On October 11th, 2025, a young musician from England sends her friend a series of disturbing messages from Florida. She says a man is taking her phone away. She says she’s been locked inside a house in the middle of nowhere. She says he keeps talking about murder, and then one more message comes through. “I’m so scared.
I feel completely broken and I’m in so much pain.” A few days later, police would find 32-year-old Sonia Oxelby buried in a shallow grave deep in the woods of Marion Oaks. Her body had been covered with dirt right next to the label from a shovel. She had stab wounds, bruises, and clear signs of violence across her body.
But, the most disturbing part of the case was still waiting for investigators. Sonia had flown to Florida for what was supposed to be just a two-day trip. She had no friends there, no family, no obvious reason to travel across the ocean in the first place. But, as detectives dug deeper, they uncovered hidden conversations, two years of online messages, fetish forums, chats about kidnapping, torture, and death, and a man using the name Dark Wolf.
When police finally confronted him, he started telling a bizarre story about a mysterious client, a secret storage barn filled with expensive cars, and celebrities who supposedly hid their vehicles in Florida. But, investigators found something very different on his phone. A video of Sonia.
She’s sitting in a chair inside a rented Airbnb. Her hair is a mess. She looks terrified, and she’s barely holding back tears. Hey guys, let me grab you for just a second. I’m really curious where my audience is watching from, so I’d love for you to drop a comment and tell me what city you’re in and what time it is for you right now.
Thanks for taking a moment. Go ahead and share that in the comments, and now let’s keep going. In the fall of 2025, a young musician from England suddenly boarded a flight from London Heathrow to Gainesville, Florida. Just 2 days later, she missed her flight back home. What happened to Sonia X will be was both shocking and tragically predictable at the same time.
The disturbing truth would eventually come to light through her secret messages. Plans that had been taking shape in the shadows, hidden deep within the darkest corners of the internet. And I’m gone. is gone. Sorry. But But, did you say [singing] is gone? Yeah. During the afternoon of October 17th, 2025, law enforcement officers in the Marion Oaks area of Florida made a horrifying discovery in the woods.
Focusing on a patch of ground that appeared to have been recently disturbed, officers uncovered a shallow grave. Buried there was the body of 32-year-old Sonia X will be. Just days earlier, she had been reported missing. Sonia had suffered four stab wounds to her torso, bruising on other parts of her body, and an abrasion on her neck.
Her death was officially ruled a homicide. Exactly 1 week earlier, Sonia had flown from her home in Portsmouth, England to Gainesville, Florida. Her return flight was scheduled for only 2 days later, but she never boarded that plane. The city of Portsmouth sits along the southern coast of England in the county of Hampshire.
Known as the birthplace of Charles Dickens, the city is rich in culture and history. Its historic dockyard attracts visitors with preserved naval ships, while its commercial ferry port remains one of the busiest in the United Kingdom. In the fall of 2025, Portsmouth was home to Sonya Eselby. Sonya studied music. As a pianist and singer, she wrote her own compositions and performed live.
She also shared much of her music online. Sonya made a living teaching music, giving lessons in several instruments including piano, guitar, and flute. And above all, she truly loved to sing. Hi, so I’m pleased to only play you today. Um, it’s a bit different to what you might usually hear, but I hope you enjoy.
If it’s true what they say, [singing] I will hear that my prayer heart Sonya had been in a relationship with her boyfriend, an artist named Stevie, for nearly 15 years. The two lived together in Southsea with their beloved cat Merrill, whom they absolutely adored.
It was Stevie, along with other members of Sonya’s family, who first raised the alarm when she failed to board her flight home from Florida. Hampshire police were notified about her disappearance, and before long Interpol became involved in the case as well. Calling Sonya the love of his life, Stevie pleaded on social media for help finding her.
Um, he wrote that he was deeply worried about her safety, explaining that she was vulnerable and had been struggling with serious mental health issues. Uh, Sonya had originally planned a trip to London, but without warning she boarded a flight at Heathrow Airport and flew to the United States. As far as anyone knew, Sonya had no connections to anyone in Florida.
I cannot [music and singing] run away from the things that they say. I will stand my ground. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement contacted Interpol after Sonia’s family in Hampshire officially reported her missing. Investigators began tracing Sonia’s movements after she landed at Gainesville Regional Airport on the evening of October 10th.
As they dug deeper, they discovered several unusual transactions linked to her bank cards. Just after midnight on October 11th, within a span of only 10 minutes, at least seven attempts were made to charge her debit card. Every single one of them was declined. Then, at 1:10 in the afternoon on October 12th, another payment finally went through this time using a different debit card for an amount of $1,200.
Both the failed payments and the successful transaction were connected to a company called Solver Wolf’s Roadside Assistance. That immediately gave investigators a lead. Detectives reached out to the owner of the business, a man named Dwayne Hall. Hello, this is Dwayne at Solver Wolf’s Roadside.
