TIPTON, Michigan — The Michigan State Police's newest searches for evidence in the disappearance of Dee Warner, the Lenawee County woman who went missing in April of 2021, have come to a close after three days.
On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, troopers executed search warrants on 70 properties off M-50 between Beebe and Pentecost highways in Lenawee County.
It's the first major operation MSP has conducted on Warner's disappearance in the nine months since Michigan State Police took over the investigation from the Lenawee County Sheriff's Office.
Their action Tuesday was one of the largest searches for Warner yet, looking into land near Warner's home that had never before been searched to this degree.
"Just the area she was known to be (at) or could be. Property that belonged to the family. Just covering all aspects of the investigation," said MSP Lt. Rene Gonzalez.
Gonzalez told WTOL 11 on Friday that they searched the 70 properties because they truly believed they would find evidence of a crime or possibly Warner herself.
The search escalated in scale each day, starting on Tuesday with officers and cadaver dogs, before upgrading to diving teams on Wednesday, and finally bringing in massive excavator crews on Thursday.
The new push to find Warner caught the attention of the Lenawee County community still holding their collective breaths waiting to know what happened to their friend and neighbor.
"We are exhausted, we have been let down so many times with searches. You kinda don't want to get your hopes up, but you also hope it's the one time they find something," Kathryn Adams, a family friend, said.
Originally set to wrap Wednesday, crews stayed out an extra day after receiving new information, moving to a site on Paragon Road between Tipton Highway and Wisner Highway.
"We've been harping and harping and harping about coming out here and searching it more because there's been a lot of suspicious activity here," said Warner's nephew, Parker Hardy.
In particular, neighbors say shortly after Warner's disappearance, they saw someone dump materials on top of the rubble of a demolished home.
This neighbor says she saw vultures circling the pile and then someone came and lit it all on fire.
Backhoes tore through the soil on the site, and dogs searched the area, but at this time MSP can't reveal why they stayed the extra day or what was discovered.
"I can't put anything out in terms of information on what was found or if anything was found, just that they conducted the search warrants," Gonzalez said. "Again, I have no knowledge of if something was found, but again that's not something we would put out to hamper the investigation."
WTOL 11 submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the search warrants for these properties.
While WTOL 11 has not received those warrants yet, we will share further details about the properties and who they belong to on-air and online as soon as we learn more.