(tense music)
- [Narrator] Every suspect accused of a crime
has the right to remain silent.
Many agree to be interrogated anyway,
but they can stop the interview at any moment,
making it a race against time.
(dramatic music)
Justice hangs in the balance.
(tense music)
- On Christmas day, 2019,
the Metro Police Department were contacted,
pertaining to a missing person, Kevin Bacon.
Kevin Bacon was 25 years old.
His parents report him missing
because he had not shown up for a Christmas brunch,
and they indicated that this was very out of character.
(car whooshing)
His parents said that, well, Kevin's roommate had told them
that Kevin was last seen leaving his residence
the day before at approximately 5:22.
(tense music)
And she had said that Kevin sent her a text
at about 6:12 PM stating that he was gonna be out late.
He had met a person on a dating app
and he was going to meet up with that person
to have some fun.
But now he was nowhere to be found.
(tense music)
- I knew something was wrong
because no one could get ahold of him.
I just remember that whole day calling his phone
and hoping that there was going to be an answer.
And unfortunately, there never was.
(tense music)
- So after Kevin's parents contacted the police,
they began their own search.
They drove around the area
and they discovered Kevin's vehicle in a parking lot.
Police are notified and they respond.
- What was odd is that everything
that Kevin was known to have been wearing
when his roommate had last seen him was in the car.
His cell phone was in the car, his wallet, keys.
Everything except for Kevin.
- At that point, we're thinking that this is highly unusual.
Why are Kevin's clothes in the vehicle?
- Did he disappear willingly or is there foul play?
We didn't have enough to know if a crime had been committed.
(tense music)
(cars whooshing)
- Something I always admired about Kevin
is he was never afraid to express himself.
He was not afraid to be this big, bald man
with a pink polo and a purse and his nails done.
- Kevin was just one of
my truest, closest friends that I ever had.
He was just very vibrant
and he always had an opinion about everything.
- When I first met Kevin, his major was psychology.
He would spread awareness about important topics
like the LGBTQ community and sexual violence prevention.
His passion was helping people.
(tense music)
(clock ticking)
- So Kevin's phone was handed over
to the Michigan State Police Computer Crimes Lab,
and on the phone they found a chat log
from a mobile dating app.
- [Joshua] There was one person in particular
that Kevin had been communicating with.
- They were looking to have a date
and have a consensual sexual encounter.
(tense music) (messages beeping)
- There was banter back and forth
about where they were going to meet,
and it did suggest that he was going to pick Kevin up
and transport him back to his home.
(tense music) (messages beeping)
- And they were able to identify
that it was a resident in Michigan, Mark Latunski.
We learned he was a 50-year-old divorced male.
He was known to run different online sex forums,
almost like a male escort type scenario.
(tense music)
(traffic whooshing)
(ominous music)
- Mark Latunski had invited men over to his residence
in October and November.
Each of them dialed 911,
claiming that they were in some sort of state of panic.
(tense music)
- [Joshua] The state police had gone out
and investigated those incidents
and they both had similar stories.
- Police learned that the men were there
for consensual sexual encounters and role playing,
but it became a little too intense at that time,
causing the men to flee his residence.
Once law enforcement contacted them,
those men decided that they didn't wanna pursue charges.
- At this point, Mark Latunski was a person of interest.
Definitely a lotta red flags were there.
We needed to go out and talk to Mark Latunski
at the house to see
what kind of information he would be willing to give.
(tense music)
- I remember there being some lights on.
We just made a silent approach.
We knocked.
Mark Latunski answered
and we'd explained to him we were investigating
a missing persons complaint with Kevin Bacon.
Asked consent to search the house
and Mark Latunski granted it.
(tense music)
Me and one of the other officers remained with Mr. Latunski,
just conversating with him
while they were searching the home.
Mark appeared very calm and collected,
not nervous whatsoever.
His Christmas tree was still up, we were talking about that.
- The troopers searched the upstairs of the residence.
They didn't find anybody there.
Then they went downstairs into the basement.
- And I just hear my partner exclaim, "Oh my God.
Oh my God."
