Missing in Music City 32:14

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College is such a special time for any young adult, filled with new experiences and new relationships. Sometimes where you go is also where you find out who you are and what you want out of the world. For Marcus Rutledge, that place of discovery was Tennessee State University in Nashville.

David Rutledge is his dad. It's a special place, a place where not only academic learning takes place, but also social learning. Home of the Tigers, TSU is a historically black university and counts Oprah Winfrey among its most famous alumni. Marcus proudly wore his royal blue and white and for good reasons.

For the Rutledges, TSU is a family affair. Both his parents went there, and when Marcus started as a freshman, his sister Felicia was a sophomore.

Back then, she had some big sister advice. I remember when he first registered and my mom was like, "Oh, you should take an 8:00 class." And I told him, "You do not want to take an 8:00 a.m. class." In the spring of 1998, Marcus was set to graduate, and the family was excited to see their youngest son wear that cap and gown. Except that never happened, because on June 8, 1998,

Marcus Rutledge disappeared. And for 26 years, his family has been living with that mystery. It's possible that at the time he disappeared, he was involved with people that you didn't know anything about. I'm not going to say keeping a secret from you, but that he just wasn't talking about.

I wonder whether or not Marcus was actually into something that was bigger than he was, and he was actually trying to get away, just to leave and leave no trace. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Dateline: Missing in America. This episode is Missing in Music City. Please listen closely, because you or someone you know might have information that could help solve this case.

and give Marcus's family the answers they are desperately looking for. You think there's a chance Marcus is still alive and still out there somewhere? Absolutely. Life for Marcus, of course, didn't start on the buzzing campus of Tennessee State. His parents, David and Jerry, raised him and his sister in Ypsilanti, Michigan, just a few miles east of Ann Arbor. Tell me about Marcus growing up. Marcus was a vivacious baby.

That's Marcus and Felicia's father, David. His mom, who was an elementary school teacher, she would constantly be in conversation with his teacher, who said, you know, they may be having a lesson, and he'd get up and kind of move around the classroom, and she'd have to get him back in his seat. He was an active little guy. Other than that, his grades were always good. Felicia also remembers her brother as a ball of energy.

Only two and a half years apart, they were as close as can be. Was he the annoying younger brother or were you guys kind of partners in crime? I think we might have been partners in crime. My parents used to go out of town and they would leave us at the house. You know, we were teenagers and boy, we'd be waiting for that time. We'd have our friends over to the house, of course. Like the second your parents left. Like the second my parents left.

For the most part, Marcus made Felicia's job easy. She says he was always a polite kid with a good head on his shoulders. When we would go to church, he made sure he held the door open for the, you know, elderly ladies of the church. He had a really good, respectable, genuine, kind heart about himself. By 1994, Marcus was all grown up and off to join his big sister at Tennessee State,

They spent a couple of years at the school together before Felicia moved back to Michigan to finish her studies there.

I remember constantly calling him to make sure he went to class. As far as I knew, he was attending his classes, had a lot of friends at Tennessee State, met a young lady there who we've had the privilege of meeting. That young lady's name is Valencia Bryant. We met and just kept running into each other on campus. Eventually, he spoke.

Valencia says she and Marcus connected instantly during their freshman year. He was a jokester, always smiling, always laughing, goofy, silly. Everybody liked being around Marcus. The campus romance quickly turned serious. Just months into their relationship, Valencia became pregnant. Mother and father were both only 18.

And it was scary, but I was also excited and very happy. And he seemed to be too, like when the initial shock wore off. Marcus was also worried about what his parents might think. He waited as long as he could to tell them. But when he came home to Michigan for the summer, he mustered the courage with a little help.

He did take a shot of alcohol before he had the conversation with them. That was a little bit of Dutch courage before informing his parents that they're now grandparents. Yes, and they immediately asked him to, hey, get the young lady on the phone, get the parents on the phone. That's how the Rutledges learned Valencia had just given birth to their grandson, Darius.

