Doug Clark (serial killer)
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Douglas Daniel Clark (born March 10, 1948) is an American
serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...
. Clark and his accomplice, Carol M. Bundy, were collectively known as the Sunset Strip Killers. They were convicted of multiple murders in
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,
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
.


Early life

Doug Clark was the son of Franklin Clark, a
Naval Intelligence Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a ...
officer. His family moved frequently during Clark's childhood due to his father's job, and he later claimed to have lived in 37 countries. In 1958, his father left the
Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It in ...
for a civilian position as an engineer with the Transport Company of Texas, but the family still moved around. They lived in the
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for a time, moved back to
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
,
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, and then moved again to
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. Clark was sent to an exclusive international school in
Geneva , neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier , website = https://www.geneve.ch/ Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...
and later attended
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while his father continued to move around the world. When he graduated in 1967, Clark enlisted in the
U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...
stationed in Colorado and Ohio. Clark was eventually discharged from the Air Force, and he drifted around for the next decade, often working as a mechanic. He moved to
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and was employed as a steam plant operator for the
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, working at the Valley Generating Station before abruptly quitting. Subsequently, Clark became a boiler operator at the Jergens soap factory in Burbank, but was fired due to a high rate of absence and violent threats he had made against his coworkers. One of the bars he frequented in the area was Little Nashville, where he met Carol M. Bundy in 1980. He soon moved in with her and learned they shared dark sexual fantasies.


Murders

Clark started bringing
sex worker A sex worker is a person who provides sex work, either on a regular or occasional basis. The term is used in reference to those who work in all areas of the sex industry.Oxford English Dictionary, "sex worker" According to one view, sex work i ...
s back to the couple's apartment to have
threesome In human sexuality, a threesome is commonly understood as "a sexual interaction between three people whereby at least one engages in physical sexual behaviour with both the other individuals". Though ''threesome'' most commonly refers to sexua ...
s. Then, when Clark took an interest in an 11-year-old neighbor, Bundy helped lure the girl into posing for pornographic photographs. Clark quickly escalated from
pedophilia Pedophilia ( alternatively spelt paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of puberty ...
, talking about how much he would like to kill a girl during sex. He persuaded Bundy to purchase two pistols for him to use, reportedly seeking to fulfill his fantasy of killing a woman during sex and feeling her
vagina In mammals, the vagina is the elastic, muscular part of the female genital tract. In humans, it extends from the vestibule to the cervix. The outer vaginal opening is normally partly covered by a thin layer of mucosal tissue called the hymen ...
l contractions during the death spasms. One night, in June 1980, Clark came home and told Bundy about two teenagers, Gina Marano and Cynthia Chandler, whom he had murdered after picking them up on the Sunset Strip. He had ordered them to perform
fellatio Fellatio (also known as fellation, and in slang as blowjob, BJ, giving head, or sucking off) is an oral sex act involving a person stimulating the penis of another person by using the mouth, throat, or both. Oral stimulation of the scrotu ...
on him and then shot them both in the head before taking them to a garage and raping their dead bodies. He had then dumped the bodies near the
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, where they were found the next day. An uneasy Bundy phoned the police, admitting to having some knowledge of the murders, but refused to provide any clues as to Clark's identity. Clark told Bundy that if either of them were apprehended, he would take the blame in the hope that she would be allowed to go free. Twelve days after the initial murders, Clark killed two sex workers, Karen Jones, and Exxie Wilson. Like before, Clark lured them into the car, shot them, and dumped their bodies in plain sight, but not before removing Wilson's head. Clark took the head back home and stored it in the refrigerator. Bundy, upon seeing it, put make-up on it before Clark used it again for another "bout of necrophilia." Two days later, the couple put the freshly cleaned head in a box and dumped it in an alleyway. Three days later, another victim was found in the woods in the San Fernando Valley. The victim was a runaway named Marnette Comer, who appeared to have been killed three weeks earlier, making her Clark's first known victim. Meanwhile, Bundy attended country music performances by Jack Murray, her former apartment manager, and lover. After one such performance, Bundy conversed with Murray and drunkenly talked about what she and Clark were doing. Murray was alarmed and implied that he might tell the police. In August 1980, Bundy lured Murray into his van after a show to have sex to prevent this from happening. Once they were inside, she shot and
decapitated Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the i ...
him. Bundy left various clues behind, including shell casings in the van. Two days later, Bundy bowed to psychological pressure and confessed to her co-workers that she had killed Murray. They called the police, and she gave a full confession to her and Clark's crimes. Clark is believed to have murdered an unidentified youth who was discovered on August 26, 1980, in
Newhall, California Newhall is the southernmost and oldest community in the city of Santa Clarita, California. Prior to the 1987 consolidation of Canyon Country, Saugus, Newhall, and Valencia into the city of Santa Clarita, it was an unincorporated area. It was ...
. The victim had been shot in the head and was found wearing only a red sweatshirt. Her face was reconstructed by the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a private, nonprofit organization established in 1984 by the United States Congress. In September 2013, the United States House of Representatives, United States Senate, and the Pres ...
in efforts to identify her, as her remains were unrecognizable due to
skeletonization Skeletonization is the state of a dead organism after undergoing decomposition.The Australian Museum. (2018). Decomposition-Body Changes. Retrieved from: https://australianmuseum.net.au/about/history/exhibitions/death-the-last-taboo/decomposit ...
.


