She Disappeared In 2009, And Nobody Reported Her Missing For Months, Not Even Her Own Husband
In 2009, a 50-year-old Cleveland woman named Marsha Brantley vanished, and no one reported her missing for months, including her husband, Donnie Brantley.
It wasn’t until her hairdresser, Kelly DeLude, noticed Marsha hadn’t been to the salon in a while that an investigation into this extremely peculiar case was launched.
“I’ve been a hairdresser for over 30 years. You have certain clients that you kinda click with, and you’re closer to. And for me, Marsha was one of those clients,” Kelly recalled.
Marsha met her husband on a dating website in 1999. At the time, he was divorced and had a teenage daughter.
The pair hit it off since they both loved the outdoors. Donnie was a competitive bicycle rider; meanwhile, Marsha was a skilled hiker. They began dating, and the relationship quickly turned serious.
Marsha and Donnie tied the knot in 2000, moving into a home that her parents had built for her. She tragically lost her mother not long afterward, in November 2000, and was heartbroken.
Nonetheless, Marsha was left with a large inheritance that allowed her to assist Donnie as he set up a handyman franchise. At the same time, Marsha quit her job as a housing director at Lee University to write young adult novels, which was her passion.
Things took a turn in June 2009, though, when Marsha disappeared without a trace. According to Kelly, she eventually realized that something was incredibly wrong.
Marsha first visited Kelly for a haircut in 2000. They got along so well, and Marsha would reportedly speak highly of her marriage to Donnie. Yet, during her last salon appointment in April 2009, Kelly noticed Marsha seemed a bit depressed.
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She’d asked Kelly if the economy had impacted her business. And when Kelly confirmed it had, Marsha detailed how her finances were tight and Donnie’s handyman business was failing.
Following that appointment, Kelly thought Marsha would call in about six weeks to schedule another visit, as usual. But Marsha never did.
Instead, one of Marsha’s neighbors wound up visiting the salon in the summer and asking Kelly about the last time she’d done Marsha’s hair.
“And I said, ‘Let me look.’ And I looked at my file, and I said, ‘April. That is so unusual. Is she okay?'” Kelly recalled.
The neighbor went on to reveal how Marsha hadn’t been walking her beloved dogs, who were “barking their heads off.” Plus, the flowers in Marsha’s yard had died.
Kelly found it so odd that she reached out to Marsha for days, who never answered. That pushed her to call Donnie’s business one evening, and the phone was disconnected.
Marsha’s neighbor was very worried, too, and actually knocked on Donnie’s door one night to confront him. She asked where Marsha was, and he reportedly replied, ‘She’s leaving me. She went out West.”
Kelly claimed that Marsha had never talked about marriage troubles, so the story struck her as ridiculous. She ultimately called the Cleveland Police Department to report a missing person and tipped the police off to Marsha’s potential murder.
What’s most bizarre is that no one else in Marsha’s circle had reported her missing for months. This included her best friend, Kim Shank, from Ohio, or her relatives, who lived across the state.
Regardless, Kelly caught on, and the investigation that subsequently unfolded was puzzling from the beginning.
When the police spoke to Donnie, his story was inconsistent and contradictory. He claimed Marsha had left him to head to Florida and go out west. Plus, Donnie stated that she’d simply been camping close by.
No trace of Marsha was ever found, though, and no paper trail ever confirmed Donnie’s statements.
According to the police, he also lied about the whereabouts of her belongings. He reportedly told investigators that Marsha had taken her phone with her. Yet, the police obtained phone records which proved her phone had never left their home. Moreover, the records suggested Donnie had been using the device.
As for Marsha’s car, Donnie said Marsha had left it at a local Walmart where she worked. But the first time the police visited the store, it wasn’t there.
Authorities only found Marsha’s vehicle the second time they checked the Walmart. On top of that, the store’s manager had never even heard of Marsha.
Aside from these story inconsistencies, Donnie’s behavior also struck investigators as strange. He didn’t report Marsha missing, and once the search for her began, Marsha’s family said that Donnie never assisted in their efforts to look for her.
He reportedly pawned some of Marsha’s jewelry mere hours after being approached by the police. Finally, the rest of her belongings were later discovered in garbage bags inside their home.
The only issue was that Marsha’s case lacked any physical evidence of a crime. There were no fingerprints, blood, gunshot residue, or DNA. Police didn’t have a murder weapon or any clue where Marsha was.
Donnie reportedly failed a polygraph test in March 2010, and in July 2013, he was indicted by a grand jury for the murder of his wife. Prosecutors ended up dropping the charges after determining they didn’t have enough evidence to get a conviction.
In 2016, Donnie was charged again with practically the same evidence. For a second time, the charges were dropped in February 2018 because of a lack of evidence.
Since Marsha’s body was never found, authorities weren’t able to prove that Donnie was guilty of her murder. His lawyer, Lee Davis, maintained that Donnie was totally innocent, given there was no proof that Marsha was dead.
“What proof is there that she’s, in fact, dead as opposed to gone missing or living someplace else?” Lee asked.
Marsha’s case continues to puzzle many, and her mysterious disappearance remains unsolved over 15 years later.
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