January 5, 2026 • 29 mins
This episode recounts the tragic disappearance and eventual murder of Katelyn Markham, a talented art student from Ohio who vanished in 2011. While her fiancé, John Carter, initially claimed innocence and maintained a specific alibi, investigators eventually uncovered deceptive polygraph results and inconsistencies in his digital records. After her skeletal remains were discovered in a remote Indiana woods two years later, the case transitioned into a homicide investigation that spanned over a decade. The narrative details how circumstantial evidence and persistent detective work finally led to a breakthrough in 2023. Ultimately, the source describes the legal resolution of the case, in which Carter pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and received a prison sentence. Through this account, the author highlights the long-term emotional toll on the victim's family and the difficult pursuit of justice.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, let's unpack this. Today. We are opening up a
file that spans nearly thirteen years. It's an investigation that
started with a really frantic missing person's report and ended
just a few months ago with a quiet, yet well
a profoundly meaningful plea deal.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
It's an incredible story.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
It is. We are diving deep into the sources concerning
the case of Caitlin Markham, a name that, for a
long time in Fairfield, Ohio, became synonymous with the anguish
of delayed justice.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
And what's so fascinating about this deep dive is that
it's less about solving a brand new mystery and more
about tracing the just the relentless persistence of investigators for
over a decade. They had to rely almost entirely on
this web of circumstantial evidence. We're talking digital footprints, discarded testimonies,
behavioral inconsistencies, all to.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Just systematically dismantle this alibi that the perpetrator had.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Built, perfectly constructed alibi, an alibi he managed to maintain
for twelve years.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
That's our mission today. We want to understand the vibrant
life that was cut so tragically short, analyzed the what
turned out to be a flawed initial investigation, and then
trace the specific technical efforts that finally led to some accountability.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, we're basically going to see how the slow, steady
accumulation of proof can in the end override the immediate
lack of a smoking gun exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
And to start, we really have to appreciate the person
at the heart of all this. In the summer of
twenty eleven, Caitlin was twenty one years old. She was dynamic,
so busy, and just truly on the cusp of starting
her independent adult life.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
And what a trajectory she was on. Our sources pain
her as incredibly ambitious. She was just weeks away from
graduating with a graphic arts degree from the Art Institute
of Ohio, Cincinnati.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Just weeks wow.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, and she was known for having this bold, free
spirited personality and possessed, i mean, just extraordinary artistic talent.
Her schedule alone tells you everything about her drive.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
It really does. She's balancing her demanding coursework and internship,
and she held two part time jobs, two jobs including
one at David's Bridle. I mean, this was a young
woman sprinting toward her future, and that future included some
pretty big.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Plans, huge plans, moving to Colorado right after graduation with
her high school sweetheart, John Carter. They had been dating
for five years, engaged for about a year at that point,
since August twenty ten.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
That ambition and vibrancy, it's just such crucial context because
it makes what happened next so shocking. It just sets
up this stark contrast. Caitlin's personal symbol was the butterfly,
which represented that free spirit, and it became so tragically
synonymous with her memory. You'd see it on pins worn
by her family, Dave and Sherry Markham, her adoptive parents
(02:40):
she lived with in Fairfield, that you know, quiet Cincinnati suburb, And.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
If you were just reading the local newspaper headlines back
in twenty eleven, this would have looked like the perfect
young couple about to launch their lives together.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
But if we dig into the material, particularly what was
provided by her closest friends, you start to see the
cracks in the foundation, and that brings us to.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
The core conflict. Okay, let's get into that hidden conflict.
Because friends shared a very critical insight Caitlin was profoundly
unhappy in the relationship.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
And it wasn't just like minor friction. They cited specific
major issues that were actively driving Caitlin away from Carter.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
What kind of issues are we talking about here?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well, the reasons were intensely personal and they all centered
on Carter's lifestyle, specifically heavy drug use and a deeply
concerning pornography addiction.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Right, And these weren't things Caitlin was willing to tolerate
long term, not at all.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Friends made it clear her attraction to him was diminishing fast.
For someone like Caitlin who was so focused on building
this positive, ambitious future, these issues, they represented a fundamental incompatibility.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
This detail is paramount. I mean, it immediately changes the
entire investigative landscape. You're not investigating the sudden disappearance of
a stable, happy fiance. You're looking at a relationship that
was potentially on the very edge of implosion.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Precisely, and the sources confirm this wasn't really a secret.
A witness cited a heated argument between Caitlin and Carter
at a festival the day before she vanished.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
The day before.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yes, that detail suggests that Caitlin was likely preparing to
end the engagement, and that decision you know, it raises
the emotional stakes immensely for the person who's about to
be left behind.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Absolutely. So if this wasn't a sudden, spontaneous crime, but
maybe a final desperate act to prevent a breakup, the
motive changes entirely.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
It does.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Okay, let's establish the precise timeline for that final night.
We're talking August thirteenth, leading into the fourteenth Tony eleven.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Caitlyn spent that Saturday the thirteenth at her townhouse on
Dorscher Drive with Carter and a mutual friend, Brad von Bargin.
Carter later stated that von Bargin left the townhouse around
eleven PM, and.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
This is the moment where Carter's version of events, the
alibi he would sick to for over a decade, begins.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
It is he claimed he stayed a little bit longer
and then left Caitlyn alone at midnight. He then stated
that he got back to his mother's home where he
lived sometime between one one thirty two am on Sunday, August.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Fourteenth, and to really cement this alibi, he claimed that
once he was home, he watched several episodes of his
favorite TV shows and eventually fell asleep around four am.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Right the next morning, he sends her a standard good
morning text, which of course goes unanswered. By seven pm
that evening, after she missed a shift at work, he
calls nine to one one, having used a spare key
to get into her townhouse.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
And that nine one one call, that's the official starting
pistar for the police response. But what he reported finding
is what immediately threw this whole investigation off balance, which leads.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Us right into Part two, the paradoxical disappearance and the
early inconsistencies.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
When you look at the scene, Carter described, it just
defied all logic for a voluntary departure. Her car was
parked right outside.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Her purse and wallet with three hundred dollars cash and
her driver's license were sitting on the bed, Her keys
were inside the house.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
A person with Caitlin's meticulous schedule and drive, someone juggling
multiple jobs, you just don't leave your wallet, keys and
cash behind.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Never It's completely inconsistent with her character. And then there's
the heartbreaking detail of her dog being unsecured inside. For
someone who loved animals, someone preparing to move across the
country with her fiance, abandoning her dog like that. It's
just unthinkable.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So we have a scene that is just screaming. She
did not leave willingly. The crucial piece of physical evidence
that was missing was her cell phone.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Right and there was no sign of forced entry or
any obvious physical struggle, which initially complicated things for the police.
