Woman's Disappearance, Death Haunts Family

After their two-and-a-half-hour flight, the elderly couple found themselves in the bustling terminal of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, a whir of scurrying people, food aromas and festive music.

In a wheelchair after recent hip surgery, Joe Dabney kept a close eye on his beloved wife of 34 years, nicknamed Margie, who was slipping further into the grips of Alzheimer's disease.

With an airline attendant's help, the Dabneys slowly made their way through the massive airport, where about 164,000 passengers pass daily, to their next gate during the layover on an Indianapolis-to-Los Angeles flight. The attendant and Joe Dabney entered a restroom, but when they emerged, the 70-year-old woman was nowhere in sight.

Marjorie Dabney had seemingly vanished without a trace from the third-busiest airport in the world.

Seven years later, long after reward posters faded and police leads went cold, the mysterious case still haunts her family and challenges law enforcement. After her remains were found in a field recently, a medical examiner determined that someone killed the 5-foot-2, 95-pound woman.

"The biggest question is how she got there," said Capt. Kevin Deaver of the Lewisville Police Department, now handling the investigation. "It's a very unique situation because it started as a missing persons case and ended up years later as a homicide."

About an hour after she disappeared on Dec. 5, 2001, the airline notified airport police and the search expanded to include all terminals, transportation systems and roads on the 18,000-acre property, said David Magana, an airport spokesman. He declined to say whether any surveillance cameras were in the terminals or elsewhere.

The family was baffled but remained hopeful through the years, returning to the Dallas area to put up new fliers and offer a reward that reached $100,000. The case gained national attention, but none of the tips it generated panned out. A woman resembling Dabney was found in Cerritos, Calif., but her family's hopes were dashed when fingerprints revealed she was someone else.

Joe Dabney, who lives in Bakersfield, Calif., sued American Airlines for up to $75 million, settling for an undisclosed amount in 2003. The airline has declined to comment about Margie Dabney's disappearance or the lawsuit.

Then last month her relatives got shocking news: Skeletal remains found 15 miles from the airport were identified as Dabney's, and the medical examiner ruled her cause of death as homicide.

The nature of the fractures indicated Dabney was either hit or shot in the head and did not fall accidentally, said Dr. Mark Krouse of the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office.

"The total circumstances of the case ... show clear and convincing evidence there is foul play involved," Krouse said.

The remains were found a year ago in a field near Lake Lewisville. They were identified through DNA evidence after Dabney's bus pass, AARP card and her American Airlines tag were found nearby in October, Deaver said.

A multicolored sweater and dark pants, apparently what she was wearing when she disappeared, also were found in the area, Deaver said.

While the investigation has just started, detectives believe it's unlikely Dabney wandered into the field because of the distance from the airport, Deaver said. They have no suspects or possible motives so far, he said.

Lewisville detectives also are reviewing evidence from the airport's investigation, including reports that Dabney was seen wandering on the tarmac -- a claim airport officials say was never substantiated -- and walking on a service road a day or two after she was in the terminal, Deaver said. There were other reported sightings as far away as Canada.

"It'll be difficult," Deaver said. "As time goes on, any trace evidence left at the scene is gone, and people's memories fades, so if they saw something at the scene then that may have been suspicious, they may not remember it now."

Meanwhile, the family says it continues struggling with the loss -- first with the uncertainty of what happened, and now with knowing that Dabney was murdered.

Her daughter Candice Price of Indianapolis said that through the years, she convinced herself that someone found her mother and was caring for her. After learning that remains were found, Price said, she imagined that her mother died peacefully after falling into a diabetic coma.

"I'm furious because I'm hearing that someone has killed my mother," Price said last month. "I want to know why. I want to know when."