DIANNE: Talking about this now,
it's hard,
because I had loved him so much,
and that's what hurts more than anything.
It's mortifying.
It's so shameful.
I felt stupid.
You have this monster of a husband who's doing
these things,
and then everybody finds out in front of you,
it's your husband.
You know, you feel like you just really
want to crawl in a hole and die.
I saw this man as a loving person,
and to actually hear these things...
it's like...
this is not the man that I love.
Who is this person?
It just devastates me to know what he's been doing
and that I was married to this monster.
He's in a cage where he belongs,
and I pray he'll stay there until the day he dies.
I just want to put my hands around his neck
and just shake the hell out of him
and just say, "What in God's name is wrong with you?
Why? Why do you think you have a right to do this?"
[The Paper Chase's "What's So Amazing About Grace?" plays]
[strings continue playing sinister tune]
[static crackling]
[knock at door] [creaking]
-[banging on door] -[creaking]
[water dripping]
[banging on door] [creaking]
[sinister chord strikes]
I was carefree when I was 19.
I had just gotten out of high school.
Um, I was really into the dancing scene,
and I didn't have any cares,
really, in the world.
I was living in Honolulu, Hawaii, at the time.
Mark and I met at a nightclub in Waikiki.
The club was very crowded, and my girlfriend and I
were put at his table with his buddy,
because there was nowhere else for us to go.
Mark was stationed in the marines in Pearl Harbor.
He was very charming, very charismatic,
and we were just having lots of fun.
He had asked for my phone number.
Would you like to dance?
DIANNE: We were together quite a bit.
He was always generous to me.
Mark was very kind and loving.
Um, he was wonderful.
Mark and I were seeing each other for almost
a year, and then he got stationed in
Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
We didn't know what to do.
I did say to him, "I feel like I'm falling in love with you."
And he acknowledged the same feeling.
We remained boyfriend and girlfriend.
It was a long-distance relationship.
I missed Mark so much.
It was very lonely at times.
I felt so deeply invested in Mark at that time,
because I really believed I was in love with him.
I thought, at that age,
I knew what love was,
but I really didn't.
A few years after he went to North Carolina,
the phone rang.
[phone ringing]
Hello?
And when Mark came on the phone, he said,
"I'm in prison."
And I said, "What do you mean, you're in prison?"
Oh, my God.
I said, "What did you do?"
And he said, "Well, they're saying I committed rape."
And he goes, "But I didn't do it, Dianne."
He said, "I'm being framed."
So what happened?
He had told me that this woman was pushed into a McDonald's
bathroom, and she was physically attacked,
and I'm listening to the story,
and I said, "Did you do this?"
And he said, "No."
And he was -- he actually was crying on
the phone and said, "I did not do this, Dianne.
I was nowhere near that area on that day."
When I heard him crying,
I knew in my heart, there's just no way that Mark did this.
He had never shown any signs of anger.
Um, he never raised a hand to me.
That's why it was really difficult for me
to believe that he did such a thing.
Oh, Mark.
But this was before the internet came
into existence.
So I didn't know Mark did not have a good alibi for this.
And then this woman who was attacked,
she was able to describe him to the T.
But I had no knowledge of any of this whatsoever.
I can't remember the sentence that he got.
But I remember him just telling me that he loved me,
and when he got out,
he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.
AS MARK: You believe me --
I mean, that I'm innocent?
Of course I believe you.
DIANNE: I remember saying to him,
I will wait for you till you get out of prison,
and then we can start our lives together.
Because I came from such a dysfunctional family,
I think I wanted so much for someone to love me
for who I was.
Good night.
Looking back, I really wish I had never said that to him.
While Mark was in prison,
our relationship was going on through phone
and via letters for approximately 8 to 10 years.
And Mark convinced me that he was wrongly convicted.
When Mark proposed to me, he proposed over the phone.
I wasn't sure if I should do this,
but I was really afraid that if I didn't marry Mark,
I would never get married.
I had dated other men while he was in prison,
but I've always had this feeling
that nobody ever would want me.
