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.
As always, if you recognize anything here -- or have any tips you want to share. Please reach out to me at contact@findmarkgranger.com
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 total.
That was the last time anyone can say with certainty where my father was.
My dad and I spoke by phone most 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.
For those interested in downloading these materials themselves, I have linked a Google Drive folder to where you can easily access everything I currently have available.
posted on 07/17/2023
Media Response:
posted on 07/21/2023
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.
In this post, I've collected several newspaper articles and television 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.
Front page of The Ellington County Gazette
03/26/2023
Article in The Louisvillian
03/19/2023
Missing person poster I made shortly after
the search effort began.
Approx. 03/21/2023
Screenshot taken from the Kentucky
Bureau of Investigation Webpage.
He had spent most of his life outdoors. Hunting, hiking, and working in remote areas were all things he was comfortable with. 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.
As the storm passed and reports of fatalities throughout the state began to emerge though, I became increasingly concerned. I attempted to contact him repeatedly over the following days. In total, I called or texted him about forty times. None of those attempts received a response.
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.
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.
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 outdoors 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.
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.
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.
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.
He had spent most of his life outdoors. Hunting, hiking, and working in remote areas were all things he was comfortable with. 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.
As the storm passed and reports of fatalities throughout the state began to emerge though, I became increasingly concerned. I attempted to contact him repeatedly over the following days. In total, I called or texted him approximately forty times. None of those attempts received a response.
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.
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.
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 outdoors 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 deaths 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.
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.
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.
National Weather Service issues Winter Storm Warning
for central Kentucky.
03/03/2023
Police Reports:
posted on 07/28/2023
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 are 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 full-size reports go to the Google Drive folder. The images shown here are just a few from the report.)
To me, it always felt like the initial search was phoned in. The two deputies who searched the property never seemed particularly interested in finding out what had actually happened. (I think they just wanted to get out of the cold.) They located my dad's truck, one of his boots, and what they believed to be his footprints in the snow, yet even with all of this evidence, they called it a night almost immediately.
I also remember one of the deputies personally telling me about a strange 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 real attempt to explain it or investigate it any further.
There were a few other inconsistencies as well.
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 was his right boot.
I still can't make sense of that. Either my dad walked out into the middle of a blizzard wearing one hiking boot and one bare foot, or he left the house completely barefoot while carrying and later dropping his boot. Neither explanation makes sense to me.
Something about this whole thing stinks.
Missing Person Report
Filed 03/06/2023
"Initial Approach of Granger's
Vehicle."
"Shoe Found Was a Men's Size 10
Rocky Rams Horn Waterproof Work Boot.
Matching Boot Was Never Recovered."
"Mark Granger's Footprint Found
Roughly 20 Feet From
Vehicle."
"Front Door to House Opened
Prior to Our Arrival."
"Final Walkthrough - Kitchen"
Compilation of Dad's Videos
CBS 12 Louisville Reports on Winter Storm Albert.
03/05/2023
Recovered iCloud:
posted on 08/10/2023
I’m sorry if this post feels a little scattered. 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 accounts: Facebook, Instagram, anything I could think of. I don’t even know what I was hoping to find. Maybe just an old picture I hadn't seen before or something.
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 days ago, someone emailed me suggesting I check his iCloud account to see if he’d taken any photos/videos while he was out at the property.
He did.
I don’t think I was prepared for what I found.
I’m having a hard time even describing what’s in these videos, so I’ve put together a compilation and linked it here. All I can really say is that it looks like someone was out there with him. I think it's pretty clear that whoever it was, isn't mentally well. I imagine walking around barefoot in the snow is a pretty solid indicator of that.
I think whoever this person was may've hurt dad. They appear to have been following him for a while, and in the last video they lured him outside and apparently got inside of the house.
As soon as I found these videos, I took them to the Ellington County Sheriff's Department. They watched the entire thing without saying much. When it was over, they just looked at each other for a few seconds before one of them finally told me there wasn't enough evidence in the footage to prove that anyone had committed a crime.
I didn't know what to say. Maybe they thought my dad had already been dead for months. I don't know.
I left the sheriff's office pretty livid though. For the first time since my dad disappeared, I felt like I had something that could actually move the investigation forward, but nobody seemed interested in pursuing it.
I've uploaded every clip here exactly as I found it, all that I've added is some text signifying the beginning/end of the video. If you notice anything I missed, or if anything about these videos stands out to you, please let me know.
"Final Walkthrough - Kitchen"
"Final Walkthrough - Living Room"