EP. 237 - GEORGIA: FAMILY ANNIHILATOR: MARK ORRIN BARTON

In the 1990s, Mark Orrin Barton was aiming for the stars. He was a day trader, working in a prestigious office in Atlanta. He had a wife, kids, and a seemingly successful life. Then, in 1999, he shot it all to hell. Quite literally. You may have never heard of Mark or the Day Trading Massacre, but in part one of this two-part series, we’ll examine the man who took the lives of at least thirteen people in a violent, completely unexpected shooting… and who may have taken the lives of two more years before the 1999 massacre ever happened. This is a look at over a decade of unraveling, which ended in a violent workplace shooting that changed Atlanta forever. - Sources:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eTYeCoYyxm58DXXdoFbHQyWHlWbcH9iKGIefFcQToW4/edit?tab=t.y2yayotxnlcb Listen to our new show, "THE CONSPIRACY FILES"!: -Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5IY9nWD2MYDzlSYP48nRPl -Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-conspiracy-files/id1752719844 -Amazon/Audible - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/ab1ade99-740c-46ae-8028-b2cf41eabf58/the-conspiracy-files -Pandora - https://www.pandora.com/podcast/the-conspiracy-files/PC:1001089101 -iHeart - https://iheart.com/podcast/186907423/ -PocketCast - https://pca.st/dpdyrcca -CastBox - https://castbox.fm/channel/id6193084?country=us - Stay Connected: Join the Murder in America fam in our free Facebook Community for a behind-the-scenes look, more insights and current events in the true crime world: https://www.facebook.com/groups/4365229996855701 If you want even more Murder in America bonus content, including ad-free episodes, come join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/murderinamerica Instagram: http://instagram.com/murderinamerica/ Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/people/Murder-in-America-Podcast/100086268848682/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MurderInAmerica TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theparanormalfiles and https://www.tiktok.com/@courtneybrowen Feeling spooky? Follow Colin as he travels state to state (and even country to country!) investigating claims of extreme paranormal activity and visiting famous haunted locations on The Paranormal Files Official Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheParanormalFilesOfficialChannel - (c) BLOOD IN THE SINK PRODUCTIONS 2026 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Christmas arrives early this Halloween with Christmas at the Kringle's in theaters October 30th. The Severson family moved to a suburban neighborhood where their neighbors, the Kringle's, celebrate Christmas year-round and harbor sinister intentions to hypnotize and indoctrinate them. Willy's Wonderland and Pig Hill director Kevin Lewis unwraps this action horror comedy with a killer cast that includes Ron Livingston, Rachel Bilson, Rob Riggle, Arden Mirian, Beverly D'Angelo, Thomas Lennon, Donald Faison, and David Wayne. Don't miss Christmas at the Kringle's in theaters October 30th.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  LinkedIn is pretty amazing at helping you grow your small business. We cannot stop your new clients from emailing you at 3 a.m. We can help you sell, market, and hire in one place. We cannot help you be in three places at once. And while we can't help you organize your calendar, LinkedIn can help you land more clients so you have a calendar to organize. Grow your small business on LinkedIn. Learn more at LinkedIn.com/smallbusiness.

• 1:15Speaker 02

  Now streaming on Paramount+.

• 1:17Speaker 03

  I'm Dexter Morgan. I've been killing killers for half my life. It gets to you. You're having a midlife crisis. I'm not ready for that.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  He's back.

• 1:26Speaker 03

  I'm older. I'm wiser.

• 1:30Speaker 02

  And sharper than ever.

• 1:31Speaker 03

  Things are gonna get messy. But if I can't believe in myself, I can't believe in anything.

• 1:39Speaker 02

  Dexter Resurrection, new season now streaming on the Paramount+ Premium Plan.

• 1:45Colin Brown?

  Today's episode is presented by A24's Undertone in theaters on March 13th. This is the scariest movie you'll ever hear. It follows the host of a popular paranormal podcast who becomes haunted by terrifying recordings mysteriously sent her way. The feature debut of writer-director Ian Twoson has left critics raving. Bloody Disgusting's Joe Lipset wrote in his Four and a Half Skull review, "I can't remember the last time a movie made every hair on my body stand up, but Undertone got me good." Hear for yourself and experience Undertone in theaters Friday, the 13th. Get tickets now.

• 2:24Colin Brown?

  Warning: The following podcast is not suitable for all audiences. We go into great detail with every case that we cover and do our best to bring viewers even deeper into the stories by utilizing disturbing audio and sound effects.

• 2:35Courtney Brown?

  Trigger warnings from the stories we cover may include violence, rape, murder, and offenses against children.

• 2:42Colin Brown?

  This podcast is not for everyone. You have been warned.

• 2:46Courtney Brown?

  When you are looking for a partner, there are a lot of things to consider. Are you attracted to them? Are you compatible? Will they help you build the life you want for yourself? For Deborah Spivey, Mark Oren Barton seemed to check all her boxes. He was charming, brilliant, ambitious. He had big dreams for himself. So Deborah took his hand, agreeing to walk through life with Mark by her side. In the beginning, they looked to be the perfect couple. They had two beautiful children together, Matthew and Michelle. They were wealthy. Mark had an amazing job. But soon enough, his mask began to fall.

• 3:29Courtney Brown?

  By the time Deborah got to know the real Mark Barton, it was too late. And sadly, Deborah wouldn't be the only woman to fall for his lies. So this is the story of Mark Oren Barton. I'm Courtney Brown. And I'm Colin Brown. And you're listening to Murder in America.

• 4:51Colin Brown?

  Truman and Gladys Barton had wanted a child more than anything. When their son, Mark Orrin Barton, came into the world on April 2nd, 1955, that dream finally came true. Holding their son in their arms, they saw a little boy who would be able to go wherever he wanted to in life. They would raise him right, give him love, opportunities, stability, and discipline. And for Truman, discipline was the easiest one to give. You see, Truman was a career military man working his way up the ranks with the United States Air Force. Anyone who knew the family knew that Truman was what you would call a strict disciplinarian. He could be harsh, often cruel. Now, being a disciplinarian was necessary at work, but at home, it didn't turn off.

• 5:36Colin Brown?

  In fact, it seems that it intensified. With his son, Truman believed that the harsher the punishment was, the better. What those punishments were exactly, we don't know. But years later, Mark would write about the fears of the father being transferred to the son. Whatever happened in the Barton house, it left psychological scars on him as he grew up. Scars that, by all accounts, his mother continuously tried to heal. She was the gentler parent, the kinder one. She tried to soften the blows. But in a house where Truman's decisions were law, there was only so much she could do in the shadow of his rules. Offering her son his favorite candy after getting a talking to, rubbing his back when

• 6:18Colin Brown?

  he was sent to his room without dinner, offering him comfort when home felt like a prison. Things were even further complicated by the fact that their home was constantly changing.

• 6:29Courtney Brown?

  Mark was born on an air force base in Germany, but his father's career took them ping ponging across the United States and world on different military assignments. Finally, when Mark was 11 years old, Truman retired from active duty and took a civilian job as a contractor at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina. For the first time in Mark's life, there would be no more moving, no more packing up and saying goodbye. The Barton's were staying put, and they had picked a good place to do it. If you know anything about Sumter, you know it's a military town. Shaw Air Force Base is one of the largest military installations in the country, and it's the heart of the town. For a military kid like Mark,

• 7:14Courtney Brown?

  who had spent his whole childhood bouncing from base to base, the people of Sumter were his people. He found himself surrounded by other kids with backgrounds just like his own. It was a perfect place to put down roots, to make friends, to have a normal childhood. But there was one problem. Mark didn't feel normal. By all accounts, he was a smart kid, brilliant even. He excelled academically, especially in math and chemistry. Teachers loved him. He was focused, driven, always had the right answer. He could solve problems that stumped his classmates. But socially, Mark was having some serious difficulties.

• 7:57Courtney Brown?

  He was described as emotionally distant, withdrawn, cold. At lunch, he often sat by himself. At recess, he stood on the edge of the playground, watching other children play but never joining in. He didn't know how to connect with people. He didn't understand the unspoken rules of friendship. And so, while his classmates made friends, Mark didn't.

• 8:21Courtney Brown?

  His peers could tell something was different about him. And kids, as we know, can be cruel. Mark was ostracized, left out of birthday parties. No one picked him for teams. He became the target of the kind of casual cruelty that children inflict on anyone who doesn't fit the mold. When you're a kid and you're rejected by your peers, it plants seeds of resentment. And it starts to make you think that the world is against you. Mark's feelings of isolation and anger grew so overwhelming that heading into high school, he began to see a psychologist, Dr. Harry Taylor.

• 8:58Colin Brown?

  Dr. Taylor heard what others had said about Mark. He was a quiet, withdrawn, socially anxious boy. As the doctor sat in his office, preparing for his final session with Mark, he expected to be met with a timid boy that had to be coaxed out of his shell, someone who wanted to be liked, who people pleased, who was shy to the point of silence. But that's not who walked into Dr. Taylor's office that day. The boy that sat in front of him, arms crossed, jaw tense on a leather sofa, wasn't scared or sad. He was angry. He shook his head and clenched his fists as he said, "I just don't understand what the problem is with the kids at school. Why the hell can't I just fit in with them?" Dr. Taylor had faced this problem a million times. It's something that many teens all over the world face.

• 9:43Colin Brown?

  So, he offered a solution. "Mark, why don't you try out for a team or join a club? It could be a great opportunity for you to be a part of something, to connect with people." Mark scoffed. "I'm an outcast. Why should I try to participate?" Dr. Taylor gave him a simple answer. He wouldn't be an outcast if he found people with similar interests, if he made an effort to be friends with people, or be a part of something bigger than himself. In response, Mark sighed and flicked his wrist, like he was brushing away the conversation, ready to move on to the next topic. This was a common theme for Mark throughout his life, his belief that he shouldn't have to mold to the world. The world was supposed to mold around him.

• 10:24Colin Brown?

  With every session, Dr. Taylor could see the anger in Mark growing from a simmer to a boil. At first, it was complaints about not being able to fit in. Then, it was digs at the people who wouldn't accept him. And finally, it was just pure rage at society as a whole and the perceived social rules of the world. Rather than use that anger to fuel any change, Mark decided to use it to rebel. He began confessing to Dr. Taylor that he had dark urges. In one session, looking up at the doctor with a blank expression, he confessed, "Whenever I go anywhere, I size up how to break in, where the money is, and how I can steal it and get away." Dr. Taylor dug in, trying to understand where this obsession was coming from.

• 11:06Colin Brown?

  Was it a cry for help, a desire to be seen, to be understood? Or was it the opposite? Was it a need to slink into the shadows and become them, to prove to everyone that he really was what they thought he was? There was a sense of pride in Mark as he explained that he was smart enough to get away with whatever he wanted. In his notes, Dr. Taylor wrote down that Mark fancied himself a master criminal. And in time, daydreaming and gloating about those plans didn't satisfy him any longer, he needed to act on them.

