00:00:00
And Christmas comes and goes without new developments, good or bad. Though after
00:00:06
Christmas, there is a strange development. It's around 8:00 a.m. the morning after Christmas Day, and John's
00:00:15
brother-in-law, Jean, wakes up to John and Shel's home phone ringing. He and his wife, another of John's sisters,
00:00:21
have been staying at their house taking care of the kids. That's why they're there that morning. So, Jean's still
00:00:26
half asleep when he picks up the phone, but he hears a man with a muffled raspy voice on the other end asking to talk to
00:00:35
Ruth. And he tells this guy like, "No, Ruth is asleep." And so then the man asks for John's sister. Gene obviously
00:00:41
assumes this man is talking about like his wife, but she's asleep, too. So he offers to pass along a message like,
00:00:47
"I'll just tell her when she wakes up." But the man threatens to hang up if Jean
00:00:52
doesn't wake up either his wife or Ruth. And in that moment, Jean is like, "Okay,
00:00:57
whatever, dude." And he hangs up before falling back asleep, thinking like, "Yes, what happened was weird, but like
00:01:04
nothing more." You're right. And nothing else happens the rest of that day. Like he probably doesn't even
00:01:08
think about it a ton. But three days later on December 29th, around the same time, like 8 a.m., Jean gets another
00:01:16
call at the Markley house from what sounds like this same man. This call is short. This guy doesn't ask for Ruth or
00:01:23
his wife again, but he tells Jean that John and Shelley are alive and being held in Toronto, and he can bring them
00:01:31
home for $10,000.