The Clarks of Amesbury, Part One

Prepare to journey back to 1954, as we unravel a tale of love, betrayal and mystery in the quiet town of Amesbury, Massachusetts. This episode is brimming with scandal, heartbreak, and the chilling disappearance of Melvin Clark, Jr. We pull back the curtain on the Clark family's troubled marriage, revealing a young couple's struggle to create a life together amidst financial pressures. Listen as we uncover the gritty details of Lorraine Clark's affair and the chain of events that led to Mel's mysterious vanishing act.

Our investigation takes us deep into the shocking 'swap-mate' scandal that reverberated across this seemingly ordinary town. We dissect the strange circumstances that unfolded, from the fight between Lorraine and Mel that fateful April night, to the unsettling discovery of Mel's car and the stench of benzene that lingered in the trunk.

Hammond, James H. “Wife says Clark beat her on night he disappeared.” The Boston Daily Globe. June 9, 1954.
Queen, Eilery. “The Dream Cottage Murder.” The San Francisco Examiner. November 14, 1954.
Scullin, George. “The Sordid End to the Swap-Mate Scandal.” Cosmopolitan. March 1959.

For images related to the cases, check out the Instagram.

Episode Transcript

Julia Goodwin (00:00):
Hello, hello, this is Julia, and murder is bad
.
Here's a little about me.

(00:21):
Sometimes I fall down deeprabbit holes after seeing a
murder case in an old issue ofcosmopolitan.
Marilyn Monroe was on the March1959 issue of cosmopolitan.
It was the Morals and Mannersspecial issue.
Headlines on the cover wereLove, lauren, sob, sisters, is

(00:45):
Divorce a Disease?
And Swapmate Scandals.
Guess which one we'll betalking about today?
Go on, guess.
This is the part in Kitchoswhere the characters pause while
the wee little ones give ananswer and no matter what it is,
they say oh yeah, you'retotally right.
Well, that's right.

(01:05):
Swap-mate Scandal.
The full title of the articlewritten by George Scullin was
the Sordid End to the Swap-mateScandal, and upon first reading
it seemed very thorough andexcellently embellished.
But when I started my ownsleuthing, things became a lot

(01:30):
more complicated.
In 1953, young adults werelistening to Perry Como, seeing
Arthur Miller's the Crucible atthe Theatres and reading From
here to Eternity by James Jones.
Queen Elizabeth II wascoronated, julius and Ethel

(01:54):
Rosenberg were executed and inDecember Marilyn Monroe was the
cover model for the very firstissue of Playboy Magazine.
Our story takes place in thesmall town of Amesbury,
massachusetts, about 40 milesnorth of Boston and five miles

(02:18):
south of the New Hampshire stateline.
In Scullin's article hedescribed it as a walled city at
the harbor's edge, lying withinan amphitheater of hills facing
only itself.
It used to be a manufacturingmecca but was more like a

(02:40):
factory graveyard in 1953.
Amesbury is the birthplace ofJosiah Bartlett, a signer of the
Declaration of Independence,who I know nothing about.
It was also the home of theabolitionist, quaker and poet
John Greenleaf Whittier kind ofwhat they were known for.

(03:00):
Whittier actually wrote a poemabout another Amesbury native,
susanna Martin, one of the 14women executed during the Salem
witch trials.
Susanna Martin famously laughedat Mercy Lewis and Ann Putnam
throwing their little fits inthe courtroom Can relate, but

(03:22):
about 260 years after SusannaMartin's execution, a young
couple looks to make their homein Amesbury.
Lorraine Ina Eaton was born onJanuary 13, 1926, to Samuel and
Alberta Eaton and lived withthem and her sister Shirley at 7

(03:45):
Maple Street.
People fawn over her looks anddescribed her as having an
unsnobbish beauty.
They also noted her small,baby-like voice that she kept
well into adulthood.
Lorraine was also an activemember in the Elizabeth H.
Whittier Club, that's JohnWhittier's sister, and the

(04:08):
club's purpose was to unite thecommon good of all Amesbury
women.
Lorraine was very fond ofreading poetry aloud and making
clothes for her family and forherself.
The girl was stylish A fewyears older.
Melvin Warren Clark Jr was bornto Melvin Clark Sr, who was a
linesman for Amesbury MunicipalCompany, and Blanche Clark on

