Anatomy of Murder - Key To Your Heart (Katelyn Markham)

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

An unexpected phone call breathes life into the decade-old murder investigation of a 21-year-old. Two investigators are determined to get answers for her family and get them their day in court. For episode information and photos, please visit: anatomyofmurder.com/key-to-your-heart Can’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc

There's a reason why things happen the way they happen. There's a reason why that day I got a phone call from a girl who I was dealing with in another case, maybe the stars or, but there was a reason why I got that phone call that day. I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff. I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of Murder. There's something particularly haunting about a case where a person disappears without a trace, especially in a

tight-knit community. The lack of answers, the feeling of not knowing what happened, it leaves an open wound for the family and the community. Today's case is an example of that anguish. It's the story of a 21-year-old woman who seemed to vanish into thin air one summer night in 2011. But what started as a missing persons case would evolve into something much darker, and it would take over a decade to get answers. This investigation not only spans years, but crosses state lines and involves multiple law enforcement agencies. But it may never have been solved if not for the work of investigator Paul Newton and criminalist Allie Weissman.

And because of that, we wanted you to hear what they both had to say. Here's Paul Newton, who from the time he was a child knew law enforcement would be his path. At the age of five, I always wanted to be a deputy sheriff. I never let go of that dream of wanting to be a Butler County deputy sheriff. He followed his dream and spent about 25 years as a deputy sheriff in Butler County, Ohio. And I can tell you from my own personal experience, it is an intense job that can quickly wear you down. Most are ready to retire after that many years on the force, but not Paul. After leaving his sheriff's position, he found a new law enforcement home. A job opening come here at

the prosecutor's office. I asked to interview for the job. He goes, I want you to do the same job here at the prosecutor's office as you did at the sheriff's office. I want you tracking bad guys down. I said, well, I can do that. Allie Weissman had a very different and personal journey to the prosecutor's office. When I was a kid, my uncle was wrongfully convicted of murder. So I knew I always wanted to do something with my life to prevent that from happening to someone else. Allie started at the prosecutor's office as a victim's advocate, then a legal assistant, and now she's a criminalist.

But her true passion has always been cold cases. I was super interested in cold cases. I actually spent about 200 hours of my free time researching all the local cold cases. Paul and Allie are going to walk us through today's story, which ultimately became one of the biggest cold cases of both their careers. It started with a 911 call on August 14th, 2011. 911, raise your emergency. Hi, my name is John Carter. I am calling. I know that you're not supposed to report a missing person before 24 hours, but my fiance is missing. I can't

find her anywhere. John Carter makes a 911 call to the Fairfield Police Department and states that he knows he's not supposed to make a phone call for a missing person before 24 hours, but his fiancée, Caitlin Markham, is missing. Okay, where did you see her last? I saw her at like 12 o'clock last night. She stays in a house by herself, so I'm just, I'm really nervous. Her car is still there. The dispatcher has got him on the line. She's talking, she's asking questions, and he seems very frantic. I like have been trying to get a hold of her, and I decided to go by her house to see if she was okay.

And her car was still there. She would be at work right now with her car, which is why I'm, like, really freaking out. This was around 8 p.m. John said he last saw Caitlin around midnight the night before. It hadn't yet been 24 hours, and typically a little early for police to get involved. But John seemed convinced that something was not right. And it is often loved ones, as we know, that have that best sense of when something is amiss. Caitlin was supposed to go to her job that morning at a local bridal shop, but she never showed up. John said he had texted her, but that she didn't respond, and he had not heard from her all day. And that was very unlike Caitlin.

So an officer went over to Caitlin's house. Caitlin was a 21-year-old living by herself at a townhouse in Fairfield, Ohio. Fairfield is a nice upscale community just north of Cincinnati. When the officer got to the townhouse, it didn't take much before she saw signs that something was not right. The house was like as if someone was there and they were no longer there. So there's no force entering to the house. She did not see any type of blood.

The house is not torn up. Nothing of Caitlin's is missing. I mean, the purse is there. Her clothes are there. Her shoes are there. The car is there. Her car keys are there. So everything is there except for Caitlin and her phone. So, Scott, we have a 21-year-old young woman who seems to have just disappeared seemingly into thin air.

