Statement of Detective A. Able.
On Monday, January 17 of this year, a motorist was walking down the ramp of the northbound Interstate at Hamilton Mill Road. Mr. Larson, the motorist, observed what he at first took to be a pile of clothes, lying a few feet off the shoulder of the road in some trees. As he approached, he realized that it was a dead body. He went up to the Gas station at the intersection and called the police.
I was called to the scene within an hour of the discovery of the body. The weather conditions were very bad, with ice coating the roads and sleet coming down. After allowing crime scene identification technicians to mark the body and take photographs, I approached the scene. The body appeared to be that of a white male, lying partially on his back with his feet pointing towards the state right of way fence and his head pointing towards the Interstate. His hips and legs were twisted so that the right leg was lying over the left leg. His right arm was partially concealed under his body while his left arm was pointing horizontally away from the body. There was one handcuff, part of a pair with the other bracelet missing, locked on his left wrist. The victim had on a pair of blue jeans and a purple sweater. There was a small piece of silver tape, with human hair attached, lying three feet from the victim’s body. The tape appeared to be duct tape. ID Tech Charlie retrieved this tape and placed it an evidence bag.
I could not locate any other evidence and instructed the Coroner’s Investigators to remove the body. As they began to load the body, I noticed a tattoo on the victim’s right forearm. The tattoo was a rose being split by a hunting knife. I put a drawing of the tattoo in my notes at the scene. The body was placed inside a plastic body bag and placed inside Investigator Jack’s vehicle.
I met with Terry Larson, the man who had reported finding the body. While interviewing him at the gas station approximately one hundred yards from the crime scene, I noticed that Mr. Larson had a three- to four-inch piece of silver duct tape stuck to his shoe. I asked him where he’d gotten it. He was not aware that it was there. I took the tape and placed it inside an evidence bag.
After processing the scene for any further evidence, and failing to find any, I proceeded to the county morgue where I met with the Coroner White. The Coroner informed me that the body was frozen and would have to be thawed out until a complete autopsy could be performed.
I returned to my office and sent out a fax to all police agencies advising of the discovery of a body and requesting any information on missing persons matching the description of the body.
The following day I attended the autopsy of the victim. His clothes had been processed and no identifying information had been found on him. Coroner
White stated that the only identifying mark on the victim was a tattoo of a rose being split by a knife on the upper right arm and a surgical mark on the abdominal area.
I met with Detective Baker, the current head detective of Missing Persons. Together we reviewed missing person’s reports attempting to match the tattoo with any reported missing persons for the past year. We located a report for a Douglas Clark.
On October 5th of last year, a report was filed by Clark’s ex-wife, Christine Kline. Among the identifying marks listed for Mr. Clark was a tattoo on the upper right arm. Ms. Kline had made a rough drawing of the tattoo and was very similar to the one I had observed on the body.
After obtaining the missing person’s report on Doug Clark, I used the information to run a criminal history on Mr. Clark. I discovered that Clark had been charged with DWI three years ago. I went to the Fingerprint Section and requested a copy of Clark’s fingerprint card from the DWI arrest. I also requested ID Tech Singleton to take a fingerprint sample from the corpse at the morgue, now tentatively identified as Doug Clark. After some difficulty, ID Tech Singleton was able to obtain a partial set of fingerprints from the deceased’s right hand. These fingerprints were compared with the known fingerprints of Doug Clark. They were a perfect match.
I contacted Mr. Clark’s parents in Ohio and informed them that their son was deceased. Next, I contacted Christine Kline and also informed her. Later that day, I traveled to Ms. Kline’s residence and met with her.
Ms. Kline stated to me that she didn’t know how she was going to explain Mr. Clark’s death to his daughter, Vickie. Ms. Kline stated that she met Doug in Ohio in 1982 and they have a daughter (Vickie) together. Doug had been spending several nights a week in Ms. Kline’s home since approximately July 1st of last year. She stated that on the night of October 2nd of last year, Doug and Ellis Sampson had gone to a party together. They left in Sampson’s tan colored Oldsmobile Omega around ten p.m. They were both very drunk.
Around 2 a.m., Ellis returned alone. Ms. Kline was sitting out in the back yard with her boyfriend, Mark Layton. They were sitting around a fire. Ellis stated that Doug had left the party with a guy in a dark colored pick up truck. Christine and the two other men chatted for a while and then everyone went inside the house to go to sleep. When Christine woke up the next day, Ellis was gone and she hasn’t seen him since. She never saw Doug Clark again since the night he left for the party. She had no idea how he could have ended up dead beside the interstate with a handcuff on his wrist.
After meeting with Ms. Kline, I made repeated attempts to locate Ellis Sampson. Several sources indicated that he had moved back to the state of Alabama. I learned that his hometown was Brunswick, Alabama. I contacted the sheriff of Brunswick and asked him about Ellis. He said that he knew exactly where to find Ellis. He said that Ellis was currently sitting in cell 3 of his jail, having been arrested for assault at a local bar the night before. Upon learning this information, I drove to Brunswick, Alabama and met with Ellis Sampson.
After informing Mr. Sampson of his rights, I obtained a waiver and permission to speak with him. I asked him about Doug Clark. “So, y’all finally found his body,” Ellis said. I had not told him that Doug was dead, or that his body had been recovered.
