A Fort Worth man, Dennis William Day, has been arrested and charged with murder after confessing to killing his housemate, Rana Nofal Soluri, and disposing of her body off a bridge near Bowie, Texas.
Soluri, a 47-year-old flight attendant for Envoy Air Inc., was reported missing on June 11, triggering an investigation that led to Day’s arrest.
According to a Fort Worth Police affidavit, Soluri’s coworker reported her missing after their last communication on March 19, when their conversation ended abruptly mid-exchange. The coworker provided a video from that day showing Soluri’s handgun on a bed with a male voice yelling in the background.
Soluri, employed by Envoy since March 2017, had taken a leave for minor surgery but failed to return to work on March 31, which her supervisor said was uncharacteristic of her.
Police learned Soluri had lived with Day, 66, for about a year.
In May, Day reported that Soluri’s vehicle, purchased a week before her disappearance, had been parked at his Grantland Circle home for nearly two months. He told police he moved her belongings to a storage unit but expressed no concern about her absence. During a June 10 welfare check, Day described Soluri as a longtime friend who abandoned her new vehicle and with whom he had no contact for three months.
Cell phone records showed Soluri’s last outgoing call at 3:43 p.m. on March 21, with data connections near her home just before midnight and a ping five miles east nine minutes later. On June 23, police reviewed surveillance video from Day’s home, capturing him around 10 p.m. on March 21 dragging “what appears to be a lifeless body” into the backyard. The recording stopped for days afterward.
Confronted with the evidence, Day admitted to strangling Soluri on the kitchen floor after she filmed him and threatened to call the police. Day said he “snapped” and began to strangle her with his bare hands, the affidavit stated.
He disconnected the surveillance system, loaded her body into a black trash bin, and dumped it off a bridge near Bowie in Montague County. He also admitted to discarding her handgun in a storm drain under I-35 and Pharr Street, which police recovered. Day directed authorities to several bridges, but Soluri’s body remains missing, with local police noting that flooding in the area since March may have washed her remains downstream.
Soluri’s family described her as a proud Jordanian-Palestinian woman who loved her work and mourned her loss.
“She always tried to help people,” a family member told NBC 5 DFW, requesting anonymity. “There are unanswered questions for all her family. Nobody ever gets to hug her, kiss her, tell her they love her. Her daughter will never get to see her ever again.” She added, “There’s not enough justice to make this right because everything about it was wrong.”
The Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation Inc. urged anyone with information to come forward, stating, “If you have any information that could help locate Rana or bring greater understanding to what happened, we urge you to come forward. In moments like these, every voice and action matters.”
Envoy Air Inc. expressed grief, saying in a written statement to Fox 4 KDFW, “We’re saddened to hear of the passing of one of our employees, Rana ‘Rain’ Soluri. Rain joined Envoy in March 2017 and was a valued member of the Envoy Flight Service team.”
The company stated that it is cooperating with the police and supporting Soluri’s family.
Day is in custody at the Tarrant County Jail with a $200,000 bond. The investigation continues as homicide detectives work to locate Soluri’s remains.