Posted: Wed 5:56 PM, Jan 01, 2020
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Updated: Wed 7:08 PM, Jan 01, 2020
BENNINGTON TOWNSHIP (WJRT) (1/1/2019) – Michigan State Police found 25-year-old Kevin Bacon dead inside a Bennington Township home Saturday morning.
Mark David Latunski was arrested that day. Monday, a Shiawassee County Judge charged him with murdering and then mutilating Kevin’s body.
“It’s horrifying, to think that we were sitting here having Christmas dinner and this was going on across the street,” Latunski’s neighbor, Michael Parks, said.
He lives about a quarter-mile down the road.
MSP isn’t revealing how Latunski allegedly murdered Bacon, but Parks believes this wasn’t the first time there’s been suspicious activity at the home.
“It certainly seems he’s just, you know, trying to figure out what he needed to do to restrain the person to do what he wanted to do to,” Parks explained.
Since November, Parks said he knows of at least two people who have run from Latunski’s home.
He helped the one man, a 29-year-old, who police said escaped November 25th after being chained in Latunski’s basement.
“I got a pounding on my door at like 4 in the afternoon. And, I heard hysterical screaming,” he said. “It just startled me and my dogs started barking and everything just went crazy all at once.”
Parks explained he answered the door to find a man bleeding from his mouth, holding a rag to his face, only wearing a leather kilt in the 40-degree weather and he was calling 9-1-1.
“Screaming, just bloody murder screaming — help me, help me, help me!” Parks said.
As Parks gave the dispatcher his address, he said who he now knows is accused murderer Mark Latunski, pulled into his driveway.
“Mark came right up where you’re standing right there and I said you need to leave, the police are on their way,” he said.
But before Latunski left, Parks added that he stared at him for a moment.
“He gave me a look up and down, that now that I know, gives me the creeps,” Parks said.
Parks continued that Michigan State Police arrived almost immediately.
But, no arrest was made because the two men told MSP what they were doing was consensual.
Parks is grateful no one got hurt that day, but is wondering if someone had been and police took custody of Latunski that November day, would Kevin Bacon still be alive?
“I’ll never forget this day or that day; and now that everything is escalating, holy moly, just don’t expect this to ever happen this close to you in your lifetime,” he said.
Latunski is due back in court for a preliminary hearing in two weeks.
He faces life in prison if convicted.