From an investigator's perspective, let's just talk through some of the things that they may have been thinking. So clearly age is a big factor here on law enforcement's approach. Of course, if we were talking about a child, the first approach would be completely different. But Caitlin was 21. So perhaps she just needed some time to work through some issues. And that, of course, is not unheard of, especially with a younger person. But there is one thing that I'm sure investigators picked up on fairly quickly, and that is the fact that Caitlin left all of her personal belongings.

I'm not sure about you, but I don't know a woman who leaves her purse behind. All her credit cards, her money, her keys, are all in her purse. The officer also found Caitlin's dog locked in Caitlin's bedroom, which according to John, was also something Caitlin would not have done. But if something had happened to Caitlin, there were no obvious suspects. No one stood out as wanting to harm her. You know, it's a stereotypical thing to say,

but she would light up a room. She was bubbly, outgoing. She was friends with just about everyone. Everyone we talked to loved Caitlin. Caitlin came from a tight-knit family. She had a younger sister and was also close with her dad who lived in Cincinnati. And as we know, she was engaged to be married. John and Caitlin had been together for a total of six years. They never fought. There was never any problems. It definitely would seem odd that someone with such a strong personal community, no history of social problems or familial issues,

would just pick up and take off, you know, just be gone without a trace. So the officer that had gone over to her home called dispatch and asked them to now ping Caitlin's phone. That might help find her or give them some information about where she had been all day. I come to find out from dispatch and the phone company that her phone had been off since 1206, that early morning on the 14th. And that officer, she actually called her supervisor and said, hey, look, there's something wrong here. I need you to send me some detectives over to this townhouse. And she went as far as, hey, look, if you don't send somebody, I'm calling the lieutenant. And if the lieutenant doesn't send anybody, I'm calling the chief.

Anastika, this is a great example of how victimology is paying off in the first few moments of this investigation. Meaning, know your victim. And that officer was able to get enough information from the family to realize that this is the opposite of Caitlin's normal behavior. And, you know, gut instinct, no, it can't get you into handcuffs or get you into a courtroom, but it's absolutely appropriate and does play a role when it comes to investigators, at least knowing when they should potentially move more quickly. Yeah, they call them hunches at a S Asiga. And I know that feeling. I've had them and I've been right and I've also been wrong. But being wrong is okay because normally things turn out to be okay. But when you're right, time is of the essence. But it wasn't until about two days

later, which also happened to be Caitlin's 22nd birthday, that local police took additional steps to try and find her. They launched a search, which would actually end up being the largest missing person search in Fairfield history. They called everybody out. They had the fire department, they had all their police officers, and they had a lot of her friends. Fairfield's kind of a close community, so when something like that comes out, they rally around each other. That's one of the reasons why that Sacred Heart Festival is so big, because it's like the focal point of the community.

Everybody in Fairfield goes to it. The Sacred Heart Festival, which was a yearly event, it was going on up the street from Caitlin's townhouse on the same night she disappeared. That may make you think that either Caitlin went to the festival, did something happen to her at the event, or on her way there or back. Or you also may wonder who else is at the festival.

So I think that's got to be on the police radar as they're starting their search. They had, you know, coordinated searches through the whole area. I mean, they did a fantastic search. I can't even tell you how many people came out to search. There were hundreds, if not thousands. They were searching, you know, from the time the sun came up to the time the sun went down. Allie was just 14 years old at the time and living locally. She remembers the search well because she actually took part in it with her aunt. So my aunt and I, on our own, went out looking for her in a couple places

and, of course, you know, never found anything. Of course, because unfortunately, the search didn't lead to Caitlin or any answers. Investigators also checked Caitlin's credit card records and bank accounts and still nothing. Basically, it revealed this. She's there one minute, she's gone the next. That's the bottom line.

At that point, without any strong leads or physical evidence, investigators were hoping that someone might come forward with information, and they did get a lot of calls. Fairfield was getting a lot of tips coming in, people calling in information. They had a couple boxes of, I called them Elvis sightings, people who were like psychics and things of that nature. But you still got to take that information down. You never know what might break the case.

