Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Sunset Strip Killer” - Carol Bundy

Episode Date: June 26, 2018

After years of abuse as a child at the hands of her parents, Carol Bundy suffered through the same fate as an adult at the hands of various boyfriends. When she met Douglas Clark, she thought things would be different. But he had dark sexual fantasies and she would do anything to stay with him. Even kill.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We advise extreme caution for children under 13. Carol M. Bundy was a nurse and mother who suffered incest, sexual abuse, and betrayal from almost every man in her life. But in 1980, she met a man who seemed to represent a woman. a fresh start. Douglas Clark was handsome and gentle. He was great with Carol's kids and even took time to play with them on the first night he stayed over. But Clark was not the charming man he seemed to be. He was a pedophile and a budding serial killer, and he wanted Carol to help him fulfill his twisted desires. Carol was all too willing to be Clark's accomplice, and as she helped him murder young runaways and sex workers, she became concerned. She became

by her own dark fantasies. By August of 1980, Carol was ready to kill all on her own. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson, and this is serial killers. Today we're going to take a deep dive into the life of Carol M. Bundy, one of the Sunset Strip killers. Carol teamed up with her partner Douglas Clark to murder young teens and women in Los Angeles. Carol herself was convicted of two murders and is suspected of more. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson.

Hi, everyone. We'd like to ask a quick favor. Would you leave a five-star review of serial killers on your favorite podcast directory? It seems so simple, but it really helps us out. And don't forget to subscribe while you're there, because a new episode comes out every Monday. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and on Twitter at Parcast Network, or in our website, parkast.com. Carol Bundy's story offers a disturbing look into how far a person is willing to go in order to please her partner. From May 31st to July 31st of 1980, Carol Bundy helped her lover Douglas Clark kill at least seven women

and indulge in his necrophilic fantasies with their severed heads. The young teens and women's bodies were found near highways across Los Angeles. And in August of 1980, Carol, Carol Carol decided to commit murder by herself. She killed her ex-boyfriend, Jack Murray, and sliced his head off. Carol was born Carol Mary Peters to Charles and Gladys Peters on August 26, 1944. She had one brother, Jean, who was seven years her senior. Their father, Charles, was an alcoholic who worked at movie theaters as a troubleshooter,

repairing faulty theater equipment. His job required him to move the family from town to town throughout Carol's childhood. Carol's mother was a beautiful woman who had dreams of show business fame. She was once a stand-in for movie star and tap dancing legend Rudy Keeler. But after she got married, she gave up her dreams of stardom and became a hairdresser. On the day Charles and Gladys brought Carol home from the hospital, her seven-year-old brother, Jean, slammed his hand in the car door. The accident was somehow directly connected to his new baby sister.

Jean resented Carol his whole life and took pleasure in tormenting her. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. Gene seems to have been using Carol as a scapegoat. According to psychiatrist Neil Burton, scapegoating is a psychological coping mechanism that allows,

people to process their own unpleasant emotions. Burton notes, quote, uncomfortable feelings such as anger, frustration, envy, and guilt are displaced and projected onto another, often more vulnerable person or group. The scapegoat target is then persecuted, providing the person doing the scapegoating not only with a conduit for his uncomfortable feelings, but also with pleasurable feelings of piety and self-righteous indignation, end quote. In other words, Jean may have resented Carol as a way of boosting his own self-esteem. Gene also cultivated an antagonistic relationship with Carol's younger sister, Vicky, who was born three years after Carol in 1945. Gene took great pleasure in decapitating and hiding Vickies and Carol's dolls.

Despite having to deal with her brother's bullying, Carol remembered her early childhood as magical. In 1946, the family spent some time living in Los Angeles, where Carol's mother hoped to pass her love of acting onto her children. 11-year-old Jean was an extra in 14 films, and 4-year-old Carol was an extra in Miracle on 34th Street. She even got to sit on Santa's lap. Carol had other fond memories of her childhood as well.

Money was often short in the Peters household, but Carol's parents managed to scrape enough together to provide their children with elaborate Christmas treasure hunts. One year, Jean received a bicycle, and Carol got a month's television. And one of Carol's favorite family memories occurred when she lost her first tooth. Her father Charles used one of her dolls

to create muddy footprints on Carol's sheets that insisted they were left there by the tooth fairy. But despite these fond memories, Carol's childhood was rife with abuse. Carol later recalled that her father forbid her mother from hitting the children because she would lose control and beat the children with a belt until they bled. And this abuse only got worse. In 1950, when Carol was eight, the family moved to Louisiana. One extremely hot day, Gladys suffered a nervous breakdown. She locked Carol out of the house, screaming that she wasn't her child. Unfortunately, we don't know if Gladys ever sought out psychiatric help.

for this. However, there is a psychiatric disorder known as Capgras delusion that might explain this behavior. According to neuropsychologist Jenny Ogden, sufferers of Capgras delusion believe, quote, that familiar people, or sometimes even their pet dog or their own home, are impostors. Sometimes the imposter delusion will begin with the person closest to him, and then gradually extend to other members of his family until he believes his whole family are posters." If Gladys suffered from Capgras delusion, it might explain why she became convinced her daughter was a stranger and locked her out of the house.