[knocking noises]
Yes?
So when Mark asked me to marry him,
I thought, well, nobody's asking me, so I
might as well grab it while I can.
MAN: They're ready for you.
At that point, I was still believing that he was
very innocent.
MAN: Welcome, loved ones.
We are gathered here today...
I left Hawaii to move to North Carolina,
where I didn't know anybody.
MAN: Mark, do you promise to cherish...
DIANNE: It was strange to be married in a prison.
The prison guards were off to the side.
It was not at all
something that I imagined when I was growing up.
MAN: And Dianne, do you promise to cherish...
But to me, it was a happy day.
I was excited.
He seemed really, really happy.
It seemed genuine.
This was a man who seemed to really love me.
MAN: I now pronounce you husband and wife.
[scattered applause]
But when I look back at it now, I do believe
that Mark was using me to look good to the parole board.
[applause]
It was about 2 to 2 and a half years after Mark and I
were married, I went to go visit him.
We were just sitting at this picnic table, and he said,
"I have something to tell you."
I said, "Okay."
What is it?
And he said, "Diane, I committed the crime."
And I remember looking down and thinking,
I don't think I heard that right.
And I said to him, "What -- what did you say?"
Mark said, "I committed the rape."
And I just remember looking at him really dumbfounded.
I know I must have had a look of shock on my face.
That's not what you said before.
I know. I lied to you.
DIANNE: I remember asking him, why are you telling me now?
He said, "Because last night," he said, "I was reading
the word of God, the Bible," and he said,
"I just decided to pray, and I felt like God was saying, 'You
got to tell her the truth.'"
I was in such a state of shock. All this time,
I've always believed he was innocent.
I asked him, I said, "Why did you do this?"
And he said to me, "I don't know."
He said, "I just saw her,
and before I knew it, I had her in the bathroom on the floor."
And he acted like he just didn't know why he did it.
And I said to Mark,
is this the only time you have ever done this?
And he said, "Yes."
He did have tears in his eyes.
He said he was really sorry he lied to me,
but he said he was afraid if he told me
the truth that I would never want anything to do with him.
I never meant to lie to you.
I said, "Did you ask God to forgive you?"
He said, "Yes, I did."
So I looked at him, and I said,
"If God is willing to forgive you,
who am I to not forgive you?"
But it didn't mean that I wasn't angry.
I started questioning everything.
I kept saying you are so stupid, Dianne.
You are so naive that you believed him
all these years.
But I really didn't know what to do,
and I didn't know where to go.
Are we okay?
DIANNE: I didn't have any money.
There was no way I could pack up
and move back to Hawaii -- I just didn't have the finances.
I married this man, and I believed in my heart
when you marry someone, it's for better or for worse.
I love you.
DIANNE: So this is the worst part of it.
Mark and I were married for three years
before he got out of prison,
and then I got pregnant with our daughter.
Mark did seem like a good dad at first.
He was excited to be out again.
He was excited to see his daughter and hold her.
But within a year of getting out,
Mark started coming home really late.
Then, all of a sudden,
he wasn't coming home until the next day.
He would come home after being out all night long.
Mark?
And he would just go right to the bathroom, and you
could hear he was taking a shower, and then he would come
out and sit in the dining room and have some coffee.
Where have you been?
Don't worry about it.
I am worried.
DIANNE: I didn't think it was normal for your husband to stay
out all night and not come home till the next day.
So I felt I had a right to say, "Where were you?"
You can't just stay out all night
and not tell me where you're going.
DIANNE: He did not like me asking those kind of questions.
Who do you think you are, my warden?
His attitude was like, I'm just supposed to accept
what he does, and I'm not supposed to question it.
All he kept saying was he was hanging
out with a guy that he met in prison.
I couldn't help but wonder if
he was involved with another woman.
Please don't lie to me, Mark. Not again.
DIANNE: He would just yell at me
and say that I don't trust him.
Are you kidding me with this, Dianne?
I knew I never should have told you what happened.
Mark, please!
But I never thought he would be out hurting
women or stalking women, because I really thought
he was very sincere in saying he would never do it again.
I thought you said you forgave me, or did you not mean it?
No, I meant it.
I'm sorry -- I didn't mean to make you upset.
Everything I had done and everything
I had believed in in him was wrong.
It was hard for Mark to find a job when he got out
because of his record, and we started going into
a lot of debt because of it.
Where are you going?
We're not done talking about this.
It put a big strain on our relationship, because the bills
weren't getting paid the way they should have
and we had a really bad argument.
So now this is my fault?
No, but I can't be the only one supporting this house.
DIANNE: And he did -- he stormed out,
and so I locked the door, and I even put a chain
up on the door.
So I thought he was gone.
And that night, I said my prayers
and everything, and I went to bed.
I must have been in a really deep sleep, and I
remember moving in my bed, and I felt something on my back.
My eyes opened up real fast,
and I jumped out of the bed,
and there he is.
[quietly] Mark?
I just said, "What the hell are you doing here?"
How did you get in here?
DIANNE: I locked the door, I put the chain up,
and he looked at me, and he -- all of a sudden,
he's laying there, and he smiled, and he goes,
"You know, that's just one of the things you learn
"in prison.
"You learn how to make all kinds
of homemade tools to break into people's homes."
He said, "You could have 10 million locks on your door,
but anybody could break into any home
if they are determined to do it."
He was grinning like, you know, he was really evil.
It was just really very uncomfortable.
That's when I started getting scared.
Oh, come on Dianne, what's wrong?
DIANNE: I was like, who is this person?
I just got my pillow, and I got
another blanket, and he said, "Where are you going?"
I said, "I'm going into my daughter's room."
And I closed the door, and I said, "Don't come in,"
and he just -- I guess he rolled over and went back to sleep.
I was praying like crazy
that he wasn't breaking into people's homes.
But I knew I couldn't ask him, because I knew
by that time, he wasn't gonna tell me the truth.
Mark had been out all night,
and it must have been around 10 in the morning.
So I was in the kitchen, and I had just
made a pot of coffee, and he comes in.
Morning.
DIANNE: And he said something to me, and I didn't respond.
I said morning, Dianne.
DIANNE: I just didn't want to talk to him anymore that day,
because I was so tired of him doing this.
When I didn't respond,
that's when he got angry.
He said, "Oh, so now you're gonna give me
the silent treatment because I've been out all night."
I said, "No, I just don't feel like talking to you."
And he had a cup of coffee,
and he picked it up, and I just watched him.
He flung it at the wall.
And the coffee cup, of course, shattered.
There was coffee all over the wall, and he said,
"Now pick this up and clean this effin mess."
And he said, "Because if you don't, I promise you,
I will kill you."
And he walked out into the yard to work on the car.
I just stood there for a while, just staring at it.
It was the first time he threatened to kill me.
I believed his threat.
It was the way he said it to me.
There was almost no soul there.
After I cleaned it up and everything,
he walked in, he went to the kitchen,
he looked towards the wall.
It was all cleaned up.
He didn't say a word to me.
He just got some more coffee in another cup,
and he turned around, and he walked out.
I kept thinking in the back of my mind,
this is not the person I met in Hawaii.
This is not the way a marriage is supposed to be.
But I didn't tell anybody.
How do you sit down and tell somebody that your husband is
threatening to kill you?
It's really hard.
[interviewer speaking]
DIANNE: I was traveling for three weeks,
and Mark picked me up at the airport
and gave me a kiss and said, "Welcome home."
And I opened the passenger door, and there
was a pair of white pantyhose laid out.
And there were some bikini underwear from a female,
and I just stood there.
I didn't even get into the car.
I felt paralyzed.
I felt like I couldn't move, and the car
door is open, and I just couldn't get in.
Oh. [laughs]
DIANNE: When Mark opened the door and realized what
I was staring at in disbelief, right away,
he said, "Oh, you caught me."
He said, "This was supposed to be a surprise for you,
but I didn't get to put it in a gift bag."
-I, uh, forgot to wrap it up. -Stop it.
