Former MMA fighter Cedric Marks is already facing the death penalty, charged with murdering former girlfriend Jenna Scott, 28, and an acquaintance, Michael Swearingin, 32. Now, he’s been hit with another murder rap, stemming from the 2009 disappearance of another ex-partner, April Pease.
Deputy Chief Mike Hartley of the Bloomington Police Department announced the news Monday, on what was the 11-year anniversary of Pease’s disappearance. This new charge sees Marks on the hook for 2nd degree murder after abducting Pease, with whom he had a child, from a women’s shelter in Minnesota, alongside accomplice Kellee Kristine Sorensen. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office alleges that Marks and Sorensen drove from Washington state to Minnnesota, tracking Pease down after she had fled the abusive Marks. Pease was abducted, then driven to an undisclosed location along the I-35, where she was killed by Marks while Sorenson remained in the vehicle.
Pease’s body has never been found. She had been moved to the Bloomington shelter after Marks had located her at a separate women’s shelter in Washington State. The couple’s child was left at the facility.
Cedric Marks is listed as residing in Belton, Texas while Kellee Kristine Sorensen hails from Lynden, Washington. Marks was already in custody in regards to the previous capital murder charges, while Sorensen has been apprehended in her home state. She is also charged with 2nd degree murder.
Investigators put the spotlight on Marks as a suspect in the Pease case after he was arrested for the deaths of Scott and Swearingin.
Cedric Marks was initially arrested in Michigan in January 2019 on charges of breaking into Jenna Scott’s home, to demand she drop assault charges against him. While being extradited to Texas, he would escape custody, only to be apprehended following a manhunt involving multiple law enforcement bodies, including the Conroe, Texas PD. With the bodies of Scott and Swearingin discovered in a shallow grave in Clearview, Oklahoma in mid-January, Marks was already a prime suspect. The murders were alleged to have taken place in nearby Killeen, Texas on January 3, 2019 — roughly two weeks prior to their bodies being found. By the time Marks had been nabbed fleeing his prison transport on February 3, 2019, charges of murder had been filed against him.
Per records, Jenna Scott had taken a restraining order out against Marks. She claimed the former fighter had boasted that he had “gotten away with murder before.” That, most likely, was in reference to the Pease case.
Marks, nicknamed “Spider-Man,” ran up a journeyman’s record of 31-27, 1NC in a career that lasted from 1998 to his final recorded fight in 2018. He shared the cage with the likes of Drew Fickett, Bobby Voelker, Shannon Ritch, Yves Edwards, Travis Lutter, and Thomas Gifford. His final run in the sport saw him go 1-6 from 2012 onward.
Marks competed for Shamrock FC and Bellator MMA, among a host of other promotions. Speaking to Shamrock FC Radio in 2014, he explained that he got into the sport “very much by accident” after watching the original UFC tournament. “I wanted to fight and I saw the first UFC and it juiced me up and started me on that path.”
That was ahead of his fight with Bobby Voelker. Five years removed from allegedly having murdered April Pease.
In one of the more bizarre angles of the case, Marks has apparently had no shortage of accomplices willing to aide in his crimes. His current wife, Ginell McDonough, plead guilty last month to harboring a felon. Yet another accomplice, Maya Maxwell, led police to the bodies of Scott and Swearingin, and gave birth to the former fighter’s child last year, while behind bars. Maxwell was charged with evidence tampering in the 2019 murders.
