner Dee Ann Warner, Michigan State Police announced. 

On Monday, Warner's bail was lowered from $20 million to $15 million. The husband, who co-managed Dee's Tipton, Michigan-based trucking company, DDW Investments LLC., has pleaded not guilty on both counts, his attorney Mary Chartier told Fox News Digital, and is scheduled to next appear in court Dec. 4.

"We believe that a fair and objective review of the evidence — or more precisely the lack of evidence in this case — will show that Mr. Warner did not kill his wife," Chartier wrote in an email Tuesday.

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Dale Warner, 53, awaits trial for open murder and tampering with evidence in Michigan's Lenawee County Court. (Lenawee County Sheriff's Department)

"This arrest is another step in our investigation, and we will continue our efforts to bring closure to the family and to find Dee Warner's remains so that her family can lay her to rest," state police First District Captain Steve O'Neill wrote in a statement. 

But the Michigan woman's nephew, Parker Hardy, told Fox News Digital the family believes 52-year-old Dee's "body is no longer on this Earth." 

Regardless of the lack of physical evidence, the woman's family is "absolutely, 100%" certain Dale Warner — with whom they have shared property lines over 15 years and known for more than 40 — killed her, Gregg said.

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Dee Ann Warner and Dale Warner each had four children from previous marriages when they met. Both left their spouses for each another, Dee's family said. (Hardy family handout)

"I came to grips with her spirit leaving her a long time ago," brother Gregg Hardy told Fox News Digital.

"If you found her remains in front of [Dale's] house, he would tell you somebody else did it anyway. So, what the hell? We have plenty of circumstantial evidence."

Dee has four children from a previous marriage and shares one child with Dale. Since her disappearance in April 2021, the Hardy family has spent thousands on private investigators and waged war in the local media with the Lenawee County Sheriff's Office in an effort to get authorities to see their perspective.

In September 2022, her surviving children filed a petition with Lenawee Probate Court to declare Dee legally dead, with her adult daughter Rikkell Bock saying her mom "would never leave [her] kids," according to WTOL 11. 

The family successfully argued there was enough circumstantial evidence showing that the woman would never willingly abandon her family. 

The family also claimed at the time that Dale Warner was using power of attorney to take out loans against his missing wife's property and depleting her assets, according to the outlet. 

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Dee Ann Warner, right, has not been seen since April 24, 2021. Her nephew, Parker Hardy, left, told Fox News Digital their family believes "her body is no longer on this Earth." (Hardy family handout)

"She wouldn't leave her children, and she wouldn't have left her wedding ring," Parker Hardy told Fox News Digital. "She was a feisty woman. She would've walked out the door with her middle finger in the air, ring in her hand and would've thrown a match back in the house."

Around that time, Michigan State Police and the FBI took over the woman's death investigation, the Daily Telegram reported. 

Warner's body was not recovered during a two-day search of her sprawling Franklin Township property in 2021, or in another search there in May of this year. 

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In August, Dale was found in contempt of court and arrested for not cooperating with the conservator of Dee's estate. He was released Oct. 31, according to Lenawee County Court records, and remained free until his arrest last week. 

From the very beginning, Gregg Hardy said, "full-blown psychopath" Dale threw the authorities off with his "trap," and he "played them very successfully to his benefit." 

Authorities say Dee's phone activity ceased on April 24 or 25, 2021, along with all activity on social media and her bank accounts.

When his sister disappeared, leaving her effects at the home she shared with her husband and her car in the driveway, her brother feared she had taken her own life. 

Gregg Hardy, pictured with Dee Ann Warner, became suspicious of his sister's husband in the weeks after her disappearance. (Hardy family handout)

"I can’t say that I was suspicious of Dale on that day because I wasn’t," Gregg said. "But the facts I did know was that she had been in a traumatized position. She was upset about the events surrounding her business, her marriage and her child raising."

However, Dale's initial reaction to the disappearance was especially peculiar, he said. Gregg said Dale walked into his office and griped that Dee "had left him with one hell of a mess here." 

Dee's family and the authorities contacted all of Dee's friends and relatives who would take her in when the "volatile" couple fought, but none knew of her whereabouts.

Dale and Dee co-managed the agricultural trucking company DDW Investments LLC, a successful venture that "caused a lot of strife" in their relationship and made it "toxic" because they were "both on a mission to be successful, whatever the cost," Gregg said. 

"I wouldn’t care what my business was doing. I’d be out there looking for her. Any normal human being would do that," Gregg said of Dale's reaction upon Dee's April 24, 2021, disappearance. 

Dee Ann Warner, mother of 5, is pictured with nephew Parker Hardy and one of her children. (Hardy family handout )

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"My immediate family was out walking properties, riding properties, working tirelessly 24 hours a day immediately." 

Gregg's suspicions were confirmed, he said, when Dale refused to take a polygraph test. Then, when a private investigator the Hardy family hired learned that the husband was using GPS devices to track Dee, Dale refused to share the investigators's findings the day of Dee's disappearance.

Dee's family suspects she was a victim of domestic violence, and her brother regrets "siding with Dale" in many of the couple's feuds. 

"I was oblivious to the kind of conduct that takes place in these kinds of marriages, in domestic violence," Gregg told Fox News Digital. "She was an absolute poster child in what I've learned about battered women. Most of them feel strong enough to fix the problem themselves. They all believe they can fix the man, and none of them can." 

A hearing to determine who will take custody of Dale and Dee's 11-year-old daughter is scheduled for Thursday, court officials confirmed to Fox News Digital.