It was Sunday April 25, 2021, a spring morning in the farmland of Lenawee County, Michigan. Rikkell Bock drove the short distance from her house to her childhood home for her weekly breakfast with her mother, Dee Warner.

Rikkell Bock: Sundays … we would … go up to my mom’s first thing. 

Rikkell says that when her mom was not there, and not answering calls or texts, it just didn’t feel right.

Rikkell Bock: If my mom could glue her phone to her hand, she would … If I didn’t respond to a text message in five minutes, I was getting another one, “Hello?”

One of Dee’s cars, a Hummer, was parked at the farm office, just down the road.

Erin Moriarty: What about your mother’s car that you drove all the time, the Cadillac?

Rikkell Bock: It was parked in the garage.

Erin Moriarty: So, all your mother’s cars are there?

Rikkell Bock: Yes.

Erin Moriarty: And she’s not responding to any kind of calls or texts?

Rikkell Bock: No.

The fertilizer sprayer, usually parked in a barn, was gone, and Rikkell’s stepfather, Dale Warner, was out on it — working.

Erin Moriarty: Was that normal?

Rikkell Bock: Yeah. … it was pretty normal for him to work any day, any time of day.

Rikkell went down the road to the home of Gregg and Shelley Hardy — Dee’s brother and sister-in-law.

Shelley Hardy: She said, “We can’t find her.” And I’m like, “what do you mean you can’t find her?” They said, “Her car is here. We have called everybody. We don’t know where she’s at.”

Gregg Hardy: The first thing I did was call her number … If she was somewhere, she would answer my phone call … and then I text her.

Erin Moriarty: And did you —

Gregg Hardy: And nothing.

WHERE’S DEE WARNER?

Rikkell and her Aunt Shelley went driving to look for Dee. They returned to her house with only more questions.

Shelley Hardy: There were blankets … laying on the couch and tissues, tissues everywhere … Everywhere. There were these tissues. 

They looked upstairs in the bedroom and bathroom for clues.

Rikkell Bock: Her make-up bag was gone. Her curling iron, and all of that stuff was gone.

Later they learned Dee’s phone and passport were missing, too.

Rikkell Bock: The feeling that I had in my stomach was … nothing but fear.

Zack Bock, another of Dee’s four children from her first marriage, soon came over to join the search. He went down to the farm office to look for any sign of his mom.

Zack Bock: There’s cameras here in the office. I’ll look at the cameras.

There was a security camera inside the office and a few more outside.

Zack Bock: I never saw her walk to the office. I never saw her drive a vehicle. … I didn’t see her.

And there was something else out of the ordinary. Their 9-year-old sister Lena, Dee and Dale’s only child together, had stayed at her cousin’s house the night before and Dee hadn’t yet called or come to get her. 

Rikkell Bock: Lena went everywhere with my mom. … They were very, very close.

Erin Moriarty: And would she ever leave Lena behind with Dale?

Rikkell Bock: Never.

Zack Bock: I called my siblings. We met up at my house, and we called the sheriff’s department.

By now, it was late in the day on Sunday, and the Lenawee County Sheriff’s Office sent a deputy, Austin Hall, to talk to Dale Warner. The conversation was recorded on a body camera:

DEPUTY HALL (bodycam  | April 25, 2021 ): Hi, I’m Deputy Hall from the Lenawee County Sheriff’s Office. How are you, sir?

DALE WARNER: Good.

DALE WARNER (bodycam | April 25, 2021): She was sleeping on the couch.

Dale told police he had last seen Dee that morning before he went out to work.

DALE WARNER (bodycam | April 25, 2021): And then this morning around 6 o’clock, I got up and, you know, she was snoring away … I texted her and she didn’t answer. So, I figured, well, she’s still sleeping.

Dale seemed to believe his wife was alive and well — and that she left intentionally.

DALE WARNER (bodycam | April 25, 2021): Well, her hair curler’s gone, her hair dryer’s gone, her make-up bag is gone … I went and seen all that stuff gone, I wasn’t real concerned.

He said she might be using another phone.

