The Road Out of Hell (41 page)

Epilogue

By Jerry Clark

When my father told me his story, his pain was obvious. The memory of that pain has haunted me for decades. He knew that some of it was going to be transferred to me, and this is why he was so reluctant to tell me at all. I believe that the reason he never discussed it with me again was more for my good than for his. He never mentioned it to my brother Bob, and neither did I. Bob eventually found out when some other relative “slipped” and gave him part of the story.

The truth is that Dad was a victim of Gordon Stewart Northcott along with all the others; but he nevertheless felt a strong sense of blame for the crimes. He believed that if he had been able to find the nerve and strength to stop Northcott early on, if he had been able to somehow get the drop on him when the first killing took place, all the later victims would have lived. I can attest to you that this thought followed him to his grave. If it were possible for me to speak to any of the families of the victims of Gordon Stewart Northcott, I would state the following:

As Sanford Clark’s son, I would like to communicate to you my father’s deepest apology. He was sorry that he was unable to save your family members from Northcott’s brutality, but he was a young boy of small stature and he was kept in a terribly brutalized condition.

I now realize that if I had thought about making this apology in the years right after Dad told me about all of this, I could probably have helped him to get over it a little better and helped him to give some consolation to Northcott’s victims’ families. Nobody is certain as to who the twenty or so victims were, other than the four whom the papers were able to identify: Walter Collins, the two Winslow boys, and the young man identified as Alvin Gothea, who is thought to have been a migrant worker from Mexico. I feel certain that Dad would not have hesitated to make a public apology to the parents of the victims if he thought that anybody wanted to hear from him or that it would have helped to bring them closure. My brother Bob and I would like you to know that our dad was a good man. His awareness of the pain that he took part in causing was something that followed him all his days. He lived a good life after all that, never getting into trouble, always helping others, because he never forgot about your family members. He never stopped wishing that he could have done something. He never forgave himself, even though he really had nothing to forgive himself for.

I dedicate my father’s story to you. It is the story of a victim who never for a single day forgot your family members. Nor shall I.

Acknowledgments

This book owes part of the strength of its testimony to other family and friends of Sanford Clark, including his second adopted son, Robert Clark; Sanford’s granddaughter, Lisa Musschoot; longtime family friend Madeline Smith; Sanford’s nephew, Jim Mclnnes; longtime colleague Walter Yourkowski; Gordon Wilson, of the Western Development Museum of Saskatchewan; and Myrna Dogniez, of the Parkridge Centre in Saskatchewan.

Invaluable research assistance was provided throughout the writing process by author Christine Quinn, who chases information with the heart of a detective. I am also indebted to Hannah Im for her eagle-eyed manuscript proofing. Literary manager Sharlene Martin brought this book into the marketplace with her usual smooth skills, where editor Philip Turner acquired it for Sterling Publishing. At Sterling, Michael Fragnito, Leigh Ann Ambrosi, and Caroline Brown shepherded the manuscript through to publication via Iris Blasi and secured the assistance of renowned editor Walt Bode. Justin Loeber and Jason Brantley of Mouth Public Relations provided vital promotion with consummate professionalism.

Thanks are also due to James Jeffrey Paul, who self-published the book
Nothing is Strange With You
about the Northcott criminal case and then donated a complete copy of the Northcott trial transcript to the Riverside Public Library in Riverside, California. Special thanks to Steve Lech, Historian of Riverside County, for an informed tour of the region, and to Myra Hilliard and Candace Holley of the Whittier Historical Society’s Whittier Museum for their kind assistance with the archived documents and photos from that era.

Author’s Note

Everyone wonders how a youngster can go from years of truly demonic physical and mental torture, brutal sexual assaults, and constant humiliation to recover well enough to live a long and peaceful life, to maintain a loving family, a steady career, honorable war service, loyal civilian service to the community, and most of all the honor and respect of those who knew him. Sanford Clark’s recovery grew out of the steadfast love and support of two caring women and his own halting process of self-forgiveness. June and Jessie staked their ground with utter devotion to their loved ones, but their loyalty was not blind. They framed their actions in decency.

On the other end of the spectrum is Louise Northcott. The mother of the killer also exhibited the same appearance of family devotion, but was not hampered by the inconvenience of conscience.

The magic ingredient was Sanford’s own galvanized focus. If he had accepted the definition of himself as a criminal, his personal actions would have surely followed suit. He did not, of course; and for the rest of his life, he credited that to those first days and weeks of his recovery under the auspices of Loyal Kelley, and later to the Whittier Boys School. Their enlightened programs had been instituted in 1912 by supervisor Fred C. Nelles, who inherited the place when it was a typical nineteenth-century hellhole and singlehandedly forced the overhaul of its system.

That Sanford Clark’s steadfast decency seems exceptional points to our culture’s state of starvation for positive adult male energy. Here is an example of the power that such healthy personal determination achieves when it is embraced and applied over the long term, even in the life of a man who was given no choice but to become horribly acquainted with personal evil, long past that point on the scale where the petty evils of life are found. Because of what he was forced to know about human nature, he remained forever clear in his mind about the living importance and dynamic power of sustained decency, gentleness, and tolerance. He was so dedicated to avoiding the arrogance of inhumane behavior that he never spanked or verbally abused his sons, even in an era where corporal punishment and severe verbal attacks upon children were accepted and even encouraged.

In presenting Sanford’s life from his abduction at the age of thirteen until his passing sixty-five years later, I have inevitably had to select scenes for their power to express details of his lifelong process of recovery. This process is one that many people understand. My own assumption is that everyone I meet is in a lifelong process of recovery, which is why I was captured by the question of what made it possible for Sanford to do his so well.