(04:34):
October 17, 1923.
In high school Melvin had aslight figure but was seen as
very handsome with a wonderfulsense of humor, so like a short
king.
His friend said that he was thelife of all the beach parties
with his accordion playing andsinging.
I hear you shouldn't take yourrecording into the beach, but

(04:59):
what do I know?
When he and Lorraine met theyhad an instant connection.
He immediately started to walkher home after school every
single day.
When he graduated he planned togo to college for electrical
engineering, but he ended upjoining the Navy for three years
during World War II.
But before he left at ages 19and 17,.

(05:23):
Like a bunch of people, mel andLorraine got married.
When Mel returned in 1946, therewas a housing shortage.
This meant that they could tryto buy something outside the
city or pay a high rent and tryand save for a house closer to

(05:46):
town.
They chose the high rent.
Mel and Lorraine had theirfirst child that same year, a
daughter named Marlene.
The year after they had anotherdaughter, sally, and in 1949
they had a son named Michael.
Lorraine fell into the routinesof an active housewife.

(06:06):
She did everything for herchildren, with the help of her
partner and parents.
She did church work andentertained frequently.
She didn't even mind having toscrimp financially, she just
made it work.
Mel always seemed to besweating.
He worked as much as possibleand studied in between fathering

(06:27):
, working and trying to husband.
He was self-conscious about nothaving a college education, so
he read up when he could, thoughspending time with his children
always superseded anything else.
He got a job at Columbiabroadcasting Systems, that's CBS
Hytron Laboratories and theTelevision Tube Department.

(06:51):
This was located acrossMiramack River in the city of
Newburyport.
When I think about televisiontube department, all I can think
about is that scene in Charlieand the Chocolate Factory where
they turned people into well,they turned chocolate into
something you can grab out ofyour television and then, like,
mike teevee goes and yeah.

(07:12):
Anyways, soon after starting, ajob opened for the night foreman
position.
The hours were from 11 pm to 7am and paid $135 a week, which
is about $1,700 in today's money.
Like that's pretty good.
This meant that they couldstart building their dream house

(07:33):
.
Construction started in 1950and was complete in 1951.
It was only three miles northof where they were, on the shore
of Lake Attitash.
The downside was that they hadgone over budget and Lorraine
would have to work in order tomake ends meet.

(07:54):
She did not like the idea ofhaving to leave her children,
but she was more than willing todo so.
She had babysat and her youthand done some seasonal jobs and
worked at department stores onSaturdays, so she wasn't averse
to working.
She ended up finding a job atthe Merrimac Diner about five

(08:17):
miles west in the town ofMerrimac.
At this time Lorraine is 25 andeven more beautiful than she
was in high school.
She would use the family'ssecond hand, hudson convertible,
to go to work.
She worked from around 11 am to8 pm so she could cover the

(08:38):
lunch and dinner rushes, andthen Mel would use the Hudson
for his 11 pm to 7 am shift asnight foreman.
They thought they would stillbe able to spend morning and
evening hours together as afamily.
The only thing was that theydidn't like the idea of Lorraine
being alone at the lake in themiddle of the night.

(08:59):
So Mel purchased a scooter tomake the half-hour drive to
Hytron Labs and left the carwith Lorraine.
By 1952, it became very clearthat the Clarks were not
connecting like they once had.
Both within their shifts,exhausted and unable to enjoy

(09:20):
any quality time, they werebasically ships passing in the
night.
This gave Mel an idea.
He thought that the lake wouldbecome more and more popular.
So he wanted to start a boatrental business.
He would get old boats andrestore them in time to open by
the spring of 1953.

