Episode 168 - Hadden Clark Psycho Killer

[Music] hi I'm your host Cambo grab a beer and pull up a deck chair this is true crime Island another True Crime podcast bringing you True Crime from around the [Music] world [Music] hi Islanders well this week's episode is definitely a creepy one a missing girl a hairbrush a bloody pillowcase and a storage locker full of items of interest plus there's so much more okay so tonight's references are from the News Tribune the News Press The Daily Times the report The Washington Post the star Democrat born evil a true story of cannibalism and serial Murder By Adrien havl court records and I found this one again on Forensics Files but if you have watched the Forensic Files episode that this case has come from don't worry I've dug up plenty more okay so this week we go back to 19 1992 Bethesda Maryland and that's just Northwest of Washington DC it's here where 23-year-old Laura hling was seen leaving for work on Monday morning the 19th of October but she never made it into work that day Laura was 6' tall and was extremely talented academically being accepted into Harvard University she just returned home to Bethesda after graduating and was living with her mother penny a dorc who like Laura was also extremely talented Penny was a successful psychotherapist and she loved to help those less fortunate than her and was extremely trusting maybe a little too trusting she had employed a local homeless man to tend the garden and to do odd jobs around the house now his name was Haden Clark and his employment had worked out quite well he'd earned the trust of Penny to come and go inside the house to use the toilet or make coffee and he could come and go as much as he pleased while Laura was at home after graduating she picked up a temp job in Washington while she decided on whether she'd go to law school or become a teacher so on the morning of the 19th of October 1992 neighbors saw Laura Lee for work as they usually would when Laura's work colleagues noticed that she hadn't arrived at the office and she hadn't phoned in they tried to call her but they only got the answering machine concerned her boss sent someone over to her house just to check out what was going on when there was no answer at the door they called Laura's brother Warren to come over as Penny she was away from home for a week at a conference when Warren checked inside the house to him it just looked normal nothing missing or out of place when he stepped outside and walked towards the bus stop that Laura would walk to each morning he saw this Gardener guy hadn't Clark driving towards him now he tried to motion him to stop but when Clark saw him he just sped off now Warren didn't think too much about this at the time he just thought Clark was a bit of a weirdo anyway and forgot about it now later that day in fact I think it was around nighttime Laura still hadn't surfaced and so Warren called his mom Penny and then they called the police the police as they tend to do when young women go missing they didn't worry about it too much thinking oh she's going to turn up soon she's probably had a big weekend or something but Laura didn't turn up and Penny and Warren were extremely worried where she was and what had happened to her now police would attend the house to check it over but they left after just like Warren not seeing anything really out of place there was no forced entry there was nothing to worry about now when police door knocked the street though a neighbor told them that that she'd seen Laura on Monday morning leave the house and walk towards the bus stop at around 8:00 a.m. now when police questioned Penny and Warren this Haden Clark Guy The Gardener his name was mentioned now a couple of alert cops wondered if it was the same Haden Clark that had been suspected Over The Disappearance of 6-year-old Michelle door in 1986 so they called his voicemail number which I suppose it's back in the day it was a way you could get in touch with someone before widespread use of mobile phones now Clark he called him back pretty much straight away but he told him he would see them the next day now sticking by his word he did attend the Cop Shop with but he went there with the head of a homeless person's group so he didn't just turn up by himself he had someone with him now Clark seemed to have an alibi for most of his movements around the time Laura had gone missing except for when he said he would he'd been sleeping in his truck so no one could really confirm that police had nothing to keep him on so they let him go so we're a few days in the Laura going missing and police get sniffer dogs to help search now funny enough when they were given her scent they went around the back door and not the front door as we remember people saw her walking out the front door that morning so why is they going around the back door anyway we'll find out soon all right well they would find one of Penny's brow that's a mom a woman's blouse a high heeled shoe and a blooded pillowcase in the woods it was near the house was sort of near a church as well and it was thought the pillowcase was Lura and when forensically examined they found a blooded fingerprint on it actually it was a thumb print but they then returned to the house and they started spraying lumonol around especially on Laura's mattress now this showed that there had been a large blood stain from the top to the bottom on one side and this obviously couldn't see couldn't be seen by the eyes so it had been cleaned up they also checked Laura's hairbrush and they found one strand that was different to the rest in fact it looked like synthetic hair the type used in wigs but Laura didn't own any wigs now one thing Penny noticed though was that Laura's bed hadn't been made and she always made her bed before going out another anomaly was that Penny mentioned to police that the description of Laura leaving the house on the Monday morning detailed that the person was wearing slacks but Laura didn't own any slacks and never wore them because it accentuated her long legs too much she always wore skirts again they got this Clark guy in and interviewed him now they told him about the blooded pillow case and that they had his fingerprint on it they were just bluffing at this point when asked what he'd done with Laura he told them that he couldn't remember still as they had yet to identify the fingerprint