A young father moves to Nashville chasing his college dreams, but in June 1998, 23-year-old Marcus Rutledge vanishes after taking his daughter to daycare. His disappearance reveals a life filled with secrets...and even after the discovery of his skull, his family is left wondering if they'll ever know what really happened.If you have any information, please contact the Metro Nashville PD's Crime Stoppers Division at 615-74-CRIME (615-742-7463). Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-marcus-rutledge/Did you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit crimejunkie.app/library/ to view the current membership options and policies. Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllcCrime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!
Chapter 1: Who was Marcus Rutledge and what happened to him?
And the story I have for you today is about how a young man's disappearance revealed a secret life. And his secret life made it so much harder for investigators to solve his disappearance. This is the story of Marcus Rutledge. So it's the afternoon on Monday, June 8th, 1998, and a woman named Tawania is getting kind of nervous.
She and her 23-year-old boyfriend, Marcus Rutledge, were supposed to meet up, but he's a no-show. Not even answering his cell phone. She's like calling him and calling him, but she's just not hearing anything back.
And when's the last time she spoke to him?
So it actually hasn't been very long. I mean, he had spent the night at her place and then took their two-year-old daughter to daycare at around like 10 o'clock that morning. And they've even honestly talked on the phone since at like 1, 1.30 that afternoon. So truly, very little time has passed. It might not even ring alarm bells for some people.
But the thing is, this is totally uncharacteristic of Marcus not to answer his phone. And if he did miss a call, he would get back to whoever tried him like ASAP. So right away, she knows in her gut that something just doesn't feel right. So she reaches out to Marcus's parents, David and Geraldine, known as Jerry. And she's just trying to see if like they have heard anything from him.
They're not local. They're in southeast Michigan while Tawani and Marcus both live in Nashville, Tennessee. Marcus had actually moved to Nashville to attend Tennessee State University, TSU. But even with the distance, like his family talks to him pretty regularly. So Tawani is hoping that they might know where he is. But it turns out they haven't heard from him either.
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Chapter 2: How did Marcus's family and girlfriend react to his disappearance?
Now, according to what his dad David told our reporter Nina, when he got that first call from Tawania, he understood her concern. Like, Marcus going MIA, even to him, is unheard of. But, you know, he tries to reassure her at first. Maybe Marcus just got held up somewhere. It'll be fine. Just, like, give it a beat.
But Tawania says that she wants to go to Marcus's duplex apartment to just check on him. So David tells her, like, OK, just, like, keep me posted. And meanwhile, he and Jerry start making a series of unsuccessful calls to Marcus themselves trying to reach him. So when Twania pulls up to Marcus's apartment, his car, this red 1995 Plymouth Neon, isn't there.
But instead of that reassuring her, like, oh, he's just out for some reason, she's actually more convinced than ever that something is up and she needs to get into his apartment. Now, even though they've been together for a little bit, it doesn't look like she has a key to his place.
So she devises this plan to call Marcus's best friend, Ethan Gibbs Jr., who basically helps her just break into the place.
That feels like a pretty big leave.
I guess. I mean, I think it's the unanswered phone calls. It's just, again, I can't. It's so unlike him. So unlike him. Even when she calls Ethan, like, he doesn't think she's overreacting. He's just as concerned. So when Ethan gets there, he and Tawania break in through a back window.
And what they find inside just kind of confirms for them that they made the right decision because even though there's no sign of a struggle or foul play, Marcus's Rottweiler is shut in his bathroom with no food or water except like the water in the toilet. And they can tell that he's been there for a while because he had eaten part of the bathroom carpet.
And they know that Marcus would never leave his dog like that, not even for a short amount of time, let alone for however long it took this dog to start chewing on the rug. So there's no indication that Marcus was planning for any kind of trip, right? Like his clothes are still there. There's no bag or suitcase that's packed or even missing. Like nothing is standing out to them.