It suggested she might have known whoever entered the house,
or maybe.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Or that she hadn't left at all, that she was
confronted inside by someone she knew exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
And this is where the investigation hit its first major
turning point, though I don't think it was fully recognized
at the time. A neighbor came forward with a deeply,
deeply chilling piece of information.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
What did they hear?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
They reported hearing a woman's voice coming from the shared
wall screaming, stop it, stop it on the very night
Caitlin vanished.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
That is the sound of a struggle. That is a
crime in progress.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
It absolutely is, and it directly contradicted the appearance of
an orderly scene and Carter's claim of a totally uneventful evening.
That singular detail should have instantly elevated this case from
a high risk missing person to a probable homicide.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Scene regardless of the lack of obvious damage.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Regardless, and the failure to immediately secure and process that
townhouse as a full crime scene became a point of
significant criticism for the Fairfield Police later on.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Okay, so let's tarn the focus on a. John Carter.
With this contradictory evidence from the neighbor, his alibi instantly
comes under intense scrutiny.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
And investigators quickly found massive holes in his narrative even
in those very first weeks.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
So what was the first hole they found?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
The first and simplest was the denial of any conflict.
Carter claimed no arguments, but Caitlin's best friend, Michelle Feist
immediately confirmed a heated financial fight had happened just two
days prior.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
So his claim of calm is instantly discredited immediately.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Then you start following the digital breadcrumbs, and his whole
timeline just disintegrates. Caitlin's phone went inactive around twelve four
or five am on the fourteenth, And this wasn't just
the battery dying. This means the GPS was disabled, the
phone was turned off, or the battery was physically removed.
It was intentionally silenced.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
And Carter's phone.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Now here's the technological kicker. Carter's phone went inactive shortly
before Caitlin's, and it stayed off for a staggering fifteen hours.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Fifteen hours, fifteen hours.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Think about that timeframe for a young adult in twenty eleven,
especially one who was supposedly worried sick about his fiance,
having his phone completely dark for the entire period her
disappearance happened and was reported. That is highly unusual.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
It suggests coordination, or at the very least, a planned
attempt to eliminate any electronic records that could place him
somewhere specific during those critical early morning hours.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
That's the core interpretation. Absolute. If you're going home to
watch TV, your phone might be on the charger or
on silent, but it should still be active, still pinging towers.
A total fifteen hour blackout strongly suggests a deliberate effort
to disappear from the.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Digital matter right when it mattered most exactly, and the
physical evidence about his location that was just as problematic.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Wasn't it and highly technical? Two teenagers reported seeing two
cars pull up to Carter's mother's home where he lived
around one thirty am.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
The exact window. He claimed he arrives home.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Alone the exact window, and crucially, they arrived with their
headlights off, coming from the direction of Caitlin's townhouse.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
That detail is explosive. With two cars, why the cloak
of darkness if this was just an innocent arrival home.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
This is where prosecutors later connected the dots. They theorized
Carter was either getting helped to quickly establish a brief
witnessed alibi, or more sinisterly, he was collaborating with someone
to manage the logistics of disposing of the body.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
A minute. If the prosecution theorized he went out to
set an alibi by meeting friends, why did he also
need to manufacture the TV watching story that allegedly lasted
until four am. Doesn't one alibi usually cover the other.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
That's an excellent point, and it really speaks to the
messy nature of a hastily constructed cover up. The police
theory was that he needed multiple layers of denial. The
siting of the two cars, that accounts for the time
period between say twelve four or five am and about
two am, the immediate aftermath, and securing assistance right the
TV timeline However, that was meant to cover the later window,
(10:33):
the two am to four am window, which would have
been necessary for traveling thirty miles to an obscure dumping
ground in Indiana and getting back.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
So he was trying to prove he was physically home
at one thirty am and digitally active at four am
to cover the entire disposal window.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
That's it, exactly, and the ultimate proof of fabrication came
from his own digital activity about that TV watching Alibi,
What do they find? Carter claimed he watched specific TV
episodes when he got home to establish his timeline. Investigators
discovered that on the day he reported her missing, hours
after he supposedly watched them, Carter searched online for the
synopsis of those exact shows.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Oh, that is devastating. If you genuinely spend two hours
watching a show, you do not need to look up
a plot summary hours later.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
It's the forensic proof that his narrative was pure fiction.
He was trying to construct believable details to plug gaps
in a timeline that had massive blackouts.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
He needed to prove he was awake in doing something
specific during that two point zero to four am window, and.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
The search history proved he was instead researching the very
alibi he was about to give to the police.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
And then there are the three polygraphs he voluntarily submitted
to them pretty early on.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Yes, three separate tests, all indicating deception when he denied
any involvement in Caitlin's disappearance or death.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
No, we always say this, but polygraph results are generally
inadmissible in court.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
That's right. They measure stress responses, not truth, which makes
them scientifically un reliable in a legal context.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
So if they're inadmissible, why are they so important to
the investigation itself?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
For two reasons. First, for the investigators, three failures serve
as a huge flashing signal pointing them in a specific direction.
It reinforces their mounting circumstantial evidence and tells them where
to focus their resources on him.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Second, they are powerful interrogation tools. Police can use the
failed results even if they can't be used in court,
to apply pressure, break down a subject's composure, or guide
questioning towards specific moments of deception.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
And in Carter's case, the three failures just heavily reinforced
the belief that his entire story was fabricated completely, So
suspicion was incredibly high, the alibi was crumbling under digital scrutiny,
and yet for nearly two years, Caitlin was just gone.
The sheer agony for the Markham family during that period
must have been just unbearable.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
It was that agonizing period of uncertainty that defines the
transition into Part three, The Grim Discovery. There were these
massive exhaustive searches, both by local volunteers and professional organizations
like Texas Equal Search.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
In the reward money kept climbing.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
It climbed dramatically to fifty thousand dollars. And Dave Markham,
Caitlin's father, he repeatedly expressed this deep gut wrenching feeling
he had from the moment Carter called him to say
she was missing. He just said it did not feel right.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
The hope for finding her alive finally ended on April seven,
twenty thirteen. That's twenty months after she vanished.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yes, the Grim Discovery was made by a couple who
were out scavenging for scrap metal in a remote wooded
area off Big Cedar Road in Cedar Grove, Indiana.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
And that location, I mean it's thirty miles from Fairfield,
that's immediately suspicious just because of its distance and how
obscure it is.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
That location is the next crucial thread linking the crime
back to the perpetrator. Sources confirmed that Big Cedar Road
was a long route that was highly familiar to John Carter.
