The Day Dee Disappeared

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0:41With over 132 ,000 students joining in, both on campus and online, GCU is proving that education can be affordable and exceptional. GCU is purpose-driven education. Find your purpose today at gcu.edu. Tonight on Dateline. Got a knock on my door. That changed my whole life that morning. You don't know what to do when somebody goes missing. They didn't want to believe it. Dee has just disappeared. Just disappeared. Drone team, infrared cameras, canines, zero physical evidence. She owned a farming company. A strong, independent businesswoman. They definitely both really wanted to build this big empire.

1:25You always have to look at the spouse. Right. I hear your wife is missing. I don't know if she's missing or if she just left. It was not uncommon for her to leave the home. Both her vehicles were still there. Did somebody come and pick her up? There was this rumor of somebody that she might have been having an affair with. An employee is seen on the farm in the middle of the night. Very suspicious. You get word that an x-ray has been done. Yes. It was starting to become terrifying. What the hell is going on here? It's a wholesome farm life in a safe little community where this is not supposed to happen, right?

1:59Mystery on the farm, a frightening disappearance, and fertile ground for secrets. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

2:16Here's Andrea Canning with The Day D Disappeared.

2:24There's a certain rhythm to farm life in Lenawee County, Michigan. Tilling the soil, planting the crops, tractors crisscrossing the fields at sunrise.

2:40Dee Warner knew that cadence by heart. She really cared about the farm. She did. It was in her blood. A sixth-generation farmer, 52-year-old Dee ran the sprawling farming enterprise with her husband Dale. She was hard-charging, fiery. Dee drives a Hummer. I mean, do we need to say anything else? Well, you know, she drove a Hummer in an Escalade, so you can see her personality would go either ritzy or rugged, right? Dee's brother, Greg Hardy, and his wife Shelly say she was reliable, too. especially when it came to her five children. So when Dee missed a standing breakfast with her daughter Raquel on a Sunday morning in April 2021, the kids were alarmed.

3:26Raquel came and said, have you seen my mom? And I said, no, she hasn't come down. And they said, well, we can't find her anywhere. Dee's husband said he was at a loss as well. Raquel had called Dale and asked him if he knew where Dee was, and he said no. No idea? No. He said she was sleeping on the couch, snoring like a baby when he saw her in the morning. Greg and Shelly didn't panic at first. Dee would often get away for a day or two when she needed time to think. But when their calls went straight to voicemail... I knew something was wrong because she would always answer me. We weren't the people, brother and sister, who chatted about the weather every day or anything like that.

4:07There was a purpose. Always a purpose. And I'm sure she saw it sometimes when I call, oh, s***, it's Greg. but we would always answer or immediately call back. Greg and Shelly offered to help look for her. We started searching everywhere, every place we could possibly think of. We searched at our offices, we came to the barns, we went back to Dee's, went through her farm. At Dee's farmhouse, a couple of things caught Shelly's eye. She didn't see Dee's purse anywhere, and strewn across the furniture, tissues. Tissues like she had... Like for a nose? Yeah, for her nose was running. But they weren't rumpled up.

4:48They were just like maybe wiped her nose and put it down. It was just an unusual thing. It was very odd. And outside, both of Dee's vehicles were still there. So she didn't leave in her car. She wouldn't go anywhere without driving her car or the Hummer or the Escalade. Early that evening, Dee's kids called the police. Deputy Austin Hall arrived at the farmhouse, body cam rolling. When I got there, you know, I knocked on the door, didn't get an answer. I saw Dale out in one of the barns. Are you Dale? Excellent. I am Deputy Hall from Long Island County Sheriff's Office. How are you, sir? So I hear your wife is missing?

5:31Well, I don't know if she's missing or if she just left. Dale told the deputy his wife was stressed over a recent argument with two employees. Still upset Saturday night, she picked a fight with him before going to bed with a migraine. She's got some migraine pills in there that she takes. She took quite a few of those and then she finally basically passed out on the couch, went to sleep and got her calmed down. The next morning, that Sunday, Dale said she was asleep on the couch when he got up to spray the fields. By the time he returned, he said Dee was gone, along with an overnight bag and some beauty products.

