The local man who owns and operates the bestgore.com website, is facing criminal charges in connection to a video posted last summer depicting the slaying of a man in Montreal that spring.
Edmonton police announced Wednesday that Mark Marek, 38, had been charged Tuesday with corrupting morals, in connection to a video posted on the website specializing in grisly content that he runs.
Police began investigating Marek in June 2012, after a video depicting the slaying of Lin Jun in Montreal was posted on his website.
“Over the past year, we have been trying to locate the owner of that website; we believe the owner is Mr. Mark Marek, who is the individual we charged,” Staff Sgt. Bill Clark said in a press conference Wednesday.
“This was a very long investigation, basically, our suspect was very elusive, we did have some ties to the Edmonton-area, we could not locate him, we used several of our tactics that I’m not going to discuss – we contacted government and private agencies, and various businesses in an attempt to locate this individual,” Clark said.
“He had given a post-office box in basically everything that he does as his address for Edmonton; he really was of no fixed address.”
Clark said Marek was finally located in February, but investigators had no evidence to charge him – and the search wasn’t over, as Marek left the country the day after police found him.
“The following day after we located him, he left the country and flew to Hong Kong, so we lost him again,” Clark said. “But at that time we notified Canadian Border Services, alerts were put at all the border crossings, and he was listed on our police database.
“Last week on July 10 he landed in Vancouver and was stopped by Canadian Border Services officers, they immediately notified us that he had been detained at that location, and upon our request seized all of his computer equipment.”
Clark said he was released in Vancouver, and returned to Edmonton, where officers kept in touch with him via e-mail – and he was asked for an interview with police.
Marek went to the interview with police Tuesday, Clark said the interview started at about 11 a.m., and continued throughout the afternoon – Marek was described as cooperative throughout the interview.
After the interview, Marek was charged.
Police said it’s believed Marek posted the video to the website, knowing it was sent by murder suspect Luka Magnotta.
Montreal Police charged Luka Magnotta with murder in the death of Lin, the 33-year-old university student in June 2012.
Marek has been remanded in custody, and will speak to bail Thursday.
The investigation is ongoing; EPS said more charges could be laid.