How can I help you? Hey, my name is uh Calvin Lee. I’m a special agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement out of the Gainesville area. And here we got a weird request. So, we are helping out uh the United Kingdom police with a missing person. Um and looking through her banking records, it looked like she called for a called your business for assistance probably two or three days ago.
And the payment was declined. Um her name would have been Sonia Excelby. Is that ringing a bell? Um yes and no. Okay. Yeah, she broke down, needed a tire change. Okay. Um And was requesting to be transported the rest of the way to her location, but the client payment wasn’t I’m to go over there. Okay.
So, she paid for our services. Right. So, she did So, you did change the tire and the payment got declined or that payment went through and Well, we never showed up. Oh, okay. Okay. So, she said she had a flat tire. Um Yeah. And so, before y’all show up there, y’all do um they have to pay over the phone? Yeah.
Okay. And that declined, so y’all never actually showed up. Right. Did she say where she was wanting to go to, her final destination? Did not say. Okay. Um She was very She’s very very very very secretive about everything. I don’t know. All right. Well, I appreciate it. Um you said you’re Dwayne, right? The owner? Yeah.
Okay. What’s uh your last name? Just for my records, so I say I spoke with you. Hall, H A L L. H A L L. Uh Dwayne Hall was not only the owner of the roadside assistance company, he was also its only employee. Dwayne told detectives that because Sonia’s payment had been declined, he never responded to the service call.
But that explanation obviously did not answer the bigger question, why the very next day $1,200 had been charged to Sonia’s second card and transferred to his company. At the very least, investigators believed Dwayne could be involved in credit card fraud. I’ve got just a ridiculous amount of money coming out this month for everything, and we haven’t even gotten to taxes yet.
That’s next month probably. So, it’s like I’m struggling really hard. I’m struggling financially and emotionally. So, does anybody possibly want to help me save my company, my future, and pretty much everything that goes along with that? Because if you do, I could really use about 10K right now. Otherwise, it looks like this might be the end of my company.
Dwayne and his longtime partner Ginger Stein, whom he often referred to as his wife, had been going through extremely difficult times. The two first met when Ginger was only 16 years old. At the time, Dwayne was 26. About a year later, their relationship turned romantic. According to Ginger, once she turned 17, they remained together on and off for nearly three decades.
They were living together in Ocala while raising Ginger’s son. Financial problems kept piling up. Ginger had been diagnosed with a rare disease that caused scarring on her lungs. In 2025, she underwent a double lung transplant that ultimately saved her life. Um but the surgery also left the couple buried in massive medical debt.
Their attempts to raise money online to help cover the costs failed badly. One of those efforts included a GoFundMe campaign for Ginger, where they hoped to collect thousands of dollars. In the end, the fundraiser received just $50 from a single donor. I need to ask for everybody to try to donate to me and my wife.
We’re trying to offset about $12,000 worth of medical expenses and moving expenses and everything else because she’s trying to get a transplant. And of course, if anybody’s out there that’s been through the process before, you know that involves about 10,000 doctor’s appointments. And I can’t do doctor’s appointments with my wife and work.
And I’d rather be with my wife than work any day of the week. And we’re asking everybody out there that sees this to try to do what you can to help donate to offset that $12,000 expense that we need help with. While speaking with detectives, Dwayne Hall conveniently left out the fact that $1,200 had been charged from Sonia X L B’s account the day before she was supposed to fly home.
Um, he also could not provide any real details about Sonia’s vehicle or the location where she supposedly needed roadside assistance. Meanwhile, investigators were able to track down the booking Sonia had made for the trip, including her plane tickets, her transportation to Heathrow, and an Airbnb rental in the small town of Reddick.
When detectives arrived at the Airbnb, they discovered the property had never been cleaned after Sonia’s stay. Inside the trash, they found a receipt for a shovel, even though the shovel itself was missing from the house. There were also food wrappers, a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup, sandwich packaging, and a container of strawberries from a gas station, all purchased using the same bank card.
One neighbor told investigators they had seen a black SUV parked outside the house during the weekend of October 10th through the 12th. On the back of the vehicle was a sticker that read emergency roadside. Every transaction connected to the Airbnb purchases led back to the same name, Dwayne Hall. On October 11th, the same day those debit card transactions were being declined, Sonia sent a message to one of her friends.
Panicked, emotional, and at times barely making sense, she wrote, “I’m sorry, he keeps taking my phone away. He doesn’t trust me to have it. He made it very clear there’s no way out unless I shoot him. He questioned me yesterday. I can’t kill anyone. He’s in the shower right now, but I’m locked inside, and there’s no signal out here in the middle of nowhere.
I thought he was going to do it quickly and not give me time to think about everything or realize that this could be the last thing I ever say to anyone if I don’t agree to his offer to shoot him. I’m so so I feel broken and I’m in so much pain. All I can do is lie here and do what he wants. I’m sorry.
