911 Calls: Two Men Fled Accused Cannibal’s Basement Weeks Before Alleged Murder
CLOSE CALLS
The home of accused cannibal killer Mark Latunski was the subject of two frantic 911 calls just months before he allegedly butchered his 25-year-old Grindr date in his Michigan basement and ate some of his body parts. In 911 calls to the Shiawassee County Dispatch that were obtained by the Flint Journal-MLive, one man can be heard pleading for help in late November 2019 after he said he escaped a “creepy guy” who had him “chained up in his basement.” While the caller walked along a road trying to find an address to give dispatchers, he said the man he’d fled was “after him,” though police later said they believed the homeowner pursued him because he’d left the home wearing an expensive leather kilt.
Just over a month before that incident, another man called 911 in distress after he said he woke up in somebody’s basement. “I don’t know if he drugged me,” he said, referring to a man he said hit on him at a bus station. “I woke up in the... basement. Chained in the basement.” The man said he’d managed to escape by using a butcher knife to cut through the leather strap connecting him to a chain. Michigan State Police Lt. David Kaiser said no charges were pressed in either incident because “nobody wanted to file charges,” according to MLive. “Nobody said anything illegal happened. If you don’t have a victim, nothing illegal happened,” Kaiser was quoted as saying. It was about a month after the second incident that authorities say Latunski stabbed University of Michigan-Flint student Kevin Bacon in the back before mutilating his body and hanging him up from his ankles.