Doug Clark

Douglas Daniel Clark (March 10, 1948 – October 11, 2023) was an American serial killer and necrophile. Clark and his accomplice, Carol Mary Bundy, were collectively known as the Sunset Strip Killers and were responsible for the deaths of at least seven individuals, although they are considered suspects in the deaths of several other women and young girls. Clark was charged with six murders in Los Angeles, California, and was convicted in 1983. Clark's victims were typically young prostitutes or teenage runaways. His victims were decapitated, and their severed heads kept as mementos.

Early life Douglas Daniel Clark was born on March 10, 1948, and was the third son of five children to a retired Navy Lieutenant Commander turned international Naval Intelligence officer. Clark enjoyed a comfortable childhood as a "military brat." His family moved frequently during Clark's childhood due to his father's job, and he later claimed to have lived in 37 countries including India, Switzerland, and the Marshall Islands. In 1958, his father left the Navy for a civilian position as an engineer with the Transport Company of Texas, but the family still moved around. Clark was sent to the exclusive International School of Geneva. As a teenager, Clark reportedly recorded his sexual escapades with girls at school without their knowledge and began developing dark sexual fantasies of rape, murder, mutilation, and necrophilia.

When he graduated high school in 1967, Clark enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed in Colorado and Ohio. Clark was eventually discharged from the Air Force, and he drifted around for the next decade, often working as a mechanic. He moved to Los Angeles and was employed as a steam plant operator for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, working at the Valley Generating Station before abruptly quitting. Subsequently, Clark became a boiler operator at the Jergens soap factory in Burbank but was fired due to a high rate of absences and violent threats he had made against his coworkers. During this time, Clark also spent the majority of his spare time in local bars and nightclubs searching for lonely, older women whom he could seduce out of their money. One of the bars he frequented in the area was Little Nashville, where he met 36-year-old Carol Bundy on Christmas Day 1979. During 1980, Bundy and Clark are believed to have murdered at least seven persons. The partial remains of two victims were found in Los Angeles County, California, on January 26, 1980, at around 1:00 p.m. in a river bed north of Magic Mountain Parkway, west of the Old Road and south of the Valencia Sewage Treatment Plant. Both had been shot to death and are known as the Valencia Jane Does. On June 30, 1980, a group of snake hunters off the Golden State Freeway near Sylmar, in the San Fernando Valley, discovered a woman's mummified corpse. She was identified as 17-year-old Sacramento runaway Marnette Carrie Comer. Last seen alive on June 1, the young girl had been dead at least three weeks when she was found. On June 11, 1980, stepsisters Gina Marano, 15, and Cynthia Leigh Chandler, 16, vanished from Huntington Beach, while trying to meet with friends. They were found the following morning, beside the Ventura Freeway near Griffith Park, in Los Angeles; each had been shot in the side of the head. Clark later came home and told Bundy about the two teenagers whom he had murdered after picking them up on the Sunset Strip. He had ordered them to perform fellatio on him and then shot them both in the head before taking them to a garage and raping their dead bodies. An uneasy Bundy phoned the police, admitting to having some knowledge of the murders, but refused to provide any clues as to Clark's identity. On June 24, 1980, Clark killed two sex workers, 24-year-old Karen Lee Jones, and 20-year-old Exxie LaFaye Wilson. Jones was found that day behind a Burbank, California, steakhouse, murdered by a single gunshot to the head. Later police were summoned to Studio City, where the headless body of Wilson had been found by pedestrians. Clark had lured Jones and Wilson into his car, shot them, and dumped their bodies in plain sight but not before removing Wilson's head. Clark took the head back home and stored it in the refrigerator. Bundy, upon seeing it, put make-up on it before Clark used it again for another "bout of necrophilia." Bundy informed police that Clark had stated this particular victim was a prostitute from Hollywood. She elaborated that he had shot the female in the back of the head during a sexual act while inside his vehicle. After her death, she was disposed of in Newhall, after she was raped post-mortem. She is known as the Newhall Jane Doe, or as Jane Doe 18. An unidentified female was allegedly killed by Clark after a sexual encounter, based on statements made by Bundy that he had dumped her body in Tuna Canyon as they drove past the area in late July 1980. She had been shot in the left side of her forehead, and her clothing had been removed and placed around her hips. The woman was not explicitly described as a prostitute. The woman's partially mummified skeleton was found by a passer-by at the base of a hill on August 28, 1980, in a mountainous area in Malibu, California. Clark denied involvement, providing an alibi that placed him hundreds of miles from the scene on the day this victim was killed. The jury, however, decided that he was, indeed, responsible. She is known as the Malibu Jane Doe, or Jane Doe 99. "Cathy," also known as Jane Doe 28, was a female whose remains were recovered on March 2, 1981, in Green Valley, California. Only the skull, mandible, a femur, along with some ribs and vertebrae were recovered. She had been shot in the head. During the trial phase of their prosecution, documents regarding this victim were misplaced, and evidence was ruled "irrelevant." Neither Clark nor Bundy was charged for the murder although it is generally believed they both were responsible.

Arrest, conviction and death Clark and Bundy were arrested and jailed on August 11, 1980. After the pair were arrested, the murder weapons were found hidden at Clark's workplace. Bundy was charged with two murders: Murray and "Cathy" whose killing she confessed to having been present at. Upon review in 1992, his sentence was upheld. Clark remained on California's death row until his death from natural causes in 2023.

Bundy made a plea bargain and in return for her testimony was sentenced to 52-years-to-life imprisonment. at a medical facility on October 11, 2023, at the age of 75.

In popular culture Clark was portrayed by Thomas Ian Griffith (under the modified name Doug Brister) in the television movie A Vision of Murder: The Story of Donielle. The film stars Melissa Gilbert as Donielle Patton, the real-life woman with supposed psychic capabilities who helped the police capture Clark. The movie was co-produced through director-producer Donald Wrye's SpyGaze Pictures company, who had bought the rights to the story from Patton. before premiering on CBS in February 2000.

Max E. Williams plays Clark in the 2026 biopic Sunset Strip Killers, directed by Chad Ferrin, to be released on July 14 .

The story was featured in Wicked Attraction, season 1, episode 13, "Death on the Sunset Strip" (2008).