All language subtitles for Lady.of.the.Dunes.Hunting.a.Cape.Cod.Killer.S01E01.The.Murder.and.The.Myth.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-NTb_track3_[eng]

I became a detective because

I thought maybe I could
make some sort of difference.

Cold cases, the missing,
the unidentified,

they tend to fall through
the cracks.

The Lady of the Dunes case
was one of the reasons

I wanted to come down here.

When I got the case,
I went to the grave

and I promised her that
I'd get her name back

and get her back to her family.

It was the
most high-profile case

I had ever had the opportunity
to investigate.

And I ended up losing
my career as a result of this.

This is the first time that
I've spoken completely on camera

about my role
in the investigation.

The fact that someone
had remained unidentified

all that time is so tragic.

It was a daunting task.

I would work on this case
on my days off.

Ultimately I was told,
"Just leave it alone."

I knew all along that

there could be
some serious repercussions.

But I just kept going.

You're trying to tie
one hand behind my back

but, basically, [bleep] you.

I'm not stopping.
I owe it to her.

This is a legendary case.

It really was mythical,
urban-legend-like.

It's an enduring mystery
that has frustrated...

The oldest unidentified
homicide victim

in Massachusetts.

It was a brutal crime

in the dunes of Provincetown
in 1974.

She was known as
the Lady of the Dunes.

Her name, a mystery.

It became more
than just a story.

It became kind of like folklore.

Her head was crushed
and nearly decapitated.

Her hands cut off.
- Who was this woman?

Who was the killer?
What happened?

And why?

Their take was that this person
was taunting the police.

No small community anywhere is
prepared for that kind of thing.

Somewhere out there,
there's a family

who's got to be missing
this young lady.

Over the decades,
there have been many theories

about what could have happened
to her.

A bank robber who'd escaped
from a regional jail.

Could she have known too much?

Could this have been a mob hit?

The theories just went on
and on and on.

This is beyond grisly
and beyond disturbing.

It really, really
rattled the community.

Days turned to weeks, weeks
to months, months to years.

Former detectives say
evidence was thrown away

and contaminated.

I just always thought of it
as an unbelievable ghost story

that probably would
never be solved.

You can't help
but bond with this person

and feel like their soul is
in your hands.

I got a call about a woman
who went missing in 1973.

Young girl, running guns, drugs,
crisscrossing the country,

trying to shoot police officers.

Honest to God,
you can't make this up.

It's like out of a movie.

I remember this area.

This is very familiar.

All of us kids would just
come out here and run around

and look for driftwood
and animal tracks

and just hang out and explore.

We came to Provincetown
in the summers.

Our family friends used to rent
this dune shack every summer.

And all of the families would
converge here during that week

and swim and party.

I remember it was
a beautiful day.

It was sunny.
My parents and my sister

spent the day swimming,
and then they were walking back.

The people
that had rented the dune shack,

they had a couple of dogs.

And the dog veered off and
started barking at something.

So my sister followed the dog.

The dog turned around here
to this clump of scrub pines

and that's
when she saw the body.

When my parents tell the story,

my mother used to say
that she heard my sister go,

"Mom, Dad" and that
there was something in the tone

of her voice that
really frightened my mother.

And she said she grabbed
my father's arm and she said,

"I'm not going.
Lenny, you go look."

It was a woman and she was
laying on her folded clothes.

Like she could've
been sunbathing.

They took the jeep
and went to the ranger station

and reported it to the rangers.

She was laying down, facedown,
on half of a beach towel.

Had dungarees and a kerchief
she used as a pillow, sort of.

Reddish brown,
auburn hair, 5'6".

The body was nude
when she was found.

They weren't sure how long she
had been there, up to two weeks.

It was July. It was hot.

They didn't even want to get
close to the body.

It was that bad.

Her skull was crushed.

Her head was nearly decapitated.

Her hands were cut off.

Someone clearly wanted to hide
her identity.

This looked like someone who
had perhaps done this before.

This was one of
the most publicized

and notorious unresolved
homicides in New England.

