Guy Benson On How Crime Has Become A Major Midterm Issue
Guy Benson On How Crime Has Become A Major Midterm Issue
A Michigan man who admitted last month to murdering and eating the body parts of another man he met on a gay dating app was found guilty of first-degree murder Wednesday.
Circuit Court Judge Matthew J. Stewart found Mark David Latunski, 53, of Shiawassee County, Michigan, guilty of first-degree murder during a rare degree hearing in which he had to rule whether Latunski was guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or manslaughter.
The hearing came after Latunski admitted in court last month that he had killed 25-year-old hairdresser Kevin Bacon after luring the University of Michigan-Flint student to his home in December 2019 through Grindr, a dating app for gay, bisexual and transgender men.
Latunski pleaded guilty as charged to mutilation of a body and to open murder, which encompasses murder in the first and second degree. He also pleaded guilty to one felony count of mutilating a body.
MICHIGAN MAN PLEADS GUILTY AFTER MURDERING, EATING TESTICLES OF OTHER MAN MET ON DATING APP
Mark Latunski pleaded guilty last week to murdering, dismembering and eating the body of another man he met on a dating app. (Shiawassee County Sheriff's Office)
After police found Bacon's body hanging from the rafters in Latunski's basement with his throat slit and a rope tied around his ankles in 2019, Latunski told police that he had cut off and consumed Bacon's testicles.
"The court finds that this is a crime of cold calculation," Stewart said at Latunski's hearing. "Kevin Bacon’s death was Mark Latunski’s design."
Latunski faces a sentencing hearing on Dec. 15. A life sentence is the maximum penalty in Michigan, which in 1847 became the first government in the English-speaking world to abolish capital punishment.
Mark Latunski, 53, right, pleaded guilty to charges of murder and mutilation of a body in the death of 25-year-old Kevin Bacon, left, of Swartz Creek, near Flint, Michigan. (Facebook / Shiawassee County Sheriff's Office)
Shiawassee County Prosecutor Scott Koerner argued in court that prosecution had offered enough evidence to convict Latunski of first-degree murder and that the killer had had enough time to reconsider killing Bacon before doing so.
The prosecutor also noted that Latunski had told police he had talked about buying a dehydrator to make jerky out of Bacon’s muscles, and also wanted to make bone meal out of his bones.
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"That’s not what Kevin wanted. Kevin wanted a fetish," Koerner said. "He wanted to be protected. He wanted to make sure he was going to go home."
Murder victim Kevin Bacon was from Swartz Creek, near Flint, Michigan. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)
Mary Chartier, Latunski's lawyer, was against the guilty plea and had hoped to bring an insanity defense.
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A month before police found Bacon's body in Latunski's basement, they had responded to a man fleeing from Latunski's home wearing only a leather kilt.
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