Latest / True Crime California / TCC #25: Mark "Gator" Rogowski

Transcript

TCC #25: Mark "Gator" Rogowski · True Crime California

0:02
Speaker 1: Dark Cast Network. Welcome to the dark side of podcasting.
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Pull up a chair and cit a spell.
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Speaker 2: Here at Mountain Murders Podcast, we're pouring straight from Pappy's
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jug and spending true crime tales from deep in the
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hollers of Appalachia to the bustling cities up and down
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the East Coast.
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Speaker 3: It's hooting, it's hollering, it's murder with a sight of
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you alternative. We dig into the dark history, the outlaws,
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the secrets, and the downright strange cases that'll make your
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hair stand on the end.
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Speaker 1: Palla.
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Speaker 2: So, whether you're a city slicker or a ridge runner,
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come join us by the firelight. Hit plate and let's
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raise a little ruckus Mountain Murder style.
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Speaker 3: Yeahhow, let's get it boy.
0:48
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome to True Crime California. I'm your host, Cindy,
0:54
and I'm glad you're here. Hey, guys, it's Cindy with
1:08
I almost said where I work right now with true
1:11
Graham California. It's after Christmas. It's the day after Christmas. Sorry,
1:15
this took so long. You can probably hear that. I'm
1:18
stuffed up. I'm sick again. Your girl is always busy
1:21
and always sick. That's really fun for me. But I
1:24
promised a second episode in December. It's the least I
1:27
can do. I gotta do at least two per month,
1:29
So here we go. I was saying, you know, oh,
1:32
I'm gonna do a Christmas theme whatever, I'm not. I lied,
1:36
I'm sorry. I'm actually doing one that came up when
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I was hanging out with my significant other and we
1:43
were talking about skateboarding, and it reminded me of a
1:47
murder that happened here in California that really rocked the
1:52
skateboarding world in the early nineties. And now, at that point,
1:55
I was pretty young. I wasn't really old enough that
1:58
I was like really entrenched in skate boarding culture. But
2:01
as I got a little bit older, and especially as
2:03
my older brother who's seven years older than me, really
2:06
got into skateboarding, this story became like something of like,
2:11
you know, terrible but legend within the skateboarding community. I
2:15
think I actually covered this on Twisted Listers, but like
2:18
a much more truncated version as per usual. So I
2:21
wanted to cover this case, you know, here, because it's
2:26
a California case. It's always interested me a ton. I
2:29
thought I knew it super well. Beginning into the details
2:32
has really made me sort of change my mind about
2:34
a lot of what went down. Like I had a
2:37
different kind of feeling about this guy until I did
2:39
this deeper dive, and I'll admit it, like it's weird
2:42
to admit that, like my mind has changed about him.
2:47
But anyway, I grew up in the nineties. I was
2:49
born in nineteen eighty three, so the bulk of my
2:51
memorable youth was in the nineties, and a huge part
2:54
of the nineties and my young life, especially with skateboarding
2:56
and skateboard culture, especially since my older brother was super
2:59
into it. I skated as well for a brief moment,
3:03
and then I fell on my elbow and I still
3:05
have a scar, and I was like, oh, cool, that sucked.
3:07
I'm not doing that anymore. So that was kind of
3:09
the end of up for me. But anyway, all my
3:12
friends were skateboarders. Just you know, skating is a huge
3:16
part of the history of California, and especially Southern California.
3:19
Skateboarding was sort of born here, and I believe to
3:23
this day it's kind of like California and especially Southern
3:26
California is sort of the hub for skateboarding, and as
3:29
everybody may know, at this point, skateboarding is like an
3:33
Olympic sport, So it has come a really long way.
3:37
When I was young, people used to get in trouble
3:39
for skating. You know, we were like the alternative crowd.
3:43
So like all the people that we called the proud
3:45
crowders would like make fun of us or try to
3:47
break our boards or like, you know, it was just
3:50
a weird thing to go from like being the butt
3:54
of everybody's like joke or sort of being something that
3:56
like a lot of mainstream people hated to literally being
3:59
in the life. I also want to call out for
4:01
people who know anything about skateboarding that Nijah Houston is
4:05
from Davis, which is where I was born and raised,
4:07
and he's like the top skateboarder in the world at
4:10
this point. Anyway, that was sort of like a stream
4:13
of consciousness. I thought I was going to kind of
4:15
ease into this. So I'm gonna step back for a
4:18
second and say, shit'sman cracking off in California and it's
4:21
really fucked up. The murder of Rob Reiner and his
4:24
wife really actually hit me pretty hard. I really love
4:27
Rob Reiner. He's made so many amazing movies. He was
4:31
in All in the Family, which was like a groundbreaking
4:33
show that really confronted a lot of topics that were
4:36
very taboo at the time the show was out. So
4:39
he's always been a bit of a trailblazer where kind
4:43
of leftist thought and ideology kind of were they were.
4:49
It was not something you talked about, and he always
4:51
talked about it. Now, was he a rich white dude
4:53
who was essentially like a liberal, Yes, he was, But
4:55
I still think that as far as mainstream goes, he
4:57
was very much to the left of what people are
5:00
comfortable with. And I think that's really cool that he
5:04
was outspoken about a lot of things that other people
5:05
wouldn't touch. And I think that, you know, it's really
5:09
tragic what happened, and I really hope that people hold
5:12
their judgments because his son was obviously extremely mentally ill,
5:16
And you know, I think that we're such a punitive
5:18
society that people immediately are like string him up, kill him,
5:22
death penalty, and it's like, dude, this kid had issues.
5:25
I call him a kid. He's like in his thirties,
5:26
but like, this person hadn't had issues his entire life
5:30
that a lot of were outside of his control. You know,
5:32
his family had endless resources, so if they couldn't if
5:36
they couldn't help him, then it's very likely that he
5:39
was having a lot of trouble finding good help to
5:42
help him get better. So that's really fucked up. And
5:45
then just a couple of days ago and stocked in,
5:47
a bunch of children were killed in a mass shooting
5:49
at a fucking birthday party. It's just the world is crazy.
