Hidden Murder of Dee Warner: Opening Statements

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Mr. McCree, before you begin, I would just ask you to remember you need to stay at the podium in front of the microphone so that you don't have voices on our recordings. Yes, we'll do. Good morning. [00:00:13] Speaker ?: Good morning. [00:00:17] Speaker 1: Now we get to start what we're here for. This is Dee Warner. April 24, 2021, she went home to tell her husband, the defendant, that the marriage was over, they were selling their businesses, and they were through. She was never seen or heard from again. August 17, 2024, over three years later, she was found in an anhydrous ammonia fertilizer tank, dead. How did she die? Well, the medical examiner examined her body. She had been strangled. She had blunt force trauma to her face and head. Her face and neck were wrapped in duct tape. She was in her pajamas, wrapped in a tarp, welded into a tank. Now she was born D. Hardy. She was born into the Hardy family. She was first married, before she was married to the defendant, to Tim Bach, and the two of them had four kids. You'll hear from three out of the four will testify. In order, from oldest to youngest, Amber, TJ, Zach, and Raquel. At the time of April 24, 2021, all four kids were adults. You'll hear that Dee and Dale worked together at a company called Crop Production Services. They each got divorced from their spouses, got married, and they had a child together named Angelina. In April 2021, Angelina was nine years old. Dale had also been married to Julie Warner. That couple had four kids, who were also all adults, in April of 2021, and their names were Jenica, McKenzie, Jaren, and Canberra. You may hear testimony from some of them. After Dee and Dale got married, they started a business, or several businesses together, at a farm that they owned, at Munger. In Carson Highways, the businesses were called War Egg Farms, War Egg Farm Services, and DDW Trucking. They farmed thousands of acres. They provided chemicals and other farming supplies to local farms, and they did over-the-road heavy trucking to all places in Michigan and Ohio. Dale did the farming, and Dee basically ran the office. There's going to be a lot of testimony about the Munger property. So I'm going to spend a little bit of time to show you the property that we're talking about, the different buildings, so you're familiar with that as you hear the testimony. I understand that you're sitting far away, so I've blown this up as big as I could possibly do that, but you will get, for all these things that you're going to see, you will get physical exhibits as the witnesses testify. So you'll be able to hold those in your hand and see them up close. You'll see here, this is the closest in time that we have to April of 2021, and you'll see at the bottom edge, that's Munger Road. So the farm is to the north of Munger Road. This is another view that we will use fairly often throughout the course of this trial. We've got the buildings numbered, because other than the house, which is number three, people use different names for different buildings. But right there at the southern edge, building number three, that's the house. That's where Dale and Dee lived. They had bedrooms for the kids, even though they were adults. This all takes place on this property. That's the back of the house. That's where everybody came and went from, parked in front of. That's the view from the road. That's the garage. Okay, that building to the west, number one. I'm going to refer to it as the old shop. There's several witnesses refer to it as the old shop. That's where the mechanic would work on the farming equipment and the semi-trailers. This is a view from the porch of the house, and you see that building. That's the old shop, just to give you an idea of the perspective and the distance between these buildings. That's a shot from inside the old shop. Okay, moving on to building number two. That building stored dry chemicals, dry fertilizer, etc., in bays inside what we would call the dry barn, or the dry fertilizer barn. That's a picture from inside the barn. You can kind of see the bays there. They're not real important to this case, but that implement, that farm implement, is important. That's a front-end loader. You'll hear it referred repeatedly as the JCB. And you can see the initials JCB on the front-end loader. Okay, that building facing north and south, that's building number five. I know it's hard to see the numbers on these. That is, I'm going to be referring to that as the new shop. Several employees also refer to that as the new shop. There's a side view, and you can see these large overhead doors. So they had bays, so they could drive large farm implements and other machinery in there to get out of the weather or to be worked on. Okay, number six there, at the bottom, is the office. This is where the office employees would go. So you can see it's part of that same building as the new shop, but it's on the right end there. Here's a close-up of the entrance to the office. And this is a shot, if you would go through that main door, you would be in this part of the office, where several people had their workstations. To the northeast, building number seven is the building where the large sprayer would go in and be filled up with chemicals to then be applied to the fields. We'll be calling that the spray barn. And you can see the sprayer can pull in one end, get filled up, and pull out the other end. I also want to bring your attention to this area to the northwest. I'm going to blow that up just to show you a few things. Right there in the middle, those two white tanks is where they stored the anhydrous ammonia. Again, it's a fertilizer. Tens of