The Ohio man who killed his fiancée without intending to do so was given a three-year prison term. Her body was found over thirteen years later.
The Associated Press, WKRC, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and other local news outlets say that on July 18, 36-year-old John Carter was given the maximum prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter, which is three years. He was sentenced in Butler County for the death of his fiancée Katelyn Markham, whom he first reported missing in 2011.
Carter was arrested in March 2023 and charged with two counts of murder. However, he later pleaded guilty to an involuntary manslaughter charge in June after taking a plea deal. This was just a few weeks before his murder trial was set to start, according to the Enquirer.
The Enquirer also said that Markham’s family and friends sat in the front row of the courtroom and wore butterfly pins to show support for the 22-year-old art student. Carter chose not to say anything in the sentence.
She said, “Not a day goes by that I do not think of Katelyn,” her father Dave Markham told the newspaper. “I do not feel three years is justice, not for Katelyn; not for her sister; not for me, her friends, or the entire community that has ached and grieved alongside us.”
Markham, who was 22 years old at the time, was last seen at her home in Fairfield, Ohio, on August 13, 2011. The outlet says she was only a few weeks away from finishing the Art Institute of Ohio–Cincinnati and had planned to move to Colorado with Carter before she died.
Several news sources say that Carter was the last person who saw Markham living before she died. She called 911 to report her missing after she didn’t show up for work. Her keys, purse, and wallet were among the things that were stolen from her apartment. Her phone, on the other hand, was not there and its GPS location data was turned off.
Carter played a big role in the long search that ended with Markham’s body being found at a dump in Cedar Grove, Indiana, in April 2013. This was about 30 miles west of her home. Markham’s death was officially ruled a murder, but the exact cause of death has never been found. The Enquirer reported that a forensic anthropology study done after her body was found suggested that it may have been moved from where it was first found.
Police in Butler County said Carter killed his fiancée with “physical violence and by force.” The Associated Press says that Carter has never said how or why he killed Markham.
A lawyer named Mike Gmoser told WKRC that he talked to someone who wrote a witness statement for Carter. That person said Carter only admitted to manslaughter by accident to escape a harsh sentence. Carter still maintains his innocence.
According to the Enquirer, Dave Markham said, “It’s not over and it’s not closure, but it’s the beginning of something else.”
“I still do not know the whole story,” he said. “Even if [Carter] writes a confession in prison, he’s gonna have to be more convincing than he’s been the past 13 years.”