mayflower 22.may.002 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Most serial killers come from the bottom half of society. They grow up in poverty, and have few opportunities. Parents or caregivers often abuse them. While Hadden Clark was abused, he was given many advantages, the result of being the progeny of a distinguished family.

His mother, Flavia, boasted of being able to trace her lineage back to the voyage of the Mayflower and had direct descendants who were heroes in the Revolutionary War. Hadden's grandfather on his father's side served as the elected Republican mayor of White Plains, New York. His father—also named Hadden—would help invent clear clinging plastic wrap and fire-retardant carpeting. The Clark family was well off and well thought of by their neighbors. Despite all this, the family had a deep secret. Both parents were alcoholics whose drinking often led to physical battles that were sometimes fought out in front of the children.

Hadden, born in April of 1951, was the second child. His eldest brother, Bradfield, had been born a year earlier. Geoffrey Clark, the youngest brother, arrived in 1955. The last child, Alison, was born in 1959. She would run away from home as a teen and later break ties with her parents, telling an investigator, "I never had a family."

practice 33 pra.992993 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

From a neighboring practice, Dr. Booth had gone to the funeral directors to examine a body. British law requires a doctor from an unrelated practice to countersign cremation forms issued by the original doctor. They are paid a fee for this service which some medics cynically call "cash for ash." Debbie told Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire she had misgivings.

Booth explained, "She was concerned about the number of deaths of Dr. Shipman's patients that they'd attended recently. She was also puzzled by the way in which the patients were found. They were mostly female, living on their own, found dead sitting in a chair fully dressed, not in their nightclothes lying ill in bed."

Booth spoke to her colleagues. One of them, Dr. Linda Reynolds contacted coroner John Pollard. He in turn alerted the police. In a virtually covert operation, Shipman's records were examined and given a clean bill of health because the causes of death and treatments matched perfectly.

What the police did not discover was that Shipman had re-written patient records after he killed.

The quality of that investigation has been questioned because the police failed to check for a previous criminal record. Nor did they make inquiries with the General Medical Council. Had they done so, Shipman's past record of drug abuse and forgery might well have led to a more thorough approach.

But more intense scrutiny was about to blow the Shipman case wide open.

detective 66.det.33 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

"I've learned that if man gets the opportunity, he will do devious things," Ressler said. "He has a dark side, whether it's poisoning his neighbor's roses or killing his neighbor."

In February of 1998, Police Chief Richard LaMunyon said in an interview that a "typewritten, rambling communiqué, which purports to be from BTK" received by police about a week after the Fager murders has no connection to the Dec. 30 murders of Phillip Fager, and his daughters. LaMunyon said a continuing investigation has not yet confirmed whether the serial killer sent the letter. LaMunyon went on to say that the department does sporadically receive bogus letters from people claiming to be the BTK strangler.

As 1988 came to a close, a former BTK task force detective, Al Thimmesch, retired. Al says he regrets never solving the murders. ''One of the things that bugged me was BTK," he said. "It was one that I worked on for a long time."

Investigators call BTK fastidious, calculating and meticulous; with a strong possibility that he may be heard from again. "This type of personality doesn't stop voluntarily," said Wichita Police Capt. Paul Dotson. "This type of person continues to kill."