thousands of gallons were stored in those two tanks. Towards the bottom, you see four smaller tanks. Those smaller tanks would attach to the larger tanks and be filled with the anhydrous ammonia. That area there is referred to as the burn piles. This is where they would burn their trash. This will be important as we go on. In that photo, you can see, I know it's small, but there are probably a dozen more anhydrous ammonia tanks lined up close to the main mother bottle, as it was called. Now, you're going to hear about the surveillance camera system that they had on the property. And there are hours and hours and hours of footage from these cameras. And we're not going to put you through watching a week's worth of video. So what we are going to do is we've taken out what we think are the most important parts. And, of course, the defense can show you parts that they also think are important. But I want you to understand where the cameras are and what they show and what they don't show. So building number one is represented, the whole building in red, the old shop. Basically, there's a camera inside that captures everything that's not behind a partition or a box or a truck or whatever. So that whole building is represented in red because that whole building, basically, the inside of it is under camera surveillance. The north part of the new shop has also got cameras on the inside. The shot I showed you of the inside of the office is also under camera surveillance. There are three outside cameras as well. So attached to the north side of the old shop, there's a camera looking north. And the arrows kind of represent the view that that camera captures. Another camera on the west side of the new shop, looking in a northwest direction as shown by those arrows. And then there's another camera on the east side of the office. And it's a, it's a fisheye lens, so it's kind of got a wide angle, but it kind of points towards the spray barn and kind of down towards Munger Road. So it's got that viewpoint. Now, you have a sense of the property. I'm going to talk a little bit about D and Dale's relationship, which the witnesses will testify was never good. Constant verbal disagreements. Over text, face to face, a pattern of stalking by Dale towards D. Which I'll tell you more about in just a second. Extreme secrecy and distrust between the two of them. Some of the text fights that you'll hear about during this trial. And this is in the weeks leading up to April 2021. Here we have February 23, 2021, where D says to Dale over text, I'm ready to move out and be done with this. You treat me as if I'm not worthy of anything. You want to be in control so that the other person is powerless. I'm not going to live like this. Two days later, we don't even talk. We are just roommates. February 25, our relationship has gotten so much worse. I can't be with someone that does this to me. March 1, nothing is ever good enough for you. You wonder why I don't sleep with you. All of this. They had a vacation planned to Disney World. I think they left on March 6th. Two days before, she says, fuck you. I'm not going. You hear about face-to-face confrontations as well. D's daughter, Raquel, will testify to that. They had an exchange student from Italy staying with them, living with them, watching them, you know, day after day. She'll testify, Giada Rowe is her name. And another young woman who was good friends and spent a lot of time at the Warner household. Her name is Madison Wolf. She goes by Maddie. We'll hear from her as well. Hardly a day would go by without a fight. There's one in particular that Stephanie Voelkel will testify about. Stephanie was a good friend of D's. She also worked with D in the office. She says that at one point, Dale comes storming into the office in front of all the employees and puts his finger at D and says, you, outside now. And proceeded to scream at her two feet away from her face in front of all the employees to see. Now on to the stalking behavior. D, her main car was a Cadillac Escalade. Comes with OnStar. So you can go on your phone and you can find out where the car is. Well, you'll hear from the person from OnStar. Devin Newell is his name. They were able to track, they were able to pull up their records. How many times did Dale track D over the period from January of 2020 through April of 2021? And it was over 2,000 times that he tried to get her or did find her location. It's over four times a day. Here's the app that would be used. I know you can't read the text at this point, but you'll get the exhibit. There's the button right there on the front part of the app that says View More. From there you go to the second page, which would be the More page, the middle page here. There's a vehicle locate option, and then you'll pull up a map and it'll show you where that vehicle is. 2,000 plus times. She also drove a Hummer occasionally. That was also GM product, but it didn't come with OnStar. His then son-in-law, Brian Bush, will testify that he wanted to track her in the Hummer, too. And so he had Brian, he, Dale, had Brian buy off Amazon a tracker that could be installed in the Hummer. Dee discovered it, and there's a picture of it. We also have the Amazon purchase history from Brian Bush that shows him buying the GPS tracker. Brian will testify that Dale would call him and say, go online and find out where the Hummer is. Where's Dee in the Hummer? They had an IT person for the farm. Kyle Wagner will testify. Dee was scheduled for a medical procedure, and Dale approaches him and says, Can you clone Dee's phone for me? Basically download everything that's on there, all her texts, all her phone calls. And Kyle says, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to violate her trust. Later