Mark Mechikoff appears in a Facebook photo, inset left, and a mugshot, inset right, against an image of an apartment where a woman was stabbed to death in July 2023. (Facebook via KNTV; San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office; Screengrab via KGO)
Police in California say they have arrested a man for killing a woman with a knife and then posting footage of the crime on Facebook.
Mark Mechikoff, 39, stands accused of one count of murder, according to the San Mateo Police Department. The defendant hails from Pacifica, a small city within broader San Mateo County.
The victim, Claribel Marie Estrell, 41, is said to have known her alleged assailant. The relationship between the defendant and the deceased woman, however, is not yet a matter of public knowledge.
Late Wednesday afternoon, local law enforcement were alerted to the stabbing by the Nye County Sheriff’s Office in Nevada, police said. There, a local resident who claimed to know the suspect called about a disturbing video they had seen on Facebook that allegedly showed a man “stabbing” a woman. That Nevada resident also provided law enforcement with the name and phone number of the man who posted the footage. Silver State sheriff’s deputies did what they could and “pinged” the phone number provided, the SMPD said, getting a hit on “a large apartment complex” on 37th Avenue in San Mateo.
“Without an apartment number and with the variance of the ping accuracy, SMPD officers saturated the area and initiated a door-to-door canvass of the complex to attempt to locate the possible victim and/or suspect,” the police department said in a press release.
Around the same time, a person who also said they knew the suspect was also calling police.
Ryan Lenahan told Oakland-based Fox affiliate KTVU that he also saw the video of the woman’s final moments.
“There was a person bleeding out, [he was] standing over the person, repeating Bible verses and other types of incoherent nonsense,” Lenahan said, adding that he posted a comment on the video calling the suspect “sick” and messaged him to say: “Bro your disgusting I hope they have you in custody.”
Mechikoff, who Lenahan said he grew up with, allegedly called him via video some two hours later.
“He was just talking all sorts of babble, and he appeared to be in the same location as the crime took place,” Lenahan said.
He told KTVU that he called police immediately following that harrowing video conversation with the alleged killer.
Eventually, after nearly three hours, the victim was found. The ping, it turned out, had been fairly accurate: Estrell was discovered, dead, in a unit on 36th Avenue – part of the same sprawling apartment complex that spans several blocks in the Hillsdale neighborhood.
By the time the woman’s body was found, the suspect was long gone, the SMPD said, “but his identity had been learned.”
Law enforcement tracked the alleged killer down and arrested him “without incident” in San Jose some two hours later.
“While the motive for stabbing the victim is still under investigation, we do know Merchikoff mercilessly filmed the last moments of the victim’s life and posted the video to Facebook, then fled the area,” the SMPD said in a press release.
The brutality and publicness of the crime have shocked the Bay Area.
“It’s tragic, horrible,” SMPD Officer Jerami Surrat told San Francisco-based ABC affiliate KGO. It’s tough enough when we lose someone in our community. For someone to post a Facebook video is just hideous and horrible.”
The defendant is currently being detained in the Maguire Correctional Facility without bail.
“We will review it,” San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe told The Mercury-News. “Assuming we do find enough evidence to charge him, the charge we’re looking at is murder with use of a knife.”
One neighbor, who lives across from the victim, recalled a scream the night before, in comments to San Jose-based NBC affiliate KNTV.
“It was really chilling to be honest,” Zeena Amer said. “It was frightening because if you think about it 24 hours ago this woman was alive. She had a life, she had friends, she had family, and now she is gone.”
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