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

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I don't remember how I got to this site or this thread, but I've just moved to Morgantown (grew up in Wheeling), and this story sucked me in. Do please let us know when the book gets published. I'm quite interested to learn what new information you have and what your hypothesis ultimately is.
 
Hi Geocam,
I was wondering if you found out any more information about Terri Roach or Patsy Sparks? I have tried looking these cases up under unsolved/cold cases all over the web and can not find anything; it is as though they don't exist.
 
Geocam,

Terri Lee Roach lived in Belpre Ohio;she was 18 years old when was murdered (Born 5/4/1972) and murdered 7/5/1990. Her body was found 7/11/1990 She worked at Elbys restaurant in Belpre. She was killed by blunt force trauma to the head. There were rumors that she ran around with older men.
 
Geocam said:
On January 18, 1970, two West Virginia University students, Mared Ellen Malerik and Karen Lynn Ferrell were hitchhiking back to their dorm after seeing a movie ("Oliver"). They were picked up and not seen again until their headless bodies were found in the woods about 15 miles south of Morgantown, WV. The case went unsolved for five years before Eugene Paul Clawson, who is now serving out his life sentence, confessed to the crime.

I was growing up in Morgantown in the early 1970s, and the crime caused quite a stir. For the most part, Morgantown was--and pretty much still is--crime free, and the beheadings disturbed and frightened a lot of people. When nothing happened in the case for five years, most people more or less tried to pretend it never happened. When Clawson confessed, all the fears and so on got stirred up again. As a high school student, I skipped school and attended the closing arguments.

Well, it seemed clear to me after hearing the closing arguments that Clawson didn't do it. Sure, he was a bad guy (serving time for the rape of a 14-year-old girl at the time he confessed, for instance, and he had spent more of his life in jail than out of it), but I think he got sent to jail for the wrong crime. There is a long list of reasons that he couldn't have committed the crime, but I won't go into them here. Everyone from the Governor to many of the investigating officers to the general public needed a conviction ASAP.

Anyway, he was found guilty, mostly on the basis of his confession, the details of which he drew from a Detective Cases magazine. (No detail of his confession was not in the magazine, and every wrong detail of his confession was wrong in the magazine article in exactly the same way.) His conviction was overturned because of the inappropriate introduction of death photos of the girls into the trial. In his new trial, he was convicted again.

Lately, I've started wondering who might have done it. One of the things I'm doing is going over as much public domain material as I can find. I'm also looking to write to or talk with anyone who has information, ideas, thoughts, curiosities, etc., about the case. I've talked with a few people who were involved in the case

So... anyone out there still interested in the case? Formerly involved in the case? Anyone have anything to share?
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I am very interested in this case. I would love to be contacted about things I heard when I lived in Morgantown. I had always suspected two people but could definately be nothing. The men are both deceased today so not sure how much it would even matter.
 
It seems like you've done a bunch of research on this and feel you found the right person. Why write the book fictitiously?
 
I just moved to Morgantown and found out about this case through the podcast. There's some interesting stuff I dug up regarding the construction of I-79. If Wikipedia isn't lying to me, the section of I-79 that bypasses Goshen Road was completed October 15, 1970. I can't find anything about when construction started in that area though, so there isn't a clear outline as far as that's concerned. However, it's possible that Mared and Karen's bodies were dumped there while the interstate was under construction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_79#cite_note-RDR-18

This may or may not be connected but the very next day a teen girl by the name of Pamela Coyners went missing in Baltimore and was dumped by a stretch of road that was under construction.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/police-on-teens-slaying-no-one-saw-a-thing/article/113021

Pamela has been linked to a series of murders in Baltimore--including the two that are documented in "The Keepers." I'm not sold that the case of Mared and Karen are connected to the ones in Baltimore, but the time line adds up. A part of me wonders if it was someone who was working on the roads and dumped the bodies where he knew they could be visited, but that is just me kicking ideas around.
 
Just to clarify, you are suggesting that the location of the bodies is far enough away to be secluded but close enough to the construction site of the interstate to be visited by the murderer (who might have been working on the Goshen Road interstate section)? I wanted to make sure I am connecting the dots correctly.
 
I was 10 years old when this happened, but don't recall hearing about it until in my early teens. The tragedy still haunts me, and over the last 2-3 years I have searched for any information I could find online. From the information I gathered in various searches, my general intuition tells me that they got the right guy, but justice has not been served. If there was really any evidence somebody else did this, I'm certain those leads would have been followed up on. They overturned a conviction and retried this person still reaching the same conclusion of guilt. Do you honestly believe that if there was any evidence pointing to someone else that would not have presented itself by now? Clawson passed a lie detector test when he ADMITTED to the crime. He then began making varied conflicting and vague statements trying to retract his confession. Clawson is obviously a SICK individual! Mentally unstable and capable of this gruesome act which he elaborated to in great detail. Some people will probably always believe OJ to be innocent, and some people will probably always believe that Steven Avery is innocent, but life has a way of putting the truth where it belongs.
 
