A Texas fisherman found flight attendant Rana Nofal Soluri’s body in a creek roughly a year after she vanished, and police say her roommate admitted choking her to death.
Rana Nofal Soluri, a 47-year-old Envoy Air flight attendant, was last seen alive in March 2025. In June, an unidentified fisherman came across her body on the bank of Brushy Creek under a bridge in Texas. The University of North Texas Center for Human Identification later confirmed the remains belonged to her.
The New York Post reported that her longtime roommate, 67-year-old Dennis William Day, has been indicted on a murder charge. Another woman, 63-year-old Joni Thomas, faces a charge of tampering with evidence for allegedly helping dispose of the body. Both cases remain pending.
Fort Worth police zeroed in on Day after Soluri’s co-workers raised the alarm. The case now rests on surveillance video, an alleged confession, and a jailhouse claim that prosecutors put on notice before DNA even closed the identification.
Soluri worked for Envoy Air, the regional carrier owned by American Airlines. Co-workers reported her missing in June after she failed to show up for a scheduled shift and no one could reach her.
An arrest warrant affidavit described her as recovering from minor surgery and out of work since late March. On June 10, officers ran a welfare check. Day told them he had not seen her for three months.
Later that month he again denied any role in her disappearance and consented to a search of his property. Investigators pulled video surveillance from the night of March 21. The footage showed Day dragging what appeared to be a lifeless body from the home into the backyard.
Police had already searched the Brushy Creek area for remains a year before the fisherman’s find. The body may have been covered in mud, which helps explain why earlier sweeps missed it.
Day allegedly told investigators he fought with Soluri after she filmed him acting irate. When she threatened to call 911, he panicked. He allegedly strangled her with his bare hands on the kitchen floor.
Afterward, according to that account, he stuffed her body into a black trash bin, drove to Bowie, and dumped it off a bridge. He allegedly ditched her cellphone in a nearby river.
Fort Worth Police Department Homicide Unit Detective Tom O’Brien told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that the fisherman’s discovery and the later identification closed a long gap in the case. O’Brien said on a Friday that the body had been confirmed as Soluri’s two weeks earlier at the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification.
Before that positive DNA result came back, the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office filed a notice stating Day had allegedly bragged to people in jail that he could not be convicted if no one ever found Soluri’s remains. The remains were found anyway.
Joni Thomas, 63, has been charged with tampering with evidence and helping Day dispose of Soluri’s body. Her case, like Day’s, is still pending. The public record in the reporting does not spell out a fuller personal relationship beyond the charge itself.
Day and Soluri had been roommates for about a year and were described as longtime friends. That domestic arrangement is now the center of a murder indictment and a separate evidence-tampering case.
Soluri’s daughter, Lulu, has been preparing to finish burial plans and to appear in Texas court. A GoFundMe update said American Airlines was helping fly the remains to Seattle so the family could complete arrangements there.
The same update said Lulu planned to travel for an October court date and release a statement. Organizers asked supporters to back her through the appearance.
"If you are unable to give, please send your strength and encouragement for her tremendous bravery and resilience during the court appearance. Again, Lulu is a very private person, so this is a huge feat for her to face the person accused of killing her mother,"
the GoFundMe statement said.
Another update put the burial task in plain terms.
"finish laying her mother to rest."
Organizers also relayed her gratitude.
"Lulu thanks everyone for their support. She is always overwhelmed knowing how many people have helped her during this process."
Those posts frame a daughter stepping into a public courtroom after months of silence and private grief. The criminal cases against Day and Thomas will decide what accountability follows.
The timeline leaves little room for soft excuses. Soluri was last seen in March 2025. Video from March 21 allegedly captured Day moving a lifeless body off the property. In June, co-workers reported her missing. On June 10 he told police he had not seen her for three months. He denied involvement and allowed a search. A fisherman later found the body in the same creek corridor police had already checked. DNA confirmed the identity. Prosecutors noted alleged jail bragging that hinged on the body never turning up.
Day now faces a murder indictment. Thomas faces a tampering charge tied to disposal of the body. Neither case is resolved. The courts will test the confession account, the video, the dump-site evidence, and the second defendant’s alleged role.
For taxpayers and lawful residents, the basic demand is simple. When a working mother disappears, police need the tools and the will to run the leads. When a body surfaces and an accused roommate’s own words and video put him at the center, the system should finish the job without delay or dilution.
Justice for Rana Nofal Soluri now sits with a Texas jury and a judge, not with jailhouse swagger about remains that never get found.
