by Hadden Clark was serving time in prison for murder when he confessed his sins to his colleague – a long bearded man who he believed to be Jesus.
Colleague Jack Truitt listened as Clark described in detail how he slit the throat of a young girl in a pink bathing suit, drank her blood, and ate some of her flesh before burying her in the woods .
He admitted to Truitt that he knew where he left the body of six-year-old Michele Dorr – and in 2000, he led police to her remains.
The new Investigation Discovery documents, Born Evil: The Serial Killer and the Saviornow streaming on HBO Max, delving into Clark’s complicated history, his unfathomable crimes and his shocking confession.
Clark is a serial killer whose name you don’t know. But his crimes are as sinister as Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer.
Over the years, he has admitted to murdering multiple people – but only two victims have been confirmed.
Clark killed Michele on May 31, 1986. Years later, on October 18, 1992, he killed 23-year-old Laura Houghteling, a Harvard grad.
But it took years for Clark, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, to confess.
Instead, he sent a condolence card to Laura’s family, for whom he worked as a gardener. When he was finally arrested and questioned, he insisted that his alter ego, a personality he calls Kristin Bluefin, was responsible for the killings.
The series also explores Clark’s troubled childhood – how he claimed his mother forced him to wear girls’ clothes as punishment, how his father killed someone, and Clark’s hobby of killing animals and separation. As an adult, he attended the Culinary Institute of America, and was caught chugging beef blood.
It was just the beginning.
The murder of Laura Houghteling
When Laura Houghteling’s co-workers reported that she didn’t show up for work, her brother noticed that their family’s gardener, Clark, had avoided conversation all day.
He told the police, who quickly brought Clark in for questioning. But Clark provided an alibi for the night she disappeared and she broke down crying.
A few days later, he sent a chilling condolence card to Laura’s brother and mother Penny, according to a local magazine The Washingtonian in 1994.
“Please call me when you’re ready to do some gardening again,” Clark wrote in the card. “And I can bring you bagels on Friday, too,” he said, referring to his job at a local bagel place.
Clark was identified as a suspect after police found a bloody fingerprint on Laura’s pillowcase found in the woods.
He smothered her with a pillow in her bedroom, stabbed her, and later cut off one of her earlobes to throw her out, police said.
In court, he admitted that he stabbed Laura to death while wearing Penny’s wig and clothes at the time of the murder.
Clark pleaded guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
While behind bars for Laura’s death, he began to confess to his colleague about Michele.
The murder of 6-year-old Michele Dorr
Michele Dorr was only six years old when she disappeared from her backyard on May 31, 1986.
She was dressed in a pink and white polka dot swimsuit, and was last seen walking to an inflatable pool, according to her father.
At the time, Clark was living with his brother in Silver Spring, just two houses down from where Michele lived with her father.
But Michele was not found until 2000 after Clark’s confession to Truitt. His shallow grave was found in a nearby field.
Clark had slashed her throat with a knife before drinking some of her blood and eating a piece of her flesh. She was still in her pink bathing suit.
A ‘soulless individual’ who blamed his actions on his female alter ego
In the late 1990s, FBI special agent Lou Luciano, now retired, began interrogating Clark at length at Western Correctional Institution.
Luciano sat down for an interview in the docuseries, where he recalled Clark as “pure evil.”
“You’re dealing with different personalities, a guy who eats moldy pork patties,” Luciano said Rolling Stone.
“He’s a killer. He is a soulless individual. Behind those eyes, there is nothing. And he was the guy who had the cards because he had a good idea where the bodies were.”
Luciano said that when they interviewed him, it was clear that Clark had “multiple personalities” – and Kristen Bluefin was one of them.
Clark insisted that Kristen was responsible for the killings.
He signed his name as Kristen, and claimed she was a “mean b*tch”, ate “raw”, and liked “hidden stuff”.
“As Hadden began to show that this woman was his stronger and more prolific personality, he began to grow closer to her in the present. He would move back and forth… I think Kristen was probably his wall, his shield.”
The killer also took chilling images that contained clues about his alleged crimes.
“His drawings are mostly women and landscapes, maps: Luciano said. “They look like postcards, like ‘I wish I was here so I could kill you.’ I’m seen in some of it… But it’s always wide-eyed girls with blue eyes.”
The drawings are eerily similar to those made by BTK killer Dennis Rader.
During one of the interviews, Luciano asked Clark for a picture of Kristen, and he handed over a drawing of a blonde woman with big blue eyes.
He looked like FBI Special Agent Desiree Smith, Luciano noted. When they brought her in to help, Clark smiled and said, “You’re Kristen.”
The investigators were then able to get more information from Clark.
The Reception
In 2000, with Truitt’s help, police were able to narrow their search and bring families a modicum of closure.
Truitt spoke about his wild encounters with Clark throughout the documents.
He remembered the acrid smell coming from the killer’s cell. Inside Clark’s locker, he had saved 15 cartons of milk.
“He would save them. It is hot. He just let them go up. It was just a fake, man,” Truitt said. “I said to him, ‘why would you do that?’”
And he said to me, “It reminds me of rotting bodies.”
Luciano credited Truitt with helping investigators bring closure to Michele’s family.
“When Hadden started confessing to Jack because he thought he was Jesus, Jack was like, ‘Man, this guy’s talking about killing, vaporizing and cannibalizing little children and slitting women’s throats. cut,’” Luciano said.
“Jack did this at great risk… being locked up in a correctional institution. Calling the police can make a very bad entry on your health record while behind bars. But Jack picked up the phone and made that call.”
Cannibal brothers
During the series, Clark’s brother, Geoff Clark, revealed what their childhood and dysfunctional upbringing was like.
Sometimes, he makes fun of his brother’s crimes.
The third Clark brother is also a convicted murderer. Bradfield Clark, now 73, was convicted in 1985 of killing and dismembering a female co-worker in California, allegedly eating parts of her body.
In the docuseries, investigators note how rare it is for two brothers to be involved in completely unrelated homicides at the same time.
His younger brother criticizes his siblings in the docuseries, describing the heartache he feels for the families of their victims.
At one point during an interview, Clark claims that he himself learned about the killing by witnessing his late father’s murder of a woman.
A killer eligible for parole
Director Michael Bay said he spent several hours speaking with Clark in prison so he could get into the mind and psychology of the person the FBI refers to as a ‘person of interest’ in more than 20 states.
It’s not known if Clark killed other victims – but Bay hopes his series will provide some answers.
“‘Born Evil’ could open the door to solving a lot of cold case murders,” Bay said.
Clark is currently serving two consecutive 30-year prison sentences at the Eastern Correctional Institution in Westover, Maryland.
However, the serial killer is now eligible for parole.
“If you’re comfortable with this guy living in your basement or renting a room from you, put him out on parole,” Luciano said.
All five episodes of Born Evil: The Redeemer and The Redeemer now streaming on Max.
