THE LAST GOODBYE
She was eleven years old when she made that final phone call.
It was 9:38 on a Sunday morning—March 4, 2001—and Bethany Markowski’s voice carried the particular quality of a child caught between two worlds. Her parents had separated just two months earlier, a violent escape that had required her mother Johnie to wait until Larry was at work, grab her daughter, and run. Now Bethany was spending court-ordered weekends with the father her mother had fled, calling from his phone to ask a question that would haunt Johnie Carter for the next twenty-four years.
“Are you picking me up today?”
The answer was no. The protection order Johnie had obtained after Larry tried to abduct Bethany from her new school meant they couldn’t meet face-to-face. Instead, Johnie’s sister Lori would be waiting at 5 PM in Waverly, Tennessee—a neutral meeting point along Interstate 40 where custody exchanges happened under the shadow of court orders and restraining orders.
Bethany mentioned something else during that call, something that made Johnie’s stomach tighten: Larry knew about her new boyfriend. For an eleven-year-old girl still losing her baby teeth, having a “boyfriend” likely meant nothing more than holding hands at recess. But to a controlling father who’d allegedly been physically violent, who’d been accused by family members of far worse things, it may have represented something unbearable—his daughter growing up, developing her own life, slipping beyond his grasp.
The conversation ended with reassurances. Lori would be there at five. Everything would be fine. Bethany would be home soon.
Those were the last words mother and daughter would ever exchange.
THE SETUP: A WEEKEND THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED
To understand what happened to Bethany Markowski, you have to understand the custody arrangement that put her in her father’s hands that March weekend.
Larry and Johnie’s marriage had been toxic from the start. Johnie would later tell investigators that Larry was controlling and physically violent toward her, and that the violence had recently escalated to include Bethany. Two family members had come forward with allegations that Larry had sexually assaulted them. A classmate of Bethany’s would later tell police that the girl had confided in her, saying her father had touched her inappropriately.
School records and court filings would partially corroborate these claims. But Larry Markowski has never been criminally convicted of abuse. And in February 2001, despite Johnie’s protection order, despite the allegations, despite the attempted abduction from school, a family court judge granted Larry unsupervised visitation rights.
Every other weekend, Bethany would be handed over to the man her mother had run from.
The first visit happened February 16-18, 2001. Lori dropped Bethany off at the Waverly exit as scheduled on Friday evening and picked her up Sunday afternoon. There were no reported incidents. Bethany came home safe.
That single uneventful weekend may have been what sealed her fate.
On Friday, March 2, 2001, Lori made the exchange again. Bethany climbed into her father’s vehicle for what was supposed to be another routine weekend visit. She’d told her mother she believed they’d be going ice skating with a friend named Christina.
That never happened. Christina would later tell law enforcement she had no idea such plans existed and hadn’t spoken to Bethany about skating at all.
Larry’s older daughter Jenny believed she, her boyfriend, and Larry were supposed to go apartment hunting in Nashville that Saturday to find a place closer to Bethany. Larry canceled those plans at the last minute without explanation.
Something had changed. Something in Larry’s mind had shifted between that first successful weekend visit and this second one.
And Bethany Markowski would pay the price.
THE TIMELINE THAT DOESN’T ADD UP
What Larry Markowski told investigators about Sunday, March 4, 2001, has changed so many times that police stopped trying to reconcile his various accounts.
In one version, he and Bethany went to Little Rock, Arkansas, on Saturday to visit his friend Harold. They stayed overnight, had breakfast at a Shoney’s restaurant in Milan, Tennessee, on Sunday morning, then headed back to Tennessee.
In another version published in the Jackson Sun newspaper, the trip to Little Rock happened Friday night, and they returned to Gleason around 9 AM Sunday before driving to Jackson.
A third account, documented on a Jackson Police Department missing persons poster, stated Larry had picked Bethany up from Johnie before traveling to Arkansas—which was impossible given the protection order.
But here’s what we know for certain, verified by phone records and witness statements:
12:12 PM: Bethany’s half-sister Jenny called Larry’s cell phone to speak with Bethany. Bethany answered and told Jenny they’d “just left the house in Gleason, picked up a few things, and were headed to Jackson”. She said Larry was taking her to the mall to get “a few items”.
