A Michigan man who used the dating app Grindr to lure a 25-year-old victim to his home, where he murdered him, hung his body in the basement, and ate parts of his remains, has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Mark Latunski, 53, of Bennington Township, was sentenced for the premeditated murder of Kevin Bacon, whom he met on Grindr in December 2019. The judge called it a "crime of cold calculation."
Grisly Details
Latunski admitted to severing and eating part of Bacon's genitalia and had discussed buying a dehydrator to turn the victim's muscles into jerky, according to Shiawassee County prosecutor Scott Koerner, as reported by Mlive.com.
Bacon was last seen on Christmas Eve when he told a housemate he was meeting someone from Grindr. His family reported him missing on Christmas Day.
Investigation and Guilty Plea
Michigan State Police Det. Sgt. James Moore, who led the investigation, said the murder scene was the most harrowing sight of his career. "I had not seen anybody in person located in that manner that Kevin was found," Moore said. "So it was definitely not something that I normally would respond to."
Latunski pleaded guilty to open murder in 2020. His defense lawyer, Mary Chartier, argued he had not planned the killing and did not understand the gravity of his crime. "He did not measure the consequences at all," she said.
Sentencing
Shiawassee County Judge Matthew Stewart ruled it was premeditated first-degree murder, imposing a life sentence without parole in 2022, plus a concurrent 11-month sentence for disinterment and mutilation of a dead body. Prosecutor Koerner described the case as historic, marking the first open murder guilty plea in the county.
