Pod Insights True Crime All The Time Mark Latunski About this episode Kevin Bacon left home on Christmas Eve 2019 to see a man he met on a dating app that evening. After his parents reported him missing the following day, the police received a tip that led them to the home of Mark Latunski, who was already known to police because of two disturbing incidents earlier that year.
Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Mark Latunski. Before meeting Kevin, two different men called 911 to report that Mark Latunski had kept them chained up in his basement. But both men declined to press charges, and it seems police did little investigation. Could police have prevented the murder and cannibalism carried out by Mark Latunski?
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1:47 Speaker 00 Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 425 of the True Crime All the Time Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?
1:58 Speaker 01 Hey, I'm doing good. How about you?
1:59 Speaker 00 I'm doing really well.
2:00 Speaker 01 Good.
2:01 Speaker 00 You and I just got done recording our Patreon mini-episode, weekly episode, and, you know, talked about all the things that we're watching, things that are going on in our lives. It seemed like a lot.
2:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:17 Speaker 00 Especially the amount of stuff we're watching.
2:19 Speaker 01 Pretty busy, guys.
2:22 Speaker 00 Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Lynn Brown.
2:25 Speaker 01 Hey Lynn.
2:26 Speaker 00 Faye Knight.
2:27 Speaker 01 I appreciate that Faye.
2:28 Speaker 00 Bree Smith.
2:29 Speaker 01 Thanks, Bree.
2:30 Speaker 00 Vernon Forward jumped out to our highest level.
2:32 Speaker 01 Oh, you're awesome Vernon.
2:33 Speaker 00 Caleb Hockenberry.
2:34 Speaker 01 Hey Caleb.
2:35 Speaker 00 Gary.
2:36 Speaker 01 What's going on Gary?
2:37 Speaker 00 Annie Garcia.
2:38 Speaker 01 Hey Annie.
2:38 Speaker 00 It's just Matty.
2:40 Speaker 01 Ah, good old Matty.
2:41 Speaker 00 Arlene McDonald.
2:42 Speaker 01 Hey, Arlene.
2:43 Speaker 00 C.C. Lemon.
2:44 Speaker 01 What's up, C.C.?
2:45 Speaker 00 Tim Cosgrove.
2:46 Speaker 01 Hey, Tim.
2:47 Speaker 00 And last but not least, Michael Kelly.
2:49 Speaker 01 With a name like Michael, you gotta be good.
2:51 Speaker 00 And then if we go back into the vault.
2:55 Speaker 00 This week, we selected Debbie Duffy.
2:57 Speaker 01 Thanks Debbie.
2:58 Speaker 00 Yeah, appreciate the new support, the continued support. We also had some great PayPal donations from Amanda Stewart.
3:04 Speaker 01 Thanks Amanda.
3:05 Speaker 00 And Jennifer Brunswick.
3:06 Speaker 01 Oh, awesome Jennifer.
3:07 Speaker 00 So thanks to you as well. Alright, so right now, we have a new episode out on True Crime All Time Unsolved, where we're talking about Jody Housen, true. She was a popular anchor at a local news station in Iowa. She went missing early one morning while rushing out the door for work and has never been found. It's a pretty well-known unsolved case.
3:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:32 Speaker 00 From a relatively small town in Iowa. Alright buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime All The Time?
3:40 Speaker 01 I am ready.
3:41 Speaker 00 We're talking about Mark Latunsky. Kevin Bacon left home on Christmas Eve 2019 to see a man he met on a dating app that evening after his parents reported him missing the following day. The police received a tip that led them to the home of Mark Latunsky, who was already known to police because of two disturbing incidents earlier that year.
4:09 Speaker 01 Alright, hold on. Assuming we're talking about a different Kevin Bacon.
4:12 Speaker 00 Yes, this is a different Kevin Bacon, not the actor, not the Footloose guy. And we're going to get into everything about this Mark Latunsky. It's a lot. I mean, we're talking kidnapping, cannibalism.
4:30 Speaker 00 Keeping people chained in his basement. I mean, we're going down a rough road here and I just want people to be prepared.
4:37 Speaker 01 Maybe not a meal time episode?
4:39 Speaker 00 No, probably not. Kevin Bacon was born on November 28th, 1994 in Lansing, Michigan. He grew up in a close family with his mother Pamela Van Horn, his dad Carl Bacon and his sister Jennifer Bacon. His parents told him that they didn't name him after the actor. They explained that they wanted their son to have the same initials as his father, but they didn't want to name him Carl Jr. But I will say, I had a thought, Gibbs, that, you know, growing up with the name Kevin Bacon, I, I mean, we know how kids make fun of other kids.
5:18 Speaker 01 Sure.
5:19 Speaker 00 For all kinds of things.
5:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:21 Speaker 00 You're going to get some Kevin Bacon jokes and six degrees of separation. There's, there's just going to be stuff that comes with it.
5:29 Speaker 01 For sure.
5:30 Speaker 00 But I also, you know, don't know if you want to be named Carl Jr. There just happens to be a hamburger franchise.
5:39 Speaker 01 Exactly. Carl Jr. Bacon. I can see some jokes right there.
5:43 Speaker 00 Yeah, because, you know, if you think about it, isn't Carl Jr.'s the one that has those or had at one time? All those commercials with like scantily clad women eating hamburgers like on the hoods of a car.
5:58 Speaker 01 The burger.
6:00 Speaker 00 Juices. Yeah.
6:01 Speaker 01 You dripping? Yeah.
6:02 Speaker 00 I'm pretty sure that was Carl's Jr.
6:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:05 Speaker 00 According to friends and family, Kevin was always there for others. When his loved ones were going through a hard time, he provided a listening ear and offered support. All right. Sounds like a good kid.
6:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:17 Speaker 00 The Rolling Stone reported that Kevin's flamboyant style made him stand out. He liked to dye his hair bright colors. His friend Sarah Hope Spencer told the outlet, everyone knew Kevin. He's big, tall, and usually had something crazy going on. And I would say that describes you very well. Maybe not the tall part so much, but the rest of it.
6:41 Speaker 01 Just got a lot going on.
6:43 Speaker 00 A lot of something crazy going on. Kevin had enjoyed doing hair since he was in high school. Kevin told his friends that his dad didn't want him to be a hairstylist. Carl Bacon, who worked as a packaging engineer, wanted his son to go into a technical trade. Okay, I don't know that that's all that uncommon for a dad, maybe to try to steer one of his children, maybe to follow in his footsteps or a mom to do that. But it's a pretty big difference, right? From what Kevin is passionate about.
7:21 Speaker 01 Right.
7:21 Speaker 00 Which is hair, doing hair, cutting hair, all of that, to something in kind of a more technical type of field.
7:31 Speaker 01 You know what? If you're a hairstylist, you can make some pretty good money there. You build up your clientele, you can make some really good money and you can take that job wherever you go. As long as you can get a license in the next state, you know, if you need a license, it's a pretty good business.
7:49 Speaker 00 Kevin eventually decided to go to college. He was accepted into Eastern Michigan University, which was his dream school, but he couldn't afford the housing deposit. He attended Baker College instead, but eventually dropped out and earned his cosmetology license. So, you know, it does sound like, okay, he made a run at it. Maybe he was going to try to do what his dad wanted him to do, but realized, hey, this ain't for me.
8:18 Speaker 01 I just can't do it, Dad.
8:19 Speaker 00 And he ultimately followed his dreams. He got a job as a receptionist at a JCPenney and eventually became a hairstylist there.
8:30 Speaker 01 Do you remember when JCPenney's used to have hair places?
8:35 Speaker 00 Hair places?
8:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:38 Speaker 00 Hair places? No, I actually don't. JCPenney is kind of fading from my memory, unfortunately, as is Sears. They all seem to have vanished, but.
8:50 Speaker 01 I think JCPenney's is the only one left around, but I don't know if they do hair still.
8:54 Speaker 00 Do we still have a JCPenney at our mall?
8:56 Speaker 01 Uh, I don't know if we have one near you, but there's still one around. I just don't know how many are left.
9:03 Speaker 00 Okay, well, I assume there's one around somewhere, but I don't have one, so.
9:09 Speaker 00 But, you know, I, I, I know over the years, some of those places, they, they did have a lot of different things going on. They tried different things. I don't remember like a, kind of a salon type thing inside the store, but I'm not doubting your veracity at all.