Hi I know this post is old but my mother was friends with Karen and I'm looking for all the information that I can to bring her closure.
There are a few things that I wanted to comment about what the doctor said and a few other things I went to school for crime scene investigations and have been trying to get as much info as I can for my mother but I will wait to go into those few things until I hear from you thank you and have a wonderful day
 
Hi, folks! My name is Geoffrey Cameron Fuller and I started this thread as Geocam back in 2006. I grew up in Morgantown, and Mared and Karen were murdered when I was 9. I suppose my interest started then. I attended the first trial of Eugene Paul Clawson in 1976 and by the time I started this thread in 2006, I was shadowing Richard Hall, a retired West Virginia State Police lieutenant colonel. At his request, I didn’t mention my connection to him on Websleuths.

Richard passed in 2016, but he did more to keep this case alive than anyone (although, as it turned out a few others were pursuing their own lines of inquiry). Richard was reexamining the case because he had been assigned in 1976 to interview Clawson and determine whether he was telling the truth. After numerous interviews and attempts to corroborate Clawson’s confession, he was convinced that Clawson did not commit the murders. However, he could not stop what he believed was a poorly conceived prosecution; he referred to Clawson’s convictions as “social convictions”—based more on the public’s desire for the case to be “solved” than on the evidence. He continued after his retirement to investigate the case and by 2009 believed he had found the man who did kill Mared and Karen. He had me send a letter to the Monongalia County Prosecutor outlining his case. She declined to pursue it.

Meanwhile, I continued to look into some things on my own, and although Richard and I disagreed, I thought I’d figured out who did it. A couple of years ago, while I was working on a book about this, S. James McLaughlin tracked me down. Sarah had grown up in the area as well and had been researching the case on her own. She and Kendall Perkinson had decided to do a podcast about whole story. We merged all the stuff that Sarah and I had learned, and the podcast began coming out almost a year ago. I see a couple of you have listened to it, and we appreciate that. Listenership is nearing 100,000 listens, with mostly 5-star ratings. The last two episodes are in final production now and should be out in the next month or so. It’s all free and all the music is by Morgantown bands who generously donated their work. Sarah and I have also nearly completed a book and will begin shopping it this spring.

Unfortunately, after 47 years, we have not been able to find definitive evidence—although there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence. We may find a concrete connection soon, and Sarah and I may travel down to Florida soon to check things on the ground there. While I believe the man has been found, Sarah is not so sure, and we’ll go into all the reasons why in the podcast and book. We essentially have four primary suspects and will go into the case against all four.

Without Websleuths, none of this might ever have happened. Some leads that came in back in 2006-2009 were encouraging, and though none panned out directly, a few led to other possibilities, and the spirit of citizen investigation embodied at Websleuths was inspiring. So thanks, everyone.

jimjamjing: What things did you hear about back when you lived in Morgantown? What two people, now deceased, did you suspect?

Middleforkmer: The bodies of Mared and Karen were dumped within about a mile of where I-79 now is. While bids on the project had started, I don’t think construction had by early 1970. I doubt that the Pamela Coyner case is connected, but one of the suspects in the case in 1971, William Bernard Hacker, lived in Baltimore at the time. How do you think the murders of Mared and Karen could be connected to the case featured in “The Keepers”? Is it just timing?

snafu321: The bodies were in an area of Weirton Mine Section that was about a mile from I-79, and the area is still almost exactly as secluded as it was in 1970. There are houses scattered around there, a fairly trafficked two-lane highway within less than a mile, and a lot of dirt roads and scattered farmish places.

angelfire78: I understand your belief that Clawson committed the murders, but after looking at innumerable press reports, WV state police and FBI records, and interviews (either by myself or along with S. James McLaughlin and Kendall Perkinson) with Bess Ferrell, Karen’s mother; dozens of 1970 WVU students and Morgantown residents; many former police, mostly WV state police; legal personnel, including people who worked Clawson’s trials and appellate lawyers; etc., etc.—I just don’t think he did it. The reasons for that conclusion are too numerous to go into, but you can find details in the podcast, primarily episodes 5 and 6. It turns out—50 years later—that most of the police closest to the case in 1976 no longer believe that Clawson did it either. More details will be in the book.

Freda moore: I would be interested in talking with you. If you could send me a private message either here on Websleuths or to fuller.geoffrey@gmail.com, I would appreciate it.
 
Geocam: Thanks for all your hard work and dedication to not only uncover the truth of this case, but to ensure the case is thoroughly documented and the victims of this tragedy are granted their story being told. I was surprised at how little information was available when I began searching online over the last few years. I recently discovered the podcast series, and as I am certain it is a difficult story to tell, it is one that needs to be told in eternal memory of lives so tragically taken. It is clear that a tremendous amount of time, energy and love have gone into the many ways you and those working on the case have fought to bring some hope for justice. Yes, I still believe Clawson did it. It may not fit his past crimes,but it most definitely fits his mentality and capabilities. If they hadn't caught the right person, my guess is more of these horrific killings would have been repeated at some point over the years. The podcast was superbly done. I am looking forward to your book as well
 
Geocam, thanks so much for the new podcasts on this case. Thanks also for the work you and others have been doing. JMO, a book is a great idea, I would definitely buy it.

