{"id":457253,"date":"2026-10-05T20:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T20:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/457253\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T20:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T20:04:08","slug":"dna-confirms-body-found-in-texas-creek-is-missing-flight-attendant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/457253\/","title":{"rendered":"DNA confirms body found in Texas creek is missing flight attendant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"anchor-1a6733\" class=\"body-graf\">Prosecutors seeking to convict the Texas man charged with killing flight attendant Rana Nofal Soluri and throwing her body off a bridge have a powerful new piece of evidence \u2014 the victim\u2019s body.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-fb6e02\" class=\"body-graf\">Soluri\u2019s remains were found on June 13 but only recently have been \u201cconfirmed to be her through DNA testing,\u201d a spokesperson for the Fort Worth Police Department told NBC News on Sunday. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-18ff27\" class=\"body-graf\">Her body was found by a fisherman trolling beneath a bridge on the bank of a creek in Montague County, which is about 70 miles northwest of downtown Fort Worth, police told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.star-telegram.com\/news\/local\/crime\/article317473206.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the Fort Worth Star-Telegram<\/a>. The body was then taken to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-8b3b5e\" class=\"body-graf\">It has since been released to her daughter, Lulu Soluri, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/rana-nofalsoluri\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">a GoFundMe page<\/a> set up on her behalf. American Airlines flew the body to Seattle for a Muslim burial that took place on Sept. 29, an update on the GoFundMe announced.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-1aefc3\" class=\"body-graf\">Soluri worked for a regional carrier owned by American Airlines.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/250909-rana-soluri-mn-1040-741123.jpg\" alt=\"Rana Nofal Soluri.\" height=\"687\" width=\"580\"\/>Rana Nofal Soluri.via KXAS<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-a5bdcb\" class=\"body-graf\">The break in the case came more than a year after Soluri\u2019s former roommate, 67-year-old Dennis Day, was arrested in June 2025 and charged with murder.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-ef3df4\" class=\"body-graf\">Police took Day into custody two months after the 47-year-old flight attendant went missing around March 19, 2025. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-500de8\" class=\"body-graf\">A short time later, Joni Thomas, now 63 and also known as Joanne Walters, was accused of helping him dump Soluri\u2019s body, police said. She was charged with tampering with evidence with intent to impair a human corpse. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-d812da\" class=\"body-graf\">Soluri had lived with Day for approximately a year, police said. She had taken some time off for a minor operation and was supposed to return to work on March 31, 2025.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-2ad697\" class=\"body-graf\">When she didn\u2019t, a co-worker reported her missing on June 11, 2025, police said.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-628d43\" class=\"body-graf\">Suspicion quickly fell on Day, who later admitted to police that he \u201csnapped\u201d during a dispute with Soluri before he \u201cbegan to strangle her with his bare hands,\u201d his arrest warrant said.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-be312e\" class=\"body-graf\">After the slaying, Day loaded Soluri\u2019s body \u201chead first, into a large black trash bin and transported\u201d it 70 miles away to Bowie, a town in Montague County, where he dumped the remains over a bridge, according to the court document.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-d9c495\" class=\"body-graf\">Day, police said, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/suspect-killing-texas-flight-attendant-left-accidental-voicemail-dispo-rcna230050\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">may have implicated himself and Thomas<\/a> by accidentally recording themselves while transporting the victim\u2019s body.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-cc201f\" class=\"body-graf\">Investigators in September revealed they found an \u201cinadvertent call\u201d and message on Thomas\u2019 phone on which a panicked Day can be heard asking for her help to move Soluri.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-03188c\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cThis report is consistent with how Dennis Day stated that he moved [Soluri\u2019s] body into a trash can and into the bed of a truck at his house,\u201d Day\u2019s arrest warrant said.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-76160d\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cThis report also confirms the fact that not only did [Thomas] travel to [Day\u2019s] house and allowed [Day] to use her truck to transport [Soluri\u2019s] body, but that she actually helped load [Soluri\u2019s] body into the truck.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-bb4731\" class=\"body-graf\">Investigators also found home security video from Day\u2019s home, showing him dragging \u201cwhat appears to be a lifeless body from the home into the backyard,\u201d on March 21, police said.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-c7a774\" class=\"endmark body-graf\">It was not immediately clear where Day was being held. He had been listed as a prisoner at the Tarrant County Corrections Center. But his name did not come up Monday in a search of the prison\u2019s online registry. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prosecutors seeking to convict the Texas man charged with killing flight attendant Rana Nofal Soluri and throwing her&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-457253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}