A Texas man has been charged with killing his flight attendant roommate and dumping her body off a bridge near Bowie.
Rana Nofal Soluri, 47, was reported missing by a colleague on June 11, as reported by KDFW. The last contact with Soluri was on March 19 when the conversation abruptly ended mid-talk.
Soluri had taken off work earlier for minor surgery and had been expected to return to work on March 31, but she did not.
The colleague mentioned that attempts to reach Soluri after the short conversation in March were unsuccessful. She revealed to authorities that Soluri had been residing with Dennis William Day, 66, for approximately a year.
Authorities visited Day’s home to remove Soluri’s car, parked there for an estimated two months. Day informed them that he had relocated Soluri’s possessions to a storage facility and had no clue about her whereabouts. In his official statement, Day showed no sign of being aware or troubled about her disappearance.
An officer was called back to Day’s home on June 10, at which time Day said Soluri was a longtime friend. He again denied any knowledge of her whereabouts, saying he had called and texted her to no avail.
Investigators received a search warrant for Soluri’s cell phone records on June 18 and found that the last outgoing call on her phone was made on March 21 at about 3:45 p.m. Further records showed a “ping” on a cell tower near the home just before midnight that night and, nine minutes later, on a tower about five miles east of the home.
Investigators returned to speak with Day on June 23, and he again denied any knowledge of Soluri’s whereabouts. He consented to a search of his home, and investigators found video surveillance from March 21 showing him dragging “what appears to be a lifeless body from the home to the backyard,” the affidavit says.
Day was interviewed again, and police told him what they’d seen on the video. At that point, he said Soluri was videoing him and threatened to call police so he “snapped” and strangled her with his bare hands on the kitchen floor. Then he dragged her body out into the backyard, and disabled the camera equipment when he realized he was being recorded.
After that, he said, he stuffed her body into a large black trash bin and took her to the bridge near Bowie, where he threw her into the water. H said he also threw her cell phone into the river near Riverside and Interstate 35, not far from where the last ping on her cell phone was recorded.
Several days later, he said, he disposed of most of her belongings, including her handgun, which he said he tossed into a storm drain under I-35. Police later retrieved the gun.
Soluri’s body has not been located, and the relationship between the two has not been made clear.
Soluri had worked for Envoy Air, a subsidiary of American Airlines, since 2017.
Day has been charged with murder and is being held on a $200,000 bond in Tarrant County.
