Dale Grogan Sr., 59, seen here in a police photo. Grogan is a former soldier who was stationed in Germany in 1992, when his wife, Tina, and their two young sons disappeared from the family’s military housing unit in Würzburg. (Nassau County Sheriff’s Office)
Florida police say a former soldier whose wife and two young sons disappeared from military housing in Germany more than three decades ago admitted during a hospital stay that he had killed them.
Dale Grogan was receiving medical care while awaiting trial on a charge of attempted sex trafficking of a minor.
He confessed shortly after his January arrest in a child sex sting, Nassau County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Robert Grant said in an email.
“Grogan did admit to killing his wife and sons while he was at the hospital with our corrections officers after an incident at the jail,” Grant said. “He did not make the statement to investigators.”
Grogan’s attorney in Florida, Sabra Barnett, declined to comment on the purported confession or the sex trafficking charge.
The recent developments have given relatives of Grogan’s wife, Tina, reason to shift their outlook from despair to cautious optimism.
Tina Grogan, 26, and the couple’s two sons, 4-year-old Stephon and 6-year-old Dale Jr., vanished from the former Leighton Barracks in Würzburg in 1992.
The Army previously declined to prosecute Grogan, 59, for lack of evidence but has since reopened the case and is offering a $15,000 reward, according to a May statement from the Army Criminal Investigation Division.
Law enforcement agents suspected foul play, according to reports at the time, but lacked forensic evidence. Grogan, who left Germany in 1994, never reported his family missing.
Tina’s family is starting to believe that the clock has run out on what they call his 33-year evasion of justice.
“I’m hopeful,” said Tina Grogan’s niece Arielle Garcia, a former Air Force captain. “In my heart of hearts, I think that this is it for him.”
It’s unclear where the Army investigation of Grogan, a former specialist who was assigned to the 417th Base Support Battalion, is headed. The Army Criminal Investigation Division has declined further comment.
‘We failed’
Tina, 26, and the couple’s two sons, 4-year-old Stephon and 6-year-old Dale Jr., were last heard from at around 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 28, 1992, at the Skyline Housing Area next to Leighton Barracks, according to the CID statement announcing the reward.
Former next-door neighbors John and Darla Tucker told Stars and Stripes that they had heard Tina Grogan screaming and one of the boys shouting, “Don’t hurt my mama” or “Don’t hit my mama.”
Dale Grogan Jr., left, 6, and Stephon Grogan, 4, disappeared along with their mother Tine from their home on base in Würzburg, Germany, in November 1992. Their father, Dale Grogan Sr., then an Army specialist, was suspected of murder but the Army declined to prosecute due to a lack of evidence. (Project Cold Case, Inc.)
John Tucker got dressed and rushed outside, where he met a staff sergeant from a floor above.
“Before we even started knocking on the door, it went quiet,” he said.
Dale Grogan answered, said everything was fine and they were seeking professional help, according to a German summary of the Army investigation that Tina Grogan’s family obtained from German prosecutors.
Tucker asked to speak with Tina but Dale said she did not want to be seen, he recalled.
“We failed,” he said. “We should have called the (military police), but a lot of people get in fights in housing.”
Tucker recalled seeing Dale Grogan carry large boxes to his car in the days following the argument. The Tuckers assumed he was moving out.
Weeks passed and Tina’s mother, Cheryl Williams, grew worried. She tried to reach her daughter and son-in-law but was unsuccessful, according to letters she wrote to former President Bill Clinton in 1997.
Williams, who died in 2021, enlisted the Red Cross to pass along messages to Dale Grogan several times before finally compelling a response in January through his command.
“My son-in-law then called me only to say that my daughter had packed her and the kids’ clothes and left,” she wrote. “I did not believe him so I went to my congressman.”
The Army launched an investigation in 1993 after receiving an inquiry from U.S. Rep. Austin Murphy of Pennsylvania. Murphy died last year.
Disappearances of dependents in Army communities are investigated by an installation’s emergency services directorate, which includes military police, immediately after a report is filed, Army spokeswoman Heather Hagan said.
