Local man’s death a shock to friends, family
Tina Allen remembers Mark Kraynak as a wonderful, sweet person and is struggling, along with the rest of Kraynak’s family and friends to make sense of the young war veteran’s death. “He was absolutely an amazing person,” Allen said Friday from her Uniontown home. “He and my daughter had been best friends since sixth grade. I just can’t picture Mark not calling or coming over anymore.”
Kraynak’s body was found in Canada Thursday at the bottom of a rock quarry along with the body of a traveling companion, Steve Wright, behind a local nighttime hotspot in Montreal, near where Kraynak and Wright disappeared last month.
Kraynak, 23, of Uniontown had last been seen at 3 a.m. on Aug. 22 outside a nightclub in Montreal with Wright, 20, of Santa Rosa, Calif.
Shortly after his disappearance, Kraynak’s family traveled to Canada to assist with the search and family and friends in Fayette County had been preparing a candlelight vigil for the Iraqi War veteran for Saturday evening in Uniontown.
Now, according to Allen, the vigil has been postponed as family members continue to work with Canadian police on the case and make arrangements for his funeral.
Allen said that Kraynak’s parents are still in Canada with investigators and added that she does not know when an autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death in the incident.
Guy Lajeunesse, a police spokesman for the city of Laval, just north of Montreal, said the men’s parents were able to make the identifications of the found men.
After missing for 10 days, investigators traced a cell phone transmitter from one of the men’s phones to near the Red Lite, a club in Laval, north of Montreal, where the bodies were found.
Lajeunesse said in a recorded telephone statement Thursday that the police used search teams and helicopters to locate the bodies near the club and added that Laval police have assumed the investigation.
Kraynak is a 2000 graduate of Laurel Highlands High School and had been attending classes at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus, where the prayer vigil was too be held.
According to earlier interviews with Allen, Canadian police said that Kraynak and Wright hailed a taxicab from Club Vatican and called another friend on a cell phone to tell him they were going to an after-hours club in Quebec.
Allen said police are trying to find the cab driver who transported the men, but said it’s estimated that as many as 30,000 people drive a taxi in the metro area and family and friends have hinted they believe something sinister to have taken place that night.
Beth Sylvester, a friend of Kraynak’s, who also graduated from Laurel Highlands in 2000, said that she hadn’t really seen Kraynak since February when he began pursuing his modeling career.
“I haven’t seen him for a while but we were always close,” Sylvester said of Kraynak. “We used to date on and off. He was a wonderful person.”
Sylvester, who has been interviewed by FBI officials about Kraynak, remains at a loss to explain his untimely death.
“Mark was never involved with anyone that was shady in his life,” Sylvester said. “He never did drugs. He did all the right things.”
While speculation of what happened to Kraynak continues among law enforcement officials, family and friends, Sylvester said she is confident he was murdered.
“I think somebody killed him. Anyone who knew Mark knows he never would have committed suicide. He never would have jumped,” Sylvester said. “There was no indication that anything was amiss or wrong. He was concerned about school and his car. He was straight as an arrow. Someone had to have killed him.”
Kraynak, who returned home from the war in Iraq just a year ago, was injured in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne Division and received a Purple Heart.
Kraynak and Wright were supposed to return to the United States the day they went missing, after spending the last few months working for the French Connection Francaise, a male model and pornography-recruiting agency.
In 2004, after returning from Iraq with the Purple Heart, Kraynak recalled the horror of war and told the Herald-Standard that he still struggled to make sense of it, including witnessing the deaths of five Iraqi children, wondering why they died and not he and his companions.
Allen said Friday that it was that sort of selflessness and love that Kraynak imparted to those around him.
She said Kraynak’s line of work had never concerned her or her daughter before he was reported missing, noting that she never felt anything was amiss.
“We never suspected anything wrong,” Allen said. “This is very hard for all of us and his family. He was a wonderful person.”