9:28 Speaker 01 I mean, look, it's veracity. Um, I've got a lot of, I've got a lot of veracity.
9:32 Speaker 00 Yeah, you do.
9:33 Speaker 01 Um, it's, it's a good concept. I mean, I think that's why you see it in Walmarts and places like that. Whatever you can do to drive the business into your store.
9:42 Speaker 00 Yeah.
9:42 Speaker 01 And hope that they stay and go ahead and do other things. Go get some eyeglasses or do the shopping or go to the pharmacy, you know, longer you stay, keep them there, the more money they're gonna spend.
9:53 Speaker 00 Yeah. So, you know, you're, you're tapping into the idea of one-stop shopping.
9:59 Speaker 01 Yes.
9:59 Speaker 00 Kind of, right? JCPenney was never going to be quote unquote, one-stop shopping, but it was said that Kevin felt frustrated by the low pay and once told friends he was going to the Upper Peninsula for a job. They didn't know what the job was, but it was supposed to pay well. Kevin returned nine days later and said he was bored in a rural area where there was no dating scene for gay men. And I can imagine that being true. Anybody who has ever been to the UP, it, it's probably not a hotbed for the gay dating scene.
10:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:38 Speaker 00 It's very rural, middle of nowhere type stuff in some places.
10:44 Speaker 01 Good if you want to take a snowmobile out.
10:45 Speaker 00 Yeah, or be alone, have a Unabomber type cabin.
10:50 Speaker 01 Okay.
10:50 Speaker 00 The UP is probably a, a good place to set that up.
10:55 Speaker 01 But we love our UP listeners.
10:58 Speaker 00 I'm not saying they're all Unabombers. I'm just saying, there is a lot of places I think you can be alone up there.
11:06 Speaker 01 Secluded areas.
11:07 Speaker 00 Yeah. Kevin then attended school at the University of Michigan Flint and did hair on the side. But Kevin had a history of mental health problems. He struggled with depression, body image issues and self-harm. And unfortunately, so many people do.
11:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
11:26 Speaker 00 Struggle with some or all of these things.
11:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think we both have people in our, in our own personal worlds that struggle with things like that.
11:35 Speaker 00 Absolutely, especially depression. I feel like depression has hit a lot of people hard and maybe even more so since COVID.
11:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
11:47 Speaker 00 Because you think about what we all went through, being cooped up and I, I think people are still struggling.
11:55 Speaker 01 Isolation can do some damage over time.
11:58 Speaker 00 No doubt about it. In October 2018, Kevin went to the movies with his friend and roommate, Michelle Myers. According to Michelle, Kevin was out of it after watching a scene in the film that depicts suicide. Okay. She said he was out of it. That's pretty vague, but also a little scary.
12:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:21 Speaker 00 The following day, Kevin overdosed on pills and had to go to the hospital to get his stomach pumped. A month later, his mother took him back to the hospital because Kevin didn't feel safe. So no doubt, he was going through a lot of different things. By 2019, Kevin was still struggling with his mental health, but he looked forward to moving to Chicago to be closer to friends and part of a larger LGBTQ plus community.
12:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think he'll, he would have found that there.
12:53 Speaker 00 Yeah. I mean, bigger cities, right? You think about New York, Chicago, LA, Miami.
13:00 Speaker 01 Right.
13:01 Speaker 00 Places like that, they are going to have a much bigger LGBTQ plus community than the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. That there's just no way around it.
13:15 Speaker 01 For sure.
13:16 Speaker 00 Kevin visited his friend Kimberly Went in the city and loved it so much. He was determined to move there, but he struggled to manage his finances. He had to delay his move until he could save up more money. Now, I love Chicago. I have been there a number of times. There's a lot to do there.
13:37 Speaker 01 Sure is.
13:38 Speaker 00 I love the hot dogs. I think I've mentioned that more than once.
13:41 Speaker 01 You're big into the hot dogs. I know.
13:42 Speaker 00 I also love the.
13:44 Speaker 01 Beef sandwiches?
13:45 Speaker 00 No, the butter.
13:48 Speaker 00 Cheddar popcorn mix.
13:50 Speaker 01 Oh, that's right. You do that Chicago mix.
13:52 Speaker 00 Not, no, I'm sorry. I said it wrong. Caramel cheese.
13:55 Speaker 01 The Chicago mix.
13:56 Speaker 00 The Chicago, what they call the Chicago mix. But there's just so much I like about Chicago. The thing is, I think it's pretty expensive to live in Chicago.
14:06 Speaker 01 It is.
14:07 Speaker 00 So, you know, to think about a guy who is probably not making a ton of money at JCPenney, up and moving to Chicago. It's kind of like your son just picking up and moving to LA.
14:21 Speaker 01 I, I know.
14:22 Speaker 00 It was a little bit of a shock, I think.
14:24 Speaker 01 Oh, for sure. Yeah.
14:26 Speaker 00 To both of you.
14:27 Speaker 01 Yes.
14:28 Speaker 00 On how expensive it is to live in certain cities.
14:32 Speaker 01 Very much so.
14:33 Speaker 00 Compared to where we live here.
14:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
14:36 Speaker 00 At the time, Kevin was living in Schwartz Creek, Michigan. But he disliked the slower lifestyle of a small town. And I think that cuts both ways, right? Some people love that slower pace, small town vibe. Everybody knows each other.
14:55 Speaker 01 Kind of where I'm at now.
14:56 Speaker 00 Yeah.
14:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
14:57 Speaker 00 And that's where I grew up. I loved it. Now, if you're gay and you want to be around other people who share your same interests.
15:10 Speaker 01 Right.
15:11 Speaker 00 Maybe a slower paced, small town, it's not going to cut it. Because, let's face it, in some of these smaller towns, that scene just isn't there.
15:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, correct. Yeah.
15:26 Speaker 00 Kevin was also struggling with relationships. His friend Vanessa Woodley told the Rolling Stone, Kevin's biggest thing was he just always wanted to feel loved. And he never felt accepted by, you know, men and things like that. And I think that's probably why he was always on the dating apps and, you know, Tinder and stuff like that. Kevin's friend said he dated men who psychologically abused him or used him for things like free rides.
15:55 Speaker 00 They said he was attracted to people he thought he could fix. But then the failed relationships made him depressed.
16:03 Speaker 01 Man, how many relationships have gone bad because you feel like you can save somebody?
16:10 Speaker 00 Or fix them. You know, we've heard that time and time again. A fixer-upper, if you want to use that term. And it's not just women, it's men too.
16:21 Speaker 01 Absolutely, it is.
16:22 Speaker 00 Some people just feel, or maybe they're attracted to that type of person. Because they think they can really help them. Kevin was at a low point with his mental health. In late 2019, after another relationship ended. His friend Vanessa drove him to a psychiatric hospital twice that fall. His roommate Michelle told the Rolling Stone that Kevin engaged in self-harm. In November 2019, he checked himself into a psychiatric treatment center two weeks later. So, I mean, there's no doubt. He is struggling mightily with his mental health. I think that is so very clear to see.
17:04 Speaker 01 But he recognizes it and gets help.
17:07 Speaker 00 Yeah, which is a very good thing.
17:09 Speaker 01 Sure it is.
17:10 Speaker 00 Some people are so, you know, far into the grips of whatever's going on that they can't see what's going on. And/or are unwilling to go get help. In December 2019, Kevin got a new job at a salon in Schwartz Creek. He planned to pursue a psychology degree at the University of Michigan Flint.
17:35 Speaker 01 Pretty bold.
17:36 Speaker 00 What part? The new job at the salon or pursuing a psychology degree?
17:40 Speaker 01 Getting that psychology degree.
17:42 Speaker 00 And why is it bold?
17:44 Speaker 01 Those are not easy degrees to get.
17:46 Speaker 00 Says the man who got his MD and JD in the same year at the age of 15?
17:53 Speaker 01 Look, I paid the money, got the certificate.
17:56 Speaker 00 Printed the certificate.
17:59 Speaker 00 No, I, I, I get you. I'm, I'm getting with Kevin. You know, here's a guy who, you know, he really wants to better himself. He, he, he's not stopped trying to do that.