• 11:36Courtney Brown?

  It was 1969. Mark was 14 years old, a freshman in high school, and he was somewhere where he wasn't supposed to be. His watch ticked into the late night hours as he prowled outside in the dark. His eyes were locked on a local drugstore. He scanned the sidewalk in the local homes, but it was all calm. The streets were quiet. The nearby houses were dark. There was no one watching him, no one to see what he was about to do. Now whether he broke a window in the business or had stolen a key, we don't know. But somehow, Mark broke inside. The aisles were lined with items free for the taking.

• 12:16Courtney Brown?

  In the back of the store, the pharmacy was chock full of every drug you could possibly imagine. You have to remember, this was the late 60s. Things like Quaaludes, amphetamines, and Valium were prescribed to anyone without hesitation. We don't know exactly what Mark stole. But given what happened in the next few years of his life, it's not far fetched to imagine that the shelves in the back of the store were the ones that piqued his interest. Though, his theft didn't go exactly as planned. Before he knew it, the red and blue lights of cop cars flooded the dark store. Mark's heart raced. It was the first time he was surrounded by police, but it would be far from the last.

• 12:59Courtney Brown?

  Now, we have no idea what came of this incident. There doesn't seem to be anything about it on Mark's records, so it's assumed that the cops gave him a slap on the wrist and sent him back home. However, what we do know is that the punishment he received from his father was severe. Yet, it wasn't enough to stop him from pushing further and further into a life of crime and danger.

• 13:24Colin Brown?

  In 1972, Mark was 16 years old, and he had developed a new obsession. Gone were the days spent dreaming of ways to break into buildings. Now, Mark was using his analytic, scientific mind for something else: synthesizing drugs. In a book, he discovered that the seeds of morning glories, a flower found from Maine to California, could have a hallucinogenic effect with some processing. The effect was meant to be similar to other drugs that were becoming wildly popular in the counterculture movement at the time: LSD and mushrooms. And, like the rebel Mark wanted so desperately to be, he decided to try going down the rabbit hole himself. Mark ground hundreds of morning glory seeds in a small bowl. Then, using chemicals he researched,

• 14:09Colin Brown?

  he strengthened the psychedelic compounds in the seeds. When he took his first dose, he expected a sense of freedom, an escape from reality, a profound experience or epiphany. Instead, he got the most frightening experience of his life. The floor was drenched in a thick, slithering fog. Mark's heart pounded so loud that it felt like it was going to burst out of his chest and paint the room red. His mind raced in circles that didn't make any sense. Where was he? What was he doing here? And what the hell was the creature that was staring at him? Just feet away, a figure was emerging from the river of fog in front of him. Hollow eyes bore into him. Something primeval in the depths of his mind responded, telling him what it was. It was a demon.

• 14:54Colin Brown?

  More and more emerged from the floor, until the room was covered in them. Shadowy, stinking eyes, full of malice, glared at him and voices hissed. "You're one of us, one of us."

• 15:05Courtney Brown?

  It was a horrible hallucination, but to Mark, it was real. There were demons coming up from the floor, threatening him, taunting him. Now who he went to for help, or if he even did, we don't know. Was he ranting and screaming so much that his parents called the police? Did they pick him up and take him? Or did he run out of the house, terrified for his life, until some stranger called an ambulance to come get him? Regardless of how, just a few hours after Mark took the drugs, he was lying in a hospital bed, his mind fried and his body exhausted. Dr. Taylor described it as an overdose.

• 15:44Courtney Brown?

  He suspected that the chemicals Mark mixed in with the toxin exacerbated the effects. Essentially, he had poisoned himself, and the effects seemed to follow him for years to come. Dr. Taylor wrote, quote, "It did something bad to him," end quote. He also noted that after this experience, Mark would never be the same again. From that point on, he turned into a frightened, paranoid, and obsessive young man. He was plagued by visions of demons emerging from the floor, and he believed that the only way to rid himself of them was to worship God. He became devoutly religious to a disturbing degree. He carried a Bible with him everywhere he went.

• 16:27Courtney Brown?

  He would interrupt people in the middle of conversations to preach to them, and he would rant on and on, telling people frantically that he was, quote, "Working on finding all of the answers," end quote. By the time he graduated high school in 1973, Mark had fully cemented himself as a different kind of outcast. Not the one that people made fun of, the one that people avoided. Doctor Taylor relayed in the book Murder at the Office, "He didn't make any sense. The drugs blew him away."

• 17:00Colin Brown?

  Throughout all of this, Mark's parents were devastated to see their son's descent into drugs. He was their only son, he got straight As, he was a semifinalist for the National Merit Scholarship, and he had gotten accepted into Clemson University. They didn't want to see him throw all of it away. They hoped that moving to Clemson, three hours inland, would force Mark to make better decisions. Maybe the change of scenery would help him make new friends, find new interests. His parents felt there was nothing they could do but trust he would turn his life around. But, as the saying goes, "Wherever you go, there you are." Mark's first semester at Clemson was soured by his mental decline. At the semester's end, he was hospitalized in the midst of a psychotic episode.

• 17:42Colin Brown?

  He heard voices, saw things that weren't there, and was unable to separate reality from his hallucinations. Thankfully, after being hospitalized, he finally got on medication and intense therapy to combat the psychotic symptoms he was experiencing. And it seemed to keep delusions and paranoia at bay. But there was still a problem at the base of it all: his fascination with recreational drugs. A fascination that only exacerbated his mental health struggles.

• 18:12Courtney Brown?

  After his stint in treatment, Mark decided to try college once again. This time, a little closer to home, at the University of South Carolina. There, he pursued a bachelor's degree in chemistry. In his apartment near campus, he took practicing chemistry seriously, though it wasn't for class. Soon enough, Mark's fascination with synthesizing drugs progressed from psychedelics to more dangerous substances. In this case, methamphetamine. Now, initially, he wasn't manufacturing it for his own use. He was making meth to pursue a goal that would follow him all of his life: wealth.

• 18:55Courtney Brown?

  The higher the risk, the higher the reward. And Mark was all about chasing that reward. He began to make a name for himself around campus and on the streets for selling meth. He was also earning himself a good chunk of change doing it. Eventually, though, just selling the meth wasn't enough. Mark began to dip into his own supply. Maybe he was trying to silence the demons that he had started seeing years prior. Or maybe it began out of curiosity. Whatever it was, when he picked up that pipe for the first time and took that first inhale, he was swept away by the euphoria. That instant, the rush of pleasure and elation he felt,

• 19:39Courtney Brown?

  kickstarted an addiction that he was helpless against. He began using more than he was selling, hoarding up in his apartment for days on end, skipping class and disappearing from the world entirely. By the end of 1975, Mark's money from selling meth had dried up. Anything he made, he was keeping for himself. And soon, he couldn't even afford to buy the chemicals he needed to create the meth. So that's when, once again, Mark found himself staring in a darkened drugstore after hours.

• 20:12Colin Brown?

  The details of this break-in are as foggy as the first break-in back when he was in high school. But this time, the consequences were much more severe. As Mark tried to pile drugs into his backpack, the red and blues of police cars flooded the pitch-black store. Unbeknownst to him, he had triggered a silent alarm. Within minutes, police descended on him, throwing him to the cold tile and handcuffing him behind his back. Once again, Mark found himself sitting in the back of a cop car. As a result of this robbery, Mark was placed on probation. If he made any more missteps, he would be put behind bars. And to many people's surprise, Mark actually got his life together.

• 20:53Colin Brown?

  In 1979, he even graduated from college with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry. And somewhere along the way, Mark met someone. While working part-time as a night auditor at a local hotel, he crossed paths with a young woman named Devra Spivey. She was a fellow student, and she saw something in Mark Barton.

• 21:12Courtney Brown?

  Now with what you've heard about Mark so far, it might be hard to imagine what there was to see in him. But that might be the most unsettling thing about him. Mark was charming, likable. People close to him claimed that there were two versions of him. An incredibly calm, kind man, who was quick to joke and make everyone around him feel special. And then there was the other Mark. A cruel, callous, selfish person, unafraid of hurting anyone, as long as it meant he got what he wanted. At first, he only showed Deborah the warm side of him. He showered her in compliments, made her laugh. He showed her how much potential he had. He was brilliant and hardworking.

• 21:57Courtney Brown?

  He could give Deborah a good life. So, after over a year of dating, Deborah Spivvy became Deborah Barton. On the outside, it seemed like the drugs, crime, and mental health struggles were a thing of the past. Mark was a good man, and together, he and Deborah were on a path towards the American dream. After their wedding, the pair moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where they tried making a living in a big city as fresh graduates. For a while, they both jumped from job to job, hoping to make their big break in their career field. And in the mid-eighties, that break finally came.

• 22:36Colin Brown?

  Mark landed a job at a chemical manufacturing company called TLC Manufacturing. Starry-eyed and excited, the couple moved to Texarkana, Texas, to pursue the opportunity. Finally, Mark was going to be putting his brilliant mind to good use. And by all accounts, it seems that's exactly what he did. He began working there as a chemist, but within five years, he had climbed the ladder up to a general manager. His salary was about eighty-six thousand dollars a year. And remember, this was the nineteen-eighties. Eighty-six thousand dollars is a great salary now, but back then, it was serious money. With it, the couple bought a nice house, and Mark was at the top of his career ladder. To anyone watching, Mark Barton had completely turned his life around.

• 23:21Colin Brown?

  And then came the kids. In nineteen eighty-eight, Deborah gave birth to their first child, a son who they named Matthew. A few years later, they welcomed a daughter, Michelle. Two beautiful children, a successful career, a loving wife. If the Bartons lived in your neighborhood, you might be a little jealous looking at them from the outside.

• 23:43Courtney Brown?

  But beneath the surface, Mark's mask was starting to slip. The control he had maintained over his darker impulses was beginning to crack. And Deborah was the one who saw it first. Slowly, Mark became paranoid, not just a little suspicious. Obsessively paranoid, he started accusing Deborah of cheating on him, of flirting with other men. He questioned her constantly. Where have you been? Who have you been talking to? What have you done? He monitored Deborah's every move, like she was a suspect in a crime. She wasn't allowed to leave the house or even use the phone without his permission. When they did go into public, Mark tried his best to make her feel small.

• 24:28Courtney Brown?

