The phone buzzed on the nightstand, and Kevin stared at the glowing screen. It was Christmas Eve, and his sister was still in the salon chair behind him, her hair half-finished. He had styled it himself earlier, working the waves with practiced hands, his mind on the dinner at his parents’ house that evening. “You almost done with that?
” Jenny asked, catching his reflection in the mirror. “Yeah,” Kevin said, setting the phone down. “Just checking something. ”
He wasn’t checking the time.
He was checking the app, the one that had become a constant hum in the back of his life. He swiped, scrolled, and kept his expression neutral. Jenny didn’t need to know the details. She knew he was heading to their mom’s for the family dinner, and that was enough.
Kevin’s relationship with his family was deep. His older sister had called him KK when she was little because she couldn’t pronounce his name. The nickname stuck, and it was still a comfort to him. Carl and Pam Bacon had picked the name Kevin because they wanted their son to share his father’s initials without being reduced to a junior.
When they realized it matched the actor from *Footloose*, the name was already his. He grew up building model cars with his father in the garage. Carl’s hands were steady, and they would work in comfortable silence, gluing pieces and painting tiny fenders. Kevin kept them all, even when he was older.
They sat on a shelf in his room, gathering dust, because letting them go felt like losing a piece of his father. He also spent hours with his sister’s Barbie dolls. He favored the ones with long hair, brushing it and braiding it and styling it into elaborate shapes. Jenny didn’t mind.
She was happy to sit still while her little brother turned her dolls into runway stars. It was that childhood play that sent him toward a career in hairdressing. By twelve, he was doing real hair. His mother’s, his sister’s, the hair of his friends at school.
He had a natural talent, a steady hand, and a genuinely kind interest in making people feel good about themselves. Among the loved ones in his life, Kevin showed the deepest devotion to his grandmother, Anne. They had a special bond. When she was diagnosed with cancer in her elderly years, Kevin took it upon himself to make sure she still felt beautiful.
He spent hours with her, talking, brushing her hair, and helping her choose wigs that matched her personality. He tried to give her dignity when the illness tried to strip it away. When Anne passed, Kevin chose her burial clothes himself. He did her hair and makeup, refusing to hand that final act of care to a stranger.
It was a loss that carved a permanent place in his chest. Kevin was a grad student, turning his academic side into a focus on psychology and mental health, curious about how the human mind worked. He marched in the high school band and played three instruments. By senior year, he was the trumpet section leader, barking commands with a smile.
He also had a poem published in a book and finished in the top ten of his class. His classmates gave him the good-natured official titles of “class gossiper” and “most dramatic,” but the genuine respect for his intellect and creativity was there. All through that period, Kevin was also learning how heavy a secret could be. He came out in middle school.
Some of his friendships weathered it. Others became complicated, turbulent. Jenny admitted that she didn’t take the news well at first. It took her years to grow and accept the truth.
Kevin waited for her, patient as ever. When she came around, they were closer than before. There was a steady source of comfort at home: an old dog named Hannah, a cat named Smokey that Kevin cheekily nicknamed Pokey, and his parents’ cat Fuzzy, who always curled up near him. After high school, Kevin completed cosmetology training at the Sharp Academy of Hair Styling and took classes at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus.
He worked in a few salons before landing a spot at a quirky, uniquely named place in Schwarz Creek. He began carrying tattoos and experimenting with colorful hair and the occasional wig. One tattoo was a hummingbird, in honor of his grandmother Anne, whose favorite bird that was. He had a rose for his other grandmother, Pat.
Living in Schwarz Creek made him restless. The town felt small, suffocating, and he didn’t know where else to go. That changed when he visited a college friend in Chicago. In the city’s gay neighborhoods, he found a sense of community and family he had never witnessed before.
He decided that was where he belonged. It became a goal, a dream to save up for. His friends, however, saw him struggling. They remembered a young man sinking into debt, stuck in a place he didn’t want to be.
They said hookups were his escape, his fragile way to prove he was wanted. Kevin was often drawn to people who were carrying heavy wounds, believing he could somehow heal them. One lover used him as a free chauffeur. Another lashed out with paranoid accusations of infidelity.
Vanessa, one of his friends, put it plainly. “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. I think that’s probably why he was always on the dating apps. It’s hard seeing your friend like that.
”
He was fragile. His finances were a source of stress. He struggled with dangerous thoughts and was hospitalized twice. And yet, he kept moving.
He moved out of his parents’ house for a sense of independence, but the financial strain forced him to relocate four times within a single year. His aunt had also moved into the family home after his grandmother Pat died, making the space crowded. Jenny quietly thought Kevin might be bipolar, but he never received a formal diagnosis. The Christmas Eve of 2019 started with ordinary chaos.
Kevin was at the salon, styling Jenny’s hair. They made plans to meet their mother afterward. Pam was hosting dinner at the family home, and Kevin agreed to attend. Then he found out someone else would be there, someone he didn’t want to be around.
He decided he wasn’t going. He returned to the apartment he shared with his roommate, Michelle. She tried to change the subject, to smile, to patch over the quiet disappointment. Kevin listened, nodded, and then pulled out his phone.
He opened Grindr. Within minutes, he matched with Mark Latunsky. Mark was twice his age, lived a short drive away, and had sent an invitation to come over. Kevin accepted on an impulse.
He left the apartment around 5:15 in the evening. A security camera on the door caught him stepping out, casual, alone, wearing jeans and a jacket. Not long after, he texted Michelle. “Okay, well, I’m going to be out for a while.
Actually, this is going to be fun. He’s inviting more men. Not sure when I’ll be back. Probably will be out late.
So, if mom calls you, I’m sleeping. ”
Michelle replied with two laughing-crying emojis. “Okay, that’s fine. ”
Mark Latunsky, on the surface, was a normal middle-aged man.
He had attended college in Michigan between 1987 and 1991 and earned his master’s degree in Iowa in 1995. In 2001, he married a woman named Emily. He proposed under a hickory tree, saying he wanted his love to last as long as that tree had stood, and longer. The couple bought a family home at 703 West Tyrell Road in Maurice, Michigan.
The foundation failed, so they rebuilt it and added a basement. Mark treated the house like an endless project, tinkering with it whenever he wasn’t at his job as a chemist. Together, they had four children. Emily described Mark as calm, hardworking, passionate, and kind.
Then something changed. Between 2010 and 2012, Mark was diagnosed with depression, schizophrenia, and borderline personality traits. Medications stabilized him briefly, but he never took them consistently. Eventually, he stopped them altogether.
Emily remembered the first red flag. It was her son’s birthday party. Mark had cornered a guest and told them he was about to inherit a massive trust fund. He started going by Mark Leonsky, claiming he had a separate identity for his own protection.
It was ridiculous, frightening nonsense, but he said it with such absolute confidence that Emily’s stomach turned. The whole thing happened during a stressful period, and Emily suspected the strain had hit him harder than she realized. She convinced him to check himself into a facility. He returned five days later with medication he refused to take.
He also confessed to cheating on her with multiple men. He had even paid for those services. Emily tried counseling. She gave the marriage time; she gave it her whole effort.
Mark wouldn’t take it seriously. He talked to himself, stopped bathing, threatened to give away the family pets, accused his wife of sleeping around, and claimed none of the children were his. He watched gory films exclusively. He was committed to mental health hospitals four times.
In 2012, Emily asked for a divorce. Mark fell apart completely. While the divorce was pending, he refused to return the children after a visitation. Police found the house empty.
Mark had taken them to a water park. When they called, he answered and told them where he was and that he would not come back or return the kids. He was charged with attempted kidnapping, but the charges were dropped. Afterward, he was allowed only supervised visits.