It's a beautiful location
contrasted

with the brutal murder
of an unknown young woman.

Here's a grave,
an unidentified female.

Police weren't just searching
for a killer.

They were trying
to find out who this woman was.

We've been spending summers
on the dunes

since 1956 as a family.

We had gone to town
to pick up some groceries.

And they waved us down.
They seemed very agitated.

Everybody was shouting
at one time.

And they said, "We found a body,
we found a body."

After the body was found,

I think the whole town became
a little more spooked.

Who knows who's lurking
in the dunes?

It really, really
rattled the community.

They would lock the windows,
lock the doors,

be a little suspect
of strangers.

It was sort of like
a town-wide game of Clue.

I spent a great deal of time
in Provincetown

when I was an adolescent.

It was just a wonderful,
exotic place.

This is not a pejorative word
here,

but you just have a lot
of weirdos.

And the town encourages that.
It welcomes it in.

You have the artists, you have
the gay and lesbian community.

The town would have
been crawling with hippies.

Back in the '70s,

our year-round population was
probably about 2,500.

In the summertime,

that number would swell
to 100,000 no problem.

I worked for the Provincetown
police department for 35 years.

In 1974, started when I was 17.

Working summers
as a summer patrolman.

It was known as Helltown.

The bikers would take
over one bar.

Across Commercial Street,

the fishermen would be
in another bar,

and they would be bumping heads.

All the time.

We would go all night long
from fight to fight to fight.

I would go home every night,
bloodied, torn uniform.

Anything goes.
Drugs, alcohol, you name it.

It was allowed.

I shouldn't say it was allowed.
It went on.

But something like this
was just huge news.

That something of that magnitude
could happen in our town.

The first step was
to identify her.

And we reached out
to the community.

Because the community is
so small.

Everybody knows everybody.
Word was out.

Nobody was missing anybody
from their family.

We knew immediately
it was nobody local.

As the days and weeks
and months went by,

we could find no more
information about this woman.

So the community gave her
a name.

The Lady of the Dunes was
a term that the locals used.

I'm not sure
that my father was the one

that came up with it. In fact,
I'm pretty sure he wasn't.

Based on the proximity
to the dune shacks,

the location of that area of
where her body was positioned,

the perpetrator
most likely was very familiar

with that area in the dunes.

At the time, in order
to get out to the dune trails,

there was a shack

that was manned
by the National Park Rangers.

And when you would pull up
to the booth,

they would write down
every plate number

and the name of the operator who
was going out onto the dunes.

The shack isn't manned
24 hours a day.

Anybody who's familiar
with driving

out there would know that.

It would appear
that this type of murder,

he probably murdered prior
or has murdered since.

This was not a crime of passion.
This was premeditated.

There was definitely
a sense of unease around town.

We were wondering if somebody
in the community was a murderer.

That had happened before.

Five years before the Lady
of the Dunes was discovered,

there was a serial killer in
Provincetown named Tony Costa.

This was the first grave
that was found.

And after probing, we found the
remains of an unidentified girl.

There are indications
that there are teeth marks

on some of these parts
of these dismembered bodies.

Tony Costa was known as "Tony
Chop Chop" due to his crimes.

That particular case
occurred actually in Truro,

the next town over.

There were similarities
with Tony Costa,

and now we have another
murdered young woman.

These women who were murdered
were all visitors.

Nobody in town
suddenly was like,

"Hey, where did so and so go?"

The age of
the decomposed bodies

may go back beyond six months,
eight months, nine months.

We don't know what took place
during that time,

and at least 2,000 or 3,000
missing females

in the United States

and we don't know how many may
be buried in the Truro woods.

It was incredibly disturbing
to the town and upsetting,

and when something that dark
happens again,

you start to wonder if this
isn't becoming a new normal.

The Tony Costa thing was
fresh in everybody's mind.

Everybody in town
was concerned and afraid

that there was
a serial killer around.

Tony Costa had been
charged with

killing several women in Truro.

But Tony Costa had died by what
was determined to be suicide

in prison...

...prior to the Lady of
the Dunes being found.