I knew in my heart as soon as he said it, that was not true.
I know you're lying to me.
I said I don't believe that you got these from me.
I just believe that you were caught with them.
And he changed his tone of voice and said,
"That's because you never believe me."
Just get in.
He said, "Don't you want to take them?"
And I said, "No, I don't want anything to do with them."
And he gathered it up really quickly
and threw it in the glove compartment.
And that was the end of that conversation.
I remember feeling really nauseous
and thinking, what has he been doing?
My first thought was, "Oh, dear God,
please don't let him have hurt somebody."
I could never call the police, because
I couldn't prove he was doing anything.
And he had threatened to kill me a number of times.
So I told an elder of the church this.
I said, "I don't know what to do or where to go."
And he said, "You're gonna stay put,
and you're going to stand by his side."
I know this is not what you want to hear,
but you need to see this through.
No, you don't understand what he's like.
DIANNE: "You're not gonna tell his parole officer, because we
do not want Mark to go back to prison."
He said, "Because this church isn't gonna help you
if he goes back to prison."
You're on your own.
DIANNE: And he turned around, and he walked away,
and I -- I was left standing there,
dumbfounded that this pastor said this.
I really felt betrayed,
because this is supposed to be
a godly man whom I look for counseling.
And I remember looking down at the ground saying,
"Oh, dear God,
if he's not gonna help me, who's gonna help me?"
I just didn't know what to do.
DIANNE: His behavior definitely was
becoming unpredictable and getting worse.
I could see the darkness growing inside of him
little by little -- I was finding myself
more afraid of him.
One day, Mark answers the door, and there's a sheriff there.
He said, "I have a summons for you to go to small claims
courts, because to check on your rent bounced."
I'm just in a state of shock.
I said, "Thank you," and he left,
I got my check register out.
We're supposed to have $130 in our account.
It was minus over 200.
Mark is standing there.
He's not saying a word. I said to him,
"Did you take any money out of the ATM machine?"
And then he got very defensive with me and said,
"I have a right to go to a bar
after I work hard and get a Bloody Mary."
I said, "You need to get on the phone with your mother,
"and you really should
"tell your mother that you need some money, and you need to tell
your mother why."
He got so angry.
He was swearing, and he just yanked this antenna off the TV.
Mark, what are you doing?
And he came at me, and he kept
whacking me on the head with the antenna.
I was yelling, "Stop it, stop it, you're hurting me!"
And then he said, "F.U."
And he tossed the antenna.
And I just got on my knees near the bed,
and I was crying, and I was begging God to please help him.
Dear Lord...
Please help our marriage.
Please help him to see what he's doing is wrong.
The next thing I knew, he sat on the corner
of the bed, and he said, "Dianne, I'm really sorry."
I don't know what came over me.
He said. "There's a part of me that really wants
"to do good and be a wonderful husband to you.
But there's another part of me that this evil takes over."
And he said, "And I just let it take over."
I keep trying to fight it, but I can't.
He said that, "There's an evil in me, then
"it chooses to come out, and I let it.
It seems to control me."
He really had genuine tears, and I believed
he was really speaking the truth from his heart.
I took his hand, and I said, "Let's work on this together."
And he goes, "Okay."
He said, "I'll try to do better."
And I think for a little while, he did, but it just --
this evil in him just kept overpowering him.
We had the TV on, and then all
of a sudden, there's a knocking on the door.
Mark gets up to go answer the door,
and two sheriffs come in the door,
and I'm sitting there just stunned, like, oh, dear God.
Now what? They said,
"We have a warrant for your arrest."
And so I said, "For what?" They said, "Peeping."
I just looked at Mark, and Mark just looked at the sheriff.
He wouldn't look at me -- they put Mark in handcuffs,
and he just was silent.
He didn't argue, he didn't try to defend himself, nothing.
The very next day, I saw him in the jail,
and that's when the anger in me came out.
What is wrong with you?
And I said to him, "Is this true?
Did you do this?"
And he said yes, he admitted it, and I said,
"You owe this woman an apology.
What in heaven's name is wrong with you?"
And he just looked at me, he says,
"Yeah, I'm not gonna be apologizing to her."
I wanted -- literally wanted to put my hands through the bars
and -- and just
pull his hair and beat his head against the bars,
because I was so frustrated.
That's when I started really seeing that Mark is gonna do
what Mark wants to do,
and it didn't matter who he hurt in the process.
So I just said, "Okay, well you can sit here, I'm leaving."
And I turned around and walked out of the jail.
I heard through the grapevine that
he was stalking a young girl.
So I went to the parole officer, and I sat down,
and I said to him,
"Please tell me exactly what's going on."
And he said, "Dianne, he terrorized this girl."
He said apparently he was standing behind this girl in
the grocery store, and she had
to pull her license out to write a check or something.
And he noticed where she's staying at this place,
this apartment complex.
He was following her everywhere.
Every time she drove in her car, he was right behind her.
This young girl was absolutely terrified, and she finally
called the police and reported it, and I felt like this chair,
the seat in the chair, just kept sinking deeper and deeper
into this pit, and I couldn't get out of it.
I just wanted to run and keep running and not stop,
because I kept thinking, if they don't do something with him,
this is gonna keep being more, but it just got worse
and worse -- it did get worse.
MAN: Mark?
Mark had to face a judge in court
about the peeping and the stalking.
The prosecuting attorney,
He said, "Your honor, we need to throw this man in prison
"and throw away the key, because he's not gonna stop
doing what he does."
But his defense attorney wanted to have Mark go to
an inpatient hospital slash therapy unit,
um, to get some treatment.
The judge agreed to do this.
So I thought, okay, this will be good.
Hopefully, he'll get help.
When he got out, we went to church the first Sunday.
The pastor welcomed him back in front of
the whole congregation.
[speaking indistinctly]
And he stood up and talked, and he said, you know,
"I just want to let you know, I'm a new man.
"I'm just a new man.
And I rededicated my life to Christ."
He had a really charismatic attitude, and he could sell
the shirt off his back to you,
that's how good he was at doing it.
And I'm watching him,
and I'm thinking to myself, "Oh, brother."
So after church was done, I said to him,
"This is a real joke to you isn't it?"
Is this fun for you?
What are you talking about?
Aren't you worried they'll find out the truth about you?
DIANNE: When he looked at me,
and he had such an evil expression on his face,
I can't even begin to describe it.
And how exactly would they find that out, Dianne?
He says, "Well, whatever they don't know
isn't gonna hurt them."
So I knew right then and there I was
truly living with a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
There was a part of me that didn't want to leave,
because then it would be easier for him to do
all that he wanted to do.
I felt responsible as his wife to watch out,
so hopefully that he wouldn't go and hurt another person.
He got a job at the Sheraton Hotel,
and he was real excited about it.
I became nervous right away, because he had
access to the keys in the hotel rooms.
And then one night, I was looking for something,
and I opened the trunk of the car,
and here was this sock.
I thought, what is this?
So I picked it up and I realized immediately by holding it,
there was a big bulge on the bottom of it,
and then I opened it up,
and lo and behold,
there's all the keys to the Sheraton Hotel.
And I thought, dear God in heaven,
that's exactly what I was afraid of.
I was just absolutely petrified
and thought my instinct was correct.
I really believe he took those keys
so he can go into the room.
If he knew a female was in that hotel room,
then he can go in there,
lock the door, and do whatever unspeakable things to her.
I didn't confront Mark about this,
and I didn't go to the police department about it
or tell anybody else about it, because he had threatened to
kill me so many times.
So I was constantly living in fear with him.
That's why I just threw them away in a really big dumpster.
But it turned out he did get
fired exactly from what I was worried about.
Mark got fired, because the hotel
found him sneaking into a room.
Another argument we had was about our finances.
He took more money out of the account, and I just
told him, "Okay, you're gonna fix this."
I was so done with his behavior.