This is the blessing and the curse of high-profile cases. You get a lot of leads coming in, but you don't want to go down the wrong rabbit hole and waste precious time. And on the other hand, you don't want to ignore that one detail that could lead you to the truth. It can be overwhelming, but they all need to be checked. So they looked, investigated, and checked, but nothing led to Caitlin or moved the investigation forward. Eventually, the search for Caitlin slowed down as investigators basically

landed at a brick wall. If something incredible would come in, they would look into it. But they were not getting much. As everything else, time passes and people go on about their lives. Yeah, Caitlin's still missing, but the tips are not coming in like they were in the beginning. Some people in the community assumed the worst had happened. Others chose to believe that Caitlin had just picked up and left, started a new life somewhere for reasons that only she would be able to explain. But a few months later, any hopes that Caitlin had left for a better life would be shattered

when a couple searching through a junk pile for scrap metal stumbled upon a grisly scene. In April of 2013, in Cedar Grove, Indiana, a couple was searching for scrap metal in a heap alongside a roadway when they made a horrific discovery. In the pile were portions of a human skeleton wrapped in what looked like a tarp. There were also pieces of a skull. They'd seen some bags, and one of the bags that they opened up, they found a human jawbone. So they knew right away someone had been dumped there. Cedar Grove is just across the border from Fairfield, Ohio.

They decided to call the Indiana State Police and the local sheriff's office, and they responded. They knew within minutes it was Kaitlyn Markham. For investigators, they now had the answer to what happened to Kaitlyn. But they still didn't know why, how, or by who. It was ruled a homicide by the coroner, but they could not rule how it happened. It was proving to be incredibly difficult to uncover what happened to Caitlin Markham. There was no forceful blunt force trauma to the skull.

There was no indication of bullet wounds and or like knife wounds, you know, nothing like that. Other than on the wrist. A forensic anthropologist did find some markings on the bones of Caitlin's wrist. On her left wrist, there were what he called sharp force wounds. He said that the wounds were more consistent with dismemberment marks. While defensive wounds were considered, the conclusion was the injury was more consistent with someone having attempted to dismember Caitlin's left hand.

While an important piece of information, it wasn't going to be the cause of death or get investigators much closer to who had caused the wounds. The medical examiner also thought that Caitlin's body had been stored somewhere else before being dumped in the location where her body was found, but none of that information pointed to a particular suspect. But one thing is now certain. This is no longer a missing persons case. This is a homicide, which means the pressure to get to the bottom of what happened to Caitlin is even higher. There were multiple Facebook pages that came out of this. People posting, you know, their theories, their thoughts on it. They were pointing fingers at just about everyone. John was probably the biggest person.

John Carter, Caitlin's fiance, the last person to have seen her alive, the one who first reported her missing to the police. Here again is part of his conversation with the 911 dispatcher after he placed the call. anything. So she would have been in her bed. And I've been with her for six years. She's not deceiving. You know, she doesn't. Okay. And you guys didn't have an argument or anything? Not at all. According to John, on the evening of August 13th, which was the evening before he placed the panic 911 call, he got off work early and went over to Caitlin's townhouse to see her. Caitlin and John had been making plans to move out west. John's planning on trying to put a trailer hitch on his red Ford Focus so they can carry their

belongings to Colorado. The night of August 13th, John called a friend of Caitlin's to ask for some advice about setting up a trailer hitch on his car. So this guy, he shows up to Caitlin's house and they talk about putting a trailer hitch on the car and other things they got going on. They're watching TV and they all admittedly smoke a little marijuana. Around 1045, the friend left to go to a party. A little while later, John also left heading to a different party. He said Caitlin had been scheduled to work the next morning, so she wasn't going out. John told the 911 dispatcher that he had left Caitlin's house around midnight. And as far as going to a party, that was confirmed. Four or five witnesses remember seeing John at that party. Around 1.30, John leaves to go back home.

He watches three episodes of White Collar. He openly admits he's watching some porn that night and decides to go to bed. That's John's night that night. As we all know, people closest to the victim, be it the boyfriend, the husband, or in this case, the fiance, they're always first to be looked at. And here, beyond that basic suspicion, the friend of Caitlin's who had gone to her home that night to talk about the trailer hitch, he had told police that Caitlin had seemed, in his words, off that night. She was not her normal bubbly self. Well, this friend had mentioned to the police department that when he showed up at night, something was wrong with Caitlin.

Caitlin's not talking, which was highly unusual because her and him were close friends. They worked together. He hadn't seen him in a couple of months. So for her not to be happy to see him, he said something was wrong at night. The dispatcher who took the call from John also thought something seemed off. The way John spoke seemed a little over the top and it really wasn't lining up. The dispatcher made a phone call to the responding officer. She goes, there's something wrong here. The words, she's missing. It's one thing to say, this person should be here. I can't find them. I can't locate them. But for someone to go, she's missing, that's going from zero to 10.

So investigators were a bit skeptical about John's story from the beginning, but his computer history backed up the timeline for that night about leaving the party, where he'd been seen by those several people, and then going home to watch television before going to bed. His time frame of what happened that night, him being at Caitlin's and being at the party, and his computer history, is pretty consistent. So while John wasn't ruled out, he also didn't rise above anyone else on the potential suspect list.

And actually, it was John who first mentioned a theory about what might have happened, which included a pool of suspects. Here's more of that 911 call. And the Sacred Heart Festival is going on right up the street, and there's a lot of questionable people there. Remember, the night Caitlyn disappeared, the Sacred Heart Festival was taking place about half a mile from Caitlin's home.

And admittedly, with any big public event like that, you just don't know who might be in the crowd. But that's also a pretty broad general theory and not easy to follow, especially after so many years. So the police kept going down their list of potential suspects. And they began looking at another local man who worked at a gas station which was located very close to Caitlin's home. At one point, he was arrested on sex charges. He worked very close to where Caitlin lived, but there was a woman who came forward that said, you know, I go into that gas station all the time. I went in there on that night to get snacks and drinks for myself and my

kids because we were going to the Sacred Heart Festival and I saw him working that night. In other words, the man had a solid alibi, so investigators checked him off the list. As part of checking all the boxes, Caitlin's father was looked at thoroughly as part of the investigation, but police were able to rule him out as well. He's got a pretty solid alibi. He was at his girlfriend's that night. Years passed and no answers came, but the reward kept getting higher. At one point, an anonymous donor gave $25,000 towards the reward for information about Caitlin's death, bringing the total to $100,000. But the case continued to run cold.

And this is one of those cases that you just know that the frustration was palpable for all concerned. We've got this body of a woman who would have just turned 22, who's now been dumped on the side of the road. They know it's a homicide. They've got lots of tips and lots of potential maybes and question marks. But that's it. You know, it's a lot of theory, Scott, but really not much evidence. And not only does it leave the family and community in fear, but in the shadows, there's a killer out there living as if nothing happened, believing that they may have escaped justice. And with each passing day, that terrifying thought lingered. And while of course we don't know any sort of motive because we don't know the who, whoever it was out there, they might be in a position now to strike again. But you know, for this investigation at times, it just felt for all that it would be the end of the story. It would be one of those unanswered cases. Until more than 10 years after

Caitlin's death, Paul got a call out of the blue that would breathe new life into the case. And I get a phone call from somebody who I dealt with in the past. She goes, I got some information for you. I said, what do you have? She goes, well, it's a reference to the Caitlin Markham case. And he said he got into a fight with this girl. They were doing drugs together and he killed the girl. He needed the van to dump the body.

It was a shocking story. Most shocking of all, the guy used the name of the girl he claimed to have killed. The name that was given at night was Caitlin Markham. This guy killed Caitlin Markham. In 2020, Paul Newton was an investigator with the Butler County, Ohio prosecutor's office. He'd received a phone call from a source who had information on the Kaitlyn Markham case. The caller said that years earlier, her mom and her mother's boyfriend had been approached by a man at a bar asking to use their van to dispose of a body,

the body of 21-year-old Caitlin. I knew nothing about this case. I truthfully didn't. It was that phone call that injected Paul into this case. As soon as he heard the story, he shared the information with his boss who told him to go talk to that man, the one who supposedly had been approached to use his van. Paul hopped on a plane, tracked the man down and asked that man about the incident and who it was that had approached him at the bar.

