Two Co-eds go Missing
January 18th, 1970
Mared Malarik and Karen Ferrell, both freshmen at West Virginia University, left the Metropolitan Theater in downtown Morgantown after seeing Oliver. The University did not extend transportation service to its residence halls, so most students at that time would usually hitchhike to and from the dorms. The girls were last reported having been seen getting into a cream-colored Chevy with a man who looked to be in his forties.
A combined $3,500 reward was posted for any leads on their disappearance. It would be three months before the police would receive information on the case, and from a very mysterious, cryptic source.
Strange, Anonymous Letters Sent to the WV State Police
April 6th, 1970
State Police received a letter postmarked from Cumberland, Maryland signed only with a "∆". On the 10th, it was published in the papers:
Gentlemen,
I have some information on the whereabouts of the bodies of the two missing West Virginia University coeds, Mared Malarik and Karen Ferrell.
Follow directions very carefully -- to the nth degree and you cannot fail to find them.
Proceed 25 miles directly South, from the Southern line of Morgantown. This will bring you to a wooded forest land. Enter into the forest exactly one mile. There are the bodies.
25 + 1 = 26 miles total.
Will reveal myself when the bodies are located.
Sincerely,
∆
April 14th, 1970
Governor Arch Moore ordered a search based on the instructions in the letter. By this time, a second letter had been sent and it basically repeated the same instructions with more urgency. State police and the National Guard were sent out. Two days later, the girls' bodies were found.
Two Bodies, No Heads
The headless bodies of the two missing West Virginia University coeds were uncovered in a crudely constructed tomb of stones and limbs six miles South of Morgantown yesterday, marking a tragic end to the 88-day disappearance case. Both bodies had been decapitated, and no heads. Prosecuting Attorney Joe Laurita said last night, "I have authorized an autopsy on the two bodies that were discovered. The autopsy will be conducted by the staff at the West Virginia University Hospital to determine, if possible, the cause of death." [Monongalia County Coroner William] Bowers said that because the bodies were so badly decomposed he was not able to determine whether the girls had been shot or stabbed. When asked whether the cuts at the neck were clean, Bowers said he was not able to tell.
...
Authorities worked four hours in removing the remains. Police said they wanted step-by-step pictures of the operation. Bowers said that the bodies had been badly decomposed. The bodies had been placed "side by side, overlapping each other." They were placed under branches which served as a framework for limbs and stone slabs which covered the bodies, Bowers said. Bowers said the bodies were "well hidden" in the tomb. "If I had been walking past, I probably wouldn't have even noticed," he said. State Police Capt. W. F. Bowley said the searchers were able to locate the bodies because one foot was partially exposed to view. Bowers said that the decapitation "couldn't have been done by animals" because the tomb served as a sort of protection for most of the body. "The heads were off before the grave was built," Bower said. The coroner said the head was completely off the girl who was clad in blue bell-bottom slacks, apparently Miss Malarik, but there was more neck showing on the other body. Bowers said the other body apparently Miss Ferrell was unclothed from the waist down and that the pelvic area was badly decomposed "The pelvic bone was almost bare, no flesh," he said. Capt. Bowley, however, claimed that both bodies were fully clothed. When asked about Bowers' statement, Bowley replied, "I saw clothes." Bowers said both girls still were wearing gloves. The coroner said the process of positive identification would not be an easy one. He said an autopsy on the bodies could not be expected before today.
Beheaded bodies of 'U' coeds found in makeshift tomb
Dominion News
April 17th, 1970
Source is behind a paywall.
The county coroner reported that the bodies were found within a tomb made of slabs of stone pulled from the nearby creek (about 30'). The tomb was built with rocks and limbs, much like a funeral pyre. The speculation was that such an elaborate burial was suggestive of a ritual killing and rumors swirled of Satanic influence.
The Third Letter
When the girls' heads could not be found, a third anonymous letter was sent to the police on the 21st:
Gentlemen,
I have delayed writing another letter in hope you would conclude more information by this time, concerning the finding of the bodies. Since this has not substantially happened, I will send along another clue while your men are still in the area.
