Mark Putnam is now in Georgia, where he works as a personal trainer, and is said to have since remarried. The 64 year-old moved to Georgia from Massachusetts after killing Susan Smith, a woman he had an illicit affair with, and spent years behind bars for the crime.
The events that happened between Mark, who was an FBI agent, and Susan became the subject of Joe Sharkey’s non-fiction book, Above Suspicion, and the film based on the book, which shares the same title in 2019. Since his release, he has returned to pretty much a normal life. Here is a look at events leading to Mark’s time behind bars and afterward.
What Happened Between Mark Putnam and Susan Smith?
The story of what really happened between Mark Putnam and Susan Smith began in 1987 when Mark, as an FBI Agent, was assigned to investigate an infamous bank robber named Carl Edward Lockhart. His target lived not too far from where Susan lived.
At the time, Susan was a woman in her mid-20s who was already married and divorced. Born in 1961 in West Virginia, she was brought up with eight siblings. Susan was still a baby when her family moved to Kentucky, where she was raised. When she was only 15 years old, she started dating a man known as Kenneth Smith, who was 7 years older than her.
They got married in the later part of the 1970s, and although the union produced 2 kids, that was not enough to keep the union as it ended in divorce. Even after the failed union, Susan still lived together with her husband and kids.
When Mark was sent to her community to dig in on the aforementioned robber, he made Susan a private spy who was supposed to get information and pass it to him in relation to the crime. This was because she had a mutual friend with the suspected robber.
From the beginning, Susan seemed to be very much involved in the investigation, and she later became very close to Mark’s wife, Kathy Putnam. While this was happening, her attention shifted from the FBI assignment to personal needs as she fell in love with Mark, and they soon began dating.
Putnam later got moved by the FBI to Miami, but this did not mark an end to the affair as it was around this time that it turned out that she became pregnant for the FBI man.
Is Mark Putnam Still Alive?
Yes, Mark Putnam is alive, but his former lover, Susan, is not. After It became clear that he impregnated Susan and she was threatening to make it known that she was carrying his baby, he returned and took a drive with her to Peter Creek Mountain.
They got engaged in an argument as Putman alleged that he requested a paternity test before offering to adopt the baby when it was born. This made Susan even madder, and in an altercation that ensued, Mark revealed that he strangled Susan to death on June 8, 1989.
Mark put his former lover’s body in his trunk for the rest of the day, and the next night, he dumped it in a hidden place. While he became the easy suspect for many people, he was not brought in because there was nothing tangible linking him to the crime.
The FBI agent would have walked scot-free, but he owned up to his crime and voluntarily gave himself up 12 months after the sadistic act. He provided a written statement on all that happened between them and how he murdered her. It was later made known that the reason he confessed was because he felt guilty.
Mark gave the motivation for the murder as the pregnancy, and the rage of the argument between them, but her family insisted there was more to it. They refused to buy his line of argument because, contrary to the claim that she was 4 months pregnant when she was murdered, the coroner did not find any sign of pregnancy.
Nonetheless, he was arrested and charged to court, where he pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to 16 years on June 12, 1990. He was locked at the Federal Medical Centre in Rochester, Minnesota. He was there for the next 10 years before he was released in 2010 for being a model prisoner. To this day, he is very much alive.
Where is Mark Putnam Now and What is He Doing?
Since serving his term in prison and his release, Putnam has maintained a very low profile. He is now said to live in Georgia with his new wife and grown-up kids. With hardly any serious details about his personal life, it is speculated that he lives a very peaceful life.
At the time of his release, he was only 41 years old, which means he was still very young when he left prison. He was arrested and sent to cool his heels at the age of 30.
With his release, Mark Putnam did not return to his work in law enforcement, which is not possible considering that he is an ex-convict, but rather, he now works as a personal trainer. He has gotten a better part of his life back as not only has he served his term, but he is in the good books of the family of his late wife, who believe he is a wonderful man and was only caught up in a crime of passion.
Who is Mark Putnam Married To Now?
At the moment, the identity of the woman that he is married to has remained in the dark as he tries to maintain a very quiet and private life.
As indicated, he was previously married to a woman known as Kathleen Eunice Ponticelli, who is also referred to as Kathy Putnam. Kathy was born on February 5, 1998, in Manchester, Hartford County, Connecticut, USA. She was born to Carol Evelyn Ponticelli and Raymond Joseph Ponticelli, a wealthy estate mogul.
Of Italian ethnicity, Kathy was a very troubled individual who was raped as a teenager and who, although her marriage to Mark seemed perfect, had its own issues. The air got married shortly after graduation, and they had a picture-perfect union, but Kathy would later reveal that she was always jealous and tried as much as possible to keep her marriage in order.
All that was not enough to keep things in check for him as Susan, who as stated, worked her way into becoming Kathy’s close friend, ended up having an affair with her Mark. Nonetheless, Mark Putnam’s wife still remained with him even after his conviction. What was more interesting was the fact that she moved from Manchester, Connecticut, to be close to Mark, who was serving time there.
Sadly, she lost her life at the young age of 38 in 1998. Her demise was linked to severe alcoholism, which she battled for a long time. This cost her organ failure, which ultimately took her life.
The marriage between Mark Putnam and his former wife was blessed with two amazing kids, a girl, Danielle Putnam, and a boy, Mark Putnam Jr. Almost all about the two kids is kept away from the public, except for the fact that they were mostly brought up by their grandparents after the death of their mother. They were handed back to their father after his release, and today, both the kids are married.
