Michele Dorr's Remains Found (Haddon Clark--killer)
Maggie
Michele's father actually (falsely) confessed to killing her at one point in
this investigation. From the Washington Post:
By Scott Wilson, Katherine Shaver and Steven Gray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 7, 2000; Page A1
Montgomery County police officers yesterday found what they believe are the
skeletal remains of Michele Dorr buried in a wooded ravine in Silver Spring,
ending a 14-year search after being directed to the grave by Hadden Clark, the
man convicted of killing the 6-year-old.
Clark, who has consistently denied killing the child, was taken under police
supervision from prison in western Maryland yesterday to a site on public
property in Silver Spring's White Oak neighborhood, according to a police
source.
There, within earshot of rush-hour traffic streaming along Route 29, Montgomery
police officers working with dogs and forensic experts excavated with gloved
hands and trowels before coming across remnants of a pink bathing suit and a
child's skeletal remains at 7:08 p.m. Michele was last seen May 31, 1986,
leaving her father's kitchen in a pink ruffled bathing suit with white polka
dots headed for a turtle-shaped wading pool in the back yard.
In a flood of sadness and relief for detectives and family members, the
discovery ends a search that ranged along the Eastern Seaboard at a plot a
five-minute drive from the home where Michele disappeared.
"It's nice to have the opportunity now to bury Michele and have a funeral for
her, those things we weren't able to do for so long," said her father, Carl
Dorr. "I still miss Michele to this day and I will continue to miss her. But at
least I'll have somewhere to go to say goodbye."
Clark's cooperation and the body's location near a busy road were reminiscent
of a similar scene seven years ago. After pleading guilty to killing Laura
Houghteling, a 23-year-old Bethesda resident, Clark led police to her grave off
Interstate 270 and Old Georgetown Road.
State medical examiners removed Michele's remains from the scene last night at
10 p.m. so that they can determine cause of death and make an official
identification. But Montgomery County Police Chief Charles A. Moose announced
that "we have a lot of strong indicators that we have recovered the remains of
Michele Dorr."
"This is a situation that for us brings some closure but also a great deal of
sadness," Moose said. "Any time we lose a member of the community, even in a
case this old, it just reminds us how evil people can be to other people."
The discovery comes less than three months after Clark, a former neighbor of
Michele's father, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for killing the child
after a jury convicted him of second-degree murder.
Michele's disappearance has been one of Montgomery County's most notorious and
troubling missing person cases, complicated by time and twists that have
misdirected police at various stages. It has consumed a group of detectives,
whom Moose praised yesterday for "tremendous tenacity." Even retired officers
regularly call the department for updates on the search.
Lt. Mike Garvey, supervisor of Montgomery County's homicide detective squad and
the original detective on the case, said he turned to Deputy State's Attorney
John McCarthy when Michele's body was found and said: "We should say a prayer."
"This is hallowed ground up here," said Garvey, who along with Sgt. Bob
Phillips and Detective Edward Tarney pursued the case longest. "A child from
our community was taken from us. . . . It has been with me since May 31, 1986,
and will stay with me forever."
Part of the case's abiding mystery and frustration stemmed from the strange
turns it took at various times. Carl Dorr, who was in the midst of an
acrimonious divorce at the time of his daughter's disappearance, once confessed
during a nervous breakdown to killing the girl, only to recant later. He became
the sole suspect for police until detectives focused their attention on Clark
in 1992.
Dorr emerged from his small Kensington home just before 10:30 p.m. to praise
the police and put words to a swirl of emotions. He, his sister and his wife
visited the scene Wednesday but worried that it would be as fruitless as
earlier ones. He received a brief call last night from Tarney notifying him
that police had found a child's remains.
"I guess part of me is real happy, but at the same time I want to cry," Dorr
said. "It's been so long."
Of Clark's involvement, which he would not confirm, Dorr said: "I'm glad I
guess he had the courage to come forward, if in fact that's what he did."
The reason for Clark's cooperation remained unclear last night. Clark's lawyer,
assistant public defender Donald Salzman, has filed an appeal of his murder
conviction with the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. He said he has not had
discussions on Clark's behalf about any deal involving a reduced sentence for
Clark's cooperation.
While serving a 30-year sentence for the Houghteling murder, Clark told inmates
that he had killed a little neighbor girl years earlier. He told one inmate
that he came upon Michele on May 31, 1986, playing with dolls in his 5-year-old
niece's bedroom. At his trial, inmates recounted him describing how he slashed
the child's throat so fiercely that he almost decapitated her, then put her
body in a duffel bag and carried it to his truck.
The search for the body has taken police to Massachusetts and Rhode Island to
comb Clark family property, including at least one occasion when police used
the same dogs that were at the site of yesterday's dig. Police say they have
dug for Michele's body at least a dozen times at various places along the
Eastern Seaboard.
They had been searching a 20-acre area between northbound Route 29 and Old
Columbia Pike south of Tech Road since Wednesday, but had little to show for
the slow, careful work until Panzer and Gunner, two dogs supplied by the Rhode
Island State Police, located a possible grave less than 30 yards east of Route
29 and 150 yards from a town house development.
As a chilly twilight fell yesterday and news helicopters buzzed overhead, the
dogs reacted to a site about 150 yards from a small town house development
police believe was not built at the time of Michele's disappearance. Police
roped off the 8-by-8-foot area and worked under the glare of spotlights as
forensic experts dug gingerly in the leaf-covered ground east of Route 29 and
south of Tech Road.
Five forensic specialists from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology began
painstakingly scraping dirt and leaves from a patch of dry ground surrounded by
thorny bushes. With gloved hands, they brushed away soil, then sifted the dirt
through a sieve looking for bone particles or teeth. They came across the bit
of pink cloth and bones between one and two feet below the surface.
"It's like an archaeological dig," Garvey said. "They're just scraping off [the
soil] going a little at a time."
Maggie
"A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience."--Doug Larson
taco
south of I270. It also in on a road running parallel to Rte. 29 so it
is a little more isolated that the description implies.
I heard a psychologist (on TV--I know, I know) say that Michelle's
father was probably acting out of a sense of guilt because he had left
her to play outside playing in a kiddie pool while he watched the Indy
500 inside.
An interesting sidelight to this story is that Hadden Clark was
convicted of the murder of Michelle Dorr without the body of the murder
victim.
Another unusual factor in the Hadden Clark saga is the huge age
difference in his two victems and long time between murders.
Michelle would have been 20 years old last year.
taco
JBrown6000
<<
An interesting sidelight to this story is that Hadden Clark was
convicted of the murder of Michelle Dorr without the body of the murder
victim.
**It's becoming more commonplace every day. There are currently three murder
cases being tried in Orange County, CA, in which no bodies have been found.
jb