The prolonged wait that has gripped Lenawee County since April 2021, when Dee Warner was reported missing, is inching towards closure. A trial date has been established for Dale Warner, the husband accused of her murder and the desecration that followed her disappearance. Following a pretrial hearing, Lenawee County Circuit Court has confirmed that Warner's trial is set to begin Sept. 2 through Oct. 14, 2025, almost four years after Dee Warner vanished from her home, as reported by wtol.
Dale Warner made his court appearance via a video call, and present in the courthouse was his attorney, Mary Chartier, alongside the prosecutor, Jackie Wyse. Charged with open murder and tampering with evidence, Warner is being held on a $15 million bond. According to lenconnect, the open murder charge allows the jury to determine the degree of murder, where the first-degree carries a mandatory life sentence without parole, and the second-degree offers the possibility of parole.
In the aftermath of Dee Warner's disappearance, Dale Warner reported his wife missing. Investigators later found her remains in August 2024 inside an anhydrous ammonia tank on a piece of farmland owned by the Warners. "It was certainly tough for the family to face my sister's remains in a man-made tomb," Dee Warner's brother, Gregg Hardy, told CBS News Detroit in response to the grisly discovery. Hardy has expressed a determined hope for justice, compounded by the family's pursuit of civil litigation against Dale Warner's family.
Amidst the judicial maneuvers, a final pre-trial conference scheduled for Aug. 27, 2025, will set the stage for court deliberations. As the trial is scheduled to unfold four days a week, from Tuesday to Friday, amid a backdrop of mourning and a community sense of betrayal. "The latest update from the police is a tragic turn of events for all those who loved and cared for Ms. Warner. However, this does not change Mr. Warner's position, and we are prepared to fight for him at trial," Mary Chartier, Dale Warner's attorney, stated resolutely in a statement obtained by CBS News Detroit.