I make my way to the top of the stairwell
while Latunski was still with the other officer.
And I see my partner.
Just absolutely, all the life looked like
it had been sucked out of my partner.
He was just as white as a ghost.
And he told me, "Lock him up."
(intense music)
I didn't ask any questions.
I went and immediately placed him in handcuffs
and he exhaled deeply and said, "You're making a mistake."
And that was all.
(tense music) (police radio chatter)
- [Jim] When I arrived on scene,
we were taken to a secluded room on the north side of the house.
The room had a sliding barn door
that only locked from the outside.
So if the searching officers were not really thorough,
it very easily could have been missed.
- And I remember thinking to myself,
what in the world are we looking at?
- [Jim] The body was found at the far end of that room.
He was nude and he was hanging from his feet
by the ceiling of the basement.
(tense music)
There was a trap door that had been opened,
exposing sand and dirt,
and there was a dried pool of blood directly below the body.
- [Joshua] He had been hanging there for a while,
but initially, we couldn't see the injuries that he had.
(tense music)
- The victim had lots of tattoos on his body,
so we'd matched the tattoos and hair
to the missing person flyer.
And that was how they identified Kevin.
- It was just completely evil.
I mean, who could have done that to somebody?
(Mark chuckles)
- I was tasked just to watch over him for the time being
and listen if he decides to talk on his own,
make any unsolicited statements to me.
- It was just bizarre, because
he didn't act like someone that had just killed somebody.
I thought, maybe it wasn't Mark Latunski.
Maybe someone else killed Kevin.
- Kevin was very outgoing.
He always said what he felt.
If you wanted to ask if your hair looked good that day,
he would tell you yes or no
and you would know it would be honest.
And I love that.
Every week he would come over
and we would all watch "RuPaul's Drag Race" together.
And we actually went to a drag pageant together once too.
That was so much fun.
He was really good about supporting local LGBTQ efforts.
(melancholy music)
(tense music)
- The stakes are,
this is a highly unusual crime scene.
I have no idea what happened.
Time is ticking.
I don't know if Mark is gonna want to continue to wait
and be cooperative if I make him wait too long.
- We don't know if it was premeditated,
if it was a sexual encounter gone wrong,
whether it was heat of passion.
Was there anybody else involved?
(car revving)
- It was just an odd scene, odd situation.
He was comfortable, he was casual.
He didn't act like a dead body was found in his house.
(tense music)
(doors thudding)
(Mark laughing)
(officers chattering)
(tense music)
- So the strategy was to just get him talking,
but I remember thinking, we can't even get his name out.
How are we gonna get the story of what happened to Kevin?
- He was trying to direct the interview.
So I sat back, I gave him control of the room.
I wanted him to trust me.
I didn't want him to shut down.
He briefly glanced at me,
I think almost in a surprised fashion.
I feel calling him by Olykos, which was a vanity name,
was showing him respect,
is gaining his trust in me.
And I'm trying to maximize that.
- So at that point, I felt I had earned enough trust
and that was the perfect segue for me to discuss Kevin Bacon.
- He said that Kevin decided to wear all of those items
from the parking lot to Mark's residence.
And that Kevin's clothes were left in the vehicle.
(tense music)
(melancholy music)
- I felt a lot of pressure.
Kevin's dead. He's got a family.
They're gonna want answers.
I don't have them at all.
I just broadly asked him, who was the man in the basement?
And left it open-ended
and let him kinda direct his thought process.
- He was framing the agreement as Kevin wanted to die,
that it was an assisted suicide.
(ominous music)
They had conversations about how he could die
and what would happen after he died.
- I felt, you know, he's murdered this person
and now he's certainly distancing himself.
(eerie music)
(tense music)
- For Mark to just openly say,
"I plunged the knife into his spine," on his own,
that was huge.
- We're gonna get justice for Kevin and his family.
And as horrible as this is,
maybe that'll help give them a little bit of closure.
Looking back, that probably was a terrible excuse.
But I had to get outta there.
When I called the detective on scene
and explained to him the description of the knife,
there was a little bit of a waiting period
as they walked up the stairs to the bedroom.