6:08Does Dale seem concerned? No. No, not really. I mean, I would think something was off, but she took her stuff. So, I mean, it's not like somebody forced her to go anywhere. He explained it that, you know, she does this all the time. This is something that is a routine thing where she gets mad and goes off. I don't want to get everybody all fired up. The kids are all fired up. I'm going to call the police. This isn't the first time she's done this, guys. Was there any sign of foul play? Did you see blood anywhere? Did you see a struggle anywhere? No, didn't see anything that remotely made me say, you know, something nefarious had occurred there.

6:48Even so, he took a close look at Dale's hands. One of the first things you do and are taught as a deputy is you look at somebody's hands, you know, and if somebody was in a domestic situation, they're going to have some kind of self-defense marks that would be left on their hands. Did you see anything on Dale? Nothing. Yep, nothing. Deputy Hall wasn't sure what to make of the situation. I called my supervisor and said, hey, this is what I got. This is weird, but I don't have really anything to go off of. So they said, you know, file your report. Somebody will follow up at some later point. You got a card in your case?

7:24Yes, I'll give you that. Did you think she was going to be found? I thought there was a good chance for sure. The deputy was right. Dee would be found, but not for a very long time. This was consuming you. Oh, he was very consumed. This image from the x-ray was going to change everything. It changed everything. I couldn't even breathe. It was like five years of emotion just burst out.

8:07Shelly, what was it like for you as the sun is coming up the next day and still no one has heard from Dee?

8:18Just difficult because you don't know what to do. You just keep thinking, where in the world would she have gone? What can we do to find her? Dee Warner's family couldn't imagine why she would walk away from her life. But her brother Greg says she did have that rebellious streak. She was a feisty girl, and so she was a lot of work. I've heard. Yeah, yeah, it's true, yeah. She had a mind of her own, too. Dee was fun, loud, and just as likely to show up in full makeup as she was in work boots. That woman would not go to the gas station without being made up. Parker Hardy is Dee's nephew. I love the thought of her in the middle of farm country.

9:01made up at all times. All times. Delivering lunches to the tractors, working in the fields. And her fashion sense was kind of matched her personality. Very much so. Very blingy, very lots of cheetah print. Very flashy, very professional too. Like to shop? Oh, yeah. She loved to shop, but she worked to earn the money. So it was more work, the more shopping. Making money was important to Dee. After raising four kids with her first husband, she fell for Dale, a fellow farmer who shared her ambition. She and Dale both were what I call empire builders. And they both wanted that. Yeah, for sure. He was a very hard worker, and they worked together very well.

9:48Dale, who was also married with four kids, came from another farming family in town. So when they left their spouses and married each other... Oh, that was a huge deal. Catherine Adams is Dee's lifelong friend. That was a very big deal because they were, you know, competitive farm families and, you know, they didn't get along. And then the real thing that iced the cake was that Dale's ex-wife married Dee's ex-husband. Stop it. Yes. It was messy. It was very messy. And it was messy for a long time. Despite the drama, Dee and Dale's partnership paid off. They pooled their resources and built a multi-million dollar farming empire.

10:29It included growing crops, seed and fertilizer sales, and a fleet of 18 wheelers. Dale was in charge of farm operations. Dee managed the money, the employees, and her brainchild, the trucking business. Dee had to really fit in with men. Because in business, where she's the boss, men don't always love that, especially maybe in this business. I think that's where she got her real tough shell. and her real fiery personality. She wasn't afraid to tell it like it is. She made it happen and by any means necessary, and she didn't care whose toes she stepped on. At work and at home, there was one person who was rarely far from Dee's side.

