This page documents all of the different things I have regarding my father's disappearance. The "evidence" here, for lack of a better term, is displayed in chronological order. Towards the top are the oldest posts, and at the bottom you'll see all of the newest findings. I'll leave the date, as well as my own thoughts next to every physical entry.
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As always, if you recognize anything here or have any tips/information you want to share, please reach out to me at contact@findmarkgranger.com
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Background:
On March 6, 2023, my father, Mark Granger, disappeared.
At the time, he was employed by McGuire Realty and had been hired to renovate a vacant home roughly 7 miles outside the town of Craven's Junction, KY. He arrived at the property only days before a powerful blizzard swept across the state. The storm buried much of Ellington County under heavy snow, cut off roads for days, and claimed the lives of 22 people across the state.
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That was the last time anyone can say with certainty where my father was.
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My dad and I spoke by phone some mornings while he was staying at the property. Our conversations were usually pretty brief, but at no point did he mention anything unusual or give me any reason to believe he was in danger.
He had spent most of his life outdoors. Being alone at an isolated property for several weeks wasn't unusual for him, and certainly wasn't something I would have considered dangerous under normal circumstances.
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As the storm passed and reports of fatalities throughout the state began to emerge though, I became concerned. I attempted to contact him repeatedly over the following days. In total, I called or texted him about twenty times. None of those attempts ever received a response.
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After the third day, I filed a missing person's report with the Ellington County Sheriff's Department. Several days after that they performed a search, and found his pickup truck at the house, but no other sign of him.​
posted on 07/17/2023
Missing person poster I made shortly after the search effort began. Approx. 03/21/2023
According to investigators, they believe my father attempted to leave the property once the storm became severe. Their theory is that he walked outside to his truck, discovered it wouldn't start because of the cold, and attempted to return to the house. At some point during that walk, they believe he became disoriented in the whiteout conditions and wandered into the surrounding woods, where he ultimately succumbed to the elements.
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There is something about that explanation that doesn't sit right with me.
My dad's truck was parked roughly thirty feet from the front door and was facing directly toward the house. Even in near-zero visibility, it's difficult for me to understand how someone with his level of experience could become so disoriented that they were unable to find a building only a few steps away. If he had remained near the truck, simply walking forward would have brought him back to the residence. It is a question that I don't think the investigation ever answered, and from what I can tell it seems they are content in their explanation.
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I remain grateful for the efforts of the Ellington County Sheriff's Department and the numerous agencies and volunteers who participated in the search. My criticism has never been towards those who searched for my father, but rather at the investigation that followed and the conclusions that authorities reached.
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Over the past several months, I've collected every document, photograph, video, and report that I could legally obtain. Through public records requests, conversations with locals, and interviews with members of the search and rescue teams, I've attempted to reconstruct the events leading up to his disappearance as accurately as possible.
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This website is an attempt to organize everything I've found in one place. Everything here has been preserved in its original form whenever possible. I've also made every effort to distinguish between documented facts and my own observations/opinions. I don't want my own biases to cloud your judgement, and I'll try to keep this site as neutral as possible when presenting information.
Alert printed from the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation Webpage.
Media Response:
When I started putting this website together, I wasn't exactly sure where to begin. I want to present this story the way it unfolded, but many of the documents only make sense once you have the full context of the case. Because of that, I figured the best place to start would be the news coverage.
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In this post, I've collected several newspaper articles and reports covering my dad's disappearance, along with coverage of Winter Storm Albert. Before digging into the evidence, I think it's important for you to understand just how severe the conditions were at the time.
In the days following my dad's disappearance, the case received a fair amount of local attention. But as more information about the storm emerged, and as the number of weather-related fatalities continued to climb, it felt like my dad's story slowly faded into the background. Before long, there was no more media coverage, and it felt like public interest in finding him had largely evaporated.​
posted on 09/21/2023
I think some of this is due in part to the media quickly accepting the Ellington County Sheriff's Department's version of events. Almost every article and interview I can find treats my dad's death as a foregone conclusion. Even in those first few weeks, very few people seemed willing to entertain the possibility that he might still be alive.
