WV WV - Mared Malerik & Karen Ferrell, both 19, Morgantown, 18 Jan 1970

Good stuff Geo... just to clear up my poorly worded disclaimer above, I was trying to establish that I had no direct "link" to the murders. I remembered you mentioning you were in the courtroom for closing arguments and credited you with a "personal link." Sorry...

On to Clawson and where to start....

*Clawson was in jail in Camden County NJ in January 1976 for the following charges: possession of a weapon, assault with intent to kill, assault with a deadly weapon, kidnapping, abduction for immoral purposes, armed abduction, armed kidnapping, lewdness, sodomy, armed sodomy, assault with an intent to rape, and carnal abuse. All these charges were a result of his attack on a 13 year old girl in NJ.

*Morgantown police received a call on Jan 9, 1976 from Camden County NJ saying that they had an inmate who was having nightmares about being haunted by the heads of murdered women.

*Morgantown LE thought it was a long shot, but went to talk with him. He offered a 35-page confession to the murders.

*Clawson offered to take officers to the crevice where he had dumped the gun and the girls' heads. One week later, he led police to a rock crevice near Port Marion, PA (about 14 miles north of Morgantown). He was familiar with the area, told police he played there as a child, and had a brother who still lived in Port Marion.

*this is when they found the questionable hair strands in bird nests in the area. 150 strands of hair were determined to be from 2 different female heads.

*Clawson did mention articles of clothing and a locket worn by the women that police never released to the public.

*Clawson took and passed a lie detector indicating he was telling the truth about killing the girls.

*However, at Clawson's arraignment, he entered a plea of Innocent to the murders.

*The judge ordered that he undergo psychiatric testing. Psychiatrists testified that Clawson was probably an "individual of not too high intelligence but he has sufficient and adequate intelligence to stand trial." Trial set for October 1976.

*In the trial, Clawson's attorney said that Clawson was "anything but normal." he was born with a chromosomal defect which caused him to develop breasts as a young man. He was a homosexual and never worked steadily.

*Clawson's attorney said he confessed because he was desparate to get out of the NJ jail where he was facing a possible 143 year sentence for charges listed above. A fellow "jailhouse lawyer" told him to confess to the murders, the charges would then be dropped because he didn't do it and NJ would forget about their charges.

*The confession: Clawson visited his mother the night of 1-18-70 in Point Marion PA. He "borrowed" (I'm assuming this is referring to the stolen car in PA) and drove 9 miles to Morgantown where he was "just cruising around to find someone to pick up." He claimed to do that because he has to have abnormal sex and he has to force people. "When I see someone hitchhiking, I shouldn't say this but, it excites me."

he noticed a couple pretty girls hitchhiking and offered them a ride. When he was out of sight of observers, he threatened them with a gun and told them to lie on the floor of the car. "I was speeding, taking LSD, smoking reefer."

he pulled into a remote wooded section outside of Morgantown, put handcuffs on one girl, handcuffed her to a spring under the front seat, told the other to get in the back and undress. he climbed in the back seat with her and had "abnormal sex." Then he made both girls undress and have unnatural sex acts with each other. They then had unnatural sex with him.

After sex, he told them to get dressed, get out of the car and walk into the woods. he shot one girl in the head and as she fell, she pulled the other one down. he shot the other but the bullet only grazed her. he took the machete and cut off the head of the dead girl while the other watched. "The blood excited me."

Later he decapitated the other, dragged the bodies to a section of the woods and covered them with rocks and logs. He wrapped the heads in a large dirty rags and put them in the back seat. He was returning to his mother's house in Point Marion and he stopped along the way and had sex with the heads. He then threw the heads in the crevice near Point Marion.

At his mother's house, he washed the machete and returned it to his brother's shed. he stashed the handcuffs and jewelry in a vacant house nearby.
 
con't (could just see the electricity blinking off enough to lose all that)...

*the hair - even if the hair was human and from 2 diff females, they have no hair samples from Karen and Mared to compare them to.

