The Day Mark Mariani Came Face-to-Face With Evil | 10
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Hey, it's Nancy. Before we begin today, I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to Crime Beat early and ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. He's the most terrifying serial killer you've never heard of. Haddon Clark has confessed to several murders, but investigators say he could have over 100 victims. At the center of the mayhem, a cellmate of Haddon's that was able to get key evidence into Haddon's murder spree across America.

because hadn't thought he was Jesus Christ. Born Evil, the Serial Killer and the Savior, an ID true crime event, premieres Monday, September 2nd at 9. Watch on ID or stream on Max. Set your DVR. A listener's note. This podcast contains coarse language, adult themes, and content of a violent and disturbing nature. Listener discretion is advised. I am a true believer in light and dark. Good and

and evil. I'd like to think there's more good out there than bad, but given what I'm exposed to as a crime journalist every single day, I'm likely a little bit jaded. I see the very worst of humanity. These guys are worse than scum of the earth. They would kill everyone in that room and wouldn't think twice of it. They'd go have a beer afterwards. Like that's the kind of guys they were.

What I find especially difficult is covering a case where someone has been victimized for no reason at all. Someone completely innocent. I'm Nancy Hixt, a crime reporter for Global News. Today on Crime Beat, the story of a man who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And by a horrible twist of fate, he came face to face with pure evil. On October 3rd, 2010, police were called to a small strip mall. Its alley borders the edge of an older residential neighborhood with a mix of 50s bungalows and newer infills built decades later. It was a Sunday morning just after 9 a.m. and a woman was walking to work.

she came across the most disturbing scene imaginable. A man, dead, beside a vehicle in the parking lot. He had been left to die in a pool of his own blood. His body battered. He was beaten beyond recognition. When police arrived, they followed the trail of blood to the nearby alley. The alley itself is a little bit sketchy.

There's all sorts of graffiti spray-painted on the buildings. That's where officers found a cell phone, keys, and a wallet, including a man's ID. Police knew it likely belonged to the victim, but his injuries were so bad, they couldn't be sure if it was in fact him. Devastated family members had to help police positively identify him.

The victim was 47-year-old Mark Mariani. Before we get to know Mark Mariani, I need to take you back, all the way back to the late 1940s in Italy. World War II had just ended and things were extremely tough. Parts of Italy were ravaged. The scars were still fresh as many tried to rebuild.

Opportunities, like food, were scarce. For many, including the Mariani family, Canada was a shining land of opportunity just across the sea. So in 1949, in search of a better life, they moved to Calgary. Norbert Mariani, better known as Bertino, was just 13 years old at the time.

Bertino had a passion for cooking, and by 1952, he began training with some of the finest chefs in the country at the Banff Springs Hotel and Chateau Lake Louise. Then, in 1955, Bob met the love of his life, Arlene, a young waitress who worked at the Palliser Hotel, one of Calgary's oldest luxury hotels.

It was just a few years later, in 1957, Bob and Arlene were married and started a family. It's a pretty cool story how he kind of, he came to Canada, you know, as a young boy, immigrated from Italy and through his love of cooking, he, you know, worked in various restaurants and

and then eventually decided to open his own. So it was after his training, you know, out in the mountains and stuff and living out there that he came back to Calgary, worked for a little bit, and then opened up his own place. That's Dino Mariani, Mark's brother. He's the youngest of Bertino and Arlene's four children. My sister Kathy's the oldest. Bob...

is the next, Mark was the middle, and then I'm the tail end. The Mariani family was well known in the Calgary restaurant scene, and over the years had several popular establishments in the city. The Mariani kids were basically born into restaurant life. As kids, we were expected, we weren't asked, we were expected that we would go and work in the family restaurant. So on weekends, we'd get up and go out

great, we're going to go play at the park or we're going to do something. It was like, nope, you're coming to work. You're doing dishes today or you're busing or you're bartending or whatever it is. We all started as a dishwasher, I think. I know I did. You started at the bottom and you worked your way up. So dishwasher, busboy, waiter, cook.

Then if you were lucky, you became a bartender. And then eventually you kind of ran the bar at night and stuff. Both Bob and Mark cooked a lot more than I did. They trained a little bit more with my dad. My sister was the bookkeeper. My mom was the hostess. My dad was the chef. And yeah, we all kind of just pitched in and did our job. So at any given night, we were all in there doing a different job or connecting somehow.

Mark was likely the most carefree and happy-go-lucky of all the Mariani kids. He loved to have fun and make other people smile. As a young boy, he was a bit chubby, and he got teased for that. He was chubby and he had a baby face with little freckles and little blondish-reddish hair. You know, he had the more German side of the family image.

