Police say plot all about money
Kristie Marks known to dote on her daughter, but a venture to North Hill Saturday ends badly
Phil Trexler
October 27, 2009
Akron Beacon Journal
http://www.ohio.com/news/66282832.html
Kristie Marks drove into the housing projects of Akron believing she was doing what she’s done so often — helping her daughter out of a jam.

The well-to-do Copley businesswoman, who raised her child alone since her husband’s death, could not have known her motherly act was just her role in a deadly plot.

In an instant, a knife was plunged inside her.

Her daughter, 20-year-old Taylor Marks, saw it all and frantically placed a 911 call from the parking lot, tearfully telling a dispatcher of the crime and the assailant who ran off into the darkness.

Hours later, police say Taylor Marks was telling a different story to Akron detectives — one in which she admits luring her mother to the Springdale Street apartment complex on Saturday so that a friend could kill and she could collect a tidy inheritance.

”More or less, it comes down to money,” police detective James Pasheilich said Monday.

Taylor Marks, her boyfriend, Brian S. Smith, 20, and their friend, Troy Purdie II, 19, are each charged with complicity to aggravated murder. They remain in the Summit County Jail.

Police say Marks lived with Smith and his mother in the subsidized apartment complex in North Hill. The two, detectives say, plotted with Purdie to kill Kristie Marks, 58. Purdie was to be paid $5,000 for his efforts.

Their plot worked — for a couple of hours. Pasheilich said the three were questioned separately at the department and gave conflicting accounts of the stabbing.

Before midnight, all three conceded their plan, he said.

”They were talking about [killing Marks] for a while,” Pasheilich said. ”These three admit that they had spoken and talked numerous times about doing this.

”[Taylor] Marks admitted that she was upset with her mother [and] wanted her mother dead. She mentioned that her mom has money and has a will and that she believes that her name’s on the will because she saw it.”

Evidence found

Police say they have recovered Purdie’s bloody clothing and a knife they say was used in the slaying.

Kristie Marks co-owned a Visiting Angels home health-care franchise in Medina. She also inherited money after the death of her husband, Bruce, in 2002, a family member said.

County property records show a trust in her name as the owner of a Copley Township home worth more than $300,000.

Family members and friends say Kristie Marks was well off and she doted on Taylor, a 2008 graduate of Copley High School.

”She overly loved her daughter,” said Jeffrey Buckholder, Kristie Marks’ brother, who lives in Sarasota, Fla. ”I’m not going to say she smothered her, but Taylor, I’m sure, lived well. I never would have dreamt this.”

Family history

The Marks family had traveled around the country from coast to coast for most of Taylor Marks’ early years. Bruce Marks was a director at a telecommunications firm in New Jersey at the time of his death.

Kristie Marks and Taylor moved to Copley in 2003 to be closer to her family and her business partner and close friend, Gail McEnteer. The Marks family drove nice cars, owned horses and loved their three dogs.

After high school, Taylor Marks attended the University of Akron. She took classes last spring, but was not registered this semester, a UA spokeswoman said.

On her MySpace social Internet page, Taylor Marks talks about missing her father, whom she called ”Pappi,” and boasts of having ”a loving mother” and driving a 2006 Ford Focus.

She also talked about her future that included a husband and children and working ”in my Mom’s business since she plans to give me her share of it one day after I graduate from collage! [sic]”

”Life is tough sometimes but the lessons I’ve learned from this are to appreciate every day, to try and focus on the positive things and to thank God everyday for the blessings He has put in my life,” Taylor Marks wrote.

Changed relationship

Sometime in the past several months, after a falling out with her mother, Taylor Marks began dating Brian S. Smith, who lived in an Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority apartment with his mother, Tammy.

Eventually, Taylor Marks moved in with the family. Tammy Smith said Monday that she found her son’s girlfriend ”a little bit whiny and spoiled.”

This month, police say the plan to kill Kristie Marks was hatched. It was supposed to appear like a random killing.