This phone call pinged off a cell tower near Natchez Trace State Park—miles southeast of Gleason, in the opposite direction from Jackson.
Approximately 2:00 PM: A witness reported seeing Larry alone at a gas station at Exit 208 (Parkers Crossroads), about eight miles from where the cell phone last pinged. The witness said Larry was getting gas and told them he had “just dropped his daughter off with her mother in Nashville”.
The witness did not see Bethany in the van. If she was inside, she was not visible.
Between 1:30 PM and 3:30 PM (per Larry’s account): Larry claimed he and Bethany arrived at Old Hickory Mall in Jackson. He said Bethany wanted to visit Claire’s—the accessories store every preteen girl loved—and the mall’s game room. So he let his eleven-year-old daughter walk into the shopping center alone while he took a nap in his car.
3:45 PM (per Larry’s account): Larry said he woke up from his nap and realized Bethany hadn’t returned.
5:00 PM: The time Bethany was supposed to be meeting Lori at the Waverly exchange point. Lori started calling Larry’s phone. He didn’t answer.
5:15 PM: After more than forty minutes of searching the mall himself (according to his statement), Larry finally approached a security officer to report that his daughter was missing.
5:43 PM: After over forty minutes of unanswered calls, Larry finally answered Lori’s phone call and informed her that Bethany had disappeared.
6:00 PM: The mall closed for the evening. Bethany had still not been found.
6:05 PM: Jackson Police Chief Rick Staples was notified and joined the search effort.
The first thing investigators did was pull the surveillance footage.
THE CAMERAS NEVER LIE
Every shopping center in America in 2001 had security cameras. Old Hickory Mall in Jackson, Tennessee, was no exception. The cameras covered entrances, exits, parking lots, corridors, and individual stores.
Investigators pulled every single piece of footage from Sunday, March 4, 2001. They reviewed every angle, every timestamp, every frame that could have captured an eleven-year-old girl with shoulder-length brown hair and bangs, wearing a green t-shirt and jeans.
The result was irrefutable: Bethany Markowski never entered that mall.
Not at 1:30 PM. Not at 2:30 PM. Not at 3:00 PM. There was no footage of her walking through the doors, browsing Claire’s, playing in the game room, or exiting the building.
She had never been there.
Which meant Larry Markowski’s entire story—the nap in the car, Bethany wanting to shop alone, waking up to find her missing—was a fabrication.
The question that would haunt investigators for the next twenty-four years wasn’t just what happened to Bethany Markowski.
It was: Why would a father tell a story he knew surveillance cameras would immediately prove was a lie?
Unless he was buying time. Unless he was creating a public narrative of a child wandering off in a crowded mall—innocent, tragic, unpredictable. Unless the truth about what happened to Bethany between 12:12 PM and 5:15 PM was so much worse that a provably false story was still better than the truth.
THE FATHER WHO FAILED EVERY TEST
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation officially joined the case on March 6, 2001—two days after Bethany disappeared.
By then, Larry Markowski’s story had already collapsed under the weight of evidence. Investigators brought him in for questioning. They asked him to take a polygraph test.
He failed.
Johnie Carter was asked to take a polygraph as well—standard procedure in missing children cases where both parents are scrutinized.
She passed.
When TBI agents located the van Larry had been driving on March 4, they conducted a forensic examination. They sprayed the interior with luminol, a chemical that reveals the presence of blood even after it’s been cleaned.
Small blood droplets were found on a pillow and a blanket.
Now, it’s expected that a child’s DNA and even small amounts of blood might be present in a family vehicle—nosebleeds, scraped knees, the ordinary injuries of childhood. But investigators documented the findings nonetheless. The pillow and blanket became evidence.
Then there was the Walmart security footage.
Sometime earlier on March 4, 2001, a man was captured on surveillance at a Walmart in Jackson, Tennessee, purchasing a shovel, a rope, and a 2.5-gallon gas can. Investigators have never publicly confirmed whether that man was Larry Markowski, but the timing and location have fueled speculation for over two decades.
When police spoke to Harold—Larry’s friend in Little Rock—they learned something disturbing. Larry had allegedly told Harold he wanted to take Bethany to Mexico.
Larry has denied this claim. But the allegation adds another layer to an already complex question: Was Larry planning to kidnap his daughter and flee the country? Or was “Mexico” a euphemism for something darker—a place where Bethany would disappear forever?
