A Cold Case Solved: Katelyn Markham

[Music] 21-year-old Caitlyn Markham lived in Fairfield Indiana [Music] described as a little eccentric and very creative thoughtful and an allaround sweet [Music] person she was a talented artist and had gravitated towards that since childhood you could often find her with a paintbrush in her hair looking for something to create in 2011 she was a graphic art student at the Art Institute of Ohio Cincinnati and in her spare time she worked in a local Bridal Shop she and her fiance John Carter had been together for about 6 years engaged for one and had recently been making plans to move in together in Colorado he too was very ay and taught glass blowing believe it or not I actually started here by delivering a pizza oh yeah and I asked to volunteer my time which became an internship I did for about 9 months wow and this is my career I love it wow it's beautiful in August 2011 Caitlyn was just days off of her 22 birthday weeks away from graduating months away from moving away and getting married there was a lot of big and exciting things on the horizon for her so when she stopped responding to everyone abruptly and her phone was going straight to voicemail it was unexpected to say the least her fianceé John went to her house after a day of no one hearing anything he found her car parked outside but she would normally be at the bridal shop at this time there was no sign of anyone inside no sign of a forced entry either and nothing looked out of place or broken her cell phone appeared to be missing too and her dog was just roaming around alone which was obviously alarming at 8:00 p. m. on August 14th John called 911 hi my name is John Carter I am calling um I I know that you're not supposed to report a a missing person after before 24 hours um but uh my my fi is missing I can't find her anywhere okay where did you see her last um I saw her at like 12:00 last night she stays in a house by herself um so she I'm just I'm really nervous her car is still there where was she M at midnight last night when you left she was at her house she was going to bed she wasn't going out to do anything so she would she would have been in her in her bed and I mean I've been with her for six years I she's not deceiving you know she doesn't okay and you guys didn't have an argument or anything not at all the only thing that's not there is her cell phone which is positive but she's not answering it so and then Sacred Heart Festival is going on right up the street and there's a lot of questionable people there and it just kind of I'm sorry he explained that he had last seen her around midnight the night before as he was leaving her townhouse he lived with his mom just a 5-minute walkway John said they exchanged a few texts but a few hours later Caitlin had stopped responding and didn't reply to his good morning text either the police met with him and the first thing they noticed was some scratches on his neck but he explained that it was just from his electric razor but then admitted he wasn't actually sure but it was nothing nefarious he said he was losing sleep over his fiance being missing and just wanted her home safe and well she was very close to her father Dave and her younger sister Aly and neither of them had any clue either Dave said she's positive outgoing and motivated she had a plan and she was sticking to it she would never just leave she's just too pragmatic detective said after intense scrutiny John was not a person of interest at that time and their attention was moving elsewhere well Lisa you can see Fairfield Police and Fire had their mobile command center out here about a 100 people have gathered off Patterson Boulevard they all received several of these with Caitlyn markham's picture and information they've searched the woods the streets all looking for the 22-year-old Caitlyn is the love of my life I've been with her for 6 years we've been engaged for a year today would be exactly a year um today's also her birthday instead of celebrating Caitlyn markham's birthday family friends and police are searching for the 22-year-old five more they divided into groups and hit Fairfield streets by foot by car and even by ATV just go unseen without telling anybody is extremely out of the ordinary I just really would like to communicate that this is not um part of who Caitlyn is friends say kyn is a responsible young woman a student at the Art Institute of Cincinnati also an employee there Kaylin was last seen by her fiance John Carter Saturday night he says he left her townhouse around 11:30 about an hour later he received a text from her Caitlyn sent me a picture of her and that was the last message I got when Caitlyn never showed up with her other job at David's Bridal people be to worry I kept texting her no response no response a call her no response I have nothing in mind she would never just leave she's too pragmatic she would never just take off and go somewhere I'm terrified I'm absolutely terrified I I just want to find Caitlyn and and celebrate her birthday with her and go to Red Lobster like she was planning that's all I want to do police say there's no evidence of Foul Play reporting live tonight in Fairfield Karen Johnson news5 gosh her fiance sounds so desperate Karen anything missing from Caitlyn's home nope just her and her cell phone which police have not been able to trace but one other thing I wanted to mention they believe she was last seen wearing a gray shirt so that's something people out here are also looking for a gray shirt her phone had so far not been found so they focused on data from her phone provider texts were sent from her phone to John's from 11:04 p.

m. to 11:36 p. m.

