Original subtitles

[news] Signs spell out justice for Dee.

[Kathryn] We had pens, we had bows,

we had signs going up, we had yard signs.

We were just trying to get it out there.

They really began to beat the drum of justice for Dee.

He was searching for widowers' dating sites

while claiming that she left on her own.

Nobody of authority had enough gumption

to name Dale Warner as a prime suspect.

Lenawee County Sheriff Troy Bevere

says he hears the rally call for justice for Dee.

Where in the heck is she?

[chilling music]

[narrator] Springtime in Lenawee County.

We live in a very ruralú small town called Tipton

and it's surroundedú by farms and rolling hills

called the Irish Hills.

Beautiful area, a lot of wonderful people.

Pretty much everybody knows everybody.

[narrator] The Warner family has been farming here

since the 1830s.

But today, the family of 52-year-old Dee Warner

makes a frantic call to the sheriff's office.

Her daughter and her little family

initially show up forú breakfast at Dee's house

on Sunday morning.

[narrator] Dee didn't make the date,

and she's nowhere to be seen.

They're very concerned.

She's not answering her phone, which isn't like her.

So she starts getting a hold of her other siblings.

They all come out to the farm.

I called, and no, úit went directly to voicemail,

which is just totally unheard of.

Dee would always take my call.

That, for me, felt very unusual for her.

She had her phone attached to her 24/7.

And so it was an alarm to us.

[narrator] Dee's husband, Dale,

comes in from working the fields.

[David] As far as he knew,

she was at home sleeping on the couch

Dale's just like, come on, guys.

She always does this.

Dee often did disappear for a day or two,

but never without her youngest daughter,

who was nine.

So that was really what I think

spurred a very immediate concern that this time was different.

Her two vehicles, the Hummer and the Cadillac Escalade,

were left on the property.

And that was when I discovered JCB loader tracks

leading up to the sliding glass doors of the house.

They go right underneath the Hummer.

And so that struck me as very odd.

I don't know what happened, where in the heck is she?

[Shelly] That's a day that changed our lives forever.

One of the worst days in our lives.

[police] Hey, how you doing? [Dale] All right.

[police] Can we step inside, talk to you?

[Dale] Yeah, we can.

[narrator] On the 26th of April,

police speak with husband Dale at the house.

[narrator] Officers discover Dee,

a mother of five,

has built up a successful trucking business

alongside the farm.

[Melissa] Dee Warner was a very strong woman.

Dee ran three businesses,

and she had many male employees working under her.

So she had to be strong and she had to be confident

in who she was and what she wanted.

[Daniel] There was an altercation

between Dee and an employee

on Friday going into Saturday.

They were having a dispute

and one of the employeesú confronts Dee and says,

"You're crazy, everyone knows you're crazy."

Some of the men apparentlyú in the trucking business

had a hard time respecting the fact

that their boss was a woman.

So she had a lot on her plate.

[Parker] When I saw her on Friday,

she was distressed and very just different.

I thought maybe it finally just caught up to her.

[Melissa] She was known to have a very strong personality

that rubbed people the wrong way.

However, if Dee Warner loved you and you loved her,

she was very seemingly loyal and generous

and a constant person in your life.

[Parker] Dee was a very fierce and strong individual.

She would go to the end of the world for you

if she cared about you,

but you never want to get on her wrong side.

If you got on her wrong side, you were as good as dirt.

[Shelly] Dee was way too nosy.

We'd always call her the mayor of Tipton

because she always knew what was going on.

[narrator] Husband Dale tells police

that Dee suffers with mental health issues.

[Melissa] He notes that some of Dee's things are missing,

like her go bag.

The hair curlers weren't there, and her makeup bag wasn't there.

Her passport was gone.

Her phone was nowhere in sight.

[Shelly] I went around to the bedroom.

I went to the couch where I saw tissues everywhere.

So I knew she had to have been upset.

At this point, my mind

went to that she had maybe done something to harm herself.

But one of the most interesting things, I think,

that happened right after Dee disappeared

is Dee's wedding ring is found in the office.

[Melissa] She had a $40,000 ring.

And Dale says, oh my gosh, you know, here's her ring.

She left it on my desk.

[Melissa] He says they had had an argument the night before.

And so he just brushes it off

as she must have just taken off again.

Well, I went down to the office

and started reviewing the cameras.