The man denied the exchange and said that it had never happened. It turned out that the story was a false lead. And rumors, as we know, can start circulating, especially in a case like this that a community and people have been talking about for years. But even though this story was a red herring, it got the wheels turning in Paul's head. And on the plane ride home, he read over the police reports. I'm kind of writing things down and I'm going through it as we're on the airplane. And I'm like, this seems solvable. I know there's a few pieces missing, but this is a solvable case. When he got back, he circled back around with his boss and they talked through the case and the pieces that Paul thought could be put together in potentially

a prosecutable case. Paul was given the green light to reopen the investigation and see what he could develop. I'll be completely honest with you. I was overwhelmed. We got this case file from Fairfield. It was, I have to say this, there's no way of putting it around it. It was an absolute mess. In a case like this that drags out over many years, it is easy for things to get out of hand. You get so many tips and details can just start to slip through the cracks and unfortunately get lost in the mix if you're not careful. These big case files can definitely become a bit of a black hole. Paul asked the chief assistant prosecutor for additional assistance with the investigation. I can't do this.

There's parts of this case file that we can't even open up. He goes, I can't do it. And I was like, well, how would you feel if we bring Allie in on it? I said, I know she's got an interest in this and I think she'd be perfect for it. He goes, well, go get her. It's 428. I'm supposed to leave at 430. And Paul comes to my desk and he said,

you have a minute? And I was like, yeah. And he's like, follow me. Allie was a legal assistant in the prosecutor's office at the time. More importantly, as Paul already knew, she spent her free time researching local cold cases. So he walked back to the chief prosecutor's office and he tells me to have a seat and he closes the door. And if you saw Paul, Paul is over six foot. He is very well built and he is a very scary man. And he's standing in front of the door with his arms crossed. And I thought I was getting fired. But the prosecutor looked at me and said, Paul's told me that you let him know that if you ever needed help to reach out to you. I said, yes. And he's like, well, Paul needs help.

Paul and Allie got to work in different ways. They each brought a fresh perspective to the investigation and new eyes on an old case sometimes can catch things that other people missed. Their first order of business was to re-interview the key witnesses. They revisited the physical evidence looking for any clues that may have been overlooked. I spent probably six months, better part of six months, trying to find out where the TARP come that she was wrapped up in. And we thought maybe it was unique in some aspect, but it wasn't. It's not uncommon for the most thorough investigations to lead to some dead ends. You just don't know which avenue you may unexpectedly turn up something important.

Where the body is found is en route to John Carter's father's farm. Caitlin's body, remember, had been discovered in a junk pile just across the state border in neighboring Indiana on Big Cedar Road, a road that led directly to a farm have been discovered in a junk pile just across the state border in neighboring Indiana, on Big Cedar Road, a road that led directly to a farm belonging to John Carter's father. That alone doesn't necessarily point the finger at John.

You'd have to consider anyone who might have known about the farm, his father, any friends who had gone out there. But there were other reasons to look more closely at John Carter. As Paul and Allie re-interviewed Caitlin's friends, they started to get a very different picture of John and Caitlin's relationship. One of Caitlin's closest friends, Caitlin had confided in her that she wasn't happy with John anymore. She wasn't happy with what he was doing with his life. She wasn't attracted to him anymore. She wasn't happy with what he was doing with his life. She wasn't attracted to him

anymore. Another friend told them that Caitlin had expressed doubts about her engagement, but that she'd felt stuck in the relationship, that she'd been with John for too long to break up with him. So even though Caitlin and John's imminent plans were to move to Colorado, that same friend said that Caitlin wasn't sure about even going with him there. Caitlin had expressed to her that she was very upset about John spending money that they don't have. You know, they're supposed to be saving for this trip to Colorado. And John had just blown $100 on raffle tickets. Caitlin was studying for an art degree. She had big dreams. And it sounded like John was spending his time, let's just say, less aspirational, short of any real focus or goals. Caitlin was doing things with her life.

