CORUNNA, MI – The director of evaluation services at the Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Saline told a Shiawassee County judge Wednesday, May 11, that the man accused of killing and dismembering 25-year-old Kevin Bacon in late 2019 understands the charges he’s facing and the meaning of proceeding to trial.
Dr. Jay Witherell testified during a hearing held to determine the competency of Mark Latunski, who is charged with open murder and mutilation of a body in connection with the December 2019 murder of Bacon.
After 15 minutes of testimony that included questions from Shiawassee County Prosecutor Scott Koerner and Latunski’s attorney, Mary Chartier, and during which Witherell said he believed Latunski was competent to stand trial, 35th Circuit Court Judge Matthew J. Stewart ruled that Latunski was competent to stand trial.
“We discussed his current charges, and he matched the possible penalties for those charges, and how those penalties are related to how they’re going to move forward with this case,” Witherell said.
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Latunski is charged with open murder and mutilation of a body.
Open murder contains both first- and second-degree murder.
If convicted, Latunski could face life in prison.
Latunski, of Bennington Township, has been in custody since December 2019.
Sitting alone, motionless in a chair, Latunski appeared in court Wednesday via Zoom from the Center for Forensic Psychiatry.
He was dressed in dark attire, with a greying beard protruding from beneath a light-colored face mask. He did not speak during the hearing, aside from telling Stewart prior to going on the record that he could indeed hear the judge.
On Dec. 28, 2019, police found Bacon hung from his ankles. He had been stabbed, his throat cut and parts of him were eaten, according to prior reporting by MLive, which cited police who searched Latunski’s West Tyrrell Road home.
In competency evaluations, a defendant is interviewed by doctors at the center who then issue a report as to whether the defendant is mentally competent to stand trial.
Judges typically rely on those reports when they issue their rulings regarding competency.
Latunski shortly after being charged was found incompetent to stand trial. That evaluation had also been performed by Witherell.
However, in October 2020 that status was changed when another doctor indicated that Latunski had been restored to competency and Shiawassee County District Court Judge Ward Clarkson ruled that Latunski was fit to stand trial.
Chartier argued previously that the latest evaluation was necessary because Latunski’s status has deteriorated in recent communications.
“Mr. Latunski has made some concerning comments to both myself and to Mr. Krauss, who is co-counsel on the case, which we both believe indicates that he is not competent for trial, at least in our opinion,” Chartier told Stewart during a March court hearing. “He does understand, to some degree, what a judge does, what a prosecutor does, what his lawyer does, those sorts of things, but his viewpoint on the legal proceedings is impacting his ability to assist us in his defense.
“Given the looming trial date, I have real concerns about Mr. Latunski’s competency at this time.”
During the most recent evaluation, Witherell said Latunski was much less fixated on beliefs he had when he was initially charged.
Some of those ideas, like that he was someone other than Mark Latunski, or that his parents were not actually his parents, were easier to give up, the doctor said.
“He was much less preoccupied with misbeliefs (and) was able to engage in a give and take conversation with me, and then sustain that for a longer period of time discussing his options,” Witherell said.
The doctor also testified that Latunski was able to ascertain the difference between pleading guilty and pleading not guilty, as well as other options available to him during the court process.
A trial date in the case remains pending, although Stewart said the earliest it would take place would be in the fall, possibly in October.
Read more at The Flint Journal:
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