00:00:05
he's still working on me
00:00:08
to make me what i ought to be
00:00:11
an unemployed gardener with a history of
00:00:13
mental illness was a vital witness in
00:00:16
the case of a missing six-year-old girl
00:00:19
[Music]
00:00:22
between songs he provided details about
00:00:25
events which took place more than a
00:00:27
decade earlier
00:00:30
investigators weren't sure the man could
00:00:33
be trusted and left it up to forensic
00:00:35
science to determine the truth
00:00:40
[Music]
00:01:07
memorial day weekend 1986
00:01:10
in silver spring maryland it was so hot
00:01:13
six-year-old michelle dorr asked her
00:01:15
father if she could play in the small
00:01:17
pool in their backyard
00:01:19
she was playing in the backyard pool for
00:01:21
a while and
00:01:23
showing me how she could blow bubbles in
00:01:24
the water and that sort of thing
00:01:28
michelle was spending the weekend with
00:01:30
her father
00:01:32
her parents were going through a bitter
00:01:34
divorce and custody arrangements for
00:01:36
michelle their only child were still
00:01:38
being worked out
00:01:40
michelle's mother dede wanted full
00:01:42
custody of her daughter
00:01:44
i got an ex parte order saying that i
00:01:47
was a threat to michelle and a threat to
00:01:48
her and i was physically abusive and she
00:01:51
needed court-ordered custody right then
00:01:55
but those problems were put aside for
00:01:57
what carl believed would be a pleasant
00:02:00
weekend with his daughter
00:02:03
after carl made lunch he went back
00:02:05
outside to check on michelle
00:02:07
but she wasn't there
00:02:09
[Music]
00:02:12
so he walked to his neighbor's home the
00:02:14
clark family to see if michelle was
00:02:16
there visiting her friend elizabeth but
00:02:18
they hadn't seen her
00:02:21
he said no she's not here and i looked
00:02:22
at elizabeth and
00:02:24
she's not with you and i couldn't
00:02:26
believe what jeff was saying i just
00:02:28
didn't register at first
00:02:30
you know that she couldn't be with
00:02:31
elizabeth
00:02:32
and at that point i realized
00:02:35
uh you know she's
00:02:37
never gone any further than in the clark
00:02:39
house that this is there's something's
00:02:41
wrong
00:02:43
carl door immediately contacted police
00:02:47
she was not a little girl who would roam
00:02:48
off indiscriminately she was not a
00:02:51
little girl who would roam off and
00:02:52
wander away and take up with strangers i
00:02:55
mean the clark house was
00:02:56
50 feet away
00:02:58
so i
00:02:59
never
00:03:00
never had to worry about her crossing
00:03:02
the street
00:03:03
or going wandering off i if i wanted to
00:03:06
find her i knew where to find her
00:03:09
when police contacted michelle's mother
00:03:11
dee dee
00:03:12
she told them she knew what had happened
00:03:14
to michelle
00:03:16
she point blank told him that i did it
00:03:19
i did something with michelle
00:03:21
michelle's mother told the police he had
00:03:23
threatened to harm his own daughter he
00:03:24
had threatened in the heat of anger in
00:03:27
the heat of a very horrible divorce to
00:03:29
take the daughter take michelle away so
00:03:31
that her mother couldn't have her
00:03:32
anymore you have to take it in the
00:03:34
context that
00:03:36
that she's a mother who
00:03:38
is in this
00:03:39
very um
00:03:41
nasty
00:03:43
divorce separation custody
00:03:46
battle and also somebody who her
00:03:48
daughter has just disappeared so
00:03:50
you have to take it in that context
00:03:53
carl door was outraged by his ex-wife's
00:03:56
accusation and demanded to be given a
00:03:59
polygraph test
00:04:01
he failed
00:04:03
he's trying to tell me that i didn't
00:04:04
pass the polygraph test that's an
00:04:06
impossibility i didn't have anything to
00:04:07
do with michelle disappearing don't tell
00:04:09
me i failed a polygraph test
00:04:12
that that didn't happen carl doerr was
00:04:15
now the prime suspect
00:04:18
and soon he would tell police of the
00:04:20
role he'd played
00:04:22
in his daughter's disappearance
00:04:24
[Music]
00:04:29
in the days after michelle dorr's
00:04:30
disappearance missing posters were
00:04:33
placed throughout the area
00:04:35
but there was no sign of the little
00:04:37
six-year-old girl
00:04:40
