'Sunset Strip Killer' and necrophile who terrorised Los Angeles in 1980s dies

13 October 2023 , 12:08

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Douglas Clark, one half of the notorious 'Sunset Strip Killers' died in prison at the age of 75 (Image: AP)

One of the most notorious serial killers to terrorise Los Angeles has died in prison of natural causes at the age of 75. He and an accomplice, who died in 2003, were responsible for the deaths of as many as a dozen young and vulnerable women and girls.

Douglas Daniel Clark, also known as one half of the "Sunset Strip Killers," died at an outside medical facility of natural causes, according to a statement from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. His official cause of death has yet to be determined. He had been housed at the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center.

In the early 1980s, he and Carol Bundy targeted teenage girls and female sex workers in Los Angeles, dismembering and decapitating several as Clark had his way with them. A murderer and necrophile, Clark got off on the killings, using them to fulfill sick and twisted sexual fantasies he had.

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Douglas Clark was accused of murdering as many as a dozen young women, though he was convicted of killing six (California State Prison)

A later mugshot taken of Clark shows him much older with graying hair (CDCR)

While the couple, who shared an "intense sadomasochistic relationship," according to reports from around the time of the killings, were only convicted on six counts of first-degree murder and a few other sentences, like mutilation and sexual contact with human remains and mayhem, they were accused of killing up to a dozen victims between June and August of 1980.

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They reportedly hunted sex workers, whom they invited to their apartment for threesomes. They also targeted young girls, luring one as young as 11 into their home to take pornographic pictures. She wasn't killed, but she became the start of the couple's disgusting obsession and caused Clark to confess that he'd like to try killing during sex.

Bundy then bought him two pistols, and the killings began. The couple was caught after Bundy confessed to killing another man, whom she had told about her escapades and who had threatened to contact the authorities.

One of the last pictures taken of Douglas Clark in jail, shot in 2018 (AP)

She confessed to the murders and implicated Clark in them, and the two later allegedly admitted to killing more people than those they were convicted for slaughtering.

Six consecutive death sentences were handed to Clark for the murders, as was an eight-month sentence for mutilation and sexual contact with human remains, a nine-year sentence for attempted first-degree murder and a three-year enhancement to that for the infliction of "great bodily injury," according to the DOC statement. He was also convicted of mayhem, but that sentence was stayed by the court.

In 1983, he was admitted to death row, where he remained until the end of his natural life — the State of California hasn't executed anyone in almost 20 years.

Bundy, on the other hand, was handed life without parole and served her time at the Central California Women's Facility, dying of natural causes in 2003.

Jeremiah Hassel