For hours, Carol banged on the door and windows, pleading to be let in, but her mother insisted she did not recognize Carol. Finally, Carol ran two miles to where her father worked. Charles returned with Carol and forced Gladys to let the girl into the house. Throughout the night, Charles and Gladys fought, with Carol's mother insisting Carol was not her child. From that day forward, until the day she died, Gladys refused to believe Carol was her daughter. This was likely a very traumatizing experience for Carol.

According to a 1986 study published in the journal Child Abuse and Neglect, Abused Children who were the most at risk to perpetuate the cycle of violence were the ones who were not only abused, but who felt like their parents didn't love them. And there's no way Carol could have felt loved if her mother didn't even recognize her. Carol struggled with a lot of emotional and self-esteem issues connected to her mother. At eight years old, Carol already perceived herself as unattractive and awkward. She thought her mother was undeniably beautiful and had a magic about her. Carol feared that she would never be as pretty as her mother. Carol's self-image took a further blow when she turned nine in 1951. Due to an astigmatism, she was forced to wear

thick eyeglasses. Her schoolmates nicknamed her four eyes. And her mother took every opportunity to humiliate her. When Carol got her period in her early teens, Gladys stood on their front porch, screaming, today you are a woman. As we've seen in past episodes, parents who emotionally abuse and neglect their children can cause lasting psychological damage in their offspring. Author Claudia Black explains that, quote, the wounds are struck deep in their young hearts and minds, and the very real pain can still be felt today. The causes of emotional injury need to be understood and accepted so they can heal. Until that occurs, the pain will stay with them, becoming a driving force in their adult lives, end quote.

Gladys' abuse finally ended in 1957, when Carol was 14. On a hot July day, Gladys was polishing the floor of their new home in Garden Grove, California, when she began to feel ill. Gladys laid down on her bed and ordered Carol to call Charles at work and tell him to come home. When Charles arrived, he took one look at his wife and rushed her to the doctor. Hours later, Charles returned home and announced that Gladys had died from a heart attack. Life should have improved for Carol, since her abusive parent was no longer in her life. However, Carol's mother's death only brought her father's abusive tendencies out of the shadows.

With his wife dead, Charles immediately seized the opportunity to sexually abuse and rape his own daughters. Ironically, as an adult, Carol insisted that Gladys was the only one who abused her while her father was loving. According to Dr. Richard Krugman in an interview with The New York Times, some adult survivors of child abuse denied that they were abused. by their parents. Although it's important to note that a large percentage of child abuse survivors grow up to be loving, nurturing parents, a survivor who can't admit their parents abused them is the most likely to grow up to be violent or abusive themselves. Dr. Krugman said, quote, when you ask them if they were ever abused, they tell you no. But if you ask them to describe what would happen if they broke a rule, they'll say something like, I was locked in a closet for a day,

then beaten with a belt until I was black and blue. Then you asked them, was that abuse? And their answer is, no, I was a bad kid, and my parents had to beat me to make me turn out okay, end quote. On the night Gladys died in July of 1957, Charles informed 14-year-old Carol and 11-year-old Vicky that he did not want to sleep alone. Carol and Vicky each remembered the night slightly differently,

but both remember their father raping them. Vicky later recalled that the two girls instinctively knew that their father planned to sexually abuse them. So they played a game of skunk to decide which one of them would join their father in the parents' bedroom that evening. Vicky lost the game. Terrified, she climbed into her father's bed

where her dying mother had lain only hours before. Her father raped her, forcing her to perform oral sex. Carol, on the other hand, didn't remember playing playing skunk with Vicky. Instead, she recalled her father ordering her into his room. He told her, quote, you have to take over for your mother now, end quote. Her father then removed her nightgown and forced her to perform oral sex. On that first night that Charles raped Carol, the 1946 film Sentimental Journey was playing on television. The film's plot revolved around a wife adopting a girl to be her husband's companion after she died.