It was near his family's farm in Indiana, so.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
The disposal site wasn't random, not at all.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
It suggested the killer had intimate knowledge of the area,
maybe access to private land or routes where they would
be unlikely to be seen. It narrowed the focus significantly
to someone with strong Indiana.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Connections, and the forensic details of the discovery were just horrifying.
They really speak volumes about the killer's coldness and methods.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Her remains were skeletal, stattered by animals, and partially covered
in trash. But the most macarb detail was that her
skull was found knotted inside a plastic grocery bag. Wow,
that detail about the grocery bag, it just speaks volumes
about the effort to conceal identity and maybe contain evidence.
Forensic anthropologists were able to examine the skeletal remains despite
the decomposition, and what do they find? They noted distinct
(14:42):
sharp forced trauma to her left wrist, specifically three to
four insized wounds.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Okay, what does sharp force trauma on the wrist typically
indicate in a case like this, especially since the cause
of death was undetermined.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Well, we couldn't know the definitive cause of death because
of the body's condition, But in sized wounds on the
wrist are frequently interpreted by forensics experts as defensive wounds.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Defensive wounds, Yes.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
They occur when a victim raises their hands or arms
to shield their head or throat from an attack with
a sharp object like a knife. It's powerful evidence of
a physical, violent struggle right before or during the fatal blow.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
And the forensic team also concluded that the body had
decomposed somewhere else before being dumped at that specific location.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yes, and that points to a two step process, the
murder and the immediate concealment, followed by a planned secondary
disposal hours or maybe even days later, and.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
The logistical challenge of moving a body keeping it hidden
long enough to arrange a thirty mile drive to Indiana.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
It strongly suggests the killer had assistance or at least
a vehicle and a window of opportunity, which connects right
back to that suspicious two car siding with the headlights off.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Right. So the Franklin County corner Wanda Lee, officially ruled
the death a homicide, confirming what everyone suspected. But the
challenges were really only beginning.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
They were even with a body, they were still dealing
with an undetermined cause of death and a crime scene
the townhouse that hadn't been secured as a homicide scene initially.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
That's just the persistent challenge of a cold case that's
rooted in circumstantial evidence.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
And there was the macabre finding of additional remains in
the same area in twenty fourteen, suggesting the disposal was
either incomplete or maybe the killer returned. Compounding all of this,
the Fairfield Police faced heavy public criticism because of internal divisions.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Internal divisions, What does that mean in the context of
a missing person's case.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
It means the police force itself was split. Sources indicate
that some officers suspected Carter from day one, largely because
of the neighbor's scream and the strange scene.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
But others were hesitant.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Others were hesitant to focus exclusively on the fiance without
direct physical evidence. In this fragmentation, it meant that leeds
dried up, crucial early processing might have been missed, and
the case just it effectively languid. It gathered dust for
another seven years. The momentum was completely lost.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
A seven agonizing years later and we enter Part four,
the Cold Case Revival, which finally finally set the stage
for some accountability.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
The case was officially transferred and it got the fresh
eyes and resources it so desperately needed. The Butler County
Prosecutor's Office took over the cold case files in twenty twenty, and.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
They brought in a new lead investigator.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
They did Paul Newton, and he understood that the key
to breaking this case wasn't going to be new technology,
but revisiting old interviews. He began the grueling process of
re interviewing all the key witnesses.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
It's amazing what time can do.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
It is often after years of silence and maybe guilt,
people are more willing to share details they might have
held back at first, or maybe they just remember things
more clearly with distance.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
And in those reinterviews, investigator Newton uncovered some profoundly unsettling
details that added this whole new psychological layer to the
evidence he did.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
A coworker recalled Car mentioning prior to Caitlyn's disappearance that
he was writing a book. Okay, a book specifically about
people disappearing.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
That is just undeniably eerie foreshadowing. I mean, you can't
prosecute someone for writing a dark story. But when you
layer that over his drug use, the impending breakup, and
the digital fabrication.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
It suggests the profound preoccupation with the concept of evading
detection and vanishing. Prosecutors viewed that detail as highly significant.
It might not prove intent to murder, but it proves
preoccupation with the mechanism of disappearance. It strongly hinted at
a potential mindset prone to thinking about cover ups and deception.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
So investigator Newton then synthesized all the existing inconsistencies, the
phone records, the polygraphs, the neighbor's scream, the two car sighting,
and he developed a definitive, step by step theory of
the crime that linked all those circumstantial threads together.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Let's lay out that theory. It pousits that Carter killed
Caitlin much earlier in the night than he claimed, likely
during that violent altercation, suggests did by the neighbor's scream
of stop it, stop it, and.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
That would have happened between midnight and twelve forty five am,
when the phones.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Went dark exactly, So once the immediate violence was over,
Carter had a body and a huge logistical.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Problem, so he made the crucial decision to seek assistance.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
That's the theory. He drove away from the townhouse, potentially
meeting friends at his mother's home around one thirty am
to establish an immediate brief alibi, which is why those
teenagers saw the two cars arrive with their headlights off.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
So the purpose of that movement wasn't just to be seen,
but maybe to quickly secure a vehicle or extra hands
for the disposal.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Trip precisely, and the time difference between the one thirty
am sighting and his claimed four am sleep time is
critical because that's the disposal window.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
It is. Newton theorized that during that window Carter would
have disposed of the body in Indiana, and then upon returning,
he briefly activated his phone or computer.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
To start playing those specific TV episodes, the.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Very ones He searched the synopsis four hours.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Later to create a digital lie that supported his claim
of being home and relaxed until four am.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
This comprehensive theory just completely negates Carter's initial account. It
turns every single coincidence he cited, the phone blackout, the
strange car sighting, the TV search into a calculated step
in a cover up.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
And the strength of this circumstantial case is how tightly
woven the threads were. It's not one piece of evidence.
It's the fact that every single lie he told that
no arguments the TV watching the phone silence was independently
disproven by a separate piece of objective evidence.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
But maybe the most disturbing evidence of his internal conflict
and intent came from a search warrant at Carter's mother's home.
It's hard to imagine something more revealing than finding a
typed poem detailing his inner turmoil.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
This poem it offered a terrifying window into the alleged
perpetrator's mind. It became a huge component of the prosecution's
argument for intent. It read, in part, deep down, I
love her. You want to kill her, but I love her.
She must die. I can't kill her, Yes he can.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Wow. If a prosecutor is trying to establish premeditation or
at a minimum, intent to cause serious harm resulting in death,
which is required for a murder charge. How does a
piece of evidence like this poem shift the legal battle?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
It's explosive for establishing men's reea or the guilty mind.