I don’t even know what I’m writing anymore. I’m trying to hurry. My time is running out. I want units on that. We got the vehicle. It’s on 75 northbound. Just got on. Okay, heading here in the number two lane or in the number one lane. It’s a black Jeep. On October 17th, Dwayne and Ginger were driving to a medical appointment when deputies from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office pulled them over.
So, if you just want to pat him down, search you know, make sure he doesn’t have any weapons and then we may have to take the wife as well so she can arrange for a ride or something to get up to the hospital. Yeah. I She’s got to be for a Bronco autopsy. She just had a double lung transplant. Oh, jeez. Okay. All right.
Let’s go on Yeah, you guys are really like this is Y’all Okay. All right. Let’s walk up here to my car. I’m not going to be standing next to you anyway. We’re just going to walk up to this side of the car right here, okay? Okay. We’ll walk up here. Whatever you guys need, I guess. Walk up here to this door.
All right. Go and face the car right here. I’m just going to pat you down. Make sure you got nothing else on I’m sorry, babe. Officers drove Ginger to the hospital so she would not miss her post-surgery treatment. While they were there, investigators also questioned her about where her husband had been during the weekend when Sonia was being held at the Airbnb in Reddick.
43-year-old Ginger explained that during the weekend of October 10th through the 12th, Dwayne had been away from home working on what he described as a secret project. From what she understood, he had been restoring cars for an unnamed client who allegedly overpaid him and later made him sign an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement.
Is this the first time you know of him talking to the police or anything? Yeah. Uh well, no. Not the Not the first time regarding this. Oh, he’s been talked to before? Um he did have he had a he had a big This is about the credit card stuff? Mostly, okay. All right. He had a big job I think in Gainesville.
Mhm. Um, they wanted him to stay overnight and work on a whole bunch of different cars. Okay. And I guess they made him sign a non-disclosure agreement cuz they had a bunch of really expensive cars. Really? Okay. Yeah. And while they were gone while he was gone is when he got the stolen credit card.
Okay. Tried to go through and everything. Ginger told detectives that the only thing she knew about was the issue with the credit card her husband had used to process payment for the work he supposedly did during those dates. Even after officers personally came to their home in the following days, nobody explained anything else to her.
At the time of the visit, she was in the hospital and Dwayne never gave her any additional information. She said anything about what all the cops were asking him or what they were talking to him about? Just the card. Just Just about the card being declined and stuff? I guess there’s some uh I guess it was reported stolen.
Oh, okay. Oh, this might be okay. Hm. And he didn’t And he didn’t have any any he thinks it was reported stolen because it was declined and stuff that something Yeah. And usually if a card’s declined, the cops don’t necessarily get involved. So Mhm. I mean, I Although Ginger may not have had any idea why detectives were so interested in the credit card transaction, Dwayne already seemed to have his own theory.
One that was incredibly hard to believe and unnecessarily complicated. When he sat down with investigators from the FDLE and the Sheriff’s Office, he started with the exact same story he had told Ginger. According to Dwayne, a client he knew only as Harold, which investigators suspected was probably a fake name, had hired him to do mechanical work on several expensive cars.
He said Okay. He looked like a Middle Easterner. Did did In my brain, this is how I remember what he looked like, okay? He was a tall Middle Easterner, but his teeth were too big for his face and his smile was too big for his teeth. Teeth were too big for his face. Smile was too big for his teeth. Uh-huh.
Dwayne suggested that the expensive cars may have belonged to celebrities who wanted to keep their business private. He specifically mentioned Tom Cruise and John Travolta, wealthy and famous Scientologists who, according to him, were extremely protective of their privacy. He claimed he had been staying at the house in Reddick, which he believed belonged to Harold.
Each morning, someone would supposedly drive him to an unknown location where he worked on different vehicles inside a plain-looking storage barn. Dwayne said he was not allowed to bring his cell phone with him, and he claimed he could not remember where the barn was actually located. Okay.
I was at I was out out there on a different type of job. Okay. I got hired and I I ain’t telling you anything about this because I signed an NDA for the client. Okay. Okay. But if it comes down to it and we need that information and we desperately need that information, I’ll break that NDA. But the reason why the NDA was there was because there’s high-profile client that has cars for people like Travolta like that on his property.
Tell me more about that. It’s pretty important. I can’t I can’t tell you more about that. Uh Tell me why it’s more important. Because it’s different from what you told before. Yeah, because I wasn’t asked these questions before. Well, now we’re asking them, so that’s why Okay.
So, basically what happened was this dude had a bunch cars out there old My favorite one was the ’33 rat rod. Yeah, the 33 rat rod with big 355 sitting down in it and all chromed out. And uh he basically had me out there doing maintenance on them. And he said he chooses a different company every year. And uh and basically if he gets a he goes through Yelp or whatever to find a small company and then he has if he likes if they know what they’re doing cuz he’ll sabotage his car on purpose to see if they know what they’re doing.