So I think he got teased a lot about his weight. And so that was a big struggle for him. That was a huge issue as him growing up, but somewhere along the line and him growing up and I didn't even notice it, but he went from being this chubby little guy to, you know, six foot two, six foot three, you know, 40 some inch chest, like just a big monster of a guy, but still baby face, which was really cute.

So yeah, he, you know, growing up, he was always not just my big brother, but he was big, like he was a big guy and a big fella. And yeah, he's just, he wasn't intimidating. He was intimidating because he was tall and he was big and he had huge broad shoulders, but the smile and the broad face was like the giveaway. So he could pretend it sometimes, but yeah, he was a pretty, pretty gentle, big guy. Mark also seemed to love restaurant life the most.

We had a DJ booth at our restaurant. So Mark and his best friend, they were kind of like the official, unofficial DJs. And that's back in, you know, the early 80s and 80s.

I think we amassed one of the largest record collections in the city for our DJ booth and Mark was always on it and always about different songs and he followed the trends really well. They had thousands of records and it was records so they would be we had two turntables we had a mixing board they had the whole thing so they were back then they were pioneering or or doing like the scratch records and the turn and the fade-ins and all that stuff yeah he was pretty amazing like

And not to mention the fact that he was probably working in the bar at the same time, so he was running around doing all this stuff. And I think we made our parents spend thousands of dollars on a lighting system and all this music and all these stereo and all these speakers and stuff because Mark had kind of figured out that that was going to be what the fad was at that time.

Artists like Duran Duran and Flock of Seagulls take Dino right back to the time his big brother Mark would be spinning the hits. If I hear these old songs, I automatically think of Mark and think of, I can see him wearing his big suit jacket with the leather, gray leather tie. Yeah, it's pretty cool. ♪

He had a big part on the side and he had, I hate to say it, and if he were here he'd get mad at me, but he kind of had a mullet going on. Yeah, he had the long hair down to his shoulders. Mark had dreams of following in his father's footsteps and getting into the restaurant business. He probably would have

eventually opened his own place somewhere, opened up a restaurant or cafe because we talked about it for years, the two of us, and we were always trying to pitch an idea to my father. And it's funny because the running joke now is that Mark and I pitched about six ideas to my dad and, you know, kept saying, no, no, I don't think we should do that. And then sure enough, those six ideas actually happened with somebody else. I remember him going to Kelowna and

and spending about two months there trying to look for a place to open a restaurant in Kelowna back in the days when there weren't that many great restaurants or Italian restaurants. So he was the visionary for sure. At that time, Mark was trying to lose weight. He started what he called the orange diet. Basically, he was only eating oranges. The good news was it worked.

But Mark had lost so much weight, his family began to worry. They feared he might be sick. He started losing weight and, you know, he started not feeling well. And I think it was a lot. It was a pretty stressful time for him as well. He had gotten into a relationship that I think was horrible for him. And I think that exasperated the condition. And I think he just mentally and physically, he felt beat down and depressed.

I think that just gave the disease something to hold on to and kind of then it kind of attacked his body completely. At 22, Mark was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. It's an inflammatory bowel disease that causes issues with your digestive tract. It can lead to severe abdominal pain, fatigue and can be extremely debilitating.

It can be treated, but for now there is no cure. Mark took prescription drugs to help treat his symptoms, but those medications had a huge impact on his quality of life. Making him sick, making him almost paranoid at times, like he just felt, he felt horrible. And we would have like long talks about, you know, what was going on and you could see the shift.

You could see how it was affecting him and the disease, how it was hurting his body. And that was the hardest part is seeing this gregarious, fun, amazing guy who, and I've said this thousands of times, he would give his shirt off his back and his shoes and his socks, right? And he would make sure that he included the money he had in his pocket to give to you. Like that's the kind of guy he was. And all of a sudden he wasn't that guy. Mark was so sick, he ended up moving home.

He probably lived with all of us at one time or another, just, you know, struggling with the disease and how it was affecting him. And he wasn't used to being dependent on other people and he wasn't used to being sick and he wasn't used to not being the strongest person in the room. They took out a couple of different operations. They took out different parts of his body.

I think it was his colon and something else. They surgically remove large strips of different things, and eventually they decided that it wasn't healing and it wasn't going to get any better for him, so they suggested that he do a colostomy, and that was probably...

Mentally and emotionally that was probably the hardest thing that he had to go through. Basically what they do is reroute the end of the hose, if you will. They reroute it into a bag that comes out in his abdomen.

So you have to carry the bag around and then you, you know, how do you attach that properly? Like there's no, like this is back in, you know, the late, mid to late 90s and early 2000s. They didn't have a lot of technology there in terms of how you keep it sealed, how you keep it sterile. Dino said Mark really struggled with his new life. And as the years went by, it didn't get easier.