Throughout the investigation, Larry Markowski has maintained his innocence. He’s insisted he had nothing to do with Bethany’s disappearance. But his cooperation with law enforcement has been described as minimal at best.
He’s changed his story multiple times. He’s failed a polygraph. He’s been unable to explain the cell tower data, the gas station witness, or why the mall cameras never saw his daughter.
And yet, despite all of this, Larry Markowski has never been arrested. He’s never been charged with a crime in connection to Bethany’s disappearance.
Technically, he’s never even been named as a suspect.
But he’s never been cleared either.
THE WOMAN WHO APPEARED FROM NOWHERE
Just when investigators thought the trail had gone completely cold, witnesses started calling in with reports that changed the entire trajectory of the case.
In the weeks following Bethany’s disappearance, multiple people reported seeing a disheveled woman traveling with a young girl who looked remarkably like the missing eleven-year-old.
The woman was described with striking consistency across different sightings:
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White female
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Between 42 and 44 years old
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5’4″ to 5’5″ tall
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Approximately 185 pounds
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Brown eyes with dark circles underneath
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Frizzy blonde hair that appeared clean but showed noticeable damage
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Overall unkempt appearance, possibly recovering from a hangover
April 2001 — Sweetwater, Tennessee:
According to authorities, this unidentified woman attempted to enroll a young girl in a private school in Sweetwater without any documentation. She claimed to be the child’s aunt and said the girl’s father would bring the necessary enrollment paperwork later.
School officials waited. No one ever came back.
April 2001 — Cleveland, Tennessee:
This is where the case takes its most chilling turn.
Witnesses reported seeing the same woman and a girl resembling Bethany at a café in Cleveland, Tennessee. They were there for several consecutive days. The woman was noticeably irritable, anxious, pacing.
And she used the café’s payphone obsessively—calling someone multiple times a day.
According to what Johnie remembers being told by law enforcement, the woman and child would sit quietly in the back of the café, drink only water, and use the payphone before leaving. On the third day, the woman appeared visibly upset and asked the waitress for the number to a cab company. The waitress helped her make the call.
After the woman and child left in the taxi, something about the encounter felt wrong to the waitress. She called law enforcement to report what she’d seen. When police arrived and showed her photographs of missing children, the waitress identified Bethany Markowski as the little girl she’d observed.
Here’s the detail that investigators couldn’t ignore: Larry Markowski was scheduled to make a delivery to that exact café in Cleveland as part of his truck driving job.
But his truck had allegedly broken down.
He arrived three days late.
Three days. The exact period the woman and girl were spotted at the café, with the woman frantically calling someone over and over, waiting.
Waiting for who?
The Bus Station:
The last reported sighting came at a bus depot. Witnesses said the woman and girl boarded a bus bound for Moline, Illinois.
Investigators searched the depot in Moline when the bus arrived. They found nothing. The woman and the girl had vanished.
To this day, the identity of the blonde woman has never been confirmed. No arrest has been made. No connection to Larry Markowski has been definitively established.
But Johnie Carter firmly believes the little girl at that bus station café was her daughter. And the timing of Larry’s “broken down truck” and three-day delay arriving at the exact location where a woman was desperately calling someone, waiting with a girl who looked like Bethany, is a coincidence too powerful to ignore.
THREE THEORIES: WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED
After twenty-four years of investigation, thousands of tips, and countless hours of detective work, three primary theories have emerged about what happened to Bethany Markowski on March 4, 2001.
Theory One: Bethany Died That Sunday, And The Sightings Were Mistaken Identity
In this scenario, whatever happened to Bethany occurred between 12:12 PM (when she spoke to Jenny on the phone) and approximately 2:00 PM (when Larry was seen alone at the gas station).
The cell tower ping near Natchez Trace State Park places them in a remote, wooded area. The gas station witness saw Larry alone, claiming he’d “dropped his daughter off”. The Walmart purchases of a shovel, rope, and gas can take on sinister implications.
If this theory is correct, the mall story was a hastily constructed cover—a public place with cameras where a child could plausibly “wander off”. Larry may have believed he had more time to establish the narrative before Lori started calling, or before mall security reviewed the footage.
The witness sightings of the blonde woman and young girl would be cases of mistaken identity—well-meaning people who saw what they wanted to see in the face of a child who resembled the missing girl on the news.