He chose to cut off contact entirely with his ex-wife and children rather than submit to supervision. Mark married a second time, to a man named Jaime Arnold. He attempted to reconnect with his children in 2018, but stopped when he lost his job. He claimed his boss wanted him to poison products with contaminants.
By 2019, Jaime had separated from him because of the cheating and the eroding, erratic behavior. “We’re not together anymore because he started saying some very unusual and unreasonable things, accusations,” Jaime would later tell the press. “He claimed that the neighbor was polluting our water. He claimed that his family was not his family, that his biological family was not his, that his children were not his.
He said, ‘I can no longer bathe in the house because it was toxic. ’”
Mark divorced himself from reality. He dodged child support and posted ads on escort websites. On October the tenth of that same year, a 48-year-old man named James Carlson flew in from New York to meet Mark.
James knew Mark’s husband, Jaime, and thought he was walking into a casual encounter. Instead, Mark tied him down, locked him in the basement, and told him he wasn’t going anywhere. James waited until he heard Mark’s breathing even out, then sawed through his restraints with a butcher knife. He grabbed his phone and Mark’s car keys, ran out of the house, and called 911.
His voice shook. “I broke out and I need a ride from this guy. I’m by him. We went out to the car, dropped.
We went to the store, had soda. I woke up in the basement. Okay. He obviously drugged me.
”
The dispatcher walked him through it. James kept his voice low, afraid Mark would wake up and come after him. Police found him and took his account. But when asked again, James allegedly claimed he didn’t know Mark at all.
No charges were filed. Police reportedly dropped him off at a gas station without his wallet or any way to get back to New York. He had to use the phone at a nearby bus station, call Mark, and ask for his things back. Mark returned them, and James went home.
Six weeks later, on November 25th, another man was in Mark’s house. His name has never been made public. It is known that he was 29 years old. He burst out of the back door, wearing a leather kilt and covered in blood, and called 911 while running down the street.
“I’m trying to escape from some guy who had me chained up in his basement. ”
The operator asked him where he was. He didn’t know. He ran up to a neighbor’s house and asked for an address.
The operator kept him calm, told him to find somewhere safe. “I see the trooper right there. ”
Police arrived as Mark appeared outside. Mark told them he had only chased the man because the kilt he was wearing was expensive.
The victim’s injuries were treated. He declined to press charges. Mark walked free. In January 2020, state police were asked why Mark had been released twice without so much as an investigation.
David Kaiser, a retired police lieutenant at the time, said both callers were embarrassed and didn’t want the officers around. “A lot of times people have a professional life and personal life,” he said. “They don’t want to intertwine the two. Their personal life is very secret, very protected.
”
James Carlson didn’t let that stand. He filed a lawsuit against Mark in June of 2020. His attorney, John Marco, fired back at that lieutenant’s statement. “That’s just not true.
You don’t call the police unless you need the police and you want them there. ”
The suit was eventually thrown out without prejudice in 2022 when James’s legal team withdrew and he didn’t retain new counsel. Mark continued as if nothing had happened. Twenty-five years old, Kevin walked into his trap with no idea what awaited him.
Mark stabbed him in the back and then cut his throat. He guided the knife because, in his broken mind, he was helping a man who had asked to die. But Kevin had done nothing of the sort. Mark desecrated Kevin’s body in that basement.
It was the same basement where James had been tied up, where another man had been beaten bloody, where Mark’s own children had once played. On Christmas morning, Kevin was supposed to be at his family’s house for brunch. He didn’t show up. No one could reach him.
His car was still gone, his phone dead, his voice absent from the group chat. His family reported him missing. His sister Vanessa told the news, her voice shaking, that Kevin always communicated with someone, that this was not like him. Michelle woke up and saw Kevin’s car wasn’t there.
She was scared. His parents begged anyone to come forward. Investigators searched fields, railroads, and farmland. They found his car in a parking lot outside a dollar store.