If she left this ring on Dale's desk,

we should be able to see her coming and going.

[Parker] And surely there was nothing.

Something was drastically wrong.

[Gregg] The sitting by and waiting

doesn't fit my personality.

The week after she went missing, I called all her friends.

I'd asked 30, 40 neighbours to join together

on a walking land search

just to confirm that she wasn't laying out somewhere.

[Dan] The sheriff's office

conducted a lot of area searches.

The land that was owned and or farmed by the Warner family.

They had thousands of acres and it leads to nothing.

[narrator] In May 2021,

investigators turned to the local media.

Sheriff's deputies are tryingú to find a missing mother.

52-year-old Deanne Warner has not been seen

for more than two weeks.

Obviously as time goes on,

we are more and more concerned about her safety

as obviously Mother's Day passed

and she was not around

and didn't make contact with anybody.

[David] They had Mother's Day

weeks after Dee went missing.

The nine-year-old had a really hard time

with her mom being gone.

[news] The county sheriff says his detectives

are responding to a lot ofú tips from the community.

If anybody has any information out there,

we ask that you please contact Crime Stoppers

and we will be following up.

The support of our community, I can't tell you

and friends and family just kept us going.

We weren't going to give up.

[Melissa] Welcome into WTOL 11 News at 11.

- I'm Melissa Andrews. - And I'm Jeff Smith.

Warner has been gone missing since April.

Tonight, federal agents and local police searched her home

[narrator] With no new leads,

the sheriff's office asksú the FBI and state police

to work alongside them

in the investigation.

It was all hands on deck with high-tech equipment,

search and rescue teams, as well as K9s

just looking for answers.

[news] It's been six months and still no sign of Dee Warner.

[narrator] Investigators have to consider

that Dee has come to some harm.

Recently disturbed soil is dug

in a search for any recent burials.

Anytime an excavator came there was a lot of tension in the air.

We thought that this was a very prudent time

to do a even more thorough search.

[news] Ground sonar equipment scoured Warner's residents

looking for anything.

Each dig was horrendous.

Every dog was emotional and then nothing.

A lot of what we did was look at their finances at the time

to see if she could be supporting herself financially

and be alive somewhere.

Dee was a big spender

from spending $10,000, $15,000 a month,

getting her hair done, eyelashes, massages,

to spending no money,

not accessing your credit cards,

not accessing the funds in the bank.

You're only left with a few possibilities,

either Dee is alive and she's somewhere,

so we need to find her, or she's dead.

And if she's dead, we still need to find her.

[narrator] Investigators re-interview

Dee's husband, Dale,

about her disappearance.

[Dan] As time goes on, he slowly changes his story.

He says, "She'll be back in a few days,"

and then a few days come and go.

She'll be back in a week, and then a week goes by.

She'll be back in a month.

And eventually it grows to where he more consistently states

that she clearly is in Mexico or Jamaica,

and she took a bunch of money with her.

Was enamoured with these particular houses

in the hills of Jamaica where the drug cartel live.

It's so outlandish, it's inexplicable.

I can't believe he said it.

Suspicious, to say the least.

[Gregg] Someone asked me after Dee went missing

how much I trusted Dale Warner.

My knee-jerk response was this, zero.

[narrator] The investigation puts

Dale and Dee Warner's marriage

under the microscope.

[Melissa] Dee and Dale were both married to different people.

They had an affair and got together,

and then their exes also got together.

And they each brought fourúchildren into the relationship.

[narrator] With Dale being a Warner

and Dee hailing from the rival farming family, the Hardys,

their relationship doesn't go down well.

[Shelly] It seemed like the Warners

always tried out do the Hardys.

If we bought land, they had to buy land.

And so when Dee started dating Dale,

her father was not happy thatúshe was going with this man.

[narrator]ú But soon, they tie the knot.

I actually walked Dee downú the aisle at her wedding.

It was a very, very nice wedding.

I certainly didn't look at Dale Warner

and say this is a shining superstar,

my sister's really lucky.

Didn't feel that way at all.

[narrator] Dee's business success,

detectives learn,

may have been a source of friction between the couple.

As she was very muchúthe lead of their businesses,

she was the businesswoman.

That was always the role she wanted too,

was to be the big dog.

[Kathryn] Dee wanted it all.

Dee wanted to build an empire.

