Donald Joseph Marquez (Shasta County Sheriff’s Office)
A 46-year-old man in California may spend the rest of his days behind bars for brutally killing a 61-year-old man he accused of being a child molester, beating the victim unconscious behind a church, waiting for him to wake up, then ultimately beating him to death.
Shasta County District Court Judge Jody M. Flynn on Friday ordered Donald Joseph Marquez to serve a sentence of 15 years to life in a state correctional facility for the 2021 slaying of Mark Russell Anderson, the Shasta County District Attorney’s Office announced.
The vicious attack took place on March 8, 2021, outside of the trailer where Anderson was living at the time, which was directly behind the Church of Christ in Burney, California. Burney is about 200 miles north of Sacramento.
A jury previously found Marquez guilty on one count of second-degree murder over the brutal attack on Anderson and also found true special allegations including that the crime involved great violence, that Russell was a vulnerable victim, that Marquez had previous served prison time, and that his crimes were “increasing in seriousness,” court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
According to a press release from the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, SCSO deputies at about 8:58 p.m. on March 8, 2021, responded to the rear parking lot of the Church of Christ in response to an emergency call about an adult male being the victim of an assault. Upon arriving at the scene, first responders said that they located a 61-year-old male — later identified as Anderson — inside of a travel trailer “with injuries that appeared to have been caused by an assault.”
Emergency medical personnel rushed Anderson to a local hospital and later transported him to Mercy Medical Center in Redding, California, where he was admitted in critical condition. Anderson was in a coma at the time he arrived at the facility and never awoke. He was pronounced dead on March 18, 2021.
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Investigators with the SCSO Major Crimes Unit took over the case and quickly learned that Marquez, of Glendale, Arizona, was likely involved in the incident resulting in Anderson’s death. They said that Marquez had only lived in the Burney area for about seven months and became acquainted with Anderson about a month before his death through working together.
On March 23, SCSO detectives obtained and executed a search warrant on Marquez’s home located in the 20000 block of Sugar Pine Avenue. Authorities say he provided a statement and was subsequently placed under arrest.
According to a report from local ABC affiliate KRCR, detectives learned from witnesses that Marquez had gone to Anderson to confront him after learning about allegations that he was a child predator.
When asked point-blank whether he molested kids, Anderson reportedly responded, “Yeah. So what?” That’s when Marquez reportedly began to pummel Anderson, repeatedly punching him until the older man lost consciousness. Instead of letting the situation diffuse while Anderson was unresponsive, Marquez reportedly waited for him to come to, then attacked him again, leaving him in a coma from which he would never wake up.
An autopsy determined that Anderson’s cause of death was a combination of traumatic brain injury and a “blowout fracture” to the left side of his head, the Redding Record Searchlight reported.
The Record Searchlight also noted that Anderson had never been charged with any child sex crimes. Both the sheriff’s office and district attorney’s office refused to comment on the matter to the local news website and did not immediately respond to messages from Law&Crime.
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