Clark Perry Baldwin

Clark Perry Baldwin (August 22, 1961 – July 18, 2025) was an American serial killer who was linked via DNA to the murders of at least three women in Wyoming and Tennessee committed between 1991 and 1992.

After multiple delays, he was charged and convicted of the Tennessee murder, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Prior to his extradition to Wyoming, Baldwin died from a heart attack.

Early life Clark Perry Baldwin was born on August 22, 1961, in Charles City, Iowa, to Lawrence and Betty Baldwin, both of whom were described as loving parents. In the early 1970s, the family moved to Nashua, Iowa, where Baldwin attended the Nashua-Plainfield Junior-Senior High School, graduating in 1979.

Following his graduation, Baldwin got a job as a truck driver for a company called Marten Transport. During this time, he traveled across multiple states and spent most of his free time in the company of prostitutes and pimps. In the mid-1980s, he got married, but continued to have intimate relations with other women.

Crimes and life prior to arrest Baldwin's first confirmed crimes began in the early 1990s, when he started behaving aggressively towards women and prostitutes in particular. In February 1991, he was arrested for raping a 21-year-old hitchhiker named Mary Ann Newton in Wheeler County, Texas. According to Newton, her assailant then gave her a handgun and offered her to shoot him, but she instead demanded that he let her go at the next possible opportunity. He was convicted of this crime and spent 18 months in prison. After his release in September 1999, Baldwin returned to his parents' home in Nashua.

On March 10, 1991, McCall's body was found on the side of the I-65 near Spring Hill, Tennessee, about 30 kilometers south of Nashville.

On March 1, 1992, the body of "Bitter Creek Betty" was found lying face down in the eponymous Bitter Creek rest stop on the west side of the I-80, approximately 40 kilometers east of Rock Springs, Wyoming.

On May 2, 2025, a jury convicted Baldwin of murdering Pamela McCall and sentenced him to life imprisonment, after which he was detained at the Maury County Jail to await extradition to Wyoming. On July 17, authorities identified the Sheridan County Jane Doe as 21-year-old Cindi Arleen Estrada, a native of Torrance, California.

Possible further victims After his arrest, Baldwin was suspected of being responsible for other murders due to his job as a long-haul truck driver. One of these murders was that of 21-year-old Tammy Zywicki, a student at Grinnell College in Iowa who was last seen alive on the I-80 in Illinois when her 1985 white Pontiac T-1000 broke down. While investigating her disappearance, a witness was found that claimed to have seen a girl resembling Zywicki on the side of the road conversing with a truck driver. Her body was found nine days later in rural Missouri. Baldwin was ruled out a few days after his arrest.

Another murder Baldwin was suspected of was the murder of 22-year-old Rhonda Knutson, whose body was found at a truck stop near Williamstown, Iowa, (unincorporated- formerly located south of New Hampton, Iowa) not far from where Baldwin was living at the time. Knutson was beaten to death at her workplace while working the night shift, but was not raped. A colleague later discovered her body, and according to him, the perpetrators were two truck drivers who were last seen entering the store. Facial composites were made of the two men, one of whom closely resembled Clark Perry Baldwin. However, he denied responsibility for the murder of Knutson until his death.

After his arrest in 2020, Baldwin's ex-wife told police that he had repeatedly mentioned that he had apparently strangled a girl in one of the western states sometime in the 1990s, and that he had disposed of her body along an interstate highway.