I believe the next week we were down there. Seeing the baby. Seeing the baby. Parenting is tough at any age, but for two teenagers in college, the challenges add up quickly. Valencia says she left school and moved back home to Knoxville so her parents could help out. Marcus stayed at TSU and would travel back and forth.

He did the best he could at our age and as a college student and us being in two different locations. I always checked on Darius. I always wanted to make sure he was okay. Felicia says her brother was determined to be the best dad he could be. Every moment he got, he would spend that moment with Darius. I mean, birthdays, holidays, everything.

By June 1998, Darius's fourth birthday was just a month away. At that point, Marcus and Valencia were no longer a couple, but they were co-parenting Darius. We actually went our separate ways very early on, but stayed very, very close. Always talked if I needed something, and we were planning a huge birthday carnival, birthday party for him. Then on June 8th, 1998, the Rutledges received a phone call.

At that point, Marcus had a different girlfriend named Tawanya. She told them she and Marcus planned to meet earlier that day, but he never showed. And now she couldn't reach him. Felicia vividly remembers that call. I was in my room at the time, and I remember my mom saying, "Well, I tell you what, you know, we'll try to reach him ourselves." And so I go into the room and I ask my parents what's going on.

Felicia instantly started trying to reach Marcus herself. I called him up, calling his cell phone. No answer. Up until like 3, 4, 5 o'clock in the morning. No answer. Was it customary that when you would call him, he would pick up or he would get right back to you? Oh, yeah. He almost always picked up for me. I've never not been able to get Marcus when I tried to reach him. The family reached out to Valencia, too.

I got a phone call from his dad asking if I had spoke to him recently. I was like, no, not, you know, in a few days. Is everything okay? Everything was not okay. As the Rutledge's kept calling their son's other friends. Marcus's girlfriend, Tawanya, called them back. She called us back.

to say, "Have you heard anything?" And we still haven't. And she said, "I want to go over to his apartment and check." And that started a series of events where she gets another person involved, the two of them go over, and they essentially break in a window. The Rutledge's say Marcus had recently moved out of an apartment he'd shared with his best friend and into his own place in Nashville.

Tawanya called that friend, Ethan Gibbs, to help her get into his new apartment. Together, they broke Marcus's window and climbed through, looking to find any sign of him. Tawanya called the Rutledges back with news both good and bad.

The place doesn't look ransacked, but it does look like nobody's been there for a while. And the dog, Marcus had a dog. A Rockweiler. The dog was in the bathroom with the door closed. And he'd been in there long enough to ingest part of the rug, floor rug that was in there. So the dog was left essentially without food or water, and that doesn't sound like Marcus. That wouldn't be him.

All of it led Tawanya to call police that night. His girlfriend reported him missing at 7.35 p.m. She is the last known person to have seen him or even spoken to him. That's Detective Matthew Filter. He's a cold case detective for the Metro Nashville Police Department. His colleagues interviewed Tawanya. His girlfriend last saw him that morning when he was leaving her place.

She did speak to him later on that afternoon about 1.30 p.m. And then she tried to call him a few times later that afternoon and left him voicemail messages. He never responded to the voicemail and never answered the phone. Investigators at the time looked at Marcus's apartment.

Any sign that a struggle happened there or that a murder happened there or anything happened there? There was no indication that anything had happened. So, no signs of foul play. Investigators checked with family, friends, hospitals, even jails. No trace of Marcus.

Valencia says it made no sense to her. It got really real within a day or two because I'm like, something's wrong. You know, he does not do this. None of this was like Marcus. He would never leave his dog unattended. He would never ignore the phone calls of family and friends. And he would never leave his son behind. If it has anything to do with our child, he is on it.

They looked for Marcus and for answers. Some of the things police were about to find raised more questions. There was a handgun recovered from the car, and that was possibly Marcus's. Why would Marcus be carrying a gun? At Leidos, a brilliant mind is smart, but a brilliant team is smarter.