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Whether that was intentional or not, I think it had a real impact on the search. People are willing to volunteer when they believe there's a chance of bringing someone home. But it's a lot harder to convince them to spend days searching the woods once they think they're just recovering a body. By the time additional searches were organized, it seemed like all the volunteers lost hope.
Front page of The Ellington County Gazette
03/26/2023
National Weather Service issues Winter Storm Warning for central Kentucky.
03/03/2023
Article from The Louisvillian
03/19/2023
Flyer taken from Laurel Fork State Park Visitor's Center.
CBS 12 Louisville reports on Winter Storm Albert.
03/05/2023
posted on 10/28/2023
Now that you have a better understanding of how the case was reported on, I'd like to show you the police reports themselves. Alongside this post is the official missing persons report I filed for my dad, as well as the incident report the Ellington County Sheriff's Department completed after they finally searched the property. (Apologies these formatted a bit weird, so for the complete full-size reports click the link under the image. The image shown here is just the first page of the report.)
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To me, it always felt like the initial search lacked urgency. The two deputies who searched the property never seemed interested in finding out what had actually happened. They located my dad's truck, one of his boots, and what they believed to be his footprints in the snow, and yet even with all of this evidence, they decided to call it a night almost immediately.
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I also remember one of the deputies personally telling me about a handprint they had found on one of the windows. But when I finally received a copy of the incident report, it had been dismissed as insignificant. There was no attempt to explain it or investigate it any further.
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There were a few other inconsistencies as well.
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According to the report, the barefoot print they found belonged to my dad's left foot. Investigators theorized that he had fallen in the snow and lost his shoe. But the boot photographed and logged as evidence looks like his right boot.
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I still can't make sense of that. Either my dad walked out into the middle of a blizzard wearing only a single hiking boot, or there's something else about the scene that investigators missed.
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Something about this whole thing feels off.
Police Reports:
Missing person report filed 03/06/2023
Recovered iCloud:
First off, I want to apologize for not posting here in forever. Life has been very hectic, and I just haven't had the time to update this as much as I'd like. To be fair, though, until this week, I didn't really have much to update you guys on.
However, I found something today that's honestly shaken me more than I expected. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to get into some of my dad’s social media accounts: Facebook, Instagram, anything I could think of.
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My dad was the type of guy to use the same email and password for everything, so I started trying different services just to see what I could get into. A few weeks ago, someone suggested I check out his iCloud account to see if he’d taken any photos while he was out at the property.
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And as it turns out, he did.
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I’ve put together a compilation and linked it here.
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The first couple of videos and photos seemed relatively normal from what I could tell. My dad regularly made videos documenting the work he did around properties. However, this time, as the snow settled in and he realized he'd be stuck in isolation for a while, it seems he started using his videos as a sort of audio diary.
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A few days into these recordings though, some weird things began happening around the property. The videos capture strange noises and what appear to be footprints around the house. I can't say for certain what was happening, but after watching everything he recorded, I don't think my dad was alone out there.
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Naturally, as soon as I found these videos, I took them to the Ellington County Sheriff's Department. But they told me there wasn't enough evidence in the footage to determine whether anyone else had been on the property, let alone whether a crime had been committed.
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I'm at a loss. I think the department has already come to its conclusion, and they don't want to waste any more time looking for Dad. I feel like I finally have something that could actually move the investigation forward, but nobody seems interested in pursuing it.
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I've uploaded every clip here exactly as I found it. All I've done is compile them into a single video for convenience. I've also included some of the photos my dad took during the time he worked at the property.
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If you notice anything I missed, or if anything about these photos/videos stands out to you, please let me know.
posted on 08/10/2026
Photo of I-65 pileup
03/02/2023 (Day Prior to Winter Storm)
Footprints outside of house.
03/01/2023
Snow already visible at property.
03/01/2023
Footprints on roof.
03/05/2023
Shadow? Trick of the light?
03/05/2023
posted on 08/24/2026
Sorry for not updating you guys sooner after my last entry. As you can probably imagine, my thoughts have been running a bit wild after finding those videos. After everything I've seen, I don't believe the official explanation for my dad's disappearance anymore. I don't know who it was, or what they were doing out there, but after watching those videos, I really do think someone else was on the property with him.
