Doug Clark and Carol Mary Bundy | The Sunset Strip Murders - Part 3
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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast. The podcast dedicated to serial killers. Episode 125. I am your Norwegian host, Thomas Roseland Weyborg Thu. Before we begin, a bit of housekeeping. It's summer and I have just returned from my honeymoon with my dear wife.

Originally, we intended to travel to the United States of America and the great state of Florida for our honeymoon. But 2020 didn't have that in store for us. So, we had to vacation in our home country of Norway. We went far north, above the Arctic Circle to Lofoten.

I encourage all my listeners to travel to Lofoten once we are all again able to travel internationally. It is quite extraordinarily beautiful. I mention all this because I have been getting some feedback from my patrons that they do not feel bonus episodes are released as often as they'd like.

I can assure you that once summer is over, I will be able to produce a bit more content than I have this last month. Remember, even your humble host needs an occasional vacation. Also, I notice from the reviews left on Apple Podcasts

That a lot, and I do mean a lot, of reviewers leave bad reviews because I supposedly sound like either Count Chocula or the Count from Sesame Street. Look, I do not speak the way I do for fun. I've had the same accent for 125 episodes.

And if I could speak in a level, standard American accent, I would. But I am not American. I am a Norwegian who studied in Scotland. So my accent is a bit unusual. But please, if you want to leave a review, do so for the content, not for aspects about me that I cannot do anything about.

A one-star review is really, really damaging to the show, so I ask that if you want to hurt me like that, do so based on my actual work, not my voice. With that out of the way, I welcome you to the final installment in the saga of Carol Bundy and Doug Clark, the killers behind the Sunset Strip murders.

I've shepherded you through the details of their crimes and their background. In this final episode, I'll take you along their court case and new aspects of the case that may be deemed controversial. As always, I want to honor those that make this show possible. The 23 foremost patrons of the Serial Killer Podcast are Amber

Amy, Anne, Anthony, Cassandra, Christy, Evan, James, Jennifer, Jesse, Kathy, Lisa, Lisbeth, Mark, Mickey, Monica, Philip,

Russell, Samantha, Samira, Skortnia, Vanessa, and Zashia. You really helped produce this show, and you have my deepest gratitude. Thank you.

If you wish to join this exclusive club of TSK producers, go to theserialkillerpodcast.com slash donate and pledge $15 or more to have your name read live on this show. This episode is 100% sponsored ad-free. So, this following part is important.

I know no one likes e-begging, and especially in these trying times. However, this podcast is 100% free to listen to, and I, as everyone else, have bills and audio engineers to pay.

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On the 14th of November, 1980, at Doug Clark's preliminary hearing, a woman named Mindy Cohen testified that Clark had told her over the phone in July that he had killed two of the victims, the stepsisters, and had then had sex with their corpses. It was not an admission, she said, so much as a threat.

She testified that he had told her he wanted to do the same thing to her. He also told her that he had shot girls in both the head and the heart. He did not identify himself, she said, but she later recognized his voice from a tape that police played for her. The taped voice was indeed Douglas Clark's, and he had said during his three-hour-plus

of confession that Carol Bundy was his roommate, and that she had killed her boyfriend, Jack Murray, because he knew too much about the other murders. He admitted that he had helped her to dispose of Murray's decapitated head. Mindy's testimony was supported with phone records that indicated that someone had called her twice from Clark's apartment.

and police had found her phone number in his wallet. The first time he had posed as a detective, the second time as the killer. Clark admitted that he made the calls, but insisted that he had identified himself with his real name. He believed this indicated that he was innocent. Clark was held for pre-trial motions, set for December.

Because of special circumstances in the murders, he faced the death penalty. He began at once to accuse the police of planting evidence and faking the tape of his voice, and he proceeded to show fault with a succession of lawyers that the court imposed. He accused everyone involved of being dishonest, and he attempted to find ways of discrediting Carroll.

The trial began in October 1982, and the event drew large crowds of journalists, television reporters, and onlookers. Even Peter Falk, the actor who played Detective Columbo on TV, was in attendance. It took four months to complete all the testimony which Deputy District Attorney Robert Jorgensen described as an intimate tour of a sewer.

Doug Clark was charged in the murders of six women, ages 15 to 24. All had been shot in the head with the same gun. For a potential seventh victim, the bullet was too disintegrated to make a definite match. Jorgensen called Clark a cowardly butcher of little girls, and a necrophiliac.

