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Disappearance of Dee Ann Warner · Murder Files Unsealed

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Speaker 1: It is Friday, January sixteenth, twenty twenty six. Usually, when
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we sit down and do a deep dive, we have
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the luxury of hindsight. We're looking back at an event
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that's well, that's finished, sealed and historically settled.
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Speaker 2: Today is different.
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Speaker 1: Today, we don't have that luxury at all. We are
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effectively watching the clock run down in real time.
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Speaker 2: We absolutely are, because in exactly eleven days, that's January
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twenty seventh, jury selection begins in Lenowee County, Michigan, and frankly,
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the community there, the family, they've been holding their breath
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for nearly five years.
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Speaker 1: Now we're looking at the case of Diane Warner, and
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you know, just looking at the surface of the research
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you've pulled together, this starts out looking like a pretty
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standard tragic disappearance.
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Speaker 2: Profile, right, a woman vanishes from her home in April
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twenty twenty one.
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Speaker 1: But the trajectory of this case is, I mean, it's
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so unusual. It goes from a missing person file to
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a rare nobody murder charge and then just when the
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legal system is gearing up to try a case without remains,
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everything changes.
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Speaker 2: Everything changes because of a discovery that I think redefines
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the term cold blooded. We aren't talking about a shallow
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grave in the woods or a body submerged in the lake.
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We are talking about what the family themselves have termed
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a steel tomb. And to really understand what's about to
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happen in that courtroom later this month, you have to
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understand the mechanics of that tomb. It wasn't just a
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hiding spot. It was it was an engineered prison hidden
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in plain sight.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So our mission today is to prep for this trial.
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We need to parse the timeline, the specific forensic evidence,
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especially regarding this steel tomb, and the legal strategy that's
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likely going to play out.
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Speaker 2: And we've got a massive stack of sources to work with.
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There are court records, family statements going back the last
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five years, those huge wrongful death filings from twenty twenty five,
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and of course all the investigative reports that led up
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to this moment.
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Speaker 1: And I think we need to start with the victim
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because so often in domestic cases, there's a stereotypical profile
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that the public expects someone who is maybe isolated, financially dependent,
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or passive, and.
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Speaker 2: Dianne Warner breaks that mold completely.
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Speaker 1: She was the CEO. Essentially she really was.
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Speaker 2: At fifty two years old, Dianne was a powerhouse in
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the Franklin Township agricultural community. I mean she ran a
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highly successful trucking business.
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Speaker 1: Trucking business, yes, and.
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Speaker 2: She managed extensive farming operations in the Irish Hills area.
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This is heavy industry we're talking about. It's logistics, managing drivers,
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dealing with heavy machinery, navigating the sheer complexities of agricultural commerce.
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She was not a passive.
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Speaker 1: Person right Her daughter Wrickleback and her brother Greg Hardy,
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they describe her as vibrant and the life of the party.
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But the word that keeps coming up again and again
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in these statements is tough. You have to be You
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have to be tough to run a trucking company in
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that part of the world. She was described as a
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woman who would literally move mountains for her five children, and.
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Speaker 2: That context is absolutely crucial for understanding the power dynamics here.
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Danne was fiercely in dependent. She was financially successful. This
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complicates the whole control dynamic well. When an abuser wants
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to control someone who is naturally dominant and resourceful, the
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methods of control often have to escalate, they have to
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be more invasive, more extreme, because the victim isn't easily cowed.
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You can't just shout them into submission.
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Speaker 1: Which makes the dynamics of her marriage to Dale John
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Warner an incredibly important starting point. They married in August
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two thousand and six, so at the time she disappeared,
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they'd been married for almost fifteen years.
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Speaker 2: And from the outside, if you were just looking at
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the business filings, this looks like a merger as much
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as a marriage. A business partnership, a very transactional one.
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They were partners in business, absolutely, they share the trucking
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and farming interests. But the family's allegations, specifically in that
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huge one hundred million dollar wrongful death lawsuit filed back
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in May twenty twenty five, they paint a picture of
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a relationship that had completely hollowed out.
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Speaker 1: All business, no personal connections.
