The Strange Case of Mark Duenas

[Music] hey you and welcome my name is mike and in this whole video what we got is here let me tell you we got one of those you know whodunits kind of if you if you squint in cottonwood cottonwood is in california you know the uh the up part near uh reading well down of redding you know how you drive up and down in the shadow of mount shasta [Music] you know you hear tales of some kind of unsolved mysteries and the aliens and that kind of stuff coming from coming from manchester and some people would very much like this case to be an unsolved mystery maybe use aliens who knows but anyway you know cottonwood is about as interesting as the information i just gave you but thankfully you know that's not the subject of today's video mark duenas is we are going to tree things in this video 2012 shasta county and get into it or uh give it a goo or whatever [Music] in cottonwood it lived the duanes family a family of seven and on may 4th 2012 the family attended a high school baseball game where casey duenas the youngest the baby of the family in his final year high school was batten away it was a beautiful sunny afternoon these stories always start this way casey was the only one still left at home as he was finishing up high school the duane's family had four other youngans all lads you got your jason your jacob your tyler your troy and your casey but they all lived out of town apart from jason who lived next door with his own family and casey of course who still lived at home but they were a tight-knit family like they were that at that baseball game parents mark and karen you know proudly looked on mark and karen had been together since their high school days since they were about 17 and they were both locals they were mormons married young and by the time 2012 came along it would be 33 years when they were both 51 years old their marriage by all accounts you know still going strong they would like regularly go on dates that kind of stuff karen was a homemaker until the kids were old enough and then she taught at shasta college where she was beloved and she was actually heading to nursing school herself now that the kids were all grown up she wanted to start her own career mark he was a ups driver up at the crack of dawn so this was like a lovely day in cottonwood after the baseball game mark and karen headed back to their house while casey he followed a little bit later and then he would head off that evening that night going to a 9 15 showing of the avengers for you know a um friday night flick he arrived home late to a darkened house lights off doors to his parents separate bedrooms were closed mark and karen slept in separate bedrooms as mark he would have to be up early you know for his for his driving job and he also uh you know snored so karen probably [ __ ] him out anyways casey tiptoed in at half 12 fell asleep i mean that's what we know of until uh until about then because after that it um gets a bit iffy next in case you knew mark was bursting in the door telling him to get to hell up and go next door to jason's jason you know the oldest son he was a volunteer firefighter because something had happened to karen this was at 12 56 a.m on may 5th and mark made a 9-1-1 call [Music] all right so uh listen up the quality of this call it's not great i'm not going to subtitle all of it though because i want you to listen to it for yourself and maybe decide what he's saying because it will come up later in the story as quite contentious give it a go [Music] no i don't want your emergency wife sit and go out everywhere i need an ambulance okay hold on hang on let me get to a medical dispatcher hold on sir this an ambulance is 20 401 robinson grand drive uh california tell me exactly what happened i just came in the room i heard her she's got blood everywhere everywhere i don't know i you have no idea what happened is she awake she like when she sleeps i need somebody here right now who's okay you don't know where she's bleeding from no i know i use blood are you with her now yes oh it's in her chest [Music] put that on pause we'll come back to that so jason he was awoken you know by casey well jason was actually already awake because he had a pager you know after 901 call and um well emergency services arrived there was a lot of blood karen was pronounced dead at the scene she had been she had been stabbed to death the police then began you know immediately to snoop around now footprints were found in the backyard near karen's window but who owned the foot karen's bedroom faced the back garden the screen on the window was broken it had been cut open and there were prints which led from her window to the fence to a gate and then to a small canal out back after that the trail went cold but another neighbor he said he saw a car racing out of there just around that time and some other neighbors said they saw you know strange folk loitering around the place happy i'm not new i mean what more do you need but for all this nothing was missing the place was intact so possibly you know a burglary gone wrong classic am i right you know somebody tried to break in they didn't know karen would be there they were surprised and then uh knifey to the wifey you know it's possible technically anything is possible but is it probable after all the screen was cut but these shutters were fine not moved as if someone you know covert like snuck in so even a blind man could see where this was leading and it was leading to the only other guy in the house the guy who conveniently didn't share a bed with the woman who was murdered in hers marky mark and the funky hunch but what was his story he said that evening they were watching tv together karen went to bed before him he stayed up a little longer to watch the giants game before heading off himself once again to their separate bedrooms he then quote heard heard weird uh weird screaming like a cat you know when he started snooping around and he eventually wandered in and found her my mind i'm asleep i hear crazy noise and you just you know you hear a cat sound like it wasn't cats it was a weird screaming talking or no i just heard some weird screaming types and what did you do from there i ran i got up and i because i didn't want those whatever