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When a loved one goes missing, it is natural to bring your mind back to the moment you last saw them, touched them, said goodbye. Maybe you missed something, a sign, anything that could explain such a sudden disappearance. For Felicia and David, that moment was Memorial Day weekend 1998. Marcus told his family he had a break from classes and flew into Michigan from Tennessee for the holiday.

We picked him up, got him from the airport. We had a family barbecue, friends and family over. And he seemed happy, normal? He seemed happy. He seemed normal. Nothing bothering him? There was nothing unusual. And maybe all was normal then. Just a few weeks later, Marcus was gone.

and the Rutledges needed to find him. So I flew down to Nashville. My parents came down. When they arrived, they noticed something else. The car Marcus drove was also missing. What kind of car was it? It was a Neon. Yep. Marcus's red four-door 1995 Plymouth Neon with Michigan plates had vanished with him. Had he left town, gone for a drive, or maybe gotten into an accident?

As word of Marcus' disappearance spread quickly in the TSU community and around Nashville, local media picked up the story. They eventually did release his information on the news, and that also included information on his car. Days passed with still no sign of Marcus or that neon until 23 days after his disappearance when detectives caught a break.

The car was found at the Riverwood Apartments off of Cabot Drive, which is on the west side of Nashville. His car gets found in a place that doesn't seem to have any connection to him. Miles away from his apartment. A little more than 20 miles, to be exact. His family does not know why his car was found there, and they also do not believe he knew anyone who lived in that apartment complex. They still hoped it would lead them to Marcus.

If they found this car, there's got to be something that will kind of point us in the right direction. Detectives examined the car. There was no particular evidence. There was no blood or anything like that that really indicated anything at all that happened in that car. But you did find a handgun. Yes, there was a handgun recovered from the car, and that was possibly Marcus'. Why would Marcus have a gun?

What sort of people? And could they have done something to Marcus?

It sounds to me as if it's possible that at the time he disappeared, he was involved with people that you didn't know anything about. People that he was, I'm not going to say keeping a secret from you, but that he just wasn't talking about. The answer to that is yes. And I would say that it would fall in a category of keeping a secret from us. So what was Marcus involved in? Investigators were trying to figure that out, but beyond the car and the gun,

They were not turning up many new leads. Then in February 1999, something happened which startled everyone in this case. That's when Marcus's best friend, Ethan Gibbs, was found murdered, gunned down in his home. Ethan was the friend who'd helped Tawanya get into Marcus's apartment on the night he went missing. Now, Ethan was dead just eight months after Marcus disappeared.

He opens up his door and he was shot. I mean, that's brutal, personal. Yeah, that's anger. Connected? Coincidence? You guys tell me. Let me take you back. At once upon a time, Ethan and Marcus were roommates. And Marcus called us and said to us that he wanted to get his own place.

wanted to move away from Aethon. We found that surprising. When we asked why, he simply said that Aethon wasn't keeping up his end, his share, was always late with his portion of the rent, wouldn't help keep the place clean. Do you think maybe there was another reason? Well, as you look back, I mean, there could have been. Were Marcus and Aethon both involved in some sort of trouble?

Looking back, Marcus's dad wonders what was going on between them. When we arrived in Nashville and met with Tawanya and Ethan, tried to learn all they knew, Ethan never, ever seemed comfortable around us.

And he was always perspiring, sweat dripping from his forehead. I mean, it was hot in Nashville, but wasn't that hot kind of thing. You think Ethan knew more than he was telling? I wish I had been more forceful in asking Ethan what he knew. Maybe taking him to the side and saying, hey, look, Ethan, it's me and you, man. I ain't doing nothing. But tell me, were you guys into something? No.

It was too late for that now. If Ethan Gibbs had carried any dark secrets, they likely died with him. Months turned into years. Years turned to decades. With still no new leads in Marcus's disappearance, Nashville police labeled it a cold case. Then in 2020, Detective Filter took over as lead investigator.

