Bodycam video highlights third day of Warner murder case testimony

ADRIAN — Body-worn camera video of law enforcement's first contact with Dale Warner highlighted testimony Friday in a hearing to determine whether the murder case against Warner will proceed toward a trial.

The prosecution played the video toward the end of the preliminary examination's third day in Lenawee County District Court. The court adjourned after Michigan State Police Detective Sgt. Daniel Drewyor had been on the witness stand for more than an hour. The exam is scheduled to resume June 6.

Dale Warner, 56, is charged with open murder and tampering with evidence in the April 2021 disappearance of his wife, Dee Ann Warner, from their home on Munger Road in Franklin Township. He was arrested in November 2023 by the state police, who took over the investigation in August 2022 at the request of the Lenawee County Sheriff's Office, which initiated the investigation on April 25, 2021.

Visiting Judge Anna M. Frushour will determine if the charges against Dale Warner will be bound over to circuit court for further proceedings. Frushour, a Washtenaw County district judge, was appointed to hear the case after Lenawee County's judges disqualified themselves. The case's original judge, Lenawee County District Judge Laura J. Schaedler, removed herself after disclosing past professional and personal contact with the Warners and their families over the years. The county's probate and circuit judges also disqualified themselves, using the standard disqualification form provided by the Michigan State Court Administrative Office and selecting the option that states, "based on objective and reasonable perceptions, my continued assignment would create an appearance of impropriety."

Dee Warner has not been seen or heard from since April 25, 2021. Family and friends of Dee have testified they last saw or communicated with her on April 24, 2021. In the video of Deputy Austin Hall's interaction with Dale Warner on the evening of April 25, Dale said he last saw her asleep on the living room couch at about 6 that morning when he went out to spray farm fields near their home.

Before Drewyor, the prosecution on Friday called two state police data analysts, Dee's massage therapist and Dee's assistant at her trucking business. On the hearing's first day, former Warner employees Brian Bush and Todd Neyrinck, former IT consultant Kyle Wagner, friend Amy Alexander, and Dee's daughter Rikkell Bock testified. On Thursday, Dee's son Zack Bock, a General Motors expert to the OnStar system and another state police analyst testified.

Bodycam video

Lenawee County Prosecutor Jackie Wyse played Hall's video after asking Drewyor about his investigation into the Warners' finances, Dee's health care records, their electronic devices and the information that was passed along from the sheriff's office when the state police took the lead in the investigation.

In the video, Hall is seen walking from his patrol car in the front, circular drive of the Warner home to the front door just before 7 p.m. He knocks twice, then begins walking back to the car when he notices someone off to his left near a barn. He walks over and introduces himself to Dale and tells him he understands that Dee is missing.

"Well, I don't know if she's missing or just left," Dale says.

He continues, saying that Dee was upset the previous night after having an altercation with two employees and talked about killing herself and leaving. He said she was recovering from having COVID-19 and she "ain't acting right since." The night before, she had a bad migraine, took some medication and "passed out" on the couch after he got her to calm down, he said. It was about midnight, so he went to bed since he had to get up early to work in their farm fields.

In the morning, he said, he said he saw her "snoring away" on the couch. He didn't wake her and went out, loaded the sprayer and sprayed a patch. He texted her and she didn't reply, but he thought she was still asleep. He reloaded the sprayer and resumed spraying and later got a call from Dee's assistant, Stephanie Voelkle, that Dee's daughter Rikkell had called, looking for Dee. He called Rikkell and told her Dee had just been at the house asleep, and he would be back after he finished spraying.

When he returned, Dale said in the video, he found that Dee's hair curler, hair dryer, makeup bag and her "go bag" were gone. He told Hall that Dee kept a bag packed because she would leave regularly, often going to Zack's house on Pentecost Highway.

"I wasn't real concerned because she'll go to Zack's house, she'll cool off, and she'll come back home," Dale said in the video.

In talking with Zack that day, Dale said in the video, he said he thought Zack was covering for Dee being at Zack's house, but that now he believed that no one knows where Dee is.

Her vehicle was still there, Dale said.

"Somebody picked her up," Dale told Hall. "She's with someone somewhere.…

"I don't know what else to do than wait a day or so and see if she shows up."

The strange things about the situation, Dale told Hall, were that she hadn't contacted anyone, he found her wedding ring on his office desk and Dee was usually with their young daughter.

Dale told Hall that their daughter had stayed the night with his brother who has daughters close to the same age. Dee's friend Amy Alexander testified Wednesday that the girl stayed with her that night.

"I don't know," Dale said in the video. "It's really weird."

Dale told Hall he didn't want to get "everyone fired up" by reporting Dee missing only to have her return in a day or two.

"She'd be pissed that you called the police," Dale said.

Hall tells Dale that the sheriff's office "pinged" Dee's cellphone to try to get a location on it, and the last they could get was at the house at "7:something in the morning."

Dale told Hall that Dee was never without her cellphone. He then told Hall about Dee having a "secret," second phone. He said he had told her kids about it but hadn't told Dee he knew about it because he wanted to avoid an argument. He said he noticed her with two phones twice when they were on vacation: once in Florida and Dee claimed it was his daughter's phone and in Mexico when she claimed to have found it in the room where they were staying and she would take it to the front desk.

Dee is "very, very secretive," Dale said.

If he didn't hear from Dee by the next morning, Hall suggested to Dale, he should look through paperwork trying to find information about the second phone because they could try to locate it.

"The way she left, she doesn't want anybody to know where she's at," Dale told Hall. "Obviously, she knows what she's doing because we can't find her."

Hall gives Dale a business card and tells him to call central dispatch if Dee turns up. Dale then asks the deputy which Halls he's related to before Hall walks back to his patrol car.

Records search

Drewyor, who became the lead investigator when state police took over in August 2022, said they reviewed financial and health care records for Dee going back to January 2020 and beyond. He said they saw regular activity on the bank accounts and medical insurance until April 25, 2021, when the activity mostly stopped. After that date, prescriptions were autofilled twice at a pharmacy in Tecumseh and refunded when they weren't picked up and activity on the bank accounts was by a conservator and payroll deposits.

Data was requested from Facebook and Snapchat, Drewyor said. The data from Facebook showed Dee used it daily, posting, commenting and sending messages. Snapchat's response to a search warrant showed there was no data, which he said was not surprising because of how Snapchat deletes messages after a period of time, which is a feature of the app.

Device search

Drewyor testified that police seized several electronic devices but have never found the phone that Dee owned on the weekend she disappeared. He said they did find phones she used previously and one that had her recent data on it. Dee's phone number was eventually reactivated and used for the Warners' businesses.

State police conducted a couple of different search warrants to try to locate electronic devices, Drewyor said. Fog Data Science records location data for phones and sells that to advertisers, which can then direct ads to the device users. Fog did not show any devices at the Warners' farm property on April 24-25, 2021. He said Fog does not find 100% of devices.

A geofence search for location data related to Google apps for the Munger Road property found one device between 5 and 10 a.m. April 25. That device belonged to Rikkell's boyfriend.

Because investigators knew what kind of phone Dee had and her cellular service provider, they collected data from Apple and Verizon and served a search warrant on Dale for the phone.

State police data analyst Georgia Ziegler discussed data from Verizon that showed the last time and approximate location that Dee's phone was on the Verizon network. The last activity with the phone was at 7:14 a.m. April 25, 2021, and by using connection data from the towers to the northeast and southeast of the Warners' home they were able to place it at the Munger Road property.

The last phone call connected to Dee's phone was at 4:47 p.m. April 24, 2021, Ziegler said. There were incoming calls later that day and on April 25 that were not answered. Dee averaged 307 voice or text communications per day over a 22-day period, but there was no outgoing calls or messages after April 25. There was data usage at 7:01 a.m. April 25, but no way to tell if that was activated by someone using the phone.

Drewyor recounted executing two search warrants in May 2022. The first was for all electronic devices at the Munger Road property. He said they were looking for a specific phone that had Dee's iPhone data on it. They collected more than 100 Apple devices that day, Drewyor said, and he asked Dale about the specific phone.

"He pointed to the devices on the table and said, 'You have it,'" Drewyor said.

"Did you have it?" Wyse asked.

"No," Drewyor said.

Wanting to get certain business-related devices back to Dale to lessen the impact on the businesses, Drewyor told him he would work to get those devices back to him quickly. A day or two later, Dale called to schedule a time to get those devices.

"He calls me from Dee's phone number," Drewyork said.

He obtained a search warrant and went to get the phone from Dale. He met Dale at the farm office and told him he needed the phone. He learned the phone was in a vehicle parked outside the office.

"Dale was not compliant with giving the device," Drewyor said. "I told him that he needed to provide it, and he did not want to do so. He refused."

Drewyor eventually got the phone.

Nikole Anderson, another state police analyst, testified about searching various databases for evidence Dee was alive somewhere. Those databases ranged from more narrow data sets, such as Oakland County's law enforcement database, to national facial recognition databases managed by the FBI. Most of the databases were related to law enforcement, driver's licenses and border crossings. Others searches have checked whether Dee applied for a Bridge Card from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and if there had been any property record changes involving her. The facial recognition databases mostly have driver's license photos and police booking photos but also have social media profile photos and mentions in news media. None of those searches have showed any activity for Dee.

Dee's friends

Prosecutors called Dee's massage therapist from Clinton Chiropractic, Stacey Brodie, and her assistant at DDW, Stephanie Voelkle. They both said they became friends with Dee beyond their professional relationships with her.

Brodie testified about seeing concerning bruises on Dee, first one on her right hip that was about the size of an orange and another on Dee's thigh. Both times, Dee told her they were from fights with Dale. When Brodie asked Dee why she stayed with Dale, Dee told her she'd been divorced once and she had the businesses and her young daughter to consider. She told Brodie that she was the only involved parent and the girl "would be screwed if anything happened to" Dee.

The last time Brodie saw Dee was at her weekly appointment on April 21, 2021. Dee appeared to have been crying and was preoccupied, Brodie said, and the last thing Dee said to her was she was tired and "it was time to talk to a lawyer."

Voelkle said Dee was her best friend. They saw each other every day at work and communicated when they were away from work. She said she did not have much of relationship with Dale.

About a year before Dee went missing, Voelkle said, they started using Snapchat to communicate.

She and Dee discussed Dee leaving Dale, Voelkle said, and Dee's purchase of her and Zack's lake home was to give Dee a "way to escape" and a "safe haven."

As Dee's assistant, they discussed getting another phone for Dee and Voelkle researched prices for her, but she ultimately didn't buy another phone. Under questioning by Dale's lead attorney, Mary Chartier, she recalled that Dee had wanted a phone that was capable of being used internationally and said she didn't know if Dee had bought a phone on her own.

Voelkle last saw Dee after 3 p.m. on April 23, 2021, she said. Dee was nervous about a talk she was going to have with Todd Neyrinck, who managed the trucking business. Voelkle said Dee and Neyrinck had a "heated" conversation. She spoke to Neyrinck after, and he said Dee was trying to pick a fight with him.

On Saturday, April 24, Voelkle and Dee texted about Todd and Terry Neyrinck. Dee said she was hyperventilating and throwing up and that she had told Dale she wanted to sell everything.

On April 25, Rikkell called at about 10:30 a.m. about not finding Dee, Voelkle said. She called Dale, who told her Dee was upset with him, they fought the previous night and the last time he saw her was around 6 asleep on the couch.

The evening around 6 or 7, Dale called her asking if she knew anything about a blood test Dee had the week before and said Dee had been acting weird the night before, Voelkle said.

Her next conversation with Dale was at work on April 27 when he asked her about Dee going to Traverse City. She told him she didn't know about Dee going there. Voelkle said she would make travel reservations for Dee and had scheduled the family to use their timeshare into 2022. She said Dee and Dale took a trip on their own for New Year's Eve 2021.

Voekle said she had two more in-depth conversations with Dale before she left DDW in June 2021: one when he asked her who would pick up Dee and not tell anyone and another where he talked about what happened the night of April 24. He told Voelkle that Dee was irate and trying to pick a fight. He said he followed their counselor's advice to stay calm, which only seemed to aggravate her. She had taken medication for her neck, he rubbed her neck and shoulders and she fell asleep.

Voelkle testified she had seen Dale try to give Dee shoulder rubs before, but Dee would shrug away. She also described a time when she saw them arguing at work when Dale was screaming at Dee and Dee yelling back.

Another time when Dee became angry was after she found a device in her Hummer, Voelkle said. Dee brought it into the office and showed what she had found. Frushour sustained an objection from Chartier that Voelkle recalling that Dee said it was a tracking device was hearsay.

— Contact reporter David Panian at dpanian@lenconnect.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @lenaweepanian.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Dale and Dee Warner murder preliminary examination day 3