A defense lawyer might argue that the killing was a
purely spontaneous tragic accident, a sudden loss of control during
a fight. The poem, however, demonstrates that the idea of
killing her was not spontaneous. It was an active, ongoing
internal debate. It shows intent wrestling with affection the moment
(21:37):
he physically acted. That poem provides evidence that he chose
the path of violence over the path of love, confirming
the violent impulse with something he had actively contemplated beforehand.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
That makes the circumstantial case so much stronger. But despite
this compelling web, we have to reiterate the fundamental challenges
the prosecution still faced. If they were going to.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Trial, the challenge was immense. They had no direct physical evidence,
no DNA linking Carter to Caitlin's body. Remember the body
was decomposed and scattered.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
No murder weapon was ever recovered.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
And most legally problematic, the cause of death was officially
undetermined due to the decomposition. In a capital murder trial,
the defense only needs to create reasonable doubt on one
of these points.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
So even with the poem, the synopsis, and the phone data,
a good defense lawyer could argue that the two cars
sighting was just friends dropping them off. The phone blackout
was a coincidence, and since they can't prove how she died,
they can't prove he caused the death. That's a huge
risk for the prosecution.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
It's the ultimate risk, and this is why, after twelve
years of investigation, the eventual resolution came via negotiation, which
brings us to part V accountability without full truth.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
After all that work, after the cold case revival, Carter
was finally indicted in March twenty twenty three on two
murder counts, one for purposely causing her death and another
as approximate result of felonious assault.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
He was arrested, a huge relief for the family, and
posted a significant one million dollar bond which allowed him
to live freely while awaiting trial.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
The indictment was the culmination of years of work, but
as the trial loomed, the legal maneuvers began Carter's defense
filed a notice of alibi, sticking to his original discredited story.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Which suggested they plan to argue that the circumstantial evidence
was just insufficient to place him at the scene when
the crime occurred.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
But then, just weeks before jerry selection in June twenty
twenty four, the entire dynamic changed.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Carter accepted a plea deal. He played guilty to involuntary manslaughter.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Okay, we need to pause and really define what that means.
What is the legal distinction between the murder charges he
faced and the involuntary manslaughter charge he accepted.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
It's crucial. The original murder counts require the prosecution to
prove that Carter acted with intent to kill or intent
to commit a felonious assault that resulted in debt. Involuntary manslaughter, however,
is a much lesser charge. It means he admitted that
he caused Caitlin's death through physical violence and by force,
but it removes the critical element of intent to kill.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
So by taking the plea, Carter admitted he was responsible
for her death through violence, but he avoided admitting that
he planned it or meant for her.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
To die precisely. It was a strategic trade off. Carter
secured a conviction on a charge with a much lower
maximum penalty. In exchange, the prosecution secured a guaranteed conviction,
avoiding the high risk of a reasonable doubt acquittal at
trial because of the lack of direct physical evidence.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
They traded the full pursuit of truth for the certainty
of accountability they did. The sentencing was in July twenty
twenty four. Judge Daniel Haughhee sentenced Carter, who was thirty
six by then, to the maximum three years in prison
allowed under the terms of the involuntary manslaughter conviction, and.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
The judge's reasoning focused heavily on the moral aspects, even
if the legal outcome was predetermined by the plea deal.
Judge haw He cited Carter's complete lack of remorse and
its failure to aid Caitlin or confess immediately.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Right by maintaining his life for twelve years, he amplified
the family's suffering exponentially.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Absolutely, and while three years might sound shockingly light after
a thirteen year ordeal, it was the maximum penalty the
judge could legally impose under the terms of that plea.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
The family's emotional response, which was captured in court statements.
It just illustrates the impossible choice that plea deal presented.
Dave Markham read an incredibly emotional letter saying, not a
day goes by that I don't think of Caitlin.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
His words perfectly encapsulated the family's conflict. They recognized the
plea was a form of closure, avoiding the painful spectacle
and risk of an acquittal at a trial that lacked
a murder weapon or DNA.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
But they were profoundly angry that Carter had lived freely
for twelve years and received only three years in prison
for destroying their family.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
It was a painful acceptance of imperfect justice.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
And adding to that pain is just the deafening silence.
Carter offered absolutely no explanation for how or why he
killed her. He declined to speak at the sentencing, maintaining
that crucial layer of mystery around the events of August thirteenth,
twenty eleven.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
And this silence leaves several critical questions unanswered, questions that
the legal process just decided to bypass in the pursuit
of certainty. Was the argument truly spontaneous escalating fatally because
of the stress over the breakup and his addictions.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Why the specific sharp force trauma to the wrist was
a weapon ready or was it grabbed impulsively?
Speaker 2 (26:23):
And maybe the most pressing systemic question, did anyone else
help him dispose of the body? Did they confirm the
involvement suggested by the two cars sighting?
Speaker 1 (26:32):
If that two car sighting was legitimate, the involuntary manslaughter
plea fails to hold that other person or people accountable
for concealing a corpse or aiding in the disposal of evidence.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Absolutely, the plea only secured an admission of guilt from
Carter regarding Caitlin's death. It did not require him to
reveal the full scope of the cover up, nor did
it allow the prosecution to pursue charges against potential accomplices.
The partial truth was accepted as sufficient to close the case.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
So as we bring Deep Dive to a close, we
see a story that defined thirteen years of local tragedy
and persistent police work. It just demonstrates that the pains
taking process of gathering circumstantial evidence, the phone data, the synopsis,
the testimony of a neighbor proved to be the undoing
of a fabricated alibi.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, the core takeaway is powerful. The long anguish of
the Markham family ended not with these explosive trial revelations
and forensic proof of the murder, but with a quiet,
calculated legal maneuvering the guilty plea finally and definitively ruined
the once solid alibi that Carter had maintained for over
a decade.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Carter began serving his three year sentence in twenty twenty four,
but even this small measure of accountability is already facing scrutiny.
Sources note that as of late twenty twenty five, he
has already sought early release after only about fourteen months now.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
The hearings have been delayed into twenty twenty six. But
this ongoing battle just means the family's piece is continually interrupted.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
It really does.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
It underscores the ongoing pain and the lack of finality
that even a conveyiction can sometimes bring. Caitlin's legacy, however,
is lasting. It's marked by that butterfly symbol, her vibrant art,
and the tireless advocacy of her father, Dave Markham. He's
now actively pushing for changes to statutes of limitations, particularly
in concealed corpse cases. To ensure that other families don't
(28:18):
face the same agonizing delay.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
He stole a lot from her and from us. That's
Dave Markham's powerful, enduring quote. It sums up the devastating
impact of not just the initial violence, but the years
of calculated deceit that followed.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
And that leads us to the final provocation for you
to consider. When a legal system, faced with an imperfect case,
relies on plea deals to secure imperfect justice, how much
value does that system truly place on the communities and
the family's need for the full truth and explanation, the
definitive how and the why. When faced with the risk
of an acquittal at trial, the
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Plea guaranteed a conviction, but it left Caitlyn Markham's story
forever partially obscured by the killer's calculated, agonizing silence.
Okay, let's unpack this. Today. We are opening up a
file that spans nearly thirteen years. It's an investigation that
started with a really frantic missing person's report and ended
just a few months ago with a quiet, yet well
a profoundly meaningful plea deal.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
It's an incredible story.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
It is. We are diving deep into the sources concerning
the case of Caitlin Markham, a name that, for a
long time in Fairfield, Ohio, became synonymous with the anguish
of delayed justice.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
And what's so fascinating about this deep dive is that
it's less about solving a brand new mystery and more
about tracing the just the relentless persistence of investigators for
over a decade. They had to rely almost entirely on
this web of circumstantial evidence. We're talking digital footprints, discarded testimonies,
behavioral inconsistencies, all to.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Just systematically dismantle this alibi that the perpetrator had.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Built, perfectly constructed alibi, an alibi he managed to maintain
for twelve years.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
That's our mission today. We want to understand the vibrant
life that was cut so tragically short, analyzed the what
turned out to be a flawed initial investigation, and then
trace the specific technical efforts that finally led to some accountability.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, we're basically going to see how the slow, steady
accumulation of proof can in the end override the immediate
lack of a smoking gun exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
And to start, we really have to appreciate the person
at the heart of all this. In the summer of
twenty eleven, Caitlin was twenty one years old. She was dynamic,
so busy, and just truly on the cusp of starting
her independent adult life.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
And what a trajectory she was on. Our sources pain
her as incredibly ambitious. She was just weeks away from
graduating with a graphic arts degree from the Art Institute
of Ohio, Cincinnati.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Just weeks wow.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, and she was known for having this bold, free
spirited personality and possessed, i mean, just extraordinary artistic talent.
Her schedule alone tells you everything about her drive.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
It really does. She's balancing her demanding coursework and internship,
and she held two part time jobs, two jobs including
one at David's Bridle. I mean, this was a young
woman sprinting toward her future, and that future included some
pretty big.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Plans, huge plans, moving to Colorado right after graduation with
her high school sweetheart, John Carter. They had been dating
for five years, engaged for about a year at that point,
since August twenty ten.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
That ambition and vibrancy, it's just such crucial context because
it makes what happened next so shocking. It just sets
up this stark contrast. Caitlin's personal symbol was the butterfly,
which represented that free spirit, and it became so tragically
synonymous with her memory. You'd see it on pins worn
by her family, Dave and Sherry Markham, her adoptive parents
(02:40):
she lived with in Fairfield, that you know, quiet Cincinnati suburb, And.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
If you were just reading the local newspaper headlines back
in twenty eleven, this would have looked like the perfect
young couple about to launch their lives together.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
But if we dig into the material, particularly what was
provided by her closest friends, you start to see the
cracks in the foundation, and that brings us to.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
The core conflict. Okay, let's get into that hidden conflict.
Because friends shared a very critical insight Caitlin was profoundly
unhappy in the relationship.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
And it wasn't just like minor friction. They cited specific
major issues that were actively driving Caitlin away from Carter.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
What kind of issues are we talking about here?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well, the reasons were intensely personal and they all centered
on Carter's lifestyle, specifically heavy drug use and a deeply
concerning pornography addiction.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Right, And these weren't things Caitlin was willing to tolerate
long term, not at all.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Friends made it clear her attraction to him was diminishing fast.
For someone like Caitlin who was so focused on building
this positive, ambitious future, these issues, they represented a fundamental incompatibility.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
This detail is paramount. I mean, it immediately changes the
entire investigative landscape. You're not investigating the sudden disappearance of
a stable, happy fiance. You're looking at a relationship that
was potentially on the very edge of implosion.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Precisely, and the sources confirm this wasn't really a secret.
A witness cited a heated argument between Caitlin and Carter
at a festival the day before she vanished.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
The day before.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yes, that detail suggests that Caitlin was likely preparing to
end the engagement, and that decision you know, it raises
the emotional stakes immensely for the person who's about to
be left behind.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Absolutely. So if this wasn't a sudden, spontaneous crime, but
maybe a final desperate act to prevent a breakup, the
motive changes entirely.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
It does.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Okay, let's establish the precise timeline for that final night.
We're talking August thirteenth, leading into the fourteenth Tony eleven.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Caitlyn spent that Saturday the thirteenth at her townhouse on
Dorscher Drive with Carter and a mutual friend, Brad von Bargin.
Carter later stated that von Bargin left the townhouse around
eleven PM, and.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
This is the moment where Carter's version of events, the
alibi he would sick to for over a decade, begins.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
It is he claimed he stayed a little bit longer
and then left Caitlyn alone at midnight. He then stated
that he got back to his mother's home where he
lived sometime between one one thirty two am on Sunday, August.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Fourteenth, and to really cement this alibi, he claimed that
once he was home, he watched several episodes of his
favorite TV shows and eventually fell asleep around four am.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Right the next morning, he sends her a standard good
morning text, which of course goes unanswered. By seven pm
that evening, after she missed a shift at work, he
calls nine to one one, having used a spare key
to get into her townhouse.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
And that nine one one call, that's the official starting
pistar for the police response. But what he reported finding
is what immediately threw this whole investigation off balance, which leads.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Us right into Part two, the paradoxical disappearance and the
early inconsistencies.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
When you look at the scene, Carter described, it just
defied all logic for a voluntary departure. Her car was
parked right outside.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Her purse and wallet with three hundred dollars cash and
her driver's license were sitting on the bed, Her keys
were inside the house.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
A person with Caitlin's meticulous schedule and drive, someone juggling
multiple jobs, you just don't leave your wallet, keys and
cash behind.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Never It's completely inconsistent with her character. And then there's
the heartbreaking detail of her dog being unsecured inside. For
someone who loved animals, someone preparing to move across the
country with her fiance, abandoning her dog like that. It's
just unthinkable.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So we have a scene that is just screaming. She
did not leave willingly. The crucial piece of physical evidence
that was missing was her cell phone.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Right and there was no sign of forced entry or
any obvious physical struggle, which initially complicated things for the police.
