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The Most Evil Lovers-They Killed And Slept With Dead Bodies

Douglas Clark and his perverted lover Carol Bundy tormented sex workers on the Strip by murdering and defiling their bodies.

By Rare StoriesPublished about a year ago 5 min read
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Carol Bundy and Douglas Clark

Douglas Clark may not be as well-known as Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, or Richard Ramirez, but his atrocities as a participant of the notorious Sunset Strip Killers were as heinous as those of any other serial killer.

For example, after murdering a 20-year-old sex worker, he decapitated her, wrapped her skull in a "Daddy's Girl" t-shirt, and dumped it in a pine box in an alley in Studio City after using it to fellate himself

In 1980, Clark began a cruel killing spree in Los Angeles that targeted sex workers and runaway teens. He lured them with the promise of "work" as they went along the notorious Sunset Strip, only to shoot them dead. On occasion, he utilized their lifeless bodies for sexual gratification.

The Sunset Strip in Los Angeles today

But Clark was not alone; his lover Carol Bundy also participated in his horrible crimes. Collectively, they brutalized at least six innocent women till the end of their reign of evil.

Who Was The Sunset Strip Killer Doug Clark?

Douglas Daniel Clark had a privileged upbringing as a so-called "military brat." Born in 1948 to Franklin Clark, an officer in the Naval Intelligence, his family frequently moved between states and even resided abroad in India, Switzerland, and the Marshall Islands.

Clark attempted to join the military and attended the elite Indiana preparatory school Culver Military Academy. However, his military upbringing did not prevent him from indulging in problematic conduct. Doug Clark allegedly recorded his sexual encounters with schoolgirls without their consent as a teenager.

After graduation in 1967, he joined the Air Force, following in his father's footsteps. Doug Clark was released from the Air Force in 1979 and afterwards obtained employment at a soap factory in Burbank, California. He spent his time off prowling bars in search of lonely older women to con for money.

Around Christmas of 1979, he entered a North Hollywood club and met Carol Bundy, a 37-year-old uncomfortable nurse who was drinking alone. Clark thought Bundy to be an easy target, and the two quickly moved in together.

“He was very good at murmuring in women’s ears in country bars and getting them to sleep with him and give him a place to stay,” Louise Farr, who interviewed Clark and Bundy for her book The Sunset Murders, said. “He was essentially a leach.”

However, Clark's friendship with Bundy would go much further than either of them could have anticipated.

The Despicable Crimes Of  The Sunset Strip Killers

Doug Clark and Carol Bundy shared more than just a passion for each other from the beginning. Additionally, they shared similarly unsettling desires. After moving into Bundy's apartment, they sexually abused one of her 11-year-old neighbors and photographed the assault.

Bundy and Clarke had similar ill sexual fantasies

Bundy asserted that Clark revealed his murderous fantasies to her. To this day, it is unknown who persuaded whom to initiate the couple's murderous romp, although it is widely thought that Doug Clark's homicidal instincts prompted him to kill on his own before convincing Bundy to join him.

Clark, being a seasoned predator, began prowling the Sunset Strip, a notoriously shady neighborhood of Hollywood. It was an ideal location for him to recruit prostitutes and runaways.

Doug Clark killed at least three teenagers on his own: Marnette Comer, a sex worker, and stepsister runaways Cynthia Chandler and Gina Marano, all of whom he had picked up on the Strip. He confessed his crimes to Bundy, but instead of ending their relationship and reporting her murderous boyfriend to the authorities, she became his helper.

The couple's first victim was a stripper they picked up on the Strip. Sitting in the backseat with her rifle, Bundy claimed she was intended to shoot the woman but lacked the courage to do so.

She instead passed the firearm to Clark, who shot the woman in the head. Bundy undresses the dead woman while Clark drove them to a gravel road off the Hollywood Freeway, where they disposed of her body.

The Killing Spree Continues – And Gets Even Worse

Doug Clark was finally living out his twisted fantasies with Bundy, who is unrelated to the serial killer Ted Bundy.

"As a child, Carol was severely abused by her father," Farr recalled of Bundy. "As a result, she became servile. She would do everything to make her guy happy, and she had no morals."

And despite the fact that Clark committed a number of murders on his own, Bundy played a frightening part in the killing spree.

When Bundy discovered the head of Exxie Wilson, a sex worker Clark had murdered and used to fulfill his necrophilia the night before, she painted it with makeup and hid it in their freezer. However, the murderous couple's rampage was beginning to unravel.

Wilson's torso was discovered in mid-June 1980 beside a dumpster in the Valley. A few days earlier, authorities also discovered the deaths of Chandler and Marano in the vicinity of the Ventura Freeway.

Later, the body of another sex worker, Karen Jones, was discovered outside a steakhouse in Burbank, and on June 30, the mummified remains of Marnette Comer were discovered near Sylmar, California, along the Golden State Freeway.

As the bodies piled up as a result of Douglas Clark's bloodlust, the perpetrators became known as the "Sunset Strip Killers."

“He wanted attention,” Farr said. “When he was in county jail, there were a lot of serial killers inside — the Hillside Strangler, for one — and Doug was miffed because he wasn’t getting as much attention as the others.”

Douglas Clark Is Given The Death Sentence

Doug Clark’s Sunset Strip evil doings came to an end in August 1980 when disturbed Bundy confessed to her co-workers about killing her ex-boyfriend Robert Murray.

Bundy had told Murray about the killings she had got herself involved in and then fearing he might speak to the cops, she lured him to her car where she shot and stabbed him to death. Then she decapitated him and brought the head home to Clark.

Not long after Bundy confessed to her co-workers she was arrested alongside her lover.

Clark was found guilty of six murder charges in 1983. He maintained his innocence, alleging that Bundy and Murray were the true killers and he was framed. Nonetheless, he was arrested and is currently on death row at San Quentin State Prison.

In her plea, Bundy admitted to her offenses but portrayed herself as a "reluctant participant." She died of heart failure in prison in 2003.

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