”I did not know he done this. I did not know he had this planned,” said Tammy Smith. ”He admitted to helping his girlfriend do it. But it was her idea.”

Taylor and Kristie Marks were walking together in the parking lot when Purdie appeared and stabbed the mother, police said. He fled while Taylor Marks called 911.

”My mother has been stabbed in the parking lot,” she said in a recorded call with a police dispatcher, ” . . . Someone just ran up behind my mom and stabbed her. . . . ”

Kristie Marks was pronounced dead at Akron City Hospital. By midnight Saturday, her daughter was in police custody facing murder charges.

Jeff Sigle, a friend of Kristie Marks, said he warned her about Taylor, her friends and the new lifestyle she was leading. He said Marks loved her daughter and would do anything for her, including venturing into Akron’s rougher neighborhoods, if needed.

Sigle said he was concerned for his friend’s safety because of the apparently powerful attraction that drew Taylor Marks from her suburban life.

”I kept telling Kristie to think the worse in every situation, you’re being conned, you’re being duped,” he said. ”I told her to watch out for them, don’t tread down there by yourself, don’t go looking, don’t get lured.

”For a girl who went from having everything she wants to living in that kind of situation, there’s got to be a reason.

It just doesn’t happen and it doesn’t happen overnight.”

Plot to kill mother was ongoing
Phil Trexler
October 26, 2009
Akron Beacon Journal
http://www.ohio.com/news/break_news/65993217.html
An Akron woman plotted for some time with her boyfriend and his buddy to have her mother killed in order to collect from an inheritance, police said today.

Within four hours of the stabbing death of Kristie Marks, the scheme collapsed with confessions to detectives from the daughter and her friends, police said.

Taylor Marks, 20; her boyfriend, Brian S. Smith, 20; and their friend, Troy Purdie, 19, are each accused of complicity to commit aggravated murder. They are being held in the Summit County Jail.

An autopsy is being performed today on Kristie Marks, 58, at the Summit County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The death unfolded Saturday night about 8 in the parking lot of a Springdale Street apartment complex in Akron where Taylor Marks and Smith lived together with his mother.

An emotional Taylor Marks called 911 after the stabbing.

”My mother has been stabbed in the parking lot,” she says in a recorded call with a police dispatcher. ” . . . someone just ran up behind my mom and stabbed her . . . ”

Marks told the dispatcher that Smith and Purdie chased the assailant. Police found Kristie Marks on the ground and bleeding from multiple stabs wounds. She was pronounced dead at Akron City Hospital.

Taylor Marks, Smith and Purdie were taken to Akron police headquarters for interviews about the attack. They talked to authorities in separate rooms.

Detective James Pasheilich said inconsistencies between the three led them to question the veracity of the statements.

Within four hours of the homicide, all three confessed to plotting the killing for at least two weeks, police said.

”They were talking about it for a while,”Pasheilich said. ”These three admit that they had spoken and talked numerous times about doing this.”

Taylor Marks, whose father died in 2002, stood to collect a significant inheritance with her mother’s death, police said. Kristie Marks also operated a home health-care franchise business.

Taylor Marks offered Purdie $5,000 to kill her mother and he has confessed to the stabbing, police said.

”Marks admitted that she was upset with her mother [and] wanted her mother dead,” Pasheilich said. ”[Taylor] mentioned that her mom has money and has a will and that she believes that her name’s on the will because she saw it.

”More or less, it comes down to money.”

Daughter, 2 Others Charged in Mother’s Death
October 26, 2009
FOX8.com
http://www.fox8.com/news/wjw-daughter-murder-hire-akron-txt,0,4835084.story
AKRON, Ohio — - An alleged murder-for-hire plan leaves a Copley woman dead, and Akron police say her own daughter was behind it all.

Akron police Lt. Rick Edwards says 58-year-old Kristie Marks was stabbed multiple times in the parking lot of an apartment complex on Springdale Street, around 8:00 Saturday night.

