Rana Soluri was reported missing after she was last in contact with others in March 2025. DNA confirms a body found in 2026 was Soluri’s, police said. Dennis Day, a friend with whom she lived, was indicted on a murder charge in the case.
Missing person flyer
A fisherman found the body of an American Airlines regional carrier flight attendant on a North Texas creek bank under a bridge in June, a recently completed DNA report confirmed.
Police have said a longtime friend admitted to squeezing Rana Soluri’s throat last year inside a Fort Worth house until she was dead.
The fisherman found the woman’s remains on the bank of Brushy Creek at FM 1749 in Montague County, according to Fort Worth Police Department Homicide Unit Detective Tom O’Brien.
The body was taken to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification. A DNA analysis report completed about two weeks ago confirmed that the body was Soluri’s, Detective O’Brien said on Friday.
Soluri’s body may have had mud over it when detectives looked a year ago at the exact location of the fisherman’s discovery, because the remains were not seen then, O’Brien said.
Dennis Day, 67, is under indictment on a murder charge, and the case is pending. Day bragged to people in jail that he could not be convicted if no one could find the victim’s body, according to a notice that the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office filed before the DNA identification report on the body was complete.
Day and Soluri were longtime friends, and they lived together for about a year.
Soluri had not been in contact with other people since mid-March 2025.
Soluri was employed by Irving-based Envoy Air Inc., an American Airlines regional carrier, for about five years. She was reported missing by a colleague who notified police on June 11, 2025. A relative wrote in a social media post that Soluri had been on medical leave.
Ultimately Day told Detective O’Brien that on a night in late March he snapped and began to strangle Soluri, who was 47, with his hands, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
Day said that he strangled Soluri on the kitchen floor, according to the affidavit.
Day said he dragged her body out to the backyard. When Day realized that he was being recorded by his video surveillance camera, he disconnected the equipment, according to the affidavit.
That recording appears to have revealed to police that Day was the assailant.
In their first contact with detectives, Day and Day’s brother, with whom he also lived, denied knowledge of Soluri’s disappearance. Both consented to a search of their home, and police reviewed its video surveillance footage. A clip from March 21 shows Day dragging what appears to be a body from the home into the backyard, according to the affidavit.
Day said that he loaded Soluri, head first, into a black trash bin and took her body from the house in the 1600 block of Grantland Circle to near Bowie, about 65 miles from Fort Worth, according to the affidavit. Day said that he dumped her over a bridge.
Day directed detectives to bridges and areas near Bowie, but Soluri’s body was not found until the fisherman’s discovery on June 13.
Soluri was video-recording Day and threatened to call police when he snapped, Day told Detective O’Brien, according to the affidavit.
Joanne Walters, 63, helped Day, who was her friend, dump Soluri’s body, police have alleged.
Walters, who is known also as Joni Thomas, was indicted on tampering with evidence with intent to impair a human corpse. The case is pending.
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Emerson Clarridge covers crime and other breaking news for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He works days and reports on law enforcement affairs in Tarrant County. He previously was a reporter at the Omaha World-Herald and the Observer-Dispatch in Utica, New York.