  He didn't call her darling or babe, or even by her name. Instead, he constantly referred to her by the nickname he had given her, stupid. Every time Mark and Deborah went on a trip or visited friends, he would call her that, right in front of everyone. He would say things like, "Stupid and I will be over at five." He'd say casually, "Come on, stupid, we're leaving now." "Stupid, what are we having for dinner?" It was relentless. It made the people around them uncomfortable. Deborah was a very capable woman, an intelligent one, but bit by bit, Mark was tearing her down. To make matters worse, she was hundreds of miles away from her friends and family, and

• 25:13Courtney Brown?

  she was pregnant again. But sadly, at some point after having Matthew and Michelle, Deborah suffered from a miscarriage. Losing a child that she wanted so desperately brought her unimaginable pain. But instead of comforting his wife through her grief, Mark made it worse. He belittled Deborah. He even blamed the miscarriage on her. But why? Why was Mark so cruel to the woman who loved him so much? Well, later on, Mark would admit that Deborah was smarter than he was, and he hated that. He said he felt like he had to be perfect around her, that if he was anything less, he felt emasculated.

• 25:55Colin Brown?

  That insecurity he felt wasn't just in his marriage. Mark Barton was insecure about every aspect of his life, especially work. His long-term secretary remarked, "You thought people were out to get him. When you got on his bad side, you stayed there." And it's here where Mark began to unravel at work. He was convinced that his colleagues were plotting against him, and to prove it, he recorded all of his phone calls with them. We're talking thousands upon thousands of recordings over his time working at TLC Manufacturing. For the most part, no one knew about his obsessive recordings, aside from his secretary. But soon, it was impossible to hide his escalating behavior. When Mark had been climbing the ranks of the career ladder at TLC,

• 26:38Colin Brown?

  he was known for being a calm presence and a good problem solver. But in 1989, in the role of manager, he became anything but. Any problem that he struggled to solve would throw him into a rage. Those forced to work beneath him were subjected to his anger. In Murder at the Office by Brent C. Doonan, he writes, "Most of his coworkers thought of him as not necessarily mean or rude, but as having an attitude similar to a spoiled child." According to these coworkers, there were several occasions where, in the midst of a dispute, Mark would pick up the item closest to him and throw it across the room. His colleagues would scatter into different offices, knowing that there was nothing to do at that moment but to avoid Mark. There would be no convincing or talking him down from whatever he was upset about.

• 27:23Colin Brown?

  The only thing they could do was get away from him, let him cool down. So, over time, Mark went from being a beloved, dedicated member of the team to a leader who unsettled the people around him.

• 27:34Courtney Brown?

  But like any job, there were some coworkers who Mark butted heads with more than others. One, who we will refer to as Tom, filled Mark with paranoia. For some reason, Mark was thoroughly convinced that Tom was planning his demise. He would always rant to his secretary that Tom was "out to get him." On the stressful days at the office, he'd pace in front of her desk, hissing, "He's trying to get me fired. He's trying to ruin my life." Everyone sees it. The panic in him was palpable, but it was completely misplaced. His secretary had no idea what Mark was talking about. Sure, Tom butted heads with him on occasion, but that's normal in any workplace.

• 28:19Courtney Brown?

  In reality, Tom hardly even thought about Mark, but Mark was certain that Tom was coming for his job. So, wanting to come out on top, he decided to sabotage Tom first. Tom had no idea what was happening. He paced on the loading dock of TLC Manufacturing, heart racing as he waited, and waited, and waited. TLC depended on chemical deliveries every few days. Those chemicals allowed them to create the compounds that they sent off to their own clients, clients who depended on them. The entire work pipeline hinged on the deliveries being on time. But this delivery truck was late, and Tom was panicking.

• 29:02Courtney Brown?

  He was the guy in charge of scheduling the orders. He never missed any. It was his top priority to not only get things on time, but well ahead of time. But that day, the truck never came. It didn't come the next day either, or the next. Tom's superiors were upset, but he was certain that he had submitted the paper on time, with the correct delivery date listed. Yet, when he contacted the company, the date was different. He figured it was a one-time fluke, but then, it happened again, and again, and again. Week after week, the deliveries were late, and all eyes were on Tom. But surprise, surprise, he wasn't to blame.

• 29:46Courtney Brown?

  In reality, Mark had been taking the order forms that Tom carefully put together, and behind everyone's back, he changed the dates, making every single delivery late. Soon enough, the people at TLC began to realize what Mark was doing, and when they found out, they were done with him. On September 13th, 1990, Mark was officially fired from his position. The paperwork stated he was fired due to a "deficit in his management capabilities." Upon learning of his termination, Mark burst out of the room, infuriated. He was convinced that he didn't do anything to deserve the firing, and his mind, as he

• 30:29Courtney Brown?

  suspected all along, the people there were out to get him. And in his rage, he decided to get back at them.

• 30:37Colin Brown?

  Mark's breathing pulsed in the cool night air. All was silent, aside from the crickets in the woods around him. He shouldn't have been where he was, but he didn't care. To him, what he was about to do was justified. So, he took the first step, and broke into the loading dock of his former workplace, TLC Manufacturing. From there, he slipped into the break room, moved a fridge, and then shimmied through a window to access the executive suites. He sat down at the computers owned by the same people who had fired him. He worked his way through the files, downloading every confidential piece of information he could get his hands on: formulas, client lists, and financial documents.

• 31:17Colin Brown?

  Then, with them safely downloaded on a floppy disk, he wiped the hard drives off the computer. Everything the company needed to run was gone in the blink of an eye. But Mark wasn't done yet. He rustled through the filing cabinets, taking every hard copy of the documents he had just deleted off of the computer. Then, armed with what he needed to destroy the people he felt had betrayed him, Mark slipped out the same way he had come. Cravings aren't just about nicotine. They're about the habit, the hand-to-mouth motion, oral fixation, the momentary pause. And when that loop is broken, cravings spike. I quit vaping about seven months ago in May of 2025.

• 31:58Colin Brown?

  And let me tell you, having a Fume device with me when I quit vaping was, in my opinion, one of the key things that helped me break the habit, break the loop, and start a whole new journey into a healthier life. Fume is a flavored air device designed to help people quit vaping and smoking by breaking that hand-to-mouth pattern. I know how hard that is to break. It's simple, natural, and honestly kind of genius. No nicotine, no batteries, no vapor. Just a weighted, twisty, fidget-friendly tool that gives your hands something better to reach for when cravings show up. Like I said before, I know the feeling. I know how hard it is to quit. Not only have I quit vaping, but I've also quit using pouches. So quitting nicotine was a major struggle for me.

• 32:41Colin Brown?

  A lot of listeners online know that I've been sober for about two and a half years now. I went to rehab, I got completely clean, got my act together. But even coming out of rehab, nicotine was something that I was still using. And when I decided to quit, having a Fume device with me was an absolute game changer. So this recommendation comes from an honest, earnest place where I truly believe if you want to quit, well, you have to want to quit yourself. But if you're at that point, having a device like this with you, especially a Fume device, can be extremely beneficial. When you grab a journey pack, you'll also get a free gift just for using our code, America. So Fume has already helped over 700,000 people take steps toward better habits. And now it's your turn.

• 33:24Colin Brown?

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• 33:43Speaker 01

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• 34:14Speaker 02

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• 34:24Speaker 02

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• 34:25Speaker 03

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• 34:29Speaker 02

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• 34:30Speaker 03

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• 34:38Speaker 02

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• 34:47Courtney Brown?

  When employees arrived at TLC the following morning, they were stunned. But immediately, they knew who was behind the burglary and theft. They contacted local detectives and told them all about Mark's erratic behavior over the past few years, including a chilling statement he made when he was forced to turn in his keys the day he was fired. According to his ex-supervisor, as he placed the keys in his hands, Mark scoffed, "There are ways to get inside the building without using keys." Everyone, including police, believed that he had proved that statement right. But when they confronted Mark about the burglary, he claimed he had no idea what they were talking about. Exasperated, he snapped,

• 35:30Colin Brown?

  "I don't know what you're talking about. Anyone could have broken in through the loading dock."

• 35:34Courtney Brown?

  But there was a problem with that statement. Police hadn't mentioned that the suspect had snuck in through the loading dock, which meant, either Mark was the one who had done it, or he was the one who had sent someone to do it. The detective shared a knowing glance and dug deeper. As the questioning grew more and more intense, Mark's wife Deborah came home from work. She stood in the doorway, stunned to see two detectives sitting in her living room, eyes narrowed at her husband. Deborah asked them, "What's going on?" Angry, Mark told her.

• 36:08Colin Brown?

  They think I stole the formulas from work.

• 36:10Courtney Brown?

  Right there was yet another slip up. Police hadn't mentioned what documents were stolen. And right then, they had no doubt that Mark was behind this. Now, rather than tip him off any further, detectives walked out of the Barton family home, determined to get a warrant for his arrest. Just a few days later, they returned with one in hand. That day, Mark Barton was arrested on charges of felony burglary. But within hours, he was released from jail. Evidently, he and his ex-company TLC had made a deal. They would drop the charges against him only if he returned all the files he had stolen. Mark agreed. And from there, he was released back to his life

• 36:53Courtney Brown?

  without serious legal repercussions. But his reputation was destroyed. No one was going to hire a guy who got fired and then burglarized his former employer. So, the Bartons packed up and moved again, back to Atlanta. While there, Mark found a new job as a salesman at a chemical company called LinTech. It wasn't eighty-six thousand dollars a year, but it was something. A paycheck, a chance to start over. But it was at LinTech where Mark Barton met someone who would change everything. The receptionist at his new office, a twenty-one-year-old woman named Liann Ling. She was beautiful, hardworking, and humble.

• 37:38Courtney Brown?

  In her kindness and patience, Liann made Mark feel powerful. Now, Liann was married, but her relationship with her husband had been crumbling for quite some time. So, just three days after meeting, Mark and Liann kick-started a whirlwind affair. Mark was thirty-eight, married, with two young kids at home. He should have known better, but he didn't think of his wife or kids. Instead, he thought only of how Liann made him feel. Powerful, desired, important. Mark wanted to hold on to that feeling for as long as he possibly could. could, regardless of what it could cost him. And he wasn't subtle about pursuing Leanne and trying to impress her.

• 38:23Courtney Brown?

  As their relationship grew, he started going to a tanning salon. He bought new clothes, started dressing nicer, acting younger. He was listening to music he had never been interested in before. He was a thirty-eight-year-old man desperate to impress a twenty-one-year-old woman, and everyone noticed, especially his wife Deborah. One day, Deborah was doing Mark's laundry when she discovered a strand of blonde hair. There was a problem with that. Deborah's hair was brunette. So, whose hair was it? What woman was getting so close to her husband that her hair would end up on his shirt? When Mark came home that day, she asked him that very question. "Whose hair is this?"

• 39:07Courtney Brown?