5:54
Let's hope that twenty twenty six is better than twenty
5:57
twenty five. But I feel like every single fucking year
6:00
saying let's hope this year is better than the last,
6:01
and it's like, are they just getting Are the years
6:03
getting worse? Is it just me? Something's got to give,
6:07
something's got to give. Hopefully the holidays were great for everybody,
6:11
and you guys are all enjoying time with family that
6:14
you don't hate. Hopefully maybe some new gifts, hopefully some
6:19
community service helping others doing good. Anyway, I just want
6:25
to call those things out because they're really fucked up.
6:27
So back to what I'm going to cover this week.
6:30
I am going to cover the story of Mark gator Regowski,
6:35
a trailblazer in the world of vert skateboarding, a poster
6:39
boy for the counterculture surrounding skateboarding that remains to this day.
6:43
And also a stalker, a rapist, and a murderer. So
6:48
he is proof you can be a lot of things
6:51
all at once. And I think again, because of the
6:55
first things that he was, people's perception of him was
6:59
different than it needed to be, and mine definitely was,
7:02
especially learning about this case soda after the fact. So
7:06
anyway gonna cover this story, let's just get into it. Huh. Also,
7:14
it's raining super hard in LA and has been for
7:16
like a few days, and my mic is picking it
7:18
up as like white noise or almost like gray noise.
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Like it's pretty loud. So I'm trying to edit it out,
7:23
but if you hear a little bit of like sound,
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that's what it is. Sorry, my mic is too hot,
7:30
all right, So here we go. Mark Gaetor Rogowski was
7:34
born in Brooklyn, New York, on August tenth, nineteen sixty three,
7:37
but moved to Escondido, California, at the age of three
7:40
after his parents divorced. Escondido is near San Diego, so
7:44
definitely like southern California. Near the beach and near the
7:47
heart of the skateboarding and counterculture movement at the time.
7:51
Mark had it pretty okay upbringing. He and his mom
7:54
were close, but one important part of his childhood was
7:56
the complete lack of his father's presence. Basically, once his
8:00
parents divorced, his dad disappeared entirely from their lives. I'm
8:05
not sure exactly what his mom did for a living,
8:07
but I do know she was a single mother for
8:09
much of his youth and the family didn't have a
8:12
ton of money. He did have a brother, He does
8:14
have a brother, So when his parents divorced, his mom
8:17
and his two brothers moved to Escondido, which is like
8:20
very very northern San Diego County, like almost like Orange County,
8:27
and she raised them as a single mom. And I
8:29
don't believe she had like a really high paying job.
8:32
I think they struggled as a result. Mark often felt
8:36
like an outcast in his youth, despite being a gifted
8:39
athlete and even playing Little League in his younger years.
8:43
At the age of seven, he picked up skateboarding, and
8:46
by the time he was twelve years old, he was
8:48
already on a skate team. So even like he played
8:51
Little League and he did. He was great, like he
8:53
was really athletic, but it wasn't he didn't fit his vibe,
8:57
like he felt like an outcast. And then he finds
9:01
skateboarding and he finds his people, he finds his culture,
9:05
and within a few years he's on a team. So
9:07
you can see like he finally he found his place.
9:10
So this was a huge thing for him because growing
9:12
up without a father, without sort of a community, and
9:16
then finding that it really shaped who he was now.
9:20
His being on a skate team had to do with
9:22
his abilities as a skater, but also because of where
9:25
he lived, because he had access to a lot of
9:27
skate teams, skate parks, and that kind of thing. Like again,
9:31
had he stayed living in New York, his story probably
9:34
would have been very different. He probably wouldn't have ever
9:36
really skateboarded, saying if he lived like in the middle
9:39
of the country. But you know, skateboarding, like I said,
9:43
was born out of southern California. And to clarify, at
9:46
this time, vert and pool skating were the most popular
9:49
forms of skateboarding. So not street like people think about
9:52
people like going down the street and like grinding on
9:55
you know, staircases. At this time, it was all about
9:58
skating and emptied out like a big bowl or on
10:01
a like a halfpipe, so it's like a big U
10:04
shape and you go up and down in it. Now,
10:06
this style of skating came to prominence in southern California
10:09
in the nineteen seventies, and if you want to learn
10:11
more about that, there are numerous great documentaries on the subject,
10:14
and I would say Dog Town and Z Boys is
10:17
a great place to start. They also did like a
10:19
fictionalized version starring Heath Ledger a little bit later on,
10:23
but for an actual documentary sort of on the birth
10:27
of this type of skateboarding and sort of just skateboarding
10:29
culture at that time, Dogtown in Z Boys is really good.
10:33
So anyway, in nineteen eighty Mark was only fourteen. Wait,
10:37
that doesn't make sense. So maybe he wasn't born in
10:40
nineteen sixty three. I think he was born in nineteen
10:42
sixty six. I don't know. Oh yeah, he was, I
10:44
said sixty three. I apologize he was born in nineteen
10:47
sixty six. I'm sick. Give me a break. Anyway, So
10:50
in nineteen eighty Mark was only fourteen but officially became
10:53
a pro skateboarder, which is fucking crazy, very very young.
10:58
Like I said, that's like Nyja Houston is like on
11:00
that level, but not a lot of people are, and
11:02
especially back then. At the time, he was sponsored by
11:06
companies like Vans, Dogtown, and the Independent Truck Company, which
11:10
all those names are still big today. If you know
11:12
about skateboarding, then yeah, you're familiar with those. But even
11:15
if you don't, you at least know about Vans because
11:18
they're fucking everywhere. They're in like Nordstroms. Now they're trying
11:20
to become like high end, which I hate because like,
11:23
stick with your people anyway, So he was in with
11:26
the big boys like right from the start. And as
11:29
for why he was called Gator, it was because of
11:32
his signature move, the gate Air, which he actually created
11:36
and it's just like a vert move that you'd kind
11:37
of have to see. I'm not knowledgeable enough about skateboarding
11:40
to really explain it, but you can find it online.