18:12 Speaker 01 I wonder if he decided on that after going through what he went through.
18:17 Speaker 00 As far as the mental health issues, it, it could be, it really could have been. Maybe he wanted to help other people with some of the same stuff that, you know, he had experienced. Kevin only had this new job four weeks before he was murdered. His boss, Andrew Payne, told M Live, "From the small amount of time we spent together, you could feel how deep and empathetic he was. He was very candid about his battles with depression, and we connected over our shared issues. He was truly kind." So hopefully we've done a good job, right? Kind of painting the picture of this man, Kevin
18:58 Speaker 00 Bacon. In the late afternoon of December 24th, 2019, Kevin went on the dating app Grindr and connected with a man who lived in Bennington Township. Kevin intended on meeting this man for sex that night. Kevin's roommate, Michelle, said he was having family problems at the time. That day, Kevin finished his shift at the salon and met his sister and mother to do their hair. They informed him someone he didn't want to see was coming over for Christmas Eve dinner, so he decided not to attend. Kevin wanted a distraction, which is why he went on Grindr. His friend said
19:38 Speaker 00 this wasn't abnormal behavior. Kevin often bragged about his casual relationships, but he also used sex to escape his problems. While Kevin was on the phone, he chatted with Michelle about her Christmas Eve plans. She was going to a friend's place. Kevin got ready and left home at 5:20 PM. He texted his roommate at 6:12 PM informing her he'd be out for a while and wasn't sure when he'd be back. Kevin's father reported him missing on Christmas Day after he missed breakfast with the family. And you and I talk about this a lot, especially on our Unsolved episodes. You know, at what point do parents really get worried?
20:23 Speaker 00 I mean, this kid is an adult.
20:25 Speaker 01 Right.
20:26 Speaker 00 Free to come and go, you know, do what he wants. But I think especially around like big holidays or big events. Okay, he's not going to make the Christmas Eve dinner because apparently there's somebody showing up that he doesn't like.
20:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, he doesn't want to be around.
20:44 Speaker 00 But it would be shocking. I think to the family, if he's supposed to be there Christmas morning, such a big day.
20:53 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:53 Speaker 00 And he doesn't show up.
20:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, if they haven't heard from him.
20:56 Speaker 00 Yes.
20:57 Speaker 01 He's not there. This is not normal.
21:00 Speaker 00 The police found Kevin's car at a Family Dollar in Clayton Township. Inside was his phone, wallet, and some clothing. And man, that comes up in so many episodes. It's one thing to leave your car behind. Okay. Maybe something was wrong with the car. Maybe you met somebody and you got in the car with them.
21:21 Speaker 01 Right.
21:22 Speaker 00 But why would somebody leave their phone and wallet behind? That never, you know, really makes sense to me.
21:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's hard to justify that.
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23:59 Speaker 00 On December 27th, the police received a tip from Michelle Myers. She figured out how to log in to Kevin's Grindr account and shared the information with detectives. She also received a tip on social media. According to MLive, the tipster wrote, "I have an idea. There's a guy routinely on this app. He keeps having guys escape from his basement. The cops keep not pressing charges because the guys who escape admit that they went in consensually." Okay, I think when you hear about someone who keeps having guys escape from his basement.
24:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
24:40 Speaker 00 That's somebody maybe we, you know, we need to look into.
24:43 Speaker 01 I want to just interview him, see what he has to say.
24:47 Speaker 00 At the very least, yeah, absolutely. The tipster sent a screenshot of the man's profile. The police recognized him as 50-year-old Mark Latunski, who lived in a rural area 20 miles outside Swartz Creek. Latunski was known to the authorities because two men had recently called the police to report him for chaining them up in his basement.
25:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think if these guys call you and say, "Hey, man, you need to know about this guy. He chained me to the wall of his basement. I mean, luckily I got away, but if I didn't, I don't know what was gonna happen." I get like a Pulp Fiction vibe.
25:28 Speaker 00 Yeah, but I would also agree. You know, if you're the police and you have two different individuals calling in and saying this, that's gotta raise the alarm bells, right?
25:41 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
25:42 Speaker 00 Mark Latunski seemed like a normal man. He was a divorced father of four, who worked as a chemist until 2019. At one point, he made over $100,000 a year. So he was doing pretty good.
25:55 Speaker 01 Sure.
25:56 Speaker 00 According to MLive, Mark is the son of a local 4H leader. Growing up, he raised beef cattle to show in competition. And you know, a lot of people might not be familiar with 4A or that type of stuff. Where we live, that was very common growing up.
26:16 Speaker 01 Sure was.
26:16 Speaker 00 Now, I lived in the subdivision, so I wasn't into raising anything. I didn't have the room. But a lot of my friends kind of lived out in more rural parts of the village that we lived in. And they did raise all kinds of animals.
26:31 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:31 Speaker 00 And even showed some of them in competitions or sold them later on.
26:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, you either joined 4H or you were part of the Future Farmers of America.
26:41 Speaker 00 Or you were like me and did neither.
26:43 Speaker 01 Or didn't either.
26:44 Speaker 00 Cause I knew that I was not going to be a future farmer.
26:49 Speaker 00 Mark excelled in academics and was valedictorian of his 1987 high school class.
26:55 Speaker 01 Awesome.
26:56 Speaker 00 So he graduated about the same time you did.
26:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:00 Speaker 00 Now, I'm sure he was quite a bit younger.
27:03 Speaker 01 Two years later than I did.
27:04 Speaker 00 Yeah, but I'm sure he was still younger.
27:07 Speaker 01 Probably.
27:08 Speaker 00 Lot younger.
27:09 Speaker 01 But did he have the dual academic awards like I did?
27:16 Speaker 00 What'd you have?
27:17 Speaker 01 I had the valedictorian.
27:20 Speaker 00 Uh huh. Is that similar to the valedictorian?
27:23 Speaker 01 Exactly. I had both of those. We had, we had them both.
27:26 Speaker 00 You had the valedictorian and the valedictorian. Somehow you were both the valedictorian and the, what is it called? The salute?
27:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:37 Speaker 00 Salute, I don't know.
27:39 Speaker 01 Can we help you out there?
27:39 Speaker 00 The second, second one. That's how smart you were.
27:43 Speaker 01 I came in first and second.
27:44 Speaker 00 Yeah. Mark attended Central Michigan University from 1987 to 1991. He graduated with a master's degree in chemistry from Iowa State in 1995 and started his career as a chemist. So, I mean, this guy, I mean, you'd have to say, seems like he had it going on.
28:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
28:04 Speaker 00 He had it all together.
28:05 Speaker 01 Seems like it.
28:06 Speaker 00 That year, he sued the city of Ames, Iowa because he believed the $1 monthly charge for storm sewers was unconstitutional. Strangely, he lost that suit.
28:19 Speaker 01 Can't believe you charged me a dollar to take this storm water off my property.
28:23 Speaker 00 He also claimed that his father invented the question mark. His ex-wife Emily Latunsky told him live that Mark's friends set him up on a date with her. He was always a little bit awkward, according to her, but she liked him a lot. He was very considerate and kind. She said, I fell in love with that side of him. He was very gentle. After a year of dating, the couple bought a home in Bennington Township and married in 2001. Their first child was born in 2003. Their other kids were born in 2004, 2007, and 2010. So, all right, fairly quickly, they've got a good sized family.
29:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:06 Speaker 00 They lived on five acres and raised goats, chickens, ducks, and rabbits. Mark was said to be busy, but a loving father. However, things changed a couple of weeks after their youngest daughter was born in 2010. Mark began saying things that didn't make sense. Emily told him live, he believed that he wasn't actually his mother's son, but that he was his mother's brother. And they were hiding that from him because there was some sort of family inheritance that he was going to inherit, but he had to do all the right things. He had to say all the right things. He believed that there were people watching him to make sure he did that.
29:48 Speaker 01 Okay, getting a little bizarre there.
29:51 Speaker 00 Well, we talked about all the mental health issues that Kevin struggled with. It's hard for me not to believe that there's a good chance that Mark was experiencing some mental health issues of his own. Emily convinced him to get help, and he did to appease her. He was prescribed medication, but stopped taking it almost immediately. Around that time, Mark admitted he was cheating on her with men he met online. Emily recalled that he was always working. She said, and now, looking back, I think, oh, gosh, I was so stupid. I should have known.