*work alibi - Clawson was at work at the Weyerhauser Paper Co in Philadelphia PA on 1-18-70. He punched out at 2:21 pm and did not punch back into work until 10:30 pm on the 19th. 32 hours and 9 minutes.

*on the stand, clawson claimed to have read about the murders in a detective magazine and decided to confess.

* Clawson said he finished the 10th grade, then spent 1960 to 1969 in a PA prison on a sex charge. In January 1970 he was on parole, working for a paper company, did not own a car and was not in Morgantown on January 18 or 19.

*Lots of info about the trial, the evidence and so on. Bottom line - the verdict was guilty.

*In Sept 1980 he was awarded another trial based on the fact that the jury had been shown pictures of the dead girls simply for the shock value.

*Second trial moved to Elkins, Randolph County, WV.

*November 2, 1980, another guilty verdict. His final statement to the papers was "I'm still not guilty. I didn't do it."

*some interesting info: Dr. Barbie Taylor, a clinical psychologist from Morgantown testified in trial 2. Taylor stated that Clawson was born with an extra female chromosome which meant that he was more of a woman than a man. His condition left him unable to have an erection until he started taking hormone treatments in nov 1970, 10 months after the murders. Clawson said in Jan 1970 he was a drag queen dressing in womens clothing and soliciting sex from men.

*As to one girl being decapitated while alive, there was conflicting testimony. One medical pathologist stated that if the girls head had been severed while alive, blood would have spurted from the neck and would have been all over her clothing. It was not. He said that if the head had been severed 24 to 48 hours after death, there would have been no blood because it would have clotted by then. Dr. Milton Hales, who performed the autospy, disputed this. he claimed that blood would not necessarily splash back on the body when the head was severed. he also noted that only a small amount of blood was left in the body at the time of the autopsy and if the blood had been clotted, more blood would have been left in the body.

*I can't find this specifically again, but because of an impression on one of the girl's sweaters, LE thought the girls had been decapitated with a hatchet, not a machete.

*The letters were supposedly traced to members of a religious sect in Cumberland, MD, but not investigated more closely.

*WVU student from Grafton WV supposedly wrote a paper connecting decapitation and religious sects and was suspected of stealing a machete.

*there was also evidence concerning leads in Ohio and to a rock band that was in the area the night the girls disappeared.

*One of the first investigators on the scene said the bodies did not appear to be those of 2 sexually ravaged bodies. They were neatly dressed - even to their gloves. Geo, it did mention the pack of cigs tucked in the waistband of one of the girls pants.

If I come across other important things that I've left out, I'll post 'em.
 
my personal thoughts....

Geo, i think you alluded to this earlier, I think Clawson was fantasizing about the murders. It was pretty obvious that he sexually couldn't do the deed and didn't with these girls. I don't think they were raped at all. Additionally, if he was in the back seat getting it on with 2 girls, at some point he would have been "distracted" enough for one of them to get away, IMO.

If he made them lay down on the floor of the car, how was one of them able to throw the discovered personal items out the window (purses, pills, sunglasses)? It's January, the windows of the car would not be rolled down?

I really doubt that he did it.

I read in the book that he could possibly be paroled in 1998. Did that happen or is he still in jail? I searched the WV regional jail system and couldn't find him. The book mentioned he was at Mount Olive.
 
I've been off of this site for a while, but wanted to reply to a couple of things LisainWV said. Clawson is still in Mount Olive, and the WV State Police have reopened the case. Lisa, you present a very solid summary of the things known about Clawson, and I was wondering if most of your souces were media (newspaper, magazine, book) or if you had some other ones that you had access to. You can reply here or send me a private message.

Since I was last on, I've seen some of the psych evaluations of Clawson from his 1981 trial, and the consensus was that he was of boderline intelligence and prone to paranoid delusions when stressed. There was other material, but altogether it presented a portrait of a guy who not only had no history or evidence of forcing himself on anyone other than young teens, he was known as a homosexual in jail and out (although sometimes on the outside he was involved with various women, it was always as the submissive partner in the relationship--along with all that that implies).