11:44
So at this time, he was winning competitions in the
11:46
US and abroad and was the first skater to get
11:49
a pro deck all of his own from the company
11:52
Vision Sports. Now he and this company Vision soon became
11:56
very intertwined with Mark wearing their branded clothing to all
12:00
of his events, all of his interviews, he did magazine
12:03
shoots for them, and very quickly he was like on
12:06
top of the world. And he's not even eighteen, not
12:08
even close. Now. Some of his closest friends at the
12:11
time were Tony Hawk, who everybody knows, and Steve Gonzalez, who, again,
12:14
if you're in the skateworld, do you know who that is?
12:16
But if not, you still know who Tony Hawk is
12:18
for sure. And now I want to take a moment
12:21
to discuss how all of this stardom and fame affected
12:24
a young former outcast like Mark. Mark's father, like I said,
12:29
was never around, but during the time he was, he
12:33
had a major anger issue. And even though he wasn't
12:37
around Mark for most of his life, it seems that
12:39
he passed this on to Mark unfortunately, and in addition
12:43
to this, Mark was rightfully very angry at his father
12:46
for abandoning him. Mark grew up not rich, not in
12:50
the mainstream, and had a chip on his shoulder about it.
12:53
So when he was suddenly thrown in the spotlight and
12:56
given an insane amount of money and all of these
12:58
brand deals and sponsorship and magazine shoots. He basically tied
13:02
this to his identity, which I sort of talked about before,
13:06
because he saw as a way out of the life
13:08
that he had before, which he probably was not very
13:10
happy with because again he felt like an outcast. Now
13:13
this is speculation on my part, but it's what I've
13:15
kind of taken away from interviews with him, from interviews
13:17
with his friends and family, and this really great documentary
13:20
called Stoked, The Rise and Fall of Gator, which I
13:23
watched in preparation for this, but I also did a
13:26
ton of reading. I read about his case, I listened
13:28
to interviews with him, so sort of just knowing his story,
13:30
it really feels like he went from an unhappy, outcast,
13:36
obscure life to the fucking it boy of his generation
13:40
and of this new thing, this skateboarding, that was becoming
13:44
the most popular thing in you know, in the country really,
13:49
so he really leaned into his fame, probably a little
13:52
bit too much. In fact, if anybody is a contemporary
13:58
skate enthusiast, you'll know what I mean. I've already mentioned
14:00
Nijah Houston, but he sort of reminds me of Mark Wurkowski.
14:03
Not in the murdery way, of course, but in the
14:05
sort of cutting loose and going wild part of the
14:07
sudden fame given to him. So if anybody knows about
14:10
his story, it's sort of the same thing where they
14:12
just kind of find this same and they cut loose
14:14
and like they're like the bad boy sort of. I
14:17
think Nya's sort of calmed down at this point. Luckily
14:20
he did not go the way that Mark went, but anyway,
14:22
we'll get there. So anyway, Gator was super into this
14:25
skateboarding superstar lifestyle. There's a ton of interviews with him
14:29
where he comes off as like super pompous and honestly
14:31
kind of like douchey to be honest. But I also
14:34
have empathy for him because he didn't have a great
14:36
childhood thanks to his asshole dad. And again, a lot
14:40
of these interviews are happening before he's even twenty years old,
14:42
so he's not like an adult who's had time to
14:44
go back and reflect and like really grow as a person.
14:48
But at the same time, lots of us had a
14:50
crappy upbringing and never had this fame. So my empathy
14:53
only goes so far. But it is, you know, crazy
14:56
to be so young and so famous with very little guidance,
14:59
so I will get him that. Of course, as you
15:02
might imagine, Mark became and was known to be a
15:06
crazy partier and would drink far too much at most
15:09
of his parties and after events and things his friends
15:12
would called many days and nights where Mark would start
15:14
drinking and the next thing you know, he's naked, skating, naked,
15:18
running around hotels naked, making silly videos with his friends naked,
15:22
and these were posted everywhere for people to see, and
15:25
his fans ate this up. Like I said, he was
15:29
sort of the poster boy for this bad boy skater image,
15:32
and his antics were matched by his skating skill, making
15:35
him more and more famous. Other pro skaters and interviews
15:39
talked about how fans were like rabid for Mark, ignoring
15:42
all other skaters to swarm to him like he was
15:45
a rock star. Now, besides all of this, I want
15:51
to call out that Mark was really really good looking,
15:54
Like I can't lie. He was very attractive and would
15:57
often skate shirtless because he knew all the girls loved it.
16:01
He was a bit of a lady's man, but he
16:03
also seemed to have a lot of girlfriends, so more
16:05
committed than maybe his image portrayed. He had a girlfriend
16:08
from high school and they were pretty serious, but after
16:11
they broke up, he had a string of like sort
16:13
of quick flings and micro relationships, and famously went on
16:16
two dates with Patricia Arquette, who later admitted that he
16:20
was gorgeous, but something about the way that he kissed
16:23
her put her off, so after their second date she
16:27
never called him back, and it's probably a good thing.
16:30
Pretty soon soon after this, he met a young girl
16:32
named Brandy McClain. Now at the time, he was in
16:36
Arizona for a competition, and a young girl named Jessica Berxton,
16:39
who was friends with some of his friends, introduced Mark
16:43
to her close friend Brandy. Brandy was like four or
16:46
five years younger than Gator, and when they met she
16:49
was only fifteen years old and he was twenty. Despite this,
16:53
the two were pretty much inseparable and became the it couple. Basically.
16:58
Overnight was also super hot, and it had a very
17:03
like late eighties early nineties look, big bleach blonde hair.
