Still Missing: What happened to Bethany Markowski?
Nearly 24 years have passed, and Bethany Markowski is still missing.
- Name: Bethany Markowski
- Last Seen: March 4, 2001
- Missing From: Jackson, Tennessee
- Current Age: 34 (D.O.B. Feb. 1 1990)
- Height: 4’8″ (At time of disappearance)
- Weight: 95 lbs (At time of disappearance)
- Hair: Brown
- Eyes: Green
On March 4, 2001, 11-year-old Bethany Markowski was traveling with her father, Larry Markowski, when she allegedly went missing from the Old Hickory Mall in Jackson.
Sometime between 1:30-3:30 p.m. that afternoon, Larry stated they stopped at the mall, and Bethany entered the mall alone while he took a nap in his 1995 Chevy Astro Van. (It’s important to note that conflicting reports of the exact timing exist)
Larry stated that Bethany had wanted to visit the mall to go to Claire’s and the mall’s game room.
Larry told authorities that he woke around an hour later and entered the mall to search for Bethany, but could not locate her. Larry reported her disappearance to mall security around 5:15 p.m., who contacted the Jackson Police Department. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation would later become involved.
According to investigators, Bethany was not seen on the mall’s security footage. As such, there is no proof she actually entered the shopping center.
Missing People in America (MPIA) says that Bethany’s disappearance came just two months after her parents had separated in January 2001, after what had reportedly became a rocky relationship — including allegations of physical abuse. Bethany had since been living with her mother, Jonnie, who moved in with family in the Nashville area. Larry had remained in Gleason, Tennessee. According to Stories of the Unsolved (SOTU), sometime after the move, Larry abducted or attempted to abduct Bethany from her new school, which led to Jonnie obtaining an order of protection against him. The two would enter a custody agreement allowing Larry to have visitation time with Bethany.
According to MPIA, Bethany and Larry were scheduled to meet Jonnie’s sister Lori at an Interstate 40 exit in Waverly around 5 p.m. the same evening that Bethany went missing (this meeting was to transport Bethany back to Nashville). When 5 o’clock passed and Larry did not show up with Bethany, SOTU reports that Lori made several attempts to call Larry on his cell phone before finally getting through to him, which is when she was informed her niece was missing.
The last time that anyone other than Larry spoke to Bethany was reportedly around 12:12 p.m. on March 4, when her half-sister Jenny (Larry’s daughter) called Larry’s phone. According to Jenny, Bethany told her that she and Larry had just left the house in Gleason, and they were going to the mall in Jackson. However, records would show that the call pinged on a cell tower near Natchez Trace State Park – dozens of miles southeast of Gleason. According to We The Missing, a witness later reported seeing Larry getting gas at Parkers Crossroads around 2 p.m. This witness stated that Larry appeared to be alone, and that Larry said he had just dropped his daughter off.
Larry and Bethany had also reportedly made a trip to Little Rock, Arkansas, the day before Bethany went missing. Authorities would later speak to a friend of Larry’s named Harold, who said they visited him at his home in Little Rock. According to SOTU, Harold also told authorities that Larry said he wanted to take Bethany to Mexico – an allegation that Larry has denied.
MPIA reports that after she went missing, several witnesses claimed to have seen Bethany in the company of an unidentified Caucasian female in East Tennessee. The woman was described at the time as roughly 42-44 years-old, 5’4″ to 5’5″ and 185 pounds.
📸: Artist rendering of unidentified woman.
Authorities believed that possibly the same woman attempted to enroll a girl who looked like Bethany in school in April 2001, but did not have the proper paperwork to do so.
Authorities also said a woman with similar features, and a girl who looked like Bethany, were spotted for several consecutive days at a café in Cleveland, Tennessee. Witnesses reported seeing the woman using a payphone to call someone several times. Investigators would later reveal that Larry was assigned by his job to deliver product to this same café, but arrived three days behind schedule due to his truck breaking down.
The woman and girl from the café would later be seen boarding a bus, and investigators believe they may have traveled to Moline, Illinois. Investigators searched the bus depot in Moline, but they never spotted the woman or the girl.
Authorities have followed up on several tips and leads over the years. SOTU reports that sometime around 2016-2017, a girl who claimed to be Bethany was found passed out at a residence in Knoxville. However, a DNA analysis would prove she was not Bethany.
The investigation also included Bethany’s parents each taking a lie detector test. According to SOTU, her mother Jonnie passed, while Larry did not.
In a 2018 interview with WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News, former TBI spokesperson Michael Jones said:
“No one has been marked off as a potential suspect in this case. All leads are followed up on, and on the flip side, if we had enough evidence to pinpoint one particular individual as the suspect in this case, we probably would already have been moving forward and hopefully had a resolution in this case.”