  But once again, Mark blew it off. "It's the dog's hair," he said. "You're being paranoid, stupid," he told her. Mark later told anyone who would listen that Deborah was the jealous type. He claimed she was insecure, which is a bit ironic, considering that it was Mark who didn't allow Deborah to have friends, to go places, or even to make phone calls without his permission. Yet, here he was, painting her as the paranoid crazy spouse, when she actually had every reason to be suspicious of him. In reality, Deborah knew that something was wrong. She knew her husband was lying. She just couldn't prove it.

• 39:48Colin Brown?

  Meanwhile, Mark was making plans. In June of nineteen ninety-three, he and Leanne took a trip to Charlotte, North Carolina, a romantic getaway, one where Deborah was left at home, caring for their two babies, wondering where her husband really was. He had told her he was on a business trip. Really, he was meeting some of Leanne's childhood friends for the first time. At dinner one night, they all toasted and indulged in a nice, long meal together. After a couple drinks, Mark confessed to them. "I've never loved anyone more than Leanne, and by October, I'll be free to marry her." At the table, everyone awed and marveled at the couple's love. What they didn't know was that Mark was still married. Deborah was alive and well.

• 40:32Colin Brown?

  And he was sitting at a dinner table telling people he would be free to marry his mistress by October. That was just four months away.

• 40:40Courtney Brown?

  Around the same time, Mark did something even more troubling. He took out a life insurance policy on Deborah, a big one. Six hundred thousand dollars. He had originally wanted a million dollars, but he couldn't afford the premiums. So, he settled for six hundred thousand. The insurance agents were curious why Deborah wanted such a big policy. Mark replied, quote, "It's her idea. I used to be the president of a company and my wife began to enjoy it. She felt as time went on, she became as important as I was. She developed an extreme sense of self-worth," end quote. And it gets worse. Around the same time that Mark was taking out life insurance on Deborah,

• 41:24Courtney Brown?

  Leanne took out a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar policy on her own husband. Two policies on two spouses, taken out within weeks of each other by two people who were having an affair and talking about getting married. Clearly, that's not a coincidence. But at the end of August nineteen ninety-three, Leanne left her husband. After that, she moved in with her sister, waiting to start her new life with Mark. Now, all that stood in the way was Deborah.

• 41:57Colin Brown?

  Meanwhile, Deborah was completely unaware of what was ahead. Sure, she knew that her husband had been acting strange. She suspected that something was going on, but Mark had convinced her that she was just paranoid, that everything was fine. Plus, Deborah and Mark had children together. They were a family with a picture-perfect life. By then, she had dedicated fourteen years to this man, and she wanted her marriage to work. So she continued forward.

• 42:25Colin Brown?

  On Labor Day weekend of 1993, Deborah was incredibly excited to spend some time with her mother. Deborah's parents, Bill and Eloise Spivey, had recently purchased a lot at Riverside Campground on Weis Lake in Cherokee County, Alabama, a peaceful spot along the lake where they could go fishing, relax, get away from everything. Deborah's mother, Eloise, loved to fish. It was her passion, and she wanted to share that with her daughter. So, on Saturday, September 4th, Deborah and Eloise drove out to the campground together. Just a mother-daughter trip, nothing fancy. They'd stay in the camper that sat on the family's lot, spend some time together, and make a few memories. Meanwhile, Mark stayed home in Georgia with the kids.

• 43:07Colin Brown?

  At the time, Matthew was five and a half, and Michelle was just two. They weren't used to their mom being away. Mark knew that. But based on what happened next, it seems his kids' feelings didn't matter to him.

• 43:20Courtney Brown?

  The campground was packed that weekend. It was Labor Day after all, families everywhere. There was even a country music concert at the campground that Saturday night. People were drinking, laughing, and having a good time. The music was loud, loud enough that you probably couldn't hear much of anything else over it. Deborah and Eloise were seen around the campground that day. They were friendly, chatting with neighbors, enjoying themselves. Nothing seemed out of place. The concert went late that night. Neighbors returned to their campers around 11:30 PM. Some of them continued to sit outside at picnic tables.

• 44:01Courtney Brown?

  But no one had any idea that by morning, this fun campsite would be swarming with police. The next morning, Sunday, September 5th, 1993, many of the campers at Riverside went to a church service at a pavilion across the road. Around noon, after the last hymn was sung, two campers emerged from the church and noticed something strange. Eloise's Red Thunderbird was still parked outside her camper. This was odd. The night before, Eloise told them that she planned on leaving early the next morning to take her grandkids to Six Flags, so she should have been gone by then. Concerned, the two women walked over to check on her. They knocked on the camper door.

• 44:47Courtney Brown?

  No answer. They tried again, still nothing. So, they opened it.

• 44:53Courtney Brown?

  At first, it was the smell. Thick, metallic. For a moment, they worried that maybe there was a carbon monoxide leak. Eloise had mentioned something about how her stove had been giving her trouble. They called out her name and stepped inside the doorway. But that's when they saw something that'd be etched into their memory for the rest of their lives. It wasn't Eloise. It was her daughter Deborah. She was lying just inside the entryway. For a moment, the woman stood there frozen. Then one of them let out a scream. Hearts pounding, they ran to get help. And within an hour, the campground was swarming with sheriff's deputies.

• 45:35Courtney Brown?

  Some began to work the scene. Others were tasked with something even harder.

• 45:41Colin Brown?

  When Bill Spivvy answered the phone at his home in Lithia Springs, he expected it to be his wife telling him why she was running late. Instead, there was a gruff, emotionless voice on the other end. Bill Spivvy, we need you to come down to Riverside Campground immediately. A million thoughts flooded Bill's mind. He begged the police to tell him what had happened, but they refused, telling him they just needed him there as soon as possible. He contacted his son, John, and his son-in-law, Mark. And together, they made the long, tense drive to the campground. When they pulled up to the RV, Detective Danny Smith was waiting outside for them. Getting out of the car, Bill had to hold on to Mark and John to steady himself. His knees were weak. Every step was wobbly.

• 46:25Colin Brown?

  All the color had been drained from his face. Yet, a gentleman, he shook the detective's hand and thanked him for calling. As Mark took Detective Smith's hand, he remarked, seemingly out of nowhere, "I've never been here before." And with those five words, Detective Smith had a person of interest. Mark didn't ask about his mother-in-law and wife. He didn't even seem concerned. In fact, there was a pep in his step. Meanwhile, Bill Spivvy stood beside him, growing more pale by the second. He knew he was facing the most horrific moment of his life. He had to walk into it, had to look up at the detective and ask, "What happened?"

• 47:03Courtney Brown?

  Detective Danny Smith later recalled that Bill was so unsteady, he was sure he was going to fall. So he put his hand out, bracing the man's shoulder. His eyes were heavy. He was taking big, gasping breaths to try and calm his racing heart. Detective Smith squeezed Bill's shoulder and told him, "Your wife and daughter are dead." Then came the crying. The pain in its most human display. Well, at least from Bill and his son John. Mark, however, showed very little emotion, which immediately raised red flags for detectives. And that small interaction they had, they knew that they

• 47:45Courtney Brown?

  needed to look into Deborah's husband, Mark Barton. Because what they found inside the camper pointed not towards an attack by a stranger, but to someone close to the women, someone who had finally snapped. Inside the camper detectives found Eloise in the back, on the bed. She had been hit around ten times with a heavy clawfoot hammer. Wounds covered her face, torso, and arms. Her blood painted the floors, walls, and the bed. It wasn't a quick or clean attack. It was an attack fueled by pure, uncontrolled rage. But the worst of it, the most savage brutality, had been directed at Deborah. She had endured

• 48:28Courtney Brown?

  around twenty strikes to the face with the same hammer. Her skull was completely split in two, exposing her brain. Her long brown hair was matted with blood, sticking to the wounds that marred her face. In the book Murder at the Office, the author recalled that both women appeared like, quote, "misshapen lumps of raw hamburger," end quote. Detective Smith later stated, quote, "To stand there and beat someone to death with a hammer, bam bam bam, fifteen or twenty times, you have to be pissed off," end quote. But Deborah and Eloise were lovely women. Kind, smart, members of their community. Neither of them

• 49:09Courtney Brown?

  had a mean bone in their body. They had never done anything criminal or shady throughout their entire lives. So why would someone kill them in such a violent way?

• 49:19Colin Brown?

  Are you ready to have your mind blown? I want you now to imagine that in front of you was a locked door, symbolizing all that you know. Everything you've been taught in your time on Earth. The lies your government has fed you. With my podcast, The Conspiracy Files, I now give you the door's key. And, once you've listened to the show, you finally unlock this door and step inside. Beyond the door is another dimension. A dimension of false narratives, a dimension of hidden evidence, a dimension of truth, lies, and murders. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of deadly secrets and explosive ideas. You've just crossed over into... The Conspiracy Zone. I'm your host, Colin Brown. Join me now on this journey into the world of secret pedophile rings,

• 50:03Colin Brown?

  government cover-ups, and suspicious suicides on my new show, The Conspiracy Files, available now on all streaming platforms.

• 50:13Colin Brown?

  Deborah Spivey Barton was 36 years old. And the truth is, sadly, we don't know much about who she was. All of the news coverage focused on Mark. And Deborah? She became a footnote in her own murder. But she deserves to be remembered. So, here's what we do know. She grew up in Lithia Springs, Georgia, alongside her brother John. Her mother was her best friend. They did everything together. Exploring the outdoors, fishing, shopping, and above all, laughing. She met Mark in college, married him in 1979, and had two children with him. And for the sake of those kids, she stayed with him, even when things got bad. Through it all, her mom was her confidant. Deborah's mother, Louise Powell Spivey,

• 50:59Colin Brown?

  was 59 years old. She'd been married to her husband Bill since they were young. She and Bill had two children together, John and Deborah. He would later say, "My wife was my best friend. I'd known her since she was a little girl." Bill was a retired FAA supervisor. He had been an Air Force fighter pilot during the Korean War, then spent decades as an air traffic controller. When he retired in 1985, he and Eloise had finally reached the stage of life where they could do whatever they wanted. And what Eloise wanted to do was fish. "The girl loved to fish more than anyone I ever met," Bill chuckled to reporters. So, they bought a lot at Riverside Campground on Weiss Lake,

• 51:40Colin Brown?

  a little slice of paradise where they could spend their weekends casting lines and sitting by the water. That's all Eloise wanted: peace with the people that she loved. They pictured spending the sunset years of their life sitting on the dock, listening to the call of birds in the lapping shoreline. But now, all of their dreams for their life came to an end.

• 52:00Courtney Brown?

  Police needed to figure out why. Surprisingly, no one around the campsite heard a thing the night before. The camper next door was so close, you could practically reach out and touch it. But whatever happened inside was somehow silent. No screams, no bangs, nothing. But throughout the investigation, there was something that stood out to detectives. As we mentioned, Deborah's murder showed clear signs of an overkill. Whoever took her life seemed angry, passionate. But the killer tried to make it look like a robbery. Eloise's purse had been dumped out. Two rings were taken from the bodies, but everything else was left behind. Other jewelry untouched.