(09:40):
He said look, if we can makesome money renting boats next
year we can open a resort store,sell supplies to picnickers and
campers, the works.
Then you won't have to work ina diner anymore, you can run
everything from right here.
But while Mel was starting in onthis new venture, lorraine felt

(10:01):
like she was failing as a wifeand a mother.
While the kids were asking ifshe would ever stay home and
play with them, mel had justbeen plain annoying to her,
especially when he had his firstday off in forever and went
rabbit hunting instead ofspending time with Lorraine or
the kids.
Hunting and shooting in generalwere Mel's favorite hobbies,

(10:26):
but Lorraine wished they couldshare something like that
together.
The only time they connectedwere Saturday nights.
They would invite their friendsover for beers and to dance
around, and sometimes Mel wouldplay piano and everyone would
sing along.
It was during one of theseparties, though, that Lorraine

(10:46):
had sex with another man.
In February, she started havingan affair with a different guy,
arthur G Jackson.
He was a 22-year-old Lothariowho had worked with Mel when he
was on day shifts at Hydron Labs.
Now Arthur worked the samehours as Mel, but at a shoe

(11:08):
factory.
The Cosmo article said thisabout him Maybe his black, curly
hair was a little too oily, hisfigure a little too gross
meaning big his dress a littletoo flashy, his mouth a little
too coarse, his glance a littletoo bold and his manner a little
too familiar.

(11:28):
But these were details thatwere to become apparent only
later, when he had first met theClarks.
In the summer of 1952, he wasseparating from his wife, and by
March of 1953, lorraine andArthur's affair was in full
swing.
That fall, arthur startedrenting an apartment, which he

(11:53):
gave a key to Lorraine.
She would buy groceries, cookand meals and, according to that
same article, otherwise takecare of his needs.
That's like fading to gentlywafting curtains right there.
Now I will tell you that thewhole scandal part of this story

(12:16):
is such a small part of theactual case and was only used to
sensationalize the next seriesof events.
I will tell you what the Cosmoarticle reported.
By March 1953, the towns ofAmesbury and Newburyport were

(12:37):
both aware of a new group calledthe Set.
This group of people would havemonthly parties of young
husbands putting their wives ina jackpot and gambling for new
partners for the night.
These rituals were calledwife-swapping parties, though I

(12:57):
did see in one article that itwas called husband-swapping
Quote.
If the truth ever gets outabout some of the parties around
here, a lot of young coupleswill have to leave home.
That was an unattributed quotein the Cosmo article, very
dramatic, but here's a wholeexcerpt.

(13:19):
The Set consisted of some 20couples, all very or very, as
some would have had it,sophisticated members of the
elite, amesbury, newburyport andSalisbury Beach, with
occasional guest couples fromBoston and the art colony at
Gloucestershire.
In their opinion, faithfulnesswas for the unenlightened clods

(13:43):
who still thought of sex as anact limited to man and wife.
Their own broad view was thatsex was a purely physical
manifestation of no moresignificance than dining,
drinking or dancing with anotherman's wife or another woman's
husband.
The drama right.

(14:05):
Rumor has it that Lorraine andArthur were a part of the set
and that some women were bittertoward Lorraine because she was
one of their husband's favorites.
So sometime in June, whencouples were paring off in
Salisbury Beach, the oddlymatched leftovers got to talking

(14:29):
around a fire.
Instead of gambling forpartners, it should be random
like spin the bottle.
From then on out, men wouldtoss their keys in a hat and the
women would choose one.
Whoever's key she picked wasthe pairing for that night.
All that sounds saucy andcompletely irrelevant, and we'll

(14:54):
get into why it's irrelevant alittle bit later.
Lorraine and Arthur have theirschedule of seeing each other
throughout the week, but on achilly night in April of 1954,
something out of the ordinaryhappens.
Around four in the morning ofSaturday, april 10th, mel went

(15:18):
to a supervisor and told him hefelt so sick that he couldn't
continue working.
His boss was so worried abouthim that he suggested he lay on
a cot in the first-aid room.
But Mel insisted that he justwanted to get home so he could
rest.
So he hopped on his scooter inbelow freezing temperatures and

(15:41):
rode back home, arriving threehours earlier than usual.
When Mel got home, he wassurprised by something.
We don't know what, but we doknow that he and Lorraine got
into a huge fight that lastedfor hours.