DALE WARNER (bodycam | April 25, 2021): I told the other kids she’s got a second phone …

DEPUTY HALL: Do you have a phone number?

DALE WARNER: No. It’s a secret phone that she doesn’t know that I know she has it.

Dale also told police that Dee had been upset and suffering from a migraine the night before after an argument with two of her employees.

DALE WARNER (bodycam | April 25, 2021): I came home last night, and she was really upset. She was talking … bad things as far as employees, the one employee decided to quit …

DALE WARNER: (bodycam | April 25, 2021): We got three different businesses here. So, the tensions are high all the time.

Dale and Dee Warner ran three main businesses from their farm. Zack Bock was their bookkeeper.

Zack Bock: My mom ran essentially the office for all three businesses.

There was a trucking business with about 15 employees that Dee managed.

Zack Bock: She always referred to it as her trucking business.

And there was the farm itself, and a chemical company, that sold fertilizer and seed.

Erin Moriarty: Which was the most successful? Which did the best?

Stephanie Voelkle: 100% … the trucking company.

Stephanie Voelkle worked for the Warners and describes Dee as a good businessperson: tough, generous and hard-working. But Rikkell says that running that trucking business was not easy for Dee.

Rikkell Bock: I know that she had a hard time getting respect from some of the farmers because she was a woman and younger and pretty.

Dale told police that conflict between Dee and their employees was nothing new.

DALE WARNER (bodycam | April 25, 2021): I mean, she’s had altercations with quite a few people. I mean, she’s pretty wired, if you know my wife. 

DEPUTY HALL: I — I don’t know, but —

DALE WARNER: She’s in your face and tells you how it is.

On Saturday, the day before she went missing, Dee had texted Voelkle asking her how to block the driver who had quit from the company’s Facebook page. 

Stephanie Voelkle (reading her texts) I told her how to do it. … that was at 4:34.

Erin Moriarty: On Saturday afternoon, April 24th.

Stephanie Voelkle: Yep. And then at 4:44, I said, “did you tell Zack?” At 7:43, I said, “How are you?” (crying) And she never answered.

Erin Moriarty: That’s the very last time you ever heard from Dee Warner?

Stephanie Voelkle: Yeah.

Shelley Hardy wondered if the pressures had just become too much for Dee.

Erin Moriarty: You’re thinking at that point, she might have taken her life?

Shelley Hardy: I did.

Gregg Hardy: We were worried because of everyone’s report of her emotional behavior.

Shelley Hardy: She had been upset and had an argument on Friday and Saturday …

Gregg Hardy: The crescendo was building up … There might have been a breaking point …

QUESTIONS FOR DALE WARNER

Erin Moriarty: Can you think of a day when no one knew where your mother was? A full day.

Rikkell Bock: No.

After hearing nothing from Dee, some of those closest to her feared she may have harmed herself and they noticed that her husband Dale didn’t seem very worried.

DALE WARNER (bodycam): She’ll cool off and she’ll come back home.

Dale had told the sheriff’s deputy that Dee, when upset, had a history of spending the night elsewhere.

DALE WARNER (bodycam): She took all her bags. So, somebody picked her up.

And he said he thought she might come back eventually.

DALE WARNER (bodycam): I mean, I don’t know what else to do other than wait a day or so, and see what –

DEPUTY HALL: Sure.

DALE WARNER: — she shows up.

But the sheriff’s office did not wait for Dee to show up. They came out on Monday and Tuesday to conduct interviews and search the property. On Thursday, four days after Dee disappeared, they searched the farm again. And Dale agreed to talk to them, at length, at the kitchen table.

Dale now told the investigators that he and Dee had had a fight on Saturday. He said she had accused him of talking about her, behind her back, to the employees she had fought with—which Dale denied.

DALE WARNER (bodycam | April 29, 2021): And she hang up the phone and I had no more contact with her the rest of the day. … I tried calling her several times and she wouldn’t answer her phone.

He said he didn’t talk to Dee again until that evening, at home, when their fight continued.

DALE WARNER (bodycam | April 29, 2021): She says, “you don’t care about me, nobody cares about me, and what does it matter if I’m even here?”