Edwards says 19-year-old Troy Purdie is in jail on a charge of aggravated murder, but he says he didn’t work alone.

Marks’ daughter Taylor can be heard on the frantic 911 call.

“My mom has been stabbed in the parking lot. She was picking me up from my boyfriend’s house,” Taylor Marks cries to the dispatcher. A moment later, her boyfriend, Brian Smith is heard on the call.

“He pushed her off of this wall thing, he proceeded to stab her. I went to jump down and he tried to cut me and then he ran up the street. I chased him,” Smith says.

But Lt. Edwards says it was all a ploy. He says the two orchestrated the entire thing, offering Troy Purdie $5,000 to kill Kristie Marks.

Bonnie Monteleone was Marks’ neighbor for four years.

“I know that her daughter was troubled and I know that she was trying to find her daughter help, but I just can’t imagine any child — especially her mother — had given her faith, education, opportunity and it’s shocking to us. It breaks our heart,” Monteleone explains. She says she knew of problems between the mother and daughter.

“The thing that concerns me most is she was always trying to find a way to help her daughter, but I had a feeling that her daughter basically had taken a step with people who were making poor choices.”

“It’s really sad because they’re a nice family, nice people and I talked to Taylor quite a bit and she seemed like a decent person, maybe a little misguided, but decent,” says fellow neighbor Marc Shannon.

Lt. Edwards says all three suspects are in jail tonight. Troy Purdie is charged with aggravated murder, while Taylor Marks and Brian Smith are both charged with complicity to commit aggravated murder.

The Summit County coroner will perform an autopsy on Kristie Marks tomorrow.

Police: Woman orders mom’s death
Copley resident pays $5,000 to have her mother murderered.
October 26, 2009
Newsradio WTAM 1100
http://www.wtam.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=122520&article=6218006
(Akron) – An Akron woman is under arrest…for ordering a murder hit on her own mother.

58-year-old Kristie E. Marks of Brentwood Boulevard in Copley was found in the 900 block of Springdale Street around 8:00 PM Saturday night with multiple stab wounds. Marks was transported to Akron City Hospital where she later died.

Detectives took three individuals into custody including the victim’s daughter, 20-year-old Taylor M.M. Marks.

Detectives discovered that Taylor wanted her mother dead and offered to pay $5,000.

Detectives arrested 19-year-old Troy A. Purdie of Villa Avenue in Akron and charged him with Aggravated Murder. They believe Purdie accepted money from Marks and stabbed Kristie Marks to death.

Marks was charged with Complicity to Commit Aggravated Murder. 20-year-old Brian S. Smith of Springdale Street was charged with Complicity to Commit Aggravated Murder.

All three were booked into the Summit County Jail.

Daughter, 20, arrested in mother’s stabbing
Jewell Cardwell
October 25, 2009
Akron Beacon Journal
http://www.ohio.com/news/65956127.html
Akron police, investigating the weekend death of a 58-year-old woman, have arrested the victim’s 20-year-old daughter and two others.

Police identified the dead woman as Kristie E. Burkholder Marks, whose most recent address was in Copley Township. A police statement says she ”was allegedly involved in an altercation Saturday at 7:50 p.m. in front of an address in the 900 block of Springdale Street, Akron, when she was reportedly stabbed.”

Marks was taken to Akron City Hospital, where she died.

Detectives said they have three individuals in custody, including the victim’s only child, Taylor Melissa Mary Marks. Police say the daughter, who lived at the Springdale address, ”wanted her mother dead and offered $5,000.” She was charged with complicity to commit aggravated murder.

Police have also charged Troy A. Purdie, 19, of Villa Avenue, Akron, with aggravated murder; and Brian S. Smith, 20, of the Springdale address, with complicity to commit aggravated murder. All three were booked into the Summit Jail.

An autopsy is scheduled for today. No other details were available.