was going on to wake up my wife because i you know i'm sensitive like that and i went to the door by the kitchen opened it up and looked out there i didn't see any cats shut it walk down the hallway looked under the lights were on so i figured she's up open the door and that's when i found her it was noted at the scene that when you know the police first arrived the blood was kind of dry like it wasn't immediately fresh if you understand me the blood on the floor was no longer pooling when the police arrived but had soaked into the carpet which also struck the detective as unusual because this was a nice part of town safe and the high-end carpet that was on the floor of the room you know it wouldn't usually soak up that much blood that fast it's like the blood just like evaporated into the carpet or something which you know the detective would write in his little report that hmm you know mark he's he called right after you know she was murdered when he heard a cat but it seemed like this had happened a few hours prior not like immediately before the police arrived kind of thing good afternoon my name is thomas cycle shasta county sheriff this is the press conference for the joint homicide mark duenas reported he found his wife karen inside her home with chest wolves upon arrival deputies and ems personnel located karen duenas inside the residence and she was pronounced dead at the scene there was also some pedestrian foot traffic that was in the area prior to the report coming in and those witnesses people have been contacted and there was nothing suspicious reported or observed by them detectives have continued their neighborhood canvas and evidence search area efforts utilizing a canine from the department of fish and game and that canine is what we call a article search canine and she has been successful to pass in discovering articles from crime scenes and so the investigation continued and the authorities told the worried and scared people of cottonwood who were fearful you know a madman could be on the loose too chillax you know we got this under control we have a uh you know a person of interest person of interest is a person that we're definitely interested in we're looking very strongly at within the case we're not prepared to name that person as an official suspect as of yet as my staff said in recent days based upon invest the information they have their investigation we have at this time there is no increased danger to the general public yeah when those rumors began to spread about who was the prime suspect the family was like uh yeah no [ __ ] no yeah they just weren't having it there's no way you know mark he could be the suspect like you're taking the piss here come on mark and karen loved each other he had no history of violence why would he kill her get your time out of your ass and find the real killer this was because the police learned of from mark directly actually that there was um i don't think you call this an affair but there was another woman a married woman what was going on in our life um and it's it scared me when i think about it they weren't banging but they had been messaging each other and karen had found out so mark said he wouldn't message her anymore and gotten a secret phone he volunteered this to the police a couple of years before this all happened mark got on this newfangled thing called facebook it's gonna be big he got on there and started yapping away to a girl he knew in school and while they didn't actually meet up i love yous were shared multiple multiple i love yous now mind you they hadn't seen each other since the 70s so i would have liked to see in those profile pictures so yeah mark kind of had like a uh an online girlfriend you know hey she's real i swear then you know we kind of got carried away with a little texting here and there she was real real bad news for mark and the murder investigation into his wife was there ever any pictures sent or anything like that or was it always just there's pictures of um just maybe um me or her you know just little innocent um innocent stuff you know maybe a little teddy now and then you know right on no we're not into any of that nasty porn none of that right it was just what do you look like now you know she sent a picture of her of her and she was your turn she does a quilt or she took a picture of her quilt showed it to me right this innocent stuff she had a picture of her grandkid and stuff like that now this woman whoever she did end it and what about three months before may of 2012. but to the police this is like mana manna from the heavens you know the good stuff the tits i didn't do it and i i mean it's crazy okay it's just like oj we need to be out there finding the real killers right lapd they didn't have to go find the real killers i know you're doing your job but i would never lay a hand on my wife i did not hurt her i did not kill her i walked in and found her in her condition they wanted to use this as motive when did you find out that karen was going to leave you more leave me she's never going to leave me never going to leave honestly in fact during the interview mark said maybe her husband quote went psycho or something and you know where killed my wife maybe it was the hubby just not that one and they they lived in idaho so and in fact dur that night they were at some kind of church function so so due to that this woman and her partner were ruled out so hit rocky was the merge actually well the family said it was great they confided in their kids all the time and everything was hunky-dory it wouldn't be though for merc five months later in october 2012 mark was arrested he was charged with first degree murder for the first time tonight we are hearing from the family of the cottonwood man accused of killing his wife last year mark duenas was arrested in october for murdering his wife of 33 years karen nearly 20 of mark's supporters gathered at the shasta county courthouse this afternoon they included his family friends and his co-workers both the duanes family as well as karen's family continue to maintain his innocence the trial went ahead in the summer of 2013. mark's family were with him the entire time as was as was karen's they were all there in support of mark together the prosecution