Field man accused of lying during the court during rather 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. WLWT News5’s Karen Johnson on the story again today live at the Butler County Courthouse with more. Karen.
Well, good evening, Mike. Jonathan Palmer’s indictment was just made public this morning. And according to the court documents, he lied under oath last April, Thursday, April 21st to be exact. Well, Tanya, a lot of tears and emotions as people walked outside of this movie theater tonight.
Now, with her story out there, Kaitlin’s friends and family hope this film helped solve her case. Happy birthday, Caitlyn. I love you. With tears in his eyes, Dave Markham spoke to a theater packed with people wanting to know the truth. Who killed his daughter, Caitlyn? It’s discouraging to think that 5 years have gone by. Before we get started, please take a moment to support the channel.
Subscribe, hit like, and drop a comment letting us know where you’re watching from and what the weather’s like there. It really does help more than you might think. Your support is what allows us to keep telling these stories the way they truly deserve to be told. 21-year-old Caitlyn Markham lived in Fairfield, Indiana.
People described her as a little eccentric, incredibly creative, thoughtful, and just genuinely kind. She was a talented artist and had been drawn to art since she was a child. You could often see her with paint in her hair, you know, always chasing the next idea, the next thing she wanted to create. In 2011, Caitlyn was studying graphic arts at the Art Institute of Ohio in Cincinnati.
And in her spare time, she worked at a local bridal shop. She and her fianceé, John Carter, had been together for about 6 years, engaged for one, and they had recently started planning a move to Colorado together. John was also a very creative person and taught the art of 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 of 2011, Caitlyn was just days away from her 22nd birthday, only a few weeks from graduating, and just a few months out from moving and getting married.
She had so many big exciting moments right in front of her. That’s why when she suddenly stopped responding to everyone and her phone immediately started going straight to voicemail, it was to put it lightly completely unexpected. Her fiance John drove to her house after no one had been able to reach her all day. He found her car parked outside even though by that time she was usually already at work at the bridal shop.
Inside the house there were no signs that anyone had been there and no signs of forced entry either. Nothing was overturned, nothing was broken. Her cell phone appeared to be missing and her dog was just wandering around the house alone, which was obviously a huge red flag. At 8:00 that evening on August 14th, John called 911. 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 fiance is missing. I 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 at 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. 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’s just kind of I’m sorry. John explained that the last time he saw her was around midnight when he left her townhouse.
He lived with his mom just about a 5-minute walk away. They exchanged a few text messages after that, but a couple of hours later, Caitlyn stopped responding and she didn’t even reply to his morning good morning text. Police met with John and the first thing they noticed were scratches on his neck. Jon said they were from his electric razor, but then admitted he wasn’t 100% sure.
Still, he stressed that there was nothing suspicious about it. He told officers he had barely slept because he was so worried about his fiance’s disappearance. And all he wanted was for her to come home alive and unharmed. You know, Caitlyn was very close with her father Dave and her younger sister Ally. And neither of them had any idea what could have happened.
Dave said Caitlyn was positive, open, and highly motivated. She had a clear plan for her life, and she followed it. She would never just disappear. She was far too practical for that. Detectives later said that after a thorough initial review, Jon was not considered a person of interest at that time and their focus began to shift in other directions.
You can see Fairfield Police and Fire have 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 six years. We’ve been engaged for a year. Today would be exactly a year. Um, today is 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.
To 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 Caitlyn is a responsible young woman, a student at the Art Institute of Cincinnati, also an employee there. Caitlyn was last seen by her fianceé, 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 for her other job at David’s bridal, people began to worry. I kept texting her. No response. No response. I 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 was never recovered, so investigators shifted their focus to the cell carrier data. Text messages from Caitlyn’s phone were sent to John’s phone between 11:04 and 11:36 that night. But just like he said, after that, nothing. At 12:06, her phone was either turned off, the battery died, or the SIM card was removed.
And that’s where everything just stopped. Police also spoke with a manager at the GE Credit Union in Fairfield, who said Caitlyn had come into the branch 3 weeks before she disappeared on July 20th, 2011. She wasn’t alone. She was there with J’s mother. Caitlyn told the manager she wanted to apply for a credit card, and J’s mom agreed to cosign.
The manager remembered Jon’s mom joking, “I’ll cosign for the visa, but you have to take my son with you to Colorado.” laughing. The manager turned to Caitlyn and said, “Well, looks like you’re stuck now.” But what stood out to her was that Caitlyn didn’t laugh. She looked somber, noticeably serious.
It left the impression that the credit card idea may not have even been hers. In the end, the card was never opened, and that was that. Another person told police that they had been with Caitlyn and Jon on the evening of August 13th. According to him, the three of them smoked marijuana and quote talked about Caitlyn and Jon’s plans to move to Colorado over the next few months.
He said Caitlyn was sitting on the couch with her laptop working on school assignments. She didn’t really get up and he described her as seeming distant, not as upbeat as she usually was. He left her townhouse around 10:45 that night, leaving Caitlyn and Jon alone. He said that was the last time he ever saw her. Nothing struck him as particularly suspicious except that she was quieter than usual.
He also didn’t remember seeing scratches on J’s neck at that time, though he admitted he could have simply missed them. A polygraph test, of course, isn’t admissible in court and can’t be used as evidence, but the witness agreed to take one anyway. The results indicated that he was being truthful.
During the overnight hours between August 13th and August 14th, several teenagers who had snuck out of their homes told police they saw two cars driving away from the area near Caitlyn’s home with their headlights turned off. But it appears they were the only ones who reported seeing anything like that. Other than that, investigators had very little to go on.
Caitlyn Markham, the woman missing from Fairfield. 21-year-old. Family and friends are all searching for a missing 22-year-old was about to graduate in September. 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 gained national attention. It truly shocked Fairfield, a town of just over 40,000 people where violent crime was incredibly rare. Candlelight vigils, public rallies, televised please, volunteers were out searching around the clock. It was a massive effort and at the same time a complete mystery, you know, with no clear answers anywhere.
Even a nationalmounted search and rescue team from Texas carried out dozens of search operations. Combing through local parks, bodies of water, old railroad tracks, and areas across neighboring counties, Caitlyn’s family made every possible plea for help, appearing again and again in local media. And her fiance, John, was right there, too, making the same public appeals, hoping someone somewhere might know something.
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. Eyes were still very much on John, but he continued to insist that he had absolutely nothing to do with what happened. 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 comments, 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 Ramsay and her artwork. Soon, Caitlyn’s 22nd birthday came and went, but there was no time to really sit with the pain of that day. The search was still ongoing, and everyone was all in. To her family’s deep frustration, Fairfield police continued to say there was still no clear evidence of a violent crime.
Jon spoke very lovingly about their relationship, saying he missed his fiance more than words could ever express. But one of Caitlyn’s friends came forward and said that maybe things weren’t quite as perfect as they seemed. According to her, Caitlyn had confided that she felt unhappy and trapped, and that had been going on for about 6 months.
She said she was exhausted by Jon’s heavy drug use and his constant consumption of pornography. Things had reached a point where she admitted she no longer felt attracted to him and didn’t want intimacy anymore. She was uncomfortable with certain sexual practices Jon was pressuring her to participate in, and it really weighed on her.
Jon could also be jealous and possessive, even when Caitlyn was simply talking to other men. As more people began to share their experiences and observations, it became increasingly clear that Caitlyn had reached her breaking point in the relationship and wanted to move on. Jon hadn’t changed, and she could no longer excuse his controlling and honestly rough behavior.
She was also deeply bothered by how involved Jon’s mother was in their lives. Caitlyn believed things like the credit card situation were attempts to keep them together, even though she knew deep down that she was unhappy. So the question came up, could Caitlyn have felt so cornered that she just ran away? Her family was adamant. No, they said, “Not like that.
Not without telling someone, not without asking for help.” Caitlyn had always been someone who found solutions and shared everything with the people close to her. That same friend also remembered something that really stuck with her. Just days after Caitlyn was reported missing, Jon had referred to her in the past tense several times, and that struck her as deeply unsettling.
In June of 2012, the investigation briefly shifted focus to another person. A 26-year-old man named Gerprit Kay, who lived directly across from Caitlyn, was charged with sexually assaulting a Miami University student. Police considered whether he could be connected to Caitlyn’s disappearance. But after thoroughly checking his alibi and movements that night, Fairfield police ruled him out.
And once again, the investigation landed right back at square one. Nearly 2 years had now passed since Caitlyn vanished. Her name was still being mentioned in the media. The reward for information kept growing. John Carter and Caitlyn’s family appeared to remain united, standing together in public. But on April 7th, 2013, something happened that changed everything.
