The Murder of Mark Knapp (Vermont)

When Mark Knapp’s routine commute home from work one February night in 1984 ended with his car abandoned and his body at the bottom of an old marble quarry, the shock rippled far beyond one family. 

What followed was not a straight line from crime to justice. Suspects were quickly identified and charged in connection with Mark’s death, but shifting narratives and fragile witnesses fractured the entire foundation of the case just as the truth came into view.

Discovery

By the morning of February 23, 1984, 28-year-old Mark Fuller Knapp had been gone too long.

According to Yvonne Daley’s reporting for the Rutland Daily Herald, around 8 p.m. the night before, Mark had done what he always did when he was out – he called home to see if there were any messages waiting for him. It was a brief, ordinary conversation, the kind his parents had heard hundreds of times before, and they expected, as they always did, that they would hear the door open and Mark’s footsteps over the threshold not long after. But they never did.

So, that quiet Thursday morning after no sign of Mark all night, his mother placed the call to Vermont State Trooper Dennis Holman, who wasn’t just an officer, but a man who knew their son personally. Lois Webby reports for the Rutland Daily Herald that Dennis and Mark both served with the Brandon Volunteer Fire Department, where Mark’s father was chief and part of the close-knit world where everyone is easily accounted for, until suddenly someone isn’t.

Mark’s name, description and details of his vehicle were broadcast to area law enforcement in hopes someone might spot him. That very same night, Mark’s 1983 Ford LTD station wagon was discovered abandoned along Route 4A near the entrance to Ruby’s sand pit in Castleton, Vermont. 

The keys were still in the ignition. The gas tank was empty. There were no obvious signs of violence…Just a car sitting where it shouldn’t be. At first, Vermont State Police did not assume the worst. With the vehicle out of fuel, investigators considered that Mark might have walked to a motel or sought out transportation, perhaps trying to solve a mundane problem in the dark hours rather than fleeing something sinister.

That cautious optimism lasted less than a day. Around 1 p.m. on February 24th, target shooters near the abandoned Vermont Marble quarry off Marble Street Extension in West Rutland noticed something on the ice far below them. At the base of a 125-foot cliff, a shape lay frozen in place. Though difficult to discern for an untrained eye, troopers who responded recognized the mass as a human body.

The quarry walls were sheer. There was no way to reach the body without specialized equipment, so police secured the area and stood watch through the night over someone they could see but did not yet know.

The next day, a rescue team arrived with an old quarrying cage attached to a crane and divers to descend into the pit. It took six hours to recover the body – six hours of machinery echoing off stone, six hours of waiting for a name that everyone already feared to hear aloud.

Among those standing at the edge was Dennis Holman, the trooper who had taken Mark’s mother’s call and the fellow firefighter who had once served beside him. He confirmed what the Knapp family already feared: the man recovered from the ice was their missing son.

Early Investigation

Dr. Paul Morrow, the state deputy medical examiner, conducted the autopsy. Mark’s hands were bound. There were no obvious signs of a struggle in the quarry itself, yet Mark bore several small puncture wounds: on his back, his chest, and at least two on his wrists. According to reporting by Joseph Zingale for the Burlington Free Press, the injuries were no larger than the tip of a pen. The wounds on his wrists were noted as possible defensive injuries.

Those puncture wounds were attributed to a pair of 5-inch orange scissors recovered from the quarry, not far from Mark’s body. It seemed Mark had likely been confronted with a weapon before his death, however mundane it appeared.

However, the medical examiner later said the scissor wounds themselves were not significant and did not contribute to Mark’s death. Rather, he concluded that Mark was alive when he went over the edge of the quarry and that he died from head and chest injuries caused by the impact. Toxicology screens were requested as part of the examination, but there was no evidence of any substance or alcohol use at the time of the autopsy.

The medical examiner believed Mark likely died after 8 p.m. on February 22nd, based on when his parents had received that final phone call.

Those first few days of the investigation were defined by theories, because there was really very little to go on. Not even the medical examiner’s ruling felt definitive. Dr. Morrow classified the manner of death as homicide, but police were notably more cautious with their language, stopping short of using that same term publicly.

Suicide did not seem likely, though investigators did not clarify how they reached this assumption. At the same time, they also did not rule out the possibility of an accident, since it was impossible early on to determine based on the given evidence whether Mark was pushed or if he fell. One theory suggested he may have been trying to escape an assailant when he went into the quarry.

Complicating everything was the location of Mark’s car. The abandoned Ford LTD was found roughly 10 miles from where his body lay. Police believed Mark may have been hitchhiking after running out of gas, or that someone else had been driving the car and left it behind when the tank ran dry.

Inside the station wagon, the scene did not match what people knew of Mark. A witness described him as an orderly person, yet the interior of the vehicle was found in disarray. That detail bolstered the theory that someone else drove Mark’s car at some point. With that, state police dusted the car for fingerprints and collected approximately forty pieces of potential evidence from the area around it.

Among the items recovered were cigarette butts and alcohol bottles and cans, also notable because Mark was not known to smoke or drink.

Footprints offered one of the few physical links between the car and the scene of Mark’s death. An impression was found at the edge of the quarry, and another near Mark’s abandoned station wagon. The soles appeared similar with a small, circular tread pattern. Photographs were sent to the FBI for further analysis.

Police were also trying to establish where Mark had last been seen alive. Mark sold construction equipment for New England Equipment Co., Inc. and a witness told police he had conducted a business transaction with Mark around 5 p.m. on February 22nd. The witness said Mark indicated he was heading home afterward. We know he called his parents around 8 p.m. So, where did Mark go and who did he encounter after that?

Nearly every fragment of Mark’s final hours was scrutinized, as police searched for something that might explain how a young man like Mark – generous, kind, gentle Mark – could disappear after a phone call home and end up bound and broken at the bottom of a quarry.

Mark Knapp’s story continues on Dark Downeast. Press play to hear the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.