He recalled Bonnie Siner as down to earth, friendly, and intelligent, often donning jeans and an old T-shirt to pitch in with the work.
"Just your normal, 30-year-old household mom," Markloff said. "If what they are saying about her now is true, I just don't know what to think."
A year after the Sweetens married, and with the landscaping business under way, they took a big financial leap - the first of many that might have led to Bonnie Sweeten's undoing - by purchasing a $424,978 four-bedroom house on Saxon Drive in Lower Southampton with a hefty $403,729 mortgage.
The family of four moved in 21/2 years ago with Bonnie Sweeten's two daughters from her first marriage: Julia, now 9, whom she took to Florida, and Paige, now 15. Eight months ago, she gave birth to another daughter, Faith, after spending tens of thousands of dollars on fertility treatments, police said.
With Bonnie Sweeten handling the family finances, her husband has said, he had no idea what was going on with their money.
Sweeten's Facebook pages give a peek at her life as a busy suburban mom. In them, she says she loves to shop with her daughters and go snowmobiling with friends in Colorado. Her favorite TV show is Top Chef and her favorite movie Pretty Woman, about a prostitute who falls in love with a wealthy man. She doesn't like to read "at all" and always tells her two older daughters to "make good choices."
Sweeten's taste for the good life can be seen in the car she drove - a 2005 GMC Yukon Denali SUV worth about $50,000 new - and the hotel she checked into with her daughter in Disney World, the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, the crown jewel of the theme parks' hotels, where rates start at $399 a night.
Larry Sweeten, appearing Friday morning on NBC's Today show, said that his wife tried to call collect twice Thursday night from jail, but that his cellular service would not accept the charges.
When he first heard about the reported abduction, he reacted as if it were true.
"I drove up and down Street Road, where she said it happened. I called the father of her other children. I called my dad. I had as many people out as I could. . . . We were searching everywhere."
When he found out she was in Disney World, "I was just trying to find out what was going on, like everybody else. I just hope that everybody out there doesn't believe everything that they're hearing. Everybody who knows her knows she's a great person, and these rumors can't be true."
Neighbors were left to wonder what was true about the woman they had come to know and like in the last few years. On Friday, kids played in the cul-de-sac in front of the Sweetens' two-story house, which has a Welcome sign and wreath on the double front door. Nearby were wheelbarrows and stone that Larry Sweeten was using to build a deck and patio.
A woman peeked out the front window at the reporters and TV vans camped out front.
Fred Goodson, 40, whose children play with Bonnie Sweeten's daughter Julia, said Sweeten bought birthday presents for all the kids in the neighborhood and frequently hosted neighborhood yard parties.
"She's a great, great lady," he said.
Her recent actions seemed way out of character, he said, describing Sweeten as friendly and genuine.
"I doubt you would come across anyone who said she is a terrible mother," he added.
Another woman, Denise Faul, said that she was "shocked" and that "Bonnie is a great neighbor."
Sweeten's friends on Facebook were also supportive and seemed willing to forgive her for the frantic hours they spent thinking that she and her daughter had been kidnapped.
A note from Sweeten's older daughter, Paige, showed just how traumatic the episode has been for those closest to her:
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