investigators were convinced her father
00:04:42
carl had either kidnapped or killed her
00:04:46
carl door had failed the polygraph test
00:04:48
and the detective on the case was
00:04:50
pressuring him to confess
00:04:53
insisting you know you've done something
00:04:55
i know you've done something with
00:04:56
michelle and we're going to find her
00:04:57
body and when we find her body i'm
00:04:59
coming to get you
00:05:00
is what he told me point blank finger in
00:05:02
the face you know in my face screaming
00:05:05
yelling um you know you need to confess
00:05:09
just a few days later
00:05:11
carl door confessed
00:05:13
on three different occasions he told the
00:05:15
police he had killed his daughter and
00:05:16
told the police where they could go and
00:05:18
find her body
00:05:19
and one of them was underneath the the
00:05:23
i guess the crawl space of his house
00:05:25
another was in his father's own grave in
00:05:27
a cemetery in dc
00:05:28
police checked the crawl space of the
00:05:30
home
00:05:31
and found nothing
00:05:34
they also checked the local cemetery
00:05:36
where his father was buried but nothing
00:05:38
was found
00:05:40
he felt a lot of pressure and the police
00:05:42
put a lot of pressure on him
00:05:44
and as a result of that pressure and the
00:05:46
guilt and the shame and that he felt
00:05:48
about his daughter's disappearance
00:05:50
he cracked there's no doubt about that
00:05:52
he cracked
00:05:54
i i had no
00:05:56
i couldn't
00:05:58
deal with what they were
00:06:00
telling me that we're not going to find
00:06:01
michelle alive i just was
00:06:03
trying to go into some sort of denial
00:06:05
about that
00:06:07
he then checked himself into a local
00:06:09
hospital
00:06:11
he thought the television was talking to
00:06:13
him and that he had the power to find
00:06:16
michelle and bring her back to life
00:06:20
i was starting to lose it
00:06:22
i mean in a psychiatric sense
00:06:25
i mean i was having a nervous breakdown
00:06:29
i was hallucinating i was seeing things
00:06:31
that weren't there i was hearing people
00:06:32
that weren't there
00:06:34
after three days of much-needed rest and
00:06:36
sedation
00:06:38
carl was released from the hospital and
00:06:40
told the press that he had never
00:06:42
confessed
00:06:45
he said his statements were twisted into
00:06:47
an admission of guilt
00:06:49
to prove his point he has to take a
00:06:52
second polygraph examination
00:06:56
this time he passed
00:06:59
investigators now began to wonder was it
00:07:02
possible
00:07:03
that someone else had taken michelle
00:07:06
door
00:07:08
in my experience
00:07:09
in a case where somebody confesses or
00:07:11
where the police have the wrong suspect
00:07:14
they seem to
00:07:16
try to make all the facts fit around
00:07:18
that person so
00:07:20
they're so busy doing that
00:07:22
and they have the tunnel vision that we
00:07:24
have the right suspect this is who it is
00:07:26
that they um forget about looking at any
00:07:29
other options
00:07:31
months went by and then years with no
00:07:33
sign of michelle
00:07:36
the investigation came to a dead end
00:07:39
in the minds of police
00:07:42
carl door remained a suspect but they
00:07:45
had no evidence to charge him
00:07:48
then
00:07:49
six years later
00:07:51
there was a new development
00:07:54
ten days after 24 year-old laura hodling
00:07:56
disappeared from her bethesda home her
00:07:58
family tells reporters they believe they
00:08:00
know what happened to her
00:08:03
in what seemed to be
00:08:04
an unrelated case
00:08:06
a harvard graduate laura hoteling was
00:08:10
reported missing
00:08:13
she lived a few miles away from michelle
00:08:15
and carl door
00:08:17
laura hoteling had been stabbed to death
00:08:20
in her bedroom while asleep
00:08:23
her killer left behind few clues
00:08:26
he had done an unusually thorough job of
00:08:29
cleaning up the crime scene
00:08:32
normally he would have found blood
00:08:34
splatter elsewhere in the room or some
00:08:36
indications of a fight or
00:08:38
something but that area that bedroom the
00:08:41
crime scene itself had been cleaned up
00:08:43
and cleaned up very good
00:08:46
but he made one mistake
00:08:48
in laura hotelling's hairbrush was one
00:08:51
foreign hair it wasn't human
00:08:53
