Mark spent most of his life in prison, where he was better known as ‘Murder.’
He said the origin of his nickname was a ‘long story’ but over the years he was in and out of a cell, it eventually evolved into Murdock.
Whether he was Murder, Murdock or Mark, the dad was a fixture in jail, never managing to spend more than six months in the outside world once released before reoffending.
But that was until he enrolled in a ‘life-changing’ programme at a Washington DC jail. Now, Mark has been living at home with his family for four years and counting.
Before becoming a changed man, Mark’s crimes devastated his young daughter Santana, who aged 10 said she was ‘sick’ of seeing herself cry each time her father was put behind bars again.
Continually exasperated over her father’s crimes, she vowed never to shed ‘even one single tear’ if his pattern of reoffending persisted, as she told filmmakers in Netflix documentary Daughters.
She was asked what she would say to Mark, who was then incarcerated if she had free rein. Her words were bruising.
‘Next time you get out of jail, next time you go back to jail, I’m not gonna even shed one single tear,’ Santana said, envisaging her father.
‘I’m done shedding tears because he keeps doing bad stuff he shouldn’t be doing. It’s not OK. It’s affecting me.’
Sitting in a car as the rain pounded on the windows, Santana also told the documentary makers how Mark’s absence was having a profound effect on her future decision-making. It made her never want to have children.
She said: ‘Never in my life will I ever, ever be a mother. You can give me a million dollars, I’m still not going to be a mother, I don’t care. I can have a husband. I will get married at 35. And if I do have kids, I’m having kids at 45.’
Mark became Santana’s father aged just 16 but had not watched her grow up and reach all the usual milestones because he was in prison.
He was rarely able to see her as in-person visits to jail, known as touch visits, were scaled back in the US in 2014.
According to Daughters, very few prisons now allow touch visits and in its place families can contact their incarcerated loved ones via video call for a fee.
But not-for-profit organisation Girls For A Change is trying to change that through its unique and radical Date With Dad programme.
Prisoners on the programme must complete a 10-week course with a fatherhood coach and are rewarded with an in-person dance with their daughters.
Mark was one of the fathers who successfully participated in Date With Dad. After he danced with Santana, he promised ‘never to leave’ her again.
‘You want me to stay in your life forever?’ he asked her, in what felt like the first time he realised the best way to ensure that was to keep on the straight and narrow.
Mark is not the only father to have turned their back on a life of crime thanks to the Date With Dad Programme. In the 12 years since it launched, 95% of the fathers enrolled have never returned to jail.
Mark’s fresh start happened shortly after the dance with Santana when he was released. It has now been four years since he was last behind bars and he has not reoffended. It’s a personal record for him.
Mark said: ‘The father-daughter dance, it was different. Like I said, there were no touch visits and so for me being able to hug my daughter and play fight as she likes that…for me to do that, it was definitely amazing.
‘For those six hours, I wasn’t incarcerated. My mind was literally with my daughter. When it was time for me to go I was confused. I was like, “Wait a minute, I’m not going home with my daughter?” It was definitely amazing.
‘Throughout my whole life I’ve never stayed out of prison for more than – I want to say – six months.
‘Me just being able to spend time with my daughter while I was locked up when they did the dance…it’s going on four years and I haven’t been arrested.
‘It was definitely life-changing for me.’
Now, Santana is no longer shedding tears. She told the programme makers: ‘He’s done well. He’s done it. He’s done what we was talking about. I’m just happy.’
Daughters ended with Mark celebrating Santana’s 13 birthday with a cake and a meal at a buffet restaurant. Normal family activities that he no longer takes for granted… thanks to a dance.
Daughters is available to stream on Netflix.
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