(16:01):
Lorraine ended up leaving earlyfor her shift at the diner so
she could stop by her parents'house to see the kids.
It was their custom to spendweekends at their grandparents'
home.
Her parents said she wascomposed and that nothing seemed
out of the ordinary.
A high school friend of Mel's,kenneth Cook, stopped by the

(16:22):
cottage at Lake Adatash around 3pm.
He and Mel had plans to movesome boats.
When he got there, though, melsaid he felt lousy and couldn't
sleep after he got home fromwork, so they made plans to do
boat stuff.
The next day Lorraine worked herusual shift and returned home

(16:43):
around 8 pm.
Her and Mel picked up the fightright where they left off.
Hours of fighting going on andon, but this time it got
physical.
Before Lorraine shift at thediner, she stopped by her
parents' house again to see thechildren, but also to tell them
of the horrendous news that Melhad laid hands on her.

(17:07):
She showed bruises andscratches on her neck and chest
and told them if Mel didn'tapologize she was going to leave
him.
She also reached out to Mel'sfather, melvin Sr, so that he
could hopefully talk some senseinto Mel.
When Kenneth Cook showed up towork on boat things with Mel

(17:30):
around noon, the cottage wasempty.
It was Palm Sunday, so Kenneththought that maybe Mel had
forgotten and ended up going tochurch, though that didn't
really seem like Mel at all.
His family also thought itwasn't like Mel to not show up
to the Sunday dinner they hadplanned that night.

(17:52):
Instead of returning home afterher shift, lorraine went to her
parents' house.
She told them that Mel had beenwaiting in the car when she got
off work and tried to convinceher to come back to the cottage
with him.
When she refused, he droppedher off at her parents.
She said he drove off and now Ihaven't even got a car to go to

(18:13):
work in.
He's sulking, that's all.
Lorraine went to Dr James FWitten to get her wounds treated
.
He said they were superficialand should heal in a couple days
.
In another act unusual for Mel,he didn't show up for work on
Monday and when his familyhadn't heard from him by

(18:34):
Wednesday, melvin Sr reportedhim missing to the state police
at the Toppsfield Barracks.
When police started to askaround, it seemed like Mel had
been making plans to go downsouth to see some Navy friends.
This is what he told one of hisfriends at work.
He told the chef at theall-night diner he ate at and he

(18:55):
told that to his cousin.
So that's where police believedhe was.
When Lorraine was informed ofher now estranged husband's
sudden flight, she lamentedbeing deserted.
She said she was definitelygoing to divorce him now and
three days later she starteddivorce proceedings with Newbury

(19:17):
poor attorney C Francis Leary.
She cited cruel and inhumantreatment and desertion in her
filings.
On April 19th the family'sHudson convertible was found in
an MTA parking lot in Everett, anorthern suburb of Boston.
The key was in the lock.

(19:39):
It had been there for nearlyseven days when the proprietor,
charles Allen, put out ateletype.
This led to Lorraine claimingthe car.
An attendant didn't park it,but an early morning worker saw
a man walking away from the car.
Police searched the vehicle andnoticed a distinct smell in the

(20:01):
trunk.
It was benzene, a soap usuallyused to clean greasy metals.
They tested the trunk for othersubstances but didn't find any.
Lorraine closed the cottage atLake Attitash and moved in with
her parents.
She left everything as it was,besides a couple pieces of

(20:21):
furniture.
She used to kind of fill outthe rooms her parents had set
aside for her and even though itwas out of character, even
Mel's closest friends believedhe had now flown the coop.
On May 6th, lorraine officiallysued Mel for a divorce, but Mel

(20:45):
would not get the chance torespond to Lorraine's filing.
Actually, he wouldn't be ableto respond to any of the
allegations against him and Ithink we all know why.
But I'm going to wait to confirmor deny your suspicions until
next episode.
That's right, this is not aone-pada.

(21:08):
I'm sorry.
If you're interested in seeingimages related to this episode,
head over to the Instagram atMurder Is Bad podcast and if,
while you're at it, just scrollit on your phone, you should
subscribe, you should hit thefive star rating and maybe even

(21:29):
leave a nice little review.
I'd really appreciate it.
But trust me, you definitelyneed to go to the Instagram,
because Lorraine made her ownclothes and she's fabulous,
iconic.
I'm telling you.
Thank you to the last maleeditor of Cosmopolitan, robert C
Atherton, who published theSordid End to the Swapmate

(21:51):
scandal.
Thank you to Helen Gurley Brownfor changing Cosmopolitan and
thank you for listening.
Take care of each other andremember murder is bad.