The Lady of the Dunes and the Mystery Surrounding Her Death

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
On Halloween 2022, the 48-year-old mystery of the Lady of the Dunes was solved. Her name is Ruth Marie Terry, a 37-year-old native of Tennessee. However even when cases are solved, there are many questions left unanswered.

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Flavia Ann Scranton Clark (1930-1995)

During the late 1970s and early 80s, serial killer Hadden Clark lived with his maternal grandparents, Maynard Bailey Scranton and  Flavia Scranton née Bloxham. They were both natives of  Meriden, Connecticut.

Hadden Clark came from a prominent family. The Scrantons traced their lineage back to the Mayflower, and others members were heroes in America's Revolutionary War. His grandfather served as mayor of White Plains, New York, and his father Hadden Irving Clark, Sr., a chemist had invented clear clinging plastic wrap and fire-retardant carpeting.

The family's proper outward appearance masked a deep well of dysfunction. Hadden was the couple's third of four children. His mother Flavia Clark was an alcoholic, and when her third child turned out to be another boy she masked her disappointment by dressing him in girl's clothing and called him Kristen. The four siblings were abused by both parents since the father also suffered from alcoholism, and would engage in bouts of domestic violence in front of his children.

As an adult Hadden Clark graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, however his strange behavior would get him fired from prestigious jobs. His next stop was the Navy, where he served as a cook. In 1985, he received a medical discharge after being diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic "manifested by persecutory and grandiose delusions."

During the 1980s, Hadden Clark was well known in the homeless community. He lived out of a 1983 Nissan pick up truck , and a makeshift camp in the woods. In 1988, a landlord who rented a room to Hadden filed for malicious destruction of property. Hadden had set up a booby trap over a door, sprayed black dye on the the carpet and hid decaying fish heads in the piano, chimney and stove. He told the landlord, "about getting even with other people." He had killed the landlord's cats as well.

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Hayden Irving Clark c.2000

This was something he did as a teenager when he was angry with someone. He would steal their pets and kill them. This was the same year he was charged with assaulting his mother. He pleaded no contest and was put on probation for one year, and he had to continue psychiatric care at the VA.

In 1989, he dressed as a woman, entered several churches and stole purses and coats from ladies attending choir practice. Police pulled him over and found the stolen loot in his trunk, along with women wigs, dresses and cash. He kept telling them, "I'm a woman."

It wasn't until 1992, that police realized they had a serial killer on their hands. Clark dressed up as a woman, broke into Laura Houghteling's apartment and killed her by slitting her throat. A bloody fingerprint on a pillow case, and a hair from one of his wigs led to his arrest. He had done gardening for her family. He was arrested, and the 40-year-old confessed to killing women and girls from the mid-1970s to 1993, along the Eastern Seaboard. Clark said he would dress like a woman, and drink their blood. When asked why he drank the women's blood, he said that he thought that if he drunk enough of it he would be transformed into a woman. He told them he wanted to become the victims he had killed.

The Montgomery police said that while being questioned he acted like three different persons. Beside his own identity, he talked like a woman and an infant. The female personality, identified as Kristen Bluefin was the one who spoke about burying "them" in New Jersey. She didn't clarify who "them" were, sending police to search around his boyhood home of Warren, New Jersey. The search yielded nothing.

The investigators realized the more they dealt with Hadden in his Bluefin persona, the less information they extracted from him. When asked to draw a picture of Kristen Bluefin, he produced a picture of a blonde woman with blue eyes.

Doctors who examined Clark concluded he did suffer from mental illness, but he was manipulative as well.

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Hadden Clark dressed as a woman

Hadden Clark was sentenced to 60 years in Maryland, and police were still not sure how truthful he was about the women he said he killed, which he claimed was about a dozen. He said that his woman alter ego was the one who committed the murders.

In 2000, after agreeing to purchase women's clothing for him, he said he would lead police to the graves of some of his victims in Connecticut. Nothing was found except a bucket with 230 pieces of women's jewelry on his family's property. One of them was Laura Houghteling's high school ring. The collection was his trophies.

The woods, located in the town of Wellfleet, Massachusetts were part of a 7-acre property once owned by his grandfather, Silas Clark. Though Clark grew up in Pennsylvania, Hadden spent his summers in Wellfleet where he worked in restaurants. Clark also met with authorities in Meriden, Connecticut, where he claimed to have buried another body around 1980, in a family property owned by his maternal grandfather Maynard Scranton.