The criminal division gets involved if the circumstances surrounding the disappearance are unusual, suspicious, or suggest foul play. It’s unclear whether that occurred in the Grogan case.
The Army used cadaver dogs to search the area around the barracks and Giebelstadt Army Airfield, but Tina and her children were never found, Stars and Stripes reported at the time.
A Red Cross worker reported seeing Dale Grogan buying 10 cans of Drano after the disappearance, but investigators questioned the account’s veracity, German prosecutors said in a 1994 document citing Army reports.
In December 1993, a female torso was found in the Main River near Frankfurt, but investigators could not match the remains to Tina Grogan, Würzburg police wrote to a family friend in 2001.
Tina Grogan’s sister, Shannon Ballenger, said no DNA testing on the remains was ever performed because investigators didn’t obtain samples from the family for reference. Lower Franconia police declined to comment and referred Stars and Stripes to CID.
Leighton Barracks was returned to German authority in 2009 as part of post-Cold War force restructuring.
Leaving Germany behind
During the Army investigation, the family was told of allegations of physical abuse, Ballenger said. Tina Grogan had been seen with black eyes and wore sunglasses to hide them.
Tina had met Dale through a mutual friend when she was 17, and her family initially was happy about the match.
“He was the boy next door at first,” Ballenger said. “We loved Dale. He turned into a monster.”
Tina Grogan, shown in this undated photo, disappeared along with her two young sons from the family’s home at Leighton Barracks in Würzburg, Germany, on Nov. 28, 1992. She was married to former soldier Dale Grogan Sr., who was investigated by the Army but never faced charges. (Project Cold Case, Inc.)
Tina Grogan, seen here in this undated photo, was 26 when she and her two young sons vanished from their home on base in Würzburg, Germany, in November 1992. Her husband, Dale Grogan Sr., then a 28-year-old Army specialist, was the subject of a 1994 hearing to weigh murder charges, but the Army declined to prosecute him due to a lack of evidence. The case was reopened earlier this year. (Project Cold Case, Inc.)
Tina had confided about marital discord but hid the abuse from other relatives, Ballenger said. Because she had grown up in a single-parent home, she was determined to make the marriage work.
In 1994, an Article 32 hearing was held to determine whether Dale Grogan should be charged with three counts of murder.
The Army ruled there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute, Stars and Stripes reported at the time, and Grogan was honorably discharged that month.
Ballenger said she “absolutely 100%” thinks the Army botched the case.
Facebook has a number of accounts with Dale Grogan’s name and image, none of them public. Ballenger said Grogan had remarried at some point. His second wife could not be reached for comment.
In 2000, he moved to Florida and eventually became a mail handler at the U.S. Postal Service processing and distribution center in Jacksonville. He had no prior criminal record.
The case lay dormant until Jan. 18, when Dale Grogan showed up in his postal uniform with condoms in his pocket to meet who he thought was a 14-year-old girl for a sexual encounter, the police report alleges. The person he had spoken to online was an undercover detective, the report states.
Days later, Grogan tried to “stab his eyes while inside his cell,” said Grant, the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office spokesman.
While being evaluated at a hospital, Grogan confessed to killing his wife and children, Grant said.
Grant referred further questions to Army investigators.
The case was handed to CID following the purported admission. The trial on the attempted child sex trafficking charge is slated for November.
Tina Grogan’s family members say they are encouraged by the developments.
“Everyone just loved her,” Ballenger said of her sister. “She loved those boys. I just want justice.”
Anyone with information can contact the CID’s cold case unit at (520) 706-8685 or usarmy.belvoir.hqda-usacid.mbx.cold-case-unit@army.mil, or submit an anonymous tip online at www.cid.army.mil/tips.
An Army Criminal Investigative Division poster showing Tina Grogan and her sons Stephon and Dale Jr., who disappeared from a former U.S. base in Germany in 1992. The Army reopened the case this year and is offering a $15,000 reward. (U.S. Army)
