Lenawee County judge rules that missing Dee Ann Warner is dead

ADRIAN — Dee Ann Warner is dead, and her husband is responsible.

That is the ruling issued Monday by Lenawee County Probate Judge Catherine A. Sala after she was asked to make a determination about whether Warner, who has been missing since late April 2021, is still alive.

Sala’s ruling summarizes testimony taken over two days last summer from friends and family of Warner as well as law enforcement investigators, the conservator of Warner's estate and a forensic handwriting analyst.

In making the determination of death, Sala wrote, the circumstances of Warner’s death must be a part of her findings.

The “suspicious circumstances,” Sala wrote, citing Suzanne Wilhelm, the attorney appointed to represent Dee and Dale Warner’s young daughter, “constitute the clear and convincing evidence that the death of Dee Ann Warner rests solely upon the shoulders of the person who stood to benefit the most from her death — Dale Warner.”

Dale Warner has been charged with open murder and tampering with evidence in Dee Warner’s death. A preliminary examination in that case is scheduled to start April 9 in Lenawee County District Court. He is being held at the Lenawee County Jail on $15 million in bonds.

More: Husband of missing woman Dee Warner jailed on contempt charge

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The law about determining death allows for circumstantial evidence to be considered, Sala wrote. That evidence points to the homicide of Dee Warner “on or about April 24, 2021, sometime between the hours of midnight at 7:30 a.m.”

The 11-page opinion twice gives April 24 as the date of Dee Warner’s death, though it includes testimony from Dee’s longtime friend Amy Alexander, who last saw Dee when she dropped her daughter off with Alexander on the evening of April 24. It also includes testimony from Dee’s adult daughter Rikkel Bock, who said she saw her mother earlier on April 24 and described their routine of having Sunday breakfast together at the Warners’ home, then going grocery shopping. April 25 was a Sunday, and it was that day when Bock arrived at the Warners’ home for breakfast and Dee wasn’t there that led to the missing person report and subsequent investigation.

The charging documents in the murder case list April 25 as the date of Dee Warner’s death.

Additional circumstantial evidence pointing to Dee’s death and not just her disappearance, Sala wrote, includes evidence of domestic violence; that she kept a “go bag,” which was missing, to use in case things became too dangerous to stay at home and she needed to flee; that Dee allowed their daughter to stay with a friend that evening so that she could tell Dale she wanted to end their relationship; that Dale Warner had her wedding ring on April 25 but then it disappeared shortly after Dee disappeared; that Dale was the last person to see Dee alive and wanted to wait to report her missing; that he “nearly immediately” tried to access bank accounts that were only in Dee’s name to transfer funds to himself; that a power of attorney was forged to give Dale access to “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in Dee’s name; that Dale refused for months to cooperate with the conservator of Dee’s estate to the point of being jailed for contempt of court; that he liquidated assets in her estate, including her profitable trucking company; that Dale fired family members and cut them off from their daughter; and that he hired a known felon to “assist” with the bookkeeping so that equipment and other assets could be sold or “shifted as expeditiously as possible.”

Sala also cited statements from some who testified and Ariel Berger, the attorney appointed to represent Dee Warner, that Dee would not abandon her family and friends and “her absence can only be explained by her death.”

There was debate among the attorneys about whether Sala needed to consider a reason to believe Dee was dead, she wrote. Bock’s attorney, Todd Flood, argued that testimony that supported a finding of homicide included her “heroic dedication to her friends and family; lack of any funds or subsequent sign of life activity to support a theory she willingly disappeared; regular appointments for chronic physical pain treatment completely abandoned; wrapping up with the facts referenced by both County and State officers supporting a homicide investigation.”

Wilhelm argued that without a finding of homicide, the proofs offered were evidence of disappearance, the opinion said, and that Sala should consider the conservatorship case where Dale Warner was found in contempt of court for mishandling assets, refusing to follow court orders, and intentional diversion of assets away from the conservatorship estate.

Sala wrote that she agreed with Wilhelm and took those into consideration in issuing her ruling.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Lenawee County judge rules that missing Dee Ann Warner is dead