30:32 Speaker 01 It's going to be impactful.
30:33 Speaker 00 Yeah, anytime that it is revealed that your partner's cheating on you, that's going to be tough. And I'm sure a lot of people have that same thought, you know? How is this going on, you know, all of these years or however long it was going on? And I had no idea. I feel stupid. I'm sure a lot of people experienced that. They went to marriage counseling, but Mark's mental health continued to decline. He accused Emily of being part of a conspiracy with managers of an enormous trust fund. He was supposed to inherit. So he really had it that there was all this money that he was set to inherit.
31:15 Speaker 00 But it's like, everybody in his life was either conspiring against him, or at the very least, watching him to make sure that he was doing all the right things in order to get this money. In 2010 and 2012, Mark was diagnosed with severe recurrent and chronic major depression, with psychotic features, adjustment disorder with depression and anxiety, and paranoid schizophrenia, and borderline personality traits.
31:47 Speaker 01 That's a lot of items right there.
31:50 Speaker 00 It's a lot of different diagnoses, for sure. Mark went to treatment centers twice in 2012 and once in 2013, but it didn't help. Doctors determined his conditions could be treated with medication, but he failed to take it regularly.
32:07 Speaker 01 That's the problem, right?
32:08 Speaker 00 Hmm.
32:09 Speaker 01 If he's not willing to take it and you can't monitor him to make sure he takes it, doesn't do any good.
32:15 Speaker 00 Yeah, some of the medications they have are great, but they do require you to actually take them. And in a lot of cases, I think, take them every day, not skip, things like that. Emily wrote in court filings that when Mark failed to take his medication, he would watch torture slash horror movies, talk to himself, stay out all night, threaten to get rid of the children's animals, claim their son wasn't his child, and fail to shower and shave. And I think, Gibbs, if you're Emily, you're with this man that is the father of your four children. You've been with him for, you know, many years.
33:00 Speaker 00 This has got to be frightening stuff that's occurring.
33:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, I definitely feel like you would be alarmed.
33:06 Speaker 00 Mark falsely reported his wife to CPS for child neglect. She and the children moved out and she filed for divorce in May 2012. And I'm sure as much as she loved him, at a certain point, it just becomes too much. You know, you pass the point of no return and maybe it was, you know, him calling CPS on his wife for child neglect.
33:33 Speaker 01 I think that'd be pretty hard to push past if your partner did something like that to you.
33:40 Speaker 00 Emily was upset when Mark was granted unsupervised visits with the kids during one 2013 visit. Mark failed to return them at the scheduled time. Emily was fearful and called the police. Mark had taken the kids to a water park and refused to return them. He was arrested and charged with felony kidnapping, but the case was dismissed when he was found mentally incompetent to stand trial in 2014. And it was almost four years before Mark saw his kids again. And that doesn't surprise me. Felony kidnapping, that's a very serious charge. But the mere fact that, you know, he's found mentally incompetent to stand trial,
34:24 Speaker 00 you would think means he's not getting visits.
34:28 Speaker 01 You would think.
34:29 Speaker 00 In August 2019, his wife filed a motion to suspend his parenting time, which described his mental health history, the kidnapping case, his false claims to CPS, and his claim that she and her brother tried to poison his well water.
34:45 Speaker 01 Wow.
34:46 Speaker 00 You do feel a little sorry for her.
34:48 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:49 Speaker 00 Sounds like she went through quite a bit of hell. After the divorce was finalized, Mark remarried a man named Jamie Arnold. The marriage lasted from 2015 to September 2019, when they separated. Mark's former colleague told him lie. His mental illness began impacting his job performance around 2012, saying, "He just thought everyone was out to get him."
35:17 Speaker 01 Paranoia.
35:18 Speaker 00 Yeah, exactly. He worked for the same company for 12 years, but he was fired in February 2019 for refusing to take his medication. Mark believed his employer wanted them to put harmful chemicals in products.
35:34 Speaker 00 His ex-wife noted that Mark's boss was patient and had given him many chances before firing him. And it sure sounds like it. You know, when you say that his job performance was impacted, and I'm assuming, you know, you add the word negatively in there around 2012. What's seven years later before he gets fired? So by my way of thinking, his boss or whoever, you know, bent over backwards to try to help him keep his job.
36:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, really gave him the opportunity.
36:13 Speaker 00 Mark tried to find work as a handyman, but was unsuccessful. Instead, he decided to do escort work under the alias Wilk Olikos Vilkas. He used the name Olikos on the Grindr profile that communicated with Kevin Bacon.
36:33 Speaker 01 Interesting name.
36:34 Speaker 00 Yeah. I know another guy who has a lot of interesting names slash aliases that they use on probably all kinds of different profiles. I'm not saying you're on Grindr. I'm not saying you're not. It makes no difference to me either way.
36:53 Speaker 01 Are you saying I'm out on a bunch of different sites?
36:56 Speaker 00 It wouldn't shock me if you said anything. Nothing would shock me about you and your aliases and your, your Jason Bourne type missions. I don't know what you have going on.
37:12 Speaker 01 Christina's like, what sites are you on? I'm like, I'm on no site.
37:17 Speaker 00 She's probably gonna want to look at your computer based on what I just said.
37:23 Speaker 01 One of the five?
37:24 Speaker 00 Sorry, sorry about that. Now she's gonna want to know where all your computers are.
37:28 Speaker 01 I was just joking.
37:30 Speaker 00 You're just digging yourself a bigger and bigger hole. And as we mentioned, Two men had already reported Mark to the police for holding them against their will. On October 10th, 2019, 48-year-old James Carlson called 911 to report that he escaped from Mark Latunski's basement. He said he cut himself free with a butcher knife, stole his captor's car keys, and ran down a three-mile stretch of road. He told police that he traveled from New York to Michigan to meet Mark for sex.
38:06 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's a long, uh, car ride, bus ride, whatever ride. New York to Michigan for some sex.
38:13 Speaker 00 Seems like it.
38:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
38:15 Speaker 00 So there's two 911 calls. I want to go ahead and play it and then we'll talk more about James Carlson.
38:24 Speaker 02 I tried to escape from some guy who had me chained up in his basement. He had you chained in his basement? Where are you calling from? I don't know. He's after me. Hey, I need you to go to somewhere safe. If you can run up to somebody's house, are you in the road? I have state troopers that are very far away.
38:44 Speaker 02 I see the trooper right there. He's just, yeah. I broke out and I need a ride on a head truck. Yeah, I met this guy. I'm bugged, he's cute, he hit on me. I know, we went after the car, we dropped, uh, we went to the store, I had a soda, I woke up in the basement. Okay. He obviously drugged me. I think this is a cop because that looks like an extra bright light, so I am now putting this down. I am unarmed, it is on the guardrail. Yes, sir, I am, I'm not armed. I'm just really happy to see you.
39:19 Speaker 00 All right, so he talked about being drugged, talked about being chained up or locked in a basement. Troopers found Carlson on the side of the road within 10 minutes of his call. He said his attacker was a stranger and declined to pursue charges. In 2023, MLive provided additional context on this incident. According to the police report, Carlson was uncooperative. And after reevaluating the situation, he said he believed it was a form of sexual foreplay and not a case of false imprisonment. MLive reported that James Carlson met Mark Latunsky online in July 2019.
40:04 Speaker 00 They chatted for the remainder of the year. They discussed sexual fantasies about cannibalism. Okay, there's a lot of different conversations you can have with people online.
40:16 Speaker 01 Sure is.
40:17 Speaker 00 There's a lot of sexual fantasies you can talk about with people online.
40:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
40:23 Speaker 00 When you start to mix sexual fantasies and cannibalism, well, now I think you've ventured into a very strange area.
40:33 Speaker 01 Very strange, but I believe there's those type of conversations going on all the time.
40:38 Speaker 00 I'm sure there are 30% of them probably had by you, but you know, the other 70% is people all over the world having conversations.
40:46 Speaker 01 Having conversations.
40:48 Speaker 00 But here, you know, in all seriousness, why would this guy, James Carlson, kind of maybe change up his story a little bit? You know, I don't think I was falsely imprisoned. I think this was a little bit more of sexual foreplay.
41:05 Speaker 01 Well, if he doesn't want the media spotlight placed on him.