on, when the police got a hold of his phone, Dale's phone, they see that he took 90 photographs of Dee's text with her son, Zach. And you'll see that exhibit as well. At one point, Zach and Dee were hiding things from Dale in the Munger house, in Zach's bedroom. And Zach goes to get in his safe, and he can't get in it. Well, long story short, Dale had Brian, the guy who got the tracker, get an exact replica of Zach's safe, switched him out, and broke into Zach's safe, and replaced it with the one he got off Amazon. Zach will testify to this. But again, June 11, 2019, we have the record from Amazon of the safe that Brian bought for Dale. Last thing he did with Brian was to try to set up cameras in the living space so he could monitor Dee in the home. So here's a picture of the living room. I know you can't read this, but you will see this. At the bottom, it says, places for camera. And this text string had three photos. And here's another place he's suggesting for a camera. This is in the living space of the house. This is in the kitchen area. Again, place for a camera. So I think you're getting the impression here, the idea that this marriage had no intimacy, only secrecy. They didn't sleep together. They were just roommates. You're going to hear from Giada and Maddie that they would go shopping with Dee, and she would say, pretend these are yours. You carry them in the house, or they would wait until Dale wasn't around to sneak them in the house. She kept her phone on her at all times. I mean, if she was on the couch, she would have her phone. She would never let her phone be somewhere where it was just sitting on a table. She wanted it in her hand or on her person. She even locked her car when it was in the garage. She had her purse in the car. She locked the car in the garage in the house. All right. So now let's turn to the weekend of April 24, 2021. So Friday, there is a blow-up with two employees, two of the trucking company employees, the brothers, actually, Todd and Terry Narek. And you'll hear more about this. It's not important right now what the issue was about, but Dee was at odds with both brothers at the end of the day on Friday. Saturday morning, Dee goes to her oldest daughter, Amber's house. Lena, Angelina, the 9-year-old, has spent the night there. Lena has a soccer game at 10, 30, or 11. So Dee goes over to Amber's house to get Lena and take her to the soccer game. Dee comes back from the soccer game, sobbing, hyperventilating. What happened? I told you about the two brothers Friday night, Terry and Todd. Well, Terry, his girlfriend or his ex-wife is also named Terry, Terry with an I. While Dee was at the soccer game, she gets this text from Terry. And I'm not going to read you the whole thing, but here's the important part, about two-thirds of the way down. You're evil, nosy, miserable. Your own husband said you take Xanax because you're a mess. That's the truth he told me and Terry. This text, this betrayal, where she believes that Dale is telling the employees that she is on Xanax and a mess, sends Dee into a tailspin. So she goes back to Amber's house and she shows Amber the text. She can hardly talk. She's so upset. She's sobbing. She's hyperventilating. She goes right into the bathroom and throws up. She is so distraught. She tells Amber, I've had it. This is it. There's been talk of divorce over the years and he's never gone through with it. No, this is the time. This is the last straw. So she says to Amber, we're getting divorced. We're selling the businesses. Later on that afternoon, this is when she's talking to Amber. It's about 1 o'clock, let's say. 4, 30, 5 o'clock, she's talking to Raquel at the Munger house. She's back there. She tells Raquel the same thing. It's over. I'm ending it tonight. She arranges for the 9-year-old, Lena, to stay at relatives at her Aunt Amy's. And so it's now just Dee and Dale at the Munger residence. Now, Dale, after Dee goes missing Saturday night into Sunday, he speaks with the police numerous times. And you're going to hear these interviews. And so he's acknowledged that he got a call Saturday late morning when he was out in the field doing his farming things. Dee calls him. He could tell by the tone of her voice, quote, he was going to get an ass chewing. And Dee said to him in that phone call, why are you telling the help? I'm on Xanax. And we're done. We're selling everything. This is it. This is from his own lips. So, again, back to other interviews that what Dale told police happened after everyone left the property and it was just him and Dee Saturday night. He said that she was upset over the employees. Not that it was about divorce. It was about the fights Friday night. She accused him of being mean. And he tells the police, look, we've been going to marital counseling. And I've been told to de-escalate. And that's what I did. I de-escalated. He says, we never had the sell everything conversation. She brought it up. And I said, Dee, it's just not your decision. He tells police, she wanted to escalate more, but I wouldn't go there. But she wouldn't let it go. She got herself so upset, according to him, that she got a migraine. She took some pills, ate some food. He rubbed her shoulders. She was calming down. She fell asleep on the floor. He put her on the couch and went to bed. And that's all that happened Saturday night. Sunday morning, Dale gets up early to go farming. He tells police, I leave the house. She's still snoring away on the couch where I left her. This is a shot of the living room looking towards the kitchen. And he later tells police, that's the couch that I'm talking about. 