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MMA Fighter Wanted in Killings Captured After Escaping Van

Marks was arrested in Michigan last month on a Bell County, Texas charge

Surveillance video helped police locate an MMA fighter facing murder charges after he escaped a prison transport van in Southeast Texas, police say.

Conroe Police Chief Jeff Christy said Cedric Marks escaped while wearing leg, hand and belly restraints. He was found Sunday hiding inside a 55-gallon trash can in Conroe, about 40 miles north of Houston, after a nine-hour manhunt involving multiple law enforcement agencies.

Marks had escaped earlier Sunday after the driver of the private transport van stopped at a McDonald's. Christy says Marks was still wearing his orange prison jumpsuit when he was captured.

Conroe PD
Police in Conroe, Texas, on Sunday found Cedric Joseph Marks hiding in a trash can.

Murder warrants were issued Sunday for Marks in the killings last month of his ex-girlfriend, Jenna Scott, and Scott's friend, Michael Swearingin. Both disappeared on Jan. 4. Their bodies were found Jan. 15 buried in a shallow grave in Clearview, Oklahoma.

Marks was arrested in Michigan last month on a Bell County, Texas, charge alleging that on Aug. 21, he broke into Scott's home in Temple, which is about 60 miles north of Austin. Authorities said he escaped while being transferred to Bell County to face that charge.

Scott requested a protective order against Marks last July, accusing him of choking her unconscious twice, Temple television station KCEN reported.

"Each time he allowed me to regain consciousness and then he choked me out again," Scott said in an affidavit.

The protective order request was denied.

She also reported to police that Marks had broken into her home in August while her daughter, who was 9, was there. She said he took her cellphone to prevent her from calling 911.

Police in Bloomington, Minnesota, say Marks remains a person of interest in the 2009 disappearance of April Pease, who was the mother of one of his children. The two were involved in a fierce custody dispute in Washington state and Pease, who had a drug problem, went to live in a Bloomington women's shelter because she said she was afraid of Marks. Like Scott, Pease alleged that Marks had choked her unconscious on more than one occasion, according to a court custody investigator. Pease went missing in March 2009 and Marks got custody of their son.

Pease's mother, Dottie Pease, told KCEN last month that she had believed her daughter might have had a drug relapse, but that given the developments in Texas, she thought it was possible that Marks might have had something to do with her daughter's disappearance.

Two women were arrested in Michigan on charges related to Marks.

Maya Maxwell is charged with evidence tampering and is jailed in Bell County, Texas, on $150,000 bond. According to an arrest affidavit, she told detectives that she drove Swearingin's vehicle to Austin in an attempt to hide it from investigators. It was found abandoned in the city Jan. 6.

Ginell McDonough, who is Marks' wife and the mother of two of his two children, is jailed in Muskegon County, Michigan, on an obstruction of justice charge. She is accused of allowing Marks and Maxwell to stay in her home between Jan. 5 and Jan. 9.

Jail records do not list an attorney for either woman.

Marks compiled a record of 31-28-0 during his professional MMA career, which began in 1999, according to mixedmartialarts.com. His last fight was in September.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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