It's a somewhat complex case with a lot of investigators and suspects. Some of the other suspects you and others have mentioned sound viable and more likely, but it's scary to realize there were so many dangerous, violent criminals in the area at that time.

I like that one of your interviewees discusses the case in a cultural, historical context of the time. I was in high school at the time of these murders and it's chilling, in retrospect, to realize how many violent murders were being committed back then, especially against young women. Our generation grew up going to college while Ted Bundy was roaming around after escaping from jail in CO, with Richard Speck and other killers in our recent memories. In my sophomore year, the uni began offering "self-defense" classes, which became a staple for young women. My mom, like many others, laid down the law about hitchhiking, but in 1970 a lot of people still thought it was safe.

I agree with the theory that it was most likely someone local, due to the remote location where the bodies were discovered. Someone who had trolled the local hitchhiker activity and had probably picked up others before working up the courage to abduct 2 of them.

There's a good comprehensive list of potential suspects at this Reddit thread

https://www.reddit.com/r/Unresolved...g_heads_the_1970_wvu/?st=jcyxmdxv&sh=a9e37cb5

I hope they don't mind, but I'm going to paste it here verbatim, as you never know when sources will disappear on these cold cases

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

...

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.
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angelfire78, thanks for your thoughtful reply. I understand why you still think Clawson committed the crime, and was glad to hear that you had listened to the podcast so far. The book has far more details about why Sarah and I don't believe Clawson did it. One of my hesitancies--especially back when I was shadowing Richard's investigation and Clawson was still alive--was that Clawson was so clearly a bad man who would hurt many people if he was not in prison. I wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of making a case for his lack of guilt in the coed case. On the other hand--and this was the sentiment that Richard often expressed--if Clawson didn't do it, the man or men who did were still out there. As you said, if the real killer was still out there, the killings would be repeated. And they were, many times, before he was caught. He also died in prison.

Betty P, yes, I was also stunned by how many bad people were cruising the streets of the town I grew up in. That was one of the things that first struck me when I began to shadow Richard. Back in '70-'71 many people thought the police weren't doing much and that they had too few suspects. In fact, they had too many. WVSP investigated something like 30 people and countless tips back then. It was staggering.

Thanks for sharing the reddit thread. That thread was started by my (now) co-author Sarah, who is the other primary voice you hear on the podcast. Her posting was what actually what led to the podcast and the book in its new form. Her work has added immeasurably, in terms of historical context of events and especially in terms of taking a more thorough look at how crimes against women were treated back in 1970. It's astonishing how often men who assaulted women in various ways, even beat them with tire irons, were found were given only 30 or 60 days in jail. One seriously disturbed man, who was briefly a suspect for the coed murders, assaulted a 16-year-old girl in a park in Cumberland, all but cutting her head off, and a woman in Pittsburgh and... The list goes on and on. Each time he was sentenced by a slap on the wrist; each time he was quickly released and did something again. That pattern was common.

Glad you like the historical and cultural contexts of the podcast; we're doing that even more in the book, because we have more room. That was a goal of ours. It's important to understand what happened from both perspectives: what people thought was happening then and what do we think of those assessments now. Not to get too didactic, though, because this was essentially a chilling story of horrifying events in our midst and the effect they had on the people who lived them.

As you can imagine, we've heard a lot of theories about what happened and why. In one sense, they broke down into two categories: those that said the perpetrator must be local because the location of the bodies was so obscure, and those that said it couldn’t have been someone local, it had to be a traveling serial killer, like Ted Bundy. In fact, I believe it was both. The man who I think did it was born in Clarksburg, but lived most of his adult life in various states. His brother graduated from WVU med school in 1967, and his sister was a freshman at WVU in 1970. His father was a VP of Consol Coal, the company that owned the old Weirton Mine and the land on which the coeds’ bodies were found. But he lived in Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Florida, and traveled to Europe, Canada, and New Zealand. So he was both local and not local.
 
Geocam: I will never forget 1973. I was living in Pt. Marion at the time, 13 years old, and overheard my mother talking about what looked to be a human skull the dog had drug into our yard that she noticed while she was running out in the morning for work. She said it bothered her all day and something told her it had something to do with this case. She wished she would have called someone right then but was running late for work. When she got home the skull was gone. I keep thinking this was years before Clawson confessed to the murders so how in the world could she suspect Pt. Marion would be at all linked to a case in Morgantown. Especially since the bodies were found at a location so far removed from our little town in Pt. Marion. Needless to say, I was shocked to learn who was charged with the murders, and where he was from! I do not recall hearing anything about the case at all until I began searching online a few years ago. I do watch a lot of true crime on TV which might be why I started thinking about this crime so close to home so many years ago. I have since wondered if I ever crossed paths with Clawson when I lived in Pt. Marion and did finally see his picture in the podcast. Couldn't locate a picture before. and don't readily recognize him as someone I remember. I am very curious what part of Pt.Marion he lived in since we were on school house hill and that doesn't seem to fit the area he said he put the skulls.
 
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