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.
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.
Julia Goodwin:
Hello, hello, this is Julia, and murder is bad. Here's a little about me. Sometimes I fall down deep rabbit holes after seeing a murder case in an old issue of cosmopolitan. Marilyn Monroe was on the March 1959 issue of cosmopolitan. It was the Morals and Manners special issue. Headlines on the cover were Love, lauren, sob, sisters, is Divorce a Disease? And Swapmate Scandals. Guess which one we'll be talking about today? Go on, guess. This is the part in Kitchos where the characters pause while the wee little ones give an answer and no matter what it is, they say oh yeah, you're totally right. Well, that's right. Swap-mate Scandal. The full title of the article written by George Scullin was the Sordid End to the Swap-mate Scandal, and upon first reading it seemed very thorough and excellently embellished. But when I started my own sleuthing, things became a lot more complicated. In 1953, young adults were listening to Perry Como, seeing Arthur Miller's the Crucible at the Theatres and reading From here to Eternity by James Jones. Queen Elizabeth II was coronated, julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed and in December Marilyn Monroe was the cover model for the very first issue of Playboy Magazine.
Julia Goodwin:
Our story takes place in the small town of Amesbury, massachusetts, about 40 miles north of Boston and five miles south of the New Hampshire state line. In Scullin's article he described it as a walled city at the harbor's edge, lying within an amphitheater of hills facing only itself. It used to be a manufacturing mecca but was more like a factory graveyard in 1953. Amesbury is the birthplace of Josiah Bartlett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, who I know nothing about. It was also the home of the abolitionist, quaker and poet John Greenleaf Whittier kind of what they were known for. Whittier actually wrote a poem about another Amesbury native, susanna Martin, one of the 14 women executed during the Salem witch trials. Susanna Martin famously laughed at Mercy Lewis and Ann Putnam throwing their little fits in the courtroom Can relate, but about 260 years after Susanna Martin's execution, a young couple looks to make their home in Amesbury.
Julia Goodwin:
Lorraine Ina Eaton was born on January 13, 1926, to Samuel and Alberta Eaton and lived with them and her sister Shirley at 7 Maple Street. People fawn over her looks and described her as having an unsnobbish beauty. They also noted her small, baby-like voice that she kept well into adulthood. Lorraine was also an active member in the Elizabeth H. Whittier Club, that's John Whittier's sister, and the club's purpose was to unite the common good of all Amesbury women. Lorraine was very fond of reading poetry aloud and making clothes for her family and for herself. The girl was stylish A few years older.
Julia Goodwin:
Melvin Warren Clark Jr was born to Melvin Clark Sr, who was a linesman for Amesbury Municipal Company, and Blanche Clark on October 17, 1923. In high school Melvin had a slight figure but was seen as very handsome with a wonderful sense of humor, so like a short king. His friend said that he was the life of all the beach parties with his accordion playing and singing. I hear you shouldn't take your recording into the beach, but what do I know? When he and Lorraine met they had an instant connection. He immediately started to walk her home after school every single day. When he graduated he planned to go to college for electrical engineering, but he ended up joining the Navy for three years during World War II. But before he left at ages 19 and 17,. Like a bunch of people, mel and Lorraine got married.
Julia Goodwin:
When Mel returned in 1946, there was a housing shortage. This meant that they could try to buy something outside the city or pay a high rent and try and save for a house closer to town. They chose the high rent. Mel and Lorraine had their first child that same year, a daughter named Marlene. The year after they had another daughter, sally, and in 1949 they had a son named Michael.
Julia Goodwin:
Lorraine fell into the routines of an active housewife. She did everything for her children, with the help of her partner and parents. She did church work and entertained frequently. She didn't even mind having to scrimp financially, she just made it work. Mel always seemed to be sweating. He worked as much as possible and studied in between fathering, working and trying to husband. He was self-conscious about not having a college education, so he read up when he could, though spending time with his children always superseded anything else. He got a job at Columbia broadcasting Systems, that's CBS Hytron Laboratories and the Television Tube Department. This was located across Miramack River in the city of Newburyport. When I think about television tube department, all I can think about is that scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where they turned people into well, they turned chocolate into something you can grab out of your television and then, like, mike teevee goes and yeah.
Julia Goodwin:
Anyways, soon after starting, a job opened for the night foreman position. The hours were from 11 pm to 7 am and paid $135 a week, which is about $1,700 in today's money. Like that's pretty good. This meant that they could start building their dream house. Construction started in 1950 and was complete in 1951. It was only three miles north of where they were, on the shore of Lake Attitash.