Then I just turned around and started
walking towards our bedroom,
Wasting it on God knows what -- you're the reason
we're in debt, so you fix it. [gasps]
And he grabbed me by the shoulder and flung me around
and hit me up against the wall,
and he just put his hands on my neck, and he just
kept squeezing and squeezing,
and I realized I was in trouble.
I had both my hands on his hands pleading,
"Stop, stop, please, please!"
I couldn't say anything else, because he's --
it was getting tighter and tighter.
I mean, I couldn't even breathe.
He looked really scary.
It was like
looking into somebody's eyes that had no soul.
He just was gone.
I've heard it said before,
if you've ever looked in the eyes of a murderer,
there is no soul.
And I never really understood that.
And that one night, that's exactly what I saw.
I kept looking at his eyes, and there was nothing there,
and I honestly could say I understand what that means now.
He just looked at me, and he just let go, and I slid down,
and he said, "Dianne, if you contact my parole officer,"
he said, "I guarantee you, I'll kill you."
And then he turned around and he went outside.
[whimpering]
That was the night that I
finally realized I can't do this anymore.
I knew I had to do something to get out of there.
There was a couple that was a part of our Bible study for
years, and the husband and the wife told me both,
they said if you have any problems with him, the wife
said, "Call me immediately."
So the next day, I called her, and I told her what happened,
and she said, "Dianne,
I will be over there as soon as I get off of work."
We made sure he wasn't there, and we boxed a few things.
I left him a note, and I said, "We're done."
I was 37 when I moved to Minnesota.
I came here in February of 1990.
I filed for the divorce in October,
and it was finalized in December.
The divorce cost $35, and it
was the best investment I've ever made.
Once the divorce was finalized,
we never had any communications at all.
I was flipping through YouTube,
and then I -- I flipped through this picture, and I thought,
that looked just like Mark, and I thought it couldn't be.
And then something told me to go back to it.
And I looked at it, and I thought, oh, my God, it's him.
So I clicked on it, and that's how I found out.
We've got a minimum
of 11 victims with your DNA,
ranging from 11 years old to 52 years old.
A part of me was really shocked
that he was listed as the Clearfield Rapist,
and I was totally shocked when I heard
that he admitted to murdering three different people.
[interviewer speaking]
I'm listening to this, and my eyes are as
big as saucers, and my mouth just dropped open,
and I just, I kept gasping for breath and thinking,
oh, dear God.
[interviewer speaking]
There was a part of me that just kept saying,
how could you ever be married to this evil, evil monster?
And then there was a part of me who wanted to see
these women and put my arms around them and just say,
"I'm so sorry."
I feel like I have waited years to hear him
try to explain why he does what he does.
When we were together,
he never mentioned anything like this to me.
When I asked him, "Why do you do this?"
He never said anything.
He just shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't know.
I just don't know."
So now years later, he's saying it's a hunger.
It's a drive. It satisfies me.
I don't understand how anybody could
be satisfied with destroying human life.
DIANNE: There's no sincere remorse in him.
I want so much to see some flicker of hope in him,
some light in there, in his eyes.
But I think that flicker has just fizzled out.
Do I want to forgive him?
There's a part of me that says, no,
I don't want to, because he hurt and destroyed
too many lives.
But there's another part of me that says,
I'm not gonna let this monster define who I am.
So I have to choose to forgive him sincerely.
Why didn't I see this evil Mark
in Hawaii when we were dating?
I just kept asking myself that question, why didn't I see
some of these signs?
I had carried so much guilt for so long.
I should have gone to the police,
but I really believed he was gonna kill me, and for a long
time, I just kept seeing myself as the victim.
And then one day, I don't know,
I woke up, and I said, Dianne, you're not a victim.
You are a survivor.
Now, years later, I have made peace.
But I keep going back to that one statement
he said to me years ago,
there's a part of me that wants to do really good.
But there's another part of me that wants to do evil.
That's the thing I think about all the time.
Evil took over him.
But he allowed it to take over him.
There's a new show called America's Most Wanted.
She said, "There's a man on there,
and he looks like your husband."
I was more terrified than I'd ever been
because now I knew this man was a murderer.