She worked her tail off.

I mean, she, in my opinion,

everything they had was because of her.

Dee's trucking company was the one

that was doing great

and basically supportingú the other two companies.

They were deeply in debt on the farm side,

and the trucking sideú was making up for that.

[Kathryn] He had Napoleon complex

and had to appear like he was the man in charge.

He couldn't let the employees think that she's the final say.

She felt like he would undermine her.

He still had to have that appearance

that he was in control.

He just had to knock her down.

Dee, at one point, did send Dale a message saying,

you know, you don't respect me,

and we are just, like, roommates.

So I think that tension was boiling.

[Shelly] It was getting more

turbulent or tremulous at the house.

They were arguing more and fighting more.

The family described when they would get together for dinner,

Dale would often not be sitting at the table with them,

and that conversations would go on around him.

So this was not a happy marriage at all.

I tolerated him.

He was my brother-in-law, right?

That doesn't mean you have to like him.

I tried to make the best of it.

[narrator] Behind the scenes, police discover

there is something more sinister about the marriage.

[Joni] Many people describe Dale as very controlling.

[David] He bought a tracker because her other vehicle

did not have the automatic tracking that the Cadillac did.

He would print off her whereabouts and write on, OK,

she told me that she is here,

but I can see on the map that she's not there.

He did show up places, oddly, where she was,

and how could he know that she was there?

And she accused him over text many times of,

I see you're stalking me again.

When she found the tracker, she was very upset.

During the course of the investigation,

they also executed a search warrant

for the Cadillac Escalade

and found out over, I think, a 16-month period,

he had tracked her over 2,100 times.

So that was very alarming.

And he was trying to set up cameras

in the house for locations

so he could watch her

and observe who's coming in the house.

[narrator] Dale's controlling behaviour soon turns violent,

as Dee's friends tell investigators.

A massage therapist on a number of occasions

saw bruising on Dee's arms,

and she did this, indicating that...

a handprint as if somebody had grabbed Dee.

Other people told investigators about

a bruise on Dee's forehead,

right where her hair was parted.

And it was described as a goose egg.

[Shelly] I always feel bad because Dee never spoke

about Dale being physical.

I knew there was verbal... abuse.

She really tried to cover it up

because it was an embarrassment for her,

for everybody to know that she was fighting so much.

She told friends months before she was actually missing

that I've been watching Dateline

and I'm afraid he could do something like this to me.

It got very to the point where she was ready to leave.

[narrator] Dale's behaviour

following his wife's disappearance

raises suspicions in other places.

In many of those searches, Dale Warner wasn't there.

[Kathryn] This isn't adding up.

Dale's not trying to find her.

Dale is, you know, taking out loans.

Dale's going on vacation.

I mean, Dale's living his best life.

What's going on?

[Gregg] There were some suspicious things

that I was getting from the office.

Dale closed this bank account, or he did this, or he did that.

[narrator] To protect these assets,

her brother Gregg

has to battle to get conservatorship.

[Gregg] My sister had come to me about selling her company

to an international trucking company.

Dale Warner had already gone forward,

changed the name of the company,

put it in a name that he had control of.

He was trying to sell it.

[narrator] Dee's close family and friends

grow even more frustrated

by the lack of progress in the search for her.

I had already hired several private detectives.

I had pretty well exhausted what I thought I could get

from the local authorities.

[Shelly] Gregg was determined.

Gregg never gave up from the day she went missing.

Dee Warner's brother and adult children

are offering a large cash reward,

hoping it will motivateú people to come forward.

They were unhappy with this investigation,

and so they really, more than any family I've ever seen,

got this story out into the media.

And they're frustrated with the investigation

and they're taking action.

[Kathryn] We started this Facebook group.

[Gregg] The Justice for Dee group began building pressure.

You start with a few people and you get to a thousand.

[news] Signs spell out Justice for Dee.

And new billboards in northwest Ohio

won't let people forget about Dee.

We were handing out bracelets,

Justice for Dee bracelets.

We had pens, we had bows, we had signs going up,

we had yard signs, billboards, name it.

We were just trying to get it out there.

They really began to beat the drum of Justice for Dee.

"We want justice for Dee".

[news] Tonight, hundreds in the community came together

to remember a lost mother and friend.

[narrator] Starting in November 2021,

friends and concerned community members

hold vigils for Dee that grow in popularity.