And I had his car fixed and he did that for me in like 2 minutes. Okay. Do you remember what he did to sabotage it? He just unplugged a wire. Oh, okay. Yeah, he unplugged a wire that’s kind of hidden down in there. Yeah. I said, “I’ll try it now.” And I hooked my box up to it.
Box said everything was good and I reached down and I started looking and it just come unplugged. Got it. Okay. What wire and I’m not as familiar with cars, what wire would cause the whole car not to start like that? Was it a ground wire? Uh okay. If you unground the vehicle, you can’t start the vehicle. Okay. Got it. The new cars are a little bit different.
You have to have about half a dozen of them, but the old school ones they have one major ground and if you unhook it just enough or make it loose in there, it won’t ground and it won’t go. Okay. And it’ll cut off while you’re driving. Got you. Learn something new every day. Yeah.
Yeah, I’ve been doing this for I’ve been doing mechanics since I was five. Yeah. So, almost 50 years of history and experience with that. So, anyway, he had me come out there and then he had me sign the NDA and he paid me a ton of money. Mhm. And uh basically he was getting all his cars ready for like the big car shows that happen this time of the year for like the spooky Halloween drives and etc. etc.
At least that’s what I was told. Dwayne claimed he stayed at the house and continued working in the mysterious barn until the evening of Sunday, October 12th, when he was told the job was finished. Um according to him, he was then given a bank card number to process a payment of $1,200 for the work he had completed over the weekend.
After that, he headed back home to Marion Oaks. Um, but on the drive home, Dwayne said he noticed someone following him. That immediately raised his suspicions because of several other strange things he had already noticed during his dealings with the mysterious Harold. Somehow, every trace of communication connected to that weekend, call logs, text messages, and emails had completely disappeared.
There was absolutely no digital evidence left of the work he supposedly performed or the time he spent at that barn. When these transactions and interactions with this individual were taking place, they disappeared. I didn’t know him. Okay. I literally have three calls listed for I think it’s Sunday. Three.
It’s either Saturday or Sunday. There’s three calls compared to 20, 30 a day that come into my phone. So, did the calls come [clears throat] in and you were having those conversations and it wasn’t logged or you weren’t getting calls at all? Calls were coming in. They vanished. They vanished out of the call log.
Text messages, emails, everything. Everything regarding and relating to that service that I did out there, vanished. Gone. Like it never happened. How did he pay you? He paid made the card. Okay. Paid with a card. Okay. Read card numbers off to me and I programmed them in and I got paid. Okay. I got paid $1,200 for like for for like 36 hours of my time.
Mhm. And then I I home that one day at Sunday. Or I tried to go home that Sunday. Mhm. But I was being followed. How so? I I was being tailed. Tell me more about that. It was I can’t really tell you too much because they never got close enough. But it was either It was along the lines of because they got these stupid ass new colors now.
They say it can’t just be silver and gray. Okay. But it was it was on color spectrum type from like a a silvery tan color. You know what I’m talking about, right? When they that the vehicle color that gets it gets out of that tan cream color and more into the charcoal color, the gray color.
It was it was somewhere it was something like that or maybe a silver color sedan. So it kind of depends on how the light shining on it. Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. And and it To make sure the grayish beige car was really following him, Dwayne claimed he intentionally turned off the main road and drove down a remote dirt trail. During the interrogation, he described it as an attempt to test his suspicions and figure out whether the vehicle that kept appearing nearby was actually tracking him or if it was all just a coincidence.
His story was becoming more bizarre and tense by the minute. While detectives carefully listened to every detail and compared it against the evidence they already had. Dwayne said he stopped in an isolated area and watched the road while the vehicle circled nearby. According to him, this went on for about an hour.
He seemed determined to paint himself as the target of some mysterious surveillance, as though he had no idea who might be following him or why. But to investigators, his explanation was sounding less believable with every new detail, especially because of the contradictions already appearing throughout his statements.
About an hour later, Dwayne claimed he got back on the road and continued driving. That That when, according to his story, he saw the same grayish-beige vehicle pull into the wooded area behind him, the exact spot where his own vehicle had previously been parked. That part of his account only added even more strange and confusing details to the version of events he was trying to sell to investigators during the interrogation.
Tell me more about that. I got off like I was wanting to get off to go home. And I went past the entrance to the where I would normally turn to go to my house. And I came back. I U-turned to come back because it’s like there’s no way. There’s coincidence. Maybe he’s just getting off.
Maybe he’s going out through here. And I went and I came back. And then I noticed that they U-turned, too. So, I dipped into a side little spot, sat there for a few minutes until they left. And so, I thought they left. And then I zipped and took some back roads. And I sat there and waited. And I seriously sat there.
And now I don’t know what the address is. I don’t have my But, at the same time I sat there and I waited for an hour. And they kept making passes on the main road. I know they could see the back of my vehicle. I didn’t care about that. They kept making passes on the main road. And then I left. And when I left, they pulled in and stopped right where it was.