I was 12 years old at the time

that the woman in the dunes
was found.

It's something
that I'll never forget.

One thing that sticks out
in my mind

was me going to the police
station to visit my dad.

The police station was
underneath Town Hall.

You walked down a set of stairs.
When you walked in,

there was a small room.
To the left was his office.

As you walked into his office,

his desk was right
in front of me.

There was paneled walls
on either side and photographs.

A gruesome display of her hands
chopped off, her skull caved in.

I remember the skull
laying on his desk.

The whole thing was
pretty disturbing.

Chief Meads worked
tirelessly on this case.

In the very beginning,

Chief Meads ran down
every possible lead, hoping

something would jump out.

He believed
if we could identify her,

it would immediately take us
to her killer.

Canvassed the entire area.

We used metal detectors, brought
in the park police bloodhounds,

canvassed the area for the hands
and made a complete search.

He always had something
that he was looking at.

Our own men went through
every motel,

hotel, campground looking for
some articles of clothing

perhaps that
some young lady had left behind.

In the '70s there was no DNA.

The most advanced
forensic tools available

would have been blood typing,
fingerprints, photographs.

When those leads didn't
pan out,

he tried to identify her
through dental records.

Chief Meads turned
to the dental records

because the teeth
that were in her skull

contained a large sum of money
invested in gold fillings.

And it was done in what's called
the New York style of dentistry.

You know, you can draw
a lot of conclusions

about the dental work.

The gold in this young lady's
head

is valued today at $7,000
to $10,000.

So Chief Meads contacted
the American Dental Association

to see if any dentists out there
recognize these charts.

He contacted every state
in the country.

As many dentists as he could.

You would think or hope

that someone would
have looked at that

and said, "Yes,
I know who that is.

I worked on her."

I believe it haunted my dad
because he really felt

like he wanted to give
this woman a name

and give her family
some closure.

He was personally responsible
for having her buried

in the Catholic cemetery.

The Catholic church,

they were a little hesitant
to let him do that

because they didn't know
if she was a Catholic or not

but he had some connections

and he was able to get
them to allow her

to be buried in the cemetery.
The good part about that

was they were able to have
her right there

if they ever had to exhume her.

Every cop wants to solve
every crime,

but this really struck
a note with Chief Meads.

He worked on the case
all the time.

He was determined about it.

This was always a Provincetown
case from its inception.

In the beginning,

the state police worked
the case with Chief Meads.

As the years went on, the
state police input dissipated.

When Chief Meads was
interviewed, you know,

"Why are you putting so much
time and effort into this case?"

And he said, "You have no
business being a police officer

if you can't demonstrate
the duty of care,

you owe to your victim
and to their family."

As a police chief,

my father was haunted
by the fact

that the woman didn't have
an identity.

And I think the biggest thing
with the case

was he wanted to put a name
to her and then in turn

that would help him solve
the case.

As a teenager,

I was given this bag
as a Christmas gift

or a birthday gift, and
then all of a sudden, one day,

my father asked me
if he could use the bag.

He would put the skull in it,

kept it in his possession
all the time,

and took it from one place
to the other.

Chief Meads' next step was

to get a clay reconstruction
done of her skull.

He had the skull brought to
have clay restructure the face,

the bones,
to come up with a picture.

She's described as 5'6"
to 5'8",

about 140 pounds, athletic
build, long, reddish brown hair.

They sought information
from the public

based on those composites,

if anyone could make
an identification.

Chief Meads went to the media
with it everywhere

and every possible way he could.

The hope was that
somebody would recognize her.

The chief has had hundreds
of leads,

hundreds of letters
and hundreds of disappointments.

I often thought

somebody out there
is missing a family member.

Why are we not hearing about it?

Through the course
of the investigation,

they found a good five or
six women who were still alive

and did not want to be found.

Like, "Yeah, I hate my family.

I disappeared.
Like, leave me alone."

Provincetown at that time
was full of people

who were escaping things.

I think there was always
kind of a thought like,

could she have been a criminal?

Was she on the run?

When the body was first found,
the hands were missing.