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Speaker 2: The romance, the alleged, was long gone. It was replaced
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by surveillance in control.
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Speaker 1: Now, when you say surveillance, are we talking about like
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checking text messages or something more Oh.
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Speaker 2: We are talking about something much more invasive. We're talking
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about tracking devices on vehicles. The lawsuit alleges Dale was
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actively tracking her movements. Wow, and you have to think
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about what that is. That is a very specific type
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of psychological warfare. It completely removes the victim's autonomy. You're
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never really alone if you know your car's reporting your
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location back to someone.
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Speaker 1: Every trip to the grocery store, every visit to a friend,
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it's all being logged.
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Speaker 2: It's constant monitoring. And the physical escalation, according to these documents,
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was already there too.
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Speaker 1: It wasn't just psychological.
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Speaker 2: No, there's a specific incident sided from December twenty twenty.
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This is just about four months before she vanished. The
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allegation is that Dale threw her into addresser and used
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some very derogatory language. This wasn't just a bad argument,
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this was alleged physical assault.
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Speaker 1: And this is where that profile of the strong female
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business owner just collides with the brutal reality of domestic abuse.
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Being a CEO doesn't immunize you from violence at home.
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Speaker 2: If anything, it can make the act of leaving more volatile.
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Dianne had her own assets, she had her independence, and
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the evidence strongly suggests she was activating an exit plan.
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Speaker 1: She wasn't just thinking about leaving, she was doing it.
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Speaker 2: She was executing a strategy. She was actively looking at
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real estate, specifically purchasing a lake house that was intended
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to be a safe haven for her and escape. And
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most critically, she had packed a go bag.
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Speaker 1: I want to pause on the go bag for a second,
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because to me, that signals something incredibly specific about her
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state of mind. You don't pack a bag with just
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your sentils because you're annoyed with your spouse. Now you
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pack it because you think you might have to run
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for your life.
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Speaker 2: It indicates premeditated fear. That's exactly the right way to
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put it. I means she was living in a state
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of hypervigilance. She anticipated a moment where she would not
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have five minutes to gather a toothbrush, or a change
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of clothes or her documents. She needed to be ready
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to walk out that door in seconds.
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Speaker 1: And that context is absolutely vital for understanding the timeline
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of April twenty twenty one. She wasn't a woman who
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was just casually dissatisfied with her marriage.
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Speaker 2: No, she is a woman preparing for a very dangerous exit.
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Speaker 1: So let's reconstruct that weekend April twenty fourth and twenty fifth,
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twenty twenty one, This is the timeline that the prosecution
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will likely have up on a giant scream for the
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jury in what eleven days.
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Speaker 2: It begins Saturday morning, April twenty fourth, and Dianne makes
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a very calculated move. She takes her youngest daughter, who
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was around nine or ten at the time, and she
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drops her off at her friend's house.
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Speaker 1: She clears the deck.
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Speaker 2: She cleared the deck. She wants the child out of
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the splash.
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Speaker 1: Songe right. She knows something is coming exactly.
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Speaker 2: She intends to have a serious confrontation with Dale, and
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she wants to ensure the child isn't a witness to
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it or God forbid, caught in the middle. And witnesses
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confirmed this conversation, this confrontation, it happened. They describe a
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very heated argument that Saturday. It involved d It involved Dale,
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and it even involved some of the trucking employees, and
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it was about everything the business, business finances, and also
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suspicions of infidelity. So it was a clash on all fronts, personal, financial,
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and professional. The whole thing was coming to a head.
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Speaker 1: And that Saturday evening is the last time anyone physically
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sees her alive.
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Speaker 2: That's the last confirmed sighting.
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Speaker 1: The digital footprint her phone that stops the next morning.
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Speaker 2: Rect correct Sunday, April twenty fifth, her phone pings at
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their home on Munger Road, and he keeps pinging there
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until seven fourteen am. Then it just goes dark. Nothing,
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It ceases all activity, no calls, no text, no data.
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It's just gone. And this is where we have to
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look very closely at Dale's narrative versus the physical reality
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of the scene.