Several times a day, Mark had to deal with a colostomy bag. I won't go into too much detail, but these bags are used to collect waste. They're cumbersome and uncomfortable, to say the least. Living with that daily and, you know, it breaking or it moving or it leaking or it showing, right? Like having to hide that from everyone and people don't understand it and...

You know, you couldn't go on a beach, like, you couldn't go on a vacation on the beach anymore. I mean, you could, and I know people that live with them and are lifeguards, but it's hard. It's super hard on someone. Even after several decades, it wore on him. Mark struggled to have a social life. It was a lot to deal with. And then he found a place where he truly fit in.

He was a regular at several Calgary country bars. He loved it. I'm not sure how he got into it completely, but he became this cowboy. And he had the boots and the buckle and the hat. And he had a truck at one point. Mark had a newfound love for country music. And even helped Dino become a fan of some of the classics. George Strait. He actually took me to a George Strait concert. And I was like...

you know football jock and you know I like YouTube and who all you know like all the popular music but and I wasn't really a country guy but he took me to George Strait and I loved it and I think I have appreciation of country because of Mark for sure

To this day, Dino thinks of Mark when he hears the soundtrack from the 1992 George Strait movie, Pure Country. I love those songs and I love that movie and stuff and it was because of Mark. When Mark went out to a country bar...

For a few hours, he could forget about his health problems and just have some fun. Yeah, he loved two-stepping. Yeah, he loved going out and schmoozing at the country bars and just having a good time. I think he felt more accepted there. And he kind of fit that, like the look and the style. And I think he felt less judged and he could just be himself.

Then, on October 1st, 2010, Mark was given new hope. Hope he wouldn't need his colostomy bag anymore. They were going to reverse it. And the medication had caught up and surgery had caught up and research had caught up. So there's a potential he could have reversed it and gone back to Norma and had a really nice scar. And, you know, that would have been the end of it.

But Mark didn't get the chance to find out if medical advancements could help him. On Saturday, October 2nd, 2010, he headed to his favorite Western bar to do some dancing and meet up with some friends. And then he just didn't come home. He didn't come home that night. My mom kind of knew it and she had a bad feeling and she was used to hearing him come in. She was kind of an... My parents were always like nighthawks, so...

She didn't hear him come in and she kind of worried about him. Got up the next morning and she actually had called my sister I think and I think she tried to call me as well to find out if Mark was with me or was staying with me. It was unusual that he didn't come home because that's, I mean with his, with Crohn's and stuff that was his kind of safe spot and he could always come home and change and clean up and do all the stuff that he needed to so

And I mean, he wasn't really dating anyone, so there was no other person. Definitely, he would have and should have been home. It was hours later, well into the following day, the Mariani family was contacted by police. That day, I was teaching first aid at a Walmart down in the south.

And I had turned off my phone or I turned it down because I don't want it ringing while I'm teaching. So I turned it off or turned it down. And then I remember on one of the breaks, probably around, I think 10, 10 a.m. or 11 a.m., I looked at my phone and there were, you know, seven or eight or ten text messages and a whole bunch of voice messages and a bunch of calls that I had missed. And they were all from Kathy.

And I didn't even check the messages. I just called because I knew something was wrong. She doesn't, she wouldn't do that kind of thing. So I called and she was screaming and crying on the other end of the phone telling me that they had found Mark and he was dead. And I just slumped down in the middle of the class. Like I, it was out in the hallway and I just slumped down on the floor and I just, I didn't know what to do. Like I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. Dino's entire world just stopped. I just got in my Jeep and drove and on the way I just...

I imagined every possible thing and I remember thinking that I wondered if it was his Crohn's like I wonder if he got sick and something happened and I didn't even know and I still couldn't believe it like I had to keep asking if he if it was true like if he was dead or

She might have got it wrong. I thought maybe he was just sick. And so I don't know how I got from deep in the south to my parents' place up in Scenic Acres because I was told I had to go straight there. I didn't even know why. They said, just get there as quick as you can. But when Dino arrived at his parents' home, he still didn't get the answers he was looking for.

Instead, the entire family was taken to Calgary Police Headquarters. They got us all up there. They didn't tell us anything. And they took us one at a time into different interview rooms. And they usually had one or two officers in there with us and, you know, the full cameras and everything. And they interviewed us separately and asked us all the questions. You know, we didn't even know what was going on. I have no idea why, first of all, why we're at the police station.

And second of all, why they're splitting us up. But the aware person in me, the streetwise person in me kind of understands what they're doing. They're looking for answers and it's obvious that there's something wrong. And they're asking questions for a reason, not just random. All the Mariani family knew was something very bad had happened. They tried to help police, but the entire process had them feeling very confused.