But the defense portrayed him as an articulate, intelligent man against whom the evidence was only circumstantial. Clark himself undermined this by acting arrogant, calling the court officers' names, and disrupting the proceedings with temper tantrums. Expert witnesses testified that three of the victims had been sexually assaulted.

but could not tell whether this had happened pre- or post-mortem. The prosecution had letters from Clark in which he describes his interest in necrophilia to back up their assertions about that aspect of his behavior. During part of the trial, Clark served as his own attorney, with court-appointed lawyers Maxwell Keith and Penelope Watson as his legal consultants.

During his stay in prison over the previous two years, Clark had studied law books and wanted to handle things himself. The judge was not so sure, but allowed it for a period of time. Attorney Keith pointed out that Clark had voluntarily given blood samples and cooperated with authorities with interviews and information. It's not something a responsible person would do if his life was in danger, he said.

But most of his efforts were thwarted by Clark's tantrums and arrogant behavior. Like many narcissists, he failed to see how he was coming across. Charlene Anderman was the first on the stand in terms of the lineup of victims, because according to Carroll's report, she had been the first one attacked.

However, her testimony was not very strong, due to mistaken identifications and conflicts in her story. She also had been hypnotized to refresh her memory of the incident, and this became a point of contention, since such evidence had been ruled inadmissible in California.

Clark very much tripped himself up. After a waitress, Donielle Patton broke down in tears as she described how her fear of him had forced her to move. In what could be construed as a veiled threat, Clark told her he knew her new home address. He obviously could not resist showing off his sense of power over her.

But it did not, in any way, help his case. Clark's appalling behavior in court only escalated, and calling Judge Ricardo Torres a gutless worm, among many other vulgar names, got Clark's attorney privileges suspended, and Keith and Watson were told by the judge to take over again.

The chief witness against Clark, but ironically called by the defense at his behest, was Carol Bundy, who had been promised use immunity in the murders Clark were charged, but not those she was charged with. This meant that what she said could not be used at her trial. She had dressed like a prim and proper housewife,

and she spoke articulately about being under Clark's spell. She talked about how Doug had brought home the head of one victim and said that he had bragged about committing murders since he was seventeen, to the tune of about forty-seven. She admitted to having played with the head and applied cosmetics to make it more appealing as a sex toy.

Although she claimed to be a compulsive truth-teller, she undermined herself with a letter she had written explicitly stating that she could not be trusted to tell the truth. Other letters also showed her to be aware of just how to leave an impression on the jury. She, in fact, began to sound like the mastermind herself, rather than someone under the master's spell. In the end,

Clark had no real case, and he had failed to destroy the prosecution as he had promised the media. As inept as he claimed they were, they managed to lay out a compelling argument that he was a vile sexual predator and a serial killer. On the 28th of January, after the jury deliberated for five days, Clark was found guilty of six counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.

he kept insisting he was innocent but nevertheless when he took the stand to once again display his arrogant attitude he urged the court to sentence him to die in the gas chamber the court was willing to oblige

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For me, one non-negotiable activity is researching psychopathic serial killers and making this podcast. Even when we know what makes us happy, it's often near impossible to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever.

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Visit betterhelp.com slash serialkiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash serialkiller. During Carol Bundy's initial confession to the police, she took the opportunity to make a sexual invitation to the detective who was questioning her. This disturbing behavior did not help her to gain any sympathy.

She seemed altogether pathetic, needy, and unaware of the reality of her situation. Yet she had been needed in the case against Doug. So the detectives had tried to overlook her ploys. She even sent the judge from Clark's trial a suggestive Christmas card. Obviously, Carol Bundy's demure exterior did not match her inner extreme sexual desires.

bundy had long considered pleading not guilty by reason of insanity in the murder of john murray and in assisting in the murder of an unidentified prostitute then she backed away from that approach and moments before her trial was to begin on the second of may nineteen eighty three

She admitted that she had killed Marie because he suspected Clark of the Sunset Slayings, and she was afraid he would turn Clark in. She had lured him to his van at midnight one night with a promise of sex, and had killed him there by shooting him in the head. With a boning knife, she had removed his head to prevent anyone from finding the bullet and linking it to the other murders.