Julia Goodwin:
The downside was that they had gone over budget and Lorraine would have to work in order to make ends meet. She did not like the idea of having to leave her children, but she was more than willing to do so. She had babysat and her youth and done some seasonal jobs and worked at department stores on Saturdays, so she wasn't averse to working. She ended up finding a job at the Merrimac Diner about five miles west in the town of Merrimac. At this time Lorraine is 25 and even more beautiful than she was in high school. She would use the family's second hand, hudson convertible, to go to work. She worked from around 11 am to 8 pm so she could cover the lunch and dinner rushes, and then Mel would use the Hudson for his 11 pm to 7 am shift as night foreman. They thought they would still be able to spend morning and evening hours together as a family. The only thing was that they didn't like the idea of Lorraine being alone at the lake in the middle of the night. So Mel purchased a scooter to make the half-hour drive to Hytron Labs and left the car with Lorraine.
Julia Goodwin:
By 1952, it became very clear that the Clarks were not connecting like they once had. Both within their shifts, exhausted and unable to enjoy any quality time, they were basically ships passing in the night. This gave Mel an idea. He thought that the lake would become more and more popular. So he wanted to start a boat rental business. He would get old boats and restore them in time to open by the spring of 1953. He said look, if we can make some 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 in a diner anymore, you can run everything from right here.
Julia Goodwin:
But while Mel was starting in on this new venture, lorraine felt like she was failing as a wife and a mother. While the kids were asking if she would ever stay home and play with them, mel had just been plain annoying to her, especially when he had his first day off in forever and went rabbit hunting instead of spending time with Lorraine or the kids. Hunting and shooting in general were Mel's favorite hobbies, but Lorraine wished they could share something like that together. The only time they connected were Saturday nights. They would invite their friends over for beers and to dance around, and sometimes Mel would play piano and everyone would sing along. It was during one of these parties, though, that Lorraine had sex with another man.
Julia Goodwin:
In February, she started having an affair with a different guy, arthur G Jackson. He was a 22-year-old Lothario who had worked with Mel when he was on day shifts at Hydron Labs. Now Arthur worked the same hours as Mel, but at a shoe factory. The Cosmo article said this about him Maybe his black, curly hair was a little too oily, his figure a little too gross meaning big his dress a little too flashy, his mouth a little too coarse, his glance a little too bold and his manner a little too familiar. But these were details that were to become apparent only later, when he had first met the Clarks. In the summer of 1952, he was separating from his wife, and by March of 1953, lorraine and Arthur's affair was in full swing. That fall, arthur started renting an apartment, which he gave a key to Lorraine. She would buy groceries, cook and meals and, according to that same article, otherwise take care of his needs. That's like fading to gently wafting curtains right there. Now I will tell you that the whole scandal part of this story is such a small part of the actual case and was only used to sensationalize the next series of events. I will tell you what the Cosmo article reported.
Julia Goodwin:
By March 1953, the towns of Amesbury and Newburyport were both aware of a new group called the Set. This group of people would have monthly parties of young husbands putting their wives in a jackpot and gambling for new partners for the night. These rituals were called wife-swapping parties, though I did see in one article that it was called husband-swapping Quote. If the truth ever gets out about some of the parties around here, a lot of young couples will have to leave home. That was an unattributed quote in the Cosmo article, very dramatic, but here's a whole excerpt.
Julia Goodwin:
The Set consisted of some 20 couples, all very or very, as some would have had it, sophisticated members of the elite, amesbury, newburyport and Salisbury Beach, with occasional guest couples from Boston and the art colony at Gloucestershire. In their opinion, faithfulness was for the unenlightened clods who still thought of sex as an act limited to man and wife. Their own broad view was that sex was a purely physical manifestation of no more significance than dining, drinking or dancing with another man's wife or another woman's husband. The drama right. Rumor has it that Lorraine and Arthur were a part of the set and that some women were bitter toward Lorraine because she was one of their husband's favorites. So sometime in June, when couples were paring off in Salisbury Beach, the oddly matched leftovers got to talking around a fire. Instead of gambling for partners, it should be random like spin the bottle. From then on out, men would toss their keys in a hat and the women would choose one. Whoever's key she picked was the pairing for that night. All that sounds saucy and completely irrelevant, and we'll get into why it's irrelevant a little bit later.