it was from a wig
00:08:55
the hoteling's gardener thirty-year-old
00:08:58
hadden clark was a known cross-dresser
00:09:01
he had mental problems
00:09:03
we also discovered that he was a
00:09:04
cross-dresser
00:09:06
he would dress in women's clothing
00:09:10
the wig hair in laura hoteling's
00:09:12
hairbrush matched the wig found in
00:09:14
haddon clark's possession
00:09:18
investigators believe that after killing
00:09:20
laura hoteling haddon clark dressed in
00:09:23
women's clothing put on the wig and left
00:09:26
the scene of the crime in broad daylight
00:09:29
without creating any suspicion
00:09:32
adam clarke was convicted of laura
00:09:35
hotelling's murder
00:09:38
then
00:09:39
police made a startling discovery
00:09:42
the police say to themselves hey wait
00:09:44
we've we've heard this name before this
00:09:46
was a guy that we were looking at
00:09:48
who lived in the house where michelle
00:09:50
door was last supposed to have been seen
00:09:52
or have gone and so at that point they
00:09:55
started really um pressing hadden on the
00:09:58
michelle door case and looking at him as
00:10:00
a very serious suspect
00:10:02
hadden clark lived just two houses away
00:10:05
from michelle door at the time of her
00:10:08
disappearance
00:10:09
his niece elizabeth was michelle's
00:10:12
playmate
00:10:14
when michelle first disappeared
00:10:17
haddon clark was questioned about his
00:10:20
whereabouts that day
00:10:22
and something unusual happened during
00:10:24
his interrogation that should have
00:10:26
aroused police suspicions
00:10:29
[Music]
00:10:33
haddon clark confessed to the murder of
00:10:35
23 year old laura hoteling but he denied
00:10:39
having anything to do with the
00:10:40
disappearance of michelle dorr
00:10:43
but on the day michelle disappeared
00:10:46
police discovered that clark was alone
00:10:48
in his brother's home just two doors
00:10:51
away from michelle's home
00:10:55
he was packing his things since his
00:10:57
brother had kicked him out because of
00:10:59
what he called inappropriate behavior
00:11:01
with the children
00:11:03
what happened that day back in 1986 was
00:11:05
that hadden was very angry
00:11:07
his brother his brother's wife and his
00:11:09
children had left the home in order to
00:11:11
give haddon an opportunity to get his
00:11:13
things and get out and they had given
00:11:15
him a deadline to get out
00:11:18
that same day
00:11:20
police questioned haddon clark
00:11:23
and asked him if he knew anything about
00:11:25
michelle's disappearance
00:11:27
he was answering questions and was
00:11:29
cooperative
00:11:30
when the nature of the interview changed
00:11:32
and michelle dorr's name was mentioned
00:11:35
hadden's entire demeanor changed he
00:11:38
began to shake violently he began to
00:11:40
rock back and forth in his chair he
00:11:42
actually became physically sick and had
00:11:44
to leave the room at the mere mention of
00:11:46
michelle's name
00:11:47
although police knew his behavior was
00:11:50
unusual
00:11:52
it was discounted once carl dore
00:11:54
allegedly confessed
00:11:56
there was no evidence to suggest that
00:11:58
that hadn't clark had killed michelle
00:11:59
door other than his own quirky bizarre
00:12:01
behavior which could be attributed to a
00:12:03
number of things one of which being his
00:12:06
own mental illness so that's why the
00:12:08
police stepped away from haddon clark
00:12:10
and focused on carl door for months and
00:12:12
years after michelle's disappearance
00:12:16
how can you not suspect this guy
00:12:18
in 1986 if you even you know spend an
00:12:21
afternoon with
00:12:23
you him
00:12:23
you don't have to go to kmart to figure
00:12:25
out he's crazy
00:12:27
once in prison for laura hotelling's
00:12:29
murder clark refused to answer questions
00:12:32
about michelle door
00:12:34
i know what's going on
00:12:36
i'm not talking about nothing because my
00:12:38
lawyer told me not to i told you
00:12:40
honestly i wouldn't i answer some of
00:12:42
your questions whatever you want to
00:12:43
answer but some questions i'm not going
00:12:45
to answer that's just the way it in
00:12:50
this is jim beckett at one time he was
00:12:53
incarcerated with haddon clark in the
00:12:55
same prison cell block
00:12:57