To have the support through these times is

something we could never thank people enough for.

[Shelly] It was wonderful.

We had hundreds of people, hundreds,

and they all formed a heart outside of our door.

[narrator] On November 13th,

as concern for Dee grows into a movement,

Gregg Hardy makes a dramatic public accusation.

We had vigils here for Dee, and at that point,

I decided I had to step out

and call out Dale Warner for killing Dee

and I did that publicly.

[Parker] You could hear a pin drop.

Nobody of authority had enough gumption to name Dale Warner

as a prime suspect.

And so we went ahead and did it.

We were pretty sure that it was Dale that had murdered her.

All the arrows pointed in the direction of Dale.

We tried to get the police to do more things

and to get things moving and to get him arrested.

It seemed like we just kept coming against a brick wall.

A lot of people thought

we just had our pitchforks out for Dale.

It definitely caused a divide.

There was a whole half of the community that were,

you know, pro-Dale.

There's no way he could have done anything to hurt her.

He said she took off.

She probably did.

And then there was the other half of the community

that was saying there's no way she would have left

without her daughter.

I have family members that won't speak to me until this day.

So something sinister has happened.

[Shelly] It gave us the strength because everybody kept pushing.

We wanted the state police to take it over,

the investigation.

Lenawee County Sheriff Troy Bevere says

he hears the rally call for justice for Dee.

We were having a rally in the front of the courthouse.

We were calling for Dale to be arrested at this point.

There were signs up that were disparaging to the police.

The public was fed up.

When I came down from the podium,

the sheriff came to me and he said,

Gregg, he said, would you mind if I say a few words?

He gets up and he relinquishesúthe case to the state police.

And I think that this was the right time.

We want this to be solved.

We want answers, ú and we want accountability.

I was excited that finally we were going to get results.

And that is where the case really begins to take off.

[narrator] Michigan State Police

are now leading the investigation

into Dee Warner's disappearance and suspected murder.

They decide to go back to the drawing board.

[Daniel] We were absolutely restarting.

All the evidence isú indicating that Dee is dead

and that Dale very likely hadúsomething to do with her death.

So based upon that and all the land they had access to,

the machinery he had access to, including excavators,

why would you not bury this piece of evidence?

We did a re-review of the data that was already there.

[narrator] Dale's digital devices are seized

and forensically examined.

On his phone and iPad,

he had conducted several Google searches

that were of interest to us.

He was searching for a widower's dating sites

while claimingúthat she had left on her own.

They also discovered searchesú about chemical cremation.

There was plenty of chemicals on the farm

that he could have used to do it.

[narrator] One particular web search

catches the detective's eye.

He queried what to do with an old IP tank,

a thousand gallon propane tank specific,

so a very large tank.

And the video that he viewed

was essentially instructions on how to bury it.

You're thinking of farmland, you're thinking, okay, maybe

he dug a hole somewhere.

She's underground.

[Dan] She was inside of something metal

and that he buried it somewhere.

We devised a list of all the land

they had access to at the time.

Now Michigan State Policeú say they've got warrants

to search 70 different locations,

all connected to Dee Warner.

We had metal detecting, ú ground penetrating radar.

We excavated large areas of ground

to reveal what was underneath.

[news] MSP can't reveal what was discovered.

[Dan] We set up surveillance on him,

we were monitoring his phone location.

And lo and behold, when we start these searches,

he goes to a particular site and starts moving things around

with a piece of equipment.

And based upon that, ú we excavated that area.

[news] New evidence gave them anreason to dig right here today.

[Dan] But ultimately, we came up empty handed.

It's a little disheartening that it was very unlikely

that we would ever find her body.

[narrator] Investigators retrace

the last known sightings of Dee

in the hours before she disappeared

and a text that shook her.

Dee was in an argument

with one of her trucking employees and his wife,

and this was a very contentious argument

involving very heated text messages.

And in one of those text messages,

the employee's wife accusedú Dee of being on Xanax,

and that's something that herúhusband, Dale Warner, revealed.

[Dan] So for this betrayal to come from her husband

was really devastating to her.

She was more angry than she had ever been

in the course of their relationship.

[Dan] She told numerous people on Saturday, this is it.

I'm done.

I'm going home to tell Dale that we're getting divorced.

That if there's going to be violence upon her,

statistically showing the point of separation

is the most dangerous time for her.

