Sacramento man attacked in his own home in near-fatal friendship
SACRAMENTO -- A midtown Sacramento neighborhood has rallied around a longtime resident who was hospitalized after he was attacked by a man he gave a place to live and believed to be a friend.
Jim, a Boulevard Park homeowner, was known by neighbors and seen regularly working in his yard. The neighborhood stays connected in multiple texting groups to communicate quickly about their block.
Last summer, Jim met Mark Reese, who neighbors say was homeless but known in the area. They say they didn't know much about Reese, but he was helpful to Jim and offered to help others with yard work or home projects.
"Mark started taking care of the place," Amy Lopez, a neighbor, said. "He got it kind of back… cobwebs off, painted, got the place looking really, really nice."
She described their friendship, at first, as one that was normal. Neighbors saw Reese more often as Jim let him move into his garage — then, shortly after, into the home itself.
Lopez recalled that things seemed "pretty good" for a while, but that changed as neighbors started seeing Jim less and Reese more.
"I just started to notice things were off," she said.
Lopez's concerns grew when Reese asked her for advice about Jim potentially leaving him the house. She told Reese that the process would likely require legal representation.
The conversation stuck with her, and other neighbors, and they began to share worries about their neighbor, Jim.
Lopez said the concerns escalated into a final conversation between she and Reese when he approached her front yard but appeared changed.
"He was dressed up in fancy clothes all of a sudden," Lopez said. "He had a fedora on, he lost all this weight, he looked weird, and I just got this weird feeling that something was up."
After consulting with other neighbors, Lopez decided to call Sacramento police for a welfare check. That call was Sunday evening, around 7 p.m.
Within two hours, Lopez was notified that officers had contacted both Jim and Reese and all was OK. CBS13 confirmed the report with Sacramento police on Friday. No police action was needed at that time.
Just before 11 p.m. on Sunday, officers were called back to Jim's home on I Street for reports of a felony assault. They found Jim with multiple stab wounds and rushed him to the hospital, where he is still recovering.
Police arrested 55-year-old Mark Reese on three felony charges including attempted murder.
Lopez, and other neighbors, have visited Jim in the hospital. She told CBS13 that Jim has a long road to recovery. While lucid, he has no recollection of what happened.
Lopez's boyfriend spoke with him in the hospital, where he shared that his last memory of events was that he and Reese were watching a football game.
Reese has a lengthy criminal history dating back to the late 1980s and as recent as last year. In one case, he was ordered to enroll in a court-mandated domestic violence and battery prevention course.
For Lopez, the incident reinforces the importance of looking out for one another.
"It's scary because you don't want to be Mrs. Kravitz, always looking out at everybody... I really did have a gut feeling that something was wrong," she said.
In this case, that gut feeling — and a neighbor's willingness to act — may have saved a life.