It suggested she might have known whoever entered the house,
or maybe.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Or that she hadn't left at all, that she was
confronted inside by someone she knew exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
And this is where the investigation hit its first major
turning point, though I don't think it was fully recognized
at the time. A neighbor came forward with a deeply,
deeply chilling piece of information.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
What did they hear?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
They reported hearing a woman's voice coming from the shared
wall screaming, stop it, stop it on the very night
Caitlin vanished.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
That is the sound of a struggle. That is a
crime in progress.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
It absolutely is, and it directly contradicted the appearance of
an orderly scene and Carter's claim of a totally uneventful evening.
That singular detail should have instantly elevated this case from
a high risk missing person to a probable homicide.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Scene regardless of the lack of obvious damage.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Regardless, and the failure to immediately secure and process that
townhouse as a full crime scene became a point of
significant criticism for the Fairfield Police later on.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Okay, so let's tarn the focus on a. John Carter.
With this contradictory evidence from the neighbor, his alibi instantly
comes under intense scrutiny.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
And investigators quickly found massive holes in his narrative even
in those very first weeks.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
So what was the first hole they found?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
The first and simplest was the denial of any conflict.
Carter claimed no arguments, but Caitlin's best friend, Michelle Feist
immediately confirmed a heated financial fight had happened just two
days prior.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
So his claim of calm is instantly discredited immediately.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Then you start following the digital breadcrumbs, and his whole
timeline just disintegrates. Caitlin's phone went inactive around twelve four
or five am on the fourteenth, And this wasn't just
the battery dying. This means the GPS was disabled, the
phone was turned off, or the battery was physically removed.
It was intentionally silenced.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
And Carter's phone.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Now here's the technological kicker. Carter's phone went inactive shortly
before Caitlin's, and it stayed off for a staggering fifteen hours.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Fifteen hours, fifteen hours.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Think about that timeframe for a young adult in twenty eleven,
especially one who was supposedly worried sick about his fiance,
having his phone completely dark for the entire period her
disappearance happened and was reported. That is highly unusual.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
It suggests coordination, or at the very least, a planned
attempt to eliminate any electronic records that could place him
somewhere specific during those critical early morning hours.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
That's the core interpretation. Absolute. If you're going home to
watch TV, your phone might be on the charger or
on silent, but it should still be active, still pinging towers.
A total fifteen hour blackout strongly suggests a deliberate effort
to disappear from the.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Digital matter right when it mattered most exactly, and the
physical evidence about his location that was just as problematic.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Wasn't it and highly technical? Two teenagers reported seeing two
cars pull up to Carter's mother's home where he lived
around one thirty am.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
The exact window. He claimed he arrives home.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Alone the exact window, and crucially, they arrived with their
headlights off, coming from the direction of Caitlin's townhouse.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
That detail is explosive. With two cars, why the cloak
of darkness if this was just an innocent arrival home.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
This is where prosecutors later connected the dots. They theorized
Carter was either getting helped to quickly establish a brief
witnessed alibi, or more sinisterly, he was collaborating with someone
to manage the logistics of disposing of the body.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
A minute. If the prosecution theorized he went out to
set an alibi by meeting friends, why did he also
need to manufacture the TV watching story that allegedly lasted
until four am. Doesn't one alibi usually cover the other.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
That's an excellent point, and it really speaks to the
messy nature of a hastily constructed cover up. The police
theory was that he needed multiple layers of denial. The
siting of the two cars, that accounts for the time
period between say twelve four or five am and about
two am, the immediate aftermath, and securing assistance right the
TV timeline However, that was meant to cover the later window,
(10:33):
the two am to four am window, which would have
been necessary for traveling thirty miles to an obscure dumping
ground in Indiana and getting back.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
So he was trying to prove he was physically home
at one thirty am and digitally active at four am
to cover the entire disposal window.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
That's it, exactly, and the ultimate proof of fabrication came
from his own digital activity about that TV watching Alibi,
What do they find? Carter claimed he watched specific TV
episodes when he got home to establish his timeline. Investigators
discovered that on the day he reported her missing, hours
after he supposedly watched them, Carter searched online for the
synopsis of those exact shows.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Oh, that is devastating. If you genuinely spend two hours
watching a show, you do not need to look up
a plot summary hours later.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
It's the forensic proof that his narrative was pure fiction.
He was trying to construct believable details to plug gaps
in a timeline that had massive blackouts.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
He needed to prove he was awake in doing something
specific during that two point zero to four am window, and.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
The search history proved he was instead researching the very
alibi he was about to give to the police.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
And then there are the three polygraphs he voluntarily submitted
to them pretty early on.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Yes, three separate tests, all indicating deception when he denied
any involvement in Caitlin's disappearance or death.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
No, we always say this, but polygraph results are generally
inadmissible in court.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
That's right. They measure stress responses, not truth, which makes
them scientifically un reliable in a legal context.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
So if they're inadmissible, why are they so important to
the investigation itself?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
For two reasons. First, for the investigators, three failures serve
as a huge flashing signal pointing them in a specific direction.
It reinforces their mounting circumstantial evidence and tells them where
to focus their resources on him.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Second, they are powerful interrogation tools. Police can use the
failed results even if they can't be used in court,
to apply pressure, break down a subject's composure, or guide
questioning towards specific moments of deception.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
And in Carter's case, the three failures just heavily reinforced
the belief that his entire story was fabricated completely, So
suspicion was incredibly high, the alibi was crumbling under digital scrutiny,
and yet for nearly two years, Caitlin was just gone.
The sheer agony for the Markham family during that period
must have been just unbearable.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
It was that agonizing period of uncertainty that defines the
transition into Part three, The Grim Discovery. There were these
massive exhaustive searches, both by local volunteers and professional organizations
like Texas Equal Search.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
In the reward money kept climbing.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
It climbed dramatically to fifty thousand dollars. And Dave Markham,
Caitlin's father, he repeatedly expressed this deep gut wrenching feeling
he had from the moment Carter called him to say
she was missing. He just said it did not feel right.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
The hope for finding her alive finally ended on April seven,
twenty thirteen. That's twenty months after she vanished.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yes, the Grim Discovery was made by a couple who
were out scavenging for scrap metal in a remote wooded
area off Big Cedar Road in Cedar Grove, Indiana.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
And that location, I mean it's thirty miles from Fairfield,
that's immediately suspicious just because of its distance and how
obscure it is.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
That location is the next crucial thread linking the crime
back to the perpetrator. Sources confirmed that Big Cedar Road
was a long route that was highly familiar to John Carter.
It was near his family's farm in Indiana, so.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
The disposal site wasn't random, not at all.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
It suggested the killer had intimate knowledge of the area,
maybe access to private land or routes where they would
be unlikely to be seen. It narrowed the focus significantly
to someone with strong Indiana.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Connections, and the forensic details of the discovery were just horrifying.
