Danielle Stislicki: She Left Work on a Friday Night and Was Never Seen Again

Author

Benjamin Hayes

Publication Date

April 1, 2026

December 2, 2016 was a Friday, and Danielle Ann Stislicki had plans. She was going to meet her best friend for dinner, and before that she was going to stop home, pack a bag, and spend the night. It was an ordinary end to an ordinary week. She sent a text to her friend saying she would be there soon. She was never seen again.

Danielle's case is one of those that grabs you not just because of what happened to her, but because of the maddening trail of events that followed: a suspect who lied about where he was that night, a polygraph test that cracked the case open and then nearly destroyed it, years of legal wrangling over what evidence can even be presented at trial, and a murder prosecution that, as of early 2026, has still not resulted in a single day in court for the man charged with killing her. Danielle's family has spent nearly a decade waiting. They are still waiting.

Who Danielle Was

Danielle Ann Stislicki was born on February 28, 1988, in Redford Township, Michigan, and grew up there. She graduated from Redford Union High School in 2006, and by late 2016 she was 28 years old, living in an apartment at the Independence Green complex near Halstead Road and Grand River Avenue in Farmington Hills, Michigan. She worked at MetLife, the insurance company, at their offices on Telegraph Road in Southfield. Her mother, Ann, also worked in the same building.

Friends and family described Danielle as warm, joyful, and creative. She had several tattoos: a koi fish on her hip, a constellation on her shoulder, a phoenix on her lower back, and a design of candy peanuts and popcorn on her right foot. She was a person with personality and specificity, someone who left a mark on the people around her. Her grandmother, Carol Stislicki, would later say of Danielle: "We don't want her to be out there like somebody's garbage or something." That sentence, raw as it is, captures something important about what families endure when a body is never found and justice seems to never arrive.

The Night She Vanished

On December 2, 2016, Danielle left work at around 5:00 p.m. She texted her friend to say she was going to swing home quickly, pack a bag, and then they would meet for dinner. That text was the last communication her family and friends received from her. She never showed up at her friend's place. When her friend still could not reach her the following day, she went to Danielle's apartment and found no answer. She called Danielle's parents, who came over and found something deeply unsettling: Danielle's black 2015 Jeep Renegade was parked just eight feet from her apartment door, locked, with her purse, credit cards, and driver's license still inside. There were no signs of a struggle in or around the car or inside her apartment. But her cell phone and her keys were gone.

Police were contacted. Within days, they had a significant lead in the form of multiple witnesses who said they had seen Danielle in the parking lot of her office with a man named Floyd Russell Galloway Jr., the security guard who worked in the building. Witnesses said they saw Galloway with the hood up on his Buick Regal, as though the car had broken down. A separate witness said they saw Galloway get into the passenger seat of Danielle's Jeep Renegade as the two left the parking lot together. Prosecutors would later theorize that Galloway told Danielle his car had broken down and asked her to drive him home, and that she, being a kind and considerate person, agreed.

There was something else that stood out almost immediately. Galloway told police he had been at work until 11:00 p.m. that night. Investigators later determined this was a lie. He had actually called off, claiming he had a doctor's appointment.

A Suspect Hiding in Plain Sight

Floyd Galloway was 30 years old at the time of Danielle's disappearance and worked as a security guard in the same Southfield office building where Danielle and her mother both worked. According to Ann Stislicki, she had noticed that Galloway seemed to have developed a fixation on her daughter. He had sent Danielle flowers. He frequently showed up near her cubicle. Danielle, by all accounts, was friendly with him in the way you might be with any workplace acquaintance, nothing more. He was a married man, and his wife was battling cancer at the time.

When police first tried to speak with Galloway about Danielle's disappearance, he retained a lawyer and refused to answer their questions. Investigators eventually obtained a warrant and searched his home in Berkley, Michigan on December 22, 2016, nearly three weeks after Danielle vanished. What they found inside was striking. A patch of carpet in his bedroom had recently been replaced. When forensic technicians tested the carpet adjacent to the replaced section, they found what was described as "very strong support" that Danielle's DNA was present. Investigators also removed a mattress and floorboards from the home. A car was taken from the garage. Two days after Danielle disappeared, on December 4, Galloway had purchased a new comforter from a Bed Bath and Beyond. Prosecutors later alleged he had used the old one to dispose of her body and bought a replacement.

Despite all of this, Galloway was not immediately arrested in connection with Danielle's case. He invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and the investigation continued without him cooperating.

The Polygraph That Changed Everything and Then Complicated Everything

Seven days after Danielle vanished, on December 9, 2016, Galloway took a lie detector test. This was not something police requested. It was arranged by an attorney Galloway himself had hired, and a former FBI agent named James Hoppe administered it. What Galloway revealed during that test apparently disturbed Hoppe so profoundly that he felt compelled to act on it. He contacted his personal friend Gary Mayer, who was then the chief of police in Troy, Michigan, and shared what he had learned. Hoppe told Mayer he had information about the security guard and the homicide and that it was very important, but that he could only share it if his identity could be kept confidential. Mayer passed the information along to Farmington Hills Police Chief Chuck Nebus, who was leading the investigation.