So I decided to reach out to some of the people who were on the Search & Rescue team when my dad disappeared. I figured I'd send them the videos and see if any of them remembered something from the search that might help me make sense of it. But nobody responded.
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No one.
I messaged 9 different people, and not one of them replied to me. It was weird. It honestly felt like I was deliberately being ghosted. Eventually though, I found another guy who had been part of the search team, Leo Thurmond. Unlike the others I'd contacted though, Leo had apparently been let go from the park fairly recently. This time I decided not to mention the videos. I figured I'd have a better chance of getting him to talk if I just told him who I was and said I had a few questions about the search for my dad.
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He agreed to meet a couple of days later, and the attached audio is what I managed to record.
Interview:
posted on 09/03/2026
This weekend, I decided I'd go check out the area Leo told me about the other day. It took me about an hour or two of hiking before I could even get to the spot. It is OUT there. I don't think there's a main road or a house around for miles.
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Some of you have asked why I didn't already know where this area was, and I figure that now is probably a good time to explain. After my dad went missing, there were two primary search efforts throughout the Laurel Fork area.
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There was the "civilian" search party, which included me, a bunch of volunteers, and some local Sheriff's deputies. Then there was the "professional" search, which was made up of Search and Rescue and EMS personnel. Their search started about 10 miles away from ours, and the idea was that both groups would gradually work toward one another until we'd covered everything in between.
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That isn't what happened, though.
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The search went on for about a week before everyone started losing steam. The cold weather wasn't helping. People had jobs and families they needed to get back to. And eventually the decision was made to call it off. By that point, the two search groups hadn't gotten anywhere close to meeting in the middle.
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So there was this entire stretch of forest between us that, as far as I knew, nobody had ever actually searched. And until Leo told me where his team stopped, I just didn't know exactly where that stretch began.
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Now imagine my surprise when I showed up to the coordinates Leo gave me yesterday, and I found this:
Scouting Trip:
Interview w/ Leo Thurmond
08/23/2026
Indian Grave Ridge Road
(Photo taken 09/02/2026)
From what I can tell, this entire road and the surrounding area was never searched by anyone. And it was conveniently located right in the middle of our two search parties. Even weirder, though, is that this is the only part of the forest that I know about that's actually closed to the public.
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Now, I don't imagine that'll really be a problem. It's not like these guys have, or could even afford, security out here. But I find it a little weird that of all the places in Laurel Fork they could restrict access to, it's this one.
After hiking around for a while, though, there wasn't much to see. I never found any campsites, buildings, or anything particularly noteworthy geographically. There were a LOT of mosquitoes and ticks, and by the time I made it back my legs carried plenty of evidence of that, but there wasn't much other wildlife. At least, not from what I could tell.
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What was noteworthy was the number of arrowheads I kept finding.
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Obviously, the name "Indian Grave Ridge" had to come from somewhere, but I was still a little taken aback by just how many there were. I've never had an eye for finding artifacts, and even I couldn't walk more than 50 feet without spotting another one. Eventually, I stopped paying much attention to them and kept moving, but I did take some photos of a few that I dug up.
Before I left, I made sure to put everything back where I found it. I don't need the bad luck, especially when I'm hiking around a place called "Indian Grave Ridge." There's a LOT of ground left to cover out here, though. Way more than I could reasonably search in an afternoon.
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So, in a few weeks, I plan on coming back with some camping supplies and spending a couple of days out here. Hopefully, with that much time, I can actually cover some ground and figure out whether there's anything back here.
I'll keep you guys posted.
Some of the arrowheads I found.
A chipped arrowhead literally sticking out of the dirt.
Mushroom in the forest.
Maybe a Golden Waxcap?
Emily Whitaker newspaper article
Approx. 11/09/2012
Expedition:
posted on 09/13/2026
I decided to take a couple of days off this week to go searching along the ridge I found last week. I finally got paid, so I actually had a bit of money to get some decent camping supplies to bring with me.
In total this is what I brought:
- 1x large hiking backpack
- 1x small one-person tent
- 1x insulated sleeping bag
- 1x flashlight
- 1x lighter
- 1x topographical map
- 1x compass
- 1x portable power bank
- 1x 4-inch pocket knife
- 1x 18-inch serrated machete
- 1x G43X 9mm handgun
- 2x gallons of water
- 1x box of CLIF Bars
- 1x bag of beef jerky
- 1x bag of marshmallows (obviously)
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Photo of my camp.
The campfire I made.
(It went out very quickly after this.)
Now, full disclosure, I am by NO means an outdoorsman. Ironically, the last time that I went camping was years ago with my dad. If nothing else, I feel like he'd be smiling right now, knowing that he'd finally gotten me out of the house somehow. While I'm nowhere near the level of expertise he was when it came to the woods, I do still know the basics like setting up a tent and making a fire.
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I had a pretty late start out here though. I didn't start the hike until about 3PM, so by the time it started to get late I didn't make it much further than I did last time. I eventually came upon a bit of a clearing which ran parallel to a small creek, and decided that it'd be a good spot to set up camp. It took me a bit longer to get the tent set up than I thought it would, and it took a LOT longer than I would've like to get my fire going - but I eventually got settled in.
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By then it was nearly pitch-black outside, and I decided that I'd end the day with a brief video log going over some of the search. Almost as soon as I started talking, though, I heard a massive crash from the other side of the clearing. I hadn't gotten a chance to search that area during the day since I needed to get camp set up. It sounded like a tree had fallen, but without all of the creaking and snapping that you'd normally expect to hear before it.
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I decided that I probably needed to go check it out. And although it was dark, I wasn't worried about running into anything dangerous. Central Kentucky isn't exactly known for large predators. Bobcats and black bears are around, but encounters are pretty uncommon, and the venomous snakes in the area generally want nothing to do with you so long as you leave them alone. So, I decided I would take my flashlight, and leave the camp to investigate what caused the sound.
I only made it about 200 yards before something else caught my attention. Standing in the middle of the woods and brush, nearly 10 miles away from the closest town, was an old white building. Now, I think it's important to mention that NONE of the original search documents reference any kind of structure out here. Leo never mentioned a building, either. And of all the things I expected to find this far into the woods, an old, abandoned house certainly wasn't one of them. Yet, here it was.
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Although the building itself was really fucking creepy, I have to admit, there was a certain degree of excitement once I found it. I now knew for a fact that I was in territory that hadn't been searched, and I felt a little proud knowing I'd managed to make it all the way out here by myself. Looking around the cabin, I couldn't find any obvious signs that anyone had been there recently. The building itself was on the brink of collapse, but there wasn't any graffiti, trash, or anything else you'd normally expect to find in an abandoned place like this. For all I knew, I was the first person to step inside in years.
The floor was covered in broken wood panels and pieces of rotting furniture, along with various animal bones scattered throughout. From the looks of things, I figured a coyote or something similar must've been using the place as a den. And just as soon as I thought that, I glanced over and saw something that put a pit in my stomach. In the corner of the room was what looked like my father's hiking boot.
As you might recall, when the police performed their initial inspection of the property, they found a single size 10 Rocky Rams Horn Waterproof Work Boot. The boot they recovered was the right one. And sitting in the corner of this dilapidated cabin was what appeared to be the matching left boot.
I got pretty freaked out after seeing it and stopped the video. After taking a minute to compose myself, I collected the boot and headed back to camp. I put out the fire, tore everything down, and started hiking back out in the middle of the night. At that point, I didn't really care what time it was. I needed to show this to someone.
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I made it back to my car at around 2 AM and got home about an hour later. By then, I was completely exhausted, and I ended up falling asleep on the couch.
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I plan on taking the boot up to the Ellington County Sheriff's Department today to see if they can analyze it or at least verify that it's the one that belonged to Dad. I'll make sure to update you guys as soon as I get back.
Some of the rocky terrain I've been encountering.
The boot I recovered at the cabin.
The boot police photographed/logged at Dad's worksite.
The hill overlooking the clearing I camped in.
The recording ends shortly after his story about the Whitaker girl. At that point, I figured he was just going to continue rambling, so I stopped it. However, just as I was about to leave the bar, Leo gave me the rough area where he and his team had stopped searching. By my estimation, there are still at least 15–20 square miles within the park and surrounding forest that have yet to be thoroughly searched.
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Once I get a bit more free time, I plan to head out there and look around for myself. However, I did some digging into the Emily Whitaker case Leo mentioned and I was able to find a few things that seemed worth looking into. I’ve linked those materials here for you to take a look at.
Update on Boot:
posted on 09/15/2026
Many of you have been eagerly awaiting an update on the boot I found during my previous expedition. So, I'll get this out of the way first: the left boot found at the cabin was indeed my father's.
The Sheriff's Department didn't even need to send it off for DNA testing. Unbeknownst to me, both of my father's boots had small barcodes printed on the tags sewn into the tongues. All they had to do was confirm that those barcodes matched one another; they did.
What I expected to be a moment of relief from the deputies was nearly the opposite though. They immediately took me into a room in the back of the station and started asking me questions:
"Where did you find the boot?"
"What were you doing trespassing on protected land?"
"You do understand that what you were doing was illegal, right?"
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I explained myself as best I could and told them, as politely as possible, that I wasn't satisfied with the initial investigation into my father's disappearance. More importantly though, I showed them the footage I captured of me finding the boot. And for the moment, that seemed to quell some of their suspicions.
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After that, I provided the approximate location of where I'd been hiking, signed some papers, and was free to go on my way.
At least, until today.
This morning I received a voicemail from Detective Steffen, a man I've never met before. He said that some deputies had gone out to search for the house I'd told them about, but they couldn't find it. I figured they'd be able to locate the place relatively easily. After all, I'm a pretty inexperienced hiker, and I accidentally stumbled across it. How hard could it be for a team of trained searchers to find it?
Regardless, he asked if I wouldn't mind coming back in to “answer a few more questions.” I eventually called him back and told him that I'd think about it, and he said that was fine. But then, he called me again. And again. And again. In total I've missed 3 calls from him since lunch. I don't know what suddenly possessed him to blow up my phone, but I don't think it can be good.
I'm thinking of heading back out to the woods for a few days to see if I can find the cabin again. I'll see what Steffen has to say once I get back.
The receipt I was given after submitting dad's boot to the Sheriff's Department. (The information blacked out here was redacted by me.)
09/13/2026
The first voicemail Detective Steffen left me.
09/15/2026
Scan of coloring sheet recovered at Laurel Fork Visitor's Center. Later identified as Emily Whitaker's. 11/09/2012
The trail the Whitakers were hiking on.
Photo taken after its reopening. Approx. 07/13/2013
Expedition Two:
posted on 10/08/2026
A couple of weeks ago, I traveled back out to my last camping site, hoping I could pinpoint the exact location of the cabin I had found. After hearing how frantic the police were to get ahold of me, I figured it was probably best to try and get this whole situation sorted out as soon as possible. I arrived a bit earlier in the day this time, giving me plenty of time to walk around and explore while there was still some daylight. I also took a different route in getting there, and along the way, I noticed a few things I hadn't seen on my first trip.
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Most notably, was this old well. Whatever structure once surrounded it had long since rotted away. All that remained was the stone base. It seemed like an incredibly dangerous thing to just have sitting out here, especially considering how easy it would be to stumble across it without realizing it was there.
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But then again, there's a good chance the park doesn't even know it exists. Or maybe they do and simply assume no one would ever hike this far into a restricted section of the park. Either way, I thought it was a pretty cool start to the hike and it excited me in the same way that finding the cabin initially did.
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Unfortunately, that optimism would quickly disappear as the day went on.
I eventually reached my old campsite. I knew it was my old campsite because I could still see the scorch marks of where my old fire was. I took a photo to compare it to the last one I took at my camp, and the site looked identical. This was 100% the spot where I camped.
Old photo of camp.
09/12/2026
New photo of camp.