The only logical reason

to cut off the Lady
in the Dunes' hands

is to prevent
her identification.

Back in the '70s,
you have to ask yourself,

who got fingerprinted?

Military, federal employees, criminals.

We arrested many fugitives
of justice

because they could get lost
in the crowds.

They could come here
and disappear.

He was just trying everything
he could

in his power
to come up with a solution.

The body of work

that Chief Meads left behind
was voluminous,

it was detailed,
and it was ruthless in the way

he hunted down every lead.

His only wish was
to find out who she was.

And he took offense to the fact

that somebody did something
in his town.

The lawman obsessed
by his search.

Police Chief Jim Meads'

investigation has become
his obsession.

As time progressed,

we didn't see Dad as much
as we had in the past

because he was buried
in his work.

As time goes on,
my hopes diminish.

This was the biggest case

that he had in his tenure
as police chief.

Chief Meads had it right
when he said

our goal here is to identify her
and get her her name back.

That was adopted
by Chief Tobias.

I became detective
and I asked him

if I could take over the case.

He had to kind of ease
my way in there.

I mean, that was really
his personal property.

This was his baby, and
he was reluctant to let it go.

I would go through that case
file time and time again.

This was not just
a random act of violence

that the person would
have just been left there

if she'd been killed
on the spot just randomly.

This person set this body up to
taunt the police, if you will.

When I took over the case
from Chief Meads,

I was starting from scratch.

That case folder was
at least three feet thick.

At least a thousand pages
of documents, reports,

magazines, news articles,
notes from Chief Meads.

I read that case folder
so many times,

hoping something would jump out.

But, at that point in time,

I had a new investigative tool
that Chief Meads did not have.

That was a whole
different ballgame.

Controversial technique known
as DNA fingerprinting.

Putting more
and more criminals behind bars.

It's the latest
in high-tech crime solving.

Virtually any trace
of human contact left

at the scene of a crime
can now be analyzed,

tested, and retested
to reveal a person's

smallest genetic makeup.

DNA was just beginning
to be used in cases.

According
to Provincetown Police,

they went to go get the physical
evidence from the crime scene

because they wanted to test it.

I knew the State Police

and the district attorney's
office held the evidence.

They had the towel,
the jeans, her hair.

That physical evidence
could very well have DNA on it,

not only the DNA
of the perpetrator,

but the DNA of the victim.

I made arrangements
to go get the evidence.

When I got to
the state police barracks,

they gave me a sheet of paper.

It was a report saying that they
had thrown away the evidence.

I was shocked.

Why in the world would
you throw away the evidence

to an unsolved murder?

The case was only 15 years old.

The reason
they had gotten rid of it

was they had a storage locker
and they needed more room.

So there goes my source of DNA
for the Lady in the Dunes.

This was devastating
to the investigation.

I kept my mouth shut about this
for 30 years.

I didn't want to publicly

damage the reputation

of law enforcement.

And then I had gotten
a lead about a fugitive

who had escaped
and had disappeared.

I got a call from
the Pembroke Police Department.

One of their investigators

had seen a story
on the Lady of the Dunes,

and he had a theory about a
woman who went missing in 1973.

Rory Gene Kesinger.

Her story really is
a crazy story unto itself.

Young girl, running guns, drugs,
crisscrossing the country,

trying to shoot police officers.

It's almost like Bonnie
and Clyde without Clyde.

Rory was living just off-Cape.

The police department there
did a raid one night

on her apartment.

When they raided it, she tried
to shoot one of the officers.

She came in from the front
bedroom with a gun in her hand

and very politely said,

"I'm sorry, Officer,
but I have to kill you."

Pushed the weapon that she
had to the side, handcuffed her.

We found a number of guns.
We found a lot of money.

It was probably the biggest
drug raid in Plymouth County.

She ended up in the Plymouth
House of Correction.

Honest to God,
you can't make this up,

It's like out of a movie.

Kesinger hacksawed her way
through these bars,

slipped out this window,
and was never heard from again.

The timing was perfect for
her to be the Lady in the Dunes

'cause it happened before
the Lady in the Dunes was found.