Numerous people knew this argument

was happening on Saturday and then Sunday morning,

she's missing and never seen again.

And that's when I concluded she was murdered.

[narrator] Dale is re-interviewed

about the last time he saw Dee.

[Dan] His own statements are,

he leaves to go farming Sunday morning,

and she's asleep on the couch.

The first time that he knows that anything is wrong

is at 10:30 when someone calls him looking for her.

However, he does several things on his phone

that are suspicious.

[narrator] Dale's smartphone data

reveals he opens Dee's Cadillac

and tries to find her cell phone.

[Jackie] He accessed the myCadillac app at 7:08 AM.

He's looking at Find My iPhone around 8 AM.

He was accessing the security cameras between 8 and 9.

When questioned about those things,

he states that he does it to locate his wife.

But by his own words, he doesn't know

that she's missing until 10:30.

So why are you looking for her before she's missing?

There were a number of inconsistencies.

[narrator] Detectives ask Dale about the tractor tracks

seen leading to the back of the house,

where he claims Dee was sleeping on the couch.

We know that he pulled a... what we call a front-end loader.

It's a tractor with a bucket on the front,

up to the back of the house.

He does that at approximately 7 AM.

And the fact that concerned me

is that the tracksúled right up to the sidewalk,

which means that it was parked

abnormally close to the house.

[David] But really never had a good explanation

why he would have done that.

The only reason for that was to put Dee's body in it.

But at the time that he pulled the JCB up there,

he said she was still snoring away on the couch.

The Hummer is parked behind the house

outside of the sliding glass door,

to which we confront him on, well,

if she's sleeping and you parked the tractor

where the Hummer was,

then who moved the Hummer?

[Dan] There's this awkward silence between us

where he's, I think, realizing that

he can't get out of this lie.

[narrator] Investigators bring their findings

to the prosecutors

in an effort to convince themDale Warner should be arrested.

The detectives put togetherú essentially a PowerPoint,

and they went overú the case from beginning

to where they were at on that day,

and they had me thoroughly convinced

by the time we were done at that meeting

that Dale Warner had killed his wife.

Breaking news right out of the gate.

Michigan State Police sayú they've made an arrest

in the murder of a missing Lenawee County woman.

The Lenawee County Sheriff tells us

her husband, Dale Warner, is due for arraignment tomorrow.

I guess for me, not fast enough.

Gregg called me in the afternoon and said,

Dale's being arrested right now.

So, oh, I get chills thinking about it.

But we all celebrated, I can tell you.

We smoked cigars and had drinks.

He was finally in jail.

But we knew we had a long way to go.

[news] Since day one, her family said Dale killed her,

and now a Lenawee Countyúprosecutor is saying the same.

I spoke to Dee Warner's family

about what today has meant to them

after this two-and-a-half year journey.

I feel her presence in lots of lots of situations.

As I mentioned, she is a fighter and... erm...

I think when I fight, she understands it.

She's there with it, yeah.

[narrator] In May 2024,

prosecutors face their first major test

as a Lenawee County judge

decides whether there is enough evidence

to put Dale Warner on trial for murder.

We go through what we've referred to as

a preliminary hearing.

[clerk] This is case number 232494,

State of Michigan verses Dale Warner.

And we have to prove to a judge that it's 51% likely

that she was murdered and that Dale committed that murder.

[Jackie] Good morning, Your Honour, Jackie Wise

on behalf of the people, P78317.

We had no body, and a judge agreed with us

that we presented enough evidence

to find probable cause to believe he killed his wife.

The judge then sets the case for trial.

So we accomplished that hurdle without the body,

which is a very difficult task.

Some would say the most difficult part

of a no body case is this obstacle.

My partner and I both had this moment of like,

ahh, you can catch your breath almost.

We've kind of made it over this.

Let's reconvene, go back through everything

and see what else we should do.

[narrator] Police decide toreview the farm's CCTV footage.

And one of the things that's captured

the day that she goes missing is he is seemingly searching

for something near welding equipment,

and that when he sees someone move by the barn,

he seemingly ducks behind a truck

in an effort to conceal himself.

If she was welded inside of something,

let's see if we can identify what objects were big enough.

What we concluded was it's possible

that it was these anhydrous ammonia tanks

used for agricultural farming.

