Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.metro From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Search for body fruitless Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 15:13:22 EST Message-ID: \SE B;METROPOLITAN \HD Search for body fruitless \SH Suspect steered police to N.J. \BY Arlo Wagner \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES Montgomery County police came home last night "to regroup" after searching unsuccessfully in a New Jersey township for the body of Laura Houghteling, who they believe was murdered but whose body has not been found. Hadden Irving Clark, 40, who was charged Friday with Miss Houghteling's murder, did not confess, a police spokesman said, but he did tell officers "they could find her body," in North Plainfield, N.J., where he lived as a child. Armed with a shovel, four Montgomery County officers searched all day through a sloping, wooded area near Timber Acres, a neighborhood of large, single-family homes about 15 miles west of Morristown, but found nothing. Police also said yesterday that Clark will be questioned again about the 1986 disappearance of 6-year-old Michele Lee Dorr from her father's home in Silver Spring. Clark was living with his brother near Carl Dorr's home at the time and was briefly questioned, but he was never considered a suspect, police said. "He is a suspect, but our primary focus is the Houghteling case," said police spokesman Sgt. Harry Geehreng. In the Houghteling case, police said they may have a murder weapon, a butcher knife, but they need Miss Houghteling's body to compare the wounds with the knife blade. There were no bloodstains on the knife, police said. The knife was found the morning of Oct. 19, before Miss Houghteling, 23, was reported missing, when a co-worker went to Miss Houghteling's home to check on her after she failed to report to work. "The friend checked the residence but did not notice anything unusual, except that a large butcher knife was lying out on the kitchen counter," police said. Sgt. Geehreng said the knife customarily was kept in a slot in a wood block. During a five-minute hearing yesterday, District Judge Patrick Woodward ordered Clark held without bond in the County Detention Center in Rockville on the charge of murder. Police said Clark was apparently discharged from the Navy in 1985 because of mental problems. Navy psychiatrists diagnosed him as a "schizophrenia paranoid type." The diagnosis showed a "strong underlying hostility and anger with a risk of bizarre acting out in an aggressive or destructive nature." There are other suggestions of mental problems in the Circuit Court file on Clark: "Defendant may try to harm himself" is written on his bond papers after his Feb. 19, 1989, arrest on multiple theft charges. He was indicted on 17 counts for allegedly dressing as a woman, entering the choir room of Woodside United Methodist Church in the 8900 block of Georgia Avenue late on the morning of Feb. 19, 1989, and stealing the purses of choir members. When police stopped him about 1 p.m., a purse dropped from his coat, and when he was asked who it belonged to, he answered, "It's mine. I'm a woman," according to court records. In a subsequent mental examination, Clark was described as "incoherent," but at a pretrial screening a psychiatrist said he was a "talkative, naive young man" who nevertheless had a "self-defeating" nature. He pleaded guilty to two theft counts, and at sentencing Circuit Judge Irma S. Raker noted that Clark "has serious mental problems and is now addressing them." She sentenced him to 18 months in prison but suspended all but 45 days that he had already spent in jail. On Oct. 24, police found a bloodied pillowcase and some women's underwear in a clearing in the woods more than a mile from the Houghteling home in the 9900 block of Julliard Drive in Bethesda. The same day, a Maryland State Police bloodhound was able to sniff a trail from the clearing to the Houghteling home. The pillowcase matched bedding in Miss Houghteling's room and Clark's fingerprints were found on it, police said. The underwear has since been identified as that of Penny Houghteling, Laura's mother. Mrs. Houghteling said Clark often slept in his 1983 Datsun pickup in the parking lot of North Bethesda United Methodist Church, in the 10100 block of Old Georgetown Road, less than 25 yards from where the pillowcase, pillow and stolen underwear were found, police said. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM