DNA testing has identified remains found along a North Texas creek as missing flight attendant Rana Nofal Soluri, closing a months-long gap after her roommate was already charged with murder in her death.
Fox News reported that a Fort Worth Police Department spokesperson told NBC News the University of North Texas Health’s Center for Human Identification recently confirmed the match. Soluri, 47, worked for Envoy Air, a regional carrier owned by American Airlines, and had been missing since March 2025.
The identification raises the stakes in pending Tarrant County cases against her former roommate and another woman accused of helping move the body. Prosecutors had already moved forward on charges before the lab result. A fisherman’s discovery in Montague County and home surveillance from Fort Worth now sit at the center of a case built on alleged strangulation, transport, and disposal over a bridge.
On June 13, a fisherman found a body on the bank of Brushy Creek under a bridge in Montague County, about 70 miles northwest of Fort Worth. Investigators later tied the scene to the alleged dumping of Soluri’s remains after a roughly 70-mile trip from the city.
Fox News reporting described how Soluri had taken time off for a minor operation and was expected back at work on March 31, 2025. She did not return. A co-worker reported her missing on June 11, 2025, after she could not be reached.
Remains went to the University of North Texas Health’s Center for Human Identification. Police later said DNA testing confirmed the body as Soluri. American Airlines helped fly the remains to Seattle for a Muslim burial on Sept. 29, according to a GoFundMe page for her daughter.
Dennis Day, 67, lived as Soluri’s former roommate and longtime friend in Fort Worth. Police arrested him in June 2025 and charged him with murder. The case remains pending.
Arrest warrant material cited in reporting states Day admitted he “snapped” during a dispute with Soluri before he “began to strangle her with his bare hands.” Court documents described in the same reporting say he told investigators he strangled her on the kitchen floor, dragged the body to the backyard, and loaded her “head first” into a large black trash bin.
From there, the account continues, he transported the remains roughly 70 miles and dumped them over a bridge. Investigators pointed to home surveillance from Day’s Fort Worth house on March 21, 2025. Police said the video showed him dragging “what appears to be a lifeless body from the home into the backyard.”
"snapped" during a dispute with Soluri before he "began to strangle her with his bare hands"
That language comes from police and warrant material as relayed in the reporting. Day has been held in the Tarrant County Jail context tied to the case photos and later statements attributed to him behind bars.
Joni Thomas, also known as Joanne Walters, 63, faces a charge of tampering with evidence with intent to impair a human corpse. Police allege she helped Day dispose of Soluri’s body. Her case is also pending.
Investigators said an “inadvertent call” and message on another woman’s phone captured a panicked Day asking for help moving Soluri’s body. Thomas is the woman linked to that phone contact in the charging narrative. Authorities have not released a full public transcript of that call in the material provided.
Before the DNA confirmation, the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office filed a notice cited by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Prosecutors said Day had bragged to people in jail that he could not be convicted if authorities never found Soluri’s body.
That claim landed while the remains still lacked a confirmed identity. The later lab match undercuts any hope that a missing body would end the case. Both defendants still await full court resolution. No plea outcomes, indictment docket numbers, or next hearing dates appear in the available record summarized here.
Lulu Soluri, the victim’s daughter, became the focus of a GoFundMe effort after the burial. The page said American Airlines helped move the remains to Seattle for the Sept. 29 service. It also said Lulu plans to travel to Texas for a future court date and is expected to deliver a statement.
The fundraising page framed her decision in plain terms.
"Lulu is a very private person, so this is a huge feat for her to face the person accused of killing her mother,"
A second line on the same page added thanks for public support during the process. Lulu has not been quoted directly beyond that third-person page text.
Police tied the timeline to March 2025. Soluri had stepped away for the minor operation. Surveillance from Day’s house on March 21, 2025, is described as showing the apparent removal of a lifeless body to the backyard. The missing-person report did not arrive until June 11. The creek bank find followed two days later.
Day’s alleged admission of snapping during a dispute sits alongside the physical movement claims: kitchen floor, backyard, trash bin, highway distance, and the bridge drop into the Brushy Creek area. Thomas’s tampering charge tracks the disposal help allegation. DNA work at the UNT Health center supplied the formal identification police announced through a spokesperson.
Authorities have not publicly detailed a full autopsy cause-of-death report beyond the strangulation account in charging materials. They have not named the exact bridge beyond the Montague County creek setting under a bridge. Case numbers and precise statutes are not listed in the seed reporting package.
Murder and tampering charges keep both Day and Thomas before the courts. The DNA result removes one defense talking point prosecutors already flagged in the jail-brag notice. It also gives the family a confirmed resting place after months of uncertainty.
Fort Worth police, the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, and the UNT identification lab each own a slice of the public record. Surveillance video, the inadvertent call, the alleged confession language, and the creek recovery now form the open narrative. Investigators will still need to present that evidence under courtroom rules as the cases move forward.
Soluri’s co-workers lost a colleague who never made the March 31 return date. Her daughter buried her in Seattle and still faces a Texas courtroom. The roommate charged with murder remains accused, not convicted. The second woman remains accused of helping hide a corpse.
Identification ends the missing-person limbo. It does not finish the prosecution. Day’s alleged confidence that a missing body would block a conviction now collides with confirmed remains and existing charges. Thomas’s separate count keeps the disposal theory in front of a judge.
Local agencies moved from a June missing report to a June arrest and then to a later DNA match. The sequence shows how a body dump miles from home can still return to the jurisdiction that started the probe. It also shows why charging decisions did not wait for the final lab letter.
When a body is thrown from a bridge in hope the truth sinks with it, DNA and steady police work still pull the case back to court, where charges must be proved and victims’ families finally get a name on the record.