What followed from that tip was a cascade of critical evidence. Investigators located Danielle's Fitbit, her car keys, and her cell phone in the area between her apartment and a nearby Tim Hortons restaurant. Forensic data from the phone was retrieved. Surveillance footage from the Tim Hortons showed Galloway there that evening. Records from a cab company called Green Cab showed he had taken a ride from the Tim Hortons area back toward the part of town where Danielle had last been seen. A gas station camera had caught him walking westbound on Grand River Avenue at 8:26 p.m. that night.

The problem was that all of this evidence had been obtained as a direct result of information that Hoppe had shared in violation of attorney-client privilege. When the defense discovered the source of the tip, they moved to suppress everything that had been gathered in its wake. Courts agreed. Oakland County and Michigan state appeals courts both ruled in favor of suppression. The U.S. Supreme Court declined in January 2025 to take up the matter. As a result, when Floyd Galloway eventually faces trial for Danielle's murder, the jury will not hear about her Fitbit, her keys, her phone, the Tim Hortons surveillance footage, the cab ride, the gas station footage, or the cab company records. The suppressed evidence represents some of the most direct evidence linking Galloway's movements to the area where Danielle disappeared on the night she was killed.

It is one of the most agonizing legal tangles in this case: a man who apparently told a lie detector examiner something so damning that the examiner felt morally compelled to come forward, and yet the law cannot allow what sprang from that moment to be used against him.

The Attack That Came Before

Three months before Danielle Stislicki vanished, in September 2016, a 28-year-old woman was jogging in Hines Park in Livonia, Michigan. Floyd Galloway attacked her. He punched her, choked her, and attempted to rape her. She escaped. That assault went undetected until Galloway became a person of interest in Danielle's case. In June 2017, he was arrested and charged in connection with the Hines Park attack. By December of that year, he had pleaded guilty to kidnapping, criminal sexual conduct, assault with intent to commit sexual penetration, and assault with intent to do great bodily harm. He was sentenced to 16 to 35 years in prison. A charge of assault with intent to murder was dropped as part of the plea agreement.

The jogger who escaped him in Hines Park survived. Danielle, by all available evidence, did not survive her encounter with the same man, just weeks later. The medical examiner in this case concluded, despite the fact that Danielle's body has never been found, that she was asphyxiated, meaning strangled or suffocated to death.

Following Galloway's conviction for the Hines Park attack, investigators formally elevated his status from person of interest to suspect in Danielle's murder. In March 2019, he was charged by the Michigan Attorney General's office with premeditated first-degree murder. The Oakland County Prosecutor's Office had declined to charge him multiple times before Attorney General Dana Nessel's office took over the case in April 2019 and ultimately brought the charges. If convicted, he faces a mandatory life sentence.

A Trial That Has Not Come

Galloway was ordered to stand trial in September 2019. That was more than six years ago. The trial has been delayed repeatedly, derailed by motions over the tainted evidence, questions about attorney-client privilege, and ongoing legal skirmishing between the prosecution and defense. A trial date was set for spring 2025, then pushed again. As of May 2025, Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Michael Warren scheduled the murder trial to begin on February 2, 2026, with the full proceedings expected to take two weeks.

Danielle's mother, Ann Stislicki, responded to that news with the exhausted candor of someone who has been through years of disappointment. "It's just 2026 is such a long time," she said. "She disappeared. It's been years, not even a few years, many years. I think we are losing sight of Danielle, the victim in this case. Her life was taken, she still hasn't been found and we still need to sit here."

Ann has spoken publicly about the case many times over the years, keeping her daughter's name alive. She carries a locket that Danielle gave her. The inscription reads: "I'll love you forever. I'll love you for always. As long as I'm living." For a mother waiting for justice for a daughter whose body has never been found, those words carry a particular kind of weight.

The evidence that prosecutors can still present includes the DNA found in the carpet of Galloway's home adjacent to the section he replaced, the testimony of witnesses who saw Danielle leaving the parking lot with him, evidence relating to the comforter purchase two days after her disappearance, the floorboards and mattress removed from his home, and the testimony of the medical examiner who concluded she was asphyxiated. It is a case built largely on circumstantial evidence and physical forensics, with some of its most compelling pieces now barred from the courtroom.

Still Out There

Danielle Stislicki's body has never been found. Searches of Hines Park, Stoney Park, and other locations linked to Galloway turned up nothing. Her family has acknowledged that they may never recover her remains, but they have not stopped fighting. Her parents have continued to appear in court at every hearing, facing the man they believe killed their daughter, hearing legal arguments about evidence rules and procedure, waiting for the moment when a jury finally hears the full case.

"We know who killed Danielle," her parents have said publicly. They are not asking for the public's belief. They are asking for justice through the court system, a system that has so far moved agonizingly slowly.

Floyd Galloway remains incarcerated for the Hines Park assault conviction while he awaits the murder trial. He has pleaded not guilty to Danielle's murder.

If you have any information about the disappearance and suspected murder of Danielle Ann Stislicki, please contact the Farmington Hills Police Command Desk at 248-871-2610, or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-SPEAK-UP. Callers can remain anonymous.

Sources

Benjamin Hayes

Benjamin Hayes is a blogger with a passion for true crime and unresolved mysteries. In his free time, Benjamin is an avid hiker and photographer. He finds solace and inspiration in nature, often trekking through the scenic trails of the Appalachian Mountains.