Michael Bay Docuseries 'Born Evil' Examines the Crimes of Navy Vet and Serial Killer Hadden Clark

In 1992, 24-year-old Harvard graduate Laura Houghteling disappeared from her home in Bethesda, Maryland. Based on the scene, authorities believed she was stabbed to death in her sleep, but her bedroom was meticulously cleaned after the crime, and little evidence remained. What police did find was a hair in Houghteling’s hairbrush, one that turned out to be from a wig – a wig worn by the family’s gardener, a known cross-dresser.

The gardener was Hadden Clark, a Navy-diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who was then linked to the 1986 disappearance of 6-year-old Michele Dorr in nearby Silver Spring. Once in custody, Clark claimed that another persona of his, Kristin Bluefin, was the real killer, responsible for nearly a dozen murders. Clark told police that he had hundreds of “trophies” and offered to lead law enforcement to his victims’ burial sites.

A new five-part, three-night miniseries from Investigation Discovery and producer Michael Bay (“Pearl Harbor”) sets out to reveal the extent of Hadden Clark’s claimed years-long murder spree in “Born Evil: The Serial Killer and the Savior,” beginning Monday, Sept. 2, 2024.

Bay is known for directing blockbuster action films, but as a producer, his resume gets a little more variance. He has previously lent his experience to the 2012 space program film “Uncharted Territory: NASA’s Future Then and Now” and chasing gold in the depths of the ocean on the 2016 TV series “Billion Dollar Wreck.”

Bay’s latest series takes viewers inside the mind of Clark, who was eventually convicted of killing Dorr and Houghteling and remains a person of interest in potentially dozens of murders. “Born Evil: The Serial Killer and the Savior” tells Clark’s story through recorded conversations between the convicted killer and Bay, who personally interviewed him in a Maryland prison over many hours.

“Throughout my career, I’ve always focused on meeting real people -- from scientists of all kinds to alligator wranglers, law enforcement agents to bank robbers, and even kings and queens -- gaining true insights for my films,” Bay said in a statement. “‘Born Evil' is my first venture into the documentary world, and it revolves around a serial killing family you have never heard of.”

On the surface, Clark seemed to come from the ideal American family. He was born in July 1952 to a father who was a skilled chemist and a mother, Flavia, who could trace her lineage to the Mayflower. His father was a Korean War veteran, and both parents were active with the Boy Scouts, PTA meetings and church groups.

But beneath the surface, both parents were alcoholics with deeper issues. The young Clark had behavioral issues, bullying the neighborhood children and fighting with his younger siblings. One of his brothers, Bradfield Clark, was convicted in the 1984 murder of a female coworker in San Francisco. The brother dismembered his victim and is even alleged to have eaten parts of the corpse.

Psychological researchers describe an abusive home life for the Hadden boys. His mother was disappointed Clark wasn’t born a girl and took to dressing him in girls’ clothing and calling him “Kristen.” His father simply called him “the retard,” and would hit him with a belt to try to keep him from dressing in girls’ clothes.

When he was old enough, Clark was sent by his parents to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. After graduating from the prestigious institute in 1974, he had a pedigree that could land him any cooking job in America, and it did – for a while. He had a vindictive streak, however, that could be triggered by any perceived slight, and his bent for revenge, along with strange behavior, cost him jobs time and again.

Eventually, work dried up and Clark joined the Navy as a culinary specialist in 1982. By 1985, his behavior saw him kicked out of the service, but this time the Navy diagnosed the problem: Clark was a paranoid schizophrenic, "manifested by persecutory and grandiose delusions." He was given treatment at a VA medical center in Washington state. His first legal troubles began that same year, when he was arrested for petty theft.

Unable to secure consistent work, Clark lived in an old Datsun pickup in the woods near Bethesda. He worked as a gardener or handyman for money to eat. Local church groups recalled him being strange, but never thought of him as particularly violent or aggressive. Yet, he was arrested in 1989 for vandalizing property owned by a former landlord. His arrest resulted in one year’s supervised probation and a court order to continue psychiatric treatment at the VA.

His probation officer, however, believed Clark was a danger to the public. He was soon to be proven correct. His brother Geoff would later allege that a concussion he received from his fellow sailors in the Navy might have been what caused his “danger potential to become unleashed.”

After linking Clark to Houghteling’s murder, he was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Investigators soon realized Clark was questioned years prior in relation to the disappearance of Dorr. The Dorr family lived two doors down from where Clark was staying with his brother. Police recalled he’d been nervous during questioning, but they pursued a different suspect.

They learned he’d been kicked out of his brother’s house for inappropriate behavior around children. It was Clark’s prison cellmate who eventually got a confession from Clark, who admitted to killing Dorr in a small bedroom in his brother’s house and meticulously cleaning the evidence, just as he had with Houghteling’s murder. Investigators later found Dorr’s blood between the slats of wood on the bedroom floor.

In 2000, Clark led authorities to the body of Dorr, but he also claimed to have killed a number of other victims, one as early as 1964, when he was just 12 years old. He was taken to Cape Cod, where he spent some time as a youth, to lead authorities to other possible burial sites, with some alleging that he could have killed as many as 11 women across Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Vermont and elsewhere. They didn’t find bodies, but they did find a bucket of jewelry, including some owned by Houghteling, that Clark claimed as trophies.

Bay said: “I spent countless hours personally speaking to [Clark] in prison so that I could get into the mind and psychology of a person who the FBI refers to as 'a person of interest' in over 20 states. ‘Born Evil’ could potentially open the door to solving many cold case murders.”

To learn more about Clark and his motives, watch Michael Bay’s “Born Evil: The Serial Killer and the Savior,” a five-episode docuseries which will air across three consecutive nights starting Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, on Investigation Discovery.

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