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Speaker 1: So Dale claims he saw her that morning.
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Speaker 2: He does. He claims he gave her a massage Saturday night,
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which you know, is an interesting detail given that witnesses
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describe a massive fight happening just hours earlier.
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Speaker 1: A very odd detail.
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Speaker 2: And he says that on Sunday morning, around six p am,
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she was sleeping on the couch. He then says she
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left the house to cool off.
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Speaker 1: Cooling off in rural Michigan usually involves a drive. You
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aren't just walking to the local coffee shop in Franklin Township.
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Speaker 2: And that is the absolute smoking gun. In the initial investigation,
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her vehicles, a Hummer and a Catallac Escalade, were both
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sitting right there in the driveway.
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Speaker 1: So his story requires us to believe she just what
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walked off into the cornfields at dawn.
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Speaker 2: Well, it gets even more contradictory. Yeah, because Dale pointed
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out to investigators and to the family that certain items
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of hers were missing. What was missing her curling iron,
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her makeup bag, her purse, and that all important go bag.
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Speaker 1: Ah. So he used that to support his story exactly.
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Speaker 2: He's essential of saying, look, she packed up and left me.
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He's trying to build a narrative of a voluntary departure.
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Speaker 1: But that logic just completely eats itself. I mean, she
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meticulously packed her curling iron but left the hummer. It
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makes no sense.
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Speaker 2: It's a very selective narrative. It tries to explain her
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absence by pointing to these few missing personal items while
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completely ignoring the logistical impossibility of her transport. In rural America,
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your car is your legs, it's your freedom.
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Speaker 1: Leaving both vehicles behind is essentially an admission that she
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didn't leave voluntarily.
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Speaker 2: And on top of that, security footage from the home
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allegedly showed no sign of her leaving the premises on
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foot or with anyone else. The cameras didn't see her go.
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Speaker 1: So Sunday morning rolls around. It's nine zero zero am,
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and for this family, this was a ritual time.
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Speaker 2: It was rickle Bach. Her daughter arrives for their weekly
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Sunday breakfast. She walks in, expecting to see her mom
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and finds the house completely empty.
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Speaker 1: No ded and the family immediately starts looking.
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Speaker 2: Immediately, they start searching the property, calling her phone. And
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this is where the behavioral analysis from the family becomes
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so important. They noticed Dale's demeanor right away.
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Speaker 1: He wasn't frantic, he wasn't worried.
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Speaker 2: No family members noted he he appeared calm, almost resigned.
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He immediately started suggesting that she had just run off
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with another man. A deflection, a total deflection. Oh she's
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just gone. It's a very very passive reaction for a
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husband whose wife has just vanished into thin air without
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her cars.
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Speaker 1: The family obviously didn't buy it for a second, and
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they didn't just wait for the police to connect the dots.
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They went private, and that was a.
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Speaker 2: Game changing decision. They hired Billy Little, a private investigator,
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and I think it's fair to say that Billy Little
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is a major reason we're talking about a trial in
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twenty twenty six and not a dusty cold case file.
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Speaker 1: Okay, explain the difference there. What could a PI like
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Billy Little do that the police couldn't or wouldn't at
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that stage.
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Speaker 2: It's not just about what he could do, it's about
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his starting hypothesis. Police, you know, they often have to
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follow a very strict protocol Ladder. You start with the
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missing person's report, you have to rule out voluntary disappearance,
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You check hospitals.
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Speaker 1: It's a process.
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Speaker 2: It's a slow, methodical process. Billy Little entered the scene,
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started treating this as a domestic homicide investigation almost immediately.
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He was operating under the assumption of foul play from
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day one.
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Speaker 1: So he's working a different angle entirely, a much.
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Speaker 2: More aggressive angle. He was out there preserving potential evidence,
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reinterviewing witnesses, documenting the scene and the property, all while
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the official investigation was still in its early stages. He
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kept the public pressure.
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Speaker 1: High vigils, billboards.
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Speaker 2: A fifty thousand dollars reward the family. With his help,
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made sure nobody in Lenowie County could forget that d
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Warner was.