but just as he had said there was nothing after that at 12:06 a. m. her phone had either been turned off or the battery had died or the SIM card was removed that was where everything went cold police interviewed the manager of GE Credit Union in Fairfield who said Caitlyn had come into the Union 3 weeks before her disappearance July 20th 2011 she was with Jon's mother Caitlyn had told the manager she wanted to apply for a credit card and John's mom would co-sign for it the manager said John's mom joked I'll coign for the Visa but you've got to take my son to Colorado with you to which the manager turned to Caitlyn laughing and said I guess you're stuck now the manager remembered that Caitlyn didn't laugh back she seemed somber and more serious it felt like perhaps the credit card was not her idea that being said the card was not set up in the end and nothing else came of it another person also told police he was with Caitlyn and John on the night of of August the 13th and that the three of them had smoked some weed and quote discussed Caitlyn and John's plans to move to Colorado within the next few months the witness said Caitlyn was on her laptop working on schoolwork she didn't move from the couch and in his words seemed distant and not her typical bubbly s he left her townhouse at around 10:45 p.

m. leaving her and John alone he said it was the last time he had seen Caitlyn and nothing really stood out apart from her being a bit quiet he also didn't recall seeing any scratches on John at that time but he admitted it was also entirely possible he wasn't even paying attention enough to remember polygraph tests are of course not admissible and cannot be used in court but the witness did offer to take one which indicated he gave truthful responses in the overnight hours between August 13th and August 14th a couple of teenagers who had snuck out told police they had seen two cars driving from the direction of Caitlyn's house with their headlights off but they see seem to be the only people to have seen anything and apart from that the police really had nothing to go off Caitlyn Markham the woman missing from Fairfield Mar 21-year-old Caitlyn Mar family and friends are all searching for a missing 22 was about to graduate in disappeared in August of 2011 spent days searching for Markham in the woods in and around her Fairfield home so many unanswered questions about The Disappearance before long Caitlyn's case was national news the case had really shocked Fairfield it was a community of about just over 40,000 residents and violent crime was very rare vigils rallies TV appeals and volunteers were out all hours of the day and night it was a huge search and a huge mystery even a national mounted search group from Texas conducted dozens of searches combing through the local parks waterways old train tracks and areas in neighboring counties Caitlyn's family were making every plea they could and with regular faces in the local media as was her fianceé John I keep believing that if she is somewhere in the worst case scenario that she fights her way out I keep wanting to believe that because she's strong I know she's strong there were most definitely still some eyes on JN but he was adamant he had nothing to do with anything Fairfield Police didn't take much when they searched Caitlyn's fiance's house tonight he says he gave consent he's doing whatever he can to help even though he feels as if the entire Community is pointing fingers and placing blame on him I I I really did not want this to get this far I really wish that she would have been home by now you know I I didn't I wish this could have been just a party for her being home instead of what it is you know people are going to say what they're going to say you can't stop them 23-year-old John Carter may not be able to stop the comment but he can certainly make sure that people know how he feels I'm not going to acknowledge um the ridiculous things that people are saying because I know I mean nobody's going to know about me they don't know me and uh I know me I know that I would never hurt Caitlyn ever in a million years Fairfield Police have little evidence and no suspects that's pretty much it there's there's nothing and it's horrific Carter felt the animosity towards him when he was confronted while passing out flyers I guess he didn't know who I was and he was just like I heard the boyfriend did it and just I was just like I'm I'm the boyfriend I would never do anything to hurt her and while the days without Caitlyn continue he finds comfort in her cat ramsy at her artwork a short while later it was Caitlyn's 22nd birthday but there was no time to focus on how sad that day felt it was still all hands on deck at this point to the frustration of Caitlyn's family the Fairfield Police were still saying there was no indication of Foul Play Jon spoke very fondly of their relationship and said he missed his fiance more than he could express but a friend of Caitlyn's said that maybe all was not as it had seemed Caitlyn had confided in her that she was feeling unhappy and trapped and had been for about 6 months she said that she was sick of his heavy drug use and watching pornography things were so bad she admitted she was no longer longer attracted to him or interested in intimacy and she was uncomfortable with the kinds of sexual activity Jon asked her to engage in he could be jealous and possessive when Caitlyn even spoke to other men the more everyone started sharing stories it was becoming clearer that Caitlyn had well and truly reached the end of the line with their relationship and wanted to move on Jon wasn't changing and she couldn't justify his possessive and mean Behavior anymore she also felt uncomfortable with Jon's mom being so involved with everything and felt things like the credit card was her way of trying to force them to stay together despite her knowing she wasn't [Music] happy was it possible she was feeling so trapped she had just wanted to escape no way her family said not without telling someone something or asking for help Caitlyn was a problem solver and shared everything the same friend also remembered that just days after she was reported missing JN had referred to her in the past tense several times which had stood out as odd but in June 2012 things briefly shifted and their attention was on someone else 26-year-old ger prit K had lived right across from Catlin he was accused of sexually assaulting a Miami University student and police wondered if he might have had something to do with Caitlyn's case but after an intense look at him and his whereabouts on that night Fairfield Police ruled him out and they were back at square one it had now been almost 2 years since she had vanished everyone was still keeping her name alive in the media the reward for information was still growing and John Carter and Caitlyn's family seemed very [Music] United but on April 7th 2013 and tonight a major Discovery and one of the TR State's most talked about unsolved in a remote wooded area in Indiana the course of the investigation would take a turn human bones were found wrapped in a black plastic construction sheet through dental records they were able to confirm that they were the remains of Caitlyn Markham this was 30 mil away from her home authorities have identified the remains of Caitlyn Markham the woman missing from Fairfield her remains were discovered Monday in Cedar Grove Franklin County Indiana on Big Cedar Road well Clyde it's certainly not the outcome anybody here in Fairfield was hoping for and tonight friends and family of Caitlyn Markham knows she won't be coming home I was just you know digging through this little area here picking up some metal and here uh found a jabone right on the other side of that little tree right there right between them two little trees at his house Hicks provided more details about his Grizzly Discovery he described his call to police after he found Caitlyn's remains I picked it up and I said that's not no animal and I hung in a tree and went and called the cops and um you know they sent us to the DNR DNR says well what makes you so sure it's a human jaw bone and I said well it's got all its teeth and it's shaped just like mine her skull was found separately inside a tied up plastic bag there was very little soft tissue decomposition fluid or staining inside the bag the medical examiner said this indicated that her head had not decomposed in the bag but that it was placed inside after the head had already undergone significant decomposition the bones had not been buried they had been dumped with trash piled up on top there was some cutting wounds on her left wrist caused by sharp force trauma the wound was described as a v-shape incision that shaved off a layer of the bone and it was caused by an object but apart from that there was nothing to piece together what had actually happened to her although her cause of death was not able to be confirmed they could determine it was a homicide her phone was not found nearby Caitlyn's funeral could finally be held her Arts lined the walls and everyone wore bright colors many gave speeches including John we would have had our kiss we would have had our marriage we would have had our honey we would have our kid and we would have our life and we would grow old together Carter's cousin says she considers herself lucky to to have called Caitlyn family whenever I think of her I just think of this smile and this artwork and she was just a colorful human being she meant well to everybody everybody was a friend Dave said although this gave them some sort of closure he was just so sad for Caitlyn's younger sister Ally who was just 15 when her sister disappeared some days I get so consumed with Caitlyn her baby sister lost such an important role in her life he said where she had been found presented so many challenges on top of an already tough case her remains were in a different state and they did not think she was originally put there both sets of police teams needed to come together the start of 2015 began the same as the two previous years quietly and with little movement the reward for information was now sat at $75,000 but sadly with the passage of time Caitlyn's case was losing steam 3 years and the question question Still Remains who killed 22-year-old Caitlyn Mar Dave Caitlyn's father successfully lobbied the Butler County Sheriff's Office to re-examine the case and the investigation changed hands from the Fairfield Police Department to the Butler County Sheriff's Office things had slowed down to such a point Dave needed fresh eyes and a new approach he was so scared that his daughter's murder would become a cold case and he just could not face that Prospect Dave also contacted a private investigator Jay Ryan Greene and he made his way into Caitlyn and John's Inner Circle interviewing more than a dozen people five of them excluding John Carter agreed to take polygraph tests from this he narrowed down his investigation to two people he said subject one took a polygraph and failed the polygraph in Epic Proportion per the polygraph examiner a documentary call taken to soon the Caitlyn Markham story was also shown at a Springdale movie theater in the hopes of gathering New Leads towards the end of 2016 the police announced that they now had a person of interest but they did not have enough to make an arrest or name them the private investigator also shared the same view about the exact same person we now Flash Forward to 2023 12 years after Caitlyn went missing and finally the investigation started to pick up pace the police announced Ed their first [Music] arrest I do know there's a warrant for you but I'm not sure exactly what it's for so they'll be able to explain all that stuff to you when we get there a man named