She was going to go places and John wasn't. Another witness came forward with information that added to the picture of John and Caitlin's relationship in the days leading up to her disappearance and death. This time, a more unexpected witness, the manager of a nearby credit union. John's mom, Karen, and Caitlin went to GE Credit Union to apply for a credit card for Caitlin. And as they're talking, you know, Karen looked at Caitlin and, you know, she was joking and everything. And she said, if I co-sign on this credit card for talking, you know, Karen looked at Caitlin and, you know, she was joking and everything. And she said, if I co-sign on this credit card for you, you have to take my son with you to Colorado. And, you know, Karen laughed at it. The lady at the bank laughed at it.

But Caitlin didn't laugh. Caitlin was very serious. When Paul heard the story, he asked the woman from the bank why this moment struck her as so significant. She goes, I fill out credit card applications every day for young people. Most young kids can't wait to get that piece of plastic, that credit card. But he goes, Caitlin was the exact opposite. This credit card was not her idea. To add to that, records showed that just two days before Caitlin disappeared,

she had gone back to that same credit union, this time on her own, and asked to have her application canceled. So, you know, Scott, hearing about these different scenarios, you know, this woman who is not happy maybe feels stuck in the relationship. How does that factor in into what investigators need to do or can do with this information? Well, I mean, the information just raises a big red flag for sure. A mere coincidence or something more troubling. I mean, this is a significant piece of intel. Who in Caitlin's family, who in her circle of friends could give investigators the truest

picture of where the relationship Anastasia may have been heading? And again, too, though, you know, just on the flip side, and to be fair, lots of people feel stuck in relationships, lots of people end relationships, and obviously no harm comes to them, and the other partner doesn't even consider that. But again, where something has happened to the other partner and they didn't know these things before, certainly her fiance didn't provide these details to the police. These are pieces that can start to form the basis of what might end up being a circumstantial case. And that's exactly how Paul and Allie viewed it.

They started to feel more and more confident that these pieces were being formed into a picture that they had now a main suspect in their sights, but they weren't sure that they had enough to bring him to justice. So Paul sat down with one of the chief assistant prosecutors in the office to talk about the case. And the prosecutor then remembered one detail of the initial investigation that had always bothered him, the two boys. When Caitlin's body was found in 2013, two boys come forward. They had been to the Sacred Heart Festival that night, and they come home, and the one kid's staying overnight with the other kid, and they decide, you know what, let's go to a party.

Around 1.30 a.m., they snuck out of the house and headed to a nearby street to wait for a friend to pick them up, which is the same street that John Carter lived on. And as they stood out there, a car had approached them. And they said, the headlights go out. So they think right away, OK, we're going to get busted. It's Fairfield Police Department. But it was not a police car. It was a red Ford Focus, the exact type of car that John Carter drove. Well, they see the red Ford Focus pull into the driveway of John Carter's house. Someone gets out of the car and goes into the house.

They said they were in there between five and 15 minutes. The person comes back out and gets back into the red Ford Focus. The car drove away into the night, headed right in the direction of Caitlin Markham's townhouse. In February of 2023, investigator Paul Newton and criminalist Allie Weissman finally felt ready to make their move. They called Caitlin Markham's fiance, John Carter, in to again ask some questions about the night she disappeared. During the interview with Carter, they asked if he'd be willing to take a polygraph test. He agreed. The results? He didn't fail it. He tanked it. You know how it goes. From zero to positive three, you're being truthful. Zero to negative three, you're being deceitful.

He tested negative 25. Besides his first and last name, he probably lied about everything else. While not admissible in court, as we've said many times before, a good polygraph exam can be a great investigative tool. And whether the exam's results were accurate or not, we can't say. But they'd already caught John in a number of lies. For example, he insisted that he'd sent Caitlyn a text saying good morning the day after she disappeared. But phone records showed no sign of that message. In fact, to the contrary, phone records show that John's phone became inactive just after midnight on the night of her disappearance,

and Caitlin's went dark just two minutes later. Another incredibly haunting piece of information came to light from Caitlin's next-door neighbor. The night Caitlin went missing, she said she and her husband were celebrating their anniversary. They went to Olive Garden. Then they come home and spent the rest of the evening at the house. Around 9.30, they get home. The husband goes, hey, look, you care if I run over to the Sacred Heart Festival? And wife goes, no, go ahead.

I'm tired. I'm going to stay here at the house. Sometime after that, the young lady who's sitting at her house, she has her laptop. She's watching TV. She dozes off. And she's awoken by a loud thud. And then she hears a female screaming coming from Caitlin's townhouse, yell, stop it, stop it. Then another thud.

Then she doesn't hear anything else. The neighbor had been interviewed by the police during the search for Caitlin, but she had not come forward with the story. Because she said, and I quote, I don't want to think that I heard Caitlin being murdered. You know, I find it so heartbreaking that someone may have heard Caitlin's final moments. And obviously, it's clearly unfortunate that the neighbor couldn't come forward sooner with that information because that may have gotten police to take Caitlin's disappearance more seriously.

And it perhaps may have led police to look more seriously at John Carter too because that description, the sudden heated argument, a thud, and then silence, that is sounding more like either an attack or a domestic dispute that turned deadly. After John failed the polygraph, Paul decided it was time to execute a search warrant. So on February 17th, now 2023, the police searched John's mother's home, where he had been living at the time of Caitlin's death. And there, they found a trove of poems and writings that John had written of Caitlin's death. And there, they found a trove of poems and writings that John had written after Caitlin's death. And when Allie read the poem,

she felt like she was getting a glimpse into John's deeply troubled psyche. I definitely, you know, thought that he was battling with some inner demons. If you read the poems, it definitely sounds as if, you know, there's two people talking within one person. Written words like, deep down, I love her. You want to kill her, but I love her. She must die. I can't kill her.

Yes, you can. Conflicted Ennis Seeger for sure. When I interviewed John that last time in February, John told me in the interview that he writes what he knows. So if he writes what he knows and he's writing these poems, that's some pretty dark poems. They also found some disturbing pieces of writing on the back of the door in Carter's room. Verbatim, it says, I slit your wrist with the key to your heart. From what the anthropologist told us, Caitlin's left wrist was cut. So that one was very telling to me because it was consistent with what ended up happening to Caitlin. The forensic anthropologist found evidence of cuts on Caitlin's left wrist. To Allie, it was as if Carter was grappling with the truth of what he had done to Caitlin through his poems.

And with all of this now new evidence, Paul and the team at the prosecutor's office decided that they did have enough now to press charges. So in March of 2023, 12 years after Caitlin had disappeared and had been found murdered, the case was taken to the grand jury. It was monumental because we were bringing everybody in and presenting a case that some people thought it would never happen. And being a part of that, it's kind of scary. It truly is. You're presenting all your information you have to 12 people in the grand jury,

and you're not quite sure how this is going to come out. And look, when you have been building a case like this, you know, that has had this very long investigative period for sometimes years like here, and it's time to finally get in in front of the grand jury, it is stressful, obviously, to say the least, because you don't want to fail the victim and their family now that you have the opportunity, at least the hope, to move forward with the case. The grand jury returned an indictment charging John Carter with two counts of murder,

each carrying a potential sentence of 15 years to life. They began to gear up for trial. We had 88 witnesses subpoenaed and I had one binder at minimum per witness with everything that they would testify to, any exhibits we may show them. We were ready to go. Ready to go.

And then, just two weeks before the trial was set to begin, they got unexpected news. Carter had been offered a plea deal by the prosecutor, and he had accepted. I was totally against the plea bargain. I wanted to go to trial. I wanted everything to come out. The prosecutor felt that this plea offer was the best move overall. He says, Paul, if we go to trial and he's found guilty, he never at any time has to say, yes, I did this. He has to walk into a Butler County common police court, walk up to the judge in front of God and everybody and go,

I'm guilty. He calls the death of Caitlin Markham. And he has to say judge in front of God and everybody and go, I'm guilty. He calls the death of Caitlin Markham. And he has to say that in open court. In June of 2024, after years of denials and lies, John Carter walked into a Butler County courtroom and pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter for what he did to Caitlin Markham. Carter claimed that Caitlin died accidentally during a misdemeanor assault. He received a sentence of three years, the maximum possible, with this deal. Thinking back to the beginning of this case, how for so long the family was left without answers, knowing almost nothing about what had happened to Caitlin,

you do have to wonder, was there any sense of resolution for her family and especially her father, Dave Markham? He doesn't get resolved. I told Dave this the first time I met him. I said, Dave, I can't give you closure. You're not going to get closure in this case. It's not going to happen. No matter what happens, at the end of the day, you have lost your daughter.