Dale and Dee Warner had been partners in life and business since they started their first company together in 2005—the year before they got married.

Erin Moriarty: Was this a love match? Did you feel that way?

Gregg Hardy: No. … She had a desire for success.

Shelley Hardy: Yes.

Gregg Hardy: I believe that’s what her attraction was, I really do.

They weren’t an obvious pair. Dee’s family and friends say she loved to have fun, dress up, go out, and dance. Dale, they say, just seemed to work a lot.

Stephanie Voelkle: I don’t know what she’s seen in him. I really don’t. … He doesn’t like to do things with her. I went on a cruise with her because he didn’t want to go. 

Zack Bock: Dale … was fairly quiet, kind of distant from all of us kids.

Rikkell Bock: When he did communicate, it was usually — he kind of liked to poke at people … where he knew would hurt the worst.

Rikkell says Dale helped feed Dee’s insecurities.

Rikkell Bock: I don’t think she ever felt, good enough … like she felt like she had to prove constantly everything in her life, her looks, her — her money, her businesses—everything.

Dee’s family later learned she had been having an affair. It didn’t surprise them, they said, given the state of her marriage. But police say her affair partner was out of town the weekend she went missing and could not have had anything to do with the case. A week after her disappearance, Dee’s brother Gregg Hardy organized a search of the land around her home.

Gregg Hardy: We all went on foot … And we walked up probably 5, 6, 700 acres —

Erin Moriarty: Wow.

Gregg Hardy: We — we came up zero.

By now, Dee’s family was growing suspicious of Dale. On the day Dee went missing, Dale told each of them what happened, but they say they all heard slightly different versions. 

Gregg Hardy: She had a bad migraine headache. She was laying on the floor. He gave her a massage. She went to sleep. He picked her up and put her on the couch about 12:30. … he got up about 6, 6:30, he left, but she was snoring on the couch.

Zack says Dale told him he had had a fight with Dee.

Zack Bock: He said that they had a really big fight the night before.

But Rikkell says Dale told her the fight was no big deal.

Rikkell Bock: He said that — they had a little fight the night before … and she was all mad and she won’t answer him now.

And there was another odd detail in the story Dale told Dee’s family and police that Sunday.

DALE WARNER (April 25, 2021 | bodycam): The only thing that’s really strange, too, is this time she put her wedding ring on my desk, in the office and left it. You know and now she’s gone.

DEPUTY HALL: Yeah.

DALE WARNER: She’s never done that before.

Rikkell Bock, Zack Bock and Gregg Hardy all say Dale showed them that ring on Sunday too, seeming to offer it as proof that Dee had left intentionally, and maybe for good. But Gregg says that ring is worth as much as $40,000. And leaving it behind didn’t sound like Dee.

Gregg Hardy:  That’s not my sister. … Not only would she not give him the wedding ring back, she probably would’ve thrown a Molotov cocktail in the house on her way out.

As time passed the family’s suspicions that Dale had harmed his wife only grew. About six weeks after Dee went missing, Gregg says he confronted Dale about how he thought the investigation was progressing.

Gregg Hardy:  I ask him point-blank, “Dale, what do you think about … your wife is still missing? … She just disappeared on thin air?” And he said to me … “Well, it could be a little faster, but I think they’re doing a good job. And that’s when I — I told him, I said, “you know what? You’re a liar” … And I told him, “I’ll get you.”

Erin Moriarty: You told him that? 

Gregg Hardy: Yeah.

But believing Dale had something to do with Dee’s disappearance was very different from being able to prove it. The Michigan State Police and the FBI helped the county sheriff conduct a large-scale search of their properties again in October, but there was still no sign of Dee alive or dead.

Shelley Hardy: We had been struggling because everybody said you don’t have a body; you don’t have a body.

In February 2022, 10 months after Dee had gone missing, Shelley was watching an episode of “48 Hours” featuring an investigator named Billy Little.

BILLY LITTLE (from “48 Hours”‘ “Searching for Maya Millete“) You don’t have a body. So what? You don’t get to get away with murder because you’re good at disposing of bodies.

