i couldn't find the gonzales story, but i dug this gem up while i was searching.. remember mark gator rogawski of vision fame?? he killed his gf's friend in 91 while attempting to rape her, pleasant dude for sure.. here's what i found on the web on the story...
Mark "Gator" Rogowski (born August 10, 1966 in Brooklyn, New York)[1] was a figurehead of professional skateboarding in the 1980s and very early 1990s. His career ended when he was convicted of assaulting, raping and murdering Jessica Bergsten on March 6, 1992. His life was chronicled in a critically acclaimed 2003 documentary titled Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator by the American filmmaker Helen Stickler.
Contents [hide]
1 Youth
2 Rise to prominence
3 Downhill slide
4 Murder of Jessica Bergsten
5 Hearing, prison, and parole
6 Contest history
7 References
8 External links
Youth
Mark Anthony Rogowski was born in Brooklyn, New York but moved to Escondido, California at age three once his parents divorced.[2] Rogowski was a gifted athlete, playing little league baseball in his youth. Rogowski started to skateboard at age seven. When Rogowski was ten years old, while most of his friends were into surfing, he started to hang out at skate parks. After two years of skating local parks, Rogowski was picked up by a local skate team in 1978 at age 12.[2]
Rise to prominence
Rogowski started his professional skateboarding career in 1980 at age 14. In 1982, he won his first major contest: the Canadian Amateur Skate-boarding Championships in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1984, he won a national championship.[3] He had endorsement deals with Gullwing Trucks and Vision Street Wear, and his business card read: "Skateboard Extraordinairre" [sic].
Early in his career, Rogowski was being paid "between $4,000 and $8,000 a month" for clothing and skateboarding equipment endorsements.[3] In 1987, Rogowski was earning two dollars per skate deck that was sold by Vision. Vision was moving 7000 decks per month, giving Rogowski an income of $14,000 a month from the sales of his board. This did not include the numerous t-shirt, berets, hip packs, and stickers that Vision was selling bearing the "Gator" name.[2]
Rogowski was one of a group of elite skaters who enjoyed "rock star" status in the 80s, alongside Christian Hosoi, Tony Hawk, Lance Mountain, Steve Caballero and a few others. He was a charismatic, flamboyant personality who received fame and fortune during skateboarding's return to popularity with the advent of "vert" or ramp skating, which, in some ways, was the precursor for a growing interest in extreme sports during the nineties that has lasted to the present day.
At a 1987 skate show in Scottsdale, Arizona, Rogowski was introduced to Brandi McClain and her good friend Jessica Bergsten, an aspiring model. He soon began a tumultuous long-term relationship with McClain. Together they shared a freewheeling lifestyle, appearing together in many skate-gear advertisements and promotional videos for Rogowski's sponsor Vision Street Wear, one of the top selling skateboarding brands of the 1980s.
Rogowski worked as a stunt double on the 1989 film Gleaming the Cube, which starred Christian Slater and appeared, along with McClain, in the music video Free Fallin' by Tom Petty.
