Hadden Clark
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Hadden Irving Clark (born July 31, 1952) is an American murderer and suspected serial killer, currently serving two 30-year sentences at Eastern Correctional Institution in Maryland for the murders of 6-year-old Michelle Dorr in 1986 and 23-year-old Laura Houghteling in 1992. He was also given a 10-year sentence for robbery after stealing from a former landlord.
Biography edit
Hadden Clark is the second of four children, and was born and raised in Troy, New York. His brother, Bradfield Clark, strangled a woman in California. Clark's parents were both alcoholics and often fought with each other in front of their children. Clark's mother would dress him in girls' clothes when drunk and addressed him as "Kristen", while his father eventually committed suicide. As a teenager, Clark would torture and kill animals owned by children who bullied him.
Clark trained as a chef and served in the United States Navy until he was discharged after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Over the years, he held a number of menial jobs but was mostly homeless. Clark was arrested multiple times for theft and retaliation. He was also arrested for robbery after he vandalized a former landlord's property and stole several items.
On May 31, 1986, Clark was ordered by his brother to move out of his Silver Spring, Maryland home. Michelle Dorr, a six-year-old friend of his niece, came over looking for her. Clark took her up to an upstairs room and stabbed Michelle to death. Clark then stuffed her in a duffel bag and buried her in a park 12 miles away.
On October 18, 1992 he killed 23-year-old Laura Houghteling in Bethesda, Maryland. Clark was working as a gardener for Laura's mother Penny when she accused Hadden of stealing tools from her backyard shed. Clark entered into the house through the back door and stabbed Laura to death in her bedroom with a kitchen knife and suffocated her with a pillow. He carried her body in a bed sheet through a wooded area and buried her a half mile away. He left behind a pillow with his fingerprint as he moved the body. He later returned and dressed up in a wig and women's clothes and left through the front door to make people think Laura left the house alive to buy time to clean the scene. Police soon discovered the bloody pillow and linked the print on it to Clark. Clark confessed and led police to Laura's body eight months after the murder.
Police later began looking at him for Michelle Dorr's murder after discovering he lived just two houses down from Michelle's father at the time she disappeared. Police later tested his brother's old house for blood and found Michelle's blood in the wooden floor boards of an upstairs bedroom. Clark later led police to her body in January 2000.
Clark has confessed to murdering dozens of people starting as a teenager. In 2004, Clark sent a letter claiming he had killed an unidentified woman in Cape Cod, Massachusetts in 1974 known as Lady of the Dunes. Clark explained that he had buried evidence from the crime in his grandfather's garden and that he knew the woman's identity but was not going to tell authorities because he claimed they mistreated him. Because he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, police doubt this confession. He however did lead police on December 15, 2000 to his grandparents' former property where they discovered a plastic bucket of over 200 pieces of jewelry. Among the items were Laura Houghteling's high school class ring. Clark claims they were "trophies" taken from his victims.