What day was that again? Sunday morning. Sunday morning. Okay. Sunday morning. Where were you parked for an hour? I was out in the back of Marion Oaks. Okay. Good. I thought it was Marion. While Dwayne continued his long and increasingly contradictory interview with investigators, another team of officers was searching through the wooded areas near Marion Oaks.
The atmosphere during the search was tense because law enforcement already suspected that critical evidence connected to Sonia Exley could be hidden somewhere there. At the same time, detectives obtained warrants to search the 53-year-old man’s phone and home determined to verify every part of his story and uncover anything that could tie him directly to Sonia’s disappearance.
Inside Dwayne’s garage, investigators found a shovel matching the same model purchased on October 10th. For detectives, that immediately stood out as an important detail, especially considering the timeline they were already reconstructing. As they continued reviewing purchases and seized items, investigators also discovered that Dwayne had bought paracord, 50 ft of rope, and gun cleaning supplies.
Inside his SUV, detectives additionally found a handgun. Taken together, those discoveries only deepen the disturbing nature of the case and pushed investigators to examine every aspect of Dwayne’s behavior before and after Sonia disappeared. But the biggest question still remained. How exactly did Sonia fit into this bizarre and constantly changing story Dwayne kept telling? At first, he claimed Sonia had contacted his roadside assistance business for help, but that he canceled the service call after her bank card was declined.
That was his original attempt to explain why her name was connected to him at all. By the time detectives sat face-to-face with him, though, investigators already knew far more than Dwayne realized. Law enforcement had confirmed that he was the person who picked Sonia up from Gainesville Regional Airport on the evening of October 10th.
Automatic license plate reader cameras captured his Jeep at the airport, directly contradicting his earlier statements. To detectives, that became yet another sign that Dwayne was hiding the true circumstances of how he met Sonia and what happened afterward. Once confronted with that evidence, he changed his story again.
This time, Dwayne claimed Sonia may have actually been Harold’s client. According to him, he had supposedly been told that she came to Florida to buy one of the vehicles. He insisted that all he did was drive her to the Airbnb where she later met another man. Dwayne claimed Sonia hugged the man before leaving with him in a different vehicle.
When investigators showed Dwayne a photo of Sonia, he identified her as the same Harold client he had just been describing. But to detectives, his explanations were becoming less believable with every new version of events. Each retelling created even more contradictions and the suspicion surrounding Dwayne Hall only continued to grow.
We have to make sure that we’re talking about the right person because we don’t want to accidentally think that we’re looking for the wrong person. So, once you started to describe her, I was like, “Okay, I think we’re Should we probably not have again with I could have saved you a lot of hassle?” Yeah, that’s all right.
I wrote her off up there and took her. Well, you were talking about cars and you were really excited about talking about cars, so What if this what if, right? Mhm. What if they do this every year? What What if this Harold guy does this every year? Does he What if he What if he does run some small company? What if there’s a different person that goes missing every year Mhm.
that is related to that? Mhm. Because that’s up. Mhm. That’s up and then there was a big bang and then phone call, got money, and this that and the other. When you start connecting the dots like me and her did, Mhm. what if this is some kind of underground thing where they get unsuspecting people, especially like Calvin told me he she was suicidal anyway? Mhm.
What if she signed up for something and they and they they predator these the young women or men and then just They vanish. Once you decline transactions, there’s a big blow up on them. property. All of a sudden my contract is finished. Here’s the payment. Mhm. And if I was going to do something like that to somebody, that’s exactly what I do.
I use this other person’s card and pay the money that I promised. And now they’re not looking in my direction. I didn’t have to spend any of my own money. Nobody’s looking my way. Nobody even knows who I am. Mhm. And I’m gone. is gone. Sorry. But Wait. Did you say is gone? Yeah. The one that was rude to you? Yeah. I want to make sure you’re talking about the same person.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The from the picture. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because I can’t prove the other side of this. Any digital footprint that I have is missing. What am I supposed to do with that? How am I supposed to, you know, how am I supposed to make you guys believe my part of the thing in this? When when everything looks like I had something to do with this right now, you know? And After Dwayne finished laying out his
tangled conspiracy theory in an attempt to explain Sonia’s disappearance, the atmosphere inside the interrogation room grew even more tense. Investigators already had enough information to spot countless contradictions in his statements, and they were becoming increasingly convinced that he was trying to hide what had really happened.
His explanations sounded chaotic and unnatural, as if he were desperately piecing together a story that could somehow steer suspicion away from himself. That was when detectives revealed that they already knew the Airbnb had been officially booked under Sonia’s name. On top of that, they had analyzed her messages and digital activity, which confirmed that she had been staying inside the house.
For investigators, this became a key moment in the interrogation because they were slowly making it clear to Dwayne that his earlier explanations no longer match the facts uncovered during the investigation. Once again, Dwayne changed his story. This time he claimed that both of them had indeed been at the Airbnb, but according to him, they were never there at the same time.
