by Burl Barer
“The strongest conclusion you can make on these examinations,” he said, “is that this questioned piece of evidence has the same microscopic instrumental characteristic as the control sample and could have come from that control sample, or another sample with those characteristics. And as I say, we employed microscopic methods. That’s part of our microanalysis or trace evidence section. But we can use instrument evidence to compare or further examine evidence as we need to.
“When it came time for me to examine the evidence in this particular case, I went to our evidence vault, took the evidence, took it to my work area, and examined it.”
Included in that evidence, he said, was “trace debris from a training bra, a disposable diaper, several autopsy items that were submitted to me, head hair control samples from both Richard Clark and Roxanne Doll, and carpet control samples from several carpets, from a van, also an insulation control sample, and, I believe, the sample of drapery from a van.”
While scientists examined microscopic evidence, detectives pursued the macroscopic. The successful solving of a case may hinge on any manner of evidence, be it a drop of blood, a carpet fiber, or something much larger, such as the location of a big old Dodge van. Richard Mathew Clark covered a lot of physical territory on March 31, 1995, and Detective Herndon was determined to construct an accurate time line of Clark’s whereabouts the night Roxanne Doll died.
Richard Clark’s seemingly mindless meanderings between leaving the Casey home at approximately 9:30 to 9:45 P.M. and his returning to the Doll-Iffrig residence at 1:00 A.M. were detailed to detectives during his initial questioning. There existed a window of opportunity—a section of time during which he entered the home via the girls’ bedroom window, abducted Roxanne, and raped her. Either then, or later, he killed her in his van. At 12:45 A.M., he dumped her body on that Everett hillside, then returned to her parents’ home.
“He spent the balance of the evening socializing with the parents and friends of the girl he had just raped and murdered,” recalled Herndon, “and then went camping with the father.
“The only way to know where that window was created was to reconstruct Clark’s exact whereabouts that night, and build a time line,” explained Herndon. “Was he really where he said he was, and at the times he claimed? We retraced his path on the night of March thirty-first, speaking with everyone who saw Richard Clark that night between nine at night and one-fifteen in the morning. We compared his statement with their statements, and that brought the truth to light.
“The first place Clark supposedly went after he brought Tim Iffrig back from playing pool,” said Detective Herndon, “was to the Dog House Tavern with, depending on the various versions of his story, Jimmy Miller, Neila D’alexander, and even Vicki Smith. No one else said anything about Vicki being with Clark on Friday night. In fact, he didn’t include her when he gave his statement to us when we interviewed him at his aunt Carol’s house, or when we spoke to him at the police station. For some reason, he added her when talking to the FBI agent. Vicki Smith, of course, was not with him that Friday night.”
“I left the house with Richard Clark and Jimmy Miller at about six-forty-five P.M.,” confirmed Neila D’alexander, making no mention of Vicki Smith, “and we went to the Dog House Tavern. The bartender wouldn’t give Jimmy Miller a drink because he was too drunk. Richard and I had a beer that Richard only took one drink out of before he and Jimmy left at about seven-forty-five P.M. Richard came back in about an hour later without Jimmy and asked me if I wanted a ride back home—to Tim and Gail. I told him that I was going over to Randy Winders at Twenty-fourth and Colby.”
Neila walked over to Winders’s, but he wasn’t home. She returned to the Dog House, where she helped Dan Webster celebrate his birthday. “I visited with numerous people,” she said, “until I left with Dan Webster at twelve-thirty A.M.”
Neila D’alexander’s lifelong friend Linda Hein was already sitting in the Dog House Tavern when Neila arrived. “I’ve known Neila D’alexander ever since we were in grade school. We pretty much grew up together,” said Hein. It was between 7:30 and 8:00 P.M., recalled Hein, when a man known as Animal came into the bar. Animal was the tavern nickname for Richard M. Clark.
“I don’t remember him leaving, but I think he came back about half past midnight,” Hein recalled.
“When Richard left the Dog House, supposedly to take Jimmy Miller back to the reservation,” restated Neila D’alexander, “he didn’t come back and talk to me after midnight. I left at twelve-thirty with Dan Webster and hadn’t seen Richard Clark since earlier.”
Cheryle Galloway, the Dog House bartender, had recollections more in line with Neila D’alexander’s. “I came on shift at four o’clock and worked until two,” she reported. “I remember Richard Clark and Jimmy Miller coming into the tavern just as Neila said. They ordered three schooners and I refused to serve Jimmy because he was on his lips. Richard and Neila had a schooner of beer, and then Neila went over and talked with one of her friends. Richard finished his beer and left with Jimmy. They were not there very long.”
She recalled Richard returning, but much earlier than the 12:30 A.M. asserted by customer Hein. “It was only maybe three hours later, I imagine around ten-thirty,” she said. “I walked up to him and asked him if he needed anything, if he wanted another schooner. He said no. I offered him a cup of coffee, and he just sat quietly at the end of the bar and drank his cup of coffee. He was only there for about fifteen minutes. While he was there, he asked me if he could put his van up for sale in the tavern, and I told him that I couldn’t authorize that without talking to the owner.”
The change in Clark’s appearance and demeanor, coupled with his interest in selling his van, signaled that the abduction and rape of Roxanne Doll, and most likely her murder, were already completed by 10:30 P.M. Jimmy Miller, passed out in the passenger seat, was certainly unaware that he was companion to a corpse.
Richard Clark was unaccounted for between 9:30 and 10:15 P.M. when he showed up again at the Dog House wearing glasses, staying only long enough for a cup of coffee, and asking if he could sell his van. It was most likely that Roxanne Doll, dead or alive, was in Clark’s van, bound and gagged with socks, when Clark was sipping coffee at the Dog House Tavern and when he showed up at the home of family friends, Wendy and Andy Urness, in Marysville at 10:45 P.M. on March 31.
“I was on the couch,” recalled Wendy Urness, “when Richard Clark knocked on the front door. I was watching TV, watching a news program, probably something like 20/20. We usually don’t have people come over that late, so it was somewhat strange that someone was pulling into the driveway, so I kind of looked at the clock to see what time it was—it was ten forty-five P.M.”
“My wife watches 20/20,” recalled Andy Urness. “That show starts at ten P.M., and it was toward the end of the show, where they had like a flash that comes on and they ask you a dateline question, which is usually at the end of the program. I was washing dishes inside the kitchen and I looked at the microwave and the time was ten forty-five.”
Richard Clark went into the kitchen to speak with Wendy’s husband, Andy. “I heard him ask Andy if he had any money for gas, and Andy told him no. Richard kept asking for money, and Andy said maybe come back tomorrow. Then Richard asked him if he had any beer, and Andy said that he didn’t have any beer. ‘Are you sure? I really need something—money, beer.’ He was very persistent.”
Wendy heard Clark say that Jimmy was drunk and passed out in the van. “Richard told me that on his way back from Everett he picked up Jimmy hitchhiking,” said Andy. “I looked out the kitchen window, but it was dark, and I didn’t stop to look outside my shades or anything. The only thing I noticed different about him was that he was wearing glasses. He left a little later than ten-fifty.”
“Richard didn’t seem to be really intoxicated or anything, not that I noticed,” said Wendy. “But I’ve only met him briefly a couple times in the past. Richard was wearing glasses,” she said. �
�I had never seen him wear glasses before. He was just in and out, and acted somewhat nervous. He didn’t appear to be drunk or high, and was quiet and soft-spoken, but persistent.”
Not long after leaving the Urness home, Richard Clark returned Jimmy Miller to the Tulalip Indian Reservation just past eleven o’clock. He was there about forty-five minutes, according to Vicki Clark.
“I can’t say exactly when,” remarked Detective Herndon, “but sometime between when he left the Casey residence at nine-fifteen to nine-thirty P.M., and when Gail Doll returned at midnight, Richard Clark raped and killed Roxanne Doll. As for Jimmy Miller, even he doesn’t know where he was or what he was doing that night, or what time he went anywhere. He was pretty much passed out on his feet even when he walked into the Dog House Tavern.”
“Jimmy Miller was bombed,” agreed Neila D’alexander. “He even passed out with his face against the van window on the way to the Dog House.”
“One thing we know timewise,” asserted Herndon, “is that Richard Clark was dumping the body of Roxanne Doll in the blackberry bushes below East Grand at quarter to one, the early morning of April first. We know that because the van was brought to a woman’s attention by, of all things, a cat.”
“I watched a cat run right behind the tire of a rusty yellow-colored older American-made van parked on East Grand,” said Janice Cliatt, an employee of Safeco in Seattle’s University District. “There were no lights on in the van, and no movement that I could see.” Cliatt got off work at 12:15 A.M. The Safeco building is only a block or two from the I-5 Freeway entrance. “I takes me twenty-six minutes to reach Marine View Drive in Everett, from where I enter the I-5 freeway when I get off work,” she said. “I got on the freeway at exactly twelve-twenty, took a right turn off the Marine View Drive exit, and I was going south on East Grand. Before I reached twenty-third, a cat ran from the west side of the road to the east side and went right under that van.”
April 13, 1995
First-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping charges were filed against Richard Mathew Clark in Everett District Court. “We are waiting for the results of blood, fiber, and hair tests,” said Jim Townsend, chief deputy prosecutor, “before making decisions on additional charges such as rape. Roxanne Doll died of multiple stab wounds to the neck that were probably inflicted the night of her abduction.”
As for facing the death penalty, the prosecutor explained that it was too soon to determine whether Clark would be charged with aggravated murder, a death penalty offense. “Clark is currently being held on one-million-dollar bail on a witness-tampering charge,” said Townsend, referring to the allegation that Clark asked his “brother,” Elza, to lie to police regarding bloodstains in his van.
The day after Richard Clark was charged with murder was the day that Detective Herndon heard important news from the Marysville Crime Lab.
April 14, 1995
“The bloodstains on the socks, the ones taken from the van,” Mike Grubb of the Marysville Crime Lab said to Detective Herndon, “the balled-up socks, you know, with the bloodstains on them, and the sleeping bag—well, the blood didn’t come from Roxanne Doll. She has a very rare blood type.”
According to Grubb, Roxanne Doll’s rare blood type was similar to two other groups. Based on early results, they had eliminated approximately 97 percent of the Caucasian population as a source of these stains.
Herndon was instructed to call back later in the afternoon to find out if semen had been located on the socks, which also contained what appeared to be victim blood.
“That’s how the day started,” said Herndon. “Then, at four-thirty that afternoon, I made contact with Greg Franks in regards to trace amounts of semen that had been found in some socks, and also the vaginal swabs. At that time, Mr. Frank suggested that I submit these items for further DNA analysis or PCR analysis. Of course, that’s exactly what we did.”
That same day, Wendy and Andy Urness met detectives at the Buzz-Inn Steak House. The motivation for the meeting: seeing Richard’s van on the television news. The couple, at Richard Clark’s request, provided a mattress and a sleeping bag for his camping trip with Tim Iffrig.
“I just saw it on the TV,” said Andy to detectives when he met them at the restaurant, “and that’s what prompted me to call. I saw the van doors open on a TV newscast and there was my mattress and my sleeping bag.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “It hit me way too close to home, because of what was going on. I have two children, a little girl that’s seven and a boy that’s four.”
The difference between the sleeping bag when Andy last saw it, and the way it looked when detectives showed him a picture of it, was the stains. “My sleeping bag was clean, and I’ve never noticed stains like that. The stains were not on it when I last saw it.”
Mr. and Mrs. Urness were not the only ones shocked by bloodstains. The morning after Clark visited the Urness residence—Saturday morning, April 1—Iffrig and he arrived at Kimberly Morrill’s Everett home. Morrill is Tim Iffrig’s sister, and Roxanne Doll’s aunt.
“I had known Richard Clark for about a year and a half,” recalled Kimberly. “I met him because I used to go out with his brother, Jimmy Miller. On Saturday, April first, my brother—Tim Iffrig—and Richard Clark came over to my house about eight-thirty in the morning. Tim’s eyes looked dilated; he looked like he had been drinking, so I offered him some coffee.