I had been working with my brother-in-law's company painting fire hydrants and I had painted one red and I got a drop of red on my shoe. So during my first interview, they were talking to me and I left and I went and sat back with the others and then they came and got me again and they brought me back into a room and they said, what's that on your shoe? And it startled me for a second. I'm like, it's paint.

And then I clicked. It clicked right away. And I said, here, it's paint. Take them. Do what you need to do with them. And they said, well, look, we really apologize. We know this is a tough time. I said, I don't care. I know you're looking for something. If I can help you eliminate a bunch of questions, take them and go do what you have to do. And they did. They went and swabbed it and came back and said, sorry, but we have to cover that. I knew that there was something up then.

For Dino, the hours that followed were a blur. After we left the police station, we went back to the house and everybody was crying and all I could remember was, you know, I have to be strong for the entire family and my nephews and my niece and, you know, I can't break down like I can't lose it here. On October 13th, 2010, a celebration of Mark's life was held. 600 people filled the pews of the church.

His family shared a poem in his honor. A son, a brother, an uncle, a friend so true. Whatever he had, he'd share it with you. A thought, a deed, a kind word for a while. But always, oh always, he'd share his smile. Always in our thoughts and forever in our hearts.

A video tribute was shared and showed happier times with his family, right from his early days with his chubby cheeks all the way to the end, decked out with his cowboy hat. I can remember back at the funeral and I remember his friends coming up and saying, Mark was a prince of a guy. I can't believe it was Mark. And I think that's, for me, that's both the saddest and probably the happiest thing is because I know Mark

I know how I felt about him and I've kind of always known how other people feel about him, but it was really reinforced. And, you know, but that's also the saddest thing because, you know, there's a lot of people that probably don't deserve to, you know, have the freedoms and the things that we do and love and breathe. But he definitely did. And that's the hardest part about it.

Devastation doesn't even begin to describe the loss the Mariani family was experiencing. Just days after his death, Mark's mother spoke to the media for the first time. He wanted to find a wife and have his own children. Arlene Mariani struggled to make sense of what had happened. My son didn't go for nothing in that dumb back alley.

He had a mom. He had a dad. There's a face for him. There's a face to that poor boy. The family had so many questions and no real answers. They had no idea who would have killed Mark. Like how, who, why? Like was there connections to something? Did somebody know about it?

He was the most amazing guy in the world. So it wasn't like we thought, oh, okay, he had a fight with someone and that's how it happened. We knew that that wasn't it. We just thought, why Mark? Of all people, realistically, why Mark? I'm kind of the big mouth sometimes. I have a lot of emotion and passion. I probably am more likely to get into a fight than he is.

So we couldn't understand why it was him, like why somebody would do something to Mark. Calgary Police Homicide Detective Dave Sweet was assigned as the primary investigator on the case. Detective Sweet has been a police officer for more than 20 years. He started off working in uniform, then drastically changed his appearance for undercover work.

He moved into organized crime and has now been a homicide detective for 10 years. He's confident and kind, but he can also be extremely intense. When he's working to solve a case, he's incredibly focused, and he's known to work around the clock for several days before being forced to get a few hours of sleep.

You can tell the stage of an investigation by looking at Sweet's facial hair. Chances are, if he's in the thick of it, he hasn't taken the time to shave. You can see the drive and determination in his eyes. He's known to be both passionate and compassionate.

One of the things that really sets him apart is the close relationship he develops with many of the victim's families, including the Mariani family. He makes this a priority, and that's part of what makes him so good at his job. He never loses sight of the humanity in what he's dealing with. They were a warm, nurturing family. They were a family that clearly loved their son.

their brother, their uncle. Everyone in the family really, really felt the loss of Mark very early on. And they opened their homes up to myself and the other investigators, gave us access to be able to speak to them, learn as much about Mark as we possibly could in those early days that would maybe assist us in identifying who was responsible for his death.

On October 3rd, 2010, Sweet met with other investigators at Calgary Police Headquarters to strategize. Then, within just hours of Mark being found dead at the strip mall, Sweet himself went to the scene. Early on in the investigation, very early, we'd come to learn that where the victim was lying was likely not the location where the initial incident had occurred.

Forensic crime scenes investigators were already gathering evidence and found a large pool of blood in the nearby alley. It's believed that's where Mark was attacked, and it appeared he had tried to get back to his vehicle, and sadly, that's where he died.

It was in the alley where police also found Mark's wallet, keys and phone. One of the first things I contemplated when I first got out to the scene was that this was, Mark had died as a result of some sort of a street robbery or robbery gone bad. That theory was quickly ruled out. Mark's wallet still had some cash in it along with his credit and debit cards.

