Behind Bars
Mark Latunski targeted other men before murdering Kevin Bacon in 2019
Mark Latunski — who murdered Kevin Bacon in 2019 after meeting him on Grindr — was sentenced to life in prison Thursday.
“The court finds that this is a crime of cold calculation,” Judge Matthew Stewart said, per CBS. “Kevin Bacon’s death was Mark Latunski’s design.” Latunski pleaded guilty in September and was found guilty of first-degree murder Wednesday.
Latunski killed Bacon after meeting him on the dating app; Bacon went missing on Christmas Eve 2019 and was found by police three days in Latunski’s basement, his throat slit. Latunski told the police he had fried and eaten Bacon’s testicles and planned to use his blood and bones to fertilize plants and his muscles for jerky. He was charged with homicide and mutilation of a dead body. Latunski was initially found incompetent to stand trial in 2020, but the court later reversed that decision.
Bacon — who dreamed of being a hairstylist — was not Latunski’s first target. James Carlsen filed a federal lawsuit against him in 2020 in which he claimed Latunski chained him up in his basement in October of 2019. He called 911 after escaping. In November of that same year, another man whose name was redacted in police records fled from that same home. “I’m trying to get away from some creepy guy; he had me tied up in his basement,” the man told a 911 operator.
No charges were filed in either case initially. “Nobody wanted the police there. Nobody wanted to file charges,” former Michigan State Police Lt. David Kaiser said in January 2020. “A lot of times people have a professional life and personal life. They don’t want to intertwine the two. Their personal life is very secret, very protected.”
Bacon’s friends were not sold on this explanation, though. Michelle Myers, Bacon’s friend and roommate, told Rolling Stone in 2021. “How come [Latunski] 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.”