41:10 Speaker 00 Yeah, we don't know what his situation was. You know, you mentioned it, it's a long drive from New York to Michigan for sex. Maybe he wasn't out to, you know, his friends and family back in New York. I don't know the exact situation, but there was something that caused him to kind of change his story up somewhat.
41:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, and he could have felt threatened also.
41:37 Speaker 00 He could have, he could have been afraid of this guy. But it was around this time that they were chatting online, that Mark constructed a kill room in his basement with caged tamper resistant lights, a four inch thick insulated door and a sliding barn door that revealed the entrance.
41:59 Speaker 00 Carlson believed this room was built for him. Carlson eventually agreed to come to Michigan to meet Mark in person. And that was when he was held captive in the basement.
42:11 Speaker 01 Think if anybody ever said, hey, I built this really cool, let's just call it a kill room. You wanna come over and check it out? Let me show you what I've done here.
42:20 Speaker 00 I'm not sure he said he had a kill room before the guy got there or not, but you know, when you're talking about your sexual fantasies with someone and they include cannibalism. And then you make the conscious decision to go meet this person. Man, you gotta be on your guard.
42:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, you gotta wonder if you're gonna be the uh.
42:43 Speaker 00 Main course?
42:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
42:44 Speaker 00 A second man escaped Mark's house on November 25th, 2009. The 29 year old man who was covered in blood ran out of Mark's home and called 911. As Mark was chasing him, he told the operator, I'm trying to get away from some creepy guy. He had me tied up in his basement. He's after me. He ran to the home of Mark's neighbor, Michael Parks, who described the incident to Fox 2 Detroit. He said, he's got purple hair. He's wearing a leather skirt and he's got a couple of belts across his chest. The gentleman is grasping my arm with deathly fear, screaming, help me keep him away. Just screaming at the top of his lungs. He wants to hurt me. He wants to hurt me.
43:30 Speaker 00 Another vehicle pulls in my driveway and out comes who I now find out is Mark. Wearing a leather skirt, belts across his chest, no shoes, no shirt on. His beard is braided. He was a very odd looking gentleman.
43:47 Speaker 01 Sounds like it.
43:49 Speaker 00 Well, it also sounds like maybe a couple of guys that were.
43:54 Speaker 01 Role playing?
43:56 Speaker 00 Or yeah, into the BDSM or whatever you wanna call it lifestyle. And things went wrong. And in the middle of that, this guy runs out of the house. Mark chases after him, but they're in their, their garb that they were wearing during their, whatever's going on in that basement. A state trooper came to the neighbor's house, but no charges were filed. State police said there was nothing they could do because the two victims did not want to press charges. A state police spokesman also told the media that Mark was only chasing the man because he was wearing his leather kilt, which was expensive. He wanted that leather kilt back,
44:40 Speaker 00 or skirt, as the other man called it.
44:42 Speaker 01 Right. I just need my kilt back, man. Don't know why you ran off.
44:46 Speaker 00 It's okay if you don't wanna, you know.
44:48 Speaker 01 Continue our game?
44:50 Speaker 00 Engage in whatever we're doing. But I do think, you know, this is an issue that maybe, you know, has persisted throughout time. You have individuals who are gay, who get preyed upon, or who are threatened or harmed, and for whatever reason, they're reluctant to press charges. And maybe it has something to do with their own situation.
45:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, I know. I really believe that, you know, that there's the fear of not being believed. There's a fear of it coming out the wrong way. The fear that the fact that they haven't told people in their life, you know, their family or
45:35 Speaker 00 Sure.
45:35 Speaker 01 work, or whoever.
45:38 Speaker 00 Well, in the old days, there was the fear that it was illegal.
45:40 Speaker 01 And that as well.
45:42 Speaker 00 Actually, not that long ago.
45:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:44 Speaker 00 It was illegal to be gay.
45:46 Speaker 01 So.
45:47 Speaker 00 I was watching a show, I think it was from the 70s. There was about a case in the 70s. It was set in California, and someone said, "It was illegal to touch another man." And I'm not even talking about sexually.
46:04 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah?
46:04 Speaker 00 It was illegal to touch another man. That's what the guy said.
46:08 Speaker 01 And shake only, huh?
46:12 Speaker 00 Former Lieutenant David Kaiser said in January 2020, "Nobody wanted the police there. Nobody wanted to file charges." A lot of times, people have a professional life and a personal life. They don't want to intertwine the two. Their personal life is very secret, very protected.
46:30 Speaker 01 Very true.
46:31 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think it's very well said. It might be, you know, just one of the reasons why these individuals didn't want to press charges. So we spent a little time talking about these two individuals, but I think it's relevant. Right? To at least put it in, in perspective that this guy was on police radar, at least to some extent.
46:55 Speaker 01 Sure.
46:56 Speaker 00 You know, the police are looking into the disappearance of Kevin Bacon and they decide that they're going to go to Mark's house. It was said that Mark didn't appear nervous. When the police showed up to his house on December 27th, he let them in without complaint. Once inside, officers found Kevin's body hanging upside down from the basement ceiling. Mark admitted to stabbing Kevin to death, castrating him, and committing acts of cannibalism. But he claimed Kevin asked him to end his life.
47:33 Speaker 01 Like that was, it's okay because he asked me to do it.
47:36 Speaker 00 And that's, wouldn't be the first time, right? Where a murderer has made that claim. Yes, I did it, but this person asked me to end their life, asked me to end their suffering. Could that happen? Well, sure, it could happen, but then you're going to have to explain how that kind of goes with him hanging upside down and you castrating him and eating parts of him. Did he ask you to do that as well?
48:12 Speaker 01 I'm going to say no, that he didn't say to do any of it, but if he did, I don't think he wanted you to do that.
48:17 Speaker 00 So I did think it was strange. He just let these cops in, didn't put up a fight. He knew that Kevin's body was hanging in his basement. At first, he gave the name Wolk Olikos Vilkas, then said he was Edgar Thomas Hill from the Thomas clan of Wales, but he changed his name to Mark Latunsky for his own protection.
48:43 Speaker 01 Okay. Well, I've done that before with my name. I had to change it to Rex West for my own protection.
48:52 Speaker 00 But you know what police don't like? Is when you give them multiple names.
48:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, they don't like that.
48:59 Speaker 00 I get it. He has an explanation, but it just doesn't seem to make any sense. Mark was charged with open murder, which would allow a jury to determine the degree of homicide and mutilation of a body. On January 6, 2020, MLive obtained court transcripts that included graphic crime scene details. Court documents stated that Kevin was stabbed in the back, his throat was cut, and his body hung by his ankles from the rafters of the ceiling. Mark Latunski admitted to using a knife to cut off Kevin's testicles and eat them.
49:42 Speaker 01 I mean, Mark was a farmer, so I'm assuming he kind of knew how to.
49:46 Speaker 00 Perform a castration?
49:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
49:48 Speaker 00 Phew, yeah. I don't even know what you say to that. I mean, it does give off a little bit of Silence of the Lambs vibes.
49:58 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure.
50:00 Speaker 00 That month, several media outlets spoke to Mark's husband, Jamie Arnold, who said he wasn't aware of Mark's mental illness until July 2019, when Mark was arrested for failing to pay child support. He told ABC 12 that he left Mark around September 2019 because he was afraid of him and he exhibited delusional behavior. He said, I knew there was something not right. He would say that the neighbor was contaminating our water, that his children were not his children, his family was not his biological family, that I was some leader of some gray-green eyed people, that the world was going to turn upside down.
50:45 Speaker 01 You know, gray-green people. Isn't there an old song or something about a one-eyed, green-eyed, purple people here?
50:53 Speaker 00 Did you say one-eyed, green-eyed?
50:56 Speaker 00 There was a, yeah, Purple People Eater. I remember that song.
50:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
50:59 Speaker 00 I don't know exactly how it goes. But you know, here you, you have this guy's husband, who I'm sure had to be very shocked.
51:08 Speaker 01 Oh, I would assume I'd be like, excuse me, what, what happened?
51:13 Speaker 00 You cut off this guy's huevos, you ate them.
51:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
51:16 Speaker 00 Boy, am I glad I got out of that relationship. And it sounds like he had a good reason to get out. From my way of thinking, you know, Mark's mental illness was manifesting, you know, itself in a number of different ways. At the very least, he was extremely delusional.