That new version immediately raised even more questions for detectives because it contradicted not only his previous statements, but also the evidence investigators already had in their possession. With every new revision of his story, suspicion surrounding Dwayne only continued to grow, and the case itself became even more disturbing and complicated.
Was she ever Was she ever there at any point? Did she ever go in at any point spend any time there? there at the same time I was. Okay. Okay, when I was there, I was there, period. Okay. There was She was never there when I was there. Investigators were already speaking extensively with Sonia’s family and friends back in England trying to understand as clearly as possible what emotional state she had been in during the months leading up to her disappearance.
Through those conversations, detectives gradually learned more and more about the difficult period she had been struggling through in recent years. From her partner Stevie, investigators discovered just how serious Sonia’s mental health struggles had become and how deeply they had affected both her life and her behavior.
Even a year earlier, Sonia’s Telegram messages had already raised alarm among the people closest to her. Those conversations revealed disturbing plans to meet with someone who, according to Sonia, was willing to hurt her. In the chats later reviewed by investigators, there were discussions with people online who openly claimed they were prepared to kill her.
For her loved ones, it was a horrifying realization of just how dangerous the online relationships she had become involved in truly were. One planned meeting in 2024 was successfully stopped after her alarming messages were discovered. Following that incident, Sonia sought treatment and for her family it became a sign of hope that things might finally be improving.
Her relatives and friends tried to support her believing she was slowly pulling away from the dangerous online spaces and the people who may have posed a threat to her. According to those close to her, Sonia actually seemed to be doing much better during the months and weeks leading up to her disappearance. She appeared emotionally more stable and her condition no longer seemed as severe as it once had.
That was why many of her loved ones genuinely believed the worst was finally behind her and that she was beginning to return to a normal life. But, at the same time, throughout those two years, Sonia continued visiting fetish websites and communicating with a user known as Dark Wolf. Their conversations revolved around disturbing scenarios in which Dark Wolf would abuse Sonia and eventually kill her.
For investigators, those messages became one of the darkest and most disturbing parts of the entire case, especially after they eventually discovered that the person behind the online alias was Dwayne Hall. You know, I’ve been speaking with people who know her and know things about her and um we know that she was communicating with people over here.
We also know that you were one of the people that were communicating with her. [snorts] What was her screen name? What does that What does that matter? I communicate with a lot of people. Okay. Do you communicate with a lot of people about suicidal ideations? We We talked to her We have a lot of I communicate I used to.
Used to. Used to communicate with a lot of people that It was a porn site. Mhm. And there was a lot of fantasy role play that happened there. But if you tell me her screen name, maybe I’ll have a better idea what you’re talking about. Which uh porn site? Motherless. Okay. Yeah. So you communicated with her on Motherless? I don’t know, but if you’re saying that I communicated with her, there’s a good possibility that’s where it was.
And if you tell me which one it was, then if you tell me the screen name, I’ll be able to confirm or deny. We have You have us at the same time. You have witnesses that we were there at the same time. And devices that put you there at the same time. Okay. [snorts] We have processed that house. Mhm. And when those results come back, Yeah.
Cuz again, forensics, and you’ve already told us you were all over that house. We know that she was. but yeah. We are going to put you guys at that house. And so she came over here with the intention of carrying out these role playing scenarios. We know that she documented it.
She She sent a She actually sent a like letter to herself while she was on the airplane talking about meeting somebody and what the outcome of that meeting was going to be. After that, Dwayne’s version of events changed once again. His new statements were now dramatically different from the ones he had given earlier. And investigators noticed that with every new interview, his story became less and less consistent.
This time, Dwayne admitted that he and Sonia had in fact been together at the Airbnb. More than that, he acknowledged there had been physical contact between them, despite previously trying to distance himself from that fact. According to Dwayne, during their long online relationship, he had supposedly tried to act as a kind of mentor for Sonya.
He claimed he helped her deal with personal struggles and problems in her relationship with her partner. In his version of events, he insisted that he had been emotionally supporting her and simply wanted to help her through a difficult period in her life. That was how he attempted to explain the nature of their years of conversations and close online connection.
Dwayne also claimed that by the time Sonya arrived in Florida, his feelings and intentions had supposedly changed. According to him, he no longer wanted anything physical between them. He explained that his wife’s life-threatening medical condition had forced him to rethink his own behavior and the direction his life was taking.
During the interrogation, Dwayne even claimed that the dark and violent side of himself, the same side he had previously expressed in messages and online conversations, had supposedly gone quiet. To investigators, those explanations sounded especially contradictory considering the evidence they had already gathered in the case.
Despite all of that, Dwayne continued insisting on one central point. According to him, Sonya was still alive when he left the Airbnb. He held to that version of events even as the evidence and witness statements surrounding the case continued to grow and as more details from the investigation directly contradicted his claims.