11:08Her nine-year-old daughter, Angelina, the only child she shared with Dale. She was a little mini Dee, just a total diva. Makeup, glitter, cheetah print was a... Yeah. It was both of their signature? Yes. Definitely. Angelina became the love of her life as a little girl, and she drug her everywhere. She's in the office, she's in the car, she's in the truck, she's in whatever. Which made Dee's sudden disappearance all the more perplexing. Angelina wasn't home when Dee went missing. She was at a sleepover. She would never leave Angelina. We couldn't understand. Dee's relatives expanded their search of the family properties.

11:50It must have been so daunting. I mean, we're talking about thousands and thousands of acres of land. Yeah, we just keep looking, and that's all we could do. They began to wonder about Dee's mental health. Was she upset enough? Because we knew, we'd heard that she was upset the days before. Arguing. Arguing over some employees, etc., that maybe she just had enough, and maybe she did decide to do some self-harm. As successful as the Warners were, running the business was a lot for Dee. She told her kids she was worn out and wanted a break from it all. Could Dee have taken her own life? As they searched, Parker was afraid of what they might find.

12:30I thought for sure that I was probably going to see her propped up against a tree. That was what I was bracing myself for. Wow. But we saw nothing. On that second day, another investigator followed up with Dale at the farm. I'm Detective Greco from the Sheriff's Department. Can we step inside and talk? Yeah, we can. See what we can do. Dale still didn't seem to share the family's anxieties. What do you think? What's your take on it? I think she'll be back another day or two. But by midweek, after a couple more visits from detectives, even Dale seemed worried. And then it started sinking in like, hey, something's off.

13:05I mean, I was concerned because she's never left Angelina ever. Something else Dee had never done, he said, leave her wedding ring behind. When I walk through the office, her ring is on my desk. that's what just something is wrong. Did you think that was a sign of trouble in the marriage? Absolutely. That that was her message? Right. You always have to look at the spouse. Right. And at this point, he had been cooperative with us. He was willing to sit down and have an interview with us, more than welcome to invite us inside. Investigators looked into Dale's story and the farm's security cameras seemed to back it up.

13:43Footage showed Dale heading out to spray the fields the morning Dee disappeared, just like he said. Employees and friends also told them Dale was a loving husband. He's the nicest guy. He wouldn't harm her. She was the hothead. I was going to say, he's the calm, cool collector. She was like the bad cop. He was the good cop. Right. He's just not capable of it. Here with Dale right now. Dale occupied himself with farm chores while investigators worked around him. They searched the property with cadaver dogs and drones with infrared cameras. They watched hours of that security camera footage, frame by frame.

14:18And that's when they spotted something, a middle-of-the-night visitor who would soon become a key focus of the investigation. Three in the morning. That's an odd time. Very odd. To be showing up to a farm. Yes.

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16:44Lenawee County investigators had a mystery on their hands. Nearly a week had passed, and they were no closer to finding mother of five, Dee Warner. There's different kind of theories that were running. Right, because you have possible suicide. Absolutely. Possible just wants to get away. Right. Because she can't handle the situation. Yep. Or was there the thought she met with foul play? Absolutely. There definitely was the thought that there would be foul play. Dee's cell phone data didn't help narrow it down. Her phone went off the grid around 7 a.m. the morning she disappeared. She hadn't used her credit cards or made a withdrawal at a bank either.

17:23But Dale said she might not have needed to. The couple routinely kept a lot of money around the house. He says, well, she's got cash on her. He's like, oh, well, how much cash are you talking? You know, is it enough to go out to eat a few times, get your nails done? He goes, probably$50 ,000 to$100 ,000. What? He's like,$50 ,000 to$100 ,000. Who walks around with cash like that? Right, right. So later, Dale explains that, you know, they had a shared safe. With money like that, they thought, Dee could be anywhere. Maybe she's out of the country. Maybe she went to her favorite vacation destination.

17:56At this point, we had started contacting the FAA and finding out if there was any sight of her going through an airport. Because, I mean, they have records of all that. Yeah. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all. What about international? International. Passport run through the system? She had a passport, but it had not been used at all. Since both of Dee's SUVs were at the farm, investigators wondered if someone picked her up. Maybe another man. Greg says Dee had no shortage of admirers. D is an attractive woman. She has a flirtatious type personality for everybody. I asked Dale, is there a history of affairs?