51:35 Speaker 01 For sure.
51:37 Speaker 00 Jamie Arnold told W N E M. He had no knowledge or involvement in the murder and was working to clear his name from social media allegations. And that is a shame, right? Obviously, if he had nothing to do with the dark side of Mark Latunsky and people are lumping him in with him.
51:58 Speaker 01 Right.
51:58 Speaker 00 That's, that's gonna be really tough.
52:00 Speaker 01 Sure it is.
52:01 Speaker 00 To see people saying horrible things about you on social media.
52:04 Speaker 01 And it's probably not gonna be easy to.
52:07 Speaker 00 Clear, clear your name?
52:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
52:09 Speaker 00 Yeah. Arnold said, I didn't think he would ever hurt me in that type of capacity. I mean, he was my husband. I cared for him. I loved him. I never thought he was capable of such a horrendous crime. And whoever does think, you know, when you're in a relationship with someone whom you love, whoever thinks that this person is capable of doing what Mark Latunsky did?
52:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm sure Dennis Rader's wife never thought you could do what he did.
52:40 Speaker 00 No.
52:41 Speaker 01 Or the Iceman's wife.
52:43 Speaker 00 No, I, I just don't think that you could entertain those thoughts and then continue on with the relationship.
52:51 Speaker 01 Exactly.
52:52 Speaker 00 If you truly thought that your loved one was capable of that, I think you're looking for the exit.
52:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, not gonna lay down next to him in bed and close my eyes.
53:01 Speaker 00 No, not at all. Or at the very least, I'm gonna be wearing some iron clad jockeys. Arnold noted that he learned about the November 2019 incident from reporters after Kevin's body was found. He was asked by a W N E M reporter, police said that in that incident, the man reported another man being there. That man wasn't you. Arnold replied, no, that was not me. Arnold was asked if he witnessed any disturbing behavior from Mark before he moved out of their shared home in September. He responded for him to say he is someone else. He had this theory that his family wasn't his family, that he was not a Latunski and
53:46 Speaker 00 that he was somebody else. And this whole connection with the Vikings, that his grandmother was really his mother. I don't know. There's so many crazy accusations that after a while, you just start tuning things out for your own sanity. I get that, right? I'm sure he had to know that something a little strange was going on. But did he think this guy was dangerous? It sounds like he didn't. And he basically said, you know, I just kind of tuned it out. I just let him rant and rave and.
54:21 Speaker 01 Kind of like when I come here sometimes, like go back a year when you thought you were King Ferguson and you're like, call me King. I'm like, I'm not going to call you King. You're not the King. But eventually I'm like, you know what? It's easier if I just go along with it.
54:35 Speaker 00 Right.
54:35 Speaker 01 I'm like, hey, King, I'm here. How's it going?
54:38 Speaker 00 Appreciate that.
54:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
54:40 Speaker 00 Arnold acknowledged that even though Mark moved out, they still spoke several times a week. Arnold initially said he last saw Mark on Christmas Day and nothing seemed wrong. However, later in his interview, he said he gave Mark a ride home on December 27th, but said he didn't go into the house and Kevin's body was found just hours later. Arnold was asked if he thought Mark had committed murder before. He answered, given the evidence at hand, I think it could very well be possible, considering that he told somebody that I myself could come up missing. And I always think that.
55:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, sure.
55:20 Speaker 00 Right. It's like, do you just wake up one morning and say, you know, I am going to kill this person. I'm gonna hang them upside down. I'm gonna cut off their testicles and I'm going to eat them. Yeah, technically you could, but does it make it seem like more likely you've had some practice? You've done this before?
55:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, potentially. I mean, you always have to have your first, right?
55:47 Speaker 00 That is true.
55:47 Speaker 01 Yeah. Sounds terrible saying that.
55:50 Speaker 00 It does, but there is a first time for everything. On January 8th, 2020, Mark entered an insanity plea and the judge ordered a competency test. His public defender said, per ABC 12, he believes he's named someone else. He believes he's from a royal family out of Wales, the Thomas claim. In February 2020, Mark was briefly hospitalized after being found unresponsive during a routine cell check. He had not been eating for a period of time. On February 27th, the judge deemed Mark unfit for trial and ordered him to be transferred to a psychiatric facility. The case was put on hold while he received
56:34 Speaker 00 treatment. And with everything that we've said about Mark Latunsky and others have said about him, he is either putting on one hell of an elaborate act, or he really is experiencing some very serious mental health issues. And he was diagnosed with a number of different mental health issues. So it doesn't surprise me at all that he was deemed unfit for trial. In June 2020, James Carlson filed a lawsuit against Mark alleging he tied him down in his home and held him captive in his basement after he traveled from New
57:16 Speaker 00 York to engage in consensual sex. According to the suit, what Mr. Carlson did not expect is that during his stay, defendant Latunsky would end up chaining him down in his basement and holding him captive. After he thought defendant Latunsky had fallen asleep, Mr. Carlson terrified, cut himself loose using a butcher knife and ran down the street in the middle of nowhere in order to call the police.
57:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think if you went over there for some fun and games, maybe the next thing you found out that you wake up and you've been shackled through the wall.
57:53 Speaker 00 Illegally detained.
57:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think it's going to change your perspective.
57:58 Speaker 00 Carlson claimed he met Mark's husband on Facebook and the husband introduced him to Mark. Mark picked him up at a bus stop on October 10th, 2019. And once they arrived at the house, he was informed Mark's husband had moved out. And I thought that was a really strange kind of set of circumstances. It almost makes it seem, now I'm not alleging this, but it almost makes it seem as though Mark's husband had a little bit to do with setting all of this up. Now, maybe he had no idea what was ultimately going to happen.
58:35 Speaker 01 Yeah.
58:35 Speaker 00 But why are you setting your ex up with someone? It seems strange.
58:42 Speaker 01 Or could you say that maybe Mark had another profile of his husband to help bait people in?
58:52 Speaker 00 And did the, and did the whole thing himself?
58:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
58:54 Speaker 00 Yeah, could be. You can make the argument that a person would be more apt to, to travel to someone's home that they didn't know if they thought they were married.
59:08 Speaker 01 Yes.
59:09 Speaker 00 And that the husband was okay with it. John Marco, James Carlson's lawyer, told the Rolling Stone that after he escaped, officers dropped James off at a gas station with no money and no way to get home and did not make any further inquiries into the incident. The lawyer suggested that if James were not a gay man, the situation would have been treated differently. Marco said, there should have been further investigation. There should have been further follow-up. Just some basic police work and some basic follow-up, I think, could have changed this whole situation and Mr. Bacon might be alive.
59:48 Speaker 01 There's probably some truth behind that.
59:50 Speaker 00 There is, but I, you know, you do have to remember that both of these individuals, right? Carlson and the other man who called 911 kind of changed their stories a little bit. I think Carlson said later on that it was just sexual foreplay. He wasn't really detained. Now, we don't know the reasoning behind that.
1:00:13 Speaker 01 Right.
1:00:14 Speaker 00 We speculated on what the reason might be, but you know, is, is that what caused the police to just kind of drop it? You're not pressing charges. Now you're not even saying that there was an illegal act that took place. So what is there to do?
1:00:30 Speaker 01 Right.
1:00:31 Speaker 00 But could you go to at least talk to the guy? I think they could have.
1:00:35 Speaker 01 Yeah. Now, would that have changed anything with Mark, knowing his mental state?
1:00:40 Speaker 00 I don't know.
1:00:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:00:42 Speaker 00 I don't know. Kevin's friends agreed with John Marco. Michelle Myers told Rolling Stone, how come Latunsky wasn't questioned then? Is it because it's just gay guys doing stuff in a basement? What would have happened if a girl was chained in the basement and ran out of there? Even if she said, don't worry about it, maybe the police would have investigated it more.
1:01:07 Speaker 01 Think she made a good point.
1:01:08 Speaker 00 No, I, I think there is a good point there. Now, we're not talking about 20, 30 years ago. This is only about five years ago, but still, was there something on the part of the police that said, you know, this is just a couple of gay guys doing their thing. Maybe it got out of hand, but we're really not going to check in on it because of that fact. And I think some people have made that argument and it could be correct. I don't know. In 2023, M Live reported that Mark texted James Carlson in the early hours of December 25th, I killed Kevin Bacon. Kevin Bacon is my heroes. The text was accompanied
1:01:52 Speaker 00 by a photo of food in a skillet.