Keys, phone, clothes. Inside the phone were Grindr messages they initially said contained nothing of substance. That claim was false. They knew Mark’s identity from the very beginning, but they kept it quiet to protect the investigation.
When they finally reached Mark’s house, he opened the door shirtless, wearing a leather kilt. He introduced himself as Wilk Leonsky and waved them inside, giving the investigators free reign. Downstairs, they found Kevin’s extensive body. Mark confessed immediately.
He said Kevin had wanted him to do it, that he stabbed him in the back and cut his throat so he wouldn’t suffer. In his mind, that made it merciful. He went into detailed plans for Kevin’s remains. He had already castrated him postmortem and consumed his parts.
He intended to turn the muscle tissue into jerky and use the blood and bones as fertilizer. The same day, Mark had been asked to spare his victim pain. He had none. Investigators found that Mark had ordered a food dehydrator online.
The police intercepted the package before it could be delivered. Mark’s delusions deepened. He stopped calling himself Wilk Leonsky and insisted he was Edgar Thomas Hill, a member of a noble family in Wales. He said Mark Latunsky was just a pseudonym he used to protect himself from external threats.
His attorney, Doug Corwin, requested a mental health evaluation, writing that his client was “so overwhelmingly fixated on conspiracy theory involving multiple nations/countries and involved in multiple trust accounts. ”
Mark showed no remorse. He insisted Kevin had asked to die. Mark’s attorney even pushed for an additional charge, arguing that his client should plead guilty to assisted suicide rather than murder.
The Grindr messages directly contradicted this. Texts surfaced in which Kevin asked Mark if he would be safe meeting him, if he could trust him. Mark reassured him with a lie. The judge denied the psychiatric plea.
Mark was found unresponsive in his cell shortly after being booked. Smelling salts revived him. He was hospitalized, then returned to jail days later. Reports indicated he had barely eaten since arriving, though his attorney denied a hunger strike.
Mark’s first attempt at an insanity defense failed. An evaluation ruled he was competent to stand trial. A trial date was set for July 2021, and the prosecution pursued a first-degree murder charge. Jenny started a GoFundMe for Kevin’s funeral with a goal of twenty thousand dollars.
The fundraiser reached the attention of an unlikely support. Kevin had been a devoted fan of beauty influencer Jeffree Star. He wore a tattoo across his chest reading “Beauty Killer,” a tribute to Star’s album. Jeffree Star shared the fundraiser with his millions of followers, mourning the loss of a fan.
He donated the entire twenty thousand dollars himself, writing in the donation, “I love you. Rest in peace, Angel. ” The campaign raised more than thirty-four thousand dollars total. Pam Bacon was deeply grateful.
“We’re appreciative because I don’t know what Kevin had for insurance or anything through work. It’s a blessing and we’re appreciative of everybody who has donated. ”
Grindr released a statement expressing horror, saying they were “heartbroken and horrified” and remained “fully committed to working with law enforcement anytime we are contacted as part of an investigation. ”
Kevin’s father, Carl, used the platform to urge other users of dating apps to be safe, to tell someone they trust where they’re going, even if they feel secure.
He also wanted those who met people online to check in with them. Kevin’s story touched the heart of the other famous Kevin Bacon, the actor. On December 30th of 2019, he posted a tribute on Instagram. “For obvious reasons, I’m thinking this morning about the friends and family of this young person, Kevin Bacon.
His life was taken from him much too soon. His love was hairdressing. I bet he would have done a great job on this mess on my head. RIP KB.
”
Kevin’s funeral was held on January 3rd, 2020. He was buried in Bendle Cemetery. His headstone was engraved on both sides with styling tools, animals, stars, and a trumpet, along with the words: “A natural born star, the best of the best, Forever and always in our heart of hearts. Love, Mom, Dad, and Jenny.