Shelley Hardy: So I thought, “Oh my gosh, I — I got to have Gregg see this.” … so he watched it and immediately when he said that, he said, “get me that guy’s number.”

A BROTHER’S “GUT FEELING”

Gregg Hardy was convinced Dale Warner was behind his sister’s disappearance.

Although the sheriff’s office had conducted at least seven searches and interviewed Dale Warner several times, Gregg was growing impatient by what he saw as a lack of progress. Authorities, says Gregg, told him that without a body it would be difficult to charge Dale Warner with murder. Which is why Gregg called Missouri-based attorney and investigator Billy Little.

Billy Little: Maybe you’ll find the body, maybe you won’t. But don’t sit around waiting for Santa Claus to come. You gotta solve this case. 

Little made his first trip to Lenawee County in the spring of 2022.

Billy Little (driving with Moriarty in Lenawee County): My goal is always to just discover the truth, find out what happened … the nice thing about the truth is it doesn’t have a side.

Little got to work on his own investigation and learned from Dee’s family that the couple argued frequently — especially about money.

Billy Little: This was not a happy marriage, a marriage of … endless love.

Dee’s adult children told Little their mom had often talked about divorce but said she didn’t want to split custody of their little sister Lena with Dale Warner. Still, the day before Dee disappeared, they say, something had changed.

Erin Moriarty: Had you really seen your mother like that before?

Rikkell Bock: Upset, yes. … But this was just very different. She was, like, almost calm.

Dee’s kids say that she had finally had enough and was going to tell Dale that night she wanted to sell the profitable trucking business and end her marriage.

Erin Moriarty: This was Dee’s life. Why did she want to sell the business?

Billy Little: … Because it had become too difficult emotionally and personally for her … That’s how bad the marriage had gotten.

Gregg told Little that he thought Dale was moving money between the businesses after Dee disappeared. Gregg had already filed a civil suit to protect Dee’s interests and to get more information about what Dale was doing.

Gregg Hardy: Call it a gut feeling if you’d like, whatever you’d call it.

In court documents, Dale says he did move money—on the advice of professionals. The more Little learned, he says, the more he — like the family — became convinced that Dee was no longer alive.

Billy Little: The evidence that she’s dead is the absence of evidence that she’s alive. … No surveillance cameras, no electronic signature, her phone’s not found, her bank accounts were never accessed … cash wasn’t taken from the house. Even the ring … She didn’t even take that.

Gregg and Little tried to increase the pressure on Dale. Friends had started a social media campaign called “Justice for Dee.” And Gregg paid for a billboard that he says he wrote sarcastically, saying “Help Dale Find Dee.” It went up at a big intersection near Dale Warner’s farm — where, Hardy says, drivers from the trucking company would be sure to see it every day.

Billy Little  (driving with Moriarty): “Help Dale Find Dee.”  It was part of almost psychological operations.

But Little says he and Gregg were mostly focused on trying to find evidence to help build a murder case … without a body.

Billy Little: You’ve got a lot of equipment, you’ve got a lot of chemicals, there are a lot of ways to dispose of the body on a farm.

And they continued to search relentlessly for any trace of Dee.

Gregg Hardy (with Moriarty): You can see there is a silo right over there. That’s the location of where the buildings were.

The property Gregg showed Moriarty, about three miles from Dale and Dee Warner’s home, is one of the places that stood out to Gregg. Six months after Dee disappeared, there was a fire where the old farmhouse used to be, and Hardy says the neighbors told him they thought Dale—who owned the property with Dee—had set that fire. The fire was determined to be a controlled burn, which are common in the area. Police searched the site in October 2021, just a few days after that fire. It’s not known what, if anything, they learned. Gregg and Little came here themselves the next year.

Gregg Hardy (with Moriarty at the property): We used a drone to fly, not only this site, but every site we could find around here. We flew a couple thousand acres of drone footage.

They found nothing conclusive. But that old farm was just one site they thought was suspicious.

Gregg Hardy: There is basically three or four major sites that bother me.

There was a field near Rikkell’s house that Dale had farmed. And another field, two towns over, that Dale had access to. And many more places Gregg wanted police to check further.

