Christmas Eve 2019 was supposed to be a quiet family dinner for Kevin Bacon and his loved ones. Then he learned that another guest would be there, someone he wasn’t fond of at all, and he decided he’d rather skip it entirely. He went back to his apartment feeling restless and hurt. His roommate Michelle tried to change the subject, but Kevin’s mind was elsewhere.
He opened Grinder on his phone and started scrolling. A man twice his age, Mark Latunsky, invited him over for a visit just a short drive away. On a spur-of-the-moment decision, Kevin agreed. He texted Michelle before he left.
“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 crying-laughing emojis. “Okay, that’s fine.
”
It was the last time she ever heard from him. To the outside world, Mark Latunsky had seemed like a normal man. He was a chemist with a comfortable salary and a family home. He had married Emily in 2001, and together they had four children.
Emily remembered him as calm, hardworking, and kind. But that man had started to disappear years ago. In 2010, at their son’s birthday party, Mark told guests stories about a massive trust fund he was about to inherit. He said his real name was Mark Leonsky, that he had a whole separate identity, and that he used the other name only for his protection.
Emily was terrified for him. She convinced him to commit himself to a facility, and he came back five days later with medication he refused to take. He admitted he had cheated on her with multiple men. By 2012, he had stopped taking his medication altogether.
He accused his wife of infidelity, claimed their children weren’t his, and threatened to give away the family pets. He once refused to return the kids after a visitation, and Emily had to get a court order to get them back. He had taken them to a water park. He only answered the phone to tell police where he was and that he wasn’t coming back.
Attempted kidnapping charges were filed and dropped. Mark chose to cut off contact with his ex-wife and children rather than submit to supervised visits. He later married a man named Jaime, but that relationship fell apart, too, after Mark became erratic and unfaithful. He lost his job.
He started offering his services on escort websites while dodging child support. On October 10, 2019, Mark held a 48-year-old man named James captive in his basement. James had flown in from New York to hook up with Mark, but instead Mark tied him down and locked him in the basement. James waited until Mark fell asleep, sawed through his restraints with a butcher knife, grabbed his phone and Mark’s car keys, and ran.
He called 911. He told the operator he had been drugged and woke up in the basement. Police found James. He told them he didn’t know Mark at all.
No charges were filed. He was dropped off at a gas station without a wallet and had to use a bus station phone to call Mark, who returned his things so he could go home. Six weeks later, on November 25, another man burst out of Mark’s house, covered in blood and wearing a leather kilt. He had been chained up in the basement.
Mark chased after him. When police arrived, Mark said he only pursued the man because the kilt was expensive. This victim also didn’t press charges, and Mark wasn’t arrested. Kevin walked into that same house on Christmas Eve, unable to know what was waiting for him.
Mark stabbed him in the back and then cut his throat. After Kevin died, Mark mutilated his body and cannibalized part of him in the basement. The next day, on Christmas morning, Kevin’s family waited for him to arrive for breakfast. He never showed up.
No one could reach him. His family reported him missing. “He’s just one of the nicest guys I know and most compassionate and understanding person I know,” his sister Jenny said. “This is very unlike him to just fall off the face of the earth.
He’s always in communication with somebody. ”
Investigators found Kevin’s car, clothes, keys, and phone in a parking lot in front of a dollar store. They looked at dating apps on his phone but told the press they found nothing of substance. That wasn’t true.
Through Grinder messages, the trail led straight to Mark Latunsky’s front door. Mark greeted the investigators shirtless, wearing a leather kilt, and introduced himself as Wilkes Olos Vilkas. He let them inside and gave them free rein of the residence. In the basement, they found Kevin’s corpse, mutilated and hanging from the ceiling like an animal in a slaughterhouse.
Mark readily admitted what he had done. He said he had picked Kevin up in the parking lot and taken him home to hook up. He claimed he killed Kevin only because Kevin wanted him to. He said he stabbed Kevin in the back and only cut his throat so Kevin wouldn’t suffer.
Then he explained that he had already castrated Kevin after death and consumed parts of him. He planned to turn Kevin’s muscles into jerky and use his blood and bones as fertilizer. Mark had already bought a dehydrator online, but police intercepted the package before it arrived. Soon, Mark stopped referring to himself as Mark Latunsky altogether.
He said his real name was Edgar Thomas Hill, a member of a noble family in Wales. He insisted that Kevin wanted to die, that he was only helping him. But the Grinder messages proved his own cruel lie. Kevin had cautiously asked Mark whether he would be safe meeting him.
Mark had reassured him he wouldn’t be harmed. Mark was evaluated multiple times. At first, the courts ruled he was incompetent to stand trial, but after another evaluation in October 2020, they reversed that decision. In September 2022, Mark told his attorneys he wanted to plead guilty.
Judge Matthew Stewart found him guilty of premeditated first-degree murder. “This is a crime of cold calculation,” Stewart said. “Kevin Bacon’s death was Mark Latunsky’s design. ”
Before the sentence was read, Kevin’s family delivered their impact statements.
Jenny wrote, “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.
”
Pam’s statement was read aloud on her behalf. “Our world has been shattered,” it said. “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.
”
On December 15, 2022, Mark Latunsky was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Kevin, who loved hair styling, music, and his grandmother, was remembered by the people who loved him. He had been close to his sister and his parents, and he had a special bond with his grandmother Anne, whose hair he helped care for while she battled cancer. He had even styled her hair and makeup for her burial after she passed.
One of his tattoos was a hummingbird for her, because it was her favorite bird. Jeffree Star, a beauty influencer Kevin admired, donated $20,000 to his funeral fundraiser and posted, “RIP Kevin. I’m devastated to hear of the passing of someone from Michigan who lived their life fearlessly and was taken too soon. ” Actor Kevin Bacon also shared a message, wondering what kind of job the young hairdresser might have done on his messy hair.
Mark’s ex-wife Emily stayed silent until after the trial. Then she posted a statement about the man she used to love. “Kevin’s life mattered and it was cut short too soon,” she wrote. “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.
I remember a man who loved his children and was so proud when each were born. ”
Jenny wrote a book about her brother to keep his memory alive. She shared about the last good deed he did on the night he died. A man had walked into the salon where Kevin worked, lost and desperate to get home to his child for Christmas.
Kevin let him use the salon’s phone, and then scraped together whatever cash he and the other stylist had to give it to the stranger for gas. Kevin never made it to Christmas morning. But in his final hours, he had helped someone else get home.