7 o'clock, the surveillance cameras that I talked to you about earlier, they show him getting on the JCB. And here's that. So again, just to remind you, I know you don't have this memorized yet. We're talking about number two, the dry fertilizer barn at the top. And the camera that you just saw was the camera off of building number one, the old shop, pointing north. There's a blowup of that. There's the area that we saw the JCB in. You can see if that JCB had turned in front of the old shop, it would be heading right toward the house. Between the house, number three, and the dry barn, number two. Okay. He acknowledges that he drove the JCB up to the house. Sunday, later that day, witnesses will actually see the JCB tracks going up to the house. If you recall from the camera angles, there's no camera that shows that stretch from south of the dry barn to the house. So that's not on camera, him driving up to the house. But witnesses will say, yeah, we saw the tracks, and Dale agrees, he did drive up to the house. [00:28:03] Speaker 2: So the tire marks out front. So on Sunday, when someone comes over here, and they see the tire marks from the JCB, I'm sorry, I forget it. The yellow lines are on the motor up to the porch. [00:28:15] Speaker ?: Do you recall? [00:28:17] Speaker 2: I mean, you know, the threats that are, you know, the deep treaded. So do you remember? Did you do anything? You did it for us the other day for the trash. I told him when I went out, I forgot my ACB, I pulled it this way, I forgot, so I went into the house. Okay. I think I probably forgot my tool that I opened up with, so. You said you drove that over there, but you didn't say so. I didn't ask you. Right. You know, I pulled out, it's not shit. Let me get this. I went back out, and I went back around. [00:28:51] Speaker 1: Okay, you'll see the man in the orange shirt. He is, that's Kevin Greca, Detective Kevin Greca, is now retired. He was the lead investigator on this case for the first months or a year. So what does Dale say? That he was snoring away when he gets ready to spray. Seven o'clock, surveillance shows he's on the JCB, drives up to the house. Then, when he was interviewed later by the Michigan State Police, they said, can you mark on a map where you drove up with the JCB? And he did. Here's the map they gave him. It's going to be impossible for you to see the X. I apologize for that. I couldn't blow it up any bigger than that without making it totally blurry. But that red circle, I added to this to show you that's where the X was, or is, when you will see the exhibit. That's about as close as I can get it. And again, right there is the X. Okay, so we're looking at the back of the house. And basically right in line with that peak coming off the main part of the roof. All right, so you can see that same peak. You can see my blue X. That's not part of the photo. Essentially where the X was in the picture that Dale marked up when he was being interviewed by the Michigan State Police. All right, now I'm going to talk about the Hummer on Sunday. So they had taken the Hummer to Florida. And you'll hear from several witnesses say it was parked in the same spot for weeks after they got back from Florida. And Saturday night was still parked in that same spot. And Dale admits to the police later on that Sunday morning, the only people that were around that could have moved it were him and Dee. And here's a picture from a couple days later, taken by the police, April 29th. Okay, Sunday is April 25th. But this is where the Hummer had been parked and was moved back when this picture was taken. Okay, and you can see there the relation between the front end of the Hummer and the back door. Which is right there. Now, in relation to the living room, the door that the Hummer is parked in front of is right there. Again, back to Devin Newell and the OnStar records. He'll testify that at 7.08, Okay, remember 7 o'clock, JCB comes up to the house. 7.08, Dale uses his phone to go on my Cadillac, OnStar, and unlock Dee's car in the garage. Again, just use the app and there's the unlock button right there. There's the garage door open. Again, this is a couple days later, April 29th, but that's where Dee always parked or escalated. And you'll hear that Dee locked her purse in the car, but after Sunday, April 25th, no one could ever find it. 7.14, you'll see the JCB driving up to the northeast corner of the property. You'll also hear that Dee's phone made the last contact with the cellular network at 7.14. And after 7.14, her phone is never on again. It's last location is on the Munger property. We know that because there's a cell tower to the north and another cell tower to the south, and we know the distance the phone was from each tower, and we can triangulate that the phone was on the Munger property. You'll hear from a witness that'll tell you that. 7.45, he gets in the sprayer, leaves the property to go spray a neighboring property. And he's basically out spraying until a little after 11. When he leaves, [00:33:42] Speaker ?: when he leaves, [00:33:42] Speaker 1: he texts Dee's phone, going spraying, call you later. Okay, so he leaves at 7.45, so he returns at 8.15 for about a half an hour to reload, goes back out in the sprayer, and that's where he is for about three and a half hours total. So he's gone. Daughter Raquel, Dustin Lawley, and their kids, two daughters, they have a standing invitation for Sunday morning breakfast. Okay, so this is not something that's prearranged. They just show up expecting Dee to be there, expecting to have breakfast with her. They come in the house, she's not around. Okay. Now remember, she was on the couch snoring when he left. 9.30, they arrived. She's not on the couch anymore, for sure. Both of her cars are there. This is odd. Where is she? 9.41, Raquel texts, where are you? No answer. So they eat breakfast, not really alarmed