HAMILTON, Ohio — The contents of a search warrant executed on a home belonging to the mother of John Carter were released Tuesday, revealing new information on what led law enforcement to suspect Carter for the 2011 murder of Katelyn Markham.
Carter is accused of murdering Markham, his fiancee at the time; she was last seen on August 13, 2011. Her remains were found in 2013 in a remote, wooded area near a road in Indiana. Carter has pleaded not guilty to the charges he faces.
The documents, released Tuesday, reveal new details in the case, including evidence collected by law enforcement during searches and witness testimonies given during the investigation.
Submitted as probable cause in a request to search a home owned by Carter's mother, an investigator for the Butler County Prosecutor's Office wrote it was believed Carter and a person whose name was redacted "were involved in the disposal of Katelyn's body in Indiana, which was found wrapped in black or dark-colored plastic construction and landscaping sheeting material; and that the plastic material used to wrap her body was obtained from John Carter's then-residence" in Fairfield, where he'd lived with his mother.
Carter's mother still lived there and Carter used that residence as his home address as recently as 2021 — and was Carter's home at the time of Markham's disappearance, says the warrant. The home was less than a half-mile from Markham's townhouse, a four-minute walk, the documents say.
The documents note that, on August 14 and 15, police interviewed Carter and noticed — and photographed — several red vertical scratch marks on the left side of Carter's neck. At the time, Carter claimed the scratches were from an electric razor, but he later told police he wasn't sure where he got them; a friend who'd been with Carter and Markham on August 13 said they did not notice scratches on Carter that night.
Carter voluntarily participated in and gave deceptive responses during a total of three polygraph tests throughout the span of the investigation: One on September 19, 2011, one on February 27, 2014 and again on January 28, 2021. During the last polygraph, "he specifically showed deceptive responses when asked whether he disposed of Katelyn's body on Big Cedar Road," documents say.
In the probable cause affidavit for the warrant, investigators noted that Markham's cell phone has never been recovered. However, the night Markham was last seen alive, phone records indicated texts were sent between her phone and Carter's at around 11:04 p.m. A picture from Markham's phone was sent to Carter's and additional messages were exchanged until 11:36 p.m. that night.
Then Markham's phone went dark, beginning at 12:06 a.m., investigators said AT&T phone records showed.
When investigators examined Carter's phone records from Cricket, texts between he and Markham from between 7:53 p.m. and 11:36 p.m. had been deleted from Carter's phone.
"I guess you are stuck now": Witnesses describe interactions with Carter and Markham
Multiple interviews conducted between law enforcement and witnesses or friends of Markham and Carter were included in the probable cause affidavit.
Investigators noted interviewing a person Markham became friends with while working at the same location; that person told police he was with Markham and Carter the night of August 13 and that the trio smoked marijuana and "discussed Katelyn and John's plan to move to Colorado within the next few months." The witness told police Markham was working on what appeared to be schoolwork on her laptop, never moved from the sofa and "seemed distant and not her 'typical bubbly self.'" The witness said he left Markham's townhouse around 10:45 p.m., leaving her alone with Carter.
Police interviewed the manager of GE Credit Union in Fairfield, who said Markham came to the credit union three weeks before her disappearance, on July 20, 2011, with Carter's mother. Markham told the manager she wanted to apply for a Visa credit card and Carter's mother would co-sign. The manager told police they recalled Carter's mother said "I'll co-sign for the Visa, but you've got to take my son to Colorado with you," to which the manager commented to Markham "I guess you are stuck now."
The manager told police Markham did not laugh or smile during the exchange, and was serious and somber throughout the meeting. The manager told police Markham "seemed hesitant to open the account" and that "it did not appear the credit card was Katelyn's idea," documents say.
Ultimately, Markham did not open an account or finish the application for the credit card through the credit union, the affidavit says.
Police also interviewed two individuals who were 15 years old the night of August 13, 2011. The pair told police they attended the Sacred Heart Festival in Fairfield and after went back to a home on the same road where Carter lived, just three or four houses down from his mother's house. The two told police they snuck out at around 2:00 a.m. to go to a party and waited outside Carter's home for a friend to pick them up.
