Tina Marcotte

Tina Marcotte

Real Name: Tina Marie Marcotte
Nicknames: No known nicknames
Location: Rapid City, South Dakota
Date: June 24, 1994

Bio

Occupation: Forest Product Distributors Worker
Date of Birth: December 13, 1963
Height: Unrevealed
Weight: Unrevealed
Marital Status: Dating
Characteristics: Caucasian female

Case

Details: Thirty-year-old Tina Marcotte was a late shift worker at Black Hills Molding, a wood processing plant. Shortly after midnight on Friday, June 24, 1994, she called her best friend, Vicky Riddle, complaining of a flat tire and asking to be picked up. She noticed a car driving up, and, a short time later, told Vicky she didn't have to come because Tom Kueter (29 at the time of death), a forklift driver who previously worked for Black Hills Molding, was giving her a ride.
It was the last time Tina was heard from. The next morning, Vicky was visited by Tom and Patrick Gleason, Tina's live-in boyfriend of eleven years. According to Vicky, Tom became defensive when she mentioned Tina's phone call, but he finally admitted he was the only "Tom" who had worked for Black Hills Molding that she would know. When Patrick asked him if they were having an affair, he found his passive denial to be strangely uncharacteristic of him. He suggested that they go together to report her disappearance.
When police examined Tina's car, they discovered that her flat tire had most likely been slashed with a knife, suggesting foul play. Tom was asked to come in for questioning, which he did, voluntarily. During questioning, he denied giving her a ride and said that he had spent his evening at a softball game, taking a friend home, and fixing his car under a streetlight for three or four hours after it broke down. He pointed to the place where he did so on a map, but police could find no one in that area to confirm his story.
Tom had not called his wife, Nancy, to tell her about his delay that evening. According to her, when he finally arrived home around 3:30am, he immediately began washing his clothes, including his softball uniform and shoelaces. Three days after Tina's disappearance, police came to him at his workplace, Forest Products Distributors, and told him they had found blood in his car.
Around 9am the next morning, just after the shift change, workers found Tom's body with his head crushed by a rear wheel of his own forklift. An investigation by the police led them to believe that he loaded it with at least a ton of lumber, drove it up an incline, hopped out, and laid down in front of its path, taking his own life in a way that seemed accidental, hoping that his family would benefit from it. However, Nancy believes he was murdered, saying he would not leave her and their children alone. His death and Tina's disappearance remain unsolved.
Suspects: Tom was considered the prime suspect in Tina's disappearance. Investigators believe that on the night of her disappearance, he showed up at Black Hills Molding and slashed her tire. They believe that he waited until she got off work to offer to give her a ride. They believe that he made sexual advances to her, and when she refused, he killed her. They also believe that his alibi fell apart when she told Vicky that he was giving her a ride.
Extra Notes: This case first aired on the January 5, 1996 episode.
Results: Solved. In October 1995, as Unsolved Mysteries was still filming this case, Tina's body was found beneath a wood pile in the lumberyard of Forest Products Distributors. It's believed that it was deposited there after she was killed. Her cause of death was blunt force trauma. In 2016, authorities closed Tom and Tina's cases, ruling that he committed suicide after murdering her.
Links:

• Missing mother search continues
• Psychic to help find missing woman
• Authorities confirm body not S.D. woman
• Sitcoms Online Discussion of Tina Marcotte (includes articles)
• Tina Marcotte on Find a Grave

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