Mark Latunski: Michigan cannibal man gets life for brutally killing and eating Kevin Bacon's genitals
Warning: This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some. Readers' discretion advised
CORUNNA, MICHIGAN: A Michigan cannibal man was sentenced to life in prison for brutally murdering and eating the genitals of a college student. Mark Latunski, 52 pleaded guilty in September to the murder of Kevin Bacon, 25, on December 24, 2019, after he was found slain in Latunski's basement at Bennington Township home, four days later. Latunski and Bacon allegedly met each other on a dating app called Grindr.
However, after Bacon did not show up for Christmas breakfast, his family filed a missing person report. Bacon's roommate later told police he went to meet someone he met on the dating app. Police discovered Bacon, a University of Michigan-Flint student and hairstylist, hanging by his ankles from the rafters of Latunski's home with a stab wound in his back and sliced throat. Latunski admitted to having stabbed Bacon in the back and later cutting off his testicles and eating them in the kitchen. After deeming him mentally unfit and undergoing months of psychiatric care on Thursday, December 15, Latunski appeared in front of a Michigan judge who sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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Bacon's parents Pam and Karl Bacon appeared in court, and a prepared statement for Latunski was read on their behalf. "In your sick, twisted mind, you probably don't think you did anything wrong," Hannah, Bacon's mother, wrote, adding, "This Christmas, I hope you suffer like we have," reported Daily Mail. Latunski had several such encounters with police before Bacon's death. In an incident that took place two months before Bacon's tragic murder, a New York man called 911 after escaping the cannibal's basement. "I want you to know like I've never ever had anything like this happen. I don't know if he drugged me. All is know is I ended up locked up in the f***ing basement, okay? Chained in the basement," the New York man said in October 2019.
It is not clear what happened in that incident but a few months later police received a call from another victim who fell prey to Latunski. On November 25, 2019, a man told police he had escaped Latunski's house before running into his neighbor. "I'm trying to get away from some creepy guy," the caller told the dispatcher. "He had me tied in his basement." Michael Parks, a neighbor of Latunski, ran into the unidentified victim who was covered in blood on his front porch. "He's got purple hair, he's wearing a leather skirt and he's got a couple of belts across his chest," Park said.
"This 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." "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... very odd-looking gentleman," reported the source. Police stopped Latunski and no charges were filed against him.
Records previously found revealed that Latunski was married to a woman named Emily, with whom he had two kids. Later she filed to suspend his visitation rights and cited his diagnosis of major depression, paranoid schizophrenia, and traits of a personality disorder in 2010 and 2012, reported the source. Latunski later married his ex-husband Jamie Arnold for three years before leaving him in September 2019. He claimed that he was never aware of his mental illness until July 2019 when he was arrested for not paying child support.