They really speak volumes about the killer's coldness and methods.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Her remains were skeletal, stattered by animals, and partially covered
in trash. But the most macarb detail was that her
skull was found knotted inside a plastic grocery bag. Wow,
that detail about the grocery bag, it just speaks volumes
about the effort to conceal identity and maybe contain evidence.
Forensic anthropologists were able to examine the skeletal remains despite
the decomposition, and what do they find? They noted distinct
(14:42):
sharp forced trauma to her left wrist, specifically three to
four insized wounds.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Okay, what does sharp force trauma on the wrist typically
indicate in a case like this, especially since the cause
of death was undetermined.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Well, we couldn't know the definitive cause of death because
of the body's condition, But in sized wounds on the
wrist are frequently interpreted by forensics experts as defensive wounds.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Defensive wounds, Yes.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
They occur when a victim raises their hands or arms
to shield their head or throat from an attack with
a sharp object like a knife. It's powerful evidence of
a physical, violent struggle right before or during the fatal blow.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
And the forensic team also concluded that the body had
decomposed somewhere else before being dumped at that specific location.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yes, and that points to a two step process, the
murder and the immediate concealment, followed by a planned secondary
disposal hours or maybe even days later, and.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
The logistical challenge of moving a body keeping it hidden
long enough to arrange a thirty mile drive to Indiana.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
It strongly suggests the killer had assistance or at least
a vehicle and a window of opportunity, which connects right
back to that suspicious two car siding with the headlights off.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Right. So the Franklin County corner Wanda Lee, officially ruled
the death a homicide, confirming what everyone suspected. But the
challenges were really only beginning.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
They were even with a body, they were still dealing
with an undetermined cause of death and a crime scene
the townhouse that hadn't been secured as a homicide scene initially.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
That's just the persistent challenge of a cold case that's
rooted in circumstantial evidence.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
And there was the macabre finding of additional remains in
the same area in twenty fourteen, suggesting the disposal was
either incomplete or maybe the killer returned. Compounding all of this,
the Fairfield Police faced heavy public criticism because of internal divisions.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Internal divisions, What does that mean in the context of
a missing person's case.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
It means the police force itself was split. Sources indicate
that some officers suspected Carter from day one, largely because
of the neighbor's scream and the strange scene.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
But others were hesitant.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Others were hesitant to focus exclusively on the fiance without
direct physical evidence. In this fragmentation, it meant that leeds
dried up, crucial early processing might have been missed, and
the case just it effectively languid. It gathered dust for
another seven years. The momentum was completely lost.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
A seven agonizing years later and we enter Part four,
the Cold Case Revival, which finally finally set the stage
for some accountability.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
The case was officially transferred and it got the fresh
eyes and resources it so desperately needed. The Butler County
Prosecutor's Office took over the cold case files in twenty twenty, and.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
They brought in a new lead investigator.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
They did Paul Newton, and he understood that the key
to breaking this case wasn't going to be new technology,
but revisiting old interviews. He began the grueling process of
re interviewing all the key witnesses.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
It's amazing what time can do.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
It is often after years of silence and maybe guilt,
people are more willing to share details they might have
held back at first, or maybe they just remember things
more clearly with distance.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
And in those reinterviews, investigator Newton uncovered some profoundly unsettling
details that added this whole new psychological layer to the
evidence he did.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
A coworker recalled Car mentioning prior to Caitlyn's disappearance that
he was writing a book. Okay, a book specifically about
people disappearing.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
That is just undeniably eerie foreshadowing. I mean, you can't
prosecute someone for writing a dark story. But when you
layer that over his drug use, the impending breakup, and
the digital fabrication.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
It suggests the profound preoccupation with the concept of evading
detection and vanishing. Prosecutors viewed that detail as highly significant.
It might not prove intent to murder, but it proves
preoccupation with the mechanism of disappearance. It strongly hinted at
a potential mindset prone to thinking about cover ups and deception.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
So investigator Newton then synthesized all the existing inconsistencies, the
phone records, the polygraphs, the neighbor's scream, the two car sighting,
and he developed a definitive, step by step theory of
the crime that linked all those circumstantial threads together.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Let's lay out that theory. It pousits that Carter killed
Caitlin much earlier in the night than he claimed, likely
during that violent altercation, suggests did by the neighbor's scream
of stop it, stop it, and.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
That would have happened between midnight and twelve forty five am,
when the phones.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Went dark exactly, So once the immediate violence was over,
Carter had a body and a huge logistical.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Problem, so he made the crucial decision to seek assistance.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
That's the theory. He drove away from the townhouse, potentially
meeting friends at his mother's home around one thirty am
to establish an immediate brief alibi, which is why those
teenagers saw the two cars arrive with their headlights off.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
So the purpose of that movement wasn't just to be seen,
but maybe to quickly secure a vehicle or extra hands
for the disposal.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Trip precisely, and the time difference between the one thirty
am sighting and his claimed four am sleep time is
critical because that's the disposal window.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
It is. Newton theorized that during that window Carter would
have disposed of the body in Indiana, and then upon returning,
he briefly activated his phone or computer.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
To start playing those specific TV episodes, the.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Very ones He searched the synopsis four hours.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Later to create a digital lie that supported his claim
of being home and relaxed until four am.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
This comprehensive theory just completely negates Carter's initial account. It
turns every single coincidence he cited, the phone blackout, the
strange car sighting, the TV search into a calculated step
in a cover up.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
And the strength of this circumstantial case is how tightly
woven the threads were. It's not one piece of evidence.
It's the fact that every single lie he told that
no arguments the TV watching the phone silence was independently
disproven by a separate piece of objective evidence.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
But maybe the most disturbing evidence of his internal conflict
and intent came from a search warrant at Carter's mother's home.
It's hard to imagine something more revealing than finding a
typed poem detailing his inner turmoil.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
This poem it offered a terrifying window into the alleged
perpetrator's mind. It became a huge component of the prosecution's
argument for intent. It read, in part, deep down, I
love her. You want to kill her, but I love her.
She must die. I can't kill her, Yes he can.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Wow. If a prosecutor is trying to establish premeditation or
at a minimum, intent to cause serious harm resulting in death,
which is required for a murder charge. How does a
piece of evidence like this poem shift the legal battle?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
It's explosive for establishing men's reea or the guilty mind.