The medical examiner revealed Mark died from blunt force trauma. He had been stomped and beaten to death. Stomped, massive head lacerations. He'd suffered a broken jaw. He had skull fractures. Deep bruising, bleeding in the face. His scalp, chest, and right buttocks were all hemorrhaged to the bone.

The violence Mark suffered, being stomped on, kicked, and brutally beaten is honestly beyond comprehension. How could someone do that to another human being? Each blow from those violent acts created evidence, forensic footprints that were left behind at the scene. If you can imagine...

When a person is being stomped to death, the stomper is footwear, will become caked in blood and will actually become like a stamp. Mark had 55 stamps of footwear impressions on his jacket alone. Did you catch that? 55 individual stamps on his jacket alone.

Mark, a family guy with zero history of drug use or criminal involvement, was beaten and left for dead in an alley, alone. Nothing could have prepared the Mariani family to learn what had happened to Mark, the fun-loving, kind, and gentle man they knew torn from their side in such a horribly violent way.

Detective Sweet had a number of investigative avenues to explore. He directed officers to go door-to-door in the neighborhood and find out if anyone witnessed anything that could help solve the case. That's what Sweet calls basic gumshoe detective work. It's that banging on doors and asking people questions and trying to figure out who lives in the area, if anybody heard or saw anything that night that was out of the ordinary.

Sweet said from examining Mark's cell phone, police learned he wasn't likely meeting anyone at the time he was killed. The attack appeared random. Police collected CCTV surveillance video from the strip mall and released some images in an appeal for help from the public. You're watching Global Calgary. Calgary homicide detectives are searching for two men who may be witnesses in a murder six months ago.

At one point, police did a Crimestoppers reenactment. Dino, Bob and Kathy all went to the alley where Mark was killed. It's incredibly hard to watch and it's only a dramatization, a scaled-down version of what Mark endured that fateful morning. Mark's siblings watched with tears rolling down their cheeks.

as actors played out the final moments of his life. He died for what? It's senseless that, you know, he would have given the shirt off his back to those people. So please do the right thing and come forward to the police with the information that you have so that my family, our mom and dad, and my kids, we can all, you know, understand, you know, and put an answer to why Mark died. The family waited.

Months went by. The Mariannis put all their trust in police and prayed whoever killed Mark would be caught. Right off the bat, Detective Sweet said, I would love to tell you guys everything. And I would love to keep you guys informed and let you know what's going on because you're going to have all these questions. But he said, you know, in the past, I've disclosed that and I've talked to the family about this and it's come back to haunt them with it.

So he said, unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to tell you guys anything and I just want you to trust me. And I remember standing in the kitchen, it was Kathy and Bob and I standing in the kitchen with Detective Sweet and he said that to us. And all three of us just looked at each other and said, don't tell us, just get it done. Like, we trust you, go. Whatever you need from us, we'll be there to support you. We won't ask you questions, we won't phone you.

Just trust that you're going to get the job done and we'll support you no matter what. So that's what we did. Never asked him a question. Then, eight months after Mark was killed, two men were arrested. Two notorious members of Calgary white power groups are now in jail accused of killing an innocent man. Tyler Stirrup and Robert Reitmeyer were charged with second degree murder. I think it was utter shock.

First of all, I don't think I even realized that that kind of creature existed in our city. I knew it did in other places, but I didn't think it existed here. And I was just, I guess I was just in shock for the first little while trying to figure out, first of all, where they were coming from, why they were there, and why they would have done something like that to someone like Mark.

I really need to take a minute to paint a picture of the two men who police had charged with killing Mark. Both used their bodies as a canvas to spread hate. Robert Reitmeyer was 24 years old at the time. His head was shaved and he was covered with white power tattoos, including his face.

There's the distinctive SS on his cheek and an 8/8 on his throat. 8/8 symbolizes the eighth letter of the alphabet twice, HH, meaning Heil Hitler. It's a tattoo that's common in the white power movement. The word skin, short for skinhead, marks the middle of his forehead.

There are several swastikas on his body, including a giant one on his chest and a web on his hand and neck. "Web" is the white supremacist group he belonged to that stands for Western European Bloodline. Tyler Stirrup was 26 years old.

He had white pride written across his chest and similar markings to Reitmeier, complete with the web on his hand and the SS bolts on his neck. He also has a swastika under his right eye, though he's since added a second swastika under his left eye. There are a lot of images of these two men posted online. Several show their arms out in the Nazi salute,

Others show bloody brawls. Reitmeyer was charged with attempted murder in another brutal attack four years before Mark was killed. A man's skull was cracked open. Those charges were later stayed. What everyone really wanted to know was why Mark? Why did these two men attack Mark that night?

What could he have possibly done to provoke such a savage attack? The answer to that question is nothing. Just days after Stirrup and Reitmeier were arrested, Mark's parents invited the media into their home. With a crew of cameras set up in the living room, they took turns speaking about Mark. A true desordial man.

That's Mark's dad, Bertino. Mark's older brother, Bob, also spoke. I don't consider them men because it doesn't take three or four or five guys to beat up one person who's underweight and can't even defend himself.

Next was Mark's big sister, Kathy. This was nothing more than pure evil at work. And what really saddens us is that he died alone in a parking lot and we couldn't be with him. I don't think that you in your heart as a human being would want to get the phone call that your loved one was found lying in a parking lot, bleeding, alone, and died with no one there to hold his hand.

I remember that day so clearly and saw the deep sadness and pain in all of their eyes. In particular, Mark's mother, Arlene. When Mark passed away, they took him away. They wouldn't let me go in a home. They wouldn't let us do that. Arlene was so emotional, she put her arms around herself in a hugging motion.

and said Mark's killers didn't allow her the chance to hold him one last time. Tyler Stirrup and Robert Reitmeier were complete strangers to Mark. They had never met before. So why did they kill him? Basically, because they could. Nothing precipitated except for the fact that he entered that alley that night.

with the intention of essentially relieving himself of the discomfort he was feeling because of the Crohn's. Mark had stopped at the strip mall to rent a movie. Back in the day when there were still video rental shops, it was late and he needed a bathroom stop. That's why he went into the back alley. And that's when Mark came face to face with pure evil.

They took his life for no other reason except for likely their own entertainment. The question you're probably asking is how police came to solve this case and link Stirrup and Reitmeier to Mark's murder. Remember that gumshoe investigative work that Sweet talked about earlier? A couple of our first responding officers, uh,

did a great job at the crime scene. After securing the crime scene, they went out and talked to a few people. And in their inquiries with some of the residences in the area, they learned that there was one home only a few doors down from where Mark's body was found.

that was the home of a family whose son, anyways, purported to be part of the neo-Nazi movement in Calgary by the name of Robert Reitmeier. In the case of Robert Reitmeier, one of the things I was always cognizant of is I guess it's maybe a bit of a stereotype, but when you think about people that are purporting to be part of this neo-Nazi movement, what does that actually look like? Well,

You know, from what I know, again, just as a layman, it's this idea of, you know, the big combat boots and the tight skinny jeans and the bomber jackets and the sort of offensive degrading behavior, the sort of antisocial, fuck the world kind of stuff. Both Stirrup and Reitmeyer showed off their stereotypical combat boots in many photos posted online.

and Mark had been brutally stomped. Remember that sketchy alley with the graffiti painted on the backs of the buildings? That graffiti helped shed light on what had happened. Well, one of the things that was really interesting is that autopsy found red paint transfers on the back of Mark's jacket. Seeing that, my mind tripped back to the day before when I had been at the crime scene, and I realized

came to a very quick recognition that maybe the paint that had been in the back alley on that wall, maybe some of it was actually related to our offenders. See, my theory was this. If Mark had been in the alley when the paint was still wet, or at least wet enough for it to transfer onto his jacket, then that would mean that some of the graffiti tags that we'd seen back there may have been put there

by people that had been in the alley around the same time as Mark. And when we did go back to the crime scene, one of the things we noticed in red paint right away was a swastika, which again, in my view, as a layman, was indicative of this neo-Nazi movement that Rob was sort of purporting to. So Rob was never eliminated as a suspect. And as time went on and as evidence kind of collected,

he became more and more of a suspect up until the point that I collected garbage from his house over a course of a few weeks believing that I may find evidence of his involvement in the offense there and I began the inquiries with people that knew Rob to find out a little bit more about him so I went spoke to his probation officer in talking to his probation officer I quickly learned that

that Rob had continued to report to his probation after the offensive, but had stopped wearing these big, large boots that he used to always wear to the probation office appointments. Things are starting to come together a little bit for me now. The investigative work had paid off, and evidence was all pointing towards Stirrup and Reitmeyer. I have red swastika, spray-painted on the wall. I have Mark's jacket,

with red paint on the back of it. I have Rob Reitmeier and an associate of Rob's by the name of Tyler Stirrup in the area of the murder about an hour and a half prior. I know Rob lives within three houses of where the assault occurred and that his home backs onto the alley. And from the crime scene examination, that initial one,

I also knew that my offenders had fled on foot because they had actually left behind, their boots had been so blood soaked, they left behind bloody footwear impressions on gravel as they left the alley. The fact that my victim had been stomped to death, again, seemed somewhat consistent with my theory that Rob or one of his associates may know a little bit more.