I'm interested in applying the techniques of geographic profiling to the case. This past weekend a geographer friend and I plotted out the places (GPS) where the material was discasrded along 119 and the Halleck Road. We discovered some interesting things, one of which was that each place where something was found, there was a natural pulloff on the road. The more we traced what happened, the more it became apparent that the girls didn't throw anything out of the car, but that it was discarded by a person or persons who deliberately drove around, stopping at 12 places.

If anyone out there can point me in the direction of some geographic profiling help or advice, I would appreciate that.

More soon perhaps...

Geocam
 
This probably has no connection to something that happened in the '70's, but back in the 30-40's, there were a series of decapitations in West Virginia believed to be "mob retaliations." Those murders have not been solved, but some people wonder if those murders were connected in some way to the "torso murders" in Cleveland during the days Elliot Ness was in charge of the investigation. Although it is believed that the person who committed at least one of the murders was identified, the remaining murders have not been solved.

Sorry to get off track, but thought I'd just point out this similarity.

Let me know if you subscribe to NewspaperArchives.com. If not, I'll searchy for any info on this case and post it here. I can also send it to you privately, if you prefer.
 
Marilynilpa,

Yes! I'd be very itnerested in those cases in the '30s and '40s. Do you know where they happened? Town or county? Were they a Kanawha Valley kind of thing or in the eastern panhandle? Elsewhere? Not sure if they would have a direct impact on the coed case, but I've been trying to find out anything I can about other decapitations, and the details of similar murders that happened in West Virginia would help greatly.

I'd be very interested in anything you can find on NewspaperArchives.com. I'm not a member. Send me a note privately if you would, and we could discuss whatever you find.

Mob killings, eh? Sounds like zeitgeist territory. In 1970, the rumor was that it could only have been a deranged religious hippy who cut those girls haeds off.

Eagerly looking forward to more details.

Thanks,
Geocam
 
There is a thread in this forum called "Cleveland/New Castle Butcheries" that contains several postings about the "torso killings". I know I've posted a few comments there, so you might want to look at that thread.

Here is one of my posts:

"These murder victims appear to lack the chemical preservative found on the skin of some of the Cleveland victims. It also appears that in at least one of the New Castle murders, that of an unidentified female, an attempt was made to burn the body. The word "Nazi" was carved into the back of one of the two male murder victims found in New Castle. At least preliminarily, it looks like the New Castle murders may have been committed by someone else."

I haven't looked at NewspaperArchives yet, but will do so and post whatever seems relevant.

Like I said before, there is probably no connection at all between the case you posted and these crimes, but it never hurts to check out every possibility!!
 
Marilyn and Geo....

There is also the story of the Mad Butcher in Fayette County, WV during the 60's. The story is in the WV Unsolved Murders Vol 1 book. Men killed, dismembered... creepy story. The murders in Fayette are reported to have stopped in 1967.

I still think this killer is linked to other murders either before or after these co-eds. I hope the cold case detectives are searching for similar cases around the same time frame - everywhere!!
 
Does anyone have any information about a series of decapitations in West Virginia, whether solved or unsolved? I've heard rumors--like the one posted just above--but none of the rumors have been sourced. Can anyone point me toward articles or books that mention any murder-decapitations in West Virginia at any time after 1920? I am already aware of the coeds and the man in Pendleton County in December, 1970; I am looking for others.

Thanks,
Geocam
 
Geocam,

Do you have the book West Virginia Unsolved Murders by George & Melody Bragg?

The first 50 pages are about West Virginia's Serial Killer "The Mad Butcher"

The one of particular interest to me is the torso that was found in Indian Creek just off Rt.16 near Pineville. I was a child at the time of that discovery but remember it like it was yesterday. My Mother and I just happened to be traveling Rt.16 and saw the police at the location where the body was found. Of course we never dreamed at the time what they had found.
I like a couple of others who post at WS's grew up with the stories of the "Mad Butcher."
 