Although never stated officially, exactly where the search was made, it was speculated to have been on the grounds of the abandoned Undercliff Hospital. Authorities were willing to follow Clark's goose chases because in 2000, he led them to Michele Dorr's remains, which were found in a shallow grave in Silver Spring, about 5 miles from her home. She disappeared in 1986. He confessed to killing her after denying he had done it for the previous seven years. He slit her throat, drank some of her blood, threw her body in a duffel bag and took it home, where he cannibalized part of the child before burying her. He lived two doors down from her father's house with his older brother Geoffrey Clark, who had allowed him to move in after being discharged from the Navy. After masturbating in front of Geoff's children, he was ordered to leave. A few months before that he was arrested for shoplifting women's lingerie. 

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Bradfield Clark

This murderous bent in the family didn't just belong to Hadden. In 1984, his older brother Bradfield, a computer software specialist murdered his co-worker Patricia Mak after banging her head against a brick wall, and then strangling her. Patricia was married, and he had invited the couple to dinner, but at the last minute Mr. Mak couldn't make it. Bradfield made advances on her which she spurned. He cut her body into 11 pieces in the bathtub with a kitchen knife, cooked her breasts on the barbecue grill and ate it. What was left of her was stuffed into plastic bags and stored in his Datsun 200 SX. He then tried to commit suicide by stabbing himself in the neck, wrist and abdomen. When the pain became unbearable he called an ambulance. The police arrived as well, which is when he confessed to them what he had done.

In September, 1986, Hadden and Bradfield's father killed himself at his daughter Alison's house in Rhode Island. Prior to the suicide, police were questioning his son Hadden Jr. about the disappearance of 6-year-old Michele Dorr.

That same year, Geoffrey Clark was accused of physically abusing his children in a divorce suit filed by his wife. 

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Lady of the Dunes found in Cape Cod c.1974

After his confession, Hadden Clark was considered a suspect in the 1974 murder of an unidentified woman, named The Lady of the Dunes. A young girl walking on Race Point Dunes in Cape Code found the naked, mutilated body face down on a beach blanket. Her head was almost severed from her neck, and was resting on her folded jeans. Her hands were cut off at the wrists. She had long auburn hair in a ponytail, pink toenail polish, and wore a blue bandanna and Wrangler jeans.

What killed her was a blow to the head by what police suspected was a military entrenching tool. She had been sexually assaulted with a wooden object, apparently after she was dead. It was thought she had lain there for several weeks. There was no sign of a struggle around the body, leading police to believe she knew her attacker, or was killed elsewhere. She had extensive dental work—dental records were checked all over the world, but there was no match. Her identity remained a mystery, despite various theories from different sources.

She was buried in St. Peters Cemetery with a stone marked "Unidentified Female Body Found Race Point Dunes" and the date July 26, 1974. Her remains were exhumed in 1980, 2000, and 2013 in efforts to identify her with DNA testing. 
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The most well known came from Stephen King's son, Joseph Hillström King (pen name Joe Hill) who in 2018, said he thought he recognized her as an extra in the background of the movie Jaws released in 1975. The tie in to Hadden Clark is that he claimed to have buried a woman in a sand dune, after chopping off her hands and using her fingers as bait for fishing. Around the time of the murder he worked in Cape Cod's Provincetown. A copy of a letter and drawing allegedly by Clark depicts a handless, nude woman, labeled "summer 1974" along with a map of Cape Cod.

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Drawing allegedly by Clark depicts a handless, nude woman, labeled "summer 1974" along with a map of Cape Cod

Authorities were torn between believing what Hadden Clark claimed as his body count, and the suspicion that much of it was produced by his sick mind. Ultimately he was convicted of the murders of Houghteling and Dorr which landed him in prison for 60 years.

Time marched forward, and it wasn't until 2022, that the name Ruth Marie Terry, 37, was given to the Lady of the Dunes. She was identified with the use of DNA analysis and genealogy research. 

She went by the aliases of Teri Marie Vizina, Terry M. Vizina and Teri Shannon. Ruth was born in Whitwell, Tennessee, to Johnny and Eva Terry, with her mother passing away at age 23 from epilepsy. Terry was only a year old when she died.

Ruth married Billy Ray Smith, a Korean War veteran on October 21, 1956. It's unknown exactly when she left Tennessee and her husband behind, however in 1958 she gave birth to a baby boy. It's unclear if Billy Ray Smith was the father, but in exchange for financial support she arranged for her supervisor, Richard Hanchett and his wife to adopt the child. She worked at the Fisher Body Automotive plant in Livonia, Michigan and went by her married name of Ruth Smith.

