Nicole Clark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicole and her mother spent their last hours eating McDonald’s burritos and watching a movie in their Jeep Cherokee, parked in their garage in Lafayette. Patrice Clark was suicidal, often drank too much and was arrested for driving while drunk shortly before she apparently parked in her garage and left the motor running. A friend of Patrice asked police to check on her because she had not shown up for work that day. The last time the friend had seen Patrice and nine year old Nicole was the night before at a bar. When police officers entered the garage the night of November 17, 2010 the carbon monoxide was so thick it was hard for them to breathe. Shining a flashlight inside the Jeep, police saw the bodies of Nicole and her mother. They found no pulse for either of them. The keys were turned on in the ignition but the vehicle was no longer running. The Jeep’s movie screen was down. The bag from McDonald’s lay on the garage floor. Debit card records show Patrice Clark bought breakfast burritos at McDonald's at 9:43 that morning. A receipt found in the garage shows she was at Karz Drive In restaurant at 9:30 a.m. Surveillance video from Karz shows a gold Jeep Cherokee going through the drive through. The driver was Patrice Clark, and a girl with Nicole's build is in the passenger seat. It was the last trace of the pair before they were found by police more than twelve hours later, their bodies already stiff from rigor mortis. In the dining room of the clean and orderly home, police found Nicole's school bag and coat, ready to go.

 

There were 19 calls that day from Nicole’s cell phone to the phone of her father, who was away on business in Taipei. There was one message from the girl on his voicemail, an upset and crying Nicole asking her dad to call. She also sent him a text in all capital letters: “CALL ME IF YOU CAN AND IF YOU CAN’T ANSWER ME AND TEXT ME TOO.” Keith Clark, who was separated from Patrice, knew his wife was suicidal; he told police she would get “extremely depressed and would make several calls to him for attention.” He recalled that several weeks before the deaths, his daughter had a friend over to spend the night. She told him her mother passed out of the stairs. The girls tried to rouse Patrice, but could not.

 

The Boulder County Department of Human Services had heard concerns before about the family. A caseworker was assigned in August 2001, when Nicole was an infant; the case was closed in February 2003.

 

 

 

 

 

http://childfatalities.denverpost.com/#id=7&name=ClarkNicole