17:07
She wore a lot of bands like like you know,
17:09
just like little brawlets, acid wash cut offs. She just
17:14
had the look if you look them up like, I'm
17:16
forty two years old. I'd look at her, I'm like, fuck,
17:18
I wish I could dress like that. It's like she
17:20
just had this thing about her that everybody wanted to
17:25
look like her. Everybody wanted to be with her, and
17:28
the same with him, and so they were like this
17:30
perfect beautiful couple. Now, Vision Streetwear, who I said, you know,
17:35
was very entwined with Mark at this time, had become
17:38
very very popular, and Gator and Brandy were featured in
17:41
a number of ads for the company, and they made
17:44
the clothes look good. Now, although Brandy was still in
17:47
high school and Gator was traveling a lot, entering skate
17:50
competitions and promoting Vision, the two spent as much time
17:53
together as they could. It's not clear, but I believe
17:56
they probably weren't always faithful to each other, especially when
17:59
they were part for long periods of time. But they
18:02
were young and beautiful and in the scene, and I
18:05
don't know that either of them really minded too much,
18:07
at least at first. As time went on, Gator was
18:10
making tens of thousands of dollars per month between his
18:12
skateboard sales, winning competitions, and other endorsements, which back then
18:17
like then to now would be like, you know, fifty
18:20
to one hundred thousand dollars a month, like doing this shit,
18:24
like absolutely fucking crazy now. He and Brandy besides being
18:29
all over magazine, Thrasher Magazine, all the Vision ads, they
18:34
were also featured in Tom Petty's music video free Fallen'.
18:37
So if you want, you can go watch this video
18:39
and you'll see them and you'll know who they are.
18:41
They weren't in it for like super long, but they're there.
18:44
So he was super rich, super famous and just totally
18:47
on top of the world. Tony Hawk, who was similarly
18:51
famous and a good friend of Mark's, decided to buy
18:54
a house out in Fallbrook, which is another like suburb
18:58
of San Diego, but like a very rich one. But
19:00
it's also kind of like living in the country a bit.
19:02
Like there's huge mansions out there, but there's a lot
19:04
of space between them, so you're kind of just out
19:07
in the boonies. I may be speaking California here a bit,
19:12
but it's basically a bunch of giant homes with super
19:15
modern amenities, but you won't have a neighbor for miles
19:19
and miles, but you aren't like a farmer so it's
19:23
an interesting sort of thing that some richer communities in California.
19:26
It's just kind of how they are. And that being said,
19:30
when Gator followed in Tony Hawk's footsteps, he ended up
19:33
buying a house with an avocado orchard on it, which
19:35
is pretty awesome. The house itself was in a spiral shape,
19:40
which was a nod to his signature skate trick. And
19:43
when he bought this house, he asked then seventeen year
19:46
old Brandy to move in with him. She had to
19:49
ask her mom as she was still in high school,
19:51
but she did end up moving in with Gator pretty
19:53
much right away, and things went on like this for
19:56
a few years. Lots of endorsements, clothing deal, skate championships, interviews,
20:02
he was on the cover of Thrasher, all that stuff
20:04
I've kind of talked about, and he loved it. Eventually, However,
20:09
as they tend to do, things began to change as
20:13
the nineties quickly approached. The interest in vert skating went
20:17
from a fervor to a fizzle, and the older era
20:20
of skaters began to fade into the background as a
20:23
new brand of skating and skater came into prominence. Skaters
20:28
like Paulo Diaz, Jason Lee, and Rodney Mullen, who was
20:31
often considered the godfather of street skating, hit the scene
20:35
and people went nuts and nobody cared about vert skating anymore.
20:41
Brands like World Industry became hugely successful after releasing their
20:44
first street only skate video, Rubbish Heap, and brands like
20:49
Vision were suddenly thought of as being cheesy, overdone, and
20:54
Gator was kind of considered a sellout for promoting such
20:57
a huge megabrand. Now, for some people, like Tony Hawk,
21:02
this wasn't awesome, but it was okay. He made his money,
21:05
he had lots of friends in the scene, and he
21:06
just kind of kept skating Vert, being fine with whatever
21:09
level of fame he had. And this is because Tony
21:12
Hawk is awesome. I actually met him once. He came
21:14
into the restaurant where I worked and he was the
21:18
only person there was like the slowest morning ever, and
21:21
we just hung out and he's kind of like awkward
21:24
in like this really earnest way. And also he fucking
21:27
loves the cure, like flies to Europe with his wife
21:31
to see the cure, like that level of love. Anyway,
21:35
he was so so fucking cool and so down to earth.
21:39
I've lived in LA for a very long time. I've
21:42
met so many celebrities, and he was definitely one of
21:45
the few that just seems like a normal person, which
21:49
is awesome. So for him, it's like he was fine,
21:51
Like he was like just kind of chillin continued to
21:54
skate vert Obviously, it came back into popularity again, and
22:00
we've got the Olympics now and Tony Hawk has his
22:02
own fucking video game, you know, a bunch of them,
22:05
I guess. So some of some skaters weathered this and
22:09
we're just kind of like it is what it is.
22:11
But for someone like Gator, who once said, with no
22:14
sarcasm whatsoever, that his entire identity was skating and that
22:18
if he couldn't skate, he'd die, this shift felt like
22:21
the end of his life. So Tony Tony Hawk moved out.
22:26
I can't call him, I don't know him that well,
22:27
Tony my friend, Tony Tony Hawk moved out of Fallbrook,
22:31
and Gator followed suit, once again moving to an apartment
22:34
or a condo I guess, in Carlsbad, California, which is
22:37
again like a northern suburb of San Diego Gator, always
22:41
a partier, started drinking even more heavily than normal, and
22:44
friends noticed that he was really getting out of control
22:48
around this time, like he was really sort of acting out,
22:51
probably because one he was stressed about the lack of fame,
22:54
and two he was probably trying to like continue to
22:57
get attention by like being crazy and being over the top.