I can't give you closure. But what I'm going to try to give you and give Caitlin too is her day in court. Paul and Allie may always feel that Carter didn't receive the full measure of justice that he deserved, but they should absolutely feel proud of what they achieved, the answers they gave to Caitlin's family about who it was that criminally took her life. Based on the evidence, this is what they believe happened that night. So Caitlin leaves work and she goes home. John comes over and John invites, you know, a friend to talk about Colorado. Or the friend that was over, you know, says like Caitlin wasn't acting like her normal bubbly self. Something was going on.

He leaves. And I think, you know, maybe there was an argument that started over Colorado or the way Caitlin had been feeling about John and it escalated and John snapped. Unfortunately, you know, even though the neighbor didn't want to believe it, I believe she heard Caitlin's last moments, you know, just based on the fact that, you know, there's no blunt force trauma, there's no signs of bullet wounds, there's no signs of, you know, knife mark except for the wrist. I believe she was most likely strangled or suffocated. And afterwards, John panicked. He went to the party to establish an alibi, and he moved the body later that night.

One of the only mysteries left in Allie's mind was the significance of the cut marks on Caitlin's left wrist. Did he do it as a sign like he had wrote on the door? Isolate your wrist with the key to your heart. Was it supposed to be something meaningful like that? Was it that he tried to dismember her and then realized it was too difficult? Was it something else? It's really hard to say. One thing that is absolutely certain is that this case had a real profound effect on both Allie and Paul. There was a reason why I got that phone call.

There's a reason why things happen the way they happen. They just don't happen. There's a reason why that day I got a phone call from a girl who I was dealing with in another case, maybe the Stars, or maybe it was just, it's Caitlin's time. But there was a reason why I got that phone call that day. For investigators and prosecutors, when a homicide case is finally solved, there is a sense of closure. But as you reflect, you're reminded of the sacrifices, the countless hours, sleepless nights, focusing on every single detail. When that hard work pays off, there is a brief moment of relief where you can breathe a little easier. But even in those moments of triumph, there is an underlying sorrow. You can't escape the reality of what brought you here

in the first place. A life was lost, a family forever changed. While they may find some measure of peace, they will never truly be whole again. Caitlin Markham was murdered brutally and there were no answers for her family for over a decade. The years that were given as part of the plea are surprising and likely disappointing to many. Without having the file and without having spoken with the prosecutors, we can only speculate. And I have to believe that it had to do with what prosecutors saw as the strength of their evidence and the uncertainty whether they would be able to prevail at trial. And while not a lot of years to be sure, the plea at least gave some finality to the process and ensured that Carter would admit he was the one that had taken Caitlin's life, giving her family that much at least.

But something Caitlin got for sure was two investigators who made it their mission to get answers for her family. And that's exactly what all families deserve. We thought that we would end today's episode with Allie's reflection on where she believes Caitlin would be if she was still alive today. I truly believe Caitlin would be doing something with her art. I think she would have had a family and been married and, you know, living a really good and happy life. She deserved that. I think that's the hardest thing about this case for me was

when I first heard about it, I was 14. You know, I was younger than she was. And now with it being solved, I'm older than she was ever able to be. And I look at where I was at that age and how much life I've lived in those few short years since I was 21 and how much I've accomplished that she was never able to accomplish.

And I'm sure you know this, you dig into these cases and you get to know these people on different levels and you feel like you knew them. And going through all this was very difficult. You know, I would often talk to Caitlin at night. I work a second job and on my way there, I drive down Big Cedar Road

because that's the route it takes me. And every time I pass where Caitlin's remains were found, I turn my radio off and I just talk to her. And I feel like I knew her and I wish I could have known her. Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder. Anatomy of Murder is an AudioChuck original. Produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media. Ashley Flowers is executive producer. This episode was written and produced by Tess Ryan.

Researched by Kate Cooper. Edited by Ali Sirwa and Philjean Grande. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?