Michigan mom legally declared dead three years after disappearance

(NewsNation) — Michigan mother Dee Warner, who was reported missing from her Lenawee County home in April 2021, has officially been declared dead, according to multiple reports.

Lenawee County Probate Court Judge Catherine Sala issued the ruling Monday, granting a request by the family to have Dee Warner declared dead despite her remains still missing.

The family filed the request in 2022 so that they could pursue a wrongful death lawsuit against Dee Warner’s husband, Dale Warner, who was arrested last fall in connection to her death, according to WTOL.

For nearly three years, Dee Warner’s family has been hoping for answers about what happened to their mother.

Dee Warner disappears

Dee Warner was 52 when she went missing on April 24, 2021. At the time, she had four grown children and a 9-year-old daughter with her second husband, Dale Warner.

“My mom was a very outgoing, a fun life-of-the-party type person,” said Dee Warner’s daughter, Rikkell Bock. “We were her world. Her kids were everything to her and her grandkids.”

However, Bock said her mother and stepfather had been fighting a lot about their farm and trucking business. On the night she disappeared, Dee Warner had made arrangements for her 9-year-old to stay with a friend.

“I knew that they were fighting Saturday about the employees, and I knew it was going to escalate Saturday night,” Bock said. “She told me that she wanted to divorce and she wanted to leave and she wanted to sell her trucking company and be done. He knew that if she sold the trucking company, there would be no more ag farms — nothing, nothing left.”

She says Dale Warner admitted they fought but said they had smoothed things over.

“He said that Saturday night,” Bock said. “She ended up letting him rub her back and she fell asleep on the ground. He picked her up and put her on the couch. I just knew that she wouldn’t have calmed down enough to have to let him rub her back.”

Conflicting theories

Dee’s brother, Gregg Hardy, believes it was an argument between Dale and Dee that turned deadly. He does not believe his sister is still alive.

“She has been murdered in my opinion. Unfortunately, we have not been able to recover her remains,” Hardy said.

However, Dale Warner had previously claimed Dee Warner was thinking about leaving and always talked about going to Mexico or Jamaica, according to his attorney Larry Leib.

“He thinks she decided to go where she would be comfortable and not be found,” Leib said.

He says the company records show Dee Warner was preparing for a while.

“Dee ran the businesses, she diverted money to various accounts, she had an off-book bank account in which money was transferred to cash. We believe that she planned on leaving, she didn’t tell anybody,” Leib said.

Hardy called Dale’s story “totally bogus” and said he believed police initially bought into it and did not pressure Dale for answers.

Dale Warner charged with wife’s murder

The family remained adamant that their mother would never have left or would have stayed away for so long.

“I know that if my mom was still alive, she would have contacted one of us. She would have never left my little sister with him ever,” Bock said.

In November 2023, police officially charged Dale Warner with murder and tampering with evidence in connection to Dee Warner’s death. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and is being held at Lenawee County Jail on a $15 million bond, according to WDIV.

A preliminary hearing for Dale Warner’s case has been scheduled for April 9 at Lenawee County District Court.