Top Skateboarder Jailed in Vista After Confessing to Rape-Murder of Woman

Mark (Gator) Anthony, an internationally prominent skateboard champion, was being held in County Jail at Vista on Wednesday after turning himself in to police, saying he had murdered a woman at his home in Carlsbad and then buried her body in the desert in Imperial County.

Anthony, 24, who friends say had recently changed his name from Mark Rogowski, told San Diego police on Tuesday that he had “physically and sexually assaulted the victim and subsequently strangled her.”

He then led investigators from the Carlsbad Police Department to a patch of desert in Ocotillo, just inside the Imperial County line and not far from Interstate 8, where he said he buried the woman’s body.

Investigators from the Imperial County coroner’s office recovered skeletal remains from the site on April 10, coroner’s investigator Ralph Smith said Wednesday. Smith said a camper had found the body and reported the discovery to authorities.

Smith said the identity of the victim would not be released until Monday, pending verification of dental records. He said the woman was a resident of San Diego, in her early 20s, who had been reported missing by her father in Tucson, Ariz., on March 29.

Police and coroner’s officials said the suspect was the same Mark Anthony listed as one of the top 10 skateboarders in the world.

Investigators said Anthony turned himself in on Tuesday to San Diego police, who alerted Carlsbad police.

“Basically, I think that his conscience had been bothering him, and he showed up at the Police Department,” said Carlsbad Lt. Don Lewis. “It’s fairly unusual, but you couldn’t call it unheard of . . . We believe that he is entirely credible. He was very open and honest with us and led us right to the site. That was indeed the exact site Imperial County reported to us.”

Anthony is being held without bail. He was booked on suspicion of murder, rape and assault with a deadly weapon. Anthony does not have a police record, Lewis said. He is scheduled to be arraigned today in Vista Municipal Court.

The arrest left local skateboard enthusiasts stunned and saddened.

“My initial reaction is extreme shock--Mark is extremely well known in the world of skateboarding,” said skateboarder Karen Stubkjaer, who described Anthony as a colleague and acquaintance she had met at the shop where she works, Hamel’s Action Sports.

In his 1988 interview with The Times, Anthony rhapsodized about the joy of skateboarding, a sport he had followed since early childhood.

“It’s so addictive,” he said. “I often get scared. Often. It’s a matter of pushing the limits. If you’re doing the same thing for years and years you get used to it and become accustomed to it, but me and my peers are always pushing the limits, going higher, faster, longer, and that’s what gives you your excitement, the fear factor.”