”
Carl and Pam planned to use the leftover donations to create a scholarship in Kevin’s memory. Three days after the funeral, they addressed the press. Carl pleaded through tears. “I understand that the events that have been released today show Kevin had a dark side.
But those who knew and loved Kevin did not know that side. Those who knew him knew his good side, that he loved and cherished everybody he touched. It’s unfortunate that his dark side is what took his life and he met the wrong people that way that took him from us too soon. Please don’t destroy his reputation.
He obviously got into something he wasn’t prepared for. We all make mistakes. ”
Kevin’s birthday came in February. Carl asked friends and family to donate to the Mental Health Foundation in Kevin’s memory.
He raised one hundred and thirty-three dollars. Mark’s house was sold at auction. The buyer, Steve Deal, paid more than one hundred thousand dollars, twenty thousand over the asking price. But the home fell right back into Mark’s family’s hands.
The winning bid had been made on behalf of Mark’s brother, Paul Latunsky. Alex Deal, Steve’s son, later said in an interview that human remains were still present in the house, and he was legally barred from sharing photographs. “I never sold the home back,” he said. “Mark bought his crime scene back.
”
Paul Latunsky was Mark’s conservator, tasked with preserving his brother’s assets. During the dispute over the property, Paul allegedly used a shotgun in a confrontation with the Deal family. No shots were fired. Paul was arrested on felony charges, but they were dismissed a month later.
In December 2020, the University of Michigan mailed a posthumous Bachelor of Arts degree to Kevin’s parents’ house. Carl proudly shared the moment on Facebook. That same month, volunteers painted murals in Kevin’s memory in Flint and Rock. James Carlson’s lawsuit against Mark never succeeded.
His attorney, John Marco, never forgave the police for their failure to act. “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. ”
Kevin’s loved ones agreed. Michelle expressed a painful observation: if a woman had escaped from Mark’s home claiming she was held captive, the police would have arrested Mark without hesitation.
Instead, the victims were men, and the authorities treated their stories like dust. Victor Petrik, a psychiatric nurse practitioner and assistant professor at Boston College, analyzed the case for A&E. “If someone has a major mental illness, disorders like major depression or psychotic disorders, they generally have an aggressive style. Cannibalization is more psychologically or psychosexually driven.
You may call it even foreplay, and it’s more organized. ”
In court, the prosecution and defense fought over what evidence was admissible. Mark’s past encounters became a battleground. Judge Matthew J.
Stewart ruled that the testimony was valid, overruling the defense’s objections. The trial was delayed repeatedly. In March 2022, Mark’s lawyer requested another evaluation, saying his client’s mental capacity had worsened. Two months later, Mark was again deemed competent.
In September of 2022, Mark told his lawyers he wanted to plead guilty. His attorneys raised objections, but his wishes were clear. “While this is not an outcome that we think is in Mr. Latunsky’s best interest, we do have to follow Mr.
Latunsky’s wishes,” attorney Mary Chartier told the judge. “We have discussed this matter, and consistently he’s been very clear, more than once, multiple times, on his choice and on his reasoning. ”
Mark was found guilty of premeditated first-degree murder in October 2022. Judge Stewart declared, “The court finds that this is a crime of cold calculation.
Kevin Bacon’s death was Mark Latunsky’s design. ”
Before sentencing, Kevin’s family read their victim impact statements. Jenny’s statement was later published. She wrote through her grief:
“On December 24th, 2019, it was the last time I saw my brother Kevin alive.
I had to wait three long days to learn of Kevin’s murder, unaware to me that he was killed on Christmas Eve night. Kevin meant the world to me, and I will never have another brother like him. The day I learned of Kevin’s death, a part of me died with him because he was my first best friend, brother, and protector from cruel people who didn’t understand me like he did because of a disability that I was born with. No one will ever replace Kevin in my life because he was one of a kind and will always be missed.