they had to let him go see because it was on a pillowcase they had to do a couple of chemical reactions on this thing to actually get the fingerprint out of it so it wasn't just like it was on a glass or something and they could just get it so it took a little while before they could get this fingerprint so they couldn't hold him but they had enough to get some search warrants they looked into his financial records and they found this check used to buy supplies from a hardware store now when they went to the store to find out what he purchased it was duct tape braided rope a nylon cord bit of a murder kit on the check they have this section where you can just put a memo in like a reference so you remember what you paid the check for in that space It Was Written Laura so on the same day Laura went missing Haden Clark also brought bought a queen siiz sheet now his mattress where he sleep in his truck that was a double but Laura's bed was a queen size Financial records also showed Clark had a storage space in wari Road Island he was seen by employees there 2 days after Laura disappeared so police searched it guess what they found they found dresses false boobs women's shoes females clothes and wigs they were all in boxes in the storage unit okay so things are getting a little bit weird not that there's anything wrong with him being a crossdresser but this might answer a few questions so forensics are checking the blood stains on pillows the synthetic fibers on hairbrushes and for any fingerprints as well the synthetic fiber found on Laura's hairbrush was a perfect match for the type used on one of Clark's wigs DNA from the bloody pillow case was determined to be luras and the shape of the blood stain on the pillow case was a match for a large pair of scissors that were in the house and the fingerprint or actually thumb print was a match for Haden Clark they hauled his ass back into the Cop Shop finding him sleeping in the back of his truck cuddling a oneeyed teddy bear he would be charged with the murder of Laura hortling and eventually pled guilty now he did a ple deal where he would take authorities toor's resting place place so he got 30 years for second degree murder there Laura's body would be found sticking out from a shallow grave less than a mile from her home her body was very decomposed and she was officially identified with dental records so what happened well Penny had employed Haden Clark as she wanted to help those less fortunate than her he seemed to work well with her and Clark bonded to get Penny as if she was some sort of mother figure anyway she let him go in and out of the house as time went on as I said she started to trust him and looking back penny had noticed that a String of Pearls had gone missing and some of her undies and dresses were gone as well but she just didn't think too much about it at the time then when Laura came back to live at home after graduating from Harvard Clark felt his nose pushed out a joint a bit that Penny favored her over him when Penny asked about missing tools in the out the back Clark got a little pissed off feeling like he was being accused of stealing and actually was stealing then Penny had Penny had this conference that she had to go to she was away for a week so Laura would be in the house alone on the night of Sunday the 18th Laura went to bed early because she had some important duties at work the following day now using a spare key that had been stored in the back shed Clark was able to gain entry to the house without forcing his way in so he's able to get in very quietly he was wearing Penny's clothes her undies her slacks her blouse he had on a wig and a lady's trench coat he also carried a purse now under the coat he had a22 rifle so he sneaks into her room and wakes her by rubbing the rifle against her and he says why are you in my bed what are you doing in my bed why are you wearing my clothes at this point Laura is terrified and replies you're Laura ple please don't hurt me Clark then gets her to swear on a Bible that he is Laura he then gets her to undress and shower at gunpoint now after sharing he bound her wrists and legs with the duct tape and then covered her mouth and nose now this covering her mouth and nose suffocates Laura as then he removed the duct tape from her head with scissors he slipped and they pierced her neck causing the blood stains on the pillow now he wanted her earrings and he got so frustrated trying to get one of the pair out he just cut it out with scissors he then wrapped her up in the bed sheet and took her body out to his pickup truck Clark then went back inside to clean up the the bloody mess taking with him the mattress pad the sheet and that pillow case he then took a few trophies including her High School ring then he walked out the front door at around 8:00 a.m. dressed as Laura or at least he looked like a woman got in his truck and drove off parking in the church parking lot where he usually slept in the back tray so this is why neighbors thought they saw Laura leave the house that morning it was really Haden Clark dressed as a woman wearing a wig when he woke he was going to return to the house to clean up and take more trophies but as he approached he saw Warren Laura's brother freaked out and Spar off so that night he drove close to one of his campsites which he sometimes slept at and buried Laura in a shallow grave he then stashed his trophies in his storage shed but he kept the pillowcase then when the cops called him he freaked out and took the bloody pillowcase and Penny's bra and undies and tried to hide them in the woods behind the church so the reason the sniffer dogs went to the back door of penny in Laura's Place is because he took her out the back door not the front and the woods near the church were quite close so they were able to sniff out the pillowcase and and the other things they found there again can I shout out to Adrien havl whose book born evil is that's where I got that detail from because Adrian interviewed Clark many times when he was in prison okay so that's not all remember I mentioned he had been a suspect over The Disappearance of six-year-old Michelle D in 1986 well while in prison he would start to talk to fellow inmates about his involvement in not only her disappearance but the murders of other women so the short story about Michelle D was that he had abducted her and killed her he had cut a zed in her back with a knife and then cut her throat he would ultimately go to trial for the murder of Michelle and on the 6th of January 2000 Clark LED investigators to where her body was buried in Old Columbia Pike Baltimore finally 14 years after she went missing her family could start to move on Clark had been living at his brother's place which was just down the road from the door's house where she went missing he got 30 years for her murder on December 15th 2000 while out with police looking for more bodies of women he told police he'd murdered he led them to a property on South pamet Road well Fleet massachus now this used to be his grandfather's place it's here they uncovered a bucket full of jewelry items including LA's High School ring apparently there were around 200 items in this bucket so who who knows how many women he murdered but no other bodies were found probably because of the shifting sands on Cape Cod where he reckoned he buried some or Urban Development had concreted over other sites he mentioned oh and when he went out to help investigators look for the other victims he said he'd murdered the cops would have to go to Walmart and buy lady wigs for him and and women's clothes for him to wear now I'm not trying to Kink shame him or or anything I'm just dating a fact I don't care what you wear unless you steal it and then kill the said owners of these clothes that's not good now I do remember the tw Twitter mob coming for me calling me out for Kink shaming when I posted a photo of Russell Williams you know the Canadian serial killer in women's unies and bra and the caption I had there so it was a photo of him wearing these unies and bra the caption I had was Russell Williams per or something like that now the ones that were coming for me hadn't even listened to why I was calling him a pervert it wasn't the wearing of 16-year-old girl's Underpants it was the fact that he was in her bedroom having stolen them put them on and was taking selfies of himself and masturbating that's what the photo was now I call that perverted but Twitter is a dumpster fire of the offended now let's get back on to this another disturbing fact would come out of all of this Clark reckons that he would drink the blood of his victims or women because it made him feel like a woman another bit of trivia is that his older brother by one year Bradfield Clark he was convicted of the dismemberment murder of his coworker Patricia Mack in 1984 and would be sentenced to 8 18 years to life for second degree murder jeez what a family so hadn't Clark not only had a family he had pretty up childhood he had brain damage from birth his Alco mom would dress him up in girl's clothes and call him Christen his Alco dad would beat him and call him a he would cut off the heads of pets of any of the kids that teased him as he got older he was still in trouble shoplifting women's clothes theft killing pets he would ultimately get another 10 years tacked onto his other sentences for stealing from a family that that had rented their basement out to him oh and he killed their cats as well so Islanders after watching the Forensic Files episode on this I had no idea about the other stuff I guess they only have a certain amount of time and the EP episodes get a bit old so some of this has come up later on but it wasn't so much forensic that initially LED investigators to Clark but it sure screwed him once they started to analyze the crime scene evidence the wig hair on Laura's brush the bloody thumb print on the pillow case and then the financial Trail where he paid for all his murder kit by check and put Laura's name in the memo section it's unreal that perss just do some dumb like this like Natasha Dary just searching for thousands of terms on how to kill people and all that and putting it on a phone thinking oh I wonder if I'll get caught I better I better search for that will I get caught by police if I surge on my phone this sort of dumb but what I think is probably more scary is finding the hundreds of jewelry items in that bucket on his Grandpa's old property Clark did confess to many more murders but he hasn't been found respons responsible for any you think with that many trophies around 200 there must be more victims out there just think what set all this off was Penny asking her about some missing tools in the shed if she was just trying to help out the unfortunate but got paid back in her daughter being murdered she didn't check him out before hiring which is pretty much I sure she regrets when you see people like Clark the ones that not only have a me have mental deficiencies but they're brought up in deplorable conditions what do you do with them early on and don't get me wrong I don't have any sympathy for him but there are people out there now just like him what do you do with him maybe one day we'll be in a world like The Minority Report I know a few people probably get locked up for pre crime anyway this is the end of this case if you do want a deeper dive don't forget to check out born evil a true story of cannibalism and serial Murder By Adrien havl as I said he did interview Haden Clark in prison and he's been able to provide that extra detail on what happened that night okay Islanders that's about it so I hope you enjoyed that episode I'd also like to thank my patrons past and present for keeping the islands lights on this Wayne Richie Rodney kavaris and Campion Ford must be a Cambo Ford re anyway thanks so much to all my patrons if you'd like to throw a dollar my way please check out patreon.com True Crime island or if you just want to shout me a beer you can donate to paypal.me trme Island a free beer is always nice of the dumpster diving these cases but can I just ask you to take time to share the podcast with your friends or even in groups on Facebook wherever the island is one of the only few truly independent True Crime podcasts out there and and commercial free best of all it's free of charge to help the island out go to my website truecrime island.com where you can stream each episode if you don't want to use iTunes or any pod player and I have links to merch social media there as well my email links there if you want to get in touch that's about it I've been your host Cambo you've been listening to True Grime Island and as I always say don't forget to delete your browser history good night bom longa [Music] you