Carol would later claim that this movie's theme song was her favorite. It may seem strange that Carol would insist she liked a song that she heard while her father raped her. But as we've seen, denial is a common trauma avoidance technique with children who have suffered abuse. According to a study done by doctors Victoria M. Follett and Melissa M. Poulosny in 1995, survivors of child abuse will suppress memories of a traumatic event or alter them so that they can. and lower the stress the trauma caused. It can be incredibly difficult for incest survivors to reconcile their instinctive love for their parents

with their parents rape and abuse. Actress and incest survivor Mackenzie Phillips explained Oprah Winfrey the complicated feeling she has toward her father who raped her. The allegation is shocking. I woke up that night from a blackout to find myself having sex with my own father. But Mackenzie Phillips told Oprah Winfrey on her talk show

that she still loves her late father, John Phillips of the Mamas and the Pappas, even though she says their sexual relationship lasted a decade and eventually became consensual. I don't hate him. I understand that he was a very tortured man and sort of passed that torture down to me. Phillips forgave her father on his deathbed and hopes that her book will help other incest victims. How Michael Weinfeld? But while many incest survivors are able to overcome their trauma and live full and productive lives, others struggle with a psychological effect. of their parents' sexual abuse. According to New York Times reporter Daniel Goldman's 1999 article on child abuse,

quote, the more severe the abuse, the more extreme the later psychiatric symptoms. For instance, a study by Judith Herman, a psychiatrist in Somerville, Massachusetts, found that among women who had been victims of incest, although half seemed to have recovered well by adulthood, those who suffered forceful, prolonged, intrusive abuse, or who were abused by fathers or stepfathers had the most serious problems later in life, end quote. Vicky later reported that their father continued to rape and sexually abuse them for eight months in 1957. But Carol insisted that their father only sexually assaulted Vicky once and Carol twice.

This is possibly another example of Carol being in denial about her father's abuse. Eight months after Carol's mother Gladys died, Charles remarried in 19. Although Charles stopped sexually abusing Carol, he continued to psychologically abuse her. He berated Carol daily, calling her fat and stupid. And Charles's abuse was only escalating and becoming more dangerous. A few months after her father remarried in 1958, Carol returned from the store to find her father had shot the family cat and left its corpse behind a curtain in the living room. And killing the cat may have been evidence of more than just violent,

urges. According to the ASPCA, quote, studies demonstrate that abusers intentionally target pets to exert control over their intimate partners. 71% of pet-owning women entering domestic violence shelters report that their abuser threatened, harmed, or killed a family pet, end quote. And Carol's abusive, violent father didn't want to just kill the family's beloved cat. He wanted to murder the entire family. Our story will continue in a moment after a brief message. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong.

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And now, back to serial killers. 14-year-old Carol Bundy's father, Charles, began raping her on the night her mother died in July 1957. When he remarried in early 1958, Charles' abuse escalated to violence and attempted murder. In the early months of 1958, Charles decided to kill his entire family. He picked up his shotgun and aimed it at his new wife, but she managed to redirect the gun. During the struggle, Charles ripped open his finger on the gun site. Charles shot the family's cat and stormed out of the house. Carol wasn't there during this violent struggle, but she came home and discovered her cat dead from a gunshot wound. Hours later, Charles returned home, his hand still bleeding from his

earlier attempt to kill his wife. He confessed to Carol that he wanted to kill everyone in the family. Luckily, someone in the family managed to call the police on Charles before he could kill anyone. Charles was arrested, but his new wife refused to press charges. He was quickly released and only charged with disturbing the peace. But authorities did have enough sense to remove Carol and Vicky from the home. The sisters lived in a foster home for a short time in 1958 before they were sent to live with their grandmother in Michigan. Carol described the woman as an angry old her husband. At some point in 1958, Carolyn Vicky moved from their grandmother's house to their uncle's home in Indiana.

Later that same year, Charles drove out to Indiana and retrieved them. As Charles drove the girls back to California, he weaved the car back and forth between lanes to scare them. The Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration has found a significant correlation between domestic abusers and aggressive driving. So it's unsurprising that Charles used to be. that Charles used this tactic to control and frighten his children. In 1958, their family settled back into life in California, and 16-year-old Carol began attending a new school. She still struggled with self-esteem issues over her weight and appearance,

and she was surprised to realize that boys were attracted to her. She started sleeping with her high school classmates, hoping to find the acceptance and affection that was missing at home. Unfortunately, the high school boys often treated her cruelly, after she slept with him. A study by Sonia V. Baton, Victoria Follett, and I.B. Abon, conducted in 2001, showed that women with a history of childhood sexual abuse

engaged in high-risk sexual behavior more frequently than women who had never been abused. Carol may have started engaging in these relationships with other boys as a way of coping with her father's abuse. Later in 1958, Vicky revealed to a group of relatives that Charles had raped both of them. But Carol refused to corroborate Vicky's story. Carol later confessed to Vicky that she felt totally dependent on Charles.