As for Gordon Stewart Northcott, all of the trial records and public statements made by him combine to reveal a revolving wheel of personalities, none of whom were fully functional except for the purposes of doing harm. He considered himself studied in the arts, and when the world would not accept that assessment of him, he retreated to a solitary place and acted out his vengeance upon a captive audience. His persona alternated between utterly narcissistic expressions of arrogance and two-dimensional imitations of propriety that he thought the company around him expected. In those latter moments, he consistently gave his falseness away—even when his facts seemed to fit—due to his poor understanding of the emotional state that he was trying to effect. He made ridiculous assertions of Catholic faith, of concern for the image of public decency, and of concern for Sanford’s personal welfare that were so excessive as to be transparent. They were not only expressions of what he thought would move people in his direction; they demonstrate the shallowness of his grasp on their concerns. All are available through the trial record and the original news articles about the case. Most are easily found via Internet search. They demonstrate the point of view that allowed the monster Northcott to dehumanize his victims and evade all sense of personal responsibility for his crimes.

The letters that Northcott forced his murder victims to write are transcribed here just as they are documented in the case record. However, the letters home that Sanford had to write under his uncle’s dictation have been re-created here, for lack of surviving copies. The facts about those letters are that Jessie Clark and her father are both on the trial record as having recognized Sanford’s handwriting, but neither one believed that the words were his. Jessie also testified that this fact is what spurred her to go after him.

It is a common human experience that the need for a sense of belonging is stronger than the need for truth. This held true for Sanford and Jessie. On the witness stand at Northcott’s trial, Jessie tried to credit her father for sparking her trip to California. While it was kind of her to extend that small bit of dignity to him, there is no other evidence that he did any such thing—or that he was the kind of man who felt such concerns. I believe that the fact that he would leave it to his daughter to travel so far alone and check on such a serious situation by herself shows his true lack of involvement.

Sanford took it even further. After he joined the Army, he sent their father a photo of himself in his Army uniform. He signed it,
“To a real swell dad from your devoted son, Sanford.”

It was not an expression of reality. It was a request for a reason to hope.

ANTHONY FLACCO

SEATTLE, 2009

Reader's Guide for Discussion

1. A primary symptom of Stockholm Syndrome indicates that the victim learns to cooperate and obey their captor, to the point of appearing to cooperate, support, and even protect their own tormentor. Do you think that Sanford became emotionally attached to his uncle?
   
2. When Sanford swallowed the notion of his own complicity and guilt in his uncle’s crimes, was that a form of emotional attachment?
   
3. Why do you think Sanford didn’t try harder to leave the ranch? Can you recall specific ways in which his perceptions made him a prisoner?
   
4. By Chapter Eight of the book, Sanford is starting to treat his uncle differently; he begins to talk back a little bit and even dares to hint that Uncle Stewart should let the Winslow brothers, Lewis and Nelson go free. Is their relationship different at this point?
   
5. What do you think happened to Sanford, right before he made the decision to kill Lewis? How did his attitude change in the aftermath?
   
6. When a captive boy asks Sanford if he is also “stuck” there on the ranch, Sanford is stuck for an answer. How do you think he views himself in comparison to the other captive boys?
   
7. Do you think that Jesse was right in not immediately fleeing the ranch and running to the local police the moment that she heard Sanford’s terrible story?
   
8. Do you think that “Uncle” Stewart Northcott and his parents had a change of heart in deciding to leave Sanford behind when they fled? Was it perverted family loyalty?
   
9. How do you think the general public viewed Sanford’s role in this case when the word first began to spread? How do you think they would have looked at it if not for the intervention of Loyal Kelly?
   
10. If you were in Sanford’s position, would you have been able to forgive your father for not standing up to Winnie or for not trying harder to protect you? Would you have wanted him to still be a part of your life after the murders?
    
11. In Chapter Nine, Sanford passively refuses his uncle’s demands to help him kill the Dahl family. Where did he get the strength to say no? What made this occasion different from all the others?
    
12. Many years after Sanford’s rescue, do you think it was wise of him to tell his son Jerry about his tragic past? Would you have told your child if you were in Sanford’s position?
    
13. It is clear in the beginning of the book that Sanford’s mother, Winnie, doesn’t pay him much regard. Do you think she would gotten involved in rescuing him if she had somehow found out what was going on at the chicken ranch?
    
14. When you consider all of Sanford’s actions on the chicken ranch, did he deserve his life-long burden of guilt? Was he right to embrace it?
    
15. Today’s public awareness of sensational criminal cases makes it clear that encounters with evil as severe as Sanford’s can happen anywhere, at any time. No one has discovered a way to predict when or where it will happen. Would you have been able to pull yourself out of that hell?
    

Selected References

Berry-Dee, Christopher, and Morris, Steven.
How to Make a Serial Killer: The Twisted Development of Innocent Children into the World’s Most Sadistic Murderers.
Berkeley: Ulysses, 2008.

———.
Talking with Serial Killers: The Most Evil People in the World Tell Their Stories.
London: John Blake, 2003.

Bradshaw, John.
Family Secrets: The Path to Self-Acceptance and Reunion.
New York: Bantam, 1995.

Douglas, John, and Olshaker, Mark.
Obsession.
New York: Scribner, 1998.

Douglas, John E., Burgess, Ann W., Burgess, Allen G., and Ressler, Robert K.
Crime Classification Manual: A Standard System for Investigating and Classifying Crimes.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998.