disappeared. Garvey and Farrell had already worked out that it would have been practically impossible for Clark to have abducted and murdered the child, hidden the body and driven the 10 miles (16 km) to the country club in the thirty-six minutes between 2.10 p.m., when Dorr said he had last seen his daughter, and the time Clark arrived at work. But they questioned him anyway.
After going softly on him at first, they began to ask him about the local children and Hadden almost gave himself away. The relationship was antagonistic. One boy had kicked him in the testicles, then he admitted to pinning one little girl to the ground.
“Is that what you did with Michele?” asked Garvey.
The cops produced a photo of her. Hadden refused to look at it. Tears welled in his eyes and he rocked back and forth in his chair.
“Is that what you did with Michele?” asked Garvey again.
“I feel sick,” said Clark. “Do you have a bathroom?”
In the washroom, the police could hear Clark vomiting in a cubicle. But they did not let up.
“What did you do?” Garvey shouted. “The parents need to know. Tell me what happened. They need to bury their child. Was it an accident? Let’s talk about it.”
He even pushed the photo of Michele under the cubicle door.
Clark admitted to having blackouts. He did things, he said, that he did not remember. But he had been at work that day. It would still have been nearly impossible for Clark to have murdered Michele after 2.10 p.m. and been at work at 2.46 p.m. Besides, the police were convinced that the murder had been committed by Carl Dorr, who had unwittingly given his daughter’s real killer an unshakeable alibi.
After the Michele Dorr enquiry, Clark came to the attention of the police on several occasions. Visiting his mother, who was then living in Rhode Island, in September 1988, he began stealing from her. When she confronted him, he knocked her down and kicked her, then tried to run her over with his truck. She charged him with assault and battery and he got a year’s probation. Afterwards she wrote to him, saying that unless he sought help from a veterans’ hospital, as far as she was concerned he was dead.
He did seek help from a local veterans’ hospital. He was treated with the anti-psychotic drug Haldol, but left after a few days to return to the woods. It was clear, both to the doctors and to Clark, that he was a danger to others and to himself.
Stopped for speeding in Rhode Island, he was found to be carrying a .38-calibre handgun under his seat. Then there was a conviction for the destruction of property later that year.
In February 1989, he was arrested on fifteen counts of theft. Dressed as a woman, he would visit churches while choir practice was going on, slip into the cloakroom and steal women’s possessions. One day, the police found him tinkering with his car on the shoulder of the road. Inside his truck, they found women’s coats and handbags. Hadden claimed they were his.
“I am a woman,” he said.
He stayed in jail for six weeks before he posted bail. It was February and no time to be sleeping in the woods. Most of the charges were dropped when he agreed to plead guilty on two counts. Again he was sentenced to probation. The judge recognized that Clark had serious mental problems. The public defender was also sympathetic. He wrote Clark a note to hand to the police office the next time he was arrested. It read:
TO ANY POLICE OFFICER:
I want the help of my lawyer, Donald P. Salzman, and I want my lawyer to be present before I answer any questions about my case or any other matters.
I do not wish to speak to anyone concerning any criminal charges pending against me or anyone else, or any criminal investigation regardless of whether I am charged.
I do not want to be in any line-up, or give any handwriting samples, or give any blood, hair, urine, or any other samples unless my lawyer is present.
My lawyer’s address and phone number are:
Donald P.