The two described seeing two vehicles drive up to Carter's mother's house with their headlights off, approaching from the direction of Markham's townhouse. They described one vehicle as a red Ford Focus, which pulled into the house's driveway; the second vehicle was described as a dark blue sedan with a male driver with shoulder-length hair and an unkempt beard.
Auto registrations showed Carter was the sole registered owner of a red Ford Focus, beginning in February 2010.
The witnesses told police the red Ford Focus pulled into the garage and shut the door; they said just five to 15 minutes later, the garage door opened again and the red Ford Focus pulled out, still with its headlights off. The blue sedan had remained parked in front of the house, but when the Ford Focus pulled out, both drove off in the direction of Markham's house.
Another witness interviewed was a friend and classmate of Markham's at the time of her disappearance; the witness told police when she spoke with Carter on August 16, just days after Markham went missing, Carter repeatedly referred to her in the past tense. She also told police that in the three to six months before her disappearance, Markham had confided that she was unhappy being engaged to Carter and felt trapped in the relationship.
"Katelyn further stated that she was unhappy with Carter's lifestyle, including his heavy use of drugs and pornography and that she was no longer sexually attracted to Carter, and was uncomfortable with the sexual activity Carter asked her to engage in," the affidavit says. "Katelyn further stated that Carter was very jealous and possessive when Katelyn even spoke with other men."
Items collected from Carter's former home during the search warrant execution
The probable cause affidavit says investigators expected to recover leftover landscaping sheeting from Carter's mother's house that could match the material her body was wrapped in. In the list of items collected from the house, investigators noted they collected a "role of landscaping material" from a shed on the property.
Other items collected during the execution of the February 17 search warrant included "notes on the Katelyn Markham investigation, drawings of an 'angel' in the woods and poetry about death and killing," the documents say.
The itemized list of things collected from an office bedroom in the house include:
- Folder containing Katelyn's papers
- Yellow folder marked "John phon & Text"
- Misc. notes from desk
- Writings from journal on bookshelf
- Misc. notes and Katelyn's (illegible)/SD card
- White binder with John's writings
Collected from the basement of the home:
- John's red folder marked "Climax Poems"
- John's black notebook
- Box containing Katelyn's art/property
- Box containing Katelyn's art/property
- Katelyn's portfolios and sketch books
- Shoe box containing John's financial docs
- Mug containing letters from Katelyn
- Door from basement bedroom
In addition, investigators also collected the roll of landscaping material from a shed.
Chilling poetry collected from Carter's home
In March, Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser read aloud several items presented as evidence for the judge's consideration in setting Carter's bond — specifically items found during the February search warrant.
Gmoser said the lines of poetry he read in court were found through the search warrant executed shortly before Carter was indicted; multiple writings found allude to death and killing a person.
Another document reads “I slit your wrist with the key to your heart.”
Gmoser said the documents weren't dated, but were found in a binder with Carter's name on it.
Markham's autopsy was released at the end of March and revealed that her left wrist had three or four cut marks from "sharp force trauma," though it doesn't cite that as a cause of her death. The autopsy also says that although Markham's bones were heavily decomposed when they were discovered in Indiana, the state of the decomposition suggested her body had been kept somewhere else for a significant amount of time before being dumped.
Carter's arrest is the first massive break in the case in more than a decade. His arrest came after a 35-year-old man, which Katelyn's father Dave said was friends with her at the time of her death, was indicted for perjury in February 2023.
According to that indictment, Jonathan Palmerton is accused of making a false statement under oath in April 2022.
The day Palmerton was arrested is the same day the search warrants were conducted on Carter's former home where his mother lives, as well as other residences of relatives of friends.
Dave Markham said everyone was thrilled after Carter's indictment and arrest.
"This is the ending — or beginning of the end — and as everybody thought this ... we all suspected that he had something to do with it," Dave Markham said.
After Katelyn's remains were found in 2013, Dave Markham said he had theories he didn't want to speak about publicly, but that the family didn't see Carter "much anymore."
Carter, who was the person that reported Markham's disappearance to 911, has always maintained his innocence.