yet, just kind of curious, why isn't she here? Why isn't she answering your texts? She always answers her texts. But they go back to their house and you'll hear that they live only maybe a mile up the street. But before they even go in, Raquel's like, I'm going to call her. And it goes right to voicemail. Again, that never happens. Dee's phone is attached to her and she will always answer. So they returned to the Munger property to say, okay, something's not right here. So Raquel, they come back, the Hummer is now up at the office and so is the JCB. She'll testify that actually the Hummer was up at the office when they were there at 9.30 for breakfast. So she figured, okay, mom's not in the house, they must be in the office arguing. So, mom's not answering, let's go to the office and just make sure that everything's okay. So you'll see 10.09, she appears on that office surveillance camera looking for her mom and Dee is not there. Okay, so Raquel and Dustin then go to Dee's brother and sister-in-law's house, Greg and Shelly Hardy. Again, they're all living within a five-mile radius. This is like two miles down the road. First, they go to an event center that Greg and Shelly have and then they go to Greg and Shelly's house to see, is Dee here? No. Do you know where she is? No. So now Shelly joins them as they start looking any place that Dee could possibly be and the Warners have a property up at M50 and Onstead Highway that they call the Cedar Point property. It's got a lodge there. They go up, no, Dee is not there either. So now they've crossed up all the places that she possibly could be. We didn't really search the house. I mean, she wasn't answering when we called, but let's go see. Let's go search the house. But in the meantime, she calls her siblings, Amber, Zach, and TJ. Hey, do you know where mom is? Have you seen her? No, no, no. She calls Stephanie, one of her best friends. Do you know where mom is? Stephanie doesn't know either. Nobody knows where she is. Now, Dale is out farming, but we know from his phone that between 745 and 1030, he went on there and used Find My iPhone to see where Dee's phone was. and he also tried [00:37:41] Speaker ?: and he also tried [00:37:41] Speaker 1: to look, those Munger surveillance cameras have a remote access app so you can go online and you can watch your security cameras. He tries to do that as well. 1032, Stephanie calls, where's Dee? And his answer, well, when I left, she was sleeping on the couch. so Dale says, I'll come back. He gets back to the Munger farm about 11, 1120. He goes to the office where the kids, Zach and TJ, are trying to figure out, they're calling around different places, they're looking at the computer monitor, they're accessing the history, the camera history, the footage, going back a few hours seeing, can we see anything on the security cameras of what happened? How did she leave? Did she leave? What happened? So he comes in there and next to that office, the picture I showed you, there's a hallway and there's a lunchroom where Dale has his desk and Dale comes out of there and he says, oh, fuck, she left her wedding ring and he shows it. So here's the camera view of the office and you can see TJ, the oldest son on the left with his arms behind his head. Dustin Lawley is in the top corner with what looks like a hoodie and some kind of a hat and Zach is at the computer screen and Dale is almost off the screen on the right. and this is about the time although he's off camera and here's Shelly also in the room at the same time but we can see that they're there at 11.59 on Sunday. from there he goes to the house Raquel is in the bedroom in Dee's bedroom and Dale says, she must have left because she took her go bag, she took her makeup bag, she took her curling iron, she took her hairspray, they're all gone. that's the bedroom we're talking about. So the kids want to report her missing. None of this is adding up. Dale says, no, I don't want to do that right now. So they all meet up secretly at Zach's house, not all, Amber's not there, it's TJ, Zach, and Raquel and they make the call to the police because something is definitely wrong. 6.55 p.m., Sheriff's Deputy Austin Hall shows up at the Munger property and talks to Dale. Dale says, basically confirming the facts that I just went through with you that Stephanie had called him, he found out from her that Dee was missing, that she had left her wedding ring and he said, this is weird because, yeah, we've had arguments over and over and Dee has left many times but she always takes Lena. He says, yeah, we argue all the time but she's never without her phone and he says, yeah, she's secretive though and she parks her car locked in the garage. So, Deputy Austin, Deputy Hall leaves, he's taking his report. Monday, Detective Greca comes back and talks to Dale again and he says, Dee left like she usually does but again, he's going through the ways that this is different. Again, he says, she never leaves Lena, she's never left her ring before and she's never left without her vehicle. He admits thinks that there was, that it was better that Lena wasn't there for their argument Saturday night and he admits that on Saturday night Dee would not let it go. So, that's the Monday interview with the police and you'll see that. Tuesday, Detective Greca comes back and he walks the property with Dale looking in all the cabs of the trucks looking for any possible place on the property that if Dee had some kind of episode, she might have gone and passed out or had some kind of distrust, no sign. So, he leaves Tuesday night and comes back with a search warrant to search the properties, all the outbuildings. Okay? And you'll see this on his body cam. He's talking with the daughters and he's got Dale on the phone because Dale's not at the property at that point in time. This is like after 8 p.m. And he says to him, that Dale says, he knows that Dale's not there because he's talking to him on the phone but he has Jaren, Dale has Jaren, his son, come and get him. And you'll also see that he moves a tank while the police are searching and the reason for that is the decision has been made to just let Dale do his farming, not to interfere with his farm. So, the police do multiple interviews with witnesses but D, her whereabouts cannot be explained. Okay? Days and days and weeks and weeks and months and months go by. From May 2021 to May 2023, numerous other searches of Munger and other places and other places interviewing dozens of witnesses. October 2021, the FBI stepped in and they did a search of the Munger residence and property. 