Julia Goodwin:
Lorraine and Arthur have their schedule of seeing each other throughout the week, but on a chilly night in April of 1954, something out of the ordinary happens. Around four in the morning of Saturday, april 10th, mel went to a supervisor and told him he felt so sick that he couldn't continue working. His boss was so worried about him that he suggested he lay on a cot in the first-aid room. But Mel insisted that he just wanted to get home so he could rest. So he hopped on his scooter in below freezing temperatures and rode back home, arriving three hours earlier than usual. When Mel got home, he was surprised by something. We don't know what, but we do know that he and Lorraine got into a huge fight that lasted for hours.
Julia Goodwin:
Lorraine ended up leaving early for her shift at the diner so she could stop by her parents' house to see the kids. It was their custom to spend weekends at their grandparents' home. Her parents said she was composed and that nothing seemed out of the ordinary. A high school friend of Mel's, kenneth Cook, stopped by the cottage at Lake Adatash around 3 pm. He and Mel had plans to move some boats. When he got there, though, mel said he felt lousy and couldn't sleep after he got home from work, so they made plans to do boat stuff.
Julia Goodwin:
The next day Lorraine worked her usual shift and returned home around 8 pm. Her and Mel picked up the fight right where they left off. Hours of fighting going on and on, but this time it got physical. Before Lorraine shift at the diner, she stopped by her parents' house again to see the children, but also to tell them of the horrendous news that Mel had laid hands on her. She showed bruises and scratches on her neck and chest and told them if Mel didn't apologize she was going to leave him. She also reached out to Mel's father, melvin Sr, so that he could hopefully talk some sense into Mel. When Kenneth Cook showed up to work on boat things with Mel around noon, the cottage was empty. It was Palm Sunday, so Kenneth thought that maybe Mel had forgotten and ended up going to church, though that didn't really seem like Mel at all. His family also thought it wasn't like Mel to not show up to the Sunday dinner they had planned that night.
Julia Goodwin:
Instead of returning home after her shift, lorraine went to her parents' house. She told them that Mel had been waiting in the car when she got off work and tried to convince her to come back to the cottage with him. When she refused, he dropped her off at her parents. She said he drove off and now I haven't even got a car to go to work in. He's sulking, that's all. Lorraine went to Dr James F Witten to get her wounds treated. He said they were superficial and should heal in a couple days. In another act unusual for Mel, he didn't show up for work on Monday and when his family hadn't heard from him by Wednesday, melvin Sr reported him missing to the state police at the Toppsfield Barracks. When police started to ask around, it seemed like Mel had been making plans to go down south to see some Navy friends. This is what he told one of his friends at work. He told the chef at the all-night diner he ate at and he told that to his cousin. So that's where police believed he was.
Julia Goodwin:
When Lorraine was informed of her now estranged husband's sudden flight, she lamented being deserted. She said she was definitely going to divorce him now and three days later she started divorce proceedings with Newbury poor attorney C Francis Leary. She cited cruel and inhuman treatment and desertion in her filings. On April 19th the family's Hudson convertible was found in an MTA parking lot in Everett, a northern suburb of Boston. The key was in the lock. It had been there for nearly seven days when the proprietor, charles Allen, put out a teletype. This led to Lorraine claiming the car. An attendant didn't park it, but an early morning worker saw a man walking away from the car. Police searched the vehicle and noticed a distinct smell in the trunk. It was benzene, a soap usually used to clean greasy metals. They tested the trunk for other substances but didn't find any.
Julia Goodwin:
Lorraine closed the cottage at Lake Attitash and moved in with her parents. She left everything as it was, besides a couple pieces of furniture. She used to kind of fill out the rooms her parents had set aside for her and even though it was out of character, even Mel's closest friends believed he had now flown the coop. On May 6th, lorraine officially sued Mel for a divorce, but Mel would not get the chance to respond to Lorraine's filing. Actually, he wouldn't be able to respond to any of the allegations against him and I think we all know why.
Julia Goodwin:
But I'm going to wait to confirm or deny your suspicions until next episode. That's right, this is not a one-pada. I'm sorry. If you're interested in seeing images related to this episode, head over to the Instagram at Murder Is Bad podcast and if, while you're at it, just scroll it on your phone, you should subscribe, you should hit the five star rating and maybe even leave a nice little review. I'd really appreciate it. But trust me, you definitely need to go to the Instagram, because Lorraine made her own clothes and she's fabulous, iconic. I'm telling you. Thank you to the last male editor of Cosmopolitan, robert C Atherton, who published the Sordid End to the Swapmate scandal. Thank you to Helen Gurley Brown for changing Cosmopolitan and thank you for listening. Take care of each other and remember murder is bad.