1:01:55 Speaker 01 So really messed up there.
1:01:57 Speaker 00 Yeah, because we can imagine what type of food it is. Prosecutor said heroes is a term assigned to a cannibal's victim. Carlson responded, I hope you enjoy them. Can I see more pics of my room?
1:02:14 Speaker 01 That's messed up.
1:02:16 Speaker 00 It is, and it definitely makes it seem as though, you know, this Carlson guy was into some of these same things, right? Cannibalism. And, you know, he's asking for pics of his room as though he knows about it. He knows what it's for. And I thought this was so strange. Can I see pics of my room? This is a man who said he escaped from Mark's basement. And then it also appears as though he's definitely okay with the cannibalism aspect. And he's okay with the fact that this guy is dead. Yeah.
1:03:01 Speaker 00 On October 5th, 2020, Mark was declared competent for trial. On October 23rd, the judge found there was enough evidence for Mark to stand trial. The defense asked the judge to add a charge of assisted suicide because the evidence showed Kevin worked with Mark to end his life, but the judge denied the request. At the hearing, MSP Detective James Moore described Mark's confession to the court. Detective Moore said none of Kevin's messages suggested he wanted Mark to kill him, and he even asked for reassurance. He would be safe. According to him live, Kevin told Mark he was interested in a sexual scenario
1:03:45 Speaker 00 where he would have a complete loss of control. They agreed that Mark would make Kevin feel afraid to induce a fight or flight response. They agreed, once the scene is over, you are returned. Kevin asked, you are going to keep me safe, right? Mark replied, I will show you how I'm going to transport you and let you determine if I am trustworthy. And to me, this is a very scary situation. When you're giving over complete control to someone, well, how much more vulnerable can you be, Gibbs? Especially-
1:04:25 Speaker 00 If you don't know it, but ultimately you're giving that type of control to a killer.
1:04:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, really scary.
1:04:33 Speaker 00 Scary stuff. During his interview on December 28th, Mark described the sexual fantasy. He claimed Kevin asked for, they met at the Family Dollar parking lot in Clayton Township, where Kevin's vehicle was found. Kevin removed his clothing and put on a blindfold, earmuffs, ankle restraints and wrist restraints. Let Tunskey drove to his home with Kevin in the back of his van, covered with a blanket. After their sexual encounter, which was consensual, according to Mark, he and Kevin talked about how they could make his body disappear. Kevin told him he was suicidal in the past. Now, a very important point to make is that this is all coming from Mark.
1:05:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's one sided.
1:05:19 Speaker 00 It's one sided. Kevin Bacon can't tell his side of the story, but even if you believe Mark, the point at which he says they started to talk about how they could make Kevin's body disappear, that really starts to kind of veer off the path for me. Could this guy have wanted a scenario as Mark described where he was restrained, he was blindfolded, all of that? Could they have had consensual sex? Yeah, possible. But then how does the conversation then veer to, well, how do we get rid of your body?
1:05:57 Speaker 01 Right.
1:05:58 Speaker 00 I don't want you to get rid of my body.
1:05:59 Speaker 01 Exactly. Whoever said I wanted you to get rid of my body?
1:06:03 Speaker 00 That's where it just seems to be very strange. Mark stabbed Kevin in the back of the neck. When he realized Kevin wasn't dead, he slit his throat because he didn't want him to suffer. Their agreement was that he would kill Kevin and use his body. He would use parts of his body to grow plants and make jerky out of his muscles. And this use of the word agreement is throwing me for a loop here.
1:06:30 Speaker 01 Sure it is.
1:06:31 Speaker 00 So you're telling me that this guy Kevin Bacon during the conversations he had with Mark was up for being killed and then his body being used to grow plants and be turned into jerky? I'm not saying it's completely out of the realm of possibility. It just doesn't sound very believable to me.
1:06:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's, it's a pretty hard to swallow.
1:07:03 Speaker 00 A few days after the murder, the United States Postal Service intercepted a package for Mark that contained a dehydrator.
1:07:12 Speaker 01 Well, clearly Mark was ready to move forward with the jerky aspect.
1:07:17 Speaker 00 Cause that is how you make jerky.
1:07:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, one of the ways.
1:07:20 Speaker 00 What's the other way?
1:07:21 Speaker 01 Build a nice little fire, put the strips on a log.
1:07:26 Speaker 00 Well, you're still dehydrating it.
1:07:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:07:28 Speaker 00 You're just not using a dehydrator. Okay. Yeah, I got you. Kevin's father Carl Bacon told M. Life, I had a hard time believing Kevin would have entered into a suicide pact with anyone. He was planning on going back to school in January. He had just started a new job and so things were starting to look up for him. And the situation that put him in the hospital in November, that he put behind him. But I just wonder, Gibbs, had Kevin told Mark about some of his issues? And therefore, once caught, Mark kind of used that in, in his defense?
1:08:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think he exploited those issues.
1:08:12 Speaker 00 Over a year later, in April 2022, a new psychological evaluation was submitted, declaring Mark competent to stand trial. His attorney felt the evaluation was necessary because Mark's status deteriorated in recent communications. And that doesn't surprise me. I, I can't imagine it getting better.
1:08:33 Speaker 01 No.
1:08:34 Speaker 00 At a May hearing, the doctor who assessed him testified per M. Life, he was much less preoccupied with misbeliefs and was able to engage in a give and take conversation with me and then sustain that for a longer period of time, discussing his options. Mark was also able to ascertain the difference between pleading guilty and not guilty and other options available to him.
1:09:00 Speaker 00 On September 22nd, 2022, Mark Latunsky pleaded guilty to open murder and mutilation of a body just three weeks before his scheduled trial. He made the plea against his attorney's recommendation. His lawyers were interested in presenting an insanity defense at trial.
1:09:21 Speaker 01 I think his defense team could have went that route and maybe have been successful.
1:09:26 Speaker 00 Well, I'm sure they thought they had a chance, but it's not the first time we've heard of this, right? That somebody just days, weeks before their trial is set to commence, they plead guilty. Why is that? Because they know they're going to be found guilty, they don't want to go through the hassle of the trial, they don't want to have to talk about certain things.
1:09:51 Speaker 01 Spare the victim's family?
1:09:53 Speaker 00 According to them, a lot of times they say that. I don't believe it very often. His attorney, Mark Chardier, said in court, per MLive, "While this is not an outcome that defense attorney Mr. Kraus and I think is in Mr. Latunsky's best interest, we do have to follow his wishes. We have discussed this matter and consistently he's been very clear, more than once, multiple times, on his choice and on his reasoning." A later hearing was scheduled for the judge to determine the degree of murder for sentencing. On October 19th, 2022, the judge ruled that Mark was guilty of first degree murder, which
1:10:36 Speaker 00 comes with a mandatory life sentence without parole. Judge Matthew Stewart said, as quoted by CBS, "The court finds that this is a crime of cold calculation. Kevin Bacon's death was Mark Latunsky's design." And it's hard to argue with that statement. Now, I think the big thing here is that he was found competent to stand trial. Yes, could his defense team have mounted an insanity defense? Sure, they could have. By and large, I don't think the success rate of those is very high.
1:11:12 Speaker 01 Sure.
1:11:13 Speaker 00 So most likely he was going to be convicted on December 15th, 2022. Mark Latunski was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for murder and 11 to 120 months for mutilation of a body. Kevin's family has emphasized that Mark Latunski's claims of a suicide pact are untrue, although Kevin did have a history of mental health struggles. He was in a better place at the time of his death and was making plans for the future. Mark Latunski had a history of predatory behavior towards men he met online. Kevin was unaware of this when he connected with Mark on the dating app.
1:11:56 Speaker 00 And that's not something you're going to put in your dating app profile.
1:12:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, I highly doubt that.
1:12:02 Speaker 00 I routinely bring men down to my basement and chain them up. And a couple of times they've gotten away.
1:12:10 Speaker 01 Probably not going to get the responses that you would get if you left that out.