Without any further prompting, Ellis informed me that he had known that Doug was dead for about three months. He said that he had been there when Doug had been murdered. He said that Christine and Mark Layton had murdered Doug Clark, then insisted that Ellis help conceal the body. Ellis said that he had been feeling “real bad” about the whole thing and was glad to talk about it.
Mr. Sampson informed me that on the night of October 2nd of last year, he and Doug Clark had gone to a party together. While they were at the party, Doug had revealed to him that he had been the one to “turn in” Christine. Ellis asked Doug what he meant. Doug told him that Christine and Mark had been arrested two weeks ago on possession of amphetamine charges and that it had been Doug who had contacted the police and informed on them. Ellis hadn’t heard about the arrests. Doug said that Christine and Doug were currently out on bail. Doug said that he’d been staying at the house off and on for a couple of months and had seen how heavily they were into drugs. He said that he hoped that Christine would get convicted and then he could have sole custody of their daughter, Vickie.
Doug became quite intoxicated at the party and passed out in the passenger side of Sampson’s car on the trip home. When they arrived at the Kline house, Sampson left Clark asleep in the front seat. He could see that a fire was burning in the back yard and walked around to see who was out there. He found Christine and Mark Layton sitting back there staring into the fire and talking. He sat down and shared a few beers with them.
Christine began discussing her arrest two weeks before and wondered how the cops had known exactly where to look for her “stash.” Ellis volunteered the information that it had been Doug who had told the police. At first, Christine didn’t believe it. But then she started getting angrier and angrier. She wanted to talk with Clark. Ellis told her that Clark was asleep in the front seat of his car. Christine got up from the fire and walked around to the front of the house.
In a few minutes, he heard yelling and the sounds of an argument. He and Mark Layton got up and walked around the house into the front yard. When Sampson approached his own car, he sat that Clark had his left wrist handcuffed to the steering wheel. He was struggling with Christine. She was slapping him and he was trying to fend her off with his right arm.
Christine called both men over. She demanded that Sampson repeat what he had said. Sampson repeated what Doug had told him at the party. Clark accused him of being a liar. Sampson got upset, got into the back seat of the car, and put Clark into a headlock. Sampson told Clark to tell the truth. Clark continued to deny it. He started yelling even louder. Mark Layton became angry, opened the front passenger door, restrained Clark’s waving right arm and then told Christine to get something to “shut him up.” Christine disappeared into the house and returned in a few moments with a roll of silver, duct tape. She climbed in the open driver’s side door and while Clark was being restrained by Mark Layton and held in a head lock by Sampson, tore off a piece of tape and put it over Clark’s mouth. Sampson then let go of Clark and climbed out of the car. He thought the incident was over, but as he watched, Christine unrolled more tape and began wrapping Doug’s entire face with the tape. Clark was still struggling and being restrained by Layton. Christine continued to unroll more tape and wrapped more and more of it around Clark’s face and head. In a few seconds, she had covered his mouth, nose and eyes. Clark was giving out muffled screams under the tape. In a few moments, he slumped forward and stopped struggling. Sampson was surprised at how fast it had all happened.
They all checked Doug for a pulse and found none. Sampson also put his head to Doug’s chest and listened for a heart beat and couldn’t hear one. They all stood around for a few moments, trying to decide what to do. Christine turned to Sampson and said that he was just as much involved as they were, and that they would all “fry.” She told Sampson to take the handcuffs off Doug’s body and to dispose of the body. Sampson asked where was the key to the handcuffs. Christine went inside for a few minutes, then came out and said that she couldn’t find the key. Sampson found a pair of pliers and snipped the small chain that held the two handcuffs together. Mark Layton found some scissors and cut the duct tape off Clark’s face. Sampson said that he felt bad and couldn’t look at Clark’s face.
Together, Layton and Sampson loaded Doug’s body into the trunk of Sampson’s car. They drove around for a while, trying to find a place to bury the body. By then it was almost five o’clock and they were afraid that the sun would be coming up soon. They pulled over on the on-ramp of the Interstate at its juncture with Porter-Mill Road and lifted Doug’s body out of the trunk; they half-carried, half-dragged him a few feet into the woods and left him there.
They returned to Christine’s house and Sampson decided to leave. Before he left, both Layton and Christine threatened him. They told him that he should keep his mouth shut “or else.” Sampson interpreted this to mean that they would kill him or blame him for the killing or both.
A few days after the killing, Sampson decided to leave town. He returned to Alabama and has been there ever since.
After writing out the details of Sampson’s statement, I returned to my own jurisdiction and confronted Christine Kline.
Ms. Kline admitted to me that she had lied to me on our previous meeting. She said that she had known all along that Doug Clark was dead. However, she said that didn’t kill him. She said that Ellis Sampson had killed Doug by cutting his throat. When I asked why Ellis would do that, she said that Ellis has a bad temper and had probably gotten angry with Doug. After he’d killed Doug, he had threatened Mark Layton and her to help him conceal the body. He had repeatedly threatened to kill them if they spoke to the police. Christine said that the only way that she could think of to get the police looking for Doug was to file a missing person’s report on him and hope for the best.
After meeting with Ms. Kline, I met with Magistrate Carver and obtained warrants for First Degree Murder against Christine Kline, Mark Layton and Ellis Sampson.