he had more luck getting him to talk
00:12:59
about his crimes than the police
00:13:02
i just wanted to find out the truth of
00:13:04
it so i i got in real close to him and i
00:13:08
sort of thought it was a wind of
00:13:09
opportunity
00:13:11
to find out the the truth through him
00:13:14
rather than intimidating him i became a
00:13:17
good friend
00:13:18
and i talked to him on
00:13:20
many many occasions
00:13:25
one day
00:13:26
while beckett and clark were in the
00:13:28
prison cafeteria beckett asked hadden
00:13:30
about michelle door
00:13:32
he was saying she was such a lovely
00:13:34
young
00:13:35
girl and all and i could see it was
00:13:37
bothering him i looked at him and i said
00:13:40
hadn't
00:13:41
i said why did you do it
00:13:43
and when i said it like that he
00:13:46
worded it out he says i didn't mean to
00:13:48
do it
00:13:49
you know he didn't repeat it but he he
00:13:51
says i didn't mean to do it and it was
00:13:53
like he knew what was being said
00:13:56
and he knew he just confessed to me that
00:13:59
he had killed her
00:14:03
beckett then told police
00:14:06
that clark confessed to killing michelle
00:14:08
door in a small bedroom in his brother's
00:14:10
home
00:14:12
but police had no physical or forensic
00:14:15
evidence to charge clark
00:14:17
but then they remembered how expertly
00:14:20
clark cleaned the crime scene after
00:14:23
laura hotelling's murder
00:14:25
the police put two and two together and
00:14:27
realized that he had been able to clean
00:14:29
and meticulously clean a crime scene
00:14:33
where there was a lot of bloodshed he
00:14:35
was able to remove evidence from a crime
00:14:37
scene to the point where family members
00:14:39
had no idea that a murder had taken
00:14:41
place there
00:14:42
it had been 10 years since michelle's
00:14:45
disappearance and hadn't clark's brother
00:14:47
had sold the home and a number of
00:14:49
families had occupied it since
00:14:52
police wondered
00:14:54
whether any forensic evidence remained
00:15:02
hadden clark's prison roommate told
00:15:04
police that clark admitted killing
00:15:06
michelle door in a bedroom in his
00:15:08
brother's home
00:15:10
but ten years had passed and the home
00:15:13
had been owned by a number of families
00:15:15
since
00:15:16
the bedroom was only seven by ten feet
00:15:19
it had no rugs or carpet but it did have
00:15:22
the original oak wood floor
00:15:26
unfortunately
00:15:28
it had been sanded and refinished with
00:15:30
polyurethane at least once possibly more
00:15:33
which might have destroyed any evidence
00:15:36
that existed
00:15:39
to find out police used luminol a
00:15:41
chemical which glows when it comes into
00:15:43
contact with the iron component in blood
00:15:47
after spraying the floor
00:15:49
investigators noticed a faint glow
00:15:52
along the seams of the oak paneling
00:15:56
what actually appeared was
00:15:59
long luminescence lines
00:16:01
along the slats of the floorboards not
00:16:04
on the surface of the floor but deeply
00:16:06
embedded in the actual slats themselves
00:16:11
the entire floor was taken apart for
00:16:13
further tests
00:16:15
investigators wanted to know if the
00:16:17
blood between the floorboards was human
00:16:20
and if it was
00:16:22
whose blood was it
00:16:25
forensic scientist susan baloo used
00:16:28
q-tips to swab the side of each seam of
00:16:31
every floorboard
00:16:33
the q-tips were rinsed with
00:16:35
phenolphthalein
00:16:37
then with hydrogen peroxide
00:16:40
only two tiny areas turned purple
00:16:44
a positive presumptive test for blood
00:16:47
unfortunately it wasn't a large enough
00:16:50
sample for dna testing
00:16:52
so then we had to decide what else can
00:16:54
be done with this particular blood these
00:16:56
samples that we definitely want to
00:16:58
determine where they originated from
00:17:00
so scientists decided to try a
00:17:03
mitochondrial dna test
00:17:06
mitochondria exists outside of the
00:17:09
cell's nucleus and are passed on
00:17:11
genetically from a mother to her
00:17:13
children
00:17:16
it's not as precise as nuclear dna
00:17:18
testing but it still can be used for
00:17:20
identification
00:17:22
there's a lot more midos as we call them
00:17:25
present in a cell than the one nucleus
00:17:28
so the theory is because of those mass