She fit the description
physically.

She was a criminal,

which fit one
of the three possibilities of

why you would remove the hands.

But the only way
to confirm that she was a match

for the Lady of the Dunes
was through DNA.

Rory Gene Kesinger
absolutely changed the course

of my investigation

because now I was focused
on this one individual.

But unfortunately the evidence
that had been

found at the scene,
that had been thrown away.

Chief Tobias sent the skull
of the Lady of the Dunes

to attempt to extract DNA
for a profile.

At that point in time, Cellmark

was like the premier
DNA company.

So we sent the samples there.

DNA fingerprinting
by Cellmark Diagnostics.

With virtually 100% accuracy,
researchers can now link

a drop of blood found
at a crime scene.

DNA was new, and it
wasn't 100% guaranteed.

But I was hopeful.

If I can get DNA from the body

and then find a family member
from Rory Gene Kesinger,

this could solve the case.

But, unfortunately, Cellmark
was ultimately unable to extract

enough DNA to get a profile.

It was a dead end.

That was so depressing.

At this point,
the case is about 25 years old.

And Dr. Bruce Jackson
had come into the picture.

Dr. Bruce Jackson worked

with the federal government
identifying soldiers' remains

brought back from Vietnam.

I mean, this guy knew his stuff.

Dr. Jackson volunteered
his time, his lab, his money.

So, what is my next avenue
for DNA?

I needed to exhume the body.

The samples were sent
to Dr. Jackson.

And he was able to get
a good sample.

It was a godsend.

Now that we have a sample,
we can see

if Rory Gene Kesinger was
the Lady of the Dunes.

Tracking down her family
was very difficult

because of the amount of time
that had passed.

But I did eventually find
the mother.

I'd had a gut feeling this was
gonna be it from the first time

I heard about
Rory Gene Kesinger.

So now I could test her DNA
against the DNA

from the Lady of the Dunes.

This was huge.
This could solve the case.

But it was not
Rory Gene Kesinger.

I was devastated.

I had 10 years' worth
of work on Rory Kesinger.

I remember looking at that huge
file and thinking to myself,

"I'm back at square one."

You know, it's a haunting
ghost story.

Over the decades,
there have been many theories

about who she was,
what could have happened to her.

It very quickly goes in
these wild directions

of satanic cults
and biker gangs, UFOs,

actual ghosts in the dunes.

Infamous mob boss
Whitey Bulger spent lots of time

in Provincetown,
and this looked like a mob hit.

Could she have known too much?

But then I got
a phone call from

Montgomery County, Maryland.

A serial killer confessed to
killing the Lady in the Dunes.

Marking soft sticks.

My name is Alec Wilkinson,

and I'm a longtime writer
at "The New Yorker."

I was up on the Cape and I
was talking to a police chief

and I said,
"Anything interesting going on?"

And he said, "I think
I have a serial killer."

The murderer's name
was Hadden Clark.

I spent my childhood
on Cape Cod.

My mother made me aware

that I had been in a swimming
class with Hadden Clark.

I really only had
a sort of incomplete memory

of a kind of shivering
little boy.

I got in touch with Hadden
probably 1999, 2000,

because I was so intrigued
by the story

that the Wellfleet
police chief had told me.

Hadden Clark wasn't
the normal sort of killer

you meet in prison.

He was not an imposing
or threatening sort of person.

He had a kind of
hidden sullen side

that was capable
of a real menace.

His family was from this area.

He had worked in Provincetown.

His diagnosis
is a paranoid schizophrenic.

Clark exhibited narcissistic as
well as sociopathic tendencies.

There was certainly
something wrong with him.

Hadden Clark first came
to the attention of our agency,

Montgomery County, Maryland,

in the middle '80s

when the disappearance
of Michele Dorr occurred.

Six-year-old Michele Dorr
mysteriously disappeared

while outside her
Silver Spring home.

Clark at the time
was a neighbor,

lived just a few doors away.

The police questioned
a man known

as the neighborhood oddball.

Then Hadden Clark's name came up
in another investigation.

