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Others actually think he's not the most likely culprit. On December 3rd, 1998, Shel's mom ends up writing a letter to
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Steven in prison telling him that she believes he's innocent. Let me read it for you. To tell you the truth, I really
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believe you have been made someone's scapegoat. I do not trust the Markley's at all and feel they are behind this
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whole mess. I talked to the sheriff. She's talking about Alier a few days ago and he said he feels I am 100% correct.
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So there's that. Listen, she goes on to say that the Markleys have done a lot to
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their side of the family like keeping them from seeing the kids. Cuz after Shelley and John disappeared, Jon and
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Shel's families sort of turn on one another. I think in large part because of the lack of answers in this case. I
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mean, they don't know what happened to their loved ones and without answers to fill in the gaps, it leaves a lot of
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room for you to try and fill them in yourselves. And I've seen this in more than one case where like when a couple
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goes missing, like there just ends up being this huge divide. Now, when we asked former Sheriff Altier if he ever
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investigated members of the Markley family, he told us that he checked out a few theories, but that nothing came of
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that, at least while he was on the case. So when Shel's mom says that Steven is innocent, is she thinking like of
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everything? In her mind, yes. And for the time at least, John's family begins to suspect
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someone else entirely. They begin to suspect that the person behind this all is Shelly.
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I'm sorry, what? I know. And they suspect this after learning that her marriage to John may
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not have been as solid as they all thought.