She felt compelled to deny that he sexually abused her in order to protect herself. Although Charles was no longer sexually abusing his daughters, he continued to verbally assault them on a daily basis. In 1959, 17-year-old Carol decided the only way to escape her father's abuse was to get married. In 1959, she married a 56-year-old alcoholic named Leonard. But Leonard just wanted to abuse and exploit Carol by forcing her into sex work. So Carol quickly left him. That same year, Carol met Richard Geis, a 32-year-old pornographic writer who published a science fiction fanzine.

He took advantage of the young woman's need for love and acceptance and struck up a relationship with her. Carol soon moved in to his Venice, California apartment. Geis encouraged Carol to pursue her passion for writing. Carol tried to write a novel, but she didn't have the patience to finish, and only got to page 12. So, Geis suggested that she'd try writing a short story instead. Carol then wrote a short story about a policewoman who wrote to work on a bus. With Geis's help, she sold it to a mainstream magazine called Adam.

She then decided to try her hand at publishing a book. her own science fiction fanzine, but gave up after one issue. But despite Carol's blossoming interest in writing, her abusive father came back to haunt her. In 1962, Charles hung himself, an event which traumatized Carol. According to Geis, Carol actually blamed herself for her father's suicide. She still refused to see him as a sexual predator who had repeatedly raped her. Even after Charles died, Carol couldn't have admit that he was an abuser or a rapist because she didn't want to risk being overwhelmed by the

trauma she was fighting to repress. This is a common coping mechanism for victims of abuse. According to work published in a January 2010 issue of the journal, Aggressive Violent Behavior by Kate Walsh, Michelle A. Fortier, and David Delilo. After Charles killed himself in 1962, Carol realized that she was bisexual and began sleeping with women. Although she stayed with geis, Carol continued to have affairs with men and women outside their relationship. A pattern developed where a man would hurt her feelings and she would find a woman. When that woman hurt her, she would seek out a man. According to Louise Farr's book, The Sunset Killers, Carol knew that part of the reason none of her love affairs lasted was her

inability to stand up for herself. She often confused abuse with affection. Carol continued these affairs after she moved to Oregon with Geis around 1962. Not long after they settled into their new home, Geist discovered Carol was engaging in sex work for tiny amounts of money. One of her clients was a 70-year-old man who gave her $20 and all the books she could carry out of his store after each session. Clearly, Carol still had the low confidence and lack of self-worth she'd felt as a teenager. Geis believed that Carol engaged in sex work because she had a subconscious need to feel ashamed of herself after being sexually abused by her father. Years later, Geis would tell an interviewer that he blamed himself for not urging Carol to seek psychological help

for coping with the trauma and abuse she survived as a child. The couple returned to California and settled in Santa Monica in the mid-1960s, where Carol continued to engage in occasional sex work. One day, as Carol and Geis relaxed on the beach, Carol mentioned that she'd like to attend nursing school. Geis agreed to support her education as long as she maintained good grades. Carol passed her GED and enrolled in Santa Monica College in the late 1960s. While attending classes, she met Grant Bundy, a fellow nursing student who appeared kind and caring. Carol fell for him immediately. In 1968, 26-year-old Carol graduated as the valedictorian of her class. She then got a job as a licensed vocational nurse at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Hospital.

As 28-year-old Carol transitioned into a new career as a nurse, she decided to end things with Geis. She began dating Grant Bundy and the couple married in 1970. Their marriage seemed stable and healthy at first, but Grant became increasingly abusive after Carol gave birth to their first son, Chris. But although Grant repeatedly beat and belittled Carol, she wasn't able to flee the marriage, and in December of 1973, she gave birth to their second son, David. Carol didn't want to have any more children. Perhaps because of the abuse of home life, she and her sons already had to endure. So after David's birth in 1973, Carol opted for sterilization.

But Grant's abuse continued to escalate, and he began physically abusing the children as well. At one point in the early 1970s, he beat his eldest son Chris with the plastic track of his Hot Wheels set, leaving huge welts on the young boys back. Carol left Grant more than once over the course of the 1970s, but she always returned. She couldn't bring herself to leave the marriage. As we've seen in past episodes, it can be incredibly difficult for women to escape abusive relationships. The Superior North Victim Safety Grant Project's website explains, quote, there are many emotional, social, spiritual, and financial hurdles to overcome before someone

being abused can leave. Very often the constant undermining of the victim's self-belief and self-esteem can leave him or her with very little confidence, socially isolated, and without the normal decision-making abilities, end quote. Kara was struggling to make good choices. At one point in the 1970s, she began dating a woman, and spent thousands of dollars on her. In hindsight, we can see the willingness to do anything for a partner, which eventually led her down the path to murder. Unfortunately, Carol's willingness and money weren't enough,

