On January 18, 1970, two West Virginia University freshmen, Mared Malarik and Karen Ferrell, left a movie theater screening of “Oliver!” in downtown Morgantown and were never seen alive again. The students had been attempting to hitchhike back to their dorms on Evansdale Campus. Eighty-eight days later, on April 16, 1970, their decapitated bodies were discovered by a National Guard unit approximately six miles south of Morgantown. Their skulls were never recovered, and the case remains officially unsolved despite a confession in 1976 that was later recanted.
According to local legend, the spirits of the two young women roam the woods near Cheat Lake and along Route 857 North, searching for their missing heads. Witnesses have reported apparitions of two figures running through the woods, which some believe have caused distracted drivers to have accidents on this route.
📝 Case Notes
Haunted Lineage note: Historical sources confirm that West Virginia University freshmen Mared Ellen Malarik (18) and Karen Lynn Ferrell (18) disappeared on January 18, 1970, after leaving a screening of “Oliver!” in downtown Morgantown while attempting to hitchhike back to their dorms on Evansdale Campus. Their decapitated bodies were discovered in shallow graves in a wooded area south of Morgantown on April 16, 1970; their skulls have never been recovered. In 1976, inmate Eugene Paul Clawson gave a detailed confession and was convicted of their murders, but significant inconsistencies in his account and the absence of key physical evidence have led some researchers and former investigators to continue treating the case as unresolved in important respects.
The specific association between the coed murders and Cheat Lake and Route 857 North appears only in later paranormal retellings and could not be substantiated in contemporary news coverage, police records, or archival historical materials available at this time. It should be regarded as unverified local legend rather than documented tradition.
Imported from The Shadowlands Database