• 52:46Courtney Brown?

  Credit cards still there. There was even an envelope on the counter, which had $600 in cash inside. The bills were poking out, practically begging someone to come and take it. Eloise's .32 caliber revolver was also laying right there in the kitchen, completely untouched. What kind of robber leaves behind $600 in cash and a loaded gun? Even further, there were no signs of forced entry. The door wasn't kicked in, the windows weren't broken. Investigators started asking questions. Who would want to hurt these women? Who had motive? Who had opportunity? And one name kept coming up, over and over and over again. Mark Barton.

• 53:31Courtney Brown?

  Detectives were confident that he was their guy. They were even more confident once they learned about his affair. That was his motive. As they began to look into things even further, they learned that Mark stood to gain $600,000 from Deborah's life insurance policy. They also learned that he was going around telling people that he would be free to marry his girlfriend by October. So by then, Mark Barton quickly became their prime suspect. The only suspect. And eventually, police showed up at Mark's home wanting to ask him some questions. When Mark sat down with them in his home, they asked him to describe his whereabouts on the day that his wife and mother-in-law were killed.

• 54:14Colin Brown?

  I was home all day with the kids.

• 54:16Courtney Brown?

  So you never left the house?

• 54:18Colin Brown?

  No, I never left.

• 54:19Courtney Brown?

  But as the detectives pressed further, Mark's story changed.

• 54:23Colin Brown?

  Actually, I did leave the house. I went to a movie that night and then ate at a restaurant.

• 54:28Courtney Brown?

  But police wanted proof of this alibi. They asked him, "Do you have any receipts from that night?" But of course, Mark couldn't give them anything. He would later change his story again, saying that he was job hunting around town. But he couldn't prove that either. In his final story to police, Mark claimed that the only people he was with that night were his kids. But he couldn't prove that either. The children were young. They would have been asleep. Investigators knew the campground was only a two-hour drive from his house. He had plenty of time to make the trip and back before anyone noticed he was gone. But they couldn't prove it. That day, as the police left Mark's home,

• 55:13Courtney Brown?

  they decided to peek into the windows of his car sitting in the driveway. It was an old, beat-up Toyota. But when they did... They discovered a shocking sight. There appeared to be blood soaked into the floor mats. And because they were visible without entry into the vehicle, police were permitted to take them for testing without a warrant. Mark watched, cold and detached, as they removed the mats from his car. But detectives were faced with a dilemma. They needed to search the car for more evidence. They needed to use luminol to see how much more blood was hiding inside. However, they couldn't do that without a warrant. They would have to come back for it.

• 55:56Courtney Brown?

  There was nothing they could do but sternly tell Mark not to touch his vehicle until they came back.

• 56:02Colin Brown?

  While the police were zeroing in on Mark, Deborah's loved ones were focused on laying her to rest. She and her mother Eloise were buried at Sunrise Memorial Gardens in their hometown of Lithia Springs. Mark was there, so was Detective Jerry Winn. Winn tried to stare Mark down from across the cemetery, but Mark wouldn't meet his eyes. At the funeral, there was an overwhelming feeling of unrest because Deborah's killer was still out there. But unbeknownst to everyone, something big was coming. Just hours after the funeral, investigators showed up at Mark's door with a search warrant. Finally, they'd be able to spray the car to test for more blood evidence. Now, if you don't know what luminol is, it's a chemical that reacts with blood. Even if you've cleaned a surface,

• 56:47Colin Brown?

  even if you can't see anything with the naked eye, luminol will make blood glow in the dark. The investigators sprayed luminol inside Mark's car. And immediately, they started to see a glow. Positive reactions on the ignition switch, on the seatbelt, on the steering wheel, on the console, on the gear shift, on the driver's side door. Blood, everywhere. But there was a problem. The car had been cleaned. The stains remained, but the DNA evidence that the blood contained no longer existed. Investigators confronted Mark, asking him why he had cleaned the car when they told him not to. He shrugged and told them, "I spilled a soda." When investigators asked if he knew what luminol was, he said no.

• 57:30Colin Brown?

  But then he added with a dismissive laugh, "I've seen it on one episode of Columbo." Mark Barton had a degree in chemistry. He had worked as a chemist for years. And he was claiming he'd never heard of luminol, one of the most basic tools in forensic science. When confronted with the blood evidence in his car, Mark had no real explanation. He just shrugged and said, "If there's a ton of blood in my car, why aren't you arresting me? Why aren't I in handcuffs?" He was taunting them, seeing how far he could push. And soon, he decided to take things even further.

• 58:04Courtney Brown?

  A few days later, Mark claimed to have suddenly remembered something. He contacted Alabama investigators, and he told them that he had cut his finger to the bone the summer before his wife's death. "If there was blood in the car," he said, "it was his own blood. Not Deborah's, not Eloise's. Just a simple accident." But if that were true, all Mark had to do was provide a blood sample. Now, police couldn't test it against the blood they had discovered with the luminol, because Mark had compromised it. But they could still test it against the floor mats they had taken into their possession. If his blood matched the mats, he'd be cleared. It was simple, but Mark refused. He wouldn't give up blood samples.

• 58:49Courtney Brown?

  He wouldn't give a saliva sample. He wouldn't take a polygraph test. When his own father-in-law, Bill, the man who had just lost his wife and daughter, was treated as a suspect, he immediately offered to take a polygraph. He told investigators, quote, "Whatever it takes to get you off my back and look for who did this, let's do it." But Mark, he refused, telling police this.

• 59:13Colin Brown?

  First of all, I've taken a lie detector test before, whenever I sought employment at the 7-Eleven convenience store. And afterwards, I felt raped. I felt violated.

• 59:23Courtney Brown?

  For whatever reason, investigators weren't able to get a warrant for Mark's DNA. And from there, police found themselves at a dead end, one that they had made themselves.

• 59:34Colin Brown?

  Georgia investigator Jerry Nguyen was appalled by how Alabama handled the case. He believed there was enough evidence to arrest Barton. He said investigators failed to follow up on crucial leads. Like, for instance, there was a witness who told police that, on the night of the murders, a man who looked like Mark Barton stopped him and asked for directions to the lake where Deborah and Eloise were staying. Investigators never followed up with this witness. They also tipped Mark off on the fact that they were going to come back and search his car. And they truly thought that warning him not to clean it was going to work. And because of all this, despite the circumstantial evidence piling up, despite the changing alibis and the destroyed evidence and the massive insurance policy and the affair, Alabama investigators didn't make an arrest.

• 1:00:19Colin Brown?

  They couldn't place Mark at the campground that night. They had no fingerprints. The murder weapon was never found. And without physical evidence directly tying him to the crime, the district attorney wouldn't press charges. But to everyone who looked at this case, it was very clear what had happened. The story that investigators came up with looked like this.

• 1:00:40Courtney Brown?

  On the night of September 5th, 1993, Mark made the two-hour drive to the Riverside Campground in Cherokee County, Alabama. Perhaps he left the children at home by themselves. Perhaps he had someone, like Leanne, watching them. We don't know. But by the time he arrived at the campsite, it was late. Most of the people there were sleeping, including Deborah's mother, Eloise. But Deborah was still awake. She was still winding down inside when she heard a soft knock on the camper's door. Deborah opened it to see her husband, Mark. She was confused as to why he was there, but she let him inside. However, soon after, he raised a hammer over his head and brought it down onto her skull.

• 1:01:26Courtney Brown?

  The attack was so brutal, so violent, that Deborah didn't even have the chance to scream. No one around them ever reported hearing any sort of struggle. And right there, within that small trailer, Mark continued attacking her until she was dead. For Mark, Deborah was the woman standing between him and the life he wanted. So all of his rage, all of his hatred was let out right then and there. But at the end of it all, with his wife dead on the floor, there was still one thing standing in his way. In the other room was Deborah's mother, Eloise. From what he could tell, Eloise was still asleep. If she had woken up, she hadn't come out of the room yet. But Mark couldn't take the chance.

• 1:02:12Courtney Brown?

  So, he stepped over Deborah's body. He walked the narrow hall towards the back bedroom. And there, while Eloise slept, he attacked her as well. She never got up, never screamed, never even made it off the bed. Following the murders, investigators suspected that Mark ransacked the place, making it look like a robbery. Then, he got into his car, leaving traces of blood all throughout. From there, he made the two-hour drive back home. Now, if investigators would have done their jobs correctly, they likely could have proven the story we just told you. But sadly, that's not what happened here. Mark got to continue living his life.

• 1:02:57Courtney Brown?

  In fact, everything seemed to be going absolutely perfect for him. Deborah was no longer in the picture. The police didn't have enough evidence to arrest him. And within a week of Deborah's funeral, his mistress, Leanne, started spending the night at his house. She was sleeping on Deborah's side of the bed. She was helping raise their children. And they weren't even trying to hide it. A month after the murders, Leanne's divorce from her husband was finalized. Six months later, she and Mark officially moved in together. Leanne's sisters were terrified. Police had told them that Mark was a suspect in his wife's murder. The sisters begged Leanne to be careful.

• 1:03:38Courtney Brown?

  Police told Leanne's mother, "Get your daughter away from Mark. He'll hurt her." Many members of Leanne's family never Ever had a good feeling about him. Her sister Dana would later say, quote, "I could tell he was phony, just the way that he acted. I felt that he did have something to do with his wife's murder," end quote. But even with her family's warnings, Leanne didn't listen. She loved Mark. She wanted a life with him, so she stayed, hoping for her happily ever after.

• 1:04:10Colin Brown?

  After Deborah's murder, her two children, Matthew and Michelle, really struggled. They were still very young, but they had just lost their mother. They were trying to navigate life without her, and now this other woman had taken their mom's place. Michelle Barton was two and a half years old. She was in daycare. The workers there said that, for the most part, Michelle was your normal kid. Toddling around, playing with toys, making friends and exploring the world more and more every day. She was a bright kid, a happy kid. But one day, she told a daycare worker something disturbing. She had no idea just how important what she was saying was. She pointed to her genitals and told them casually, "Daddy touches me there. I don't like it."

• 1:04:53Colin Brown?

  Immediately, Georgia Child Welfare officials opened an investigation. The Douglas County District Attorney's Office got involved, and as part of that investigation, Mark Barton and his daughter Michelle were ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation. And afterwards, the psychologist was so concerned about his findings, he contacted the district attorney, David McDade, directly. Not about the molestation case, about the murders. He said Mark Barton was, quote, "Certainly capable of homicidal acts and thoughts." It was on the record. The Douglas County District Attorney, David McDade, would later describe his reaction to that evaluation. He said, "It was disturbing enough to have a trained psychologist and competent prosecutors

• 1:05:37Colin Brown?

  reporting these things back to us back then. It's absolutely chilling to think about it now." But despite the psychologist's warning, despite the molestation allegations, despite everything...

