Prosecution calls 13 witnesses as hearing opens in Warner murder case

ADRIAN — Before a packed gallery and national and regional news media, prosecutors last week began to lay out their case that Dale Warner murdered his wife, Dee Ann, in 2021.

Dee was last seen April 24 or 25, 2021, at the Warners' home on Munger Road in Franklin Township. She was reported missing by her adult children April 25 after her daughter Rikkell Bock found she wasn't at home when she stopped by for their regular Sunday breakfast and they spent several hours looking for her.

Dale Warner, 56, is charged with open murder and tampering with evidence in Dee's disappearance. He was arrested in November 2023 by the Michigan State Police, who took over the investigation in August 2022 at the request of the Lenawee County Sheriff's Office, which initiated the investigation.

The preliminary examination in Lenawee County District Court is to determine if the charges against Dale will be bound over to Lenawee County Circuit Court for further proceedings. Visiting Judge Anna M. Frushour will decide whether the evidence shows there is probable cause to believe a crime was committed and that Dale committed it.

Frushour is a district judge in Washtenaw County who was appointed to hear the case after Lenawee County's judges disqualified themselves. The case's original judge, Lenawee County District Judge Laura J. Schaedler, removed herself after disclosing past professional and personal contact with the Warners and their families over the years. The county's probate and circuit judges also disqualified themselves, using the standard disqualification form provided by the Michigan State Court Administrative Office and selecting the option that states, "based on objective and reasonable perceptions, my continued assignment would create an appearance of impropriety."

The hearing adjourned Friday afternoon during testimony by the state police's lead investigator, Detective Sgt. Daniel Drewyor. It is scheduled to resume June 6.

With the gallery divided with Dee's supporters seated on the side behind the prosecutors and Dale's supporters seated behind the defense, Lenawee County Prosecutor Jackie Wyse and Assistant Prosecutor Dave McCreedy on Friday called Drewyor, two state police data analysts and two of Dee's friends: massage therapist Stacey Brodie and Dee's assistant at her trucking business, Stephanie Voelkle. On the hearing's first day, former Warner employees Brian Bush and Todd Neyrinck, former IT consultant Kyle Wagner, friend Amy Alexander, and Rikkell testified. On Thursday, another state police analyst, a General Motors expert to the OnStar system and Dee's son Zack Bock testified.

Disappearance

Rikkell and Zack testified about how it was unusual that Dee would go anywhere without her and Dale's young daughter. They described how they looked for Dee on April 25, 2021, checking places where they knew Dee would go when she and Dale had a fight and, after conferring with a police officer friend, calling police to report Dee missing.

In body-worn camera video from a Lenawee County sheriff's deputy's first interaction with Dale on the evening of April 25, he is heard telling the deputy that he last saw Dee asleep on the living room couch at about 6 in the morning when he got up to go spray the farm fields near their home. He said the night before she had been upset about an altercation she had with two employees of the trucking business, took medication for a migraine headache and fell asleep on the couch after he calmed her down.

The Bocks and Dee's friends testified about Dee planning to tell Dale on the evening of April 24 that she wanted to sell the businesses and divorce Dale.

In the video, Dale tells Deputy Austin Hall that he talked on the phone with Rikkell that morning about Dee not being home. When he got done spraying, he checked the house and found that Dee's hair curler, hair dryer, makeup bag and her "go bag" were gone. He told Hall that Dee kept a bag packed because she would leave regularly.

"I wasn't real concerned because she'll go to Zack's house, she'll cool off, and she'll come back home," Dale said in the video.

Others also testified last week about Dee regularly staying somewhere else when she and Dale would argue.

Dee's Cadillac Escalade was still at the house, so someone must have picked her up, Dale said.

The strange things about the situation, Dale told Hall, were that Dee hadn't contacted anyone, he found her wedding ring on his office desk and she was usually with their young daughter.

Dale told Hall that their daughter had stayed the night with his brother who has daughters close to the same age. Dee's friend Amy Alexander testified Wednesday that the girl stayed with her that night.

Warners' relationship

Alexander, Brodie and Voelkle testified about what they knew about Dee and Dale's relationship.

Brodie testified about seeing concerning bruises on Dee during massage sessions, first one on her right hip that was about the size of an orange and another on Dee's thigh. Both times, Dee told her they were from fights with Dale. When Brodie asked Dee why she stayed with Dale, Dee told her she'd been divorced once and she had the businesses and her young daughter to consider. She told Brodie that she was the only involved parent and the girl "would be screwed if anything happened to" Dee.