So with David and Jerry's encouragement, Tawania calls the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department that very night. And an officer comes to take a missing persons report. Now, initially, he gets some basic details about Marcus. He puts out a bolo for his car, which should stick out because like it has not only is it red, but like has Michigan plates. It's not local. Right.
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Chapter 3: What secrets did Marcus Rutledge keep from his family?
He says that he is just as lost as they are and he wants to help them find Marcus any way he can. However, David and Jerry can't help but notice that their son's friend seems awfully nervous. Like he's literally sweating, he can't sit still, and there's just this uncomfortable energy that is like vibrating off of him.
Had they ever met Ethan before?
So they actually know him pretty well because up until a few months ago, Ethan and Marcus shared an apartment. They were roommates. But like Marcus had recently decided to get his own place. So he moved out, like moved into this duplex that they had now looked at.
Did anything prompt that move or was it just like kind of growing up, wanting your own space?
Yeah, I think you can call it that. I think the two just had like roommate issues, but stuff that like two people who live together might encounter, little things that just like get under your skin.
The reason you and I have never lived together. Yeah.
Preach. Marcus had, I guess, been into his family about Ethan. He's messy. His bills weren't getting paid on time, like that kind of thing. But even after Marcus moved out, he and Ethan stayed really close friends. So, like, there is no bad blood between them. And honestly, Marcus's family had always liked Ethan. He is a respectful guy from a good family.
They never had any cause for concern about Marcus being around him. And even now, they're wondering if his reaction is is maybe just because of the circumstances. I mean, his best friend is now missing, seemingly vanished into thin air. But Marcus's sister Felicia notices the same strange vibe when Ethan takes her driving around to look for her brother's missing car.
She's like, Ethan's acting tense. He's not saying much other than just like suggesting places where they should maybe look for the car. He's saying that he's worried about the whole situation. But again, nothing like incriminating. It's just like it could be chalked up to the same thing, right? Now, as detectives start digging in, they begin to learn more about Marcus's life.
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Chapter 4: Was Marcus involved in illegal activities?
No, no, he gets along well with both of his children's mothers. So like that feels like a quick dead end, which is when they turn to his school. Maybe someone at the university there can help them piece things together. But this is where they encountered the first big twist in their investigation. It turns out Marcus has been keeping some major secrets from his family.
So police learn that Marcus actually dropped out of college the year before, back in 1997. What? Yeah, he's basically been pretending to be a student ever since. And his family had no idea? Mm-mm.
In fact, the last time Marcus visited his parents, which was just a few weeks before he went missing, this was for Memorial Day, he was there for a cookout, he said he left early because he had to study for an exam. Did Twania know? I don't know. So the detective we talked to didn't know either. And Nina tried calling the number that Marcus's dad had for Tawania.
We're not sure if it's still the right number for her anymore. Like, long story short, we haven't been able to talk to her to figure that out. But either way, his family... was shocked to find this out from police. Like going to TSU was the entire reason Marcus moved to Nashville in the first place. I mean, both his parents went there. He wanted to follow in their footsteps.
I mean, the wild part is they thought he was close to graduating. It's not just that he was going there. They were expecting to go to a graduation soon. But that's not the only surprise in store for the family. Because even though Marcus doesn't have a criminal record, investigators also learn that he'd been selling weed.
And they think that he might have started when he was still a student because his clientele seems to mostly be other students. Like, it doesn't seem that he was out on the streets dealing. And we're talking small-scale stuff, like not some big-time operation. Right. And Ethan actually admits this to police.
He says that he and Marcus both sell weed, although I'm not sure if they work together or what. And I don't know if Ethan is the first person that they hear this from or if he's just confirming this info that they learn or already had. But he doesn't try to hide it, I think is the main point.
But that could be why he's acting so strange around Marcus's family. He knows they're all going to find out about this and be upset about the drugs.
Maybe, yeah. But here's the thing. Even while he's being honest about the weed, investigators still can't shake this feeling like Ethan is holding something back. They just don't know what because like I don't think that all that stuff like just stops after they learn the thing right or what they think could be the thing. Did he know that Marcus had dropped out of school?
