Abby Connolly
I can’t imagine the anxiety people must feel after someone they knew expressed how unhappy they were before vanishing and not being heard from again.
The people close to Marsha Brantley, a woman who went missing from her home in Tennessee 14 years ago, know that feeling all too well, as she expressed feelings of depression before vanishing without a trace or warning.
Before she went missing, Marsha lived in Cleveland, Tennessee, with her husband, Donnie, and three foster dogs. After marrying Donnie in 2000, Marsha received a large inheritance from her parents when they passed away, so she reportedly used some of it to help Donnie set up a handyman business.
Marsha previously worked as the housing director at Lee University but eventually quit to focus on her writing career. She wrote young adult novels and short stories and kept up a day-to-day blog called “The Magpie’s Nest.” She was also in a writer’s group with friends called the Thunder Rock Writers Group.
Aside from writing, Marsha was passionate about gardening and caring for her foster pups. She had no children or siblings but had several friends in her community.
However, in 2009, Marsha reportedly began to confide in her friends and tell them how depressed she had become, claiming to be so depressed she could hardly get up off her couch.
In April 2009, she reportedly told her hairdresser that her husband’s handyman business had gone downhill and was failing.
Then, on June 2nd, 2009, her friends and blog followers became concerned when she wrote a troubling post about how it seemed that everything was going wrong in her life. Around this time, people had stopped seeing her in the neighborhood.
Later that summer, Donnie allegedly told one of their neighbors that Marsha had left him and they were getting a divorce.
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