and the woman soon abandoned her. By 1978, Carol's eyesight was failing. An ophthalmologist diagnosed her with untreatable retinopathy, a disease caused by diabetes that damages the light-sensitive blood vessels in the retina, Within a year, Carol could only see light, darkness, and occasional shapes. Carol's poor eyesight forced her to give up her job as a nurse at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Hospital. Instead of sympathizing with his wife's disability, Grant was furious that she had lost her job. He informed Carol that he had no intention of supporting the family if Carol could not work.

Grant's violent abuse of his family continued to escalate. In January of 1979, Grant beat. his son Chris so badly that he gave the young boy a black eye. This was the breaking point for Carol. Two weeks later, she fled the apartment with her two young sons and found refuge in a battered women's shelter. The nuns who ran the shelter informed Carol that they could get her placed in an apartment in Van Nuys, called the Valerial Gardens.

The complex was managed by Jeanette and Jack Murray, a married couple with two kids. Jeanette and Jack had a strained relationship. By the time Carol moved into the Valerio Gardens in January of 1979, Jeanette was well aware that Jack was cheating on her. But since her husband usually cheated on her with tall, blonde women, Jeanette didn't consider Carol, an obese mother of two, to be a threat when the two women first met. Jeanette and Jack showed Carol a second-floor apartment.

Although Carol's blindness prevented her from examining the apartment closely, she could see that there was plenty of light streaming in from the windows and decided to take it. Two days later, in January of 1979, Carol arrived with a few boxes of toys and clothes. When she went to the manager's office, Jack gruffly informed her that she was going to get a downstairs apartment instead of the one they had agreed on. This initial confrontation with Jack convinced Carol that he was an arrogant bully, but her feelings toward him changed completely just two weeks later. Carol needed some help repairing a sliding door in her son's room that had jumped its track, so Jack brought his tools to fix it. As he worked on the door, he regaled Carol with stories of his life

growing up in Australia. Carol felt drawn to Jack, and the pair shared a bottle of wine as Jack worked. The next day, Carol told Jack that she was sorry he was married, but Jack made it clear he was ready and willing to cheat on his wife. And so Carols and Jack's initially anti-ex, antagonistic relationship blossomed into an affair. Jack helped Carol get on her feet and furnish her apartment. He also drove her to the Social Security Office and helped her apply for disability payments. Carol was thrilled to learn that her disability meant that she qualified for benefits as well as a housekeeper that was paid by the state. It seemed like things were going to be okay for Carol under two sons. But while Carol was getting her financial affairs in order in the spring of 1979, her relationship with Jack was tempestuous.

Carol found Jack to be self-absorbed in bed, only concerned with his own needs. And when Carol complained about his behavior, Jack became verbally abusive. He claimed that in Australia, women knew their place. Carol was once again trapped in a toxic relationship, and she found herself resorting to denial to cope with Jack's verbal abuse. She insisted that Jack was a kind man who made her feel beautiful. She even dreamed of having his child, even though she'd already undergone sterilization. Carol grew increasingly obsessed with Jack, and she was only encouraged in her obsessive tendencies after Jack suggested that he might one day leave Jeanette to be with her.

Carol became a regular at Little Nashville, the Los Angeles bar where Jack often sang. The bartenders saw her so frequently that they nicknamed her, the blind little bat. Carol was resigned to her blindness until Jack convinced Carol to get a second opinion about her eyes in the spring of 1979. The new ophthalmologist discovered that Carol did not have retinopathy. She was suffering from cataracts. In June of 1979, Jack drove Carol to Valley Presbyterian for the first of two operations to improve her eyesight. But even though Jack was helping Carol get the medical assistance she needed. Their affair was growing increasingly tense. Carol was not being discreet. Her constant phone calls and trips to visit Jack at the office was making Jeanette suspicious

that Carol and Jack were sleeping together. So Jack began forcing Carol to meet for sex in the back of his van, which he kept parked a few blocks away from the apartment building. In October of 1979, Carol had an operation to remove the cataracts from her second eye, although Carol would never have perfect vision, she could now see what she looked like in a mirror and what she saw upset her. According to social anthropologist Kate Fox, it's not uncommon for people to get upset, quote, when they look in the mirror and see normalcy, end quote. Because of her blindness, Carol had spent most of her adult life in an involuntary mirror fast,

unable to see her reflection. But now that she could scrutinize herself in a mirror, her low self-esteem came back haunt her. On the bright side, her financial problems had disappeared by the fall of 1979. She received $25,000 after her abusive ex-husband grant sold their own home, and she was getting several thousand a month in disability payments from Social Security. For the first time in her life, Carol felt financially secure. But Carol had trouble controlling her spending.