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Speaker 1: Missing, and that pressure eventually led the Michigan State Police
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to take over as the lead agency. In August of
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twenty twenty.
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Speaker 2: Three, and once they took over things started moving much
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more quickly. That external pressure paid off. They arrested Dale
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Warner on November twenty first to twenty twenty three.
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Speaker 1: At that point they still didn't have her, they still
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hadn't found d.
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Speaker 2: Correct They charged him with open murder and tampering with
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evidence entirely without.
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Speaker 1: A body, which is legally the everest of prosecution. We've
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talked about nobody cases before on this deep dive, and.
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Speaker 2: It bears repeating how incredibly difficult they are to win.
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You have to prove corpus tliktai the body of the
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crime without the actual body. The defense has a powerful
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built in argument, which is she just ran away. She's
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in Mexico, she got tired of her life, and she's
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starting over somewhere new. Prove she isn't. The burden of
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proof on the prosecution is just massive. You have to
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prove that the only reasonable explanation for her absence is death.
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Speaker 1: And yet, even without a body, the circumstantial evidence was
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so strong that a judge bounded over for.
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Speaker 2: Trial overwhelmingly strong. And then in March twenty twenty four
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came another huge legal step. Probate Judge Catherine A. Salah
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officially declared d legally dead.
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Speaker 1: So the civil court system was already moving on this yes, and.
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Speaker 2: That ruling was crucial. It wasn't a criminal finding, but
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it validated the circumstantial case. The judge cited the sudden
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cessation of all phone activity, the fact that she ignored
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all her asps, sets, the documented history of abuse, and
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of course the fact that Dale was the primary beneficiary
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of her estate.
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Speaker 1: It put an official stamp on what the family already
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knew it did.
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Speaker 2: But everyone involved, from the prosecution to the family, they
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were all operating under one assumption.
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Speaker 1: That she was gone, disposed of somewhere far away right.
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Speaker 2: The assumption in these cases is usually distance. The killer
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moves the body to a lake, remote forest, a gravel pit,
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somewhere completely disassociated from themselves to try and break that
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forensic link.
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Speaker 1: Dale learned to the opposite, the exact opposite. August twenty,
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twenty four, eight hundred and fifty five days after she vanished.
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Where did they finally find her?
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Speaker 2: On his property on Paragon Road, inside a barn stored
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within an anhydrous ammonia tank.
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Speaker 1: Okay, for the listener who isn't familiar with agricultural chemistry
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or heavy farm equipment, can you explain what an anhydrous
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tank is because this isn't just like a plastic barrel.
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Speaker 2: No, not at all. And hydrous ammonia is a nitrogen fertilizer. Okay,
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it stored as a liquid, but it's under incredibly high pressure.
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So these tanks are heavy gauge steel vessels. They're built
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like well, like tombs. They're designed to withstand massive internal
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pounds per square inch of pressure.
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Speaker 1: You see them on farms all the time.
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Speaker 2: All the time, big white cylindrical tanks, often on trailers.
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They're a completely ubiquitous part of that landscape. You'd see
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one and not think twice.
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Speaker 1: So you can't just pop the lid off and put
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something inside.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely impossible. It's a sealed pressure vessel. And this this
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is the detail that will likely be the centerpiece of
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the prosecution's opening statement in eleven days. The tank had
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been tampered with in a very specific, very deliberate way.
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It had been cut open, a section of the seal
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was removed, the body was placed inside, and then it
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was welded shut, welded, welded, and not an amateur job either.
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The reports indicate the welds were then sand down to
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be flushed with the original metal.
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Speaker 1: To hide the seam precisely.
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Speaker 2: The tank was then repainted to mask the heat marks
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from the torch and the fresh metal. And then, and
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this is the real psychological kicker, it was labeled.
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Speaker 1: Do not use, do not use.
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Speaker 2: It's a stroke of dark manipulative brilliance. Yeah, if you're
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a farm hand and you see a piece of equipment
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labeled broken or do not use, what do you do?
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Speaker 1: You leave it alone. You don't touch it, you.
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Speaker 2: Don't try to fill it, you don't mess with the valves.