The last time Brodie saw Dee was at her weekly appointment on April 21, 2021. Dee appeared to have been crying and was preoccupied, Brodie said, and the last thing Dee said to her was she was tired and "it was time to talk to a lawyer."

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Voelkle last saw Dee after 3 p.m. on April 23, 2021, she said. Dee was nervous about a talk she was going to have with Todd Neyrinck, who managed the trucking business. Voelkle said Dee and Neyrinck had a "heated" conversation. She spoke to Neyrinck after, and he said Dee was trying to pick a fight with him.

Voelkle said Dee was her best friend. They saw each other every day at work and communicated when they were away from work. She said she did not have much of a relationship with Dale.

She and Dee discussed Dee leaving Dale, Voelkle said, and Dee's purchase of her and Zack's lake home was to give Dee a "way to escape" and a "safe haven."

Digital evidence

A point of contention in the hearing was whether Dee had a second phone. Dale told Hall she had a "secret," second phone that he had seen twice while they were on vacations; others testified that she had just one Apple iPhone that she kept with her all the time and used frequently each day.

As Dee's assistant, Voelkle said they discussed getting another phone for Dee but she ultimately didn't buy another phone. Under questioning by Dale's lead attorney, Mary Chartier, she recalled that Dee had wanted a phone that was capable of being used internationally and said she didn't know if Dee had bought a phone on her own.

Drewyor testified police have never found Dee's phone, but that the data from it that was stored remotely in Apple's iCloud service was loaded to another phone. Police got that phone from Dale in May 2022, Drewyor testified, but Dale was not compliant in turning it over when served with the search warrant.

The iCloud data consisted mostly of photos and messages sent between it and other Apple devices, Drewyor said.

That data appeared to have been transferred to the other phone so that its phone number could continue to be used for the family businesses, Drewyor said.

Drewyor and the state police analysts testified that a review of data related to Dee's phone showed there were no connected phone calls after 4:47 p.m. April 24, 2021, and incoming calls after that went to voicemail. Dee's friends and family testified it was unusual for Dee to not answer a call or promptly return text messages. There was data usage at 7:01 a.m. April 25, but no way to tell if that was activated by someone using the phone. The Find My iPhone app last connected with a cellular network three times on April 25, 2021. The Milestone app, which works with the farm's camera system, was accessed four times on the morning of April 25, 2021. And the myCadillac app was last used at 7:44 a.m. April 25, 2021. The last cellular network activity with the phone was at 7:14 a.m. April 25, 2021, and by using connection data from the towers to the northeast and southeast of the Warners' home analysts were able to place it at the Munger Road property.

Testimony also illustrated efforts to track both Dee's Escalade and her Hummer. Devin Newell, a senior technical expert at General Motors, testified about the use of the Escalade's OnStar account. In reviewing about two years of data, there were more than 2,000 requests for the Escalade's location including some that showed the vehicle was in motion when the request was made.

Former Warner employee Brian Bush, who also is Dale's former son-in-law, and Drewyor testified about a GPS device that Warner had Bush install in the Hummer. Dale also asked Bush for a trail camera that he could place in their house, Bush testified. Dale put it by the kitchen sink so he could see who was coming and going.

Voelkle testified about Dee being angry after finding a device in her Hummer, Voelkle said. Dee brought it into the office and showed what she had found. Frushour sustained an objection from Warner's lead attorney, Mary Chartier, that Voelkle recalling that Dee said it was a tracking device was hearsay.

Warners' businesses

Zack Bock testified about the financial health of the Warners' businesses. He managed the companies' finances. He said the trucking business was profitable and subsidized the farming and farm services businesses. He said he and Dale disagreed about the farming business's viability.

In 2018-19, Bock said, the farming property surrounding the Warners' home on Munger Road went into foreclosure, then the businesses defaulted on loans for their John Deere equipment. Eventually, a resolution was reached between the bank that held the loans on the farm property, John Deere and the dealership that sold the equipment where the Warners regained the farm property through a land contract. He said the trucking company was not involved in those deals.

Bock testified that the trucking businesses were solely owned by Dee while she and Dale shared ownership of the other businesses. Responding to questions from Chartier, Bock said he was unware that Lenawee County Circuit Judge Michael R. Olsaver ruled in October that DDW was equally owned by Dee and Dale.

— Contact reporter David Panian at dpanian@lenconnect.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @lenaweepanian.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Summary of Dee Warner disappearance hearing