Tonight, a major discovery and one of the tri-states most talked about, unsolved. In a remote wooded area of Indiana, the course of the investigation suddenly took a devastating turn. Human bones were discovered, wrapped in black construction plastic. Dental records later confirmed what everyone had been dreading.
The remains belonged to Caitlyn Markham. The location where she was found was roughly 30 miles 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 know 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 the tailbone 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 jawbone?” And I said, “Well, it’s got all its teeth, and it’s shaped just like mine.
” Her skull was found separately sealed inside a tied plastic bag. Inside that bag, there was very little soft tissue, very little decomposition fluid, and almost no staining. The medical examiner said that pointed to one unsettling conclusion. Her head hadn’t decomposed inside the bag.
It had been placed there only after a significant amount of decomposition had already occurred. The bones themselves weren’t buried. They had simply been dumped with trash thrown over them. On her left wrist, investigators found marks consistent with cuts from a sharp object. The injury was described as a V-shaped cut that had actually scraped into the bone.
Beyond that, there just wasn’t enough evidence to clearly reconstruct exactly what had happened to her. While the exact cause of death couldn’t be determined, experts were able to conclude that this was a homicide. At last, Caitlyn’s funeral could finally take place. The walls were decorated with her artwork, and everyone wore bright, colorful clothing.
Many people spoke, sharing memories, including John, who also addressed the crowd. We would have had our kiss. We would have had our marriage. We would have had our honeymoon. 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 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 that while finding Caitlyn did bring a small sense of closure, his heart absolutely broke for Caitlyn’s younger sister, Ally, who was only 15 years old when her sister disappeared.
“There are days when I just get completely lost thinking about Caitlyn,” he said. And then I think about her little sister. She lost such a huge important person in her life. The location where Caitlyn’s remains were found only added another layer of difficulty to an already complicated case.
She had been discovered in a different state, and investigators didn’t believe that was where she had originally been left. That meant two separate law enforcement agencies now had to work together to move the case forward. Early 2015 came and went, much like the two years before it, quietly, with no major breakthroughs. The reward for information climbed to $75,000, but as time passed, the case slowly began to lose momentum.
Three years had gone by, and the central question still had no answer. Who killed 22-year-old Caitlyn Markham? Caitlyn’s father, Dave, pushed hard for the Butler County Sheriff’s Office to take another look at the case. The investigation was officially transferred from the Fairfield Police Department to the Butler County Sheriff’s Office.
By that point, everything had stalled so badly that Dave was convinced the case needed fresh eyes and a new approach. He was terrified that his daughter’s murder would become a cold case, and he just couldn’t accept that. Dave also hired a private investigator named J. Ryan Green. Five of them, everyone except John Carter, agreed to take a polygraph test.
Based on those results, Green narrowed the list of potential suspects, down to two people. One subject failed the polygraph in a catastrophic way, the polygraph examiner said. Not long after that, a documentary titled Call Taken Too Soon, The Caitlyn Markham Story was released and screened at a theater in Springdale, all in hopes of generating new leads.
By the end of 2016, police announced that they did have a person of interest, but they still didn’t have enough evidence to make an arrest or publicly name that person. The private investigator reached the same conclusion and about the very same individual. Fast forward to 2023. 12 years had passed since Caitlyn disappeared and finally the investigation began to gain real momentum.
Police announced the first arrest for me. I do know there is 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. The man’s name was Jonathan Palman and he was charged with perjury. The person who’s leading this investigation now is moving in the right direction.
Private investigator Green said they’ve got momentum and there’s clearly something there, something strong enough for a judge to sign off on a search warrant. Green explained that Caitlyn, Jon, and Jonathan were all part of the same friend group and knew each other well. Jonathan lived close to Caitlyn and Jon was actually his best friend.
In fact, when Jon drove to Caitlyn’s house the morning she was officially reported missing. The very first person he called wasn’t police. It was Jonathan. Before Jonathan Palman was arrested, investigators executed search warrants at two separate properties. One was the place where Jonathan had been living back in 2011.
At the time Caitlyn disappeared. The other was the home where John Carter was living with his mother. 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, Palmer lied under oath. Court records show he was indicted almost 6 months later in October.
The indictment remained sealed until now. Jonathan and John Carter were also close with a man named Michael Strauss, someone we’ve actually talked about on this channel before when we covered the case of Ellie White. Michael Strauss pleaded guilty to stalking and murdering Ellie and was sentenced to 17 years to life in prison.