The friends, family,

and co-workers
of Laura Houghteling

have a mystery on their hands
tonight,

trying to figure
out what happened

to the young Bethesda woman

who appears to have vanished
without a trace.

Police have found traces
of blood in her bedroom

and bloody bedclothes
in a nearby wooded area.

In that blood
was Hadden Clark's fingerprint.

Her mother had hired
Hadden Clark as a handyman.

Clark finally confessed
to the killing

and led police to the young
woman's body in Bethesda.

In the late '90s,

information came from
another inmate

in the State Correctional
Facility

who had befriended Clark.

This man had long hair
and a beard, and Hadden said,

"I know who you are. You're
the second coming of Christ.

You're Jesus."

And Hadden would tell Jesus
things about what he had done.

And he said that he'd been
responsible for the death

of the Lady of the Dunes.

Hadden Clark confessed to
killing Lady in the Dunes over

and over and over again.

He eventually would tell us
that he became angry,

attacked the woman,
bludgeoned her,

and removed all her clothing.

He then removed her hands.

Clark's description of what
he did to the Lady of the Dunes,

was consistent
with the crime scene.

Hadden Clark made several
drawings when he was in prison,

one of which depicted the victim
in the position she was found,

where her body was found.

And they found,
in his possessions,

tokens from his other crimes.

One of the things
that they found

was a jewelry box filled
with beach sand.

Beach sand, the Lady of the
Dunes was found in the dunes.

Acting on this information
that Clark had provided,

we contact
the Massachusetts State Police.

It was determined it
would be beneficial

to bring Clark out to Cape Cod.

We made arrangements to see
if he could show me

where the body was,
and where her hands were.

Anytime you're dealing
with someone with a diagnosis

of paranoid schizophrenia,

it's certainly worth looking at.

They drive him up
from Maryland.

They had brought Jesus along too

because Jesus is
the Hadden whisperer.

The two of them were
transported

by Montgomery County detectives
as well as FBI personnel.

My supervisor felt that I had an
ability to keep Clark talking.

Hadden had two personalities.

And the second was a woman named
Kristen who was mean and evil.

And remorseless.

On this particular morning,
he was Kristen.

And Kristen wasn't gonna
cooperate

unless she was allowed
to obtain some women's clothing.

And about 10 miles
from Wellfleet,

they go to a department store.

This is 20 years ago.

You know, it was a bold thing
on Hadden's part to ask for it.

We were going the extra mile
on this.

Clark went in.
He picked out various items.

I remember a couple
black SUVs pulling up

in front of the station
over here.

And they were late.

And they told me they were late

because Hadden Clark kept
attacking the deputies

that were transporting him

'cause he wanted
to drink their blood.

We drive out into the dunes,

accompanied
by Massachusetts State Police.

I rode in the back seat
with Hadden Clark,

and it was the creepiest day
of my life

sitting next to this
known serial killer.

He provided detail about
how the area had changed.

I found Clark's information
to be very compelling.

In working with Clark,

you had to demonstrate
a great deal of patience.

It might take you an hour
or more to get a yes or a no.

He took us almost to what
I would learn to be the location

she was recovered.

But he ultimately was
unable to provide any evidence

or any significant detail
at all.

I think he could manipulate us.

He was out of jail for the day,

got to see Provincetown
and the dunes.

As we worked through
the details provided by Clark,

we know some of that information

was out there
in the public venue.

But I believe there's
still a possibility Clark

may have been responsible
for it.

It was disappointing.

Back to square one again.

At some point,
it begins to wear you down,

and you learn to be less hopeful
after dead end after dead end.

You're looking for
the next lead.

All my life I've
always wondered who my mom was.

When I was old enough
to understand,

my parents sat me down
and explained I was adopted.

Oh, thank you.

He was always in search
of his mom.

This was so hard on his heart
and his mind.

I started thinking.

You know, maybe
I should figure out who she is.

I said, "But it could be
a Pandora's box.

It could open up so many things
that you're not ready for.

With every positive,
there's also negatives.

So you just got to be ready
for all that

when that box gets opened."