Mark Anthony Berumen was a 25-year-old man living in the Phoenix, Arizona area when he vanished on July 28, 2002. He was last seen at approximately 10:30 p.m. at the Amazons nightclub in the 4100 block of North 7th Street, near Indian School Road in Phoenix. At the time, Mark was described as having black hair and brown eyes, standing approximately 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighing about 175 pounds. He had identifying scars, including an appendectomy scar on his abdomen and a number of small scars or marks on the back of his head, and he was reportedly wearing a silver Fossil watch. Mark had graduated from Indio High School in California before relocating to Arizona and was working as a computer engineer for a Phoenix insurance company. What began as the unexplained disappearance of a young working man after a night out would eventually become a far more troubling investigation.
One of the earliest significant pieces of evidence was Mark's vehicle, a black 2002 Volkswagen Passat bearing Arizona license plate 4VHK020. The car was found unoccupied at the Amazons nightclub, the same location where Mark had last been seen. Mark himself was nowhere to be found, and he never returned to the vehicle or made known contact afterward. As investigators continued examining the circumstances surrounding his disappearance, the evidence increasingly pointed away from a voluntary absence. The investigation eventually led police to an apartment in the 900 block of East Devonshire Avenue in Phoenix. Authorities came to believe that Mark had been shot and killed inside that residence. According to published case information, investigators found evidence consistent with a homicide there, including gunshot damage so severe that a bathtub in the apartment had been replaced. Those findings substantially changed the nature of the investigation: although Mark's remains had not been recovered, detectives believed they had identified the place where he had been killed.
The investigation ultimately focused on several men connected to events following Mark's disappearance. Richard James Skaggs was prosecuted for stealing Mark's vehicle and credit card after Mark disappeared. Skaggs was convicted of the theft-related offenses in February 2004 and received a 46-year prison sentence, but the more detailed published account of the case states that he was not charged in connection with Mark's presumed killing. Police later charged Patrick Steven Herring and Oliver Michael Pimental in connection with Mark's death. Herring pleaded guilty to manslaughter in October 2004. Pimental was convicted of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. These court outcomes meant that investigators and prosecutors were able to establish criminal responsibility connected to Mark's death even though the most important physical evidence—Mark himself—was still missing.
The absence of Mark's remains has remained one of the most painful and unresolved aspects of the case. Investigators developed the possibility that, after he was killed, his body was placed in a dumpster. If that occurred, the contents may subsequently have been collected and transported to a landfill, making recovery extraordinarily difficult. Published missing-person records continue to note that his remains have never been located. That distinction is important in understanding why Mark continues to appear in missing-person databases despite the homicide investigation, guilty plea, murder conviction, and substantial prison sentences associated with the circumstances surrounding his disappearance. There is a tragic divide in the case between investigators determining what they believed happened to Mark and actually being able to bring him home.
Mark Berumen's story therefore begins with an ordinary last known moment at a Phoenix nightclub on the night of July 28, 2002, followed by the discovery of his abandoned Volkswagen and an investigation that gradually uncovered evidence pointing to a violent death inside a Phoenix apartment. Investigators connected individuals to the aftermath of his disappearance, obtained a theft conviction involving his property, and ultimately saw one man plead guilty to manslaughter and another convicted of second-degree murder in connection with Mark's death. Yet despite those developments, Mark's remains were never recovered, with authorities believing they may have been discarded in a dumpster and carried to a landfill. More than anything, the case is the story of a 25-year-old man who disappeared from Phoenix, an investigation that uncovered evidence of what happened to him, and a lasting unanswered question about where his remains were taken—a case in which the circumstances were pieced together through years of police and court work, but the search for Mark himself never reached the closure that the recovery of his remains could have provided.Last Seen: Jul 28, 2002
