Richard Clarey

Clarey was born on May 18, 1960 in Wiesbaden, West Germany, the elder son of an American officer from Kalamazoo, Michigan stationed in the city and his German wife, Hilde.[2] His younger brother, Paul, was born in 1963. Richard Sr. was rarely at home to care for the children, and so, the two brothers were doted upon by their mother, who allowed them to do whatever they wanted.[2] As a result, Richard Jr. became a delinquent who detested going to school, spending his time drinking alcohol and abusing drugs, in particular LSD, with the prolonged drug and alcohol abuse, as well as numerous head injuries sustained in fights, affecting his mental health.[2] In his dreams, he began to hear voices of prominent Nazi figures who told him that he had a "mission to kill all Americans", after he had read Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.[3] As a teenager, he moved in with an aunt in Oregon, before settling in his father's native city of Kalamazoo.

Clarey first came under the police radar at age 19, when he and an older accomplice, 28-year-old Flavio Lengs, were planning to rob an unsuspecting good samaritan. Their victim of choice would be Jack Stewart, who picked the two up in his car in Kalamazoo on December 18, 1979. After they got into the car, they stole his wallet and stabbed Stewart in the back, pushing him out of the vehicle before speeding off. His injuries proved to be non-fatal, and Stewart managed to call the police, telling them that his assailants were breaking through roadblocks on the I-94, just outside Benton Harbor.[4] Clarey and Lengs were shot and chased after by several patrols, driving at about 110 mph for about 15 miles. Just after going down the expressway, Clarey had to sideswipe to avoid hitting an incoming vehicle, crashing the car into a utility pole in Benton Harbor's central business district. The two criminals jumped out of the vehicle, which burst into flames, and were subsequently rescued by the police officers who arrived at the scene. Richard and Flavio were both sent to nearby Bronson Methodist Hospital, where the former had to be treated for head injuries and a LSD overdose. After that, both were imprisoned for a few years, before they were let out on the streets again.[4]

On January 3, 1984, Clarey was paroled from the Kalamazoo Correctional Center, where he had served on charges of breaking and entering.[5] On April 15th, he accepted a ride from 36-year-old Robert Baranski, an associate of his who had just left a local bar. When they were alone, Clarey shot Robert and later dumped his body at a pier in South Haven.[6] He then picked up another friend of his, 17-year-old John Asher, with the pair planning to drive down to California. Along the way, however, Richard lost control of the car and crashed into a ditch near a I-94 freeway rest stop outside New Buffalo. Needing another vehicle, the pair creeped up to the truck of 59-year-old Floyd Holmes, a travelling salesman from Santa Monica, California who was visiting family members in Detroit,[6] and shot him in the head.[5] They tried to start up the truck, but failed. They then set their sights on another truck, belonging to 28-year-old Dean R. Bultema, a Wimbledon, North Dakota resident who was towing an antique car which he planned to sell in Owosso.[6] Richard shot him as well, discarding the body afterwards.[5] This time, the pair managed to start up the truck, but not long after, got stuck in mud at the rest stop. Clarey fled on foot, leaving Asher behind, who was promptly arrested on the spot.[5] More than 30 officers from both Michigan and Indiana were dispatched to search for the fugitive, utilising police helicopters and bloodhounds, searching through abandoned buildings in the rural areas for any possible signs of Clarey. He was arrested by authorities in the attic of a garage in La Porte, Indiana without incident a few hours later.[7]

The day after his arrest, Clarey confessed to the Baranski killing, indicating that he had dumped the body in a lake near South Haven. He was arraigned on murder charges for the deaths of Holmes and Bultema, while Asher was held for carrying a concealed weapon, with his bail bond set at $25,000.[6] In the meantime, a search was conducted to find Baranski's body,[8] which was found only a month later, washed ashore on a beach in southwestern Michigan.[9] Before his trial, Clarey was ordered to undertake a competency hearing at the Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Ypsilanti, where he was examined by researchers Elissa P. Bendek and Russell C. Petrella over the course of several days. In the end, it was revealed that while Clarey harbored great resentment towards Americans because of his rough childhood and a girlfriend being impregnated by an American, he was aware of his actions and was reasonably intelligent. According to Bendek, he was aware that he could plead insanity, but refrained from doing so, as he believed that he wasn't of an unsound mind.[3]

After Clarey was ruled as competent to stand trial, his trial was scheduled for December.[10] During said trial, more than 50 people testified: among them was psychologist Leonard Donk, who said that the defendant suffered from an array of disorders, most prominently periodic schizophrenia;[11] the other was Raymond Matthews, who revealed that on the night before Holmes' and Bultema's killings, he had been approached by Clarey, who attempted to break into his truck. After he failed to so, he shot at Matthews, but missed him. Hours later, the would-be victim claimed that he had seen a blood-soaked man lying behind a white van, who appeared to be the same assailant from before.[12] His guilt was further proven with a videotaped confession, in which Clarey confessed to the murders. When he took the stand, Richard claimed to have done some soul searching, and had finally realized that he needs help.[13] on December 21, 1984, he was found guilty of the Holmes-Butelma murders, and received mandatory life imprisonment sentences, which he received without any expression on his face.[14][15]

Two months later, he was put on a second trial for the murder of Baranski.[16] Clarey plead guilty to the murder, but did so in a diminished capacity plea, receiving another term of life imprisonment.[17] Two years after his conviction, he appealed two of his murder conviction, but the appeal was rejected by the appeallate court.[18] To this day, Richard Clarey remains incarcerated at the Ionia Correctional Facility.

According to Leonard Donk's report, Clarey was driven by a belief that the blood spilled by his victims would be for a better life, with him confessing to 150 murders total, claiming to have killed people since he was 15 and still lived in West Germany.[19] In addition, he claimed that he felt "excited and detached" during the killings, and since he followed Hitler's doctrines, he often targeted Jews, blacks, Asians and other minorities. His confessions were investigated by several states along the West Coast, but none of his claims were matched to any open murder cases.[1] Donk, who described Clarey in his report as "psychotic, paranoid, psychopathic and schizophrenic; appearing to have suffered brain damage from a long history of drug and alcohol abuse", he also noted his belief that Clarey did indeed kill more people than what he was convicted of.[1]

• List of serial killers in the United States