Less than a month before his fractured body was found at the bottom of a rock quarry in Canada, a Fayette County man was invited to audition for a role in an independent horror movie to play a model who is murdered. For Janice Harshman Kraynak, the mother of Uniontown native Mark Kraynak, the 105-page script for "Dead Boyz Don't Scream" was an unsettling relic discovered among his belongings in Canada, where he worked last summer in modeling and construction. Janice Kraynak said Thursday that her family gave the script to Montreal police after he was reported missing there on Aug. 22, but she believes authorities in Montreal and neighboring Laval, where 23-year-old Mark Kraynak's body was found on Sept. 1, are not using it as a clue in their investigation. Janice Kraynak, who lives in Millville, N.J., said she thinks her son's receipt of the script in his Yahoo! e-mail account on Aug. 5 is "so bizarre that I have to believe it's tied" to his death. The body of Mark Kraynak's friend, Steven Wright, 20, of Guerneville, Calif., also was found in the Demix Quarry in Laval. Canadian authorities initially described the deaths as "suspicious" because autopsies did not show any traces of violence. Toxicology tests also were inconclusive. Police in Laval, however, have said they are considering the possibility that Mark Kraynak and Wright fell into the quarry after they stiffed a cab driver out of a $40 fare for a trip from Montreal to Laval about 3:30 a.m. on Aug. 22. Authorities are continuing to look for the driver, who they said might be hiding because he has a criminal record or is an immigrant. Janice Kraynak, who has seen a surveillance tape of the men dashing from an unidentified vehicle outside the Laval club, disputes both of those theories. She said the men had enough money on them to pay the fare and the credit cards to get more money if they were short. She also doubts an immigrant cab driver would bring attention to himself by chasing the men down an alley near the quarry. Janice Kraynak said her son received a cell phone call at the exact time the video shows them running from the cab. "I was asked to sit on this script by the police," she said yesterday during a news conference at the Holiday Inn in South Union Township. "I think I've been sitting on it long enough, and it needs to be public." The media received excerpts of the script, which Janice Kraynak described as having a "sexual type of abuse," murders and a cover-up by a modeling agent. Casting notices published online referred to "a digital art-house horror movie about male models who disappear during a photo shoot." "It describes how Todd, which is the role my son was asked to look at, was axed to death," Janice Kraynak said. "And it says, 'Todd is history.'" Sharpshooter Studios, of Los Angeles, is producing the film. A Web site for Sharpshooter says it makes videos with naked men in the starring roles. "We sympathize with Mrs. Kraynak's loss and understand her grief," the film's producer, Jerry Goldberg, said in a statement. "Her son was one of dozens of actors briefly considered for a role in a film we have been developing for five years. "He was proposed to us by his theatrical agent, and our entire communication with him consisted of one e-mail and one phone conversation. We ultimately chose another actor for the role." The agent is Stephan Sirard, who hired Mark Kraynak, Wright and four other Americans to work as dancers last summer at Remington's, a strip club for gay men in Toronto. Sirard is the owner of French Connection Francaise, or FCF Agency, which is a California-based modeling agency that provides modeling for adult entertainment. The men's 90-day permit applications initially were scrutinized because a Canadian political scandal last year ended a six-year program that granted federal work permits to foreign-born exotic dancers because of a labor shortage. Mark Kraynak became involved with FCF Agency through an Atlanta office while he was serving with the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army at Fort Bragg, N.C. Janice Kraynak said her son's dream was to be a model in fitness magazines. She stressed that he was straight and had a girlfriend in Pennsylvania. During a telephone interview yesterday, Sirard said Mark Kraynak appeared in fitness magazines and in pornographic films with female partners. Sirard said he referred Kraynak's credentials to Goldberg because his model became interested in acting. Janice Kraynak said she believes her son was forced or coerced into "something much more sinister." She said Mark Kraynak's sister, Megan Pletcher, and a family friend, Betsy Hanzes, have seen a contract that bound him to FCF Agency through August 2006. Sirard said Kraynak had a day-to-day contract, though there was a written agreement through next August that required the model to notify the agency if he received work with another group. Otherwise, if Kraynak got a job, he received 80 percent of the payment and the agency got 20 percent, Sirard said. Sirard, who also reviewed the surveillance tapes this month with Wright's mother, Cheryl Crockett, said he's been defending the legitimacy of his agency since the men disappeared. Part of the reason for the defense is because a 23-year-old Toronto woman represented by FCF Agency was found dead in Montgomery County in March 2004. Earlier this year, photographer Anthony J. Frederick pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, saying he killed Natel King after a dispute about money. Sirard said he still hopes police find the cab driver in the Kraynak case, but he doesn't suspect foul play was involved anymore. He said he believes Janice Kraynak is having difficulty with the secrets her son kept from her while he modeled. "There's no doubt in my mind, in my soul, that this was an accident," Sirard said. Janice Kraynak said she thinks Sirard and Deric Manzi, who were with Mark Kraynak and Wright for a weekend in Montreal, know more than they've told police. "I have my opinion that the (adult entertainment) industry is behind this in some way," she said. "That is my opinion, and I will do everything I can to prove that." Janice Kraynak also wants the U.S. government to get involved. She said Congressman John Murtha, D-Johnstown, hasn't returned a call to his office. Cindy Abram, a spokeswoman for Murtha, said she couldn't confirm or deny whether the office had heard from Janice Kraynak. All matters involving any constituent's issues are private, she said.

---

Copyright ©2026— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)

---