*Warning: This true story contains graphic and grisly descriptions.   Home  Legal

 Hadden Clark

CROSS-DRESSING SERIAL KILLER

Hadden Clark (pictured above) came from a prominent family.  His grandfather served as mayor of White Plains, New York.  His father had an MBA and PhD in chemistry and helped invent clear clinging plastic wrap and fire-retardant carpeting.

Hadden was the second child, his parents had wanted a girl.  His mother would often dress him in girl’s clothing.  His mother would also address him as Kristen when she was drunk.

Hadden enrolled at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, a two-year chef’s school in Hyde Park.   After graduation, Hadden had his pick of jobs but he was never able to keep a job long due to his strange behavior.

One of his jobs was in Provincetown on Cape Cod.  He would later confess to killing several women during this time and drinking their blood.  He buried one of the women under a sand dune after chopping off her hands at the wrists.  He used her fingers as bait for fishing.

Hadden would later join the Navy as a deck cook.  He would be given a medical discharge, diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

In February of 1989, Hadden Clark dressed up as a woman and visited several churches.  While church members attended choir practice, Hadden stole their purses and coats.  When the cops pulled him over and asked to go in the trunk, Hadden screamed, “No, No!” you can’t go in my trunk.”  They opened the trunk and saw the coats and purses, they asked Hadden if he owned them.   Hadden said yes, “I’m a woman.”  The cops also found women wigs, dresses and cash.  They arrested Hadden, he stayed in jail for 45 days.

In 1986, six-year old Michelle Dorr was last seen leaving her father’s kitchen, headed to a plastic pool in the backyard.

In 1993, Hadden Clark dressed up in women’s clothes, broke into Laura Houghteling’s apartment, Hadden abducted her and killed her. Hadden made a crucial mistake, he left a bloody fingerprint in one of Laura’s pillowcases.  Police arrested him, in custody, he confessed to several murders of women and girls along the Eastern Seaboard between the mid-70’s and 1993.  Hadden also confessed to killing Michelle Dorr.  He told the police, he stabbed the six-year old to death, threw her in a duffel bag and took her to his home where he ate some of her remains before burying her.

When the police asked him, why did you kill these women, he replied, I thought if I drunk the blood of women, it would transform me into a woman, I wanted to become the women and girls I killed.

In 2000, Clark agreed to cooperate with the police by showing them the graves of his victims.  His one request, they had to purchase women’s clothing before he cooperated with the search.   The agents went to K-Mart and purchased, a skirt, panties, a wig and a bra. He was a strange sight, a 47-year old handcuffed man wearing a woman’s wig and clothing.  No graves were unearthed but he did lead the police to a bucket with 230 pieces of women’s jewelry.  One of the pieces was Laura Houghteling’s high school ring. These were his trophies.

Hadden is serving a 60-year sentence in Maryland for the slayings of Michelle Dorr and Laura Houghteling.

Regarding the other murders, authorities aren’t sure if he is bluffing or if he is the serial killer he claims to be.

* In 1984, after a night of drinking and drugs, Hadden Clark’s brother Bradfield would murder his date, Patricia Mak.  He banged her head against a brick wall and strangled her.  He cut her body into 11 pieces in the bathtub, cooked her breasts on the barbecue grill and ate them.  He stuffed the remaining body parts into plastic bags.  He later grew remorseful and confessed to the police.   He is currently serving time in prison.

Source: "Born Evil" by Adrian Havill

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