Friends Hold Vigil for Man Killed by Mountain Lion

About 30 friends and neighbors of a man killed by a mountain lion on a wilderness bike trail last week remembered him Sunday with a candlelight vigil in front of the Foothill Ranch apartment complex he’d moved into just three months before.

“He was a very sweet guy,” Kanishia Lumpkins said of the man affectionately known as the “bike guy” by those who frequently saw him leaving the Paloma Summit Apartment complex in helmet and biking gear. “He was single and didn’t have a family here. We’re his family -- we’re here to show our support.”

Mark Reynolds, 35, died Thursday after being mauled by a mountain lion apparently while kneeling to fix a broken chain on the mountain bike he’d been riding along a trail at Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park. What is believed to be the same 110-pound lion -- which was later shot to death by sheriff’s deputies -- also attacked and seriously injured a 30-year-old woman, Anne Hjelle, as she rode along the popular trail. Reynolds was the first person killed by a mountain lion in California since 1994.

“Life is so short,” said Estrella Madlangbayan, the biking enthusiast’s next-door neighbor, who was in tears. “I was going to bring him a welcome basket. When you like somebody, you should really tell them.”

Said neighbor Jeromie Caha: “He was a super-nice guy. Everybody was stunned -- nobody expected it to be somebody from this complex.”

Hjelle, of Mission Viejo, was reported in fair condition Sunday at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo, where she was taken after fellow bikers rescued her from the lion, which had grabbed her by the head.

Authorities attributed Hjelle’s survival to the courageous actions of a friend who grabbed her legs in a tug-of-war with the lion, as well as two passersby who pelted the animal with rocks until it let go.

“It definitely makes you think about death,” Caha said. “It’s been kind of rough -- we’re just trying to get through it.”

At Sunday’s vigil, though, most preferred pleasant recollections of their neighbor, a Missouri native who worked for a sports marketing agency, loved mountain biking and was generally described as a polite man who, among other things, tutored local children.

“Every day he would stop my little brother and give him money if he knew his spelling words,” Lumpkins said. “He was really a positive person.”

Yet the shock and horror of his death was not far away.

“Our kids cried the minute they saw it in the news,” Madlangbayan said of her two daughters, ages 7 and 4. “They were afraid -- they thought that mountain lions would come to our porch.”