said the motive for murder was that woman the woman he'd been messaging on facebook the woman he had stopped messaging and never actually physically met her yes so you know something happened that night between mark and karen we don't actually know so we'll make it up but they thought maybe she was gonna divorce him when she found out about the secret phone and so he killed her he killed her maybe you know after 10 pm then cleaned himself and made it look like what it looked like so what did it look like again well somebody had wandered around the backyard it was a warm sunny day but their footprints were still visible in the in the grass so fair play to that then they cut the screen but didn't actually go in that way for the crack they said [ __ ] that enter the house some other way wandered into karen's room murdered her while sounding like a cat and then just left without leaving a trail of blood behind him another job well done so after mark you know could have possibly done all of this then he waited for casey to arrive home before calling the police and in fact he actually wanted casey to be the one to discover karen you know but instead he went straight to bed so marca to be like oh cats and then went in and that's when we get back to that 9-1-1 call no i don't want your emergency i get it [ __ ] and go everywhere i need an ambulance what did he say did he say that was the prosecution's you know finger guns moment though the defense said it was obviously you know i felt my life sick i mean i'll play devil's advocate here for a minute but that really does not sound like he said i found my wife sick law enforcement claims he admitted to killing karen but they say that's not true either now that the 9-1-1 call has been made public it is obvious that our father said no such thing however we are fearful that the damage had already been done and it's clearly you know if he did say on the phone that he killed her why didn't they arrest him that very night you know why did they wait five months before arresting him now though in a jailhouse interview mark would say that he thought the police had finagled with that recording that it wasn't even him who said that you know true magic of editing the defense would also say you know remember neighbors saw saw other people they saw a car whizzing by you know footprints who cut the screen if you don't believe it was mark the jury couldn't decide which yeah i supposed to be fair maybe you might be uh in the same boat and so a mistrial was declared we all support mark completely i don't think that he was capable of this i just want to make a simple point you see these people this is love this belief in this human being this is not question in our hearts please listen to us i know we love this man and he's a good man that's all thank you now whatever he said on the phone could be given more credence being a being an actual sip of the tongue when you look back and see this piece of interrogation footage like the guy knew what he was doing or something because the way he cut her that's the only cut i saw and there's tons of blood but there was none there coming out when i whoever did it i don't when i when i when i whoever and i i don't i mean for [ __ ] sake that would be used in the second trial which began in november 2013. what would also be used in the second trial was more evidence evidence of blood on mark's clothing it was karen's wood and it wasn't visible to the naked eye only by using good old luminol kinda actually seemed to be everywhere and although some of it could be explained by him touching karen when he found her and then touching his shirt not all of it could be and it's like what was on his shirt it wasn't bloody enough for him to have my wife you know touched her she had been cut open with a knife so it wasn't bloody enough to have done that yet it was bloody enough to have traces left which is interesting that would then lead back to him you know maybe cleaning his clothes before his son came home after seeing you know the avengers they also found in the kitchen a knife one that could possibly have been the weapon that was a in the wrong slot and that's meant for you and b possibly had some kind of cleaning agent on the handle so when trial number two came to a close this time things weren't so good for merc now i mean it must have been difficult i guess to come to a conclusion but they sure did mark duenas was found guilty of first degree murder duenas dunn did it he was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison since then mark you know he's appealed but it was soundly rejected he's not going anywhere in fact neither is his son jacob the second oldest who's now uh joining him in prison jacob a former california highway patrolman was caught uh diddling kids he got 26 years for that one one more year than the minimum for his that and so ends the case of mark duane's it's an interesting one in that you can kind of see both sides you can see how he could have and couldn't have although personally i'm coming down more on the um could have it's kind of a textbook rule though maybe even number one that if you're gonna you know kill somebody we don't don't say it over the phone you know on the on the phone to 9-1-1 mark really should have written that rule down but the why to me has never really made sense why did i have to walk you know this was filmed when mark was alone in the police interview room what he means by that did he walk in on his wife with his secret phone and lost it i mean who knows is there ever really though a good enough reason for a why you know to to murder i mean i suppose i could break out my life insurance dance once again but i won't [Music] thank you so much for watching i really appreciate it and i appreciate you sure go on take care of yourselves and i'll see you as always real soon in the next one till then mike out

Channel: That Chapter

Views: 999,429

Rating: 4.9347634 out of 5

Keywords: that chapter, mark duenas, karen duenas

Id: Iwu0NySSxAI

Length: 22min 37sec (1357 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 02 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/serenitygray]

Just saw it, nice work!

[u/Vickie8491]

I just watched this and, as usual, you did a great job!