A defense lawyer might argue that the killing was a
purely spontaneous tragic accident, a sudden loss of control during
a fight. The poem, however, demonstrates that the idea of
killing her was not spontaneous. It was an active, ongoing
internal debate. It shows intent wrestling with affection the moment
(21:37):
he physically acted. That poem provides evidence that he chose
the path of violence over the path of love, confirming
the violent impulse with something he had actively contemplated beforehand.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
That makes the circumstantial case so much stronger. But despite
this compelling web, we have to reiterate the fundamental challenges
the prosecution still faced. If they were going to.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Trial, the challenge was immense. They had no direct physical evidence,
no DNA linking Carter to Caitlin's body. Remember the body
was decomposed and scattered.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
No murder weapon was ever recovered.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
And most legally problematic, the cause of death was officially
undetermined due to the decomposition. In a capital murder trial,
the defense only needs to create reasonable doubt on one
of these points.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
So even with the poem, the synopsis, and the phone data,
a good defense lawyer could argue that the two cars
sighting was just friends dropping them off. The phone blackout
was a coincidence, and since they can't prove how she died,
they can't prove he caused the death. That's a huge
risk for the prosecution.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
It's the ultimate risk, and this is why, after twelve
years of investigation, the eventual resolution came via negotiation, which
brings us to part V accountability without full truth.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
After all that work, after the cold case revival, Carter
was finally indicted in March twenty twenty three on two
murder counts, one for purposely causing her death and another
as approximate result of felonious assault.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
He was arrested, a huge relief for the family, and
posted a significant one million dollar bond which allowed him
to live freely while awaiting trial.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
The indictment was the culmination of years of work, but
as the trial loomed, the legal maneuvers began Carter's defense
filed a notice of alibi, sticking to his original discredited story.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Which suggested they plan to argue that the circumstantial evidence
was just insufficient to place him at the scene when
the crime occurred.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
But then, just weeks before jerry selection in June twenty
twenty four, the entire dynamic changed.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Carter accepted a plea deal. He played guilty to involuntary manslaughter.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Okay, we need to pause and really define what that means.
What is the legal distinction between the murder charges he
faced and the involuntary manslaughter charge he accepted.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
It's crucial. The original murder counts require the prosecution to
prove that Carter acted with intent to kill or intent
to commit a felonious assault that resulted in debt. Involuntary manslaughter, however,
is a much lesser charge. It means he admitted that
he caused Caitlin's death through physical violence and by force,
but it removes the critical element of intent to kill.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
So by taking the plea, Carter admitted he was responsible
for her death through violence, but he avoided admitting that
he planned it or meant for her.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
To die precisely. It was a strategic trade off. Carter
secured a conviction on a charge with a much lower
maximum penalty. In exchange, the prosecution secured a guaranteed conviction,
avoiding the high risk of a reasonable doubt acquittal at
trial because of the lack of direct physical evidence.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
They traded the full pursuit of truth for the certainty
of accountability they did. The sentencing was in July twenty
twenty four. Judge Daniel Haughhee sentenced Carter, who was thirty
six by then, to the maximum three years in prison
allowed under the terms of the involuntary manslaughter conviction, and.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
The judge's reasoning focused heavily on the moral aspects, even
if the legal outcome was predetermined by the plea deal.
Judge haw He cited Carter's complete lack of remorse and
its failure to aid Caitlin or confess immediately.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Right by maintaining his life for twelve years, he amplified
the family's suffering exponentially.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Absolutely, and while three years might sound shockingly light after
a thirteen year ordeal, it was the maximum penalty the
judge could legally impose under the terms of that plea.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
The family's emotional response, which was captured in court statements.
It just illustrates the impossible choice that plea deal presented.
Dave Markham read an incredibly emotional letter saying, not a
day goes by that I don't think of Caitlin.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
His words perfectly encapsulated the family's conflict. They recognized the
plea was a form of closure, avoiding the painful spectacle
and risk of an acquittal at a trial that lacked
a murder weapon or DNA.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
But they were profoundly angry that Carter had lived freely
for twelve years and received only three years in prison
for destroying their family.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
It was a painful acceptance of imperfect justice.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
And adding to that pain is just the deafening silence.
Carter offered absolutely no explanation for how or why he
killed her. He declined to speak at the sentencing, maintaining
that crucial layer of mystery around the events of August thirteenth,
twenty eleven.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
And this silence leaves several critical questions unanswered, questions that
the legal process just decided to bypass in the pursuit
of certainty. Was the argument truly spontaneous escalating fatally because
of the stress over the breakup and his addictions.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Why the specific sharp force trauma to the wrist was
a weapon ready or was it grabbed impulsively?
Speaker 2 (26:23):
And maybe the most pressing systemic question, did anyone else
help him dispose of the body? Did they confirm the
involvement suggested by the two cars sighting?
Speaker 1 (26:32):
If that two car sighting was legitimate, the involuntary manslaughter
plea fails to hold that other person or people accountable
for concealing a corpse or aiding in the disposal of evidence.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Absolutely, the plea only secured an admission of guilt from
Carter regarding Caitlin's death. It did not require him to
reveal the full scope of the cover up, nor did
it allow the prosecution to pursue charges against potential accomplices.
The partial truth was accepted as sufficient to close the case.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
So as we bring Deep Dive to a close, we
see a story that defined thirteen years of local tragedy
and persistent police work. It just demonstrates that the pains
taking process of gathering circumstantial evidence, the phone data, the synopsis,
the testimony of a neighbor proved to be the undoing
of a fabricated alibi.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, the core takeaway is powerful. The long anguish of
the Markham family ended not with these explosive trial revelations
and forensic proof of the murder, but with a quiet,
calculated legal maneuvering the guilty plea finally and definitively ruined
the once solid alibi that Carter had maintained for over
a decade.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Carter began serving his three year sentence in twenty twenty four,
but even this small measure of accountability is already facing scrutiny.
Sources note that as of late twenty twenty five, he
has already sought early release after only about fourteen months now.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
The hearings have been delayed into twenty twenty six. But
this ongoing battle just means the family's piece is continually interrupted.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
It really does.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
It underscores the ongoing pain and the lack of finality
that even a conveyiction can sometimes bring. Caitlin's legacy, however,
is lasting. It's marked by that butterfly symbol, her vibrant art,
and the tireless advocacy of her father, Dave Markham. He's
now actively pushing for changes to statutes of limitations, particularly
in concealed corpse cases. To ensure that other families don't
(28:18):
face the same agonizing delay.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
He stole a lot from her and from us. That's
Dave Markham's powerful, enduring quote. It sums up the devastating
impact of not just the initial violence, but the years
of calculated deceit that followed.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
And that leads us to the final provocation for you
to consider. When a legal system, faced with an imperfect case,
relies on plea deals to secure imperfect justice, how much
value does that system truly place on the communities and
the family's need for the full truth and explanation, the
definitive how and the why. When faced with the risk
of an acquittal at trial, the
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Plea guaranteed a conviction, but it left Caitlyn Markham's story
forever partially obscured by the killer's calculated, agonizing silence.
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