Police took a very close look at Michael, especially after he admitted that Ellie was not the first person he had killed. That confession alone raised a lot of red flags, you know. But despite some disturbing overlaps and loose connections between the Caitlyn and Ellie cases, investigators ultimately ruled Michael Strauss out as a suspect in Caitlyn’s murder.
Still, there was one other person investigators kept circling back to again and again all these years later. My name is John Carter. My my fiance is missing. I I can’t find her anywhere. John Carter. After Caitlyn’s remains were found, Jon almost completely disappeared from the public eye. By then, he was 36 years old, married, and had a child.
But over the years, and especially more recently, investigators had quietly built up a growing body of circumstantial evidence pointing in his direction. His stories never quite lined up. What he said just didn’t add up. You know, there were gaps, contradictions, things that didn’t make sense no matter how many times you looked at them.
And over time, Caitlyn’s father, Dave, grew more and more suspicious. Those two cars the teenagers reported seeing that night driving away from Caitlyn’s home, were later identified as J’s vehicle and another, still unknown car. Both J’s phone and Caitlyn’s phone dropped off the network at the exact same time on the night of August 13th, 2011.
Investigators also discovered that a series of text messages exchanged between Jon and Caitlyn sent between 8:00 and 8:36 that evening had been deleted from J’s phone. Some messages Jon claimed he had sent were never actually sent at all. That included his so-called good morning text. Jon voluntarily took three polygraph examinations and all three showed signs of deception.
one in September of 2011, another in February of 2014, and the most recent one in January of 2021. During that final test, examiners said Jon showed clear, deceptive responses when he was asked whether he had disposed of Caitlyn’s body on Big Cedar Road. When investigators searched his mother’s home, they seized more than a dozen items.
Among them were notes about the investigation, a folder containing Caitlyn’s school materials, an SD card, and several writings, poems, and passages focused on death and murder. Some of those writings were signed with his name. One of them read, “Deep down, I love her. You have to kill her. But I love her. She has to die.
I can’t kill her. Yes, you can. No. Yes. How do you convince me to do all these things? I’m just really good at it. But you’re bad. I know. How do I kill you? You can’t. You’re right. Investigators also found material they believed was identical to what Caitlyn’s body had originally been wrapped in.
And the location where her remains were discovered wasn’t far at all from a farm owned by the Carter family. More witnesses came forward describing Jon’s explosive temper and aggressive behavior. There was even video that surfaced showing him yelling at his current wife while holding their child in his arms. Taking care of our daughter while you go ahead and do whatever the you want.
Yeah, you push the load of my buttons. THANK YOU. I WANT YOU TO STOP ACTING LIKE a When detectives laid out some of the evidence in front of John, he barely reacted at all. The only thing he really said was that it was all circumstantial. That choice of words, you know, stood out to investigators more than he probably realized.
After years of denials and public pleas for his fiance’s safe return, there were now just too many facts pointing in his direction. And even though everyone involved understood that the case was built on circumstantial evidence, not DNA or a clear physical smoking gun, investigators felt confident moving forward.
They believed in what they had and they formally turned the case over to the district attorney. Huh? They’re coming out the front. He’s in custody. 25. Greatly appreciate it. Happy to help. You want the watch? Yeah. You got nothing else on you actually first. Breaking news right now out of Butler County.
The fiance of Caitlyn Markham is now in custody and charged in her In March of 2023, 36-year-old John Carter was arrested at his workplace and charged with two counts of murder. The first charge alleged that he intentionally caused Caitlyn’s death on August 13th or 14th. The second alleged that he caused her death on those same dates during the commission of or attempt to commit a violent felony.
John posted bail set at $1 million and as a condition of his release was required to wear a Jeep’s ankle monitor. Jonathan Palman was also released pending trial. At his bond hearing, John Carter entered a plea of not guilty and his trial was scheduled for June of 2024. Jonathan Palone was also set to appear in court on the perjury charge, but that charge was later dismissed.
Prosecutors listed more than 50 witnesses they planned to call at trial. Then in June of 2024, after more than a decade of mystery surrounding Caitlyn’s disappearance and death, and after 10 years of outright denial, John suddenly changed his position. Your honor, he did. And Mr. Carter, if we may, on his behalf, John Carter stipulates that he committed the offense of involuntary manslaughter consistent with Ohio Vice Code 2903.04B.
