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The family of Katelyn Markham, an art student who went missing 13 years ago, watched her ex-fiance sentenced to three years in prison for involuntary manslaughter on Thursday – a long-awaited moment but one that does not bring closure.
John Carter, 36, was given the maximum sentencing that he could have for involuntary manslaughter in connection to Katelyn’s death – a charge that he pleaded guilty to after striking a deal with prosecutors last month. He was initially charged with two counts of murder last March.
“I’m thankful and grateful to the judge for handing out the sentence he did,” Dave Markham, the father of Katelyn said to reporters on Thursday.
“It’s not closure but the start of something else to come,” Markham said, hinting at the possibility of new legislation allowing prosecutors to bring more charges forward in similar cases where the statute of limitations prevented it.
Katelyn went missing in August 2011 at 22 years old just weeks before she was set to finish her graphic arts degree at the Art Institute of Ohio in Cincinnati.
Carter was reportedly the last one to have seen her alive and called 911 to report her missing when she did not show up for work.
Her skeletal remains were found two years later in a wooded area approximately 20 miles from where she was last seen in Fairfield, Ohio. Though Katelyn’s death was ruled a homicide, it was never determined how she was killed.
A forensic anthropology report said that her remains may have been moved from where they were first left, according to local news outlet WLWT5.
Years passed before prosecutors were able to put together enough circumstantial evidence to charge Carter with her murder.
Last month, Carter admitted to causing Katelyn’s death involuntarily but did not offer a single explanation as to how or why it happened. Investigators allege that someone helped Carter dispose of Katelyn’s body, according to court documents seen by The Cincinnati Enquirer. But no other person has been charged in connection to the case.
But due to Ohio’s statute of limitations, prosecutors could not bring other charges like abuse of corpse – in part because Katelyn’s body was concealed for two years.
“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 told The Cincinnati Enquirer at the time of the plea deal.
But Katelyn’s family is hoping to change that.
Markham said that the family was working on a new set of legislation called “Katelyn’s law” that would allow prosecutors to bring more charges forward in cases of involuntary manslaughter, homicide or murder where the victim’s body is missing but later found.
Markham described his daughter as a loving person who made people feel good and had immense artistic talent.
“She had talent and she was going to go someplace. I’ll see a piece of art sometimes and I’ll think ‘That should be Katelyn’s up there’,” he said.