And in that video that had been collected of him an hour and a half earlier, Rob was wearing footwear that he was no longer wearing when he went to probation that was consistent with the type of footwear we were looking for that was essentially my murder weapon. The police needed more evidence. It was in March of 2011 when we were granted our first wiretap order to intercept the private communications of Rob Breitmaier and Tyler Stirrup.

And it was in March of 2011 where we also began our infiltration of an undercover police officer into Tyler Stirrup's life with the full intention of learning the truth in relation to what their roles may or may not have been in the murders of Mark Mariani. Police used covert techniques to gain Stirrup's trust. Basically,

An undercover operator will ingratiate himself with the target of your investigation. In this particular case, I made the decision that I felt that Tyler Stirrup was a good target for the undercover operation. And so he was the, I guess, person that an undercover police officer would meet with and try to gain a relationship or build a relationship with. In this particular case, it took about a month for that trust to build to a point where

where Tyler made his first admissions. The conversations, including the confessions, were recorded. It was actually on April 20th of 2011, which coincidentally was also Adolf Hitler's birthday, that Tyler Sterp admitted to our undercover police officer what he had done and how he had did it.

and provided information that I would say would be known only by the people that killed Mark to our undercover police officer. So he made strong admissions and actually essentially confessed to the crime and implicated his associate, Rob Reitmeier, as being the second person involved.

Intercepts of private conversations between Stirrup, Reitmeier, and a number of their associates helped police corroborate Stirrup's story. This is an excerpt of one of those conversations. They've got fucking sweet fuck all. What worries me is the fact that I wouldn't have called my house for graffiti. You know what I mean? Yeah, so what?

So long. They can't even connect that though. How can they like, how can they like actually fucking factually like forensically? Yeah, you're right. You're right. When I first fucking opened the paper, I was looking for something else. Yeah. The fucking, the head type, the fucking title, lead in random killing. I was like, holy fuck. Like no way. Then I read the article and I was like, pfft.

What I found particularly disturbing...

is how they laughed about this brutal crime. At least he was a lob, allegedly. On March 4th, 2013, on the day his trial was scheduled to begin, Tyler Stirrup pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

I think we were all preparing for a long lengthy trial. We were preparing to go the distance with whatever we needed to do and it was a shock that this turned around like it did today. Stirrup had completely changed his appearance. Like he had been given a full makeover. When he came in he had actually, he had grown his hair out and we all kind of remarked and said he looked like you know average, he could have been walking on the University of Calgary campus like

He looked like just a young average kid. So we didn't really think much of him because he admitted to it. Stirrup offered an apology in court. He said, "I cannot give Mark his life back. I wish I could, but I can take responsibility. I deeply regret my past violent and reckless behavior. I'm sorry for the pain I've caused your family."

Stirrup's defense lawyer said her client never really explained why he attacked Mark. The only thing that he offered, and as I indicated to the court, is that this was senseless. It was unfortunate. If he could turn back the clock, he would. The Queens bench justice called Stirrup's actions cowardly, cruel, and vicious, and sentenced him to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years.

Dino said he wanted to believe Stirrup had remorse, but that thought faded quickly with what came next. That's what we thought until he appealed it. When he appealed it and he came back into court, I just realized that he had no intelligence at all. He's a follower. He's a total follower. That appeal was later dismissed. In November 2013, just over three years after Mark's death,

Once again, the Mariani family was forced to relive details of the savage attack. Robert Reitmeier stood trial in front of a jury for second-degree murder. Like Stirrup, Reitmeier had also done some work on his appearance. He was wearing a turtleneck most of the time, and he had makeup covering all his tattoos. And he kept his hands down. So it was a total play.

You know, I mean, what I keep thinking about guys like that is if you're so tough and you believe so strongly in your ideology, why don't you just stand up in the court with your tattoos out and your ideology and tell everyone what you did? Because you're you're stronger than this court. So why don't you do it? But hid behind makeup and a collar like a wimp.

Both of them. And basically it was designed so that they would fool their audience. Dino said he was frustrated by the court process and felt the truth never fully came out. I was sitting there looking at the jury thinking, if you guys only knew, there would be no question. There would be no question about this. And you wouldn't deliberate on whether or not he was guilty. It would be a cut and dried case because that's the kind of person he is.

that these guys are worse than scum of the earth, that they would kill everyone in that room and wouldn't think twice if they go have a beer afterwards. Like, that's the kind of guys they were. He would have murdered anyone in that room because we don't believe in his ideology.