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It becomes invisible furniture in the barn. It becomes part
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of the background clutter. And so it sat there, blending
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in with all the other equipment for nearly three years.
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Speaker 1: This required tools, It required time. You don't do this
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in a blind panic five minutes after a crime of passion.
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Speaker 2: This is exactly why I called it an engineered prison.
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It implies a cooling off period for the killer. Ironically enough,
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to execute this, you have to get the torch. You
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have to get the welder, you have to get the grinder,
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you have to get the paint.
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Speaker 1: It's a project.
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Speaker 2: It's a multi hour project. It moves the needle from
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any kind of manslaughter or crime of passion territory deep
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into first degree premeditation and cold calculated concealment.
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Speaker 1: And then psychologically, I mean keeping the body right there
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on the property. What does that say?
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Speaker 2: It speaks to a level of supreme arrogance or perhaps
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a deeply possessive, disturbing need for ultimate control. He kept
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her close. He likely walked past that tank every single.
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Speaker 1: Day for eight hundred and fifty five days.
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Speaker 2: For eight hundred and fifty five days, he worked in
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that barn. He existed an immediate proximity to the evidence
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of his crime, all while betting that his welding skills
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were good enough to fool absolutely everyone.
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Speaker 1: So how did they finally know to look inside that
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specific tank. You can't exactly X ray every single piece
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of steel on a multi acre farm.
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Speaker 2: It came from a tip that originated from a memory.
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A crucial memory was great Hearty Dee's brother.
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Speaker 1: The one who described her as tough.
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Speaker 2: That's him. He had a memory resurface. He recalled seeing
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Dale refurbishing an old, out of useed tank shortly after
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Dee's disappearance, he remembered seeing the welding equipment being moved
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around the barn.
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Speaker 1: But at the time it wouldn't have seemed strange, not
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at all.
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Speaker 2: In twenty twenty one, it would have just looked like
16:57
farm chores Dale's a farmer fixing a piece of equipment
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isn't weird. But years later, when you look at that
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same memory through the lens of a murder investigation where
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the body is inexplicably.
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Speaker 1: Missing, that memory takes on a very sinister shape.
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Speaker 2: It becomes the key. The family passed that information to
17:15
the investigators and it gave them the probable cause they needed, so.
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Speaker 1: They execute the surcharrant in August twenty twenty four, They
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bring in the equipment, they cut the tank.
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Speaker 2: Open, and on August twenty four, twenty twenty four, the
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Jackson County Medical Examiner confirmed it was Dianne Warner, identified
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via her dental records.
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Speaker 1: And it was Greg Hardy who coined that phrase, right,
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steel tomb.
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Speaker 2: He did, and it's a perfect horrific description. It wasn't
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a grave, it was a capsule a prison.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So let's fast forward to today. January sixteenth, twenty
17:46
twenty six. The body has been found. The nobody problem
17:50
that plagued the prosecution for years is now gone. What
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does this mean for the trial that starts on the
17:55
twenty seventh.
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Speaker 2: It completely upends the entire defense strategy? Is it incinerates it?
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When you are defending a nobody case, your primary argument
18:05
is to create reasonable doubt that she's even dead.
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Speaker 1: You argue she ran away.
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Speaker 2: You argue she ran away, she's living off the grid.
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She'll turn up someday. That entire defense is gone. We
18:13
have the body, we know she's deceased. So now the
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defense has the impossible task of explaining how their client's
18:20
wife ended up inside a welded steel tank on his
18:24
property when he is known to have welding skills and
18:27
was seen working on that very tank.
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Speaker 1: Can they argue that someone else did it? I mean,
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the classic defense is to point to an intruder, an
18:33
unknown third party, But.
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Speaker 2: Just think about the logistics of that. And intruder breaks
18:36
into the property, kills her, and then decides to what
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spend four or five hours in the barn cutting open
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a steel tank and.
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Speaker 1: Welding a shut without the husband noticing, Without.
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Speaker 2: The husband noticing without leaving any of their own forensic evidence,
18:49
and for what reason why go to all that trouble.
