DNA confirms body found in Texas creek is missing flight attendant
Prosecutors seeking to convict the Texas man charged with killing flight attendant Rana Nofal Soluri and throwing her body off a bridge have a powerful new piece of evidence — the victim’s body.
Soluri’s remains were found on June 13 but only recently have been “confirmed to be her through DNA testing,” a spokesperson for the Fort Worth Police Department told NBC News on Sunday.
Her body was found by a fisherman trolling beneath a bridge on the bank of a creek in Montague County, which is about 70 miles northwest of downtown Fort Worth, police told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The body was then taken to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification.
It has since been released to her daughter, Lulu Soluri, according to a GoFundMe page set up on her behalf. American Airlines flew the body to Seattle for a Muslim burial that took place on Sept. 29, an update on the GoFundMe announced.
Soluri worked for a regional carrier owned by American Airlines.
Rana Nofal Soluri.via KXASThe break in the case came more than a year after Soluri’s former roommate, 67-year-old Dennis Day, was arrested in June 2025 and charged with murder.
Police took Day into custody two months after the 47-year-old flight attendant went missing around March 19, 2025.
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Soluri had lived with Day for approximately a year, police said. She had taken some time off for a minor operation and was supposed to return to work on March 31, 2025.
When she didn’t, a co-worker reported her missing on June 11, 2025, police said.
Suspicion quickly fell on Day, who later admitted to police that he “snapped” during a dispute with Soluri before he “began to strangle her with his bare hands,” his arrest warrant said.
After the slaying, Day loaded Soluri’s body “head first, into a large black trash bin and transported” it 70 miles away to Bowie, a town in Montague County, where he dumped the remains over a bridge, according to the court document.
Day, police said, may have implicated himself and Thomas by accidentally recording themselves while transporting the victim’s body.
Investigators in September revealed they found an “inadvertent call” and message on Thomas’ phone on which a panicked Day can be heard asking for her help to move Soluri.
“This report is consistent with how Dennis Day stated that he moved [Soluri’s] body into a trash can and into the bed of a truck at his house,” Day’s arrest warrant said.
“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 also found home security video from Day’s home, showing him dragging “what appears to be a lifeless body from the home into the backyard,” on March 21, police said.
It was not immediately clear where Day was being held. He had been listed as a prisoner at the Tarrant County Corrections Center. But his name did not come up Monday in a search of the prison’s online registry.
Joe KottkeJoe Kottke is an assignment editor at NBC News covering breaking news across the Americas, including politics, immigration, crime and severe weather.
Corky SiemaszkoCorky Siemaszko is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital.