She blew $4,000 on bunk beds, toys, a dishwasher, and a new refrigeration. She frequently went to have her hair styled at upscale beauty salons, and she even tipped an electrologist $100 after one hair removal session. Carol also lavished money on Jack. She bought him a VCR and a new desk for his office. Jack was even able to manipulate Carol into loaning him $10,000. He explained that Jeanette had cancer. While he wanted to leave Jeanette to be with Carol, he couldn't stick his wife with thousands

of dollars in unpaid doctor's bills. Carol happily gave Jack the money, hoping this meant they could finally be together. But when Jack didn't leave Jeanette, Carol decided to try a new tactic. In the fall of 1979, Carol slept with Jeanette's 23-year-old brother, Warren, hoping to make Jack jealous. Her plan didn't work. Jack's only response to the affair was to take Warren out for drinks and warn him that Carol was trouble.

But Carol wasn't done trying to win Jack over. In December of 1979, Carol surprised Jack with a romantic trip to Las Vegas. But this didn't go as planned either. Jack and Carol got into a bad fight during their stay in Vegas. When they returned to Van Nuys, Carol was so upset that she left her suitcase in Jack's van. Carol soon heard a pounding on her apartment door. She swung open the door and discovered Jeanette holding her suitcase.

demanded to know if it was Carol's. Carol tried to avoid admitting the affair by bringing up Jeanette's cancer, but that's when she learned the shocking news. Jeanette never had cancer. Jack had lied to Carol about everything. In December of 1979, Carol confronted Jack and demanded to know why he lied to her. For once, Jack was honest and told Carol he had used her money to pay off his van. Carol grew upset, and Jack realized she could go to the police. and report him for fraudulently taking her money.

So Jack tried a different tack. Jack insisted that even though he had lied about the cancer, he was still going to leave Jeanette for Carol, once he could afford it. Carol chose to believe him, possibly because they shared an unhealthy, traumatic bond that often forms between an abuser and their victim. According to author Sherry Steins, quote,

the environment necessary to create a trauma bond involves intensity, complexity, inconsistency, and a promise. Victims stay because they're holding on to that elusive promise or hope, end quote. Carol was desperately holding on to her hope that Jack would leave his wife and the two would be together. On Christmas of 1979, Carol left expensive presents for Jack in his office, a new watch, cologne, and a gold chain with a tarsus symbol on it. She then waited in her apartment for Jack to appear and thank her, but he never did. Carol decided it was time to force the issue of Jack ending his marriage. Late on Christmas Day, 1979, she went to his apartment to confront Jeanette. Carol offered her $1,500 to leave Jack. Jeanette was furious and told Carol

that she would be happy to divorce Jack and give him to her. But when Jack learned of the conversation, he wasn't pleased. He stormed out of his apartment and found Carol waiting at the driveway. Jack said, stay out of my life. No woman is going to come between me and my family. But Carol couldn't let go of the toxic relationship. On December 28, 1979, she dressed up, went to Little Nashville, ordered a tall vodka and seven up, and waited for Jack to take the stage. But her hopes in repairing her relationship with Jack were dashed when she spotted him dancing with Jeanette. As a depressed Carol sipped at her drink, she noticed a handsome man in an expensive suit watching her from across the bar. He introduced himself as Doug Clark. Carol had just met the man

who would lead her down a path of necrophilia and murder. We'll return to our story in just a moment. And now, back to the story. Doug Daniel Clark was born in Pennsylvania on March 10th, 1948. His father Franklin was a naval intelligence officer, so the family moved frequently during Clark's childhood. As an adult, Clark kept up a nomadic lifestyle. He had a temper that made it hard to hold down a job and was fired from the Department of Water and Power in 1978 after threatening his co-workers. By September of 1979, Clark had taken a job running the boiler for the Juergen Soup company in Burbank, California. He supplemented his wages by manipulating his many girlfriends into giving him money. Louise Farr, author of The Sunset Murders, explained in an interview

with the LA Times that Clark, quote, 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. He was essentially a leech, end quote. On December 28, 1979, Clark spotted Carol Bundy at Little Nashville and decided she was an easy target. He spent the night dancing and drinking with her. She was impressed by the stories of the exotic places he visited. Carol had no idea that Clark was a sociopath, adept at manipulating the women in his life. Author Louise Farr notes, quote, Doug Clark is incredibly smooth. Lots of sociopaths are. He's incredibly well-read and a little pretentious about it. He sprinkles Shakespeare through his conversation and uses French phrases.

and quote. Clark took Carol to the playtime club for dancing. Kara was ready to sleep with Clark that night, but he told her that he had another engagement. Clark then drove her home, promising he'd call. A few days later, Clark invited himself over to Carol's apartment to have dinner with her and her children. Unsurprisingly, Clark was immediately able to win over the whole family.