00:17:30
numbers in each individual cell you have
00:17:33
a better opportunity to get a higher
00:17:36
level
00:17:37
of the mido dna
00:17:39
that you might be able to get results
00:17:41
with
00:17:42
the mitochondrial dna from blood between
00:17:45
the floorboards
00:17:47
matched the mitochondrial dna profile of
00:17:50
michelle's mother
00:17:53
in other words somebody from their
00:17:55
family
00:17:56
left
00:17:58
blood at that location
00:18:00
since michelle had been
00:18:02
inside the home and not her mother
00:18:05
the blood was believed to be michelle's
00:18:10
prosecutors believe
00:18:12
that after carl door went inside to make
00:18:14
lunch
00:18:15
michelle left the pool to look for her
00:18:17
friend elizabeth
00:18:20
in a freak tragic coincidence when
00:18:22
michelle knocked on elizabeth's door no
00:18:24
one was home
00:18:26
except hadden who was packing his things
00:18:30
since his brother had ordered him to
00:18:32
move out
00:18:33
we believe that he saw michelle he saw
00:18:35
her as an opportunity to vent his rage
00:18:38
we also believe that he saw it as an
00:18:40
opportunity to get revenge on his
00:18:41
brother
00:18:43
[Music]
00:18:49
police believe hadn't killed michelle in
00:18:52
the upstairs bedroom
00:18:55
then cleaned the blood from the floor
00:18:59
he probably removed michelle's body in
00:19:02
one of the duffel bags neighbors saw him
00:19:04
carrying when moving out later that day
00:19:07
i don't believe he has an ounce of
00:19:09
remorse for what he's done to michelle
00:19:11
and
00:19:12
he doesn't deserve
00:19:14
he doesn't even deserve to live as far
00:19:16
as i'm concerned
00:19:17
he is one and
00:19:19
completely worthless as a human being
00:19:23
i have nothing to say to him
00:19:25
i don't need his uh apologies i don't
00:19:27
need anything from him
00:19:30
fortunately
00:19:31
the sanding polyurethane and 10 years
00:19:34
worth of detergents hadn't destroyed the
00:19:37
mitochondrial dna evidence
00:19:42
carl doerr has since remarried and moved
00:19:45
on with his life
00:19:47
but he has kept michelle's letters
00:19:49
and this crayon self-portrait she drew
00:19:53
just days before she was murdered
00:19:56
she had just lost one of her front teeth
00:19:57
before she disappeared
00:20:00
she had a little bit of a gaff in her
00:20:01
teeth but
00:20:03
just
00:20:04
really sweet innocent
00:20:06
little girl
00:20:10
kevin clark was convicted of michelle
00:20:13
dorr's murder
00:20:14
and was sentenced to a second life term
00:20:17
in prison
00:20:19
shortly after his conviction
00:20:21
hadn't clark directed police to the
00:20:24
shallow grave
00:20:25
where he had buried michelle's body
00:20:28
it was just 12 miles from her home
00:20:32
i believe when hadden asked the police
00:20:35
or told the police that he would show
00:20:36
them where michelle dora's body was he
00:20:38
asked to be able to dress as a woman
00:20:40
the police went and got him women's
00:20:42
clothes and a wig
00:20:44
adam clark now claims
00:20:47
his female persona whom he refers to
00:20:50
as kristen bluefin
00:20:53
is the real killer
00:20:55
he dresses as this woman he writes
00:20:57
letters as this woman he speaks as this
00:20:59
woman and it is the woman that commits
00:21:01
the crimes
00:21:03
psychologists say that clark here
00:21:06
apparently unaware of being videotaped
00:21:08
before his police interrogation is a
00:21:10
paranoid schizophrenic who cannot
00:21:13
control his compulsion to kill how
00:21:16
loving and patient he must be
00:21:19
he's still working on me
00:21:23
everyone who knows him
00:21:25
is convinced he would kill again
00:21:28
if given the chance
00:21:30
he's intelligent i think he's he was
00:21:33
able to get away with crimes for a long
00:21:35
time and i think that um
00:21:38
he he knows what he's doing he's good at
00:21:41
his job
00:21:43
he is a definite skilled criminal
00:21:46
in making sure that the crime scene is
00:21:48
cleaned up
00:21:49
all little loose ends are tied up
00:21:52
however there's always been some
00:21:54
small bit of evidence that we have found
00:21:57
to still pinpoint that crime to haddon
00:22:00
clark
00:22:04
[Music]
00:22:10
[Applause]
00:22:14
[Music]
00:22:20
[Music]
00:22:28
[Music]
00:22:42
you