Larry has denied any involvement in Bethany’s disappearance, and more than two decades later, her family is still without any type of closure.
WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News spoke with Larry shortly after Bethany’s disappearance in 2001. He told us at the time:
“We took a nap in the van. She wanted to go up in the mall. She went up supposedly and I fell asleep a while and woke up to look for her. I made a mistake by letting her go in the mall. I shouldn’t have done that.”
In 2018, a reporter from Crime Watch Daily interviewed Larry. Referring to suspicion being placed on him, Larry told Crime Watch Daily:
“It’s a witch hunt and pack of lies. I believe somebody has her and she’s going to come home just like Jaycee Dugard. I don’t care how they smear me. All I care about is my daughter. I love my daughter will all my heart.”
SEE ALSO: Missing girl’s father speaks out for first time in 17 years (2018)
Also in 2018, WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News spoke with Bethany’s mother, Jonnie. Jonnie told us that Bethany was a “good girl,” a “pleasure to be around,” and a “sassy and friendly child that loved to sing.” Jonnie stated that she will never give up looking for her.
Jonnie Carter, Bethany’s mother (2018)
In January 2025, we made contact with Jonnie and presented her with a few questions:
Tell us about the last time you spoke to Bethany.
The last conversation that Bethany and I had was the morning she disappeared. She called me from our house in Gleason, Tennessee at 9:38 am and she sounded scared and nervous as she said “Mama, daddy knows you have a boyfriend.” I could hear Larry in the background yelling, “ Tell her I know she has a boyfriend.” Bethany’s little voice was shaking as she said it again, I asked, “why would you say that…never mind”, because I knew why she was saying it, he told her to, and she was scared. I told her “that’s ok,” and she responded with “I will see you at 5 o’clock right?” and I said, “yes you will.” She said, “I love you” and I said I love you too.
Can you share how it feels to not have answers after all these years?
Imagine you lost your own child at Walmart, while shopping you turn around for just a moment and then they are gone, you look around calling their name and as time goes by you are screaming for them, running, looking everywhere, asking everyone if they have seen a little girl wearing a green shirt, jeans, and black shoes. You cannot breathe, as your heart is pounding out of your chest, you are crying and you do not know what is happening, while your brain is trying to take it all in but refuses to, this is not happening, and it cannot [be] real! Then… you turn a corner and there she is. But instead, this time you never find your child and every corner you go around there is nothing, she is GONE.
After a while, when you can sleep a little, you start a routine; you wake up, you lay there for a minute and think, today is THE DAY. You put your feet on the floor and say out loud, “today will be a good day,” and sometimes that works, and you make it through the day other times, it doesn’t, and you can barely hold it together. Eventually you start being able to have more and more days where you can hold it together.
Bethany will turn 35 years old on February 1st. Bethany has been missing 24 years as of March 4th. Bethany was only 11 years old when she disappeared.
The hardest thing to go through for me other than Bethany still missing is starting to lose memories; I can no longer hear her laugh, smell her sweaty little head, picture what her toes look like, hear her voice, see the silly faces she would make, now I rely on pictures to remind me of those memories. It’s not enough to hold on to those memories when I just want to make new ones with her or at the very least know that she’s ok.
How do I feel about not having answers after all these years? Angry, hurt, and confused that she has not been found, but mostly heartbroken that Bethany has missed so much time with her family, and we missed so many important milestones in Bethany’s life. I will never stop looking for Bethany, and I will never give up on trying to find out the truth about what happened on March 4th, 2001.
If we stop talking about Bethany and telling her story to anyone that will listen, Bethany will disappear all over again, we will lose her again. We are her voice, and we will never shut up or stop looking.
What would you say to anyone who may know what happened to Bethany?
If you know anything at all, the smallest piece of information could be the last piece of the puzzle we have been looking for to find Bethany.
I understand that you may be scared to tell what you know but is has been almost 24 years since Bethany vanished, it is time to tell someone. Please, put yourself in Bethany’s shoes and come forward with anything you know; no matter how small or insignificant you feel it may be. You could be the person that solves this mystery that has gone on for way too long. Please, do the right thing and speak up. No matter how much time has passed, Bethany deserves to be found and brought home.
In 2017, March 4 (the day in 2001 that Bethany went missing) was established as Tennessee Missing Children’s Day with the help of Bethany’s mother Jonnie and Rep. Darren Jernigan.
If you see Bethany, have any information on her whereabouts, or have information that could assist the investigation, contact the Jackson Police Department at (731) 425-8400 or the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-TBI-FIND.