Carol's young sons, Chris and Nick, took to Clark instantly. He played battleship with them and then tucked them in their beds. Then he told Carol he wanted to stay the night. Their first night was affectionate. Clark truly seemed more interested in satisfying Carol's sexual needs than his own, which was a new experience for her. The only strange moment was when Clark apologized for his small penis, then became defensive, stating that,

when you're not endowed, you compensate. It was a red flag of Clark's insecurities, but Carol chose to ignore it. The next morning, Clark told Carol that he was having problems with his landlady and asked if he could move a few boxes into her apartment. Carol happily agreed. Before he left, Clark shocked Carol by asking for a pair of her underwear to remember her by. An embarrassed Carol gave him an old pair,

but he returned them when he saw their size, muttering that they wouldn't fit. We can already see here how Clark was pushing, Carol's boundaries and getting her to agree to things she wasn't comfortable with. But even after meeting Clark, Carol wasn't ready to give up on her lover Jack. Around January of 1980, Carol once again offered Jack's wife, Jeanette, money to leave Jack. Jeanette agreed to the proposal, and Carol tape recorded her response. But when Carol played the tape for Jack, she didn't get the reaction she had hoped for. Jack erupted into a rage and ordered Carol to find somewhere else to live. By February of 1980, Carol had moved into a new apartment on Lomona Street in

Burbank. The apartment was conveniently close to her new boyfriend Clark's workplace. Jack helped move Carol's furniture to her new place around February of 1980. Despite the fact that Jack had supposedly ended their affair for good, he had sex with Carol at her Burbank apartment. Carol was simultaneously dating both Jack and Clark in February of 1980. She made no effort to hide her lovers from each other, and Jack and Clark soon met at Little Nashville that month. The two men instantly hated each other. Both saw Carol as someone convenient they could take advantage of,

and neither wanted to share. Carol herself believed that both men were madly in love with her and jealous of each other. After a lifetime of struggling with anxiety over her looks, Carol got a huge boost to her self-esteem by imagining herself at the center of a love triangle. But Clark persuaded Carol to break things off with Jack in February of 1980 by pointing out how badly Jack treated her. So Carol seemingly ended things with Jack for good,

though the two stayed in contact. By the end of February, Clark had moved into Carol's Lomona Street apartment in Burbank. Carol devoted herself to making Clark happy. She cooked and cleaned for him and did all of his laundry. Clark quickly began taking advantage of Carol. Every time he pretended to pay his share of the rent, he immediately borrowed the rent money back. But Carol refused to admit anything was wrong. As usual, she was utilizing denial as a psychological coping mechanism.

On February 27, 1980, at 2.30 in the morning, Clark's car burst into flames as it sat in the Juergens parking lot. He grabbed two fire extinguishers, but the car was totaled before he could put it out. Clark later confessed to Carol that he set the fire himself to collect the insurance money. Carol didn't realize it, but this sort of calculating criminal behavior was more evidence of Clark's psychopathic personality. Research by the FBI has found a strong link between crimes and psychopathic behavior. And in a 2012 study, the FBI noted that almost one-fifth of all male prisoners were psychopaths. In the spring of 1980, Carol's eye said, improved enough that she could take a job as a vocational nurse at the Valley Medical Center.

She was now making more than enough to pay for all of her and Clark's expenses. But Clark wasn't satisfied. He began ignoring her and spending increasing amounts of time with another girlfriend named Lydia Couch. This didn't immediately upset Carol. She had other boyfriends in her life. And since Clark was often absent with his other girlfriend in the spring of 1980, Carol spent time with other lovers. She answered a personal ad and got involved with Art Pollinger, a studio executive.