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The steel tomb itself acts as a kind of fingerprint.
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It suggests the perpetrator had comfort, time and complete ownership
19:00
of that space.
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Speaker 1: You don't do complex metal fabrication during a break in.
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Speaker 2: You absolutely do not. The act of concealment is in
19:07
itself the strongest piece of evidence pointing to who had
19:10
the means an opportunity.
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Speaker 1: And the trial is set for nine weeks.
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Speaker 2: That is a marathon, it is, and that tells you
19:17
how much evidence the prosecution plans to present. And it's
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important to note that despite the defense's attempt to get
19:22
a change of venue because of all the publicity citing
19:25
what citing the national coverage from dateline from Disappeared and
19:29
that People magazine investigates episode that just aired a few
19:32
days ago. Despite all that, the judge kept the trial
19:35
in Lanwy County.
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Speaker 1: So the community that knew Dn, the community that searched
19:39
for her for years, is going to be the one
19:41
judging this case.
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Speaker 2: They are the jury will be composed of her neighbors
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in a sense.
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Speaker 1: Now, there were charges against a step son as well,
19:48
initially weren't there.
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Speaker 2: There were Jaron Warner. He was charged with tampering with
19:53
evidence and accessory after the fact back in March of
19:56
twenty twenty five, but those charges were dropped a couple
19:59
of months later in May twenty twenty five.
20:02
Speaker 1: Any reason given, not.
20:03
Speaker 2: Officially, but you can surmise the strategy. It seems the
20:06
prosecution has decided to focus all of their firepower directly
20:10
on Dale. They are going to dilute the narrative or
20:13
complicate things for the jury with a co defendant. At
20:16
this stage, they have their target.
20:18
Speaker 1: And that huge wrongful death lawsuit is still moving in
20:21
the background.
20:21
Speaker 2: Yes, that's the civil track running parallel to the criminal case.
20:25
The pre trial for that is set for August to
20:27
twenty twenty six. So even after this criminal trial wraps
20:31
up in late March, the legal battles for a Warner
20:33
estate aren't over, but the criminal trial is the main event.
20:37
This is where liberty is at stake.
20:38
Speaker 1: So as we head toward January twenty seventh, what is
20:41
the single key thing listeners should watch for in the
20:44
news reports coming out of that courtroom.
20:46
Speaker 2: Watch the forensic testimony about the tank itself. I suspect.
20:50
The prosecution is going to bring in metallurgists or professional
20:53
welding experts to demonstrate for the jury exactly how much time, skill,
20:59
and effort went into.
21:00
Speaker 1: Sealing that tomb, to prove intent.
21:02
Speaker 2: To prove premeditation and intent, you don't accidentally weld the
21:06
tank shut. They will use that effort to show this
21:09
was a cold, deliberate act of concealment. And they will
21:13
also likely focus heavily on the timeline of that refurbishment
21:16
that Greg.
21:17
Speaker 1: Hardy witnessed, trying to pin it down.
21:19
Speaker 2: If they can correlate the time Dale was seen working
21:21
on that tank with the days immediately following Dee's disappearance,
21:24
then that timeline becomes a noose for the defense.
21:27
Speaker 1: It's such a grim, grim reality. But finding the steel
21:31
tomb didn't just solve the mystery of where she was.
21:33
It sounds like it may have sealed the fate of
21:35
the case itself.
21:36
Speaker 2: I think it did. It converted a very strong, circumstantial
21:39
puzzle into a cold, hard, physical reality. It silenced that
21:43
she ran away theory forever, and it forces a jury
21:46
to look at a piece of farm equipment in a
21:48
new light and to confront the incredible length some will
21:51
go to to maintain control even after death.
21:54
Speaker 1: We will definitely be watching closely as to reselection begins.
21:57
This was a heavy deep dive, but a real, only
22:00
necessary one to understand the legal storm that is about
22:03
to break in Michigan.
22:04
Speaker 2: It's going to be a long nine weeks for that
22:06
family and for that community, but hopefully it finally ends
22:10
with the answers and the justice they have been fighting
22:12
for for so long.