Uh that is a felony, the third degree. specifically that on the date specified in the indictment, he did cause the death of Caitlyn Markham by the commission of a miss. Dave said the moment felt almost out of body, like he wasn’t fully there. Deep down, he’d known for a long time that something wasn’t right with Jon.
And while there was a sense of relief in realizing he wasn’t crazy, that his instincts had been right all along. It was also overwhelming anger because Jon had gone on living his life for 12 years, thinking he had gotten away with it, you know, like none of it would ever catch up to him. He knew all along who it was.
Just got to be able to grab it and just proud. An emotional day in Butler County Court this morning as John Carter pleads guilty, admitting to causing the deaths of his fiance in 2011. He stood right next to Dave at her funeral, hugged him, cried with him, joined the searches, all of it, while knowing exactly what had really happened.
When he was asked whether he could at least explain how it all went down, he quietly said, “I can’t.” One inmate later told detectives that Jon did, in fact, confessed to him that he explained how he killed Caitlyn. Jon never admitted this in court, and investigators never heard that version directly from him. But according to the inmate, this is what Jon said happened.
Broke into an argument. He said before he knew it, he had her pinned down to the ground. He was on top of her and he choked her. And then um after he chose it, he said he was panicking and he said um he didn’t know what to do. He was going to call the cops. He didn’t want to call the cops. He said he made it look like it was a suicide justice. So he cut her wrist.
Even though everyone knew the sentence was going to be lighter, no one was prepared for just how light it actually turned out to be. You know, it was one of those moments where people just sat there thinking this can’t be real. The court imposes the following sentence. Based upon the serious nature of this offense and the factors that have previously been indicated that anything short of the maximum sentence would demean the seriousness of the offender’s conduct and its impact upon the victim and therefore will
impose a definite term of incarceration of 36 months. John Carter was sentenced to just 3 years in prison, the maximum possible sentence for involuntary manslaughter, a thirdderee felony. After serving that time, he would also face 3 years of post-release supervision. One of the detectives who worked the case said this.
I’ve interviewed people in murder cases, rape cases, burglaries, thousands of people, and I’ve never interviewed a psychopath. That’s exactly what I said when John walked out of the room. I said, “That’s the first psychopath I’ve ever interviewed.” They were never able to prove it, but police and prosecutors strongly suspected there was a second person who helped Jon dispose of Caitlyn’s body and possibly even dismember it.
And while Caitlyn’s family did eventually learn who was responsible, they still don’t know the full truth about what really happened and they probably never will. That’s why there was never true closure in this case. That is why there’s no closure. I still do not know the whole story. And not that I would have believed him because he’s lied for 13 years, but he’s offered no explanation. Hasn’t even tried.
And um that just to me that just shows his character. Do you think you’ll ever get an explanation? No, I don’t. You even if he writes a confession in prison, um he’s going to have to be more convincing than he’s been the past 13 years. Very soon, Jon will be released from prison and return to a normal life.
And even though the judge handed down the maximum sentence allowed and their hands were essentially tied by the law, the lack of justice for Caitlyn is staggering and deeply, painfully sad. 14 years after Caitlyn was last seen, an event called Butterflies for Caitlyn Markham was held in a park near her home.
Trees were planted and people showed up wearing butterfly themed clothing and jewelry. It was a day filled with art and color, exactly the things Caitlyn loved so much. Dave said that on that day he felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time. He felt like he wasn’t alone anymore. So bright and happy, exuberant, um, friendly, outgoing, and she liked butterflies.
And I don’t know, they just there’s been days that I’ve had bad days in the early on times and the butterfly would come and fly around me and like, “Oh, hi baby.” She was bright, vibrant, coming out of her shell, you know, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. He admitted that living with a loss like this and still not truly knowing what happened is completely all-consuming.
There isn’t a single day that goes by where I don’t think about Caitlyn. He said, “I don’t believe 3 years is justice. Not for Caitlyn, not for her sister, not for me, not for her friends, and not for the entire community that searched for her and grieved alongside us. I think all the time about what she would be doing right now with her art, with her career, you know, she would have been an incredible woman.
She had real talent and she would have gone so far. Sometimes I’ll see a painting and think that should have been Caitlyn’s work. That should have been her. She should be here. Thank you to everyone who stayed with us through this story. If you’d like to support the channel and help us keep creating content like this, please don’t forget to like the video, leave a comment, share it, and subscribe.
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