Erin Moriarty: And is it the really hard part about this, Gregg, is there’s just so many places?

Gregg Hardy: There are so many places.  

In August 2022, the Michigan State Police took over Dee’s case. Gregg and Little had pushed for this because they say the state police had more experience and resources than the county sheriff.

After the state police took over the case, they interviewed Dale again and pressed him on his story. Warner told them that the argument with that employee just before Dee disappeared was partly about Dee taking money from the business

DALE WARNER (Dec. 2022 police interview): Dee said he [that employee] called her out and said, I know what you’ve been doing. You’ve been taking this money you know you’ve been doing this … and she’d been had, she couldn’t hide it anymore.

But police did not have evidence that Dee had stolen money. In September, the family filed another suit to have Dee Warner declared legally dead. Gregg says he wanted to be able to file a wrongful death suit against Dale one day. The family waited for news on the criminal case and then —

Gregg Hardy: It was pretty crazy because we had a meeting with the prosecutor the same day … and she gave me no indication.

On Nov. 21, 2023, two-and-a-half years after Dee Warner went missing, the news came that her husband, Dale, was under arrest. Stephanie Voelkle was preparing for her mother’s funeral when she got the call.

Stephanie Voelkle: Rikkell’s boyfriend, called me … and he said Dale was arrested for murder. And I fell to my knees at the funeral home. [I was] just so happy.

Dale Warner was charged with the murder of his wife Dee. He pleaded not guilty, and Dee’s family braced themselves for a long legal battle ahead.

Rikkell Bock: However long it took, we wouldn’t stop fighting.

DEE WARNER’S FAMILY GETS THEIR DAY IN COURT

On May 1, 2024, just a little more than three years after Dee Warner disappeared, her friends and family gathered at the Lenawee County District Court for the first day of Dale Warner’s preliminary hearing.

Erin Moriarty: You had to testify. … Were you nervous?

Rikkell Bock: Yeah … I mean, all you do is tell the truth. So that’s what I kept telling myself.

It would be up to Judge Anna Frushour to decide if the case should move to trial.

Stephanie Voelkle: I was worried … because there is so little physical evidence.

Dee had been recently declared dead in civil court, but Dale’s defense attorney, Mary Chartier, said this was a fact prosecutors would need to establish themselves in the criminal case.

MARY CHARTIER (in court): There is no body. There are no body parts. … Whether Ms. Warner is dead is something that the government needs to prove.

But the state was determined to show that while there was no body, there was also no evidence that Dee was still alive.

JACKIE WYSE (in court): Since April 24th, 2021, have you seen Dee Warner?

STEPHANIE VOELKLE: No.

JACKIE WYSE: Have you heard from Dee Warner?

STEPHANIE VOELKLE: No.

And prosecutor Jackie Wyse worked to show there was no evidence that Dee had taken off on her own. She asked Voelkle about that secret phone that Dale claimed his wife had.

JACKIE WYSE (in court): Did she ever discuss getting a second phone with you?

STEPHANIE VOELKLE: She did. … She had asked me to look into pricing and trying to find one for her, yes.

JACKIE WYSE: OK. So, up until April 25th, 2021, did you ever purchase that phone?

STEPHANIE VOELKLE: No.

Erin Moriarty: Could she have bought the phone on her own?

Stephanie Voelkle: Yeah. She could have bought it on her own, but she would’ve had somebody else set it up. She was not tech savvy.

Michigan State Police Detective Daniel Drewyor is the lead investigator on this case. He testified at the preliminary hearing about the exhaustive searches law enforcement did to find any trace of activity from Dee over the three years she had been missing.

DET. DREWYOR (in court): We did, search warrants for healthcare records, phone records. We searched numerous vehicles … We got records for social media. We did several land searches.

All their searches came up empty—but Dee’s daughter, Rikkell, had noticed something curious at the Warner home. On the stand, she said that on the day her mother disappeared she saw tire tracks by the back of the house.

RIKKELL BOCK: There were two tracks that led up to the sliding glass door.

There were no security cameras pointed at this part of the property, but the prosecution suggested that the tracks Rikkell saw were left by Dale Warner using the farm’s JCB front-end loader to remove Dee’s body from their home.

