The Jury Came Back in the Dee Warner Murder Trial

Dee Warner disappeared from her Tecumseh, Michigan farm on April 25, 2021. Her husband Dale told people he didn't know where she went. For three years, her family didn't know either. Then, in August 2024, investigators found her remains sealed inside a fertilizer tank on the same property Dale controlled. The tank had been welded shut and repainted.

Dale Warner was charged with open murder and tampering with evidence. He rejected a plea deal before trial. He chose to put twelve people in a box and make the state prove it.

A Case Built Without a Confession

Dee Ann Warner was 52 years old and a mother of five. The State's theory was that on the night of April 24, 2021, after what Dale himself described as the worst argument of his life, he killed her. Prosecutors alleged he then hid her body inside an old anhydrous ammonia fertilizer tank, cut it open, sealed her inside, welded it shut, and painted over the modification to conceal it. That tank sat in a barn on a property Dale owned on Paragon Road, roughly four miles from the family home, tagged "do not use," for more than three years before her remains were found.

There were no eyewitnesses to a killing and no confession. The prosecution asked the jury to connect a series of pieces: the timeline of Dee's disappearance, a single-letter "K" text that broke her known habit of long, expressive messages, inconsistencies in Dale's account of that morning, digital records from phones and the OnStar system in her Cadillac, and finally the body sealed inside the painted tank. The defense only had to raise reasonable doubt, and it pressed on the three-year gap before the body surfaced, on the paint analysis and the qualifications of the State's expert, and on complications in the investigation itself.

The trial ran five weeks. The jury heard surveillance data, OnStar records, testimony from family, friends, and forensic experts. Then deliberations started. A juror medical emergency stopped the clock. Then it resumed.

On March 10, 2026, the jury had a verdict.

After the verdict was read, defense attorney Mary Chartier requested an individual jury poll. Each of the twelve jurors was called by seat number and asked one question. Seat one. Seat two. All the way to twelve. Every answer was the same.

Dee's brother Gregg Hardy has been leading the "Justice for Dee" campaign for five years. He called it a victory for Dee. He was right.

Sentencing is scheduled for May 7, 2026 at 8:15 a.m. before Judge Michael Olsaver in Lenawee County Circuit Court. That is where this story goes next.

Why Second-Degree Mattered

The distinction between the verdicts available to this jury was not academic. Michigan charges "open murder," which leaves the jury to decide the degree. First-degree murder requires premeditation and deliberation and carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole. Second-degree murder, the count the jury returned, does not require proof of premeditation and leaves sentencing to the court's discretion within a range set by law. That is why the May 7 date still matters, and why the individual jury poll that defense attorney Mary Chartier requested carried weight. On a circumstantial case this size, the defense wanted each juror to own the verdict out loud, one seat at a time.

I covered every day of this trial. If you want to watch the moment the verdict came down, and watch every one of those twelve jurors confirm it individually, the video is below.

▶ WATCH NOW The Jury Returns in the Dee Warner Murder Trial

Full case coverage, daily trial breakdowns, and complete analysis are available at justiceisaprocess.com. Sentencing coverage will go live on May 7.