In the 1960s she lived in California, and eventually returned to Tennessee.

In 1972, she reached out to her son, who was recovering from a drug overdose that left him in a coma for 18 days. 

On February 16, 1974, she married Guy Muldavin using one of her aliases Teri Marie Vizina in Reno, Nevada. The couple visited her family in Tennessee and her half-brother in Chattanooga before traveling to Massachusetts. Her family never saw her again.

Her grand-niece Brittanie Novonglosky recalled that Terry seemed "not herself" when in the presence of Muldavin, who exhibited possessive behavior.

Muldavin returned alone driving her vehicle, telling her relatives they had a fight during their honeymoon and he had not heard from her again.

Her nephew John Randall Terry said: "My father, well, he left in '74, he went to California looking for her. And her husband at the time said she sold everything she had and joined a cult."

Her son Richard Hanchett, like many adopted children, decided to find his family of origin and in 2018 took a DNA test, and met his mother's family in Tennessee. This is when he learned she had been missing since the early 1970s, and her family had been searching for her since then. 

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Guy Rockwell Muldavin c.1960

Guy Rockwell Muldavin was always considered a prime suspect not only in the death of Ruth Terry, but a previous wife, and other unsolved murders from Northern California. 

Muldavin was an antiques dealer who went by the aliases of Raoul Guy Rockwell and Guy Muldavin Rockwell.

He was a tall, handsome man, measuring 6'4", and he hailed from New York but grew up in Ribera, New Mexico where his family ran a cattle ranch. He was well-schooled, and before becoming involved with antiques he had worked as an actor and disc jockey, or so he said.

After 1950, he ran an antique store in Seattle with his first wife, Jo Ellen Loop until 1956, when their 10 year marriage went bust. They had a child together Towers Rockwell, born in 1949. The reason for the split was Manzanita Hearns who he met as a customer. Their meeting ended her marriage as well.

It seems Manzanita's days were numbered when her new husband met Eveline Marie Emerson in 1959. Within months of this meeting, Manzanita and her 18-year-old daughter, Dolores had vanished. Using this pretext, Muldavin obtained a divorce on the grounds of desertion in July. With divorce papers in hand he left Seattle, and flew to Reno using the name of Michael Strong.

On July 29, 1960 using his alias he married Eveline Emerson, a French national who was five years older than him. With new wife in tow he bought an expensive sportscar and drove across the country to Provincetown, Massachusetts. He posed as a Vancouver newspaper reporter.

​His next stop was New York for rhinoplasty to straighten his nose.  Once recovered, he drove to Key West, then returned to New York for another nose operation.

Perhaps it was Muldavin's uncaring behavior, or what he told William Mearns, Manzanita's ex-husband, to explain the women's disappearance, but Mearns contacted police in August, 1960. He told them he had not heard from either woman since April. Manzanita usually made a monthly visit to Vancouver to see her two other daughters, age 7 and 13, who lived with him. 

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Seattle house where Guy Muldavin killed and buried his wife and stepdaughter c.1960

​In the meantime, police found parts of a human body and tissue in a newly sealed septic tank at the Seattle property where Muldavin had lived and run his antique shop from. Other human remains were found in the Columbia River which was close to the home. It was reported that "an upper dental plate and a section of arm bone, sawed at both ends," was found in the tank.

​In the autumn of 1960, FBI wanted to question Muldavin in connection with the mysterious disappearance of his second wife and his step-daughter. He was also wanted on a charge of fraudulently obtaining $10,000 from the stepmother of his third wife, supposedly to buy antiques in Canada. He had disappeared after obtaining the money.

Muldavin was found in a Greenwich Village apartment cluttered with art. He had dyed his dark hair red, shaved off his mustache and was using the name Michael Strong on the apartment's three-year lease. He was charged with unlawful flight to avoid giving testimony relating to "the mutilation of human remains."

Muldavin was brought to trial in October, 1961, on a charge of grand larceny, and testified that a "childhood resentment of being a Jew and a foster child led to a life of deception." He admitted to misrepresenting himself in Seattle as a Fulbright scholar, a university graduate, a war hero and a world traveler.

His brother Michael Muldavin went through Harvard Law School, where he was engaged as an economist in Russian research. He was also an intelligence officer on the staff of General Douglas McArthur.