• 1:05:50Colin Brown?

  Nothing happened. The case was closed. There wasn't enough evidence to prosecute Mark for sexual abuse. Michelle was too young to be considered a reliable witness. And so, Mark Barton retained custody of his children.

• 1:06:04Courtney Brown?

  In May of 1995, a year and eight months after Deborah's murder, Leanne and Mark got married. Now, he just had to wait for the money. The insurance company wasn't stupid. They knew Mark was a suspect in his wife's death. They knew the timing of the policy. They knew about the affair. So, they refused to pay out. But Mark sued them. The case dragged on for years. But eventually, in 1997, the insurance company decided to settle. They figured if they brought the case to trial, a jury might sympathize with the grieving father of two young children. At the end of the day, there were no charges against Mark.

• 1:06:46Courtney Brown?

  If the police couldn't even prove that he murdered his wife, then they'd have to pay him. So, in the end, they paid out $450,000. They forced Mark to put $150,000 of it in a trust for Matthew and Michelle. But the rest, nearly $300,000? That went straight to Mark. Blood money. Money from a woman police believed he had murdered. Money he would use to fund his next obsession.

• 1:07:17Colin Brown?

  After marrying Leanne in 1995, Mark tried to settle into a normal life. But things weren't going so well. I mean, she moved into the home of a woman who was just murdered. Everyone was suspicious of Leanne and Mark. Everywhere they went, people whispered. Leanne's own family didn't approve of their relationship. And after a while, their marriage started to feel the effects of this. According to people who knew them, Leanne would leave Mark periodically. After the honeymoon phase died down, she began to see Mark's true colors. He was mean and domineering. But every time she left, she always came back. This toxic marriage was taking a toll on her. One neighbor recalled Leanne as a woman who was afraid

• 1:08:01Colin Brown?

  to be herself when her husband was around. He intimidated her. He wanted his way with And Mark's mental health was deteriorating too. He was becoming more paranoid, more depressed. He believed people were following him, that they were tapping his phones, that the world was out to get him. Now, Mark had always had these problems, but with the weight of his alleged crimes hanging over him, his mental health was even worse. He needed something else to focus on, to distract him from the demons that had been following him all of his life. And then, he discovered day trading. In the late 1990s, everyone was talking about the stock market, a place where regular people can make millions trading tech stocks. Mark saw an opportunity, a chance to prove to everyone that he was a winner.

• 1:08:45Colin Brown?

  And he had the money to do it. In April of 1998, he signed up for classes at Alltech Investment Group, one of the day trading firms in Atlanta's Buckhead District. The founders of the company, Brent Doonan and Scott Manspeaker, were thrilled to have him on board. They had just started the company, and Mark was so eager to join that he inspired confidence in the team. At first, neither of them were sure that starting Alltech was the right move. But with Mark's enthusiasm, they believed even more strongly that they were on to something. After he completed his required courses to work with them, which covered technical analysis, reading charts, and understanding the timing of the market, he was a fixture in their office, and it couldn't have come at a better time. The market was on a historic run.

• 1:09:30Colin Brown?

  The Dow had just crossed 10,000 for the first time. The Nasdaq was soaring, tech stocks were minting millionaires overnight. It felt like free money, all you had to do was get in. So Mark sat down at a desk at Alltech, deposited $100,000, and started trading. Brent, the co-founder, thought Mark had all the energy and positivity that they needed. And truthfully, he also had the money. After welcoming Mark into the office for the first time, Brent pulled Scott, his co-founder, aside and told him, "We seem to really click, Scott. This guy's loaded and experienced, and he seems like a really good guy." The two sat Mark down in their office for a more lengthy discussion on his first day,

• 1:10:12Colin Brown?

  and Mark told them, "I would like to trade in big blocks, as I like to call them." Brent and Scott were both stunned as Mark went on to explain what he meant. While most people traded maybe 100 shares on any given day, Mark preferred to do so on a much larger scale, often trading anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 a day. It was high risk, high reward. But Mark seemed like just the man to handle that. He had an air of confidence about him. And having just started their business, Scott and Brent needed that. They happily welcomed him aboard, or he became one of the office favorites.

• 1:10:47Courtney Brown?

  For Mark, this new way of making money was exhilarating. And in the beginning, thanks to Deborah's life insurance policy, he had plenty of money to spend. After making a risky investment, he would sit at the computer all day, watching his money go up. On the days where he would win, it seemed like he was on cloud nine. He felt invincible. The other traders had given him a nickname, "The Rocket", because when his bets paid off, he was explosive, loud, animated. He had a kind of childlike excitement to him that made the office feel less serious, which was actually needed. Brent stated that Mark, "maintained a sense of humor and buoyancy throughout his trading day."

• 1:11:33Courtney Brown?

  And even when he was losing, he would shrug, crack a joke, and say, "That's just the name of the game." But there was a problem with that. While initially Mark was lucking out, by early 1999, he was losing far more than he was earning. In March of that year, the company's founders, Scott and Brent, realized that not only had Mark drained his entire account, but he also owed them $11,000 because he had been trading on the margin. Now by this point, Scott and Brent were friends with Mark, but they knew they needed to sit him down to have a talk. When Brent addressed the money he owed, Mark gave Brent a playful nudge on the shoulder. He told him with a laugh, "Don't worry, I'm good for the debt."

• 1:12:18Courtney Brown?

  He acted like it was no big deal. Brent believed him. Ever since he had met Mark, he had proven to be a capable guy. One who was resilient and always able to make things work. And in April, one month later, Mark seemed to prove his assumptions right. He paid off his debts and refilled his account. Where he got the money, we have no idea. But for Brent and Scott, it was a relief. They wouldn't have to have that awkward conversation with a man they considered a friend. Because Mark was back on top.

• 1:12:52Colin Brown?

  However, that high didn't last long. Soon enough, Mark fell into the same trading patterns that had got him in debt the last time. And by June, he had not only drained his account again, but this time, he owed Scott and Brent $30,000. Triple the amount he had owed them a few months prior. So, on a simmering summer day in the middle of June, they knew it was time to confront Mark once again. Brent sat him down and asked, "Mark, what happened?" Mark replied, "Brent, I'm so sorry. I was too aggressive again. Instead of swinging for singles or doubles, I was trying to crush some home runs." Surprisingly, the conversation wasn't a very dramatic one. According to Brent, Mark was calm, eager to take responsibility for his actions.

• 1:13:37Colin Brown?

  And he told Brent that he was going to go back to work as a chemist, get the money he needed to make up the losses, and come back to pay his debt. Then he clicked off of his computer and walked out of Altech, his head held surprisingly high, given the circumstances. In his journal, Brent wrote, "Through it all, Barton had managed to remain strong in the face of adversity. His smiling face and obvious addiction, the thrill of trading, had been evident from the moment he walked into our office a year before. In the year or so I have come to know Mark, I don't recall ever seeing him upset. I hoped his positive outlook would help him through this tough time, and I hope to see him again, under better circumstances."

• 1:14:16Courtney Brown?

  But it wasn't just Mark's finances that were suffering around this time. His marriage was crumbling too. His old coworkers at Altech remember hearing the way he would speak to Leon over the phone. While he still worked there, Mark would leave voicemails where he would say, "Leanne, it's me. You can pick up." It appeared to Brent that Mark only allowed Leanne to answer if it was him calling, which is exactly what he did with his first wife, Deborah. But over time, his colleagues said that Mark started mentioning his wife less and less. What was happening inside their house has never been made public. But back in April of 1999, when Mark first drained his accounts,

• 1:14:59Courtney Brown?

  Leanne packed up her belongings and she left him. Now, like we had mentioned before, she would leave him from time to time. But this time, she actually got an apartment of her own, a few towns over in Stockbridge. We don't know the details on exactly what happened. Perhaps she found out that he lost most of their money day trading. Maybe he was treating her poorly, like he used to treat his wife Deborah. Whatever it was, it was enough for Leanne to leave him, at least for a few months. You see, Mark may not have had money, a job, or much going for him, but he did have one thing that Leanne loved dearly: his children, Matthew and Michelle.

• 1:15:41Courtney Brown?

  In June of 1999, after Mark was forced to leave Altech, Mark called Leanne and told her that he was at risk of losing his house due to his debts. She was distraught. Matthew and Michelle had gone through so much throughout their lives, and the thought of them being kicked out on the street because of their father's irresponsibility was heartbreaking. So Leanne agreed to give Mark a second chance. Soon after, he and the kids moved into her small apartment, abandoning the home they could no longer afford. The kids, Matthew and Michelle, were adjusting to yet another change. But this wasn't a fresh start. It was the beginning of the end.

• 1:16:22Colin Brown?

  It was mid-July, and for the first time in a long time, things were actually looking up for Mark. Rather than pursue chemistry, Mark decided that he had no option but to go back to day trading. Despite the fact that he owed debts to Brent and Scott at Altech, he strolled right across the street to another day trading company, Momentum. On the application to trade with them, he claimed his net worth was $750,000. But that was a lie. It wasn't even close. Regardless, he put down eighty-seven thousand five hundred dollars to start trading. And this time, Mark told himself, things would be different. In the beginning, they were. The market was climbing, day after day, the numbers kept going up.

• 1:17:03Colin Brown?

  On July sixteenth, the Dow hit eleven thousand two hundred and nine, a record high. The NASDAQ was soaring. The S and P was up over fifteen percent for the year. And Mark, Mark was winning. Out of the fifteen days he'd traded at momentum, he ended up in the black on four of them, meaning he made a profit. Maybe he started to believe this was it, that he was finally turning it around. That everyone who doubted him, Leanne, Altec, all of them, would finally see that he knew what he was doing. Then, on Monday, July nineteenth, the market started to fall. At first, Mark probably told himself it was just a dip, a correction. It happens. The market goes up, the market goes down, you ride it out. That's what smart traders do.

• 1:17:48Colin Brown?

  But Tuesday came, and it kept falling. Wednesday, Thursday, the volatile internet stocks Mark had been on were dropping. And Mark wasn't the kind of trader who cut his losses. He held on, doubled down, watched the numbers on his screen turn red. By the weekend, Mark must have been a wreck, but he couldn't stop. Day trading experts always say you have to know when to fold, when to take your losses and live to fight another day. But Mark left his positions open. He'd go home at night with his money still on the table, exposed to whatever the market did while he slept. And every morning, he'd wake up to find out how much more he'd lost. The next week was even worse. Monday, July twenty-sixth, the market was still sliding.

• 1:18:32Colin Brown?