18:35What does Dale say? Dale says, no, I'm not concerned at all that she'd be having an affair. Okay. Okay, well, I would be far from the first gentleman to have no idea that his wife is having an affair. He might not know. Absolutely. Sure enough, through their interviews, investigators discovered that D had been seeing someone. A married builder from town. So that goes back to, okay, if she either ran away with him or maybe she wouldn't run away with him and he came in and did something bad. When you have a married lover, it could be the lover. It could be the lover's wife. Right. So we chased that lead down as well and contacted him.

19:14Did he have any reason to be angry with Dee? No. Had she broken up with him and he was resentful? He said it was more just a fling kind of a thing. So just a casual fling or something more complicated. While investigators pursued that lead, they were also hearing about Dee's tell-it-like-it-is personality. Had she angered someone to the point of wanting revenge? There were a lot of people who did not like Dee. Yeah, definitely. Everybody knew Dee, you know, and they all either hated her or loved her. Or they hated her but still said she was a nice lady. Maybe someone had come to the farm looking for her.

19:51Investigators took a close look at that security footage. That's when they noticed something. Someone driving onto the property in the middle of the night, shortly before Dee disappeared. How early? Like three in the morning. That's an odd time. Very odd. To be showing up to a farm. Yeah, so that immediately, red flags were going off everywhere. Turned out it was Dee's right-hand man from her trucking company, Todd Nurick. He was one of the employees Dee fought with right before she went missing. Now, here he was in the pre-dawn hours, picking up a truck and driving it off Dee's farm. Not only that.

20:26He signed in on the electronic truck log with a different person's name and driver ID number. This is very suspicious. Very suspicious. Was he interviewed, I'm assuming? Absolutely. And what does he say he's doing there in the middle of the night? On the first interview, it was very, very cold. He didn't want to give out a whole lot of information. He explained, you know, I had nothing to do with this. I didn't hurt her. I don't know where she is. Detectives talked to Todd again, pressed him harder. This time, Deputy Hall says he admitted to lying, but said it had nothing to do with Dee's disappearance.

21:02He was just taking a load out of state somewhere, and he was driving longer than he was supposed to. And so that's why he was kind of being cold about it. Okay. because he was bending the rules to take a load further than he should. Deputy Hall says Todd told detectives if he'd been evasive, it was because of that and nothing else. But Dee's friend Catherine wasn't so sure. I thought Dee might have been in that truck. Despite those leads, there were no immediate arrests. Weeks turned into months. Dee's story went national. Dateline featured it in our Missing in America series. Catherine organized rallies, put up billboards, and formed a Facebook group called Justice for D.

21:47We had Justice for D bracelets we would hand out. We had flyers that went up. Shelly put a bracelet on her wrist, too, and made a vow. You were never going to take it off until you got justice. Never going to take it off until I got justice. Dale told Parker he was struggling, so he threw himself into mundane tasks around the farm. He said, I'm worried about where Dee Dee's at. So I told the guys to bring in some tanks, and I would paint them at night when I can't sleep. The lack of progress with the investigation was driving Dee's brother crazy. This was consuming you. Oh, he was very consumed, I can tell you.

22:25Every day, there wasn't a day that Greg didn't work on him. Luckily, help would soon be on the way. But it came with a warning. I said, hey, I'll go wherever the evidence leads me, so if it leads me to you, be careful.

22:54Almost a year after Dee's disappearance, investigators had no answers or suspects. Dale had been cooperative, sitting through interviews and searches of his property. But he'd grown tired of people poking around the farm. By now, police had cleared that employee, Todd, who took the truck. And as for the married man Dee was seeing? He was out of the state on a family vacation. Was this a rock-solid alibi? Rock-solid. Shelly and Greg had lost hope of ever seeing Dee again. Greg said, Shelly, you've got to come to reality that Dee's gone. And that was really hard for me that day because it was such a final, like, I knew he was right, but I didn't want to believe it.