Hi Shadow,
What year was the torso found in Indian Creek? Do you know much about that particular area? What is the terrain like? Do you know if there are any sandstone cliffs nearby? Thank you in advance.
 
Hi Shadow,
What year was the torso found in Indian Creek? Do you know much about that particular area? What is the terrain like? Do you know if there are any sandstone cliffs nearby? Thank you in advance.

The torso was found in Indian Creek in 1963. I grew up in that area so yes I am familiar with the area. The terrain is very steep mountains. I'm not sure about Sandstone Cliffs. There are some cliffs in the area but not sure what they are made of. There are none right in the vicinity of where the torso was found that I can recall. Indian Creek is not a very deep body of water either. There are deep spots here and there but for the most part it is shallow unless there have been hard rains.
 
Hello again, folks,

Some surprising new info this time. Turns out that on December 24, 1970, eight months after the coeds' bodies were found, a man named William Bernard Hacker was arrested in Baltimore for killing and decapitating a man named Herbert Lynn Cobun earlier that month in Pendleton County. Cobun's body was found buried in a makeshift grave of sticks and leaves and stones, similar to where the coeds' bodies were found. The three decapitations were also similar.

(By the way, I really want to thank everyone for the pointers toward the New Castle killings, the Cleveland torso killings, the WV Mad Butcher, et al—every suggestion helpful in different ways. . . . In one of those sidenotes that are spooky in the movies but merely coincidental in real life, Karen Ferrell and Herbert Cobun both had the same middle name, Lynn.)

For these reasons (except the middle name thing), police considered the crimes related--at least for a while. They spoke repeatedly with Hacker, but he denied that he had anything to do with the girls' murder. He also denied, at first, that he had anything to do with Cobun's murder. When it was clear to him how much evidence police had, he finally admitted it, although he continued to deny, until his death, decapitating Cobun.

Hacker was born in 1896 in Brooklyn, went to part of grade school in a town southeast of Pittsburgh, and then his family settled in Monongah, near Fairmont. I think his father was a miner, but whether he was or not, mining was where the money and the jobs were around 1900.

Hacker entered the coal mines at the age of ten, which would have been a year before the Monongah disaster that killed over 500 people, the single worst industrial accident in the history of the U.S. When he worked in Monongah and Grantstown, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Fairmont was known as having the best transportation system in the world. Basically, it was a railroad system (mostly B&O) that serviced the Pittsburgh Seam, which ran from Monongah-Fairmont up through Morgantown to Uniontown and Pittsburgh. Hacker worked mines all over the area from about 1906 to 1952. He fought in World War I and registered in World War II. Turns out he even worked the Weirton Mine near where the coeds were found off of Weirton Mine Road.

A few months after Hacker's conviction for the Cobun murder, he admitted that he might have something to say about the deaths of the coeds. However, he didn't want to talk with the police; he would only talk to a reporter from Morgantown's Dominion Post. Unfortunately, authorities at the prison would not let the reporter in to see Hacker. Something about prison policy. I am currently trying to track down the reporter to see what he remembers.

At first blush, it might appear that Cobun's murder could hardly be farther removed from the coeds'. Cobun was involved with Hacker's woman (not to be confused with Hacker's wife, Beulah, who died shortly after Hacker was convicted of Cobun's murder). However, looking closer revealed a long history of violence in Hacker's background. Police knew about some of it at the time, but they were unaware of a great deal of circumstantial and suggestive details of Hacker's life.

They knew, for instance, that Hacker had been arrested for a double murder in 1952. He had served until 1966, when he received a pre-Christmas commutation of his sentence because of bravery shown after an accident in the prison mine. Police know now--although it's not clear if they knew in 1972--that Hacker's wife had gone missing in 1937. As one person said to me, "He just liked killing."

Whether that statement is true or pure hyperbole, it caught my interest. I started looking for unsolved beheadings around the places where Hacker lived. Especially beheadings in which the heads were either missing (as in the case of the coeds) or found buried (as in the case of Cobun). Beheadings are not very common (with the exception of the current jihadist beheadings). In fact, they are pretty unusual. It's even more unusual to find other elements coinciding [precise vertebral level (?accurate term?), burial of head, type of grave for body, etc.].

What actually happened was that there were many unsolved beheadings near where Hacker lived and worked, beginning in 1921. Many readers at Websleuths are probably familiar with the New Castle slayings (which mostly are tied to boxcars, which Hacker could easily have ridden on the B&O, up and back in time for his next shift at Monongah), but there were others: one in Fairmont in the 1920s, one off the Goshen Road south of Morgantown (near where the coeds were found in 1970) in the '30s, one in Uniontown, etc. The point is, there were a number of unsolved homicide-decapitations in that corridor from Fairmont to Pittsburgh from 1921 to 1950.

Then Hacker was arrested in 1952 for a double homicide. There were apparently no unsolved decapitations after 1950 until 1966. Three months after Hacker was released from prison. One in 1966, two in 1967, one in 1969, the coeds in January of 1970 then Cobun in December, 1970, after which Hacker was arrested, then... nothing. No more. Nada.

So what are we to make of that? Any thoughts? Anyone? Of course, as it is, it's a series of random, unsolved killings that may or may not be connected. Even if they are connected, there is no reason whatsoever to believe they are connected to Hacker. Or to the coed slayings.

My inclination right now is to consider it all coincidence, especially because a couple of other people are more clearly tied to the coed killings than Hacker is. One person, in particular, seems pretty likely. But I can't get past how bad it looks for Hacker. All those beheadings so near where he was. And in what's kind of an extra-chilling note, Hacker may well have been exposed to rescue efforts at the 1907 Monongah disaster, an explosion that resulted in what a number of witnesses reported as an inordinate number of headless corpses. He would have been 11 at the time. Could that have resulted in his becoming one of America's first serial killers?
 
. . . But I can't get past how bad it looks for Hacker. All those beheadings so near where he was. And in what's kind of an extra-chilling note, Hacker may well have been exposed to rescue efforts at the 1907 Monongah disaster, an explosion that resulted in what a number of witnesses reported as an inordinate number of headless corpses. He would have been 11 at the time. Could that have resulted in his becoming one of America's first serial killers?

Well, if nothing else you certainly have the early makings for a good book or TV story. That does not mean I disagree with your thoughts. I just noticed the potential for books and TV right away. As for the merits of the case, I think more needs to be done to tie it all together but the beginnings of a good case seem to be present.
 
Geo....
Interesting stuff. It seems entirely possible that he's been up to no good for a long time.
I have always felt that the co-ed killings was not the beginning, or end, of someone's killing career.
Keep up the good work and keep us posted.
 
Interesting thought that two coeds might get into a car with a 74 year old male they didn't know, especially if he looked like a hardened criminal type.
 
Does anyone know if there were any stolen car reports on a car fitting the one involved in this case? Seems to me as if there were important pieces of this missing or just not being mentioned.Also does anyone know if the newspaper article can be accessed anywhere online? I was only 4 years old when this happened but remember hearing people talk about this years after. Also where near Point Marion did they find the hair? Was it on the PA side of the line or in WV?
 
Wildcat,

The only stolen car report on the weekend of January 18, 1970, in Pittsburgh was filed on Monday the 19th. That report was used in both Clawson trials. Stains on the back seat of the car were tested and found to be from a beverage.

The hair was found in West Virginia on Conn Hill, which is closer to Stewartstown than to Point Marion.

I'm not sure what newspaper article you're talking about. Many articles about the case can be accessed through newspaperarchive.com, which is a subscription service.

Geocam
 
I'm not sure what newspaper article you're talking about. Many articles about the case can be accessed through newspaperarchive.com, which is a subscription service.

Geocam[/quo

Any initial newspaper articles such as the dissappearance and when the bodies were found. Is this newpaper site worth the subscription?
 

Members online

Online statistics

Members online
125
Guests online
1,042
Total visitors
1,167

Forum statistics

Threads
589,929
Messages
17,927,795
Members
228,004
Latest member
CarpSleuth
Back
Top