DNA testing has confirmed remains found along a North Texas creek belong to missing flight attendant Rana Nofal Soluri, and prosecutors are still seeking a murder conviction against her former roommate.
Fort Worth police say the body recovered June 13 has been identified through DNA as Rana Nofal Soluri, the 47-year-old flight attendant who vanished in March 2025. NBC News reported the confirmation came only recently, months after a fisherman found the remains on a creek bank beneath a bridge in Montague County, about 70 miles northwest of downtown Fort Worth.
Prosecutors have charged 67-year-old Dennis Day with murder. Another woman, Joni Thomas, also known as Joanne Walters and now 63, faces a charge of tampering with evidence with intent to impair a human corpse. Day had lived with Soluri for about a year before she disappeared.
The identification closes a painful stretch for Soluri’s family. Her body was released to her daughter, Lulu Soluri, and flown to Seattle for a Muslim burial on Sept. 29 after American Airlines carried the remains. Cases built on recovered remains and DNA still drive many homicide prosecutions, including older murders cracked by genetic evidence.
Warrant account describes a strangling and a 70-mile dump
According to Day’s arrest warrant, he admitted he “snapped” during a dispute with Soluri and then killed her.
"[Day] snapped" during a dispute with Soluri before he "began to strangle her with his bare hands."
The same warrant narrative says he then put her body “head first, into a large black trash bin and transported” it roughly 70 miles toward the Bowie area in Montague County, where it was dumped over a bridge. Fox News reported the DNA work was done at the University of North Texas Health’s Center for Human Identification, and that Soluri worked as a Fort Worth-based Envoy Air flight attendant for a regional carrier owned by American Airlines.
Police also recovered home security video from Day’s residence. Investigators said the March 21 footage showed him dragging “what appears to be a lifeless body from the home into the backyard.”
A second person is tied to the disposal, the warrant states. Thomas allegedly drove to Day’s house, let him use her truck, and helped load the body.
"This report also confirms the fact that not only did [Thomas] travel to [Day’s] house and allowed [Day] to use her truck to transport [Soluri’s] body, but that she actually helped load [Soluri’s] body into the truck."
Investigators later pointed to an inadvertent call and message on Thomas’s phone. Police said the recording captured a panicked request for help moving Soluri. That kind of hard physical trail, video, phone evidence, and a recovered body, is what turns a missing-person file into a homicide case, much as other body recoveries have led to swift murder arrests.
Months passed before anyone flagged her missing
Soluri went missing around March 19, 2025. She had taken time off for a minor operation and was supposed to return to work on March 31. A co-worker did not report her missing until June 11, 2025, police said.
Day was arrested in June 2025 and charged with murder. Thomas was charged a short time later with evidence tampering tied to the corpse. The remains turned up on June 13 when a fisherman trolling under a bridge spotted them on the bank of Brushy Creek in Montague County.
The New York Post reported the University of North Texas center confirmed the identity about two weeks before the early October update, and that Day had bragged in jail he could not be convicted if the remains were never found. The body find and DNA match undercut that bet.
Long-running homicide files often linger for investigators and families alike, a burden described in other cases that still haunt detectives decades later. Here, the creek recovery and lab confirmation gave prosecutors a body to match to the warrant account.
Custody status remains murky as the case moves forward
Day had been listed as a prisoner at the Tarrant County Corrections Center. As of the Monday check tied to the October reporting, his name did not appear in the facility’s online registry, and it was not immediately clear where he was being held. Prosecutors are still working to convict him on the murder charge.
A GoFundMe page set up on Lulu Soluri’s behalf noted the body release and the Seattle burial after the airline flight. Soluri’s remains had first gone to the University of North Texas Health’s Center for Human Identification after the Montague County discovery.
Historic murder cases keep drawing public attention when courts revisit old convictions or new arrests land, including matters such as the Starved Rock killer proceedings in Illinois. Soluri’s case now rests on DNA identity, video, phone evidence, and the warrant narrative of strangulation and disposal.
The core facts are blunt. A working flight attendant disappeared after a dispute with her roommate. Police describe bare-hand strangulation, a body stuffed head-first into a trash bin, a truck ride to a rural bridge, and a dump into a creek drainage. A second adult is charged with helping move the corpse. DNA has now put a name to the remains a fisherman found under that bridge.
When someone is killed and discarded like refuse, the only decent answer is a full trial, a clear verdict, and a sentence that matches the crime.