1:12:14 Speaker 00 Kevin's father said after the hearing in October, per Fox 2 Detroit, it's gut wrenching to hear the details and we're just beside ourselves. What was released Monday shows that Kevin had a dark side. He obviously got into something that he wasn't prepared for.
1:12:32 Speaker 01 It would be rough to hear that about your child.
1:12:34 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah, I think it would be rough for any family. Regardless of what someone's sexual orientation is, some people have a dark side when it comes to whatever they're into.
1:12:50 Speaker 01 Sure.
1:12:50 Speaker 00 Some people like to choke themselves with belts.
1:12:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:12:55 Speaker 00 Which has led to some actually pretty famous people dying in like the closets of hotel rooms. People are into all kinds of stuff.
1:13:05 Speaker 01 They are.
1:13:06 Speaker 00 Now, what have I always said? If you're not hurting anyone else, I say pour it on.
1:13:13 Speaker 01 Which you've always told me.
1:13:14 Speaker 00 And it seems you've lived by that or taken that to heart. But if you're Kevin's father and it's coming out that, okay, most likely your son was into, you know, some of this BDSM type stuff and, and I guess that's what he's calling the dark side.
1:13:35 Speaker 01 Sure.
1:13:36 Speaker 00 That would be tough to hear. But as we wrap this one up, Gibbs, I mean, obviously, there's a lot going on. I do think that this Mark Latunsky was a predator. You know, these two guys escaped from his dungeon, we'll call it. But what happens to these two guys if they don't? Do they end up, you know, with the same fate as Kevin Bacon did? Possibly. And, you know, that dovetails into the obvious question, which is, you know, how many more victims could this guy have?
1:14:14 Speaker 01 Could have been a lot more.
1:14:14 Speaker 00 It could have been. It could be that Kevin Bacon was his first murder. I don't know. I never know in some of these situations.
1:14:23 Speaker 01 But also keep thinking about what Michelle said, right? If that was a woman that ran up to the police and said, I've been chained in this guy's basement, I think they would have went to the house.
1:14:38 Speaker 00 I agree.
1:14:39 Speaker 01 And found themselves inside that house.
1:14:41 Speaker 00 I agree. Yeah, I agree. And it's a sad commentary. You go back to like Jeffrey Dahmer. And obviously that was many, many years ago. You can draw some of the, some similar parallels, right? One of his victims ran out in the middle of the street.
1:14:59 Speaker 01 True.
1:15:00 Speaker 00 And Dahmer goes out and is able to kind of talk the police into, ah, he just had too much to drink and, and they let him take this guy back.
1:15:10 Speaker 01 And we know what happened after that?
1:15:12 Speaker 00 Yeah. Yeah, I kind of agree with you. I feel like if it was a woman and she said, well, you know, it got out of hand. I don't really want to press charges, but she did say she was chained up in the basement. I think they would have went and checked on it.
1:15:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, we need to kind of check on this guy. See what's going on over there.
1:15:28 Speaker 00 I really do. But, you know, the way that Mark killed Kevin and obviously what he did to his body afterwards, it's gruesome.
1:15:37 Speaker 01 Sure it is.
1:15:37 Speaker 00 I mean, eating the man's testicles after you cut them off. And then kind of claiming that Kevin wanted him to do it. Kevin wanted to die.
1:15:50 Speaker 01 And boasting about it.
1:15:51 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:15:52 Speaker 01 I mean, sending a picture of a frying pan with meat in it.
1:15:57 Speaker 00 To a guy who had already escaped his dungeon. I'm still unclear about that part. But I, I feel like it's a real slap in the face of the family. I'm sure they feel that way too, that this guy came out and said, no, I didn't murder your son. He wanted me to kill him.
1:16:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:16:15 Speaker 00 And so I obliged. And then I just happened to, you know, hang him upside down, cut off parts of him, eat them, and also, you know, obviously, once they deliver my dehydrator, then I'm going into full production mode.
1:16:34 Speaker 01 Right.
1:16:35 Speaker 00 And, you know, like we said, for the family, that's gotta be just really tough to take.
1:16:41 Speaker 01 So disturbed.
1:16:43 Speaker 00 But that's it for our episode on Mark Latunsky. He's, he's where he, he needs to be. He'll die in prison and should. But we got some voicemails, Gibbs. You want to check those out?
1:16:52 Speaker 01 Let's hear them.
1:16:54 Speaker 03 Hi, my name's Michaela, formerly known as Dixie Normus. Anyways, I just want to say that I love y'all. I've listened to y'all for a long time. Me and my mom made a joke about the Dixie Normus waiting for y'all to say it.
1:17:09 Speaker 03 So thank you for being a good sport. You have no idea how hard me and my mom have laughed. Anyways, I was just listening to y'all's Patreon and I don't know if I'm just slow or what, but I just realized that TCAT means true crime all the time. I don't know how that just clicked, but I was always so confused of why y'all keep saying TCAT, TCAT. And I looked it up and I was like, is it like an extra like thing, like Patreon or what is it? And then I literally just had the epiphany that it is y'all's podcast name. Anyways, I just wanted to let y'all know that and yep, so.
1:17:50 Speaker 04 Keep doing what y'all are doing and I think everyone, everyone always says, keep your own time ticking. Okay. Bye.
1:17:58 Speaker 01 Wait, what? TCAT is the initials of the podcast?
1:18:03 Speaker 00 Yes.
1:18:04 Speaker 01 Really?
1:18:05 Speaker 00 But you know what? I guarantee you, she's not the only one that doesn't realize that.
1:18:10 Speaker 01 Really?
1:18:11 Speaker 00 Cause it's not like we say it all the time.
1:18:14 Speaker 01 That's true.
1:18:15 Speaker 00 We say TCAT, we say true crime all the time. We don't say TCAT is short for true crime all the time.
1:18:19 Speaker 01 We don't go T C A T T.
1:18:22 Speaker 00 No, sometimes I do in the ads.
1:18:24 Speaker 01 Do you?
1:18:24 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:18:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:18:25 Speaker 00 Because some people spell it T C A T.
1:18:28 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:18:28 Speaker 00 TCAT.
1:18:29 Speaker 01 But that's not it.
1:18:30 Speaker 00 No, cause it's all the time.
1:18:32 Speaker 01 That's right. If it lay down the right way.
1:18:35 Speaker 00 But I got a kick out of her and her mom, you know, probably sitting around brainstorming, you know, what name can we come up with that is really going to cause them issues with trying to say it?
1:18:47 Speaker 01 If they can say that, you know, that one word.
1:18:51 Speaker 04 Hi guys. I love your podcast. This is Carlos from Washington, originally Colorado, but I live in Washington now. Anyway, you guys are the best. I have to call. I'm sick of everybody being Team Gibby. I am Team Fergie all the way. Come on y'all. Fergie's awesome too. Anyway,
1:19:15 Speaker 04 thank you for what you do. You guys are awesome. Keep your head on swivel. Bye.
1:19:22 Speaker 00 All right. Thank you so much. I mean, I, I, you know, I've been thinking that. I don't say it out loud very often.
1:19:28 Speaker 01 You've got so many Team Fergie.
1:19:30 Speaker 00 I do. I do. It's, you know, and people make more out of it than what it is. I don't know how we even got started joking around about it, but people take it seriously.
1:19:42 Speaker 01 They should. Team Gibbys.
1:19:44 Speaker 00 It's okay. You know, it's okay that you have more fans than me. It's the way I've designed your persona.
1:19:53 Speaker 01 Or maybe just more, more of my call in.
1:19:56 Speaker 00 It could be.
1:19:57 Speaker 01 You know?
1:19:58 Speaker 00 It could be.
1:19:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:19:59 Speaker 00 I don't know. Cause they feel like they need to defend you. They feel like.
1:20:03 Speaker 01 I do need defended.
1:20:04 Speaker 00 They feel like you need their support.
1:20:07 Speaker 01 I do need their support.
1:20:08 Speaker 00 More than I do. I don't know why. No, we love all of you. Whoever you root for, as long as you listen, that's all that matters.
1:20:17 Speaker 01 You're awesome, no matter if you like Fergie or not.
1:20:21 Speaker 00 All right, everyone, that is it for another episode of True Crime All the Time. So from Mike.
1:20:27 Speaker 01 And Gibby.
1:20:27 Speaker 00 Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.
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