Man convicted of sawing body into pieces says he "didn't kill victim"

It was not manslaughter but suicide that killed a man in the living room of Mark de G.'s home in Zwolle, he argued in court on Friday. A lower court sentenced the Zwollenaar to twelve years in prison and mandatory psychiatric institutionalized treatment.

Mark de G., 43, was convicted in October 2019 for killing his 38-year-old friend and colleague, Deniz Guldogdu. The victim died from a single gunshot wound to the head between the nighttime hours of February 7, 2018, and the early morning hours a day later. De G. then sawed the corpse into pieces in the bathtub and stored the body parts in plastic bags in the crawl space under his home. The suspect admitted to mutilating and disposing of the body but appealed the manslaughter conviction.

The suspect explained in detail in court what happened that night. Guldogdu was at his house using cocaine, which he often did, De G. stated. Presumably, while searching for more drugs, he found a firearm in the bedroom. Guldogdu was depressed, De G. alleged.

"I took a knife from him a week earlier when he was cutting himself." Guldogdu put the gun to his head, but when De G. tried to disarm him, the gun went off. Fearing he could wind up falsely convicted of murder, De G. decided it should instead look like Guldogdu disappeared. De G. then disposed of the body, dropped the firearm in a bucket of ammonia, and then threw the gun away, in pieces, into a canal in Alkmaar and elsewhere.

If the story is true, Guldogdu's DNA material would have been present on the gun's trigger, a defense attorney said. "Then why clean that weapon so extensively? The discovery of that weapon could confirm your story, right?" De G. responded that he mainly wanted to cover his own tracks.

In prison, he is said to have told a fellow inmate that he shot Guldogdu. That witness later recanted his statement. "I didn't kill Deniz but I was punished for it," said De G.

The hearing was attended by many of Guldogdu's surviving relatives. They called the suspect unscrupulous and a psychopath "who bragged about his act in prison."

The case will continue on Wednesday.