249 - The Disappearance of John & Shelly Markley
Trace Evidence
Steven Pacheco
4.7 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2025
⏱️ 103 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
John and Shelly Markley were devoted and loving parents to their five children. During a week already marked by a family tragedy, John and Shelly mysteriously vanished on the morning of Friday, December 15th. The last sighting of the couple was made by a bank teller who waited on them at the drive up window. In addition to John and Shelly, the woman saw a third individual, a man who has never been identified.
Investigators found themselves caught up in a case with just one witness, almost no physical evidence and few in any clues. As the case unfolded, detectives would learn a lot about John and Shelly and everyone else in their lives. Within weeks an unknown caller began ringing the family home, demanding cash in exchange for the return of the missing couple and that would take the investigation in a completely different direction.
Nearly thirty years later, what became of John and Shelly remains a mystery and while law enforcement is certain there are people locally who know much more than they have shared, the case continues growing cold.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On a cold Friday afternoon in December of 1995, John and Shelley Markley's five children returned home from school to find the house in disarray and their parents missing. |
| 0:22.4 | There were no notes or calls, |
| 0:27.9 | nothing to suggest where they might have gone or when they would return. There were, however, |
| 0:34.1 | several disturbing signs which indicated something might be wrong. Safes and locked cabinets were found open and emptied. The coffee pot was still on and had nearly brewed dry, |
| 0:39.4 | and the tarps, which always covered John's prized Corvette, were missing. |
| 0:44.4 | The couple's absence was noted as particularly disturbing because this was not just any old Friday. |
| 0:51.5 | It was both the eighth birthday of their youngest child, and that evening was |
| 0:56.7 | awake for John's beloved twin sister who'd passed away days earlier. If there was anything |
| 1:03.3 | that could be said about John and Shelley, it was that they would have never missed either event |
| 1:08.4 | for anything in the world. Family meant everything to them. So, |
| 1:12.9 | where had they gone? That's a question which nearly 30 years later remains unanswered. Local |
| 1:20.0 | investigators would find themselves embroiled in a case of organized chaos, from a crime scene |
| 1:26.0 | stripped of evidence by family members with good intentions, |
| 1:29.5 | to a bizarre extortion plot involving an old friend turned enemy. Were John and Shelley the |
| 1:36.0 | victims of a random crime? Had they been targeted by a former friend, or was their disappearance |
| 1:42.3 | about something entirely different, something no one has |
| 1:46.0 | yet managed to uncover? This is Trace Evidence, episode 249, the disappearance of John and |
| 1:53.9 | Shelley Markley. |
| 2:05.4 | Welcome to Trace Evidence. I'm your host, Stephen Pacheco. |
| 2:10.4 | Today we examine the strange and mysterious disappearance of John and Shelley Markley, |
| 2:14.5 | who left behind five children, a completely paid-off house, and a series of unanswered questions which continue to haunt their loved ones |
| 2:18.8 | as well as investigators to this day. This is the disappearance of John and Shelley Markley. Friday, December 15th, 1995 was a cold and gloomy-looking day in the northwestern Ohio |
... |
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