23:01
He was still skating and competing, and he actually ended
23:03
up in West Germany where he got so wasted one
23:06
night that he fell out of his hotel room and
23:09
landed on a fence below. Now, this accident mangled him
23:14
pretty badly. There are photos of his arm and hand
23:17
with huge stitches and even staples in them, so really,
23:21
really fucking crazy, and he was in the hospital for
23:23
a while. Now there are some articles like was he
23:26
pushed to his friend push him? Did he jump like
23:28
he was wasted? I'm pretty sure he just fell. I
23:31
don't think it was an intentional It might have been
23:33
intentional thinking he was gonna like land safely somewhere, but
23:37
I don't think it was like any sort of like
23:40
attempted murder by one of his friends. I think it
23:42
was just one of those nights. So he's in the hospital,
23:47
and when he gets out, he goes back home to
23:50
Brandy and Carlsbad, and you know, he's lost, like he
23:53
doesn't he doesn't really know what to do, and he's
23:57
very lost and very angry at being suddenly sort of forgotten.
24:02
So at this point he decides to change his name
24:05
from Gator Mark Rigowski to Mark Anthony, legally dropping his
24:11
last name, as he claimed it came from a father
24:13
he never knew. Now, many people were confused by this
24:16
because he was still super recognizable with his birth name
24:20
and the nickname Gator, But I think it was sort
24:22
of this part of trying to find himself and re
24:24
establish himself in the scene and again, to be honest,
24:27
like he was still pretty famous, he just wasn't like
24:30
the most famous person ever at this point, so I
24:33
think he took it a lot harder than maybe he
24:35
should have, and the way he acted was a reaction
24:38
to his perception of just like being a nobody once again.
24:43
He also tried street skating, but it didn't go super well,
24:47
and he had a few run ins with younger kids
24:48
where he got a little like violent with them because
24:50
they were like making fun of him. So not good
24:53
shit was pretty bleak. During his rehabilitation from his fall,
24:58
he met a former surf for Augie can Constantino Costantino.
25:05
I never say his last name, right OGGI lived near
25:07
Gator and Brandy and they had a bunch of friends
25:09
in common, so they started talking and like hanging out.
25:13
Turns out Augi was a very serious born again Christian
25:16
who had suffered an injury similar to Gators. So in
25:19
this person, Gator saw the potential for a true friend
25:22
and a real connection. I guess I should call him
25:24
Mark Anthony. And because he was so lost, he got
25:28
swept up in Augie's religion, like very very quickly. And
25:32
I should say I've looked up Aggie recently and he's
25:35
like a very hardcore trumper weirdo. Not my favorite. And
25:39
I have to tell you, like when I first read
25:41
about this guy, Augie, I was like, this guy's trouble,
25:44
Like this guy's not he's not good, like he's taking advantage.
25:48
I don't like him. And now that I've done more
25:50
research on him, and now that social media is a thing,
25:52
because I've known about this case forever, I feel good
25:55
being like, Yep, I was right, that guy's a fucking creep.
25:58
So anyway, he's suddenly this born again Christian and he
26:02
told Brandy the two of them could no longer have
26:05
sex unless they got married. Brandy, barely twenty at this time,
26:11
was completely shocked at this one eighty by Mark. She
26:15
always thought they'd get married, but she never thought he'd
26:17
become a religious zelot, nor that he'd refused to sleep
26:20
with her outside of marriage. She once said in an
26:23
interview quote, we were madly in love, puppy love. We
26:26
went from having sex five times a day to not
26:28
having any which is you can imagine, is pretty crazy
26:32
and pretty shocking. Also, five times a day is also
26:35
pretty crazy and pretty shocking. But I guess they were young.
26:38
So from here that you begin fighting and they're fighting
26:40
more and more, and you know, this isn't exactly new
26:45
that they're fighting, but they're just fighting more than normal.
26:48
But kind of going back to what I was saying
26:50
about this not being new, Mark was like extremely jealous
26:54
and insecure, which isn't really surprising, and pretty often he
26:57
would let his insecurity take over and would accuse Brandy
27:00
of all sorts of things, wouldn't want her to leave
27:03
the house wearing certain clothing or go out without him.
27:06
So this was like a long standing issue. You know,
27:08
the things that made them the it couple were only
27:10
okay with him if he was there to supervise her,
27:13
which is kind of crazy. But now things get even
27:17
worse than that, as Gator seemed to be spinning out
27:19
in every way possible, and when you throw in a
27:22
dash of religious fervor, things can get bad real real quick,
27:26
So pretty quickly, by late nineteen ninety the two had
27:29
split up. Brandy finally left him and pretty literally ran
27:33
away from him after one fight in which he locked
27:36
her in a closet, effectively kidnapping her. Now, after she
27:40
moved out, things only got worse. Mark began calling Brandy regularly,
27:44
threatening her, threatening her new boyfriend because she did move
27:47
on pretty fast, as young people tend to do, and
27:50
eventually he began full blown stalking her. And he did
27:53
all this while claiming to be a born again Christian,
27:56
which is not as funny as I wish it was
27:58
because it seems almost too perfect combo. But anyway, at
28:02
one point, Brandy came home and found that somebody had
28:04
been in her house a ton of her clothing, jewelry,
28:09
and other belongings were missing, and when she went into
28:11
her garage she realized that her car was gone. She
28:15
reported the items missing, noting everything missing had been given
28:19
to her by Gaidor, and a few days later police
28:23
called her and told her the car had been found
28:24
in the desert and that it had been lit on
28:26
fire with all of the missing contents inside. Unfortunately, there
28:31
was no proof that Mark had done this, and because
28:33
it wasn't like like he didn't hurt her. I don't know,
28:37
it's weird. There was just inaction on their part because
28:40
they're like, we can't prove that he did it, you're
28:42
not hurt. The cops just don't give a shit. I mean,
28:45
that's basically the long and short of it. I hate
28:47
to fucking say it. At one point, you know, like
28:50
I said, Mark's leaving a bunch of threatening messages on
28:53
her phone. This I could not verify, but I did
28:56
read it one place that he left a message where
28:59
he told her that he should beat her, rape her,
29:03
murder her, and dump her in the desert. Now, again
29:06
I cannot verify that I did read it somewhere, but
29:09
I never heard it in any interviews with her, So
29:11
it seems a little suspicious, but I did want to
29:15
call that out because he later admitted that he had
29:18
in fact planned to kill Brandy when they met up.
