The New York Times

September 13, 1995

A man lured his estranged wife to a mall with the promise of buying school clothes, then blew up their car, killing her, their daughter, her other two children and himself, the authorities said today.

The thunderous explosion on Monday shredded the man's station wagon, shook nearby homes and sent debris and body parts raining down blocks away.

The man, Mark A. Clark, 32, whose last known address was in western Maryland, had threatened to kill himself and his family on Sunday and Monday, but "we all just thought he was blowing hot air," said Pamela Pierce, who lived upstairs from Mr. Clark's wife, Betty Louise.

Mrs. Clark, 32, had moved in with her sister in Essex earlier this year. The police in Baltimore County, which includes Essex, had no record of domestic violence involving the couple.

Mary Thomas, another upstairs neighbor, said: "Sunday and yesterday he went out to the car a thousand times looking in the car, looking in the trunk. Last night when we saw the wreck on the TV news we put two and two together."

Mrs. Clark had agreed to go with her husband to a mall near her apartment on Monday to take their 4-year-old daughter, Krysta, and Mrs. Clark's two other children shopping, said Mark Edward Weitzel, who had been dating Mrs. Clark since May. The other children were Malissa Ray, 11, and Ricardo Valdez, 6.

"Yesterday I had a family -- a girlfriend and three kids," Mr. Weitzel said. "Now I have nothing."

A police spokesman, Lieut. Steve Doarnberger, said, "We strongly suspect that he brought his family in his car with the explosives and the intention to kill them."

Police officers said they suspected a form of dynamite caused the blast that ripped apart the 1987 Ford Taurus station wagon.

Police cadets searched the scene today for more clues, and agents from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were also at the scene.

The explosion at 6 P.M. outside the Middlesex Shopping Center in this suburb seven miles east of Baltimore scattered debris and body parts for more than 300 yards in every direction and knocked out power nearby. The car's glove compartment was found a half-mile away.

Another police spokesman, Brian Uppercue, said the car was stationary and all five of the dead were in it when it exploded, about 20 yards from the entrance of a department store.

Investigators said they had no witnesses to the blast.

Mark A. Clark (4)

On September 18, 1995, Mark decided go out with a bang, and take his family with him. Mark, a laborer, packed his estranged wife and three kids in the family station wagon and took them to the a Maryland shopping center to buy back-to-school clothing.

As they arrived to the Middlesex Shopping Center he detonated a bomb made out of commercially available explosives hidden in the glove compartment spewing car and body parts all over the parking lot of the mall.

Mayhem.net

Mark A. Clark, a laborer, packed his estranged wife and three kids in the family station wagon and took them to the a Maryland shopping center to buy back-to-school clothing.

As they arrived to the Middlesex Shopping Center he detonated a bomb made out of commercially available explosives hidden in the glove compartment spewing car and body parts all over the parking lot of the mall.