And it wouldn't have been a murder. It would have been something fun and grotesque. And some of the blogs that I read about some of the things that he had said, you know, about how you could kill a person. I'm like, that's the kind of guy he was. There is no, there's no remorse. There's no, there's no love. There's no compassion, no empathy, no nothing. It's just a black hole. That's what I remember thinking about him. But the jury wasn't fooled.

Reitmeyer was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 13 years, three years longer than Tyler Stirrup.

But that peace was short-lived. Reitmeyer appealed both his conviction and sentence.

Again, each of Mark's siblings, along with their families, stood united at court, fighting for justice. Of course you're angry, but you have to be strong and that's why we're all here. And we'll show up every time there's an appeal for anything, the family will be there because it was for Mark. We couldn't be there in the alley and we couldn't be there that night, so at least we can do a show up here.

Both the conviction and sentence appeals were dismissed.

The Court of Appeal described the crime as a murderous assault of a defenseless person by two strangers simply for the fun of it. Even now, nearly 10 years after Mark's death, his family knows there will never really be closure. The kind of things that they did to my brother, like the actual acts they did that night, and I don't even know if we can speak about it, like just...

It wasn't just, you know, a lot of people think, oh, okay, he was murdered and, you know, and that was that. No, it's how they tortured him. It's how they, the things they did to him, the disgrace and the disrespect and all the things wrapped around that, that if people knew and people heard, they would probably vomit. It wasn't long after the court process finished, Mark's mother passed away.

I truly believe that she, at that time, that day, she gave up. I think that was the beginning of the end. And I think she was going to hold on until the trials were over and she wanted to see that justice was done. And then I think, and that's basically what happened. At her funeral, I sat with detectives, other reporters, and prosecutors.

In spite of the pain she suffered, she impacted so many lives with her kindness. She died with a broken heart. I think she felt guilty because she was basically the last person he saw from the family or was close to, right? And I think she felt a sense of like, if I would have just called him or if I would have just gone out looking for him, I would have saved him.

Mark's killers could soon be back on the streets. Stirrup is already eligible to apply for day parole. Reitmeyer can ask for that in less than two years.

Dino was recently contacted by Robert Reitmeier's wife. A message out of the blue on Facebook from Robert Reitmeier's wife asking if I'd be willing to sit down and talk to him. And he could explain to me and give me some answers to my questions about what happened during that time. What I felt about it was that that was a huge slap in the face.

That was another manipulation by a couple of psychopaths that are trying to manipulate me into agreeing with them or making them seem a little bit better than they are. Dino feels it's interesting timing on Reitmeier's part, given he can soon apply for parole. I mean, it's a couple of years coming up. I've snooped around on some social blogs, so I know...

I know certain information about what they're kind of ramping up to do and how they're trying to look better in prison than they are and keep their nose clean so they can get out and make sure that, you know, that their parole goes their way. And I know it's a big game. I know it's a total, it's a total show by them. And that this was just another show that they wanted to put on so they could tell the parole bar that, you know, we got one of the,

one of the family members to accept our apology. It's never going to happen, ever. Both killers have social media accounts that have been updated during their time in prison. Both have photos showing off their freshly shaved heads and new white pride tattoos. When these killers try to apply for any kind of freedom, members of the Mariani family will be there.

And they can only hope the parole board will keep them locked up for as long as possible. Realistically, the rules need to change. And people that do that kind of crime with that kind of malice and intent, they should never ever get out and be in society because you can't fix them. Over the years, I've gotten to know the Mariani family really well. And I've watched as they try to help others in dark situations.

Dino has reached out to other grieving families who've also lost loved ones to homicide and offered a special support that most people can't. He knows exactly the kind of pain they're going through. The Mariani family lives to honour Mark's memory. It's every single day. Every single day we think about it, we talk about it. We miss him, we talk about him.

you know, "Ah, it'd be cool if Mark saw this," or, you know, "If Mark were here, this is what he would do." Every year, on his birthday, they remember Mark. Every year I go to a bar somewhere on Mark's birthday and I get the bartender to pour, like, whatever beer I'm drinking. It's usually a craft beer.

And then I get him to pour me a little shot of Budweiser or, yeah, mostly Budweiser because I know that was Mark's favorite beer. So he pours me a little shot of Budweiser and I take a little picture and post it to Facebook and say cheers to Mark's. And then I begrudgingly drink the Budweiser and celebrate his birthday like that. When they're driving and one of Mark's favorite songs comes on the radio, they remember his smile.

his compassion, and his love, and focus on spreading light like Mark would have. Thank you for joining me and letting me share this story with you. Crime Beat is written and produced by me, Nancy Hixt, with producer Dila Velasquez. Our audio producer is Rob Johnston.

Special thanks to Craig Jaron for his editing assistance. I would love to have you tell a friend about this podcast and you can help me share these important stories by rating and reviewing Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

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