One of the hardest parts of parenthood is the moment you realize that your child doesn’t need you anymore. The only thing worse is realizing your child ‘failed to launch’.
In 2018, an elderly couple from Winfield, Illinois realized they had been enabling their dependant 50-year-old son who had never moved out. When they decided it was time to make some changes, however, their son didn’t take the news very well…
A Quiet Neighborhood
On May 21, 2018, a couple from a quiet neighborhood in Winfield, Illinois, noticed something unusual about the house right next door to their home. According to homeowner Katie Earls, she and her husband, Harry, noticed the lights in the home had stayed on all night.
Creatures Of Habit
If it had been any other home in the neighborhood, it wouldn’t have been a cause for concern. But Katie and Harry knew that the elderly couple next door never left lights on overnight and were normally very consistent with their routines and how they maintained the house…
Cause For Concern
The lights alone had been enough for the couple to worry whether something was wrong, but they were certain something was wrong when they saw 1 of the couple’s 2 dogs standing completely alone in the middle of the driveway outside the home.
A Friendly Check-Up
Katie and Harry decided it would be best to go check on the elderly couple to make sure they were both alright and to tell them that their dog was loose. “I’m like, something’s going on here, so I started banging on the door, ringing the doorbell,” Katie said…
Peeking In
“All the lights were on in the house. I didn’t see anything,” Katie added. At that point, the couple wasn’t sure if their neighbors were even home, so Harry tried peeking through a window to see if he could see Nancy or Clyde Clinkenbeard, or their older son who lived with them.
A Disturbing Scene
After looking through the kitchen window, however, Harry realized the situation was worse than they ever imagined. Inside, he could see Clyde, who everyone called Tom, and his 50-year-old son, Karl, lying motionless on the kitchen floor…
The 911 Call
Harry immediately told Katie to call the police, and Katie explained to the 911 dispatcher what they had seen inside the house. The couple couldn’t give the dispatcher any more details, so police and an ambulance was sent straight to the residential home.
A Familiar Address
When police officers on duty saw the address in the 500 block of Jefferson Street from the 911 call, they recognized the home right away since they had been sent there just 2 days earlier on May 19 after there had been a domestic dispute…
A Family Disturbance
According to the police, they had been called to the home to settle a ‘family disturbance’ after the couple’s 50-year-old son got into an altercation with a relative who did not live in the home. When they left the home, the situation seemed to be under control.
Another House Call
However, now the officers heading back to the home wondered if there had been another altercation as dispatch didn’t give them many details about what had happened. However, when they arrived at the scene, they realized it was much worse than they assumed…
A Forced Entry
Officers arrived at the home at about 6 in the morning. When no one in the home answered their repeated knocks, they forced their way inside and found 2 people inside the kitchen like the neighbors had reported after looking in the windows.
A Grisly Discovery
Both Clyde Clinkenbeard and Karl Clinkenbeard were both dead. After searching the rest of the home, police also found 76-year-old Nancy in another room, but sadly, she was also dead. According to the police, all 3 family members had sustained multiple sharp force entry wounds…
An Investigation Begins
The victims clearly did not die of natural causes, so the police opened up an investigation and sent the bodies to be examined by the coroner’s office. When the coroner’s report was finished about 36 hours later, the results were extremely disturbing.
The Autopsy Results
According to the report, Nancy and 77-year-old Clyde had both been killed by their son Karl, who then committed suicide shortly after murdering his parents, which police estimated took place sometime between 12 p.m. and 1:15 p.m. on May 20…
The Victims
Nancy and Clyde, who were found the day after they were murdered, had both been upstanding members of the community and had lived in their home for decades. Both were retired, but Nancy had worked as a reading specialist in Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200.
Senseless Deaths
Clyde had worked hard as a maintenance employee with the same school district. At first, police couldn’t understand why anyone, especially their own adult child, would do something so horrific to the elderly couple. