Sunday morning, April 25th, 2021.

The sun was just beginning to warm the farmland of Lenoi County, Michigan.

Ricklebach drove the familiar halfmile from her house to her childhood home, just like she did every Sunday morning for breakfast with her mother.

But this Sunday would be different.

This Sunday would change everything.

Rickle pulled into the driveway and immediately felt something was wrong.

Her mother’s Cadillac sat in the garage, untouched.

The Hummer was parked at the farm office down the road.

Both cars were there, but D.Warner was nowhere to be found.

Rickle called out for her mom.

No answer.

She checked every room, every corner of the house they had lived in together for years.

Nothing.

She pulled out her phone and called her mother’s number straight to voicemail.

This wasn’t like her mother at all.

D.

Warner was the kind of woman who would text you back within 5 minutes or she’d be calling to ask why you hadn’t responded.

If she could glue her phone to her hand, she would have done it years ago.

Panic started to creep in.

Rickle noticed something else strange.

There were tissues scattered everywhere throughout the house.

Blankets were thrown on the couch.

upstairs in the bedroom, her mother’s makeup bag was gone.

Her curling iron, her hair dryer, all missing.

But if she had packed to leave somewhere, why were both cars still here? Rickle drove down the road to her uncle Greg and Aunt Shel’s house.

Greg Hardy was De’s brother, and if anyone would know where she was, it would be him.

We can’t find her, Rickle told them, her voice shaking.

Her car is here.

We’ve called everybody.

We don’t know where she’s at.

Greg immediately called his sister’s number.

D always answered when he called, no matter what.

This time, the phone rang and rang.

Nothing.

He sent a text.

Still nothing.

For the first time in their lives, no one knew where D.

Warner was.

Rickle and her aunt Shelley jumped in the car and started driving around the rural Michigan roads looking for any sign of D.

They checked every place she might be, every friend’s house, every business.

When they returned to the Warner farm, they found even more troubling signs.

De’s passport was missing.

Her phone was gone.

But something else was missing, too.

their 9-year-old daughter, Lena, De and Dale’s child together, had spent the night at her cousin’s house.

De hadn’t come to pick her up yet, and she hadn’t even called to check on her.

This was the most alarming detail of all.

Lena went everywhere with her mother.

They were inseparable.

D would never ever leave Lena behind, especially not with Dale.

Zackbach, another of De’s four children from her first marriage, arrived at the farm and immediately went to check the security cameras in the office.

Maybe the cameras had captured something, anything that could tell them where their mother had gone.

He scrolled through hours of footage from that morning.

Nothing.

He never saw his mother walk to the office, never saw her drive away.

It was as if she had simply vanished into thin air.

By late Sunday afternoon, the family knew they had to call the police.

This wasn’t like D.

Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

Deputy Austin Hall from the Lenoi County Sheriff’s Office arrived at the Warner farm as the sun was setting.

He found Dale Warner, De’s husband of 15 years, working in the fields with the fertilizer sprayer.

Dale seemed calm, almost unconcerned about his missing wife.

He told the deputy he had last seen D that morning around 6:00 a.m.

sleeping on the couch and snoring.

He said he had texted her before leaving for work, but she hadn’t responded.

“Well, her hair curler’s gone, her hair dryer’s gone, her makeup bag is gone,” Dale told the deputy.

I went and seen all that stuff gone.

I wasn’t real concerned.

Dale had an explanation for everything.

He said D had been upset the night before after a fight with two employees from their trucking business.

He claimed she had a history of leaving when she was angry that she would cool off and come back home.

But there was one detail that stood out.

Dale mentioned that D had left her wedding ring on his desk in the office before disappearing.

He said she had never done that before.

She’s got a second phone.

Dale told the deputy.

It’s a secret phone that she doesn’t know that I know she has it.

When asked for the number, Dale said he didn’t have it.

Dale painted a picture of a woman who was unstable, prone to dramatic exits when things didn’t go her way.

But to those who knew D.

Warner, this description didn’t match the woman they loved at all.

D and Dale Warner weren’t just husband and wife.

They were business partners running three companies from their farm.

There was the trucking business that demanaged with about 15 employees.

There was the farm itself growing crops and there was a chemical company that sold fertilizer and seed to other farmers.

Of the three businesses, the trucking company was by far the most successful and it was DE’s domain.

She ran the office, managed the drivers, dealt with the customers.

It wasn’t easy work.

Some of the farmers didn’t want to deal with a woman, especially one who was younger and attractive.

But D was tough.

She was direct.

She told people exactly how things were, and she didn’t back down.

Those who worked with D described her as generous and hardworking, but also someone who demanded respect.

She had built this trucking business from the ground up, and she was proud of what she had accomplished.

But running the business came with stress.

There were constant conflicts with employees, arguments about schedules and routes and money.

The day before she disappeared, D had been involved in a particularly heated argument with a driver who had quit.

She was so upset that she asked her employee Stephanie Vocal how to block the driver from the company’s Facebook page.

That was the last text Stephanie ever received from D.

Warner.

As for the marriage between De and Dale, those closest to them said it wasn’t a love match.

De’s family believed she had married Dale for his business acumen, his ability to help her achieve the success she desperately wanted.

D loved to dress up, go out dancing, take cruises.

Dale just worked.

He was quiet, distant from De’s children from her first marriage.

When he did speak to them, it was often to poke at their insecurities, to say things that would hurt.

The marriage had been rocky for years.

But what Dale didn’t know was that D had finally reached her breaking point.

The day before de disappeared, something shifted.

Her children noticed it immediately.

She was upset, yes, but there was something different about her anger this time.

She seemed almost calm, almost resolved.

D had made a decision.

She was going to end her marriage to Dale.

She was going to sell the trucking business, the business she had worked so hard to build just to get away from him.

She was tired of the fighting, tired of the stress, tired of a marriage that had become unbearable.

That Saturday night, De was planning to tell Dale that their marriage was over.

Her children later learned that D had been talking about divorce for months, but she had been worried about splitting custody of their daughter Lena with Dale.

She couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Lena alone with him, even part-time.

But something had changed her mind.

Maybe she had decided that anything was better than staying in this marriage.

Maybe she had found a way to protect Lena.

Whatever her plan was, she was ready to act.

Dale told police that he and D had fought that Saturday night.

According to him, she had accused him of talking about her behind her back to the employees she had been arguing with.

The fight continued when Dale came home that evening.

She says, “You don’t care about me.

Nobody cares about me.

And what does it matter if I’m even here?” Dale told investigators.

Those would be the last words anyone would ever hear from D.

Warner.

When the family gathered on Sunday to search for D, they noticed something troubling.

Dale had told each of them slightly different versions of what had happened the night before.

To Greg Hardy, Dale said D had a bad migraine headache.

She was lying on the floor.

He gave her a massage.

She went to sleep.

He picked her up and put her on the couch around 12:30 a.m.

When he got up at 6 or 6:30 a.m.

to leave for work, she was snoring on the couch.

But to Zach, Dale said they had a really big fight the night before.

To Rickle, Dale said they had just a little fight, nothing serious, and she was mad and wouldn’t answer him.

Why were the stories different? Why couldn’t Dale keep his facts straight about the last night he supposedly spent with his wife? And then there was the wedding ring.

Dale had shown the ring to De’s family members that Sunday, seeming to offer it as proof that she had left intentionally.

But Greg Hardy knew his sister.

That ring was worth as much as $40,000.

If D was leaving Dale for good, she wouldn’t have left that ring behind.

She probably would have thrown a Molotov cocktail in the house on her way out.

A week after De’s disappearance, Greg organized a massive search of the farmland around her home.

About 50 volunteers walked 600 or 700 acres on foot, looking for any sign of her.

They found nothing.

Dale showed up to the search on a four-wheeler, but he didn’t really participate.

He just watched from a distance.

Greg couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very wrong with Dale’s behavior.

I was getting these, call it a gut feeling if you like, whatever you’d call it, but I was very suspicious of his mannerisms, Greg later said.

6 weeks after de disappeared, Greg’s suspicion had grown into something much stronger.

He decided to confront his brother-in-law directly.

He asked Dale point blank what he thought about the investigation into his wife’s disappearance.

“Well, it could be a little faster, but I think they’re doing a good job,” Dale replied.

That’s when Greg lost his composure.

“You know what? You’re a liar,” he told Dale.

“And I’ll get you.” It was a promise Greg intended to keep.

But believing Dale had something to do with De’s disappearance was very different from being able to prove it.

The Michigan State Police and the FBI had helped conduct large-scale searches of the Warner properties.

They had interviewed Dale multiple times.

They had examined every piece of evidence they could find.

Still, there was no sign of D.

Warner, alive or dead.

10 months after de vanished, Shelley Hardy was watching television when she came across an episode of 48 hours featuring an investigator named Billy Little.

Little was talking about a case where a woman had disappeared and there was no body to be found.

You don’t have a body.

So what Little said on the show, you don’t get to get away with murder because you’re good at disposing of bodies.

Those words hit Shelley like a lightning bolt.

She immediately called her husband, Greg, to watch the episode.

“Get me that guy’s number,” Greg said as soon as he heard Billy Little speak.

Little was a Missouri-based attorney and investigator who specialized in cases where the victim’s body had never been found.

He had worked on dozens of similar cases, and he understood how to build a murder case without the most important piece of evidence, the victim.

When Greg called, Little agreed to come to Michigan to see what he could do to help.

Maybe you’ll find the body.

Maybe you won’t.

Little told them.

But don’t sit around waiting for Santa Claus to come.

You got to solve this case.

Little arrived in Lenoi County in the spring of 2022 and immediately got to work.

He talked to potential witnesses.

He walked properties where the family thought they might find evidence.

He flew drones over thousands of acres of farmland, looking for clues.

But most importantly, he helped the family understand how to keep pressure on Dale Warner and keep D’s case in the public eye.

Part of Little’s strategy was what he called psychological operations.

He and Greg wanted Dale to feel the weight of their investigation, to know that they weren’t giving up, that they were watching his every move.

Greg paid for a billboard that read, “Help Dale find D.” and placed it at a major intersection near the Warner Farm, where the truckers from Dale and De’s company would see it every single day.

The message was intended sarcastically.

Neither Greg nor Little believed Dale was actually trying to find his wife.

They organized rallies and vigils.

They started a social media campaign called Justice for D.

They pushed to have the Michigan State Police take over the case from the county sheriff’s office, believing the state police had more resources and experience.

All the while, they continued their own investigation.

Little learned more about the troubled marriage between D and Dale.

He discovered that they had argued frequently about money, that D had been planning to leave Dale and sell the trucking business.

This was not a happy marriage, a marriage of endless love, Little concluded.

The more he learned, the more convinced he became that D was dead and that Dale was responsible.

The evidence that she’s dead is the absence of evidence that she’s alive.

Little explained.

No surveillance cameras, no electronic signature, her phones not found, her bank accounts were never accessed.

Cash wasn’t taken from the house, even the ring.

She didn’t even take that.

In August 2022, the Michigan State Police officially took over De’s case.

They had more resources than the county sheriff, and they began to dig deeper into Dale’s story.

In December 2022, they interviewed Dale again, pressing him harder on the details of that last night with his wife.

This time, Dale revealed something new.

He said the argument with the employee who had quit was partly about De taking money from the business.

D said he 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.

Dale told investigators, but police found no evidence that D had actually stolen any money from their businesses.

Meanwhile, Greg and Little continued their relentless search for evidence.

They identified several properties that seemed suspicious to them, places where Dale might have hidden De’s body.

There was an old farm property about 3 mi from the Warner home that Dale owned with D.

6 months after she disappeared, there had been a fire where an old farmhouse used to stand.

Neighbors told Greg they thought Dale had set the fire, police had searched the site, but found nothing conclusive.

There were fields that Dale farmed near Rick’s house.

There were other properties two towns over that Dale had access to.

There are so many places, Greg said in frustration.

On a farm with heavy equipment and chemicals, there were countless ways to dispose of a body.

On November 21st, 2023, 2 and a half years after D.

Warner disappeared, the call finally came.

Dale Warner was under arrest for the murder of his wife.

Stephanie Vocal, De’s friend and employee, was at her mother’s funeral when she got the news.

“I fell to my knees at the funeral home,” she remembered.

I was just so happy.

Dale was charged with murder and pleaded not guilty.

Even with the arrest, De’s family knew the hardest part was still ahead of them.

Proving murder without a body would be an enormous challenge.

My fear for getting past a preliminary hearing was probably a 1 out of 10.

Billy Little said, “My fear of getting a conviction at trial is probably an 8 out of 10.” On May 1st, 2024, more than 3 years after DE disappeared, her family gathered at the Lenoi County District Court for Dale’s preliminary hearing.

It would be up to Judge Anna Fau to decide if there was enough evidence to send the case to trial.

Dale’s defense attorney, Mary Shardier, hammered on the obvious problem with the prosecution’s case.

“There is no body.

There are no body parts,” she told the court.

Whether Ms.

Warner is dead is something that the government needs to prove.

But prosecutor Jackie Wise was determined to show that while there was no body, there was also no evidence that D was still alive.

Witness after witness testified that they had not seen or heard from D since April 24th, 2021.

Her friend Stephanie Vocal testified about that second phone Dale claimed D had.

Stephanie had looked into getting one for D, but they had never actually purchased it.

Detective Daniel Drewer testified about the exhaustive searches law enforcement had conducted over 3 years.

They had searched vehicles, obtained phone records, searched social media accounts, conducted multiple searches of the Warner properties.

Every search came up empty, but the prosecution had one potentially crucial piece of evidence.

Rickle testified that on the day her mother disappeared, she had seen tire tracks by the back of the house leading right up to the sliding glass door.

The prosecution suggested these tracks were left by Dale using the farm’s front end loader to remove De’s body from their home.

Security video showed Dale using that same piece of equipment at 7:00 a.m.

on the morning D disappeared.

Dale had an explanation.

He told police he thought he had used the loader to go back to the house to get his worksheet for the sprayer around 6:30 a.m.

The security videos were consistent with his story about his movements that morning.

The defense emphasized over and over that there was no physical evidence Dale had harmed his wife.

No murder weapon, no blood, no forensic evidence of any kind.

If he murdered his wife, where on earth is Ms.

Warner? Shardier asked the judge.

On June 7th, 2024, Judge Anna Fau returned to court with her decision.

She spoke first about D.

Warner as a person.

D.

Warner was a woman with a big heart and a temper.

She cared for her children and grandchildren and employees.

The judge said there was nothing in the evidence that suggested she would disappear intentionally, especially from her children.

The judge had not been convinced by Dale’s claims about a secret phone or someone picking up his wife.

These statements were not supported by any facts or evidence in this case, but there was enough evidence, she said, to believe that D.

Warner was dead and that her husband was likely responsible.

There is probable cause that D.

Warner died by homicide at the hands of the defendant, Dale Warner.

Judge Fauled.

Dale Warner would stand trial for murder.

But Billy Little knew the real challenge was still ahead.

Yeah, it’s a high bar, he admitted about getting a conviction without a body.

What no one knew was that law enforcement was still searching for physical evidence.

And in August 2024, 2 months after that preliminary hearing, they would finally find what they had been looking for.

Ricklebach received an urgent message in August 2024.

The detectives needed to have an emergency meeting with De’s family.

They gathered at Greg and Shelley Hardy’s farm, the same place where they had held vigils and planned searches for three long years.

This time, the news was different.

Police had gone back to a property that Dale and D.

Warner owned together.

They had taken away a large metal tank that was used to store fertilizer.

According to the search warrant, the tank had a non-factory weld on the back and a sign that read, “Out of service, do not fill.” When investigators scanned the tank, they found what they had been searching for all this time.

“It was my mom,” Rickle said, her voice breaking.

Well, it was a body in a tank.

Within days, authorities confirmed that the body inside that fertilizer tank was D.

Warner.

Her death was ruled a homicide.

For 3 years, police had been searching underground, digging up fields, looking in wells, checking every possible burial site.

All along, De’s body had been hidden above ground in a fertilizer tank in one of the farm buildings Dale had access to.

The search warrant revealed another crucial detail.

Security video from the day D was reported missing showed Dale in one of the farm buildings searching for something near the welding equipment.

The tank had that non-factory weld on the back.

Evidence that it had been modified after De’s disappearance.

The discovery of De’s body changed everything for her family.

After 3 years of not knowing, of wondering if she might still be alive somewhere, they finally had answers.

“I wanted to shout from the rooftops to everybody that she didn’t leave us willingly,” Rickle said.

They held a private burial for D with her 12-year-old daughter Lena present.

For Lena, who had grown up these past 3 years not knowing if her mother had abandoned her, the discovery brought a terrible kind of peace.

The one thing that she knows for sure that was her mother there, Greg said, his voice emotional, that her mother didn’t leave her.

It was real.

The family had been forever changed by De’s murder and the long search for justice.

Zach became sober and started his own real estate company.

Rickle found strength she didn’t know she had.

They all carried forward the memory of a woman who had worked hard, loved deeply, and deserved so much better than the fate that befell her.

As for Dale Warner, he maintained his innocence through his attorney.

His defense team said they were prepared to vigorously fight for him in court and present his defense.

But for De’s family, there was no doubt about what had happened in that farmhouse on the night of April 24th, 2021.

They believed Dale had killed his wife, welded her body into a fertilizer tank, and spent three years pretending to be a grieving widowerower while her family searched desperately for answers.

D.

Warner’s story is one of a woman who built a successful business in a male-dominated industry, who loved her children fiercely, and who finally found the courage to leave an unhappy marriage.

But it’s also the story of what happened when she tried to take control of her life.

Her children will grow up knowing their mother didn’t abandon them.

She was taken from them by someone she trusted.

Someone who shared her bed and her business and her dreams for the future.

My mom would have been there for everything, Rickle said, thinking about the grandchildren de will never meet, the celebrations she’ll never attend, the phone calls that will never come.

In the end, D.

Warner’s legacy isn’t just the successful business she built or the children she raised.

It’s the family that refused to give up, that fought for 3 years to find the truth, that turned their grief into determination, and their loss into a quest for justice.

Dale Warner’s trial was scheduled for September 2025.

Whether he would be convicted remained to be seen, but one thing was certain, D.

Warner’s family would never stop fighting for her, never stop seeking justice for a woman who deserved to live the life she was finally ready to claim for herself.

The fertilizer tank sits in evidence storage now.

A grim reminder of how a marriage built on business success ended in tragedy.

But for those who love D.

Warner.

She will be remembered not for how she died, but for how she lived with strength, with determination, and with love for the family that never stopped believing she was worth fighting Four.