“As for Richard Clark,” she said, “he was grinning like a tissy cat, and he looked like he was wired. His eyes were bloodshot and it looked like he had been up all night. They stayed at my place till about eleven-thirty.”
Kimberly confirmed that the only companion of Iffrig and Clark was a black puppy dog. “The folks who were already there was me, my fiancé, Matthew, my brother and him, and my two kids. One of the kids was in my stomach, because I didn’t have her at that time. James was in his room, and my daughter was, well, in there,” she said, pointing to her abdomen.
“I do not remember what was said or what we talked about, except that at about eight forty-five. I asked Richard if I could go out to his van and get the puppy. And I went out and got his puppy and that’s when I seen the blood.
“I didn’t crawl into the van to get the dog,” she explained. “The dog was sitting on the mattress and I called the dog’s name and the dog came right to me. That was when I saw the blood on the mattress and by the van’s door.”
Neither Tim nor Kimberly knew of Roxanne’s disappearance, but the fresh bloodstains disturbed Morrill. She questioned Clark about the blood, and he gave her a vague excuse about the puppy getting a scratch.
“The stains to which Urness and Merrill referred were bloodstains,” said Herndon, “the same type of bloodstains Richard Clark asked his aunt Carol to wash out of his shirt at midnight of March thirty-first. Of course, we didn’t know about that until she called us up crying and hysterical on April eighteenth.”
Chapter 10
April 18, 1995
A tearful and distraught Carol Clark summoned Detectives Burgess and Herndon on a matter of utmost urgency. The two men arrived at her Lombard Street residence to find Clark in a state of high emotional agitation.
“When we first met with Carol Clark, she was visibly upset, crying,” recalled Herndon. “Detective Burgess, who had communicated with Ms. Clark on most occasions, did the talking.”
The relationship between Burgess and Carol Clark was not one of mutual high regard. She often accused Burgess of harassing her, badgering her, and other appellatives of equal unpleasantness. Admittedly guarded of her personal privacy, and highly emotional, Carol’s animosity toward Burgess was somewhat ameliorated by the current circumstances. Carol Clark feared she was facing arrest.
“Richard Clark was initially arrested for tampering with a witness by asking Elza to say the van’s bloodstains were from a poached deer,” Herndon said. “Carol made the same request of Elza, and she thought that she was going to be arrested as an accessory for tam
pering also with a witness. Once we assured her that we had no intention of arresting her, and that we only regarded her as a witness, she calmed down.”
Carol provided a taped statement, remaining calm and coherent 99 percent of the time. “When she got to the point of telling us what she observed on the night of the thirty-first, or the early morning of the first, she did get a little upset, but then soon calmed down, for the most part.”
What she observed was Richard Clark dropping by her house at midnight wearing a bloodstained shirt. “The blood that you saw on his shirt,” asked Detective Burgess, “how close were you when you saw this?”
“He was in front of the washing machine and I was in front of the sink,” replied Carol. “Maybe a couple feet away.”
“And so when you saw this blood, you asked him about it?”
“Well,” Carol answered, “I asked him how he got that on his shirt and he said, ‘Well, I’ve been out poaching a deer.’”
“He looked like he’d been drinking,” added Carol. “I don’t know if he was on any drugs, ’cause I never took drugs myself. See, I never knew what anybody looked like when they’re on drugs.” She went on to tell detectives that Richard Clark put the shirt in the laundry, took a shower, changed clothes, and left.
“When she told us that,” said Burgess, “I believe it was her son Jesse who ran off into another room and he retrieved it and brought it in and she confirmed that was the shirt Richard Clark left with her to wash.”
Detective Burgess stayed with Carol Clark while Herndon obtained another search warrant. “She was going to give us consent,” he said, “but I thought, since I had the time, I was going to cover the bases and get a search warrant. Once that search warrant was obtained, I came back and gave Carol Clark a receipt for that shirt. Detective Burgess took the shirt and it was impounded. Even though Carol washed the shirt with detergent and bleach, experts were still able to recover DNA matching that of Roxanne Doll.”