Posted on 05/26/2002 6:32:38 AM PDT by Protect the Bill of Rights
Portrait of an accused killer: raped as a child
Documents give glimpse into man charged with killing teen Sean Googin.
May 19, 2002
By Tom Murphy
Staff writer
At age 3, Jeffrey Clark lived in filth and his hair started falling out. A year later, a man may have raped him. At age 6, family members teased Clark because he still wore diapers.
His criminal history started in his teens. Drug abuse followed.
Clark's problems clearly began years before scientists linked his DNA with evidence found at the scene of Sean Googin's death.
Clark, now 35, faces up to life in prison. He is accused of raping and killing Cazenovia teen-ager Sean Googin in 1992. Clark allegedly choked Googin, weighted down his body with large, flat rocks and dumped him into Cazenovia Lake.
The Googin killing, the first in the then-199 year history of Cazenovia, stirred up fear in the affluent community and went unsolved for nearly nine years.
Pretrial documents filed by Clark's lawyers last week in Madison County Court offer an unusually detailed and intimate portrait of the accused killer.
One - a "Psycho-Social History of Jeffrey Clark" - profiles Clark from birth to prison. It cites family court records, interviews, even Clark's diary entries.
Jeffrey Clark was born March 24, 1967, the fourth child in four years to Earl and Linda Clark, both natives of the city of Oneida. The couple married in the fall of 1963, when Linda was 17 and about four months pregnant with their first child, also named Earl.
Earl and Linda separated in January 1970 "due in part from a domestic incident where Earl physically assaults his wife," the profile states. Linda retained custody.
A month later, Earl visited his children and saw his daughter Sandra eating a sandwich of bread and sugar. He found hair falling out of Jeffrey's head. A doctor concluded Jeffrey had impetigo, a result of poor hygiene and filthy living conditions.
A month after that, Linda told Earl "that if he doesn't take all four children she'll give them up for adoption," the profile states. Earl took custody of the kids, then ages 6, 5, 4 and 3.
Jeffrey Clark's sister told state police years later that her brother Joe said he saw a man rape Jeffrey when he was 3 or 4 years old, according to a deposition the sister, Sandra A. Klein, gave investigators. Probation records cited in the profile state that it appears "highly likely" Jeffrey Clark was sexually abused as a young child, "perhaps by an adult male."
The Clark children faced violence. Klein told state police she remembered her father using a belt to discipline them, her deposition states.
"Dad was very upset because of mom leaving us," Klein told investigators. "My dad was very violent with us growing up."
Earl Clark drank heavily, according to county mental health records in the profile.
"His (Jeffrey's) father acknowledged that when his wife left him he began to drink heavily and was depressed and felt badly about his drinking because he hated his own father for it," the profile states.
But Klein also recalled family trips to Camp Lookout near Eaton Reservoir, her deposition states. She and her brothers went canoeing and grew comfortable around the water.
Jeffrey Clark stayed in diapers until age 6 or 7 due to incontinence. The profile notes that "many people, including family members, made fun of him because of it."
About eight years later, police arrested Jeffrey Clark, then 15, for burglaries done with a 13-year-old accomplice, the profile states. He got probation.
High school was hell. Younger kids pushed Clark and teased him. His diary reflects thoughts of suicide.
"I'm having a hard time trying to talk to people and keep a relationship with people longer," Clark wrote in a 1987 diary entry. "I really don't know how I kept friends before."
He graduated in 1987 at age 20, 174th out of a graduating class of 211.
Meanwhile, Clark grew used to spending weekends in jail. He was sentenced in January of his senior year to six months of weekends and five years probation for a first-degree sodomy conviction. He was charged with sexually abusing a 6-year-old boy, the profile states.
Police said in 1986 that Clark abused the boy, a neighbor, in a garage. An Oneida city police investigator on that case, Doug Bailey, described Clark as "basically a good kid," and "one of the few I feel compassion for," the profile states. Bailey believed jail would make him worse.
Bailey, now the Madison County undersheriff, said he saw Clark as a teen-ager who came from a dysfunctional family. He said that doesn't excuse what Clark did in the sodomy case, but that Clark's family life probably contributed to what happened.