Jonathan palmon and he was charged with perjury whoever's investigating this now is on the right track they've got momentum and they have something that would allow a judge to sign off on a search warrant said private investigator green green said Caitlyn John and Jonathan were part of the same circle of friends and knew each other well he lived close to her too and John was his best friend in fact when John had gone to her house the morning she was reported missing the first person he had called was Jonathan prior to Jonathan palan's arrest investigators had executed search warrants on two separate properties one where he lived in 2011 the same time Caitlyn were missing and the other was where John Carter had lived at the time with his mother field man accused of lying during the course of Caitlyn markham's death investigation will now face a judge tomorrow in the meantime we're learning new details about his involvement in the case and when prosecutors say he actually committed perjury a new timeline starting to become public in the 12-year investigation Into The Disappearance and death of 21-year-old Caitlyn Markham according to the indictment on April 21st 2022 palton lied under oath court records show he was indicted almost 6 months later in October the indictment remains sealed until now Jonathan and John Carter were also close to a man named Michael [Music] Strauss a person we've spoken about before on this channel when we covered the case of Ellie White Michael Strauss pleaded guilty to stalking and murdering Laie and was sentenced to 17 years to life police had been looking at Michael especially after he made admissions that Ellie was not the first person he had killed but although there were some links between Caitlyn's case and Ellie they eventually ruled Michael Strauss [Music] out there was still one person that they kept coming back to after all this time hi my name is John Carter my my fiance is missing I I can't find her anywhere John Carter since her remains had been found John had very much kept out of the media he was now 36 years old married and a father but investigators over the last couple of years especially had gathered a lot of circumstantial evidence against him his stories had just never made sense and what he said didn't add up over the years Dave's suspicions had grown too the two cars the teens had reported seeing driving away from Caitlyn's that night were determined to be John's an unknown vehicle both his and Caitlyn's phones went dark at around the same time on the night of August the 13th 2011 and they had also discovered numerous text messages between John and Caitlyn between the hours of 8:00 p. m.

and 8:36 p. m. that had been deleted from Jon's phone and some texts he claims he sent he never actually did like his good morning text for example John had voluntarily participated in three polygraph tests all of which had showed deception one in September 2011 one in February 2014 and the final one in January 2021 during his final polygraph the experts said he specifically showed deceptive responses when asked whether he had disposed of Caitlyn's body on big Ceda Road the search warrant of his mother's home that was executed saw more than a dozen items seized this included notes on the investigation a folder containing Caitlyn's School papers an SD card and poetry about death and killing some of the writings had his name on them one of which sprad in part deep down I love her you ought to kill her but I love her she must die I can't kill her yes you can no yes how do you talk me into all these things I'm just that good but you're bad I know how do I kill you you can't you're right about what nothing they also found what they believed was the same material Caitlyn's body had been initially wrapped in and where she was found was just a short way away from a farm owned by The Carter family many witnesses had come forward to speak on Jon's volatility and aggressive nature a video of him screaming at his current wife holding their child also surfaced taking care of our daughter while you go ahead and do whatever the you want yeah you pushed a of my buttons thank you I want you to stop acting like a and when detectives put some of the evidence to him John had little reaction pointing out it was all circumstantial an odd choice of phrasing they thought despite his years of denials and pleas for his fiance's safe return there was now a lot stacked against him and although they knew it was resting on circumstantial evidence and not DNA or physical evidence they felt good about presenting it to the district attorney huh they're coming out the front he's in custody oh greatly appreciate it happy to help want the watch yeah that's to Forest breaking news right now out of County the fiance of Caitlyn Markham is now in custody and charged in her murder in March 2023 the 36-year-old was arrested at his place of work and charged with two counts of murder one count was purposely causing Caitlyn's death on or around August 13th or August 14th and the second murder count alleges he caused her death on the same dates as the approximate result of committing or attempting to commit a violent felony offense John posted a 1 million Bond and as a condition of his bond had to wear a GPS monitor Jonathan palmon was also released pending a trial John Carter pleaded not guilty at his arraignment and a trial was scheduled for June 2024 Jonathan palmton was also scheduled to appear in court charged with perjury however his charge was later dismissed the prosecution subpoenaed more than 50 people in June 2024 Caitlyn's disappearance and murder had been shrouded in mystery for more than a decade and after a decade of John denying everything he changed his play You're he did and MrCarter if we may on his behalf John Carter stipulates that he committed the offense of involuntary manslaughter consistent with Ohio Vice code 29 03.

04.