keith morrison: mark stover was a bit like one powerful cough relief for hours. of his well trained dogs. he was a creature of habit. always on time, never missed an appointment, in bed early, up with the sun. and every wednesday, mark hit the road for the hour and a half drive south to seattle for sessions with his loyal clients. a schedule which employs amber. we used to always joke that he was up, he beat the rooster out of bed. keith morrison: and beth. he was usually on the road by seven. keith morrison: and stephanie. he had his breakfast. beat seattle traffic. keith morrison: knew very well. but on the morning of wednesday, october 28, 2009, nothing was routine, nothing at all. first stephanie, whose own house is right next door to the kennels, woke up to a chorus of barking dogs. it was, she thinks, about 6:00 am. and the kennel dogs were very, very upset. it was a huge ruckus next door.
mark would never have done. keith morrison: did you call out to him or wave? i waved and i went i hope that s mark. keith morrison: i hope that s mark? well, of course, it must have been, stephanie thought, rushing a bleeding ding to the vet. about 20 minutes later, stephanie walked up to the house to use the bathroom. this time the door was unlocked. but this was weird. before i even got to the door, there was this immense smell of bleach. keith morrison: bleach? yeah, like, it took my breath away. keith morrison: and inside the house. there was three wet, what looked like blood spots in the hallway, that had obviously been just cleaned and they were still drying. keith morrison: perhaps ding had bled on the carpet and mark had cleaned it up. but why would he take the time? he wouldn t stop and spend half an hour cleaning. his main thing would be getting ding to the vet, then getting to his appointments.
keith morrison: then, not long after, stephanie arrived and noticed perhaps 100 yards from where she stood down in the field, mark s station wagon was backed up to the carport area of his house. i was kind of surprised that it was parked where it was parked, because it was never parked there. it s really hard to get it into that position to begin with. keith morrison: anyway, why hadn t he left for seattle? it was then she noticed, must be mark up at the house. someone who had mark s hat on, which i thought was mark, was bringing something big into the back of the car. keith morrison: big, big, big? it looked like to me. so i was thinking he was carrying ding and putting her in the back of the car. keith morrison: ding, who remember was recovering from surgery. and then he went to get into his car. he was wearing mark s hat, mark s coat. and closed the car door and then proceeded to like scream down the driveway, which
keith morrison: but other than those wet spots, everything else appeared to be the way mark would have left it. i was looking for bloody towels. i was looking for bloody paper towels. the bathroom was immaculate. there was absolutely nothing in the washing machine. there was nothing in the tub. keith morrison: stephanie wasn t sure what was going on, but it all felt kind of creepy. my thoughts were well, that was freaky. and i got out of there and i didn t go back up to the house the rest of the day. keith morrison: you went on with the day? um-hmm. keith morrison: but a strange day it was. and as the hours ticked by, there was no word from mark. no one could reach him by phone. it was very odd that we had not talked to him. it was very strange. keith morrison: the following morning, october 29th, still no sign of mark, no word from him at all. again, stephanie went up toward his house. and looked up and there stood ding by the back door.
of his well trained dogs. he was a creature of habit. always on time, never missed an appointment, in bed early, up with the sun. and every wednesday, mark hit the road for the hour and a half drive south to seattle for sessions with his loyal clients. a schedule which employs amber. we used to always joke that he was up, he beat the rooster out of bed. keith morrison: and beth. he was usually on the road by seven. keith morrison: and stephanie. he had his breakfast. beat seattle traffic. keith morrison: knew very well. but on the morning of wednesday, october 28, 2009, nothing was routine, nothing at all. first stephanie, whose own house is right next door to the kennels, woke up to a chorus of barking dogs. it was, she thinks, about 6:00 am. and the kennel dogs were very, very upset. it was a huge ruckus next door. keith morrison: occasionally that sort of thing would happen. very seldom, very seldom to that extent.