By July 1987, Clark started looking forward to weekends in jail, and by the fall, he began to miss his weekly probation visits.
The next year, Clark started work at Gray-Syracuse in Chittenango.
During off hours, he and his brother, Joe, would drive to Syracuse or Utica to visit clubs and listen to music, Sandra Klein states in her deposition.
In 1988, Clark tried marijuana for the first time and enjoyed it, according to another diary entry.
During psychological testing that year, Clark "again reports a recollection of having been sexually abused as a child," the profile states, citing records from the Madison County Mental Health Department.
The tests found that Clark has a low IQ of 89 and that he preferred fantasy and daydreaming to social interaction. "He retreats from confused and painful reality due to his lack of social skills and difficulty understanding other people," the profile states.
A year later, Clark started work at Oneida Ltd. Co-workers there reported paranoid behavior that included Clark believing a "stray cat that was hanging around on the grounds of Oneida was possessed and 'after him,'" the profile states.
In the early 1990s, Clark tested positive for crack cocaine during an Oneida Ltd. drug test.
On April 4, 1992, his grandmother, Bertha Clark, died. That death changed Jeffrey Clark, Sandra Klein told police. He started drinking and smoking.
"Jeff would go into his bedroom and listen to music that Gram loved," Klein said in her deposition. "Jeff really missed Gram because they were so close."
Clark wrote in his diary the day of her death that he "really cherished 'Gram' because it seems like I was so much like her."
Three months after Bertha Clark's death, searchers found Sean Googin's body in Cazenovia Lake. The 15-year-old had disappeared July 3 while walking to join his parents at a Fourth of July festival.
When searchers found Googin, his neck was bruised, and rocks had been stuffed under an army fatigue jacket zipped up to his collar.
Clark lost his job in 1993 for "poor work performance and substance abuse," and was stopped several times for drinking and driving, the profile states.
The last few pages of the profile track Clark's declining mental health.
In the 1990s, Clark reported encounters with aliens who could "tap his mind." He placed magnets and batteries on the floor to keep voices away.
In the summer of 1994, he entered rehabilitation, and he steered clear of drugs and alcohol. A year later, he walked into the Oneida City Hospital emergency room complaining that his "head hurts everywhere" and his "bones seem to be shifting," the profile states.
The Social Security Administration found Clark disabled in 1996, the same year he is diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic. He returned to the emergency room that year, complaining that he heard voices and wanted to kill himself.
Medical records from 1999 show that Clark still laughed inappropriately "and his thought processes are confused. His memory is noted to be poor for both recent and remote events," the profile states. "He recalls having a vision of John Lennon and Yoko Ono and states that he spoke to Yoko Ono and he believes that John Lennon would come back to life."
In July 1999, a state trooper found Clark naked and curled up under a thorn bush off Wihelm Road in Lenox, sodomizing himself with a stick. Clark said his name was "Shawn (sic) Googin," and he was 15 years old, according to a deposition from Trooper Michael Drake.
Clark told police he was being choked and "someone had placed rocks in his pockets and was drowning him in the lake near a dock," according to Drake's deposition.
In September 1999, police charged Clark with sodomizing a 14-year-old boy. He lured the victim into his Lakeport trailer with the promise of some Woodstock tapes, according to a statement the victim gave police.
Clark sodomized the boy and then pointed a pistol at the teen's head and said "if I didn't kiss him, he would kill me, and I would never see my family again," the victim said in the statement.
Clark pleaded guilty to first-degree sodomy and received a five-year prison sentence in August 2000.
In April 2001, state police announced that Clark would be charged in connection with Googin's death. They have said they have DNA evidence linking Clark to Googin, and they put a detailed confession Clark gave them in the case's Madison County Court file.
In that signed confession, Clark told police he was high on marijuana and crack the night he lured Googin off a sidewalk and into a dark yard, where he assaulted him.
A month before this announcement, Clark reportedly tried to hang himself with a television cord at Wende Correctional Facility, the profile states.
He moved to Auburn Correctional Facility, where he entered protective custody in July 2001.