The heads can be found from the position of the bodies by striking out 10 degrees S.W. for the first head and approximately 10 degrees S.E. for the second head roughly one mile. You are already 7/10 of that mile. They are within the mine entrance--if you can call it an entrance considering its condition. They are buried not over 1 ft. in depth.
The ones responsible for the murders scattered some of the girls' personal effects over the general area creating a pattern of confusion making it difficult for you to pinpoint any exact location.
My first two letters triggered your intensive search. Don't give up now!
Sincerely, ∆
Subsequent searches would turn up nothing; to this day, the heads remain missing.
Tracking the Handwriting
The person responsible for writing the letters was identified by the West Virginia and Maryland State Police with handwriting analysis of a list of names submitted by the Associated Press. The identity was kept from the public until about September, when it came out that the author was not one person, but three members of a religious cult.
Supposedly, there were up to 30 members (mostly elderly) belonging to the "Psychic Science Church" in Cumberland, Maryland, led by Reverend Richard Warren Hoover. Retiree, Fred W. Schanning consulted Reverend Hoover on the case of the missing girls. They allegedly divined the whereabouts of the girls by tape-recording seances where Reverend Hoover claimed he would place himself into a trance and channel a 19th century physician from London, "Dr. Spencer". This physician-turned-spirit would describe the perpetrators as a black male, 5'7, from WV, and a white male with blue eyes and blond hair. He said that the two belonged to a cult that sacrificed the girls in a Satanic ritual.
The messages gleaned from the seances were dictated to Schanning's niece, a woman never identified in the papers, who would write the letters and mail them to the police. It was also reported that she, Hoover and Schanning all shared the same cottage.
Each of the letter-writing cult members were cleared of any involvement in the girls' deaths. The case would grow stagnant for almost six years until a Camden County jail inmate would take credit for the deaths of the two freshmen.
Cumberland Mystics Sources:
July 23, 1970: Man Cleared in Slayings of Two Coeds
September 2, 1970: Superstition Grows Wild in These Hills
The Encyclopedia of Kidnappings by Michael Newton
The Confession and the Recant
January 16, 1976
West Virginia police were contacted by law enforcement officials in Camden, New Jersey after inmate Eugene Paul Clawson expressed that he was prepared to confess to a crime. Clawson had been in Camden County jail since 1974, charged with the rape of a 13-year-old girl and forcing a 15-year-old boy into sex acts at gunpoint. Clawson was questioned by a WV State Police representative and a Morgantown City police detective while his account was recorded by a court reporter into a 73 page confession.
In his confession, Clawson stated that he'd kidnapped the girls by gunpoint, took them to a secluded spot where he handcuffed one and raped the other in the back seat, switched them, raped again, then forced them to perform sex acts on each other before having them redress and then shooting them in the head. He said he cut their heads off with his brother's machete before burying them in the woods. He claimed that he had taken their heads to show his brother, but when he wasn't home, he threw them into a ravine, along with the gun, near Pt. Marion, PA, where he grew up.
Three days after his confession, Eugene Paul Clawson was brought to Morgantown, WV (and subsequently Pt. Marion, PA) to search for the victims' heads. Miners were asked to join in the search and cameras were employed to scan the trenches, but no skulls turned up. Hair from an animal's nest and a pair of handcuffs were collected and sent into evidence.
As we have earlier noted the hair analysis expert had conceded that because of the lack of sufficient known samples of the victims' hair he was unable to determine whether the hair found in the nests matched the victims' hair. His testimony essentially was that the hair from the nests was human hair and that it came from two separate sources. He was also able to state from microscopic examination that as to two groups of nest hair there were certain similarities with the hair found in one of the victim's pocketbook and on the clothing belonging to both victims by way of natural color and dye characteristics.
State v. Clawson, 270 S.E.2d 659 (W. Va. 1980)
Clawson recanted in May, saying he made up the stories after reading about the girls in detective magazines. He said Felton Harpe, his cellmate in Camden County jail, helped him fabricate the confession because he thought if he were arrested and acquitted, he could also get out of serving time in New Jersey. Felton supposedly told Clawson to add the sexual component into the confession to make it sound more believable.