DET. DREWYOR:  When parking the front-end loader, the JCB, in this spot, the bucket attached to it fits between those two pillars and you can set it on the deck up against the back door.

DALE WARNER (Dec. 2022 | police interview): I didn’t see anything in the house. Dee was still sleeping.

In his 2022 interview with police, Dale Warner had an explanation for those tracks — he said he thought he used the loader to go back to the house and get his worksheet for the sprayer at around 6:30 a.m.

DALE WARNER (Dec. 2022| police interview): I think I had to run and grab my damn sheet, my load sheet. I don’t remember for sure … I come got the JCB, the loader, pulled around by the house and I run in. I had to grab something out of the house and I run back out, got in the loader, backed back out.

MARY CHARTIER (in court): No evidence that Ms. Warner is dead … and no evidence that she was murdered was found, correct?

DET. DREWYOR: Yes, ma’am.

The defense emphasized there was no evidence Dale had anything to do with Dee’s disappearance. And, in fact, his statements about what he was doing that morning were supported by security videos around the farm. The videos, played in court, show Dale at 7 a.m., using that front-end loader. At 7:45 a.m., police say, he sends Dee this text that was read out loud in court, “Going to be spraying. call you later :)” He is seen three minutes later driving a sprayer onto the road and returning at 8:13 a.m.

MARY CHARTIER (in court): So, you had the sprayer records for the John Deere and then did you actually even do a sprayer reenactment?

DET. DREWYOR: We did. Yes, ma’am.

MARY CHARTIER: Consistent with what Mr. Warner said, right?

DET. DREWYOR: Consistent with the time that occurred on that morning, yes.

The defense also argued that Dale had not acted like a guilty man. He allowed police to search his properties and spoke to them many times after Dee disappeared. Only parts of a few of those interviews were played in court, but his attorney said that Dale had repeatedly denied harming Dee.

MARY CHARTIER (in court): Of all the phone calls and interviews with Mr. Warner, he never once said he harmed his wife, correct? 

DET. DREWYOR: Correct.

MARY CHARTIER: He was always adamant that he did not, correct? 

DET. DREWYOR: Yes.

Over and over, the defense underscored the lack physical evidence in the case.

MARY CHARTIER (in court): Do you have a murder weapon in this case? 

DET. DREWYOR: No, ma’am.

MARY CHARTIER: Big pool of blood, anything like that? 

DET. DREWYOR: No, we have no forensic evidence of that nature. No, Ma’am. 

In her final statement to the judge, Chartier argues that there is no basis for the charges.

MARY CHARTIER (in court): They hone in on Mr. Warner from the beginning.

MARY CHARTIER (in court): If he murdered his wife, where on earth is Ms. Warner?

JACKIE WYSE (in court): Since 4/25/2021, nobody has heard from or seen Dee Warner.

Prosecutor Jackie Wyse maintained that the state’s case was strong.

JACKIE WYSE: All we’re required to prove at this stage is, probable cause to believe that Dale Warner killed Dee Warner. And … probable cause standard has been met.

The decision was now with the judge—and Dee’s supporters were worried. Would Dale now face the murder charge at trial—or would he walk out as a free man?

Rikkell Bock: The thought of him getting out was just scary. … Do we have enough?

AN IMPORTANT DISCOVERY CLOSE TO HOME

On June 7, 2024, Judge Anna Frushour returned to court with her decision. She first spoke about Dee.

JUDGE ANNA FRUSHOUR:  Dee Warner was a woman with a big heart and a temper. She cared for her children and grandchildren, and employees. … There was nothing, in the evidence, that suggested she would disappear intentionally, especially from her children.

And there was nothing she heard, the judge said, that made her feel differently.

JUDGE ANNA FRUSHOUR: The statements by Dale Warner … of a secret phone … and someone coming to pick up Dee Warner were not supported by any facts or evidence in this case.

But there was enough evidence, she said, to believe that Dee Warner was dead and that her husband was likely the one behind it.

