CONROE, Texas – The mixed martial arts fighter who was arrested Sunday after escaping a transport van in Conroe now faces a capital murder charge, records showed.
Cedric Marks, 44, was capital murder of multiple persons, interference with an emergency call, false report to police, violation of a protection order and burglary of a habitation, according to Bell County Jail records. All of those charges are out of Temple, according to the records.
Marks is accused of escaping a van transporting him to Bell County after being extradited to Texas from Michigan. Investigators said the van stopped at a McDonald’s restaurant in Conroe so that the prisoners could be fed when Marks escaped about 7:20 a.m. He was found about eight hours later, hiding in a trash can within site of the restaurant where the escape happened, investigators said.
According to KCEN-TV, the charges in Temple are connected to the deaths of Marks’ ex-girlfriend Jenna Scott, and her boyfriend, Michael Swearingin. The couple’s bodies were found in rural Oklahoma in January after they were reported missing about two weeks earlier.
Investigators said Marks threatened Scott multiple times when she tried to end their relationship, saying she knew he was capable of and that her family would need police protection if she called 911.
Authorities in Montgomery County said they are still trying to determine how Marks was able to escape while wearing restraints with a guard and other prisoners in the van.