Elizabeth Ann Mansfield, a 60-year-old White/Caucasian woman from Charles Town, West Virginia, was killed on May 13, 2016, during a deadly episode of domestic violence at her parents’ home near Harpers Ferry. Mansfield was the daughter of Charles Marion Clark and Shirley Ann Bachus Clark. She had worked for Loudoun County government as a medical records technician before retiring and had graduated with honors from Shepherd College in 1997.
She also held a certificate as a Historic Preservation Specialist and had spent several years pursuing an interest in archaeology.
Shortly before 1 p.m. that Friday, Jefferson County authorities received an emergency call concerning violence at the Clark residence on White Dogwood Place. Mansfield was speaking with 911 dispatchers as the situation unfolded. According to the later account of Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney Matthew Harvey, Charles Marion Clark killed his wife, Shirley Clark, while their daughter was still connected to emergency dispatchers. He then turned his attention to Mansfield and killed her as well. The 911 recording captured the killings, leaving investigators with unusually direct evidence of what had happened inside the home.
Jefferson County sheriff’s deputies surrounded the residence after the emergency call. When officers approached, they discovered Mansfield and her mother near the rear porch. Charles Clark remained inside the house and did not flee the scene. Deputies entered and took him into custody without incident. Authorities quickly sought to reassure the surrounding community that the shooter had never left the residence and that there was no continuing danger to nearby schools or the Harpers Ferry area. Clark was initially charged with two counts of first-degree murder and was confined at the Eastern West Virginia Regional Jail without bond.
The evidence went beyond what deputies encountered when they arrived. Prosecutor Harvey later disclosed that the 911 recording captured not only the killings but also Clark contacting other family members afterward and explaining what he had done and what he intended to do next. The prosecution therefore had evidence documenting the sequence of events as it occurred, as well as Clark’s own statements in the immediate aftermath. The case proceeded in Jefferson County Circuit Court as State of West Virginia v. Charles Marion Clark, case number CC-19-2016-F-86.
The criminal proceedings did not move immediately to trial. A proposed resolution had been negotiated while the previous prosecutor was still in office, but hearings were delayed while Clark underwent a competency evaluation. According to Harvey’s later description of the prosecution, the original plea arrangement would probably have resulted in Clark receiving the minimum sentence permitted for second-degree murder. After Harvey became Jefferson County prosecutor, he reviewed the agreement and discovered a technical deficiency that allowed the state to withdraw the previously negotiated offer.
The case ultimately ended with Clark pleading guilty to two counts of second-degree murder for killing Shirley Clark and Elizabeth Mansfield. Rather than receiving the more lenient punishment contemplated under the earlier agreement, he was sentenced to the maximum aggregate term of 80 years in prison. The guilty pleas brought the case to a conclusion without a murder trial, establishing Clark’s criminal responsibility for both deaths and ensuring that the man arrested inside the Harpers Ferry-area home on the afternoon of the killings received a lengthy prison sentence for taking the lives of his wife and daughter.