And what he uncovered about Marcus was about to deepen this mystery and seriously surprise the Rutledge family. In recent conversation with this detective, I mean, I've learned things that I didn't know before. Marcus's secrets were about to come tumbling out. Marcus Rutledge had been missing for 22 years when Detective Filter first opened the case file. And through his investigation...

he confirmed at least one of the family's suspicions. Marcus was keeping certain things from them. I think he was telling his family he was a senior at TSU, Tennessee State University. And the detective that was on the case early on discovered that he was not, he was no longer enrolled. That's right. Marcus had dropped out of TSU and was lying about it to his family.

What was he actually doing? Well, not completely sure exactly what he was doing with occupying his whole time. We do know that he was involved in the sale of marijuana. Marijuana, in 1998, smoking or selling it was illegal in all 50 states. So he was selling a...

Illegal drug. Right. I don't believe that he was like some big mover, you know, like he was just kind of like a street level kind of a guy and selling probably to a lot of college kids and stuff. Valencia confirms that. She says it was all about providing for their son Darius. And she remembers trying to talk Marcus out of it. I just remember for him, you know,

It was, you know, this is helping me to be able to help. And I'm going, well, of course I need you to help, but not to the point that you are kind of neglecting school and you're doing this. This isn't what you need to be doing. The weight of caring for Darius wasn't the only thing on Marcus's shoulders. There was another secret he was keeping from his family. He had another child, a daughter, with his girlfriend, Tawanya.

His daughter Jayla was two years old when he went missing. Marcus was actually with her on the morning he disappeared. He was taking his daughter to school or daycare. Barely an adult himself, Marcus had two young children and needed to take care of them. That's why Valencia believes he dropped out of school and started selling marijuana. Every facet of their son's secret life came as a surprise to the Rutledges.

Marcus sounds like a guy who was a good son. And I'm not going to say he never gave you any trouble, but like it feels like he was on his way in life and you weren't super worried about him. When this guy was in our presence, every single time we go down to visit him, everything was spiffy good, clean.

clean, good to go. He cared what you thought, David. Yep. And Felicia. Yes. He knew our values, our value system, and he knew our hopes and dreams for him as an individual. And he didn't want to disappoint you. Right. The Rutledge's say they understand why Marcus did not tell them about dropping out of school. Maybe he planned to go back before they could find out.

And given his reluctance to tell them about his first child, they're also not surprised he kept the second child a secret too. Okay, but selling weed? That's a side of him Marcus probably knew would disappoint his family. Tell me how you guys picked up on the fact that he was selling marijuana. The marijuana sales was information that was gathered by people that knew him, that knew that he was selling. And of course, one of those was Aethon Gibbs.

Right after Ethan was killed, the detectives thought that there might be a connection there. But...

When comparing, looking at the cases, there's nothing obvious that they can say that the two, that Marcus's disappearance is connected with Ethan's murder. Somebody was charged with Ethan's murder, but not convicted. Yeah, the charges for some reason were dismissed. And I don't know why. I could never find an answer to that question. When I look at Ethan's case, a lot of the evidence in it was circumstantial.

So I'm not sure if the district attorney at the time just didn't feel that they could win that case. And so they dismissed the charges. So Aiden Gibbs murder is officially still unsolved. Yes. Yeah, it is. And so I guess there's still a possibility that it has something to do with Marcus's disappearance. There's nothing concrete to back that up. But certainly it is something that's worth keeping in mind, knowing how close Marcus and Aiden were together.

Detective Filter has his theories. The way the investigation looks is as though the marijuana sales and some confrontations that he had had in months prior to his disappearance are, in my opinion, are likely what led to his disappearance. The detective did not want to elaborate on what those confrontations might have been.