The best case scenario is I'll find that perhaps

the farm owns 50 tanks

and that I'm only able to locate 49 of them.

And I thought that would be a cool illustration for the jury

with this welding theory,

that maybe she's in this tank and it's otherwise missing.

And in speaking to someone that had rented some from Dale,

he says, "When I was using them,

I took them from and returned them to

this farm on Paragon Road, to this barn."

To which I almost felt silly,

because we had dug an area across the street

when we were monitoring Dale's location.

And we discover over a dozen tanks there,

all stored in proximity to each other in similar condition,

except for one tank was stored by itself.

The entire tank had fresh paint on it,

and it was on a fresh trailer.

[Melissa] And there's also a handwritten tag that says,

"Do not use."

They notice a non-factory weld that clearly stands out

that this tank has been tampered with.

[Dan] This tank appeared like someone had cut it open

and welded it shut.

And based upon those things,

I concluded it would be worth our time to evaluate

the inside of the tank.

So investigators,

using a search warrant, seize this tank.

Authorities went to searchú a property on Paragon Road.

[Melissa] And they haul it up to the US-Canadian border

where they can X-ray it.

[Dan] We end up at the US-Canadian border,

in which they have numerous devices

for people entering the country,

and we're able to X-ray the entire tank.

I get to this small room,

and there's probably a couple people in there with me,

but as I enter, a bunch more people join me,

because they're excited about the contents of this tank.

And I remember laughing to myself, almost like,

"Man, they're going to be really let down here in a minute."

As the tank is X-rayed,

the operator, the guy in front of the screen,

kind of calmly says, oh, there she is.

As the X-ray continues to load,

you can clearly see the outline of human remains inside of it.

It glows in the shape of a body.

[Dan] Really difficult to describe the feeling

and the moment that I had.

I essentially have the scene of a homicide now.

[narrator] Detective Drewyor meets Dee's family

to break the news.

He then came and described what happened

and showed us a picture of the X-ray.

You could see the image of her wrapped in a tarp.

She was laid out,

she was at rest.

She was like an Egyptian queen in a tomb.

And I said, you know, Dee, we finally have you.

[Gregg] He was no longer controlling her anymore.

We now were...

we now had become in control of her remains.

And we had taken that part finally away from him.

And in the community whereú Dee Warner lived and worked,

there is relief tonight.

Her body has been found.

I'm just glad they found her and the whole family can get peace.

It was certainly tough for the family to face

my sister's remains in a man-made tomb.

[Daniel] Ultimately, her being inside of this tank

meant there wasn't a lot of airflow,

so she was relatively well preserved.

And the medical examiner was able to find that,

you know, it was a homicide

and that she was killed

by strangulation and bluntú force trauma to the head.

I mean, this is a bigú piece of evidence, right?

She's in a big tank. How did we miss this?

So we have to go back and look at

surveillance footage from the farm,

hundreds of hours that we went through.

And we find out he is on surveillance

going around getting a hook,

getting a chain, getting the welder,

getting the things necessary to weld her into that tank.

[narrator] Forensic evidence places Dale by the tank.

Dale's fingerprint was located on one of the tags

that were placed on the tank after it was painted.

Jury selection began this morning

for the trial of the Lenawee County man

accused of killing his wife, Dee.

[narrator] On the 12th of February, 2026,

nearly five years afterú Dee Warner's disappearance,

her husband, Dale, finallyú stands trial for her murder.

I don't think anyone expected the trial

to be as impactful as it was.

He's pleaded not guilty to murder.

Everyone was enthralled with this case.

So far this afternoon,

we have seen about 11 potential jurors be questioned.

If they couldn't watch the live stream every day,

they were looking for video updates at night.

[news]... dig into the case and learn who Dee was.

I've had my kids' teachers and coaches

email me about this story.

I have never been a part of something

that impacted a community so much.

I was not very happy in the beginning,

everybody needs to have a fair trial.

I knew it was gonna be an uphill battle

trying to find jurors who didn't already have an opinion.

It took us, I believe, 10 days to pick a jury.

[narrator] The jury's taken through the last hours

of Dee's life.

[news] Her adult children told investigators

they hadn't seen her since the day before.

[lawyer] What was the plan for that night?

She was gonna tell him that she wanted a divorce.

[lawyer] All right. Was she gonna tell him anything else?

That she was gonna sell the trucking company.

Part of the motive for Dale was all the businesses

and the money he stood to lose.

He had been through one divorce

and he wasn't going through another.

It's my belief that she wakes up on Sunday

and tells Dale, "No, I'm serious, we're done."

And that that's when the finality happens.

That's when this argument extends into violence

and leads to her death.

[narrator] The prosecution reveals

how Dale then disposed of his wife's body.

[ Prosecutor] Dale Warner pulls his JCB up to those back doors

and loads his wife's body into that bucket.

He drives her out to the spray barn, puts her into the safe,

and I think once the kids started freaking out

and making a big deal

and telling him that they were going to call the police,

I think he knew that,

OK, now I really have to do this right now.

[news] Surveillance video prosecutors say

shows him later gatheringú tools and welding equipment

and spending moreú than two hours in that barn.

Time they believe he used to cut open and weld shut

a tank containing her body.

You can see him with the gloves

and the welding mask.

He is grabbing a grinder with cutting wheels.

[narrator] A prosecution witness stands up this evidence.

[news] This image of Dale's arm stuck out to her.

But you could see that there was like,

almost like burn marks on both of his arms.

That's a sunburn consistent with welding.

So that was kind of the highlight

was to be able to show those things to the jury

that he is the culprit.

[Prosecutor] The defendant...

duct taped her mouth and her nose

so that she could not breathe again.

[narrator] The defence claims that during this whole time,

Dale was out working in his fields.

If he had killed his wife,

is he really going to leave the property

and let people roam around wherever they want?

He goes out spraying.

[news] Hardy said he never saw significant effort

from Dale to find her.

I told him that I thought he should offer a cash reward

for the public to find his wife.

[ Prosecutor] Okay, and did he agree to that?

No.

[ Prosecutor] Did you end up doing it?

I did.

[narrator] Dale is exposed as telling lies about his wife

to friends and the police.

He's out there talking bad about her

in all kinds of ways.

She was bipolar, she was on drugs.

I mean, it wasn't enough just to kill her,

but he had to tarnish her reputation

to the most that he possibly could.

The former lead investigator on body cam

appeared to warn Dale Warner that search dogs were coming.

[news] Jurors also saw drone video,

allegedly showing Dale moving that tank

with heavy equipment,

days after Dee disappeared.

That's a very significant piece of evidence

because he is moving a tank right under the nose

of these investigators while they were on his property.

They may not have been able to find Dee Warner alive,

but they certainly could have found her

in the days after her disappearance,

not three years later.

[narrator] The jury retires to consider its verdict.

They've been deliberating for about 2 1/2 hours today.

We were extremely nervous, waiting and waiting,

every minute seems like an hour.

[reporter] Breaking news,

we understand there is a verdict in the Dale Warner trial.

[reporter 2] The jury made a decision about eight hours

after deliberations.

[Judge] You do say upon your oaths

that you find the defendant, Dale Warner,

as to count one, guilty of second degree murder.

After the verdict is read, he just slowly lowers his head

in what appears to be a defeat.

[Judge] As to count two, guilty of tampering with evidence.

Well, guys, the family was very emotional.

You could hear them crying.

You could see them crying as that verdict was read.

It was hard to convince people, authorities included.

The biggest part of that has been the public

and their willingness to fight for Dee.

And the verdict was obviously uplifting.

It was a great day.

[Shelly] It was elation.

He was going to pay for it,

and we were going to scream it from the rooftops.

[narrator] Dale Warner's sentenced to

up to 70 years in jail.

Essentially a life sentence for him.

So I was happy with that.

We finally felt like it was... justice was served.

This is a case that I think will stick with me

for a very long time, just because of the impact,

not just in that community, but in this region.

This case really touched a nerve.

[narrator] The case has shone a light on abuse

that occurs behind closed doors.

[Kathryn] We are honouring her memory

just in our everyday lives.

A lot of us have made sure that

we stick up for ourselves more.

If we can be a voice for Dee, she can't be here with us.

[Gregg] You wish that you could have done something to prohibit.

You wish that you could give more support.

All the pieces of the puzzle were there.

We just didn't recognize what

the puzzle was gonna be in the end.

It's a terrible club to belong to.

Nobody wants to be in that.

And if we can help anybody, that's what we're gonna do.

And so she lives on through our voice.

She'll always be with us.