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Chapter 5: What did police discover about Marcus's car?
So you can imagine. How overwhelming this is for his family. They are already dealing with him being missing. But then to discover that he was living a life they really knew nothing about, it was a lot. And David told us it's like walking through a nightmare. And as investigators dig deeper into Marcus's life, more concerning details emerge.
He had gotten into a couple of altercations, one reported to police when it happened about a year before his disappearance, and then another just a few months before he went missing. Both incidents were apparently related to him selling weed, although Detective Filter won't share specifics about those altercations.
Were there people after him?
Not that investigators can tell. I don't think there's anyone specific or if there is, they're not sharing that. It seems like from everything they look at, they can't find any immediate dangers in his life. No one is saying Marcus owed them money. No one has been like making threats to him. But they do discover something interesting.
Back in mid-May, Marcus, they find out, had rented a car for like 10 days. And this stood out because they know that he didn't get into an accident or anything. So it doesn't look like his own car was out of commission or anything. So why rent? Right. Now, did he drive back and forth from Nashville to Knoxville a lot to see his son? You know, that's like 360 miles each trip.
Maybe he didn't want to put the miles on his car. But Detective Filter pointed out an alternative possibility. He says that when you're doing something illegal... You might not want to use your own car to do that. But they don't know if he was doing something illegal with the car or what he was using it for in those 10 days. They truly just have no idea.
Right. He just had a rental for 10 days. Right.
So they find that out. But then beyond that, not much turns up. There is a recent traffic ticket, some receipts from a car wash, like nothing that points investigators in any real direction. So here you have this devoted father who has suddenly stopped checking in with his kids, which seems completely out of character.
But they've also just learned that he's been living this whole other life that his family knew nothing about. And they really can't tell if he left on his own or if something happened to him. But their thinking starts to shift on Tuesday, June 30th. That is when a maintenance man at an apartment complex more than 20 miles from where Marcus lives spots Marcus's missing Plymouth.
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Chapter 6: Who was seen driving Marcus's car after his disappearance?
No idea why he was in the complex at all.
But it makes you feel like the driver had to have live there or was close to someone who did live there if he like was at the complex like back and forth a couple times like he was there and then he wasn't and then he like you would think but all I know is that according to David police canvassed the complex and that didn't lead them to Marcus or to anyone who knew Marcus
Yeah, but what about the people who knew the driver? I know we don't know who he is, but like he doesn't live there. But that guy has to have a tie there. To me, it's a chain, right? Like the person in the complex leads you to the driver. The driver leads you to who gave him the car. And like that goes all the way back to Marcus and why he doesn't have his car and where he is.
And if they did have something to do with it, right? And it's not just like a car that was given to them. Or even if, again, they now know it belongs to a missing person. Like, I don't think they're going to be like fessing up to knowing him. Right? Right. I don't know. All the things are possible. It's also possible that the canvassing they did was just light. Again, maybe people were lying.
Or option C, I just truly don't know. But they're hopeful that now that they have the car, maybe they can find the driver another way. And maybe through forensic evidence. Right. So police have the Plymouth towed to their lab and inside they find a gun that's tucked under the driver's seat. Now, is this more evidence of Marcus's double life?
Like, did the gun belong to the person who was driving the car? Did it belong to Marcus? Like, couldn't tell you because it doesn't look like the gun was actually registered to anyone. Though it seems like from, you know, what we learned from Detective Filter that everyone assumes the gun was Marcus's.
They also managed to lift two fingerprints from the car, one from inside the driver's side window and then another from a rented VHS tape that they find in the car. And the print from the tape leads nowhere. The detective told us they confirmed it belonged to an employee at the video rental place, which is like, give me an older sentence.
Right.
And the fingerprint on the window, they eliminated Ethan and Tawanya as the sources of it. But they didn't eliminate anyone else. They couldn't determine who it belonged to. Here's the wild part to me. They said it could be Marcus's because Detective Filter says they don't have his prints on file. Like, here's where I get a little skeptical.
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