"He is reluctant to take his medications now because he says he needs to be vigilant in watching out for his safety because of the guards," the profile states. "The guards have threatened to hurt him and therefore Jeff is fearful most of the time."
Clark shakes and twitches and paces in his cell.
Last month, two psychiatrists testified that they found Clark mentally competent to stand trial. One of them, Dr. Ann Menon, emphasized that Clark is mentally ill, but he would do better if he took medication.
Earl Clark, the father, could not be reached for comment. Neither could Clark's brothers or his mother. Klein, when contacted by phone, said that she believes in her brother's innocence.
"He's a good kid," she said. "He's a kid that any parent would love to have, and that's all I can say."
The next court date in the case is June 13, when lawyers will argue pretrial motions.
© 2002 The Post-Standard.
Poor Jeffrey, don't blame him. his family was dysfunctional. Here's a news flash for them, Sean Googin is still dead, and the Clark family is still dysfunctional. Look what compassion for the criminal got the Googin family.
Where is the article explaining that Jeffrey Clark killed Sean Googin in cold blood because said Clark was a degenenrate pervert. The only consolation of life in prison instead of the death penalty is that soon Clark will get a taste (in more ways than one) of his own medicine.
Clark, now 35, should be facing a gallows.
Murder is murder, regardless of the background of the killer earlier in life. However, I have to disagree with you concerning what this gouls' experience should be in prison. It's time prison rape is stopped. Prisoners have no right to extend and intensify the sentence of other inmates, regardless of what they did that got them jailed.
Boonie Rat
MACV SOCOM,PhuBai/Hue '65-'66
Should have shot him on the spot.
Cool Hand Luke
That doesn't excuse murder.
He should be put to death for what he did.
Wyatt Earp: What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?
Doc: A man like Ringo's got a great empty hole right through the middle of him and no matter what he does he can't ever fill it. He can't kill enough or steal enough or inflict enough pain to ever fill it. And it drives him mad. Sick mad. Cold and dirty.
Wyatt Earp: So what does he want?
Doc: What does he want? He wants revenge.
Wyatt Earp: Revenge? For what?
Doc: Being born.
I do wrestle with my conscience ....how can I call myself a Christian when I would wish harm on another person? But I am human and these are honest emotions I must deal with. The difference [and this is the key] is although I express the dark side of my emotions, I do not act on them, separating me from the Jeffrey Clarks of the world.
I am sorry Jeffrey Clark was dealt a bad hand in life. I am sorry the system failed him. I am sorry his family had no sense of moral responsibility when it came to raising kids.
Honestly, I would have compassion for him had I met him as a child. My heart would have broken for him. If I knew him, I would go out of my way to be of some help. BUT, the moment he crossed the line from victim to abuser would have been the moment my compassion dried up. Period.
However, none of that is relevant at this time. I am a strong believer in the death penalty and in this case, it would have been appropriate.
So the ultimate victims in child abuse cases are not just the particular child who is harmed (the one that came into court, with dozens or hundreds unreported). The ultimate victims include the victims of the victims, in another generation. That's why I am so adamant that child abusers be given maximum sentences for even a first offense, and be kept in custody as "dangers to society" once the criminal sentence is ended.
Since we cannot execute these monsters, at least we can keep them in a cage until theyw die, so they do not "breed" a new generation of monsters.
Congressman Billybob
Click for latest, "Home of the Rocket Boys," a good news story about great people.
The current message is "Because this was done to you, you have done this."
Of cousre, there is nothing wrong with understanding WHY something happened. It is to be desired.
As a nurse, I have seen many adorable, young children in the office who are the 3rd or 4th child of someone barely out of her teens. Each child has a different father, the mother is on welfare, and the grandmother is barely out of her 30's. My heart breaks for these kids, because many will repeat the same patterns taught at home. One day they will cross the line from being innocent victims of their environment to the keeper of the flame. Many, of course, will rise above it.
Each generation becomes more hardened leading to more crime, more welfare, and more cries from the liberal "they can't help it" crowd to "understand and help" them. That attitude is nothing more than the attitude of an enabler.
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