Despite recanting and a severe lack of evidence otherwise, Clawson was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1976. He later appealed and the state Supreme Court overturned the conviction and ordered a retrial in 1981. The new trial took place in Randolph County, WV instead of Morgantown, WV to avoid prejudice from the publicity of the first trial.
Inconsistencies, Inaccuracies, Idiosyncrasies & Incompetence
Anonymous Letters - Sources offer conflicting opinions on whether the letters helped or hindered the progress of finding the bodies.
The directions are about 8-10 miles too far South and were closer to the area where the girls' personal effects were found (closer to Grafton, WV)
The letters were the only lead that got the search started again
The cult was only identified after trying to claim the reward (which they did not receive and, in turn, refused to cooperate any further)
A fourth and final letter was written to the Malarik family.
This cult had sent tips to the MD State Police on a previous kidnapping case.
Claims of sexual assault
Clawson's confession included sexual assault pre- and postmortem of the victims, however, the autopsy was inconclusive of any sexual activity on the first body due to decomposition and the second body showed no evidence of sexual abuse.
Hair Samples
The strands were cut, not pulled out.
It was later found that a local beautician would use a garbage dump near the site to dispose of her hair cuttings.
The hair evidence was deemed incredible for the retrial.
Clawson
Clawson was diagnosed as having XXY, or Klinefelter syndrome. He wouldn't have been physically able to have executed the excessive sexual methods he'd claimed in his initial statement unless he'd been taking hormone supplements, which he started after the murders.
Testified that he was a drag queen in the early 70s in Philly, a prostitute, and had contemplated a sex change but decided it would offend his mother.
Testified in '76 that he wanted to ingest sodium pentothal (truth serum) to clear his name, but his lawyer advised against it.
Governor Arch Moore Jr. Administration
Governor Moore was no stranger to scandal. He served three terms as governor of West Virginia before being convicted in 1990 on widespread corruption charges and having his law license revoked. His administrator, Norman Yost, was the subject of accusations of deceit by suggesting to Police Sgt. Larry L. Herald (on April 10th/11th) that he hide reports from the Malarik family after telling them an investigation had been started days after they had failed to return home from the movie (January 18th). The actual investigation didn't start until students threatened protest the lack of progress.
Previous Suspects/Persons of Interest
Edward Lee Fielder - Confessed to the crime but retracted his confession and refused to further cooperate. Fielder was an inmate serving a life term in WV. Police believed his confession to be fake.
Fielder article
Ezra - A rock band from New Jersey (where Malarik originated) that had played a show in Absecon, NJ previously where two other coeds were slain. Their deaths remain unsolved, but many believe them to be early victims of Ted Bundy.
Ezra mention - source is behind a paywall.
William Hacker - Arrested for the decapitation of Herbert Corbin December 25th, 1970. Interesting to note that the newspapers say William C. Hacker, and Herbert Coburn, but the court documents list William Bernard Hacker and Herbert Corbin, for anyone searching for articles.
Hacker - Article 1 - Body Found
Hacker - Article 2 - Body ID'd
Hacker - Article 3 - Arrest
Hacker - In-depth article pgs 1 & 6 - Paywall
Hacker - Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, State v. Hacker
The Mad Butcher - This case deserves a post of its own.
The case is referred to as "The Mad Butcher." In 1962, a young man looking for bottles and hubcaps to sell came across a human hand and arm on the hillside of Gauley Mountain. As the investigation unfolded, State Police collected 13 body parts flung over the hillside. A young man missing from Oak Hill, Mike Rogers, had been found.
Investigators believe the butcher notched off at least seven victims in his spree of terror, a case that was a first for its time in many ways. The killer had a distinct style. Rogers' body was cut in ways that a surgeon or an animal butcher would sever body parts.
Source - West Virginia Gazette PDF
Gerard John Schaefer - Former Martin County, FL. deputy. Schaefer was already serving time when two more dismembered bodies of teens turned up ('73). He was immediately suspected and was also questioned in the Coed Murders case.
Schaefer mention
Mared Malarik's Dentist - Lt. Col. Richard M. Hall said this lead was not investigated and looked into himself in his retirement: A former patient of the dentist alleged that she was molested in his care. Malarik had a dental appointment scheduled for the day after she went missing. He called the police to tell them she may be seeking dental care. The sedatives he'd prescribed her were found with her other personal effects close to Grafton on rt. 119.