”
She listed the things Mark could never take away: their shared love of cats and dogs, twenty-five years of pictures and memories, The Sims, their love for music, Coach purses, Harry Potter. She wrote about his smile, his generous heart, his unique talent, his love for life. She promised to keep his story alive so others would know the dangers of meeting strangers online. Pam Bacon had her own statement read aloud.
“Our world has been shattered. Even though we have such great memories of our son, our lives will never be the same, nor will our family. I don’t understand why anyone could want to hurt our son, especially in such a horrific and unbelievable way. Now Christmas for our family will never be the same to us.
Thanks to you taking our son and brother away from us. Even though we will finally get justice for Kevin, it still doesn’t feel like enough. You still get to live and do things because a pig like you can never have remorse. In your sick, twisted mind, you probably think you didn’t do anything wrong.
But in reality, you took our world away. This Christmas, I hope you suffer like we have. I hope you feel pain because you are all alone for all the years yet to come. ”
On Thursday, December 15th, 2022, Mark Latunsky was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Judge Stewart looked at Kevin’s family. “Perhaps today’s sentence will be a small amount of comfort in what I know is an enormity of hurt. ”
Emily Latunsky stayed out of the public eye until the trial was complete. The day Mark was sentenced, she posted a statement on her personal Facebook page.
“First, I want to say that I am so sorry to the Bacon family for what happened to your son. No family should have to go through the heartache of what happened. Kevin’s life mattered and it was cut short too soon, cut short by a man who most see as a monster, but I see as a broken man ravaged by the effects of an untreated mental illness that took complete control of his life. ”
She remembered the man she married, the man who loved his children, who brought home bags of shredded paper for them to play in, who took his son to buy fireworks every year, who broke out a van window when his two-year-old daughter accidentally locked herself inside because it was hot outside.
She wrote that his children carried on those traditions today. “Mental illness took hold. None of those who loved him could help, and we watched helplessly as he spiraled farther and farther into madness and delusional thoughts and became a man none of us knew. The man Mark Latunsky is now is not the man he was.
He was Mark Latunsky, son, brother, husband, friend, and father. ”
In 2024, Emily and her daughter Eliza spoke publicly for the first time in an episode of the A&E docuseries *The Killer in My Family*. The episode showed photos of Mark from before his arrest. He was clean-shaven, neatly dressed in polo shirts and button-downs.
He looked like everyone you passed on the street. Mark’s attorney, so shaken by his client’s case, left the public defender’s office and ran for a judgeship in 2024. He didn’t win. Jenny wrote and self-published a book about Kevin, meticulous in her recollection.
She detailed their childhood, her relationship with him, and his struggles as an adult. She confessed that Kevin had asked her to join him for a movie that same night he died. She turned him down to do something else, and the guilt had never fully loosened its grip. She penned letters to Kevin to process the pain.
She decided that, if she ever fell in love and married, she would use one of his favorite wedding color palettes in his honor. In the years after Kevin’s death, the family fractured. Carl and Pam divorced. Jenny alleged that her mother had lashed out at her physically at some point, shattering their already strained bond.
Jenny felt sympathy for her mother, who never sought professional help after losing her son. Still, she called the divorce a blessing, describing her mother’s narcissistic tendencies worsening after Kevin’s death. Jenny moved with her father when he left. She brought the dog and two cats with her.
Kevin’s cat Pokey chose Jenny as his new human companion, a warm presence during the months she spent grieving. Pokey lived to be twelve before his health failed. Hannah passed too. Fuzzy, the family cat, was still alive as of 2024, keeping company with new animal siblings.
Jenny held on to the memory of her brother’s last good deed. On that same Christmas Eve, a stranger walked into the salon, stranded and desperate to get home to his child. Kevin handed him the salon phone to make a call. Then he and the other stylist scraped together whatever cash they had and gave it to the stranger for gas.
Kevin never lived to see another Christmas. But the family he left behind made sure his story would not disappear. In his absence, they built a new one.