This is the darkest theory, and it’s the one that keeps Johnie Carter awake at night.
Theory Two: Larry Had An Accomplice Who Took Bethany
This theory accounts for the witness sightings while still acknowledging Larry’s suspicious behavior.
If Larry planned to abduct Bethany and take her to Mexico (as he allegedly told Harold), he may have enlisted help—a woman who would act as Bethany’s “aunt,” moving her from place to place while Larry established an alibi.
The café sightings gain significance here. The woman was waiting, calling someone obsessively. When Larry’s truck “broke down” and he was delayed three days, the plan fell apart. The woman, desperate and out of options, put Bethany on a bus to Illinois—perhaps to another accomplice, perhaps to a location Larry had pre-arranged.
If Bethany survived the initial incident on March 4, this theory offers the slim possibility she’s still alive somewhere—perhaps living under another name, perhaps with no memory of who she really was, perhaps held against her will for over two decades.
It’s the theory Johnie clings to when hope feels impossible.
Theory Three: Bethany Ran Away Or Was Taken By A Third Party
This is the least supported theory, but investigators can’t entirely rule it out.
Bethany was eleven years old, caught between two parents, living with allegations of violence and abuse. Could she have run away during that weekend? Could she have encountered a predator at the mall or somewhere else along the route?
The problem with this theory is the complete lack of evidence supporting it. Bethany had no money, no resources, nowhere to go. The surveillance footage proves she never entered the mall, eliminating the possibility of a stranger abduction from that location.
And perhaps most damning: Larry’s behavior doesn’t match that of a genuinely frantic parent whose child unexpectedly vanished. His changing stories, his failed polygraph, his minimal cooperation—none of it suggests a father desperately searching for answers.
THE GIRL WHO SAID SHE WAS BETHANY
Sometime between 2016 and 2017—fifteen to sixteen years after Bethany disappeared—Johnie Carter’s phone rang with news that would rip open old wounds.
It was the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. A young woman had been found passed out on the front porch of a home in Knoxville, Tennessee.
When the homeowner discovered her, the girl initially claimed she didn’t know who she was or how she’d gotten there. But after a few days in police custody, she started giving names.
First, she said she was Sarah Nicole Jackson. The names were significant—Jackson was Johnie’s sister Lori’s married name, and Nicole was Lori’s daughter’s name. These weren’t details a stranger would know.
Then the girl changed her story again. This time, she said words that made investigators’ hearts stop:
“I’m Bethany Markowski.”
When police showed her an age-progressed photo of Bethany, the girl confirmed it was her. When they showed her a picture of Bethany with Johnie, she identified Johnie as her mother. She even gave Bethany’s correct birthdate: February 1, 1990.
The TBI called Johnie and sent her a photo. Johnie looked at the image and felt her world tilt. Her brain whispered what her heart refused to accept—this wasn’t Bethany. The features were wrong, the age was wrong, something fundamental was missing.
But hope is a stubborn, cruel thing.
Johnie surrounded herself with family and friends and waited for the DNA results.
When the call came, it started with two words: “I’m sorry”.
DNA testing proved the girl wasn’t Bethany Markowski.
In the letter Johnie wrote to her missing daughter on the 20th anniversary of her disappearance, she described that moment: “I was beyond crushed. It was like losing you again.”
The girl’s true identity has never been publicly revealed. Why she claimed to be Bethany, how she knew specific family names, whether she was manipulated by someone with inside knowledge of the case—all of it remains a mystery within the larger mystery.
A MOTHER’S 24-YEAR WAR
Johnie Carter has not spent a single day in the past twenty-four years not fighting for her daughter.
She organized searches. She put up billboards across Tennessee with Bethany’s face and the tip line number. She appeared on local news, national news, true crime shows—anywhere that might generate a lead.
She fought for legislation and won. On March 4, 2001—the day Bethany disappeared—Tennessee now officially observes Missing Children’s Day in honor of Bethany Markowski.
Every year on that date, Johnie holds a candlelight vigil. She releases balloons with bookmarks attached, each one featuring the photo of a missing child from Tennessee. Bethany’s face floats among them, frozen at eleven years old, while her mother ages and her case grows colder.