Unidentified dentist mention
William Wickline, AKA, The Butcher:
William Dean Wickline...will go down in West Virginia and Ohio’s history as one of the most sadistic killers ever known in society. Nicknamed “The Butcher,” Wickline used his prison honed skill as a meat cutter to strategically disembowel and dismember his victims, bag the body parts and dispose of them in areas he felt no one would look. His methods were, to some prosecutors and homicide investigators, the mark of a professional killer. "He was the most dangerous criminal I've ever run across in this state" said a West Virginia police detective.
Source
Unidentified Stranger - A resident on Weirton Mine Rd reported that a stranger borrowed a pickaxe and a shovel two days after the girls went missing and did not return the tools.
Standard-Speaker, April 20, 1970 Source is behind a paywall.
State Troopers involved in the investigation believe Clawson is not responsible
Richard Hall - Was at the time the third-highest ranking policeman in the state. He was the officer Clawson confessed to and in the retrial, he testified that he didn't believe Clawson's account of the murders. Hall continued investigating the case even after retirement:
He’s convinced that he knows who actually killed the women — a conclusion he said he came to in 2009. “I’m satisfied that I know who the killer is,” he said. “I’m sure.” Hall wouldn’t say who the man is or how he came to his conclusion. The man was a WVU student when Malarik and Ferrell were, he said.
Prosecutor Declines to Revisit 1970s Case Dominion Post
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Hall placed an advertisement in The Dominion Post late last month that read "WVU Coeds allegedly molested in a Morgantown dentist office. You are not alone. Investigator needs your assistance. Info will be kept confidential." Hall said the ad pertains to a woman who reported being molested by a dentist in the 1970s, but that the report was never investigated by police.
Ex-cop hunts coeds' killer: Believes wrong man convicted in 1970 murders Dominion Post, October 7th, 2006 (See Unidentified dentist mention link above.)
Robert L. Mozingo (deceased) - Sgt. Mozingo was in charge of the case until March of '71 and testified in the retrial ('81) that he did not believe Clawson's confession to be truth.
Said two troopers had been removed from the case in August or September of 70. “I was not satisfied that all leads had been checked out or eliminated."
Preston B. Gooden (deceased) - Gooden was fired (April '71) for alleging that the Governor's office was interfering with the investigation.
Gooden said the coed investigation ceased in 1971, so he decided to reveal his knowledge of the case before the Morgantown Civic Club.
Former Trooper Accuses Moore Aide of Deception The Raleigh Register, November 14, 1973 Source is behind a paywall
...
charged that Norman Yost , Moore's administrative assistant, and the Department of Public Safety "lied about department activity" in the investigation... said he would supply "documented proof" to back up his charges that some officials in the department lied about the investigation of the murders of coeds... Gooden explained that one method of "political interference" used by ranking officials in Charleston was the transfer of state policemen from one office to another. He said recent transfers from the Morgantown barracks, including Sgt. R. L. Mozingo, involved officers who had personal knowledge of the investigations into the coed murders and the January, 1970, bombing of the automobile belonging to Monongalia County Prosecutor Joseph Laurita Jr. "These transfers crippled the investigation," Gooden said.
State Trooper Lashes Out at 'Political Interference' Beckley Post-Herald The Raleigh Register, April 24, 1971 Sources is behind a paywall
Gooden sued and won, but Superintendent R.L. Bonar fought his reinstatement and sought to overturn the verdict.
Gooden told the court that Clawson's original testimony conflicted with the facts, more specifically that the girls had not been molested and that a machete didn't match the neck wounds. He added that he instead suspected the killer was an acquaintance of the girls.
Source.
Aftermath
It's been almost 50 years since Karen Ferrell and Mared Malarik first went missing. Clawson died in 2009 while incarcerated, still proclaiming his innocence.
If he didn't kill the girls, who did? And for what reason? Why take their heads? Why the tomb, and what does it signify? These are the questions I keep asking as I dip deeper into the rabbit hole. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this case.