  By now, the S and P had dropped over five percent from its peak. The NASDAQ was down nearly eight percent. And Mark was drowning. He started coming into momentum more often now. Not sporadically like before, but desperately. Frantically trying to dig out of the hole he was in, trying to win back what he'd lost, what he'd almost had, what it was slipping away, all of it.

• 1:18:56Courtney Brown?

  On Tuesday, July twenty-seventh, nineteen ninety-nine, Mark was at momentum again. Same terminal, same screen full of red numbers, same pit in his stomach. And that pit was there for good reason. At that point, Mark owed Momentum $185,000. That's on top of the $30,000 he owed Brent and Scott back at Altech. And that day, Momentum had enough. They walked up to him and interrupted his trading. They told him he needed to put up $50,000 immediately, or they would close his accounts. It was a margin call. When you borrow money from a brokerage, and your losses get too big, they demand you pay up.

• 1:19:41Courtney Brown?

  Now. And if you can't, they close you out. But Mark didn't have $50,000. He didn't have anything close to that. However, he wrote them a check anyway. Maybe he thought it would buy him one more day, but he was wrong. Mark was officially, completely wiped out. In a little over two years, he had lost all $300,000 of Deborah's life insurance. That's about $600,000 in today's money. Everything he had worked for, everything he had likely killed for, was gone. Mark had no income. Leanne, his 27-year-old wife, was the only one supporting their family. She was working 70 hours a week,

• 1:20:26Courtney Brown?

  selling cleaning supplies to bring home the $45,000 a year the family survived on. Meanwhile, her husband, the man she had trusted, gambled away their future. And now, he was determined to take that future away permanently. In his narcissistic mind, he had lost everything, which meant, they had to as well.

• 1:20:51Colin Brown?

  After handing over the $50,000 check at Momentum, Mark walked out of the office and started his car. A car that he could no longer afford. But that didn't matter now. Nothing mattered now. His hands tightened on the wheel as he turned out of the parking lot of Momentum, heading towards an unexpected place. The local Toys R Us. He browsed the aisles, filling his cart with toy after toy. Anytime he saw something his children would like, he threw it in the cart. There were arts and crafts kits. A doll for Michelle. An army man for Matthew. Looking at his cart, you'd think that his kids were in for the greatest day of their lives. No one could have possibly imagined that it would be their last. As Mark drove home, he knew what he was going to do. He would give the kids their toys,

• 1:21:36Colin Brown?

  snuggle them, laugh with them, and then do the unthinkable. That night, he pulled up to the family's new apartment, got out of his car, and presented his kids with all the toys they could dream of. Matthew and Michelle were elated. They played with their new toys until it was time to go to their scout meetings. And at that point, Michelle went to her Brownies meeting with a close friend and her parents. And meanwhile, Mark attended the Boy Scout meeting with Matthew. During the meeting, he smiled. He cracked jokes. He made plans for the future and acted like everything was fine. Like he hadn't written a check he knew would bounce. Like his world wasn't collapsing all around him. Like he wasn't about to take innocent people down with him. That night, Matthew excitedly talked about the swimming badge he had just gotten.

• 1:22:22Colin Brown?

  He had plans for camping in the future, for earning more badges, going on more adventures. Somehow, his father felt nothing as he listened to his son plan a future that would never come to fruition. When he picked up Michelle from her meeting, he found her in the parking lot of a local park, running alongside her close friend Natasha. Michelle was beaming. Even in the dark of night, anyone could see it. Because she was illuminated by the glow of the fireflies she was chasing. She was carefree, enjoying a warm Georgia summer night alongside her friends. And once more, her father watched her. And he felt nothing. He knew, then and there, that he was going to still go through with his plans. He loaded the kids into the car and returned with them to the family apartment.

• 1:23:07Courtney Brown?

  Moving boxes still lined the hallways and rooms. Leanne decided to take Mark and his children in, despite the cramped space. It wasn't home yet, but they were getting there. Or, so they thought. Leanne came home that night like every night before it. Exhausted and pushed to her absolute limit. It was just the start of the week. A week where undoubtedly, she would work the hours of two people just to keep a roof over her family's head and food on the table. Mark was supposed to be looking for a real job. He was supposed to be making an effort to pull them out of debt. But that night, coming in through the front door, Leanne just saw a man unwilling to change.

• 1:23:50Courtney Brown?

  A man who was digging her and the kids deeper into debt, lies, and danger, all to feed his own ego. She couldn't take it anymore. The feelings of pure exhaustion, of anger, of betrayal, they were all simmering to the surface, and she had to let them out. Now what words were exchanged between the two, we'll never know. What we do know is that their argument didn't stop their obligations. There was dinner to make, there were kids to be tucked in. So swallowing her pain, Leanne helped get the kids ready for bed. She brushed Michelle's hair and listened to her talk about her new baby dolls and toys she had gotten that day.

• 1:24:31Courtney Brown?

  Leanne reminded her son Matthew, who was lost in a pack of Pokemon cards, to brush his teeth before bed. Then, she said goodnight. She kissed her babies, told them she loved them, and then crawled into bed herself. Slowly, the weight of the argument with Mark, the weight of her long day, it all faded into the mattress. Leanne tugged the blankets up around her. She always hoped the next day would be better. She was positive that way. In spite of any challenge she faced, she chose to believe that tomorrow would be a brighter day. And with that, she drifted off to sleep. Just down the hall, her babies, her whole world. The reason she stuck around, they were dreaming.

• 1:25:17Courtney Brown?

  But someone in the house was still awake, and he was kick-starting a nightmare that would last for days. As his wife slept, Mark reached into the closet, grabbing a claw hammer from his toolkit. The same kind of weapon that was used to kill Deborah, Mark's first wife. But tonight, the hammer was heavy in his hands, as he crept down the hallway, past the rooms of his sleeping children. He opened the bedroom door, a flicker of light shone across his wife, bleeding in from the crack in the door. Her chest was peacefully rising and falling. She was asleep, defenseless. Mark had a chance there, a million chances.

• 1:26:00Courtney Brown?

  He could have closed the door. He could have walked out of the home. He could have left Leanne to do the only thing that mattered to her, raise their children. But Mark didn't do that. Instead, he stepped closer, and closer, and closer, until he was standing directly above Leanne, towering over her. And then, the first hit came. There was the crunch of bone, the squish of muscles and brain matter, exploding into a mess. And with the sound, the blood, the horror, there was finality. Leanne wasn't dead from the strike of the hammer just yet, but there was no going back. So Mark hit her again, and again, and again.

• 1:26:44Courtney Brown?

  He kept smashing the hammer into his wife's face, crushing her skull beyond all recognition, until finally, he fell still. The bloody hammer hung in his grasp. His wife was dead. She hadn't had the chance to defend herself. She hadn't had a chance to scream, to call for help, to react. He had done what he had always done, taken advantage of her, of the love she had for his children. And he struck when she was at her most vulnerable. Leanne was just 27 years old when she took her final breath. The only person with her was the man who vowed to honor and protect her, the man who she trusted to do just that.

• 1:27:28Courtney Brown?

  Instead, he delivered the fatal blows, and then he grabbed her by her feet. He dragged her dead body out of sight, stuffing it into the closet. But looking at her there, crumbled and shoved behind the door, he realized, it wasn't enough. He went to the kitchen and grabbed a trash bag. He tied it around her head so he wouldn't have to look at what he had done, so her blood wouldn't pool into the carpet beneath her. And then, he wrapped a blanket around her before he closed the closet door. Next, he crawled into bed. The same bed he had just murdered his wife in. The same bed that was splattered with her blood and brain matter. And then, Mark went to sleep.

• 1:28:12Courtney Brown?

  Unbothered by the fact that he just committed a monstrous act, and he was sleeping in the evidence of it.

• 1:28:19Colin Brown?

  Now, we know there will be comments about Leanne being the "other woman", and there are a lot of people who speculate on what Leanne knew about the murder of Mark's first wife, Deborah. But because that investigation was handled so poorly, we have no answers regarding that. We do know that Leanne did not deserve to be murdered. She started dating Mark when she was 21. Mark was 38. He was manipulative. He knew exactly what to say to get what he wanted. And in the end, Leanne is still a victim in this story. She clearly made mistakes. Most people just have the privilege of growing beyond them, of evolving, and of becoming their best selves. Leanne wasn't awarded the chance to live a full life. It was snatched away from her.

• 1:29:02Colin Brown?

  Still, she was so much more than her relationship with Mark Barton. Her sister and cousins called her Goldilocks. Her father called her Honey. She had grown up in Lysella, Georgia, running barefoot and wild beneath crepe myrtles and rows of peach trees. Her sister Dana loved seeing her become a mother, and later said, "We should have been two old ladies in a shoe, for we had a love of children, and we should have had a dozen apiece." And Leanne proved just how true that was. She was Matthew's soccer mom, Michelle's Girl Scout Brownie leader. She taught Sunday School. These weren't her biological children, but she loved them like they were. She loved them so much that, in spite of her own reservations about Mark, she decided to see things out with him.

• 1:29:47Colin Brown?

  Her father would later say, "She couldn't separate from them. That's the reason she died." He admitted to the Macon Telegraph that he didn't like Mark from the start, saying, "My God, my wife's got harder hands than he had. Limp. And he didn't look you in the eye either. He would never address his first wife's death with me. We were reassured, as I guess any child would do, that Mark was innocent of, I don't want to say the accusations, but what he was suspected of. I never bought it." As the interview went on, he looked down at the cigarette in his hand. He paused and told the interviewer, "We never had any photos of him in our home." All along, his suspicions had been right. And in just a few hours, the whole world was going to know what he had known all along:

• 1:30:31Colin Brown?

  that Mark Barton was a killer.

• 1:30:35Courtney Brown?

  When Mark woke up on Wednesday morning, Leanne's body was in the stage of rigor mortis, sitting in the closet just a few feet away from him. Yet, he stood up, put on his slippers, and walked out to the kitchen to start his coffee. Soon enough, Matthew and Michelle woke up and wandered into the kitchen like they always did. But instead of being greeted by Leanne, they saw their father. He made them breakfast as they played with their new toys for that entire summer day. Those two children lived in a house with their stepmother's body hidden in a closet. They went out for dinner that night at a nearby restaurant. One chair sat empty. I'm sure Mark told them that Leanne was out for the day,

• 1:31:19Courtney Brown?

  that she was busy doing something else. And once they came back home, it was time for bed. Wednesday night, July 28th. Matthew probably didn't want to go to bed just yet. He was 11, it was summertime. There were video games to play, cards to trade, things to do. But eventually, he climbed into bed. Maybe he was thinking about his friends, about what he wanted to do tomorrow, about the endless summer stretching out ahead of him. Michelle probably went to bed easier. She was younger, she had her teddy bear. Maybe Mark tucked her in. Maybe he read her a story.