29:22
I think they were like exchanging items or something, but
29:24
for whatever reason, he didn't end up going through with it,
29:27
so very fucking scary. Shit. Again, Luckily he didn't do anything,
29:33
but shit is definitely escalating. And shortly after all of
29:36
this went down, Brandy's close friend Jessica Bergston, who actually,
29:39
as I noted, introduced the couple to each other, hit
29:42
Mark up as she was in town and wanted someone
29:45
to show her around San Diego. I find this interesting
29:48
because according to everybody, like Brandy and Jessica were super close,
29:52
and I think at one point they had been, but
29:54
according to Brandy later she said that they actually hadn't
29:57
really spoken in quite a while, which makes sense because
30:00
if they were super close, Jessica would have known what
30:04
was going on between Mark and Brandy, and I don't
30:06
think she'd be hitting him up to like show her around,
30:09
So she knew the two had broken up, but she
30:11
didn't have any other details about what was going on.
30:15
So when people are kind of thinking about this, like,
30:17
why would her close friend like her best friend hit
30:20
him up to hang out, knowing he's a fucking stoker. Well,
30:22
she didn't know. They weren't actually that close at this point,
30:25
but in Mark's head, they were close, and they were,
30:28
you know, kind of the same person in a way.
30:32
So anyway, kind of not knowing what's going on, Jessica
30:35
hits up Mark and is like, hey, you want to
30:37
show me around San Diego And he's like, yeah, I'm
30:39
happy to do so, and the two met up on
30:41
March twenty first, nineteen ninety one. They spent the day
30:44
together with Mark kind of showing her the sides, hanging
30:46
out and they just had like a really nice time. Actually.
30:49
They then went back to his apartment in Carlsbad to
30:51
drink wine, smoke weed, and watch a movie Now Again.
30:55
Mark is a born again Christian. He's not supposed to
30:58
be drinking and smoking and doing all of these things,
31:02
but he willingly does it. He doesn't tell Jessica like
31:05
I don't want to do this, this isn't who I am.
31:08
He just does it. So in my mind I'm wondering, like,
31:10
did he know all along where this was going? Was
31:13
he just sort of like letting things happen. Like it's
31:17
really hard to say, because he had become like clean
31:20
and sober, as they put it, you know, no sex,
31:22
no drugs, no drinking, and yet here he is with
31:25
his ex girlfriend's friend drinking smoking weed.
31:29
Speaker 2: You know.
31:29
Speaker 1: So so very interesting lead up here because to me,
31:34
like this is a hookupdate. But apparently that's not what
31:37
Jessica had in mind. And around one am she told Mark,
31:40
you know, I'm tired, Can you take me? Can you
31:42
take me home? And he's like, yeah, I can. I
31:45
can do that, no problem. So he goes downstairs, presumably
31:48
to start his car, but instead what he actually does
31:51
is he went into his car and took out what
31:53
is called a club, which, for anybody who doesn't know,
31:56
is like a lock. It's like a car, a big
31:59
head car lock that's made out of plastic coated metal.
32:03
And this is something that people used to put in
32:05
their steering wheel to make it so it can't you
32:08
can't turn it, so that people can't steal your car.
32:11
It was a very like nineties thing actually, like everybody
32:15
I knew, like when we started driving, like had one,
32:17
and it was very strange. But anyway, so he goes
32:20
and he gets this lock. And these things are fucking heavy.
32:22
They're like heavier than like a hammer, right, they're fucking
32:26
they're all metal. So he takes this thing and he
32:30
comes back upstairs and he is behind her. She's sitting
32:33
on the couch and he comes up behind her and
32:35
he hits her on the head with this fucking club repeatedly.
32:39
He later said it was three or four times. Now,
32:42
this was enough to knock her unconscious and also to
32:45
make her bleed profusely from her head. Now, while she's
32:49
passed out bleeding, he drags her upstairs to his bedroom
32:53
and at this point she regains consciousness. So he ties
32:58
her up, ties her to his bed, her arms and legs,
33:02
and rapes her for multiple hours. Now, this entire time,
33:06
she's screaming. She's begging him to stop, you know, and
33:10
he's not obviously not listening. He's beating her while he's
33:13
raping her. So does this sound familiar? Does this sound
33:16
like what he promised Brandy he'd do to her? And
33:18
again I can't verify that's one hundred percent accurate, but like,
33:22
if it is, this is even more fucking terrifying because
33:24
this is clearly planned. Now from here after literally like
33:29
four or five hours, like all all night, because you know,
33:33
Jessica's making so much noise. She's screaming, she's in pain,
33:36
she's terrified, and Mark was afraid his neighbors would hear.
33:40
He decided the way to shut her up was to
33:42
stuff her into one of his surfboard bags and zip
33:46
it up around her. Now through the bag, she's still screaming,
33:49
I mean, this poor girl is absolutely fucking terrified, and
33:53
she's telling Mark I can't breathe, I can't breathe, help me.
33:57
In response, Mark takes his hand and places it over
34:01
where her mouth is on the surfboard bag and suffocates
34:05
her and fucking kills her. Her last moments are claustrophobic
34:12
and terrifying as Mark suffocates her inside of a surfboard bag.
34:18
After Jessica was dead, markaret took her out to the
34:20
desert and dumped her body. He took her to a
34:24
very remote area and dug a shallow grave, because of
34:28
course he did. He then dumped her there, went home
34:30
and cleaned his house as best he could. He cleaned
34:33
the blood stains from the walls and the flooring from
34:35
the initial attack. He also disposed of the surfboard bag,
34:39
and I think cleaned his sheets and just basically did
34:41
what he could to cover everything up. The very next day,
34:45
Jessica was reported missing by her father, who was aware
34:48
she had been or was supposed to be, hanging out
34:50
with Mark the day prior. Mark of course lied and
34:53
said he dropped her off or left or somewhere. There's
34:55
not a ton of information here, but I did watch
34:57
an interview with her father where he talked about how
34:59
he knew Mark was lying. He knew it, and immediately
35:04
Mark Anthony Gator was a suspect in Jessica's disappearance. Now
35:09
this was immediate, not only because her father told police
35:12
she was with him, but also because she was friends
35:15
with Brandy and police knew about Mark's behavior since their breakup.
35:19
Despite this, there was no body they had no reason
35:22
really to search his home, so they weren't really able
35:24
to do anything. So it was one of those situations
35:27
where the cops are like, we don't know what happened
35:30
to her, but we know you're involved, but there's literally
35:33
nothing we can do because there's no proof that there's nothing. Meanwhile,
35:37
Jessica's dad is amazing, He's not giving up and finding her,
35:41
and he begins canvassing the area. And now he's canvassing
35:44
the area right around where Mark lived. Now he's doing this,
35:47
he's posting flyers they have Jessica's face on them, asking
35:51
people to call in if they hear or see anything.
35:53
And he's doing this not just because it's around where
35:56
she went missing, but he's doing it to fucking let
35:59
Mark know. You know, he knows, and he knows he's
36:02
going to see these flyers, and he's hoping it's going
36:04
to eat at him. I'm sure. Now I really hate
36:07
the families have to do things like this, but I
36:09
also love when they do because so often it actually
36:11
helps them solve the case or find their family members.
36:15
And I'm going to tell you right now, this does work.
36:17
This does help. So while this is all going down,
36:20
Mark is out on the street preaching the good word
36:23
to kids wherever he can, trying to convert people to Christianity,
36:26
all while hiding the fact that he's a fucking rapist
36:29
and a murderer. The cognizant dissonance here is unbelievable to me.
36:34
His mentor Aggie, who again I do not like, later
36:37
mentioned that as a part of his turning over a
36:39
new leaf. Yeah right, Marke hat thrown away all of
36:42
his pornography, and he'd actually had Augie come over when
36:45
he did it, as sort of like a support person,
36:48
and Augi noticed that a lot of the pornography was
36:52
super hardcore, and what I mean, what I mean by
36:55
hardcore is not like run of the mill hardcore porn,
36:59
but like violent porn, like over the top stuff. So
37:05
that kind of lets you know where his mind was.
37:09
Oggi also said that while Mark generally seemed to be
37:11
in good spirits, there was a point at which the
37:13
two of them saw one of Jessica's missing posters and
37:16
Mark immediately quote had to go, So obviously these flyers
37:21
are messing with him, right. Oggie didn't think much of
37:24
it at the time because Mark was just like a
37:26
weird guy in general, but later on this you know,
37:28
obviously stood out. Now. Jessica was murdered March twenty first,
37:32
nineteen ninety one, and by April tenth, Mark was not
37:35
able to take it anymore, being the main suspect, even
37:39
if nobody really knew besides him and the police. Seeing
37:42
her face everywhere everywhere he went with family pleading for information.
37:46
It finally took his toll and on April tenth, while
37:50
hanging out with Aggie, he pointed at one of the
37:52
flyers and said, see that girl, that's the girl I killed,
37:56
which again everybody says it that way, and it makes
37:59
me wonder, like, did he can tell Aggie that he
38:01
killed somebody previously and now he's indicating it's this girl
38:05
because he said that's the girl I killed, as if
38:08
he had already told Oggie he killed someone. So that
38:10
always stood out to me just like the way he
38:13
says it and makes me wonder, like what Aggie knew,
38:16
you know. But at this point, regardless, he confessed this
38:19
to his friend, and Aggie convinced him to turn himself in,
38:22
and I believe he first went and spoke with one
38:25
of their religious leaders, who also urged him to turn
38:27
himself in, and then Mark pretty much immediately after that,
38:30
went to the police told them what happened in full
38:32
complete detail. He said he killed Jessica instead of Brandy
38:37
because they were made from the same mold, meaning the
38:40
same kind of party girl. So basically, he was pissed
38:43
off at Brandy and decided to take it out on Jessica,
38:46
who was completely innocent. I mean, Brandy's innocent too, but
38:49
like Jessica has nothing to do with their crazy relationship,
38:52
and yet she's paying the price for it. He then
38:55
took police to the place where Jessica's body had been buried,
38:58
but weirdly, she was not there. As it turns out,
39:03
she'd been found by a child out with his family
39:06
riding dirt bikes in the desert just a few days prior,
39:09
and she had somehow become so decomposed over only two
39:12
weeks that it was impossible to tell who she was. However,
39:17
police put two and two together and Mark was arrested
39:20
for Jessica Bergston's rape and murder. After his arrest, he
39:24
recanted his confession, but at that point it really didn't matter.
39:28
He tried saying the sex was consensual and that things
39:30
just got out of control. He was, you know, choking
39:33
or as part of the sex. And then she just
39:34
stopped breathing, which is like total fucking garbage. It's the
39:38
same excuse used over and over by rapist, murderer shitbags.
39:43
I've heard this million times. I'm sure we all have. Ooh,
39:45
she just stopped breathing, bro you got to choke somebody
39:48
or cut off their oxygen for minutes, like it's not
39:52
it's not an oopsie immediate thing like they show in
39:54
the movies. And honestly, I kind of love that the
39:56
movies don't show the reality, because one, that would be
39:58
egregious and insane, but number two, people don't realize, so
40:02
they think they can lie like this and people are
40:04
just gonna believe them, and I just love that because
40:06
they get caught every fucking time. So luckily, this defense
40:09
did not work, and Mark Anthony Gador was sentenced to
40:14
life in prison with no parole for thirty one years.
40:19
He received twenty five to life for the murder and
40:21
a measly six for the rape, which is fucking ridiculous,
40:23
but you know, thirty one overall is decent because they
40:28
couldn't prove that it was premeditated. I kind of think
40:30
it was now that I've read through everything, but there's
40:34
nothing to indicate that it was premeditated. Really. I mean,
40:38
you can say premeditation is like going downstairs and picking
40:41
up the car lock, but he could also say that
40:43
he didn't intend to kill her, He just intended to
40:46
incapacitate her. On rapeer. So it's one of those weird
40:49
like gray areas. But in any case, he did get
40:53
thirty one to life, which is great. And during his
40:56
sentence he asked the Burgston this is so fucked up.
40:59
He asked the Bergs family for forgiveness for his carelessness,
41:04
which was such a slap in the face as it
41:07
clearly downplayed his violent actions against Jessica and to sort
41:11
of continue that shitbag behavior A couple of years later,
41:14
or like the next year, I think nineteen ninety two
41:17
or ninety three. During an over the phone prison interview,
41:21
Mark went even further into piece of shitland by straight
41:24
up blaming Jessica for her own rape and murder. He said, basically,
41:30
she was a sex kitten predator who forced him into
41:33
having sex with her against his newfound religious convictions. As
41:37
a result of her, you know, refusing to take no
41:40
for an answer, he became enraged and of course blacked
41:44
out during the attack. I mean, seriously, fuck this guy.
41:47
He's such a shit And now this is where I
41:50
have to say, like, for a very long time, before
41:52
I did this much research into the case, I felt
41:54
like it may have been a crime of passion or
41:56
just some sort of misdirected anger, which it was in
41:59
a way, and that maybe he wasn't really a horrible person,
42:02
but I now know better. Mark Anthony Gator has been
42:07
in prison since nineteen ninety one, sentenced in nineteen ninety two,
42:11
and he first became eligible for parole in twenty eleven,
42:14
but was denied pretty flatly. He then waved his right
42:18
for a hearing in twenty fifteen, which was the next
42:20
time he was up for consideration, then was denied in
42:24
twenty sixteen, with a waiting period of another seven years
42:28
before he could even ask to be paroled. That being said, somehow,
42:33
in twenty nineteen, the parole board recommended parole, but governor
42:36
knew some vetoed this the governor of California. He's the
42:40
governor now. He was the governor then. I have very
42:42
complicated feelings about the governor's ability to do this. I
42:45
don't really like that one person who has myriad jobs
42:48
can just tell a group of people whose sole job
42:50
is granting or denying parole that they're wrong. But I
42:53
also know that parole boards get it wrong a lot
42:56
of the time. So it's hard for me because I
42:59
feel like the governor if he denies or or like
43:02
vetos it, it's political typically more than actually based on
43:07
what a prisoner has earned or should be allowed sort
43:12
of anyway, In twenty twenty two, he was again granted parole,
43:17
and again this was vetoed by Newsom, which while again
43:21
I don't love that Gator might get out, I don't
43:24
think it's okay for Newsom to do this, as he
43:26
also did this to the Manson women and I have
43:29
big feelings about that, which we can cover later. But again,
43:33
it feels like Newsome only really gets involved in the
43:36
high profile cases so that he can look sort of
43:39
like tough on crime. And it's like if Mark Anthony
43:42
hadn't been a famous person, he would already be out
43:45
of prison because Newsom wouldn't be vetoing it to show
43:49
his conservative followers how tough he is. And anyway, I
43:52
have a lot of feelings about Newsom, but we won't
43:54
get into that anyway. Weirdly, he had another parole hearing
43:58
in twenty twenty four and board denied him so which
44:02
is interesting, but it could have been because they knew
44:04
it was gonna be vetoed. Anyway, I really don't know
44:07
what I do know is that the next chance he'll
44:09
get will be in twenty twenty seven, when he's I
44:11
think sixty two years old. I do think at that
44:14
point he will probably be released, but maybe the governor
44:18
will veto it again. Whoever the governor is at that point.
44:21
I think eventually though, he will be freed, which I
44:23
have very mixed feelings about. He has since taken more
44:27
responsibility for his actions and seemingly has sort of turned
44:30
over a new leaf, but you just never really know.
44:32
And his actions were so violent and so random it
44:35
still feels very scary and very dangerous, like murdering your
44:40
ex's close friends. Sorry, I hit my mic is such
44:42
a complicated way to get back at her, Like it
44:44
feels very premeditated, really twisted, and just like very fucking evil.
44:49
He also seems like the type of person who is
44:51
very easily emotionally overcome with emotion, you know, Like again,
44:57
while other skateboarders are like, oh, it's not our time
45:00
in the spotlight anymore and just kind of continued living
45:03
their lives and enjoying the fame that they had, Like
45:06
this fucking destroyed this guy, Like how fragile are you?
45:09
You know, how much of a narcissist? Are you that
45:11
this literally ruins your life? So it's a little scary,
45:15
but we'll see what happens. But you know, that's basically
45:18
the story of a handsome, talented young man who's so
45:22
fucked up that he is also a rapist and a
45:25
murderer and a stalker and just a fucking turd. So
45:29
that's the story of Gator Mark Anthony, the rise and
45:33
fall of a very talented but very awful person. And
45:40
it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate for everybody. Yeah, so that's it.
45:45
I hope you guys enjoyed this bleak ass story. I
45:47
know I enjoyed researching it. Hopefully I told it well.
45:50
I can hear in my voice that I'm so stuffed up.
45:52
But I'm sorry you guys. The recording probably sounds a
45:54
little crazy as a result. But we must continue through sickness,
45:59
through health. It's like a marriage. I'm married to this podcast.
46:01
I have made a commitment. I have to see it through.
46:04
So I'll be back soon with another one. I'm going
46:06
to do a case, a black widow case next and
46:11
I'm pretty excited about it. This woman is dumb as
46:14
a dumb as a fucking rock. So I can't wait
46:16
to make fun of her with all of you while
46:18
we talk about her stupidity and the way she gets caught.
46:22
So just a little spoiler action there for the next case.
46:25
Thanks everybody for listening. Please like, rate review, Share with
46:28
your fan friends and family, Share with your fans if
46:30
you have fans you know, do that too. Yeah, thank
46:34
you all. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season,
46:36
Happy New Year. I will talk to you next year
46:41
and until then, stay safe.