Doug Clark

Doug Clark
Background information
Birth name Douglas Daniel Clark
Also known as The Hollywood Slasher
The Sunset Strip Killer
The Sunset Strip Slayer
Born March 10, 1948 (1948-03-10) (age 64)
Pennsylvania
Conviction Murder
Sentence Death
Killings
Number of victims: 7-8
Span of killings June 1, 1980–August 1980
Country United States
State(s) Burbank, California
Los Angeles, California
Date apprehended August 1980

Douglas Daniel Clark (born March 10, 1948) is an American serial killer.[1] Clark and his accomplice Carol M. Bundy are known as the "Sunset Strip Killers". They were accused and subsequently convicted of a series of killings in Los Angeles.

Clark, a boiler operator in a Jergens soap factory, previously worked at a San Fernando power station, but was fired due to a high rate of absence and threats of violence he had made against his coworkers. After his marriage failed, he met Bundy in 1980 and began living with her.[2] Clark's relationship with Bundy became abusive, and he paid less attention to her, causing her to become desperate for his attention. He began to share his violent fantasies with Bundy, and in June 1980, the couple made their first kill.[3]

The majority of the duo's victims were prostitutes that Clark killed during sex. Reportedly, Clark was striving to fulfill his fantasy of killing a woman during sex and feeling her vaginal contractions during the death spasms.[1] Clark and Bundy would typically lure the woman into their car and have her perform fellatio on Clark. Bundy would then place a gun into Clark's open palm, and he would shoot the victim in the back of the head. Clark told Bundy that if either of them were apprehended, he would take the blame in the hope that Bundy would be allowed to go free.[4] On one occasion they saved the head of a victim and stored it in a freezer for use as a sex toy.[5]

After his arrest in August 1980, Clark acted as his own defense, insisting that he was framed by the prosecution for the murders. Sentenced to death in 1983, he sits on California's death row.[2][3] Bundy plea bargained and, in return for her testimony, received a life sentence.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b James Alan Fox, Jack Levin (2005). Extreme Killing: Understanding Serial and Mass Murder. SAGE. pp. 79–81. ISBN 0761988572. http://books.google.com/?id=txPYzY1_HLQC. 
  2. ^ a b Vronsky, Peter (2007). Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters. Berkley Books. pp. 315. ISBN 0425213900. http://books.google.com/?id=lff8T6YnG10C. 
  3. ^ a b "Douglas Daniel Clark". Bookrags. 2005. http://www.bookrags.com/biography/douglas-daniel-clark-cri/. Retrieved 2009-04-18. 
  4. ^ Schmid, David (2006). Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture. University of Chicago Press. pp. 232. ISBN 0226738698. http://books.google.com/?id=a_GwiSGfZFoC. 
  5. ^ "Love and Death: The Sunset Strip Killers". TruTV. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/partners/cbundy/index_1.html. Retrieved 2009-04-18.