“Bethany, this is because of you and for you,” Johnie wrote in a public letter on the 20th anniversary.
The letter is heartbreaking in its directness:
“I have been asked a million times how I do this for so long. It’s simple. As long as I breathe, I will fight for you.”
“Bethany, I want you to know that if you are able to read this, I never stopped fighting for you. I will never stop until you are home.”
“We will never give up on finding you, loving you and praying that wherever you are, you are safe and happy.”
“I love you Bethany. Mom.”
If Bethany is alive today, she’s thirty-four years old. She could be anywhere—living under another name, perhaps with a family of her own, perhaps with no memory of the little girl who called her mother one Sunday morning in March 2001.
Or she could be gone, lost somewhere in the woods between Natchez Trace State Park and Parkers Crossroads, her fate known only to the last person who saw her alive.
THE CASE TODAY: STILL OPEN, STILL SEARCHING
As of November 2025, Bethany Markowski’s disappearance remains an active investigation.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation continues to work the case. The FBI has been involved since the beginning and remains engaged. Over the two decades Bethany has been missing, investigators have received thousands of tips.
As recently as April 2024, a new lead came in that the FBI deemed credible enough to actively investigate.
Agent Ferguson of the TBI has stated that while Bethany’s disappearance is an ongoing investigation, no suspects or persons of interest have been officially named in the case.
No suspects. No persons of interest. No arrests.
Just a father whose story the cameras proved was a lie. Just a mother who’s spent twenty-four years waiting for answers. Just an eleven-year-old girl who vanished somewhere between a phone call and a custody exchange, leaving behind only questions.
WHAT WE KNOW FOR CERTAIN
On March 4, 2001, at 12:12 PM, Bethany Leanne Markowski was alive. She spoke to her half-sister Jenny on the phone, told her they were heading to Jackson, mentioned her father was taking her to the mall.
By 2:00 PM, a witness saw Larry Markowski alone at a gas station, claiming he’d “just dropped his daughter off”.
By 5:15 PM, Larry was reporting Bethany missing from a mall she never entered.
Somewhere in those five hours, in the space between a phone call and a lie, Bethany Markowski disappeared.
She was eleven years old. She had shoulder-length brown hair with bangs and blue or green eyes. She stood between 4’8″ and 5’0″ tall and weighed around 95-100 pounds. She had a mole on her left breast and freckles on her cheeks and nose. She was still losing her baby teeth—her top and bottom molars were missing.
On the day she was last seen, Bethany was wearing a green t-shirt, blue or black jeans, and black slip-on shoes.
She never made it to the meeting point in Waverly where her aunt waited. She was never captured on surveillance at the mall where her father claimed she disappeared. And despite two decades of searching, despite the vigils and the billboards and the age-progressed photos, she has never been found.
IF YOU KNOW SOMETHING
The question that has haunted investigators for twenty-four years isn’t complicated:
What happened to Bethany Markowski between 12:12 PM and 5:15 PM on March 4, 2001?
Someone knows the answer.
Maybe you saw something that day—a man alone in a van near Natchez Trace State Park, a little girl in a green t-shirt who looked upset or scared. Maybe you encountered a disheveled blonde woman with a young girl in April 2001, and something about the interaction felt wrong. Maybe you’ve carried a secret for someone for twenty-four years because you were scared, or loyal, or didn’t want to believe the worst about someone you knew.
Maybe you are that someone, and the weight of what you did that Sunday has become unbearable.
It’s not too late to come forward.
Contact Information:
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Jackson Police Department: (731) 425-8400
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Tennessee Bureau of Investigation: 1-800-824-3463
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FBI Memphis Field Office: (901) 747-4300
You can remain anonymous. You won’t be judged for how long you’ve stayed silent. You’ll be giving a mother the one thing she’s been denied for twenty-four years: answers.
A mother should never have to wonder if her child is alive or dead for two decades. But that’s been Johnie Carter’s reality since the moment Bethany’s father told a story that the cameras proved was impossible.
Somewhere, the truth is waiting to be told.
Somewhere, Bethany Markowski is waiting to be found.
Bethany Leanne Markowski
Missing Since: March 4, 2001
Last Confirmed Location: Near Natchez Trace State Park, Tennessee
Case Status: Endangered Missing
No detail is too small. No amount of time is too long. Bethany deserves to come home.
