Douglas Clark

Douglas Clark after his arrest in 1980.

Douglas Daniel Clark (born March 10, 1948 ) is an American serial killer . Clark and his accomplice Carol M. Bundy were known as the Sunset Strip Killers , indicted in 1983 and subsequently convicted of a series of murders in Los Angeles .

prehistory

Born in 1948 as the son of a Navy Admiral, Douglas Clark had already lived in 37 countries before settling in southern California. He called himself The King of the One-Night-Stand , improved his salary as a machinist through affairs with sailors and had relationships with underage girls and young women. He had fantasies of rape and murder, mutilation and necrophilia, and longed for the moment when his dreams would come true.

At the age of 37, in January 1979, a diabetic professional nurse Carol Bundy, mother of two, left her abusive husband and soon fell in love with the caretaker of her new apartment, John Murray, who always found time to rent tenants Need to help. Soon they were lovers, but the 45-year-old was married and refused to leave his family. In October 1979, Carol offered his wife $ 1,500 if she disappeared, but the plan failed; Murray was furious and advised her to find other quarters. In January 1980, Carol met Douglas Clark in Little Nashville, and he moved in with her that same night. During the day he worked in the boiler room of a soap factory in Burbank and devoted his nights to sex practices that made Carol his slave. He also brought younger women home more often, one of his conquests was an eleven-year-old whom he had picked up in a nearby park, but Carol did nothing to counter this when his sexual behavior expanded into fornication with children; There was more and more talk of death and mutilation.

Murders

On June 11, 1980, half-sisters Gina Narano, 15, and Cynthia Chandler, 16, disappeared from Huntington Beach while they were on their way to meet up with friends. They were found the next morning next to the Ventura Freeway near Griffith Park in Los Angeles ; both had been shot in the head with a small bore pistol. In the early morning hours of June 24, 1980, Karen Jones, a 24-year-old prostitute, was found behind a steak house in Burbank after being shot in the head by a gun. Later that morning, police were called to Studio City , where another female victim - beheaded - was found by pedestrians. Despite the missing head, she was identified as Exxie Wilson, 20. That afternoon, while Carol Bundy's sons were visiting relatives, Clark surprised them by pulling a woman's head out of the refrigerator and placing it on the kitchen counter. He ordered Carol to use cosmetics to fix the distorted face. She later recalled it like this: “We had a lot of fun with her. I dressed her up with makeup like a barbie. ”Clark took his trophy with him to the bathroom, shower, and necrophiliac acts. On June 30, 1980, a group of snake catchers found the mummified body of a woman identified as Marnette Comer, 17, near Sylmar in the San Fernando Valley . On July 25, 1980, a stranger was found on Sunset Boulevard who had been shot in the head. Two weeks later, hikers found another unidentified body near Malibu , already infected by scavengers.

arrest

Despite her romance with Clark, Carol Bundy had continued to visit John Murray. She was out of control of her alcohol consumption and after dropping some hints about her new lover's criminal activities, she was shocked by Murray's comment that he was going to report Doug Clark to the police. On August 5, 1980, she had a midnight rendezvous with Murray in the van he'd parked two blocks from the bar. There she killed him. When he was found days later, he had nine stab wounds, his buttocks had been slashed, his head was severed and missing from the scene. Two days after Murray's body was found, Bundy collapsed at work and confided in a colleague. A friend gave the police a wink, who then searched the apartment and confiscated three panties along with snapshots of Clark showing him with the eleven-year-old girl whom he had sexually abused for a long time. Clark was arrested while working in Burbank, where the murder weapon was found. Ballistic tests showed that projectiles were fired from this weapon at five of the known Sunset victims.

process

At his trial, Clark acted as his own attorney, accusing Carol Bundy and John Murray of the murders, claiming the two shaped their crimes after the case of Ted Bundy . The jury sentenced Clark on January 28, 1983 on all counts, including six cases of murder and one case each of attempted murder, aggravated assault, and disturbance of the tranquility of the dead. Doug Clark was sentenced to death on February 15, 1983, awaiting execution on San Quentin Death Row. There he found himself in company with serial killers such as William Bonin , Randy Steven Kraft and Lawrence Sigmund Bittaker . Carol Bundy first pleaded insanity, then reversed her mind and confessed to the murders. According to her testimony, she shot Murray in the head and then beheaded. Convicted on her own confession, Bundy has received consecutive life sentences of 27 years with parole, and a further 25 years of life on other charges. She died of heart failure on December 9, 2003 in a women's prison.

TV series

The case of Douglas Clark and Carol M. Bundy served as a model for the first season of Wicked City . In the ABC TV series , a known crime from Los Angeles is to be dealt with with fictional elements per season. Among other things, the names of the killers, who are now mentioned in the series Kent Grainger and Betty Beaumont, have been changed. The main roles are played by Ed Westwick and Erika Christensen . The premiere of Wicked City took place at the end of October 2015 on ABC , a German date is currently unknown.

literature

• Newton, Michael: The Great Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. Stocker 2002, ISBN 3-85365-189-5