2022, the state police take over from the sheriff on the lead to the investigation. May 2023, dozens of officers from all over the state came down and searched just about every field that could possibly have been where D's body was. Walking the fields and no sign of her. Now, police got Dale's iPad that he used in 2021 and they saw that he had done a search in May after D went missing in April of how to dispose of a thousand-gallon propane tank. Now, if you know anything about propane tanks, they look almost identical to anhydrous tanks. The big ones, not the little ones you get at the gas station. Also, looking back at the surveillance video from the Sunday, April 25th, you can see Dale on camera getting welding supplies together. So, they put those two things together and they got a search warrant for tanks that had been re-welded shut, cut open and re-welded shut with a weld that doesn't look, that looks different from the weld that the tanks come from when they're new. And so, there are a couple of places that they store anhydrous tanks when they're not in use and one of them is at a property on Paragon Road a couple miles away from Munger. and they're looking at, I don't know, six, ten tanks that are there. No re-weld, no re-weld, but in the very back all by itself there is a tank number 34. and it's got a weld that no tank would come from the factory like that. It's got a tag attached to it that says bad dip tube do not use. So they take the tank to get x-rayed. And here's what they find. Based on seeing obviously a body in the tank they're then ready to see okay who is that. So they take the tank before they cut it open they put a camera inside and sure enough there is a tarp and that tarp is a body and that body is D. Warner. They test the tank Dale's fingerprint is on the ammonia sticker that you see there. They test the paint and it's similar to the paint in the old shop on the Munger farm. Please consult with a welding expert. Okay. How would this be done? How would you cut a tank open, put a body inside and re-weld it? Well, he looked at the tank. He looked at how it was cut open. he could determine from the marks that he could see on where it had been cut open that it was cut open with an abrasive cutoff wheel. Well, here's surveillance in the old shop and you'll see this. This is Dale with an angle grinder and cutoff wheels. Dexpert says, okay, it was welded shut with a gas metal arc welding process and here's Dale also on Sunday afternoons standing by the welders in the old shop. Dexpert says, okay, there was something attached to the top of that cap that got cut off. it was probably a hook so you could hold the cap while you're cutting it. There's Dale getting a hook on Sunday afternoon. He said, okay, you would use a chain, you'd hook that, you'd wrap the chain around that hook, that's how you would hold the cap while you're cutting it. There's Dale grabbing some chain. If you're going to weld the tank shut, you're going to need a welding mask and gloves. There's Dale getting a welding mask and gloves. If you weld something, you're in short sleeves, you're actually going to get a sunburn. This is from the body camera on Monday the 26th and there's Dale's arm. so now please go back to all the surveillance. Where's this tank? Let's see if we can find this tank. So we know that when Detective Greca came on Tuesday, he walked the property with Dale looking for D. And here's a section of that body game. and this is the area of the burn pile. [00:50:19] Speaker ?: Okay? And this is the area of the burn pile. Okay? And this is the area of the burn pile. Okay? And this is the area of the burn pile. Okay? And this is the area of the burn pile. Okay? And this is the area of the burn pile. Okay? And this is the area of the burn pile. Okay? And this is the [00:50:43] Speaker 1: that's a still shot from that body cam. I know you can't see it from where you are. Again, you're going to get this as an exhibit. When you do, you'll see there's an obvious defect in the weld in that area. Blew it up as much as I could. Remember the defect when the police found the tank in the barn in Paragon. Right there. Also remember on Tuesday in the evening the police had come with a search warrant. Go back and look at the body cam from that search warrant. Again, I said Dale's not on the property at that time. Detective Grek has said to him, yeah, we're here with a search warrant. We've got cadaver dogs on the way. They're about 20 minutes out. Cadaver dogs that can smell human remains. Tells Dale, yeah, cadaver dogs are about 20 minutes out. We're going to start the search. You're welcome to be here. You don't have to. You can come back if you'd like. As soon as Grekka gets off the phone with Dale, he turns and there's Dale's son Jaren on the phone. He's like, you talking to your dad? Oh, I just got off the phone with him. 20 minutes the dogs will be there. Jaren leaves, comes