Twenty years ago, Alicia Bernice Markovich argued with her divorced father about child support payments and walked away from his Blairsville home, where she was visiting, during the evening hours of April 26, 1987, according to state police.
As she walked off, police said she ignored her father's instructions when he yelled for her to return home by 8 p.m.
Those instructions would be the last words he ever spoke to his daughter, as the 15-year-old Windber freshman disappeared, never to be seen by her family again.
Alicia Markovich's disappearance has puzzled state police and investigators for 20 years. And on the anniversary of her disappearance, The Doe Network, an international volunteer organization devoted to assisting law enforcement with cold cases, is asking anyone with information to come forward and help solve the mystery.
"It's like she vanished into thin air," said Theresa Golden, Doe Network media representative for Pennsylvania.
Thinking that his daughter ran away, John Michael Markovich didn't report her as missing until the next day, police said in reports. She was initially treated as a runaway juvenile, but as time passed, it became apparent that might not be the case.
In 1990, days before the three-year anniversary of her disappearance, state police announced that investigators would treat the case as a homicide, according to Cpl. Kirt Allmendinger of the Indiana barracks.
"Surely, she would've turned up in a three-year time period," Allmendinger said. "The investigator believed Alicia Markovich was the victim of foul play."
Alicia Markovich, 2003 (computer generated)As time passed, police investigated any and all leads regarding the disappearance, which didn't turn into anything substantial. But in 2000, her father received an anonymous letter from someone who claimed to have murdered his daughter, Allmendinger said. The letter, marked with a New Hampshire return address, contained instructions on where to find her body.
Troopers followed up on the letter and drove 10 hours to New Bedford, N.H., but an unidentified person at the address had no knowledge of the letter or Alicia Markovich, police said. Police do not believe the person at the address was connected to the case.
Police also dug up an area near the Conemaugh River outside Blairsville, where the letter said her body could be found, Allmendinger said. But there was no sign of her remains.
To this day, it's uncertain if the letter was a hoax.
Police have used different tactics in the case over the years. They have received information locally as well as from out of state and follow up on every lead, Allmendinger said. They also work with organizations such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which, like the Doe Network, researches cases in hopes of locating missing individuals.
And while it's considered a "cold case," that doesn't mean nobody is paying attention to it, he said. Though there are not active leads, police remain positive that the puzzle can still be solved.
"We're still hoping that something comes in," he said. "When it does, we follow up on it."
Allmendinger would not comment on whether there are any suspects in the case.
"I can't say," he said.
A message left Tuesday at a Blairsville phone listing for a John Markovich was not returned. There are no current phone listings for Alicia Markovich's mother, Marcie Smith, in Windber.
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