Is that what you want? No, we want you to be honest with us. We want us to tell you we want you to tell us the truth. We don’t want you to make anything up or just tell us what you think we want to hear. She did get in the vehicle with somebody else. There’s a certain point that she did get in the vehicle Somebody else that happened after.
Okay. Okay. The fact that I didn’t want to have anything to do with the whole thing to begin with. It’s the whole reason I tried to sleep in a separate bed. Okay. Okay. I didn’t end up being in the same bed as her, on the other side of the bed from her. Okay. And what happened? And what do you think Well, I know what happened.
It’s like I But how do you tell happened? I can’t read minds. On Dwayne Hall’s phone, investigators discovered a video recording that would later become one of the most disturbing and psychologically difficult pieces of evidence in the entire case. According to detectives, the footage offered a horrifying glimpse into Sonia’s condition during the final hours before her death and revealed more about the atmosphere inside the Airbnb that weekend.
In the video, Sonia was wearing the same floral dress she had worn while boarding her flight at Heathrow Airport in London. For investigators, that detail carried particular significance because it helped firmly establish the timeline of events after her arrival in Florida. In the recording, Sonia was sitting in a chair inside the Airbnb.
She looked disheveled, exhausted, and showed visible signs that she may have been physically assaulted. She rarely looked toward the camera. Her head stayed lowered, tears filled her eyes, and she spoke in a quiet, uncertain voice as if she was afraid of saying the wrong thing. In the background, Dwayne’s voice could clearly be heard as he repeatedly questioned her.
Investigators believed the recording was one of three so-called disclaimer videos that, according to their theory, Dwayne Hall created during that weekend. Throughout the video, he repeatedly asked Sonia whether she had personally requested this kind of treatment and whether she truly wanted what was happening to her.
Detectives later described the atmosphere in the recording as deeply disturbing and emotionally oppressive. Clearly traumatized and terrified, Sonia reluctantly nodded in agreement. Her reactions appeared subdued and uncertain, which only intensified investigators’ concerns about the condition she was in at that moment.
For detectives, the video became far more than just digital evidence. It became one of the clearest indications of the fear and control that likely surrounded Sonia during the final days of her life. According to investigators, the footage was recovered from Dwayne’s phone only after a full forensic extraction of the device.
The video itself had been deleted almost immediately, just 3 seconds after it was saved. In the recording, Dwayne reportedly explained his decision by saying Sonia had behaved not the way he wanted on camera. That statement later became yet another deeply troubling detail that drew intense attention from investigators during the case.
I just don’t believe you. Okay, that’s fine. I mean, I think that I already told the wife that nobody would ever believe that this happened. I already know. I already knew. Uh which is why until the direct questions were asked, I didn’t even bother bringing it up. Why would I? Why would I? I’m going to get the same because if you know what’s because if you know what the end result is of this whole thing, just be up front with the information that you know.
You indicated that you didn’t know her at all, that you had never even met with her when this first came up. And now you’re talking about having sex with her, recording things and then deleting them, and it I guess, from my perspective, if you can try to understand it, it it doesn’t look great. I already know it doesn’t look great.
I leveled with you about what happened. Right. So, same thing goes for body. Right? Did you find her? What I’m saying is Did you find her? No, I mean, but at the same time, anybody says I don’t really know happened.” happened. I think when you gave that story about you leaving Sunday in a car following you and you ducking in the woods for a set amount of time and a car driving by.
[snorts] Mhm. I think that’s you accounting for your your phone that you already knew at that point that we had we had your your locations and such. And I think [snorts] that you did something with her there at that spot. The search teams combing through the wooded areas near Marion Oaks eventually did find Sonya.
The atmosphere during the search remained tense as investigators carefully matched every discovery against digital records and Dwayne’s movements on the day she disappeared. Using geolocation data from his phone, detectives were able to pinpoint the exact area where Dwayne himself claimed he had spent about an hour on October 12th while driving home from the Airbnb.
From the very beginning that unexplained stop had already seemed suspicious to investigators, but the reality turned out to be far worse. Inside the shallow grave next to Sonya’s body, investigators discovered the label from a shovel, the same shovel Dwayne had purchased at Walmart just days earlier and later kept in his garage.
That discovery quickly became one of the most significant physical pieces of evidence in the entire case. During forensic testing, blood was found on the blade of the shovel and DNA analysis confirmed it matched Sonya Exley B. For detectives, it became yet another indication that the events surrounding her death appeared far more planned and deliberate than Dwayne had tried to portray during his interrogations.
Investigators also discovered that on his drive home, Dwayne made another stop he never once mentioned during nearly 6 hours of questioning. Detectives learned that he had gone to a Lowe’s Home Improvement Store, where he purchased a large plastic tarp. That detail only deepened investigators’ suspicions. Because the hidden stop and the purchase of an item potentially connected to concealing evidence looked extremely disturbing alongside everything else already uncovered in the case.
