In the late summer of 1996, a 25-year-old woman named Dione Lynne Fox vanished from the small community of Tiawah, Oklahoma. She was last seen on September 1st of that year. The circumstances surrounding her disappearance were complicated by a troubled personal history. Dione had divorced her husband in 1993 and had sought a protective order against him that same year. This history of conflict escalated in May 1996, just a few months before she went missing, when she reported to police that her ex-husband had assaulted her and threatened her life. Charges of assault and violating the protective order were filed against him. However, Dione disappeared before she was scheduled to testify in court, leading to the subsequent dismissal of the charges.
The investigation into Dione's disappearance took a significant turn eight months later when her car was discovered abandoned in Noel, Missouri. Inside the vehicle were her keys and purse.
The location was noteworthy as her mother resided in Noel. Years passed with few developments until 2014 when the Rogers County Sheriff's Office reopened the cold case. Investigators executed a search warrant on a 20-acre property in the Tiawah area where Dione was last seen, a property belonging to her ex-husband's family. The search involved multiple agencies, including the Wagoner County Emergency Management, the state medical examiner's office, and the University of Oklahoma Archaeological Survey. Despite these efforts, nothing was found that provided answers as to Dione's whereabouts.
Her ex-husband has publicly maintained his innocence in her disappearance. He claimed that they had reconciled a couple of years after their divorce and that she had lied about the assault. According to him, she decided to leave for her mother's home in Noel to avoid testifying in the court case she didn't want to pursue. However, those close to Dione, a devoted mother to her children, find it unfathomable that she would have willingly abandoned them and remained out of contact for so long. Foul play is suspected in her case, which remains an active investigation by both Oklahoma and Missouri law enforcement agencies. The lack of any activity on her Social Security number since 1996 further deepens the mystery surrounding what happened to Dione Fox.Last Seen: Sep 1, 1996