During her original confession, Bundy had told police officers it was really fun to do. She had likened it to an amusement park ride and said she would probably do it again. Now she was backing away from that sentiment, aware of how it made her look. She accepted a plea deal that spared her from the death penalty. On the 31st of May,

She received consecutive prison terms of 25 years to life on the count of participating in the murder of one of Clark's victims and 27 years to life on the murder of Murray and the illegal use of a gun. She was sent to the California Institution for Women at Frontera. Originally, she could have been eligible for parole in 2012.

Surprisingly, despite her damning testimony against Doug Clark, she continued to write to him and to urge him to use her to free himself. She even handed over her psychiatric files to his lawyer. She seemed to flip-flop over her feelings about him, but apparently she would do anything to please him, even suggesting that she could hang herself if he wanted it.

Doug never reciprocated these letters and wanted nothing to do with the woman after his conviction. Was Doug Clark the main villain in this story, with Carol Bundy playing an evil but still only supporting role? We will probably never know the final answer, as neither Bundy nor Clark ever agreed on whose version was the truth.

But we can delve into the matter and try to gleam some insights based on what we do know. Doug Clark continued after his sentence to insist on his innocence. Yes, that's right, his innocence. He claims he was framed by Carol Bundy and her boyfriend Jack Murray. Furthermore, he claims he was never Carol Bundy's lover, only a casual acquaintance.

He wrote a court petition for a new trial, but it was dismissed. He continues to seek a lawyer who will defend him more ably than he claims his string of fired lawyers have done. In June 1992, the California Supreme Court affirmed his death penalty, and it stands active to this day, although he still lives and sits on death row today at age 72.

Carroll, on the other hand, died in prison at the age of 61 on the 9th of December 2003. Even a seemingly cut-and-dry case like this has its devil's advocates. On a TV show hosted by Larry King back in 1992, author Mark McNamara defended Clark vigorously and claimed Clark's story was true.

or at least partly true. He stated that his opinion was that only three pieces of evidence tied Clark to the Sunset Strip murders. One, that the murder weapon, a gun, was found at Clark's workplace. Two, Carol's testimony. And three, a woman who claimed Clark had attacked her on an earlier occasion. McNamara claimed that all three pieces would fall apart once investigated properly.

On the other side of the debate table sat Louise Farr, also an author, and she claimed McNamara's claims were ludicrous, and that he was simply acting as a mouthpiece for Clark. One thing that is interesting is how Clark puts the case of Jack Murray and Bundy being the true killers forward.

He states that Murray and Bundy were lovers and killed together for the sexual thrill of it. When Bundy felt that Murray had become a liability, she killed him by shooting him and then cutting off his head. Interestingly, this was not the first time a victim of Bundy had been decapitated.

There is also evidence to suggest that the same hand had cut off the heads in each murder case. Unfortunately, this aspect was never brought to court. In court, Bundy had portrayed herself as a rather pathetic figure, a helpless damsel who was unable to stand against her psychopath lover.

However, author McNamara, through many visits in prison to both Clark and Bundy, has quite a different view of things. He believed there were many clear indicators that Carol was fully involved. He offered four key points. 1. The transcripts of her interviews with police are filled with inconsistencies.

One moment she knows nothing about the killing of a certain victim. For example, Clark never told me about that one, she says. And then, just a few moments later, she goes into vivid detail about how that victim was killed and then sexually attacked. She recounts extraordinary details, including smells, details that one would think might only be known to someone who was at the scene. Two.

Clark has always admitted that he was in a car with Bundy during the killing of one victim. He insists he was in the back seat with a prostitute when Bundy took a gun out of the glove compartment and shot the girl in the head. Bundy claims she was in the back seat when Clark, sitting in the front seat, put his hand up, which was the sign they had agreed to that she would give him a gun.

She claims she gave him the gun and then he shot the prostitute in the head while she was giving him oral sex. This story has a few weaknesses. For one, it is difficult to imagine any man who would shoot a woman in the head while she has his penis in her mouth, particularly a sensualist like Clark.

who was in some respects also a coward. The risk of the woman chomping down on the penis in a death spasm would be high, not to mention the risk of the bullet striking the head of the penis. Whatever happened in that car, Bundy told police and McNamara that she fondled the victim after death.

When she told McNamara the story, she was crying one moment, supposedly out of grief for the victim. The next moment, she was laughing and talking about what nice tits the victim had. It was indeed a vivid demonstration of a sociopathic personality drifting from one emotion to another. Three.