Pollinger enjoyed Carol's company and appreciated her sense of humor, but he grew concerned for her welfare when she told him about her relationship with Jack. Pollinger recognized that Jack was using and manipulating Carol and urged her to close the joint safety deposit box that she had opened with Jack. Pollinger drove Carol to the bank so she could close the box, but when Carol opened the joint safety deposit box, she discovered $6,000 was missing. Jack had stolen her savings. Alarmed, Pollinger convinced Carol to put the rest of her money in a separate checking account before Jack could steal it. Carol decided to confront Jack about the theft, but Jack swiftly manipulated the entire situation to his advantage. Instead of taking responsibility for stealing Carol's money,

he accused her new boyfriend, Pollinger, of being the real thief. Jack claimed that Pollinger had Carol open a new checking account just so he could steal her money. This manipulation worked. Carol broke things off with Pollinger, the only man in her life who seemed to have her best interests at heart. Carol told Pollinger that she was ending things because he only saw the good in her,

and she feared how he would react if he saw the real her. Pollenger realized that Carol was simply not psychologically ready to leave her abusive partners. So the two went their separate ways. By late April of 1980, Carol was struggling to maintain her relationship with Clark. He was acting bored and indifferent around her. He was no longer interested in hearing about her day

and verbally abused her by calling her motor mouth. Clark was devaluing Carol in order to solidify his control over her, And with Carol, now desperate to regain Clark's full attention, he decided that it was time to see how far he could push Carol's boundaries. One night in the spring of 1980, Clark told Carol that he wanted them to share their sexual fantasies. He explained he had read in a magazine article that this would make them grow closer together. Clark then described disturbing fantasies about bondage and torture, watching Carol's reaction closely. He was pleased when she confessed that she also had dark sexual fantasies. She confided in Clark that she had experimented a little with dominance play.

But then Clark decided to push Carol's boundaries even further. He introduced murder into their sexual fantasies. He warned Carol that a woman who really loved him would be willing to kill for him. When Carol showed no revulsion at Clark's murderous fantasies, the aspiring serial killer knew he had found a potential partner in crime. So Clark decided to test Carol's boundaries yet again. He told her about his necrophilic fantasies and confided that one of his ex-girlfriends had made him lie in a freezer until his skin was cold.

Then she powdered him white and made him pretend he was dead as they made love. Once again, Carol did not recoil from Clark passing his test. he was almost ready to begin killing with Carol as his accomplice. Clark's next step was to convince Carol to buy him the guns he needed for his murders. He explained that it would be good for Carol to have a gun for self-defense. Unfortunately, Clark had a criminal record and couldn't purchase a gun for her. So would Carol buy a gun for the family? Carol agreed that a gun was a good idea.

On April 24, 1980, Carol and Clark went down to the gun. a diamond pawn shop on Van Nuys Boulevard to buy a pistol. Clark spotted identical 25-caliber chrome-plated Raven automatic pistols and asked Carol to buy him one as well. Carol had no idea that she had just bought Clark his murder weapon. Just three days later, on the evening of April 27, 1980, 22-year-old Charlene Anderman was standing in a parking lot on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and La Brea Avenue waiting for her next customer.

Clark pulled up in a blue station wagon and as Charlene approached his car she was disturbed to see he was already masturbating. Creeped out, Charlene started to leave but Clark convinced her to get into the car and offered to pay her for oral sex. Charlene climbed into the car, and Clark drove to DeLong Prae Avenue, where no one would see them. As soon as he had finished parking the car, Clark pushed Charlene down and held a knife to the back of her neck.

Terrified, Charlene reached for the door handle, and that's when Clark stabbed her. Charlene cried, Mr. That's blood. You're hurting me. Clark merely laughed and replied, I know. He continued stabbing Charlene in her arms, back, torso, and her neck. Charlene desperately tried to wrestle the knife away from Clark and managed to grab the blade, but Clark sliced open her hand. He pushed his fingers into Charlene's windpipe and attempted to choke her to death. Charlene made a final attempt to escape.

She managed to break free of Clark's grip, get the car door open, and tumble out of the car. As Charlene lay bleeding on the sidewalk, Clark hurled her shoes and purse out the window and sped off in his station wagon. Clark then drove to Carol's apartment, covered in Charlene's blood. Carol did not call the police. Instead, she washed the blood off Clark's knife in the kitchen, helping him cover up the attempted murder. By April 27th of 1980,

Carol had been primed through years of abuse and manipulation to play her role as Clark's accomplice. She was willing to do anything to save their relationship. Over the next several months, Carol would help Clark cover up the murders of at least seven young women. And by August of 1980, Carol was ready to claim her first victim. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. If you want to listen to any previous episodes of serial killers, you can find them on Apple Podcasts, tune in, Google Play, Stitcher, and Spotify, or in our website, parkast.com, spelled P-A-R-S-Sol.

If you like what you hear, please leave a five-star review or tell us what you think on social media. We're on Facebook and Instagram as at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. It seems simple, but it really helps our show. Have a killer week. Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler, is a production of Cutler media and is part of the Parcast Network. It is produced by Max and Ron Cutler, sound designed by Paul Liebeskind. with production assistance by Ron Shapiro and Paul Mahler. Additional production assistance by Carly Madden and Maggie Admeier.

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