Hey Dwayne. Hey. Did you need us for something? Yes. What’s it? Let me let me got a minute. I’d like to talk to you. Okay. Well, both of you and then then you. Okay. What? What? What would What would you like to talk about? I want to recant basically my entire statement. You want to recant your entire statement? Yes.
Okay. Well, before we talked about The final version of events told by Dwayne never included a direct confession to the murder of Sonya Exner in his he carefully avoided clear wording and never openly described what actually happened during the final hours of her life. But by that point, investigators no longer considered a confession necessary.
The amount of evidence, witness testimony, and digital traces had already started piling up so quickly that the overall picture was becoming impossible to ignore. Piece by piece, detectives were reconstructing what they believed had happened and every new detail only strengthened the case against him. One particular detail that drew serious attention from investigators involved messages exchanged between Dwayne and his friend Rick from Ohio.
While reviewing those conversations, detectives uncovered a disturbing reference. Just days after Sonya’s murder, what was described as a special package had allegedly been shipped from Florida. That phrase immediately raised concern among investigators because the context of the The felt dark and deeply suspicious.
For detectives, it became yet another piece of a growing collection of evidence that was slowly forming an increasingly horrifying picture surrounding the death of Sonya Excelby. “We’re going to need it back in 6 months if the storm passes without any problems. Please, for the love of the shadows, do not lose that box.
You don’t even need to open it.” Inside, investigators found a bracelet along with a knife featuring a 7-in blade. The knife immediately drew special attention from detectives, not only because of its appearance, but also because of the words engraved into the blade itself. It had been given to Dwayne as a gift, and the engraving read, “Dark Wolf, pointy end goes in the other guy.
” The phrase came across as both a dark joke and a twisted play on his long-time online nickname, Dark Wolf. For investigators, the knife quickly became one of the most disturbing pieces of evidence in the entire case, especially after further forensic testing was completed. During a detailed examination, investigators discovered Sonya Excelby’s blood and DNA on the blade.
That finding became one of the key pieces of evidence tying Dwayne Hall even more directly to the events that unfolded that day. As the investigation continued, the atmosphere surrounding the case grew darker and darker with each new detail adding to the horrifying picture detectives were slowly putting together. Rick later told investigators that although Dwayne had phrased it as helping Sonya die, there was no ambiguity in how he personally understood those words.
According to Rick, he believed Dwayne had killed her. That statement became another major element in the case and added even more weight to investigators’ suspicions about the true circumstances surrounding Sonya’s death. Dwayne Hall pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder and kidnapping. He is currently being held without bond and unless a plea agreement is reached, it is expected to stand trial in 2027.
The case continues to receive significant attention from both American and British authorities because of its brutality and international impact. Prosecutors believe the evidence shows that Dwayne used Sonia to act out dark fantasies after meeting her online. According to investigators, during their 2 years of communication, he was fully aware that Sonia struggled with severe mental health issues and prosecutors argue deliberately exploited her vulnerable condition.
That detail sparked especially strong reactions among people following the case because it suggested the possible manipulation of someone who was psychologically unstable and deeply vulnerable. British authorities reportedly refused to transfer evidence to prosecutors in Florida until the possibility of the death penalty was formally removed from the case.
Because of that, additional legal negotiations and procedures took place between both sides. If Dwayne Hall is ultimately convicted, he could face life in prison, a punishment investigators and prosecutors believe reflects the severity of the circumstances surrounding Sonia Exalbide’s death. Sonia Exalbide is deeply mourned by her family, her friends, and everyone who knew her personally.
For many of them, her death became a painful shock that remained difficult to accept even long after the tragedy itself. Memories of Sonia live on not only through photographs and messages, but also through the small moments she shared with the people around her, ordinary pieces of everyday life that after her death took on an entirely different and heartbreaking meaning.
In December of 2025, her partner Stevie still chose to take part in the Portsmouth Marathon, though the event now carried a completely different emotional weight for him. He dedicated the marathon to Sonia’s memory, hoping to honor the woman he loved and lost under such tragic circumstances. The run also became a fundraiser for Cats Protection, an organization that had meant a great deal to Sonia and was especially close to her heart.
For Stevie, it was far more than just a physical challenge. It was an intensely personal and emotional tribute to someone he had never stopped grieving. [singing] And that was the truly tragic story of Sonia Exley, a case that shocked many people because of its brutality and the endless stream of disturbing details that surfaced one after another.
What began as an ordinary trip eventually turned into a horrifying investigation filled with fear, pain, and questions that investigators would continue trying to answer long afterward. For Sonia’s loved ones, this tragedy became not only an unbearable loss, but also a constant reminder of how dangerous hidden circumstances and the people who seem trustworthy can sometimes be.
Her story left behind a deep emotional scar and became yet another chilling case that stayed in the minds of those who followed the investigation for a very long time.
