An Edgewater man has been found not guilty of killing a man with whom prosecutors said he had a one-time relationship, but a judge did find him guilty of hiding the victim’s body in his apartment refrigerator.
Judge Adrienne Davis sentenced Malik Lee, 48, to five years in prison for concealing a homicidal death. However, with Illinois’ standard 50% sentence reduction and credit for time spent in jail awaiting trial, Lee will serve no additional prison time.
Marcus Merge was battling a life-threatening illness and struggling with drug addiction when someone killed him in his Edgewater apartment and stuffed his body in the refrigerator in the summer of 2020. After a two-year investigation, prosecutors charged Lee in July 2022, alleging he had had an on-again, off-again relationship with Merge. Prosecutors alleged Lee strangled the 58-year-old with an extension cord during an argument.
Merge’s friends remembered him fondly in a Chicago Tribune story published shortly after his death, remembering him as a passionate program sponsor of Alcoholics Anonymous.
“Before his mother’s recent death, Merge rode trains and buses to visit her in Lake Forest. An interior designer by trade, he decorated the windows of her senior living residences according to the seasons,” says the Tribune reported.
“He always made everyone feel comfortable,” a friend told the newspaper. “Marcus is nothing but kindness and hospitality to me, and I don’t know why anyone would want to do that to him.”
According to prosecutors, Lee and Merge met about a year before the murder. They often met to eat, take drugs, and occasionally have sex. Merge also sometimes gave Lee and members of his family money, prosecutors said. But over time their relationship deteriorated. Prosecutors said Merge kept a “detailed calendar” documenting the relationship, a point they emphasized during Lee’s detention hearing on July 4, 2022.
Merge suffered from a debilitating illness and was down to just 121 pounds as of June 28, 2020. Around 4 p.m. that day, surveillance cameras in his apartment building in the 5700 block of North Sheridan recorded Merge returning home with Lee. Prosecutors said the two were arguing as they got into the elevator and rode to the fifth floor. Merge reportedly never left his apartment again.
Prosecutors alleged the argument continued in the apartment. They said Merge struck Lee and left a cut near his eye. Lee then strangled Merge with his hands before strangling him from behind after he fell to the ground, prosecutors alleged. They claimed Lee then used an extension cord to continue strangling Merge, but Merge managed to crawl into the bedroom. Prosecutors’ theory is that Lee followed him, grabbed a pillow and smothered Merge before dragging his body to the bathroom.
When Lee realized Merge was dead, prosecutors argued, he bought six bags of ice and used them to keep the body cold in the bathtub. Later, they claimed, he removed the shelves from Merge’s refrigerator and stuffed the body inside.
A building manager discovered Merge’s body in the refrigerator during a welfare check on July 6, 2020. The Cook County Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide caused by strangulation.
Investigators found fingerprints on the refrigerator shelves, which were hidden in a cabinet. Some belonged to a woman who worked at the appliance manufacturer’s factory in South Carolina. Prosecutors said the remaining prints matched Lee.
Ultimately, however, Davis ruled that the evidence did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lee committed the murder. Instead, she found him guilty only of covering up a murderous death.
Lee still faces charges in another felony case.
On June 5, 2020, just 23 days before Merge was last seen alive, prosecutors charged Lee with attempted vehicle hijacking. In that case, prosecutors allege he brandished a knife and ordered two people out of a car in the 1100 block of West Bryn Mawr Avenue. Instead, the driver backed up and sought help. That case is still pending and Lee will appear for a detention hearing on Monday.
