Hey everyone, Kona Gallagher here. I just wanted to pop in really quickly before we start this

week's episode to say thank you. We have been blown away by the amount of support that we've

gotten since we launched, and I wanted to give a few very special shoutouts. One, thank you to

everybody who has left us a rating and a review on Apple

podcasts that helps us so much. And thank you, Cassie Sweet, for yours. I saw you there. I loved it.

There were more, but I didn't recognize your username. So I read those two and thank you, thank you

so much. Also, special shout out to Alice Frazier, who was our first monthly supporter. I haven't

even set this up really or done anything with it yet, but she went on to anchor.fm or rehost our podcast and saw that there is a

monthly donation button and she took it upon herself to go ahead and do it so thank you so so much

um i do plan on doing a patreon or something like that with extra episodes and other fun things down the line

if there's interest. So if you have any suggestions for that, please let me know. And that's

all I got. So let's get on with this week's episode. On December 15, 1995, the Markley family had just

experienced a tragic loss.

John Markley, a 36-year-old father of five, had just lost his twin sister to cancer two days

previously. Unsurprisingly, he was taking her death quite hard. The viewing was scheduled

for that evening and her funeral was supposed to take place

the next day. That's why when the Markley children returned home from school that day to find the

house empty, they weren't immediately concerned. Perhaps their parents had to run errands before the

viewing. The car was gone and the children expected their parents to be home soon. But the Markleys weren't back in a few minutes.

As it got closer to the time to go to the funeral home, the children went to their aunt's house

who lived nearby. And they ended up going to the viewing with their aunt and uncle, but John and

his wife, Shelley, never appeared. In fact, nearly 25 years have gone by with no trace of John or Shelley

...