• 1:32:00Courtney Brown?

  Then, he turned off the lights in her room, and he left. Matthew and Michelle went to sleep that night feeling safe, in their beds, in their home, with their dad just down the hall, ready to keep the monsters at bay. Soon, Matthew drifted off, that deep, heavy sleep that children fall into so easily, the kind where the whole world disappears and is replaced by vivid, colorful dreams. He probably never woke up, never knew his father was standing over him. I hope he never felt a thing as his dad cracked the blood-soaked hammer over his head.

• 1:32:41Courtney Brown?

  We can only hope that he was somewhere else, somewhere without pain. But Mark struck his son again, and again, and again. His head was later described as quote, "beaten to a pulp." But that wasn't enough for Mark. After bludgeoning his son, he stumbled into the bathroom and turned on the water in the tub. It wasn't to clean his child's blood off, despite the fact that he was drenched in it. It was to ensure his son was dead. Mark made his way back to the room and picked Matthew up. He then set him down in the bathtub, face down. For the next few moments, he stood over him. He watched as the water engulfing Matthew turned pink.

• 1:33:26Colin Brown?

  Matthew David Barton was 11 years old. He had a whole life ahead of him. He was a boy scout. He played soccer. He liked video games. He was about to start 6th grade and was slated to be the smartest in his class. People who knew Matthew remarked that while he was a kid, he had a mature, serious air about him. He was protective of his sister. He felt responsible for her, and given what happened in his short life, that makes perfect sense. Matthew had already lived through more tragedy than most people experience in a lifetime. He was just five years old when his mother was murdered at that campground in Alabama. Too young to really understand what had happened. Too young to know that his own father was the prime suspect.

• 1:34:09Colin Brown?

  All Matthew knew was that one day his mom was there, and the next day she was gone. After Deborah's death, Matthew was raised by his father and Leanne. She became the only mother figure he really remembered. She was at every soccer game. She drove him to scout meetings. She was the one who showed up while his father, Mark, was spiraling. And now, both she and 11-year-old Matthew were dead. Sadly, Mark wouldn't stop there.

• 1:34:36Courtney Brown?

  Back inside the apartment, Michelle was fast asleep. She cradled her teddy bear in her arms. It was the bear she couldn't sleep without. The one that made her feel safe when mommy and daddy weren't in the room with her. She still believed her daddy would protect her from anything. Instead, he stood over her with a hammer in hand. And just like with Matthew, he struck her in the head again, and again, and again. But once more, that wasn't enough. He had to make sure that Michelle was dead. So, he picked her up. He walked her over to the bathtub, and he set her down beneath the running faucet.

• 1:35:19Colin Brown?

  Michelle Elizabeth Barton was eight years old. She was a Brownie, one of the littlest Girl Scouts. Michelle was about to start third grade, and she had already made a reputation for herself. She was a known jokester. She loved to laugh, to play pranks, to make others crack up. Michelle didn't take things too seriously. She was just happy. She had a best friend named Tiffany who lived nearby. They went to Girl Scouts together. But that bond had been forever severed.

• 1:35:46Courtney Brown?

  Inside the apartment, both of Mark's children were dead. Lying in a bathtub, their heads beaten to a pulp. When Saul was said and done, Mark picked his son up out of the water. The image of Matthew's injuries are horrible to think about. But right there in that bathroom, Mark grabbed a towel, and he dried him off. Then, still wet and bloodied, he dressed Matthew one last time. Brought him into his bedroom, and laid him down on the bed. He tucked him in like he was sleeping. He placed Matthew's Game Boy next to him. Like his son had just fallen asleep, playing it. Next, Mark walked back to the bathroom. Back to the tub.

• 1:36:31Courtney Brown?

  Michelle was still lying there, face down in the pink water. He reached in and lifted her small body out. She was so light, just eight years old. He held her against his chest, her wet hair soaking through his shirt. He carried her down the hall to her room, laid her on the bed. Pulled the covers up to her chin. Placed her favorite teddy bear on her chest. The teddy bear she believed would protect her and keep her safe. He lifted the blankets around her head, wrapping it around the sides like a halo. If you had walked into those rooms, without looking too closely, you would have thought that they were sleeping. Peaceful and safe.

• 1:37:14Courtney Brown?

  In reality, within twenty-four hours, Mark Barton had murdered his wife and two young children. He spent the rest of that night alone in the apartment. His wife in the closet, his children and their beds. Three people who had trusted him, loved him. Three people whose lives he had ended with his own hands. This wasn't a man in a crazed frenzy. Mark was calm and calculated. After killing Leanne, he went about his life for another full day. He made breakfast. He talked to his kids. He watched them play with the toys he bought. He tucked them in at night. And the whole time Leanne was in that closet.

• 1:37:58Courtney Brown?

  That kind of coldness, the kind of detachment. Most people couldn't do it. Most people couldn't function. But Mark did. It was as if nothing happened. When the sun came up on Thursday, July twenty-ninth, nineteen ninety-nine, Mark sat down at his computer. It was six thirty-eight in the morning. And he started typing. What he wrote on that computer was a confession, an explanation of sorts. A suicide note. He printed it out and left it on the coffee table in the living room. This is what it said.

• 1:38:36Colin Brown?

  To whom it may concern, Leanne is in the master bedroom closet under a blanket. I killed her on Tuesday night. I killed Matthew and Michelle Wednesday night. There may be similarities between these deaths and the death of my first wife, Deborah Spivey. However, I deny killing her and her mother. There's no reason for me to lie now. It just seemed like a quiet way to kill and a relatively painless way to die. There was little pain. All of them were dead in less than five minutes. I hit them with a hammer in their sleep and then put them face down in a bathtub to make sure they did not wake up in pain, to make sure they were dead. I am so sorry. I wish I didn't. Words cannot tell the agony. Why did I? I've been dying since October.

• 1:39:20Colin Brown?

  I wake up at night so afraid, so terrified that I couldn't be that afraid while awake. It has taken its toll. I've come to hate this life and this system of things. I've come to have no hope. I killed the children to exchange them for five minutes of pain, for a lifetime of pain. I forced myself to do it to keep them from suffering so much later. No mother, no father, no relatives.

• 1:39:43Courtney Brown?

  Now in this next part, Mark writes something strange about his son Matthew. Something he fears Matthew inherited from him. Something that Mark seemed to have inherited from his father. It read this.

• 1:39:56Colin Brown?

  The fears of the father are transferred to the son. It was from my father to me and from me to my son. He already had it and now to be left alone. I had to take him with me.

• 1:40:07Courtney Brown?

  Mark never elaborated on exactly what he meant by that. But according to him, whatever darkness he carried in himself, he believed he passed it on to his son. And rather than let Matthew live with that burden, he decided to kill him. At least, that's what Mark wanted everyone to believe. Even in killing his own son, he has to somehow rewrite the narrative to make himself the hero. But in his note, Mark went on to say this.

• 1:40:36Colin Brown?

  I killed Leanne because she was one of the main reasons for my demise as I planned to kill the others. I really wish I hadn't killed her now. She really couldn't help it, and I love her so much anyway. I know that Jehovah will take care of all of them in the next life. I'm sure the details don't matter. There is no excuse, no good reason. I'm sure no one would understand. If they could, I wouldn't want them to. I just write these things to say why. Please know that I love Leanne, Matthew, and Michelle with all of my heart. If Jehovah is willing, I would like to see all of them again in the resurrection to have a second chance.

• 1:41:11Courtney Brown?

  After typing this note, Mark walked through the apartment one last time. He stopped at each body, and on each one, he placed a handwritten note. The note on Leanne read this.

• 1:41:24Colin Brown?

  I give you my wife, Leanne Van Dever Barton. My honey, my precious love, please take care of her. I will love her forever.

• 1:41:32Courtney Brown?

  The note on Matthew read.

• 1:41:34Colin Brown?

  I give you Matthew David Barton, my son, my buddy, my life. Please take care of him.

• 1:41:39Courtney Brown?

  And lastly, the note on Michelle read.

• 1:41:43Colin Brown?

  I give you Michelle Elizabeth Barton, my daughter, my sweetheart, my life. Please take care of her.

• 1:41:50Courtney Brown?

  He called them his honey, his buddy, his sweetheart, his life. And yet, he killed them all. I wish I could tell you that our story ends here, but it doesn't. At the very end of Mark Barton's suicide note, it read this.

• 1:42:08Colin Brown?

  "I don't plan to live very much longer, just long enough to kill as many of the people that greedily sought my destruction. You should kill me if you can."

• 1:42:16Courtney Brown?

  That's right. The murder of Mark's wife and children wasn't enough for him. In fact, it was just the beginning. That afternoon, the afternoon of Thursday, July 29th, 1999, Mark walked into his closet. He reached over Leanne's body and grabbed a pink polo shirt, a pair of dark shorts, and white sneakers. Then, after getting dressed, he grabbed his guns. Within just a few hours, Atlanta, Georgia would be the site of a horrific and deadly mass shooting, one that was aimed at the very firms where Mark Barton lost everything.

• 1:42:58Colin Brown?

  If you want to listen to that episode now, head over to our Patreon. You can listen to that episode and every episode of ours early and ad-free on our Patreon. You can find the link in the description of this episode, and if not, we'll see you next week for the 1999 Atlanta Day Trading Massacre Story. For today's episode, we will be making a donation to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. NAMI is the nation's largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. If you'd like to learn more or make a donation yourself, you can visit nami.org.

• 1:43:37Colin Brown?

  Hey guys, thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Murder in America. If you want to listen to part two right now, it is currently live on our Patreon account. So if you've never signed up for Patreon and you want to get access to that episode, I would highly consider supporting the show there. On Patreon, you can get early ad-free access to all of our episodes that are here on the main feed, and you can also get access to additional bonus episodes of the show that will never be posted anywhere but on Patreon. Our full-length episodes of Murder in America exactly like the story in the episode that you just listened to with both Courtney and I, with the same level of script writing

• 1:44:18Colin Brown?

  and sound design and research and care that goes into our main show, but these are just bonuses for those who choose to help support the show on Patreon. So, thank you guys who have signed up and thank you all who help and have helped to keep this show afloat over the years. Also, don't forget to follow us on Instagram @MurderInAmerica to see photos from every case that we cover here on the show. And be sure to leave us a five-star review. We love hearing from you guys. We love seeing those five stars and it helps our show grow. It just helps us so much if you can leave us those reviews. So, yeah, thank you guys if you've done it already and thank you in advance to those who are going to do it after hearing this. Anyways, y'all, I hope you all have an amazing rest of your week and a great weekend if you're listening on Friday. My name's Colin. Thank you all for tuning in. I'll catch you all on the next one.

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