Judge Daniel E. Haughey denied his request for early release from prison.
“He should serve every second of the sentence imposed,” Butler County Prosecutor Michael Gmoser said during the hearing. “He should go forth henceforth and answer to the public, who will demand the truth from him. Such is the way in the court of public opinion and the way of all affected by his conduct and deceit.
“He has, after all, taken the coward’s way out and should be given nothing more by this court than the maximum sentence the court wisely and correctly imposed.”
Carter was engaged to Markham at the time of her 2011 disappearance and death. She was days away from her 22nd birthday.
After years of investigation by Fairfield Police Department, no arrests were made even after Markham’s body was found in Indiana. In March 2023, an indictment against Carter was returned by a Butler County grand jury after the county prosecutor’s investigators had taken another look and probed the evidence for about 18 months.
In early June 2024, Carter agreed to a plea deal that reduced a murder charge down to involuntary manslaughter. A month later, he was sentenced to three years in prison, the maximum sentence for the third-degree felony.
Last October, Carter, 37, filed a motion in Butler County Common Pleas Court asking a judge to release him early after only serving a little more than a year in prison.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
In his appeal, Carter’s attorney, Carl Lewis, addressed that his client “has worked extremely hard at being a ‘model inmate’ by engaging in positive programs and avoiding the negative prison environment.”
Markham’s death has been classified as a homicide, though the exact cause remains undetermined.
Gmoser said that what has been missing in the case are the answers to why and how Katelyn Markham was killed and who, if anyone, assisted Carter in any way.
“The defendant, who was given an unprecedented opportunity to answer all of these questions without recourse, and you requested this matter be continued, in progress for that purpose until today,” Gmoser said. “During that time, the defendant’s attorney informed my team that the defendant did not wish, after all, to take advantage of what was offered.”
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
Gmoser said that, as he had earlier posited, “I assume the truth must be unimaginably worse than anyone may think.”
”After all, the anthropologist expert in this case opined that after her body was first deposited in the dump in Indiana, her head was removed and later returned in the plastic grocery bag. Little wonder the defendant did not want to explain that along with the rest.”
Haughey, before issuing his ruling, said he agreed with Lewis that Carter has been “a model inmate” and that during this time, while the case was pending, Carter did not violate the terms of his bond.
“I agree that there’s nothing to suggest that outside of this horrific incident that the court ultimately adjudicated that Mr. Carter has done anything other than be a law-abiding citizen, but we don’t get to hit a reset button,” Haughey said. “We don’t get to undo what’s been done.”
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