During conversations McNamara had with Bundy, she hinted several times that she was involved in the killings, but would never come out and say it. She would promise to tell him if he would have sex with her. The two times he met her, they were left alone in a small room in the administration building of the prison, and the opportunity for sex was definitely present.

She did exactly the same thing with police detectives. In a series of letters to Clark, written years after the crimes, she also made strange allusions to the killings which further implicated her. 4. There was a piece of bloody scalp found in the air vent of Jack Murray's van.

It's the one piece of forensic evidence that might tie Carol and Jack to the murders. It was never thoroughly examined. In addition, there were other problems. Clark had a terrible trial attorney. Then he decided to represent himself without a defense lawyer, which only undermined his defense further. As the saying goes, he who represents himself in court has a fool for a client.

The case was thick, with mishandling by investigators, and in the end there was a sense that, even if Clark hadn't done all the killings, he had done some, and anyway he was a despicable man. His sexual relationship with a thirteen-year-old girl, procured to him by Bundy, was part of the argument against him. In many respects, Clark is not a likable person.

He exhibits many of the characteristics of a sociopath. He lies and has a grandiose vision of himself. He is also very much a sexual deviant. But none of those things proves murder. In fact, Clark has frequented prostitutes for years and seemed to flourish in the sexual underworld of swing clubs and street sex.

I had been going to prostitutes for years, Clark often told McNamara. I liked prostitutes. Why didn't I kill any of those girls? End quote. Of course, one could argue that it wasn't until he met Bundy that he fell into a folie a deux, which drew him over the edge from sexual experimentation into serial murder.

McNamara had studied other female serial killers, and he found some interesting parallels. He once did a piece for Vanity Fair about Eileen Vernos, a killer featured way back right here on the Serial Killer podcast. He went to the town where she grew up, north of Detroit, and went house to house in her neighborhood, trying to find people who remembered her.

Several people agreed to speak, and their stories generally tracked with her own recollections of abuse. McNamara wasn't able to verify Carol's story to the same degree, but he did find records of her interviews with psychologists, and what she told them was what she told him.

In the cases of both women, there was tremendous physical and sexual violence and a pattern of finding approval and power from enduring the abuse. Both women grew up in severely dysfunctional households and had horrific experiences at a young age with older men. Yet McNamara also found a key significant difference.

He was no psychologist, but he always had the impression that Aileen Vournos was driven by meanness and by a desire to be the breadwinner for her lover. Above all, she wanted to be believed. Carol Bundy seemed motivated more by a true sociopathology, as well as a desire to manipulate people to get what she needed.

She wouldn't talk to him at all, unless he bought her a typewriter, for example. Above all, she wanted respect. Of the two, Carol was the colder, darker, less sympathetic, more cowardly, yet more refined and perhaps cleverer. As he got some distance on the case, McNamara had more perspective.

he was always attracted to journalism because it seemed to be the one profession where you could be paid to be skeptical as he got to know the sunset strip murders case he began to see how image is everything in this society here was clark the killer and deviant who appeared to be the devil

Here was Bundy, who portrayed herself as the nearly blind widow, a nurse and mother of two children, the victim. He became entranced by the illusions, by the complexity of the case and all the convolutions in the telling. McNamara was asked about writing a book about the case. He never really considered it. According to him, the story was too grim.

There was no real protagonist. Three very dark people, a woman and two of her lovers, got together in the San Fernando Valley. One lover was beheaded. The other lover went to death row. The woman went to prison and died there. McNamara felt the story was too shallow and a magazine piece at best. Your humble host does not agree with him on this.

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And so ends the tale of the Bundy serial killer you probably hadn't heard about, Carol Bundy and her accomplice, Doug Clark. I hope you enjoyed listening to me telling it to you. The next episode, number 126 in number, will feature a brand new serial killer expose. So, as they say in the land of radio...

Stay tuned. Finally, I wish to thank you, dear listener, for listening. If you like this podcast, you can support it by donating on patreon.com slash theserialkillarpodcast, by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, facebook.com slash theskpodcast, or by posting on the subreddit theskpodcast. Thank you. Good night and good luck.

Hi, everyone. This is Jillian with Court Junkie. Court Junkie is a true crime podcast that covers court cases and criminal trials using audio clips and interviews with people close to the cases. Court Junkie is available on Apple Podcasts and podcastone.com.