back with Dale in 18. Here's what happens when he gets back. Those men on the pad are part of the search team. They're running a drone. Here comes the JCB. Ryan Rank is one of those men. He's going to testify it was Dale behind the wheel of that JCB. there goes to the burn pile. And here it comes with the tank. Ryan Rank was flying that drone decided to capture it with his camera. Now again, I don't know how well you're oriented to the property yet, but that building that he is going towards is the spray bar. There's inside of the spray barn on Thursday the 29th with Dale spraying the floor. There's a different view of that. One of the things you're going to be able to do in addition to looking at all the evidence that I just showed you in terms of photographs and video, you're going to be able to compare the statements that Dale made to the police versus other pieces of evidence in the case. So for example, Dale told the police that he used find my iPhone to look for D. Remember that? He said, I tried to access the surveillance cameras. It wouldn't work on my phone, but I tried because I wanted to see, you know, did someone come and pick up D? I was looking for D. But the evidence is he accessed those apps before 10-29. We have the records. By his own admission, he didn't know that D was even missing until Stephanie called him at 10-32. you can think about Dale's conflicting statements that just conflict with each other. For example, he acknowledged the Hummer was parked in front of those steps. He acknowledged only D or I could have moved it on Sunday morning. He acknowledged that he drove the JCB up to the steps and went in the house. And he also said at the same time D was still sleeping. But yet he claimed that D was the one that moved the Hummer up to the office. Again, here's where the Hummer was parked as he acknowledged to the Michigan State Police. Right in front of those steps. Those JCB tracks went right up to the steps. In January 2024, Michigan State Police went out and they did a little test, a little demonstration to see what would the JCB be able to do up there parked right in front of those steps. There you can see what could be done with the bucket. Other statements of Dale's that you should consider or that you can. He told Raquel and the police that Saturday night he recited back to Dee their wedding vows. Richer for poor, sickness and in health, etc. He also said to the police that he sure as hell wasn't getting divorced again. He'd already done that once. Now Judge Olsaver read you the elements of the charges that you'll be considering at the end of the trial. So he's charged, you're going to be able to consider first degree murder, second degree murder and tampering with evidence. I know that you heard this already this morning. I just want you to have this in mind as you're listening to the evidence of things that we have to prove beyond a reasonable death. We have to prove for first degree murder that Dale caused D's death. And we have to prove that he did it intentionally with the intent to kill. And for first degree murder we have to prove that he did it with premeditation and deliberation. Now I hope you all remember back to when we did the jury selection that you all agreed that it's possible for a person to run a red light with premeditation and deliberation. This does not take days of planning even hours of planning. If you have time to weigh the pros and cons of your decision and you decide to go forward with it anyway that is enough for premeditation and deliberation. Second degree murder is similar. First element is that Dale caused D's death. death. It could be with the intent to kill or it could be with the intent to cause great bodily harm. You're not intending to kill but you do something with the intent to cause great bodily harm and death results at second degree murder. Or if you do something so risky, so if you knowingly create a very high risk of death or great bodily harm, knowing that death or such harm would be the likely result of his actions, that's enough intent for second degree murder if he did that and caused her death. The other charge is tampering with evidence. again, so there's some evidence to be presented in a future official proceeding. Think of her phone, her purse, her body. If you have an autopsy, you can tell how did someone die? Was it natural causes? The defendant removed, altered, concealed, destroyed, or otherwise tampered with that evidence. He did so on purpose and not by accident. That's the third element. The evidence was intended to be used in a criminal case where open murder was charged, which is what he's charged with here. A couple other things that Judge Oldsaber will tell you that I want you to keep in mind in terms of proving his intent, that we can prove it, you can infer his intent from the type of wounds inflicted. The acts and words of the defendant and any other circumstances surrounding the alleged kill. Motive may be important, but we don't have to prove that he had a motive or why he did this. So I remind you of what I started with. This is what Dr. Cho will testify to. Think about this in terms of those elements. She was strangled. She had blunt force trauma to the face and head enough to have killed her. She had duct tape over her face and neck. She was in her pajamas wrapped in a tarp welded in a tank. When you hear this evidence and at the close of trial, we'll be asking you to return a verdict of first degree murder and tampering with evidence. Thank you. Throughout this [01:01:55] Speaker 3: trial, you'll see that the government's evidence and case is built on speculation, assumption, and innuendo. They will put witnesses on the stand and show you numerous exhibits, but you know what you won't see? Proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The government has a theory, but there is no concrete evidence of that theory. That's what is important to pay attention to. Consider very carefully if what the government is actually presenting to you is actual evidence of murder. or something that they are theorizing and speculating is evidence of murder. Really think about the details of the case that the government is going to put forward to you. As you heard from the court, the law does not allow imagination to replace proof. Instead, the oath that you took requires that you consider all of the evidence when analyzing the specific details of this case. The law also requires that you consider the lack of evidence. The critical time here is the night of April 24th, 2021, going into April 25th, 2021. That is when this murder supposedly happened. This time frame is when the government claims that Mr. Warner killed Ms. Warner moved her body, took a tank, cut it open, put Ms. Warner's body inside of the tank, welded the tank shut, painted the tank, put more stickers on the tank, and then moved it. You'll see, you saw in the pictures, that this is a giant anhydrous ammonia tank. Its size and weight are significant. And all this is supposedly being done while Mr. Warner is working on other chores and doing work that is part of his regular duty on the farm. The government wants you to believe that this was all done on the farm without anybody noticing it. You'll learn that there were numerous people on the farm during the time frame that the government has focused on. As early as 3.27 in the morning on April 25th, a truck driver comes onto the farm to load up a truck and make a delivery. You'll learn that people can and actually do show up on the farm at any given time. Around 7 a.m., Mr. Warner starts his day and begins to work on the farm like he typically does. Mr. Warner leaves his property of the farm farm at 7.47 a.m. to go and spray a different farm. That's part of his job. Around 8.04 a.m., another worker comes onto the farm to work. This is before Mr. Warner even comes back. You'll learn who's on the farm throughout the day. For instance, if we move to the 11 a.m. hour, more people arrive. There are seven people that are on the farm in addition to Mr. Warner. The same worker who arrived at 8 a.m. is still there. He's joined by a friend. Mr. Warner's son, Ms. Warner's son, excuse me, her son arrives on the farm. Her son-in-law is on the farm. Another son joins them. Her sister-in-law arrives, and then her daughter arrives shortly after that. Again, in that hour alone, there are seven people that were on the farm with Mr. Warner. The afternoon of April 25th is no different. At 2.31 p.m., Ms. Warner's son, son-in-law, nephew, daughter, a farm worker, his friend, they are all on the farm. And then about 20 minutes later, another employee arrives. Here is another hour where there are seven people on on the farm with Mr. Warner. Mr. Warner didn't put restrictions on where people could go. He didn't know who would randomly show up and walk around. You'll see surveillance videos from the farm where they track people's movements and where they went. Again, this case is not about what might have happened. It's about what the evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt. and what it does not prove. Now, it's easy to point fingers after the fact. It's easy to take words and behaviors and take them out of context and twist them and intensify them into the stories that you will hear in trial. But at the end of the day, you all aren't here to judge whether Mr. Warner was a good husband or not. You're here to determine whether the government has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Warner committed the crimes that he's charged with. You'll hear a lot of testimony throughout the course of this trial. I'm sure you're aware of that at this point. I don't want to take up more time telling you what you're going to hear from the stand, but I do ask that you focus on three things when you're listening to the testimony. First, think about the government's own timeline for when they claim Ms. Warner was murdered and then the tank was cut open, Ms. Warner was placed inside it, the tank was welded shut, painted, and moved. The government will try to force events to fit into this timeline that do not fit because they cannot fit within it. Their own timeline will fall apart with close examination. Second, pay attention to what's going on on the farm and including all of the people that are on the farm at the time that the government is claiming Mr. Warner's hiding Ms. Warner's body. And third, consider how the investigation was conducted and how the police ignored other relevant information. in the end, the court will instruct you and has instructed you at this point that the burden of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt. That is the highest burden in our legal system. And this high burden is as it should be with the allegations we have here of murder and tampering with evidence. This is a burden that the government will not be able to meet. And because the government carries the burden of proof, any unanswered questions, any inconsistencies, any holes that the government does not fill because it cannot fill after hearing the facts are reasonable doubt. By the end of the trial, the government will not be able to rule out each and every reasonable doubt that exists in this case. And the law requires that even one, just one reasonable doubt means that there must be a finding of not guilty for Mr. Warner. So for all these reasons and others that you will learn about, we ask that you follow your oath and follow the law and find Mr. Warner not guilty on all counts. Thank you.