Marcus's family believes he may have been no match for the criminal characters he could have encountered when selling what was then an illegal drug. I wonder whether or not Marcus was actually into something that was bigger than he was, and he was actually trying to get away. And his way of getting away would have been just to leave and leave no trace. ♪

The idea that Marcus, scared and over his head, chose to disappear is in some ways better than the alternative. The Rutledge's don't know what happened, of course. They do believe Marcus may still be alive. We used to get these phone calls where we would pick up the phone. Nobody would be there.

Phone calls, they say, started shortly after Marcus's disappearance. These calls would happen once a month, once every two months. And maybe that's Marcus just calling to hear your voice. Yeah. And it got to the point where we answer the call and nobody would be there. And Jerry, his mother, would say, hey, no word. That's just Marcus checking in. And no answer. Click. Click.

Phone dead. Valencia says she received similar calls. They would just call and hold the phone. They'd be like, we're fine. You know, your son is good. Still love you. You know, I want you to come home. The calls continued even up until Marcus and Felicia's mother, Jerry, passed away in 2015. She died of a rare brain disorder, which leads to dementia.

David says his wife never gave up trying to find Marcus, and neither will he. We learned that there's a whole culture of people out there who've gone through similar situations to us. One individual was a pastor of a local church who told me his son disappeared for six years before he showed up at their doorstep.

So things like that also give me hope, Josh. Absolutely. Look, I have to give it up. Hope that Marcus is out there somewhere. I mean, look, I don't want to take away any hope that you have, but I mean, he wouldn't get in touch with one or the other of you. It depends on how it's on what the circumstances, how deep he had to he had to go in terms of concealing his identity.

Maybe Marcus Rutledge is still out there, living in the shadows and watching his family from a distance. His family says they cannot rule anything out.

What's it been like all these years without him? I mean, it's missed birthdays, missed holidays. And missed time with his son, Darius. I mean, his dad wasn't there, but he was there. He was always being talked about. He knew who his dad was. Darius is 30 now, seven years older than his father was when he disappeared.

It's amazing how you grow up without a parent, but you can be exactly like that person anyway. His mannerisms, his behaviors, the goofiness, he is his dad, and looks identical to his father. Marcus has missed a lot of time with his daughter, too. She may not remember, but she was one of the last people to see her father.

That is something that aches my heart. Your kids have not had an opportunity to, you know, be a part of, you be a part of their life. Like so many families in their position, the Rutledge's say all they want is

is to know the truth. It has never been a day that I don't think about him. Somebody knows something. Just say something. We don't care now about whether anybody's brought to justice. We just want to understand and have some kind of closure. In 1998, David Rutledge saw his son's face for the last time.

He says the last 26 years have taught him a lesson. One of the things that I'd like to have us be careful of as parents is every chance you get, put your arms around your kid and hug them and tell them that you love them. Detective Matthew Filter says he is doing everything he can to get to the truth of what happened to Marcus.

You think this is going to be solved someday? I'd like to hope. That would certainly be my goal, would be to solve it.

But at minimum, I would certainly like to get the family some answers, even if I can't bring anybody to justice, even just to give them some answers about what happened. I mean, I think a family deserves at least that at a minimum. Getting those answers may require a lucky break for you. With this case, yeah, a lucky break is what often happens.

Here's where you can help. At the time he went missing, Marcus Rutledge was six feet tall, about 150 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. He had his name, Marcus, tattooed across his stomach. Anyone with information about Marcus' disappearance is asked to call the Metro Nashville Police Department Cold Case Unit at 615-862-7329.

To learn more about other people we've covered in our Missing in America series, go to datelinemissinginamerica.com. There, you'll be able to submit cases you think we should cover in the future. Thanks for listening. See you Fridays on Dateline on NBC. Missing in America is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Keani Reid is the producer of this episode. Bruce Berger is the audio editor. Bradley Davis is senior producer.

Paul Ryan is executive producer. And Liz Cole is senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Bob Mallory. Bryson Barnes is head of audio production.