09/21/2026
Finding the old house should've been relatively easy from that point. There was a trail that offered a straight shot to the building, and from what I remembered it wasn't any further than 200-250 yards away.
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However, upon hiking the trail, I couldn't find the building. I walked for every bit of 20 minutes, and at no point did I ever find a trace of it. I went over the trail multiple times, hiking directly from my old camp, and I didn't see anything.
I can't think of any rational explanation for this. Even if the building fell over, I'd still be able to find the debris from it. If it somehow burned down, I'd see the traces of a fire. There was no possible way for that building to disappear without a trace. And yet, it wasn't fucking there.
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I don't know how I'm supposed to explain this to the authorities, and I feel like if I even attempt to, I'll make myself a bigger target of their investigation. Do I just tell them the building I found my father's boot in doesn't exist anymore? Do I tell them I went back, trespassed again just to find it, and couldn't find a trace of the damn thing?
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The more I think about it, the worse it sounds.
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I've linked photos and videos from the clearing here for you to take a look at. I've already looked through them several times myself, so maybe some fresh eyes can notice something I missed. I would usually be wrapping a post of this length up. But unfortunately, the missing cabin was just the first strange thing that happened to me on this trip.
Closer look at burn marks.
09/21/2026
updated 10/12/2026
Later in the evening, I set up camp about half a mile away from the clearing. I followed a small creek that eventually opened up into a much larger one. I liked the idea of camping out of the grass and away from ticks, but honestly, I was more eager to put some distance between myself and the area where the cabin had been.
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I don't really know how to explain it, but it's an incredibly unsettling experience when you're so certain of something, only to find out that it might not be the case. It drained me, and after I gave up searching for the building, all I wanted was to get away from the area.
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The creek itself was flanked by woods on either side, but it wasn't anything particularly remarkable. I set up my tent and fire a LOT quicker than last time, and after I got settled in, I recorded another video log. Not long after that, I crawled into my sleeping bag and went to sleep.
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I woke up two hours later.
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At around 1:00 in the morning, I woke up to what sounded like something walking through the creek next to my tent. I'm a very light sleeper, and although I eventually got used to the noise of my fire crackling, the sound of splashing water instantly jolted me awake. Judging by the sound, whatever it was couldn't have been more than twenty feet away.
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Now as I mentioned in my previous post, Kentucky isn't really known for large predators, but that doesn't mean that you would want wildlife within your camp. The last thing I needed was to spook an aggressive buck and get gored in my tent by deer antlers.
As I started to sit up in my tent, I slowly realized that this wasn't a deer though. The cadence of the steps was all wrong. Whatever this was almost sounded like it was walking on two feet. The idea of another person being out there instantly gave me the shot of adrenaline I needed to shake off the rest of my groginess.
And from there, I took out my phone and started recording. I've attached that video below.
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The creek I camped at.
09/21/2026
Upon stepping out of my tent, though, I couldn't see anything. I'm sure the sound of me unzipping the tent flap alerted whoever was out there, but when I called into the darkness, I got no response. Whoever this was, they were either pulling some kind of prank or deliberately didn't want me to know they were there.
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I eventually spotted a silhouette moving between the trees near my tent, and at that point, I stopped recording and pulled out my handgun. I could only juggle so many things at once, and I decided that my light and gun were FAR more important than getting any additional footage. I started approaching the tree line, but whoever it was suddenly broke into a dead sprint and disappeared into the woods. And I wasn't about to chase someone through the forest in the middle of the night.
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It isn't totally unheard of for people to set up camp in the woods out here, so I figured the person I'd encountered might've been someone living off the grid. Maybe they'd spotted my campsite and thought they could swipe some of my supplies while I was asleep. And once they heard me getting out of my tent, they got spooked and ran. That's the most reasonable explanation I can come up with, anyway.
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All I know for sure is that whatever I saw was TALL. Tall enough that I had to look up at it, even from a distance. And when it took off into the woods, it moved a hell of a lot faster than I would've expected. I keep telling myself it was just some guy out there, but something about the way it moved hasn't sat right with me.
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Regardless, I'm grateful I had my gun with me. Next time I insist on staying here at night, I'll make sure to bring a friend along.