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Composite depictions made of the Lady of the Dunes between 1979 and 2006

A valuable witness for the prosecution, was Ronald Gregory who died in March, 1961 from diabetes. He was a friend of Muldavin who helped him compose fictitious letters about his achievements. After Muldavin was arrested he denied killing his second wife and her daughter, but he hinted that he knew what had happened to them. The problem for the King County District Attorney was they had no evidence to support a charge of murder. They could not identify the remains found in the septic tank, nor could they verify how "she or they" died, much less prove who killed "her or them."

Muldavin's mother Sylvia, his brother Michael, and his latest wife Eveline were all in attendance during his trial. In December, 1961, he was found guilty of grand larceny, which carried a maximum sentence of 15 years. Right after this he was charged with first degree perjury.

In February, 1962, Muldavin was released on a suspended sentence, on condition he repay his mother-in-law Louise Emerson, the $10,000 he stole from her. He had been in jail since his arrest in New York. He remarried Eveline on August 10, 1963 in Los Angeles using his real name of Guy R. Muldavin.

In 1972, Guy Muldavin was living in Los Angeles and working in the antiques business. That same year his mother Sylvia died. She had been born Sylvia Silverblatt in New York to Spaniard parents. By 1930, she was divorced with the surname of Muldavin (Maldavin).

Around this time he divorced Eveline and met Ruth Terry, The Lady of the Dunes, who was found dead about three months after they wed in a civil ceremony on February 16, 1974.

​He married Phyllis Roper on October 18, 1975 in Los Angeles. Unlike her predecessors, Phyllis remained married to Muldavin, and outlived her husband who died in 2002.

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Barbara Joe Kelley disappeared in 1950, and she has never been found.

Around 1976, Muldavin moved to Chular, California near Salinas. He went on to work as an executive vice president of a silver store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. He retired in 1985, and worked as a volunteer host at the KAZU radio station in Pacific Grove. It was a 3-hour weekly radio program Talk To Me, which had developed quite a following. He would take calls from the audience and make commentary on different topics, including "the erosion of culture and his belief that killing has become a habit."

Muldavin is also a suspect in the murders of Henry Lawrence "Red" Baird, a 28-year-old truck driver and Barbara Joe Kelley, a 17-year-old waitress he was dating. 

The couple was last seen in Humboldt County, California on June 17, 1950. Baird's body was found face-down on a beach near Table Bluff on June 18. He was shot behind the head, and was naked except for his shoes and socks. Barbara's clothes were carefully folded and tucked underneath his clothes with the exception of her stockings and shoes. A wallet containing $20 were with the clothes. Baird's car, with the doors open was parked just off Highway 101, and his .22 caliber, automatic pistol was missing. It was believed Barbara Kelley was kidnapped. She has never been found.

When this crime occurred Muldavin was living with his in-laws, and worked as a short-order cook at a restaurant owned by his father-in-law Jerome Loop. The restaurant was on Baird's route where he delivered bread at. Kelley worked as a waitress at the Sweet Shop in Fortuna, California, where Baird had once worked as well.

According to Joellen Loop's obituary in 2002, Muldavin sang on a radio station in Eureka, Humboldt County between 1947 and 1950.

However there was another suspect in this crime. His name was Gail Patrick Irish. He confessed to killing Kelley, Baird and Billy Wells Hale in 1963. The 46-year-old had a history of sex offenses, and was admitted to California Men's Colony, the state mental hospital when he made this confession to the hospital chaplain. When he was arrested he had a large-caliber hunting rifle.

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Gail Patrick Irish confessed to killing Baird and Kelley, but he had a history of sexual offenses and mental illness

Similar to Baird's murder, Hale was killed in 1957. He was parked with a woman six miles north of Marysville, California when a stranger walked up to the car and shot him in the head. He tied the woman up, and drove 16 miles then pulled into a private driveway. He threatened the woman with a razor but the timely arrive of the homeowners allowed her to escape. When Irish made his confession, police were unable to locate her.

Irish described where he had found Baird and Kelley in similar circumstances. He ordered them out of the car at gunpoint. Baird was ordered to strip and then he marched him to the beach where he shot him. He drove Barbara to a logging camp near Crannell, California, shot her in the back, wrapped her body in a blanket, and buried it off a logging road.

He was unable to take police to where he buried Kelley, however the logging road he name did exist even though it was overgrown in 1963.

Police misplaced the hunting rifle they took from him when he was arrested, so they could not compare it to the bullet taken from Baird's body. Irish was never charged with any of the murders due to lack of evidence.

In August 2023, prosecutors officially named Guy Muldavin as the killer of Ruth Marie Terry, based on the investigation into her death. But the question begs to be asked: how could Clark so eerily  describe what his supposed victim look like when compared to the body on the beach? ​

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