JUDGE ANNA FRUSHOUR: There is probable cause that Dee Warner died by homicide at the hands of the defendant, Dale Warner.

Rikkell Bock: This is reality. … They think that there’s enough evidence that he killed our mom to go to trial.

Dale has been ordered to stand trial for the murder of his wife, but Little knows the real work is still ahead.

Billy Little: My fear for getting past a preliminary hearing was probably a one out of 10. My fear of getting a conviction at trial is probably an eight out of 10.

Erin Moriarty: It’s a high bar.

Billy Little: Yeah.

Law enforcement was still searching for physical evidence and in August 2024, two months after that preliminary hearing concluded, that’s exactly what they found. Dee’s family heard about it first.

Rikkell Bock: I received a message … that said we need to have an emergency meeting with the detectives.

They met detectives at Gregg and Shelley Hardy’s farm. Police told them they had gone back to a property that Dale and Dee Warner owned and taken away a large metal tank that was used to store fertilizer. According to a search warrant, that tank had a “non-factory weld on the back” and a sign on it that said, “out of service”… “do not fill.” When the tank was scanned, investigators finally found what they had been looking for.

Rikkell Bock: It was my mom. Well, it was a body in a tank.

It took just days, authorities say, to confirm that the body inside that tank was Dee Warner. Her death was ruled a homicide.

Erin Moriarty: And how did she die?

Gregg Hardy: They’re not sharing that with me.

Authorities are not granting any interviews about this case before the trial, but that warrant also says that security video from the day Dee was reported missing showed Dale in one of the farm buildings “searching for something near the welding equipment.” For three years, police had been looking for Dee’s body underground, and now they had come to believe that she might have been concealed above ground.

Gregg Hardy: The tank was in this … agricultural storage building right behind me.

Erin Moriarty: And was the cylinder right in here?

Gregg Hardy: Yeah, it was parked here.

Erin Moriarty: So, Dale would have access to all this?

Gregg Hardy: He did.

Gregg says he has no doubt now that Dale killed Dee and hid her body.

Gregg Hardy: All these things … point in one single direction, clearly, without any question.

Erin Moriarty: And that’s to Dale?

Gregg Hardy: That’s correct.

Dale’s defense attorney declined to speak to “48 Hours” on camera, but she told us that Dale maintains his innocence and said in an email they’re “prepared to vigorously fight for him in court and present his defense.”

Erin Moriarty: Isn’t it likely that Dale’s going to argue, well, that was a cylinder sitting out in a barn, anybody had access to that cylinder, someone could have come into his own barn and put your mom?

Rikkell Bock: Absolutely. I mean, he — he can say — anything.

Rikkell says finding her mom’s body after these three long years gave the family a sense of peace.

Rikkell Bock: I wanted to shout from the rooftops to everybody that she didn’t leave us willingly.

Dee’s family laid her to rest in a private burial soon after her body was identified. Her daughter Lena, now 12, was with them.

Gregg Hardy (emotional): The one thing that she knows for sure, that was her mother there. … That her mother didn’t leave her. It was real.

Shelley Hardy (crying):  It’s like you get hit in the stomach every time … I miss her laughter and her comfort.

Erin Moriarty: You miss her?

Stephanie Voelkle: Very much … I miss her every day.

Rikkell and Zack Bock say they miss their mother deeply, and that her death has changed them in profound ways.

Zack Bock: I’m now three years sober. … And, shortly after she went missing, I started my own real estate company. … I stopped being scared of failing on something ’cause there was nothing left to lose.

Rikkell Bock: He’s my mom’s spirit, very hardworking and driven and determined.

Erin Moriarty: Your children will grow up hearing about Dee.

Rikkell Bock: Yeah.

Erin Moriarty: What will you tell them about your mother?

Rikkell Bock: Oh, my mom enjoyed being a grandma so much … They will always remember … how she would have been there. My mom would’ve been there for everything.

Dale Warner’s trial is scheduled to begin on Sept. 2, 2025.

Produced by Sarah Prior. Cindy Cesare is the development producer. Chelsea Narvaez is the field producer. Doreen Schechter, Diana Modica and Joan Adelman are the editors. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer