Tonight, Disappeared, a missing persons TV series on the Investigation Discovery channel, will feature the disappearance of Dee Ann Warner of Tecumseh, Michigan. The 52-year-old mother of five and grandmother of six was reported missing by her adult children on April 25, 2021.
The night before, she told several people she was going to tell her husband, Dale Warner, she wanted a divorce. A friend picked up her only minor child, a nine-year-old daughter, to shield her from what was expected to be an ugly scene between Dale and Dee.
The next morning, when Dee’s adult daughter and her family came over for their usual Sunday morning breakfast with Dee, she was nowhere to be found. Yet, both her vehicles were accounted for — one in the driveway, the other 100 yards from the house in front of the office where Dee ran her trucking business and she and Dale ran their farming business.
Perplexed and a little worried, phone calls were made to various family members but no one had heard from Dee since the day before. Dale admitted they had argued and that it was the worst argument they’d ever had, then later said it wasn’t so bad. He claimed to have given her a massage on the living room floor where she fell asleep. Dale’s said he picked her up and placed her on the couch and then went to bed. The next morning at 6 AM, Dale was leaving for work when he saw her still on the couch, snoring.
Later in the day, Dale announced he had found her $50,000 wedding ring on his desk. To him, it was a sure sign she’d left him for good. He told authorities she probably took off to Jamaica or Mexico.
To Dee’s family, his story doesn’t add up. In an interview early this spring with Parker Hardy, Dee’s nephew, he told me Dee would have never left her daughter. “Not in a million years,” Hardy said. “Her family was her whole world.”
As time passed, Dale Warner’s story seemed even more unlikely. Dee’s cell phone and Apple Watch both went dead early Sunday morning, there has been no activity on her bank account or credit cards, security cameras do not show her leaving the house, and the cash she kept stashed in her desk was still there.
No one has heard from her since. It’s been a year and a half.
Dee’s family became increasingly frustrated with the Lenawee County Sheriff Office and in March 2022, Billy Little, Jr., nationally recognized investigative attorney, started working on the case pro bono. A task force was formed between local law enforcement, Michigan State Police, and the FBI. On August 1, 2022, at a Justice for Dee rally in front of the Old Courthouse in Adrian, Michigan, Sheriff Troy Bevier announced his intentions to turn the case over to the Michigan State Police.
Dee’s brother, Gregg Hardy, has been very vocal about pushing for an arrest. He does not believe his sister is alive and wants justice for Dee. You can read more about Hardy’s statements here and here.
Producers and crew of Disappeared began interviewing people close to Dee in the spring of 2022 and have been tracking updates on the case. Tonight, at 10 PM, they will share their findings. You can watch the episode, “Vanished in the Heartland” on the Investigation Discovery channel and will be streamable on Discovery+.
In an interview with Billy Little, Jr. this morning, he stressed the importance of media attention on the disappearance of Dee Ann Warner. “It’s important the public remembers there’s a woman in your community that’s missing. Someone is responsible for that and we need to keep public pressure on the authorities to do their job and solve this case. Without pressure, cases like this, people lose interest and the case grows cold,” Little told me.
If you want to help Dee’s family find out what happened to their mother, sister, aunt, and friend, please call 1–855-MICHTIP.
Will you be watching tonight? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
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