And, sure enough, the detectives found that knife.
You could still see it had some dried blood on it.
And it was a sense of relief
'cause now we've got the murder weapon.
So you're talking to someone that's done a horrific thing.
But I was trying to play into what he thought was good
and honorable and normal.
And it seemed to work.
He seemed a little bit more at ease with us.
(intense music)
(melancholy music)
- Kevin decided to enroll in beauty school.
And that was a big deal
because he was already going to college.
We definitely did fry my hair off one time,
but I think we've all been there and made that mistake.
(laughs)
- Doing hair definitely was a great creative outlet for him.
We would actually come to my house and do my hair.
And I remember having conversations
about what he wanted to do beyond graduation.
I think he was really considering a different scenery,
landscape, a bigger city.
I know that he had visited one
of our mutual friends in Chicago.
They went out to a bunch of places
that were LGBTQ friendly and he really, really loved it.
So he came back really wanting to move to Chicago
after that particular visit.
(tense music)
- Definitely wasn't prepared for that.
Fortunately, I was able to keep my composure
for the most part.
But I think that my stomach was turning
right about that time.
(tense music)
- After Mark had provided us all of the graphic details
of what he did to Kevin,
it kinda dawned on me
that this may not be Mark's only victim that he killed.
And the fact that he was able to show no remorse, you know,
try to justify it, that it was honorable.
To me, he's one of the most dangerous people
I've ever come in contact with.
And once he's in jail,
I probably won't get to speak to him ever again.
So I wanted to make sure then, that I switched tactics
and try to figure out if Kevin was his only victim.
(tense music)
- There came a point in time and I needed to confront him.
I was aware of the two other men that had fled his house.
Now I have to start putting my cards on the table.
I know more than you think I do.
- He wasn't aggressive. He wasn't demeaning.
I actually believed him, to an extent.
I feel like his reaction
would've been different had there been other victims.
At that point, I have nothing left to speak about with Mark.
I felt that I had everything that I could give
to the prosecutor pertaining
to his interview and interrogation.
So I ended the interview.
- Initially, he was charged with open murder,
which allows the jury to decide which degree of murder.
We believed that it definitely was premeditated.
This definitely was part
of an elaborate plan to become a cannibal.
- He was disappointed that he wasn't going home.
He thought he would be exonerated.
How can a human do this to another human
and not have a ounce of regret or remorse?
(tense music)
- After the interview with Mark
and still having the lingering questions of,
are there other victims of Mark,
I then reached out to the FBI.
(tense music)
The FBI didn't think he had killed before,
but potentially had the capacity
to have had other victims if he was not caught.
- We're extremely fortunate.
He got the taste of death.
And had he gone undetected,
we probably would've been looking at a serial killer.
(wind whooshing) (melancholy music)
- This is one of the most brutal,
horrific murders I've seen,
not only in this county, but in the state.
(tense music)
- At that time, Kevin was turning his life around.
He'd made plans. - He was happy.
- He had some future plans.
- [Reporter] Bacon's family says their prayers were answered
with the first-degree murder charge.
As for their son's tragic death,
it is something they struggle to live with every day.
- [Karl] I think about him every day.
- [Pamela] We both do.
- [Karl] And yeah, he's always in my thoughts.
(melancholy music)
- [Joshua] Mark was under the impression
that he could convince us
that what he did was what Kevin wanted.
But yet we had learned from the text messages,
Kevin didn't wanna die.
Kevin by no means wanted this to happen.
- I think it was justice for Kevin
and my heart goes out to the family.
They can never get their son back,
but at least we know that Mr. Latunski
will never be out on the streets again.
- As someone who works with survivors of sexual violence,
I think it's really important that we never victim blame.
It was not Kevin's fault that this happened.
We can do everything right and protect ourselves
in the best ways possible, but at the end of the day,
it is the perpetrator who caused that to happen.
- Still to this day, it's hard.
Sometimes I feel like it's not real.
And I just want everyone to think of rainbows
when they think about Kevin,
because that's what he was.
(melancholy music)