Arrest and conviction

After his arrest, the murder weapons were found hidden at Clark's workplace. Bundy was charged with two murders: Murray and the unknown victim whose killing she confessed to having been present at. Clark was charged with six murders. At his trial, he acted as his defense counsel and tried to blame Bundy for everything, claiming he had been manipulated. The jury did not believe him, and he was
sentenced to death Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
in 1983. , Clark was still on California's death row. Bundy made a plea bargain and in return for her testimony was sentenced to fifty-two-years-to- life imprisonment. Bundy died in prison from heart failure on December 9, 2003, at the age of 61. However, some doubt has been cast on the nature of Clark's conviction.
Criminologist Criminology (from Latin , "accusation", and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'' meaning: "word, reason") is the study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in both the behavioural and so ...
Christopher Berry-Dee has contended that Clark could provide
alibi An alibi (from the Latin, '' alibī'', meaning "somewhere else") is a statement by a person, who is a possible perpetrator of a crime, of where they were at the time a particular offence was committed, which is somewhere other than where the crim ...
s for five of the seven murders he was convicted of and that the presiding judge refused to accept key physical evidence, including a witness and several banking documents that exonerated Clark in Wilson's murder. Bundy's testimony was proven to be highly inconsistent; she claimed at first that Clark had murdered "Jane Doe 18" two weeks before her interview on August 11 without her involvement or knowledge. When she was told that Clark had an alibi for that date, she was allowed to change her story. Subsequently, she provided intricate details on the manner of the murder and the location of the body, even though she had initially claimed to know nothing about it. Bundy also alleged that police allowed her to withdraw $3,000 from Murray's bank account, although she claimed the police took the money.


See also

* List of serial killers in the United States *
Lust murder Lust murder, also called sexual homicide, is a homicide which occurs in tandem with either an overt sexual assault or sexually-symbolic behavior. ''Lust murder'' is associated with the paraphilic term erotophonophilia, which is sexual arousal or ...
*
William Bonin William George Bonin (January 8, 1947 – February 23, 1996), also known as the Freeway Killer, was an American serial killer and twice-paroled sex offender who committed the rape, torture, and murder of a minimum of twenty-one young men and boys ...


References


Further reading

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Clark, Doug 1948 births 1980 murders in the United States 20th-century American criminals American male criminals American murderers of children American people convicted of murder American prisoners sentenced to death American rapists American serial killers Crimes against sex workers in the United States Criminals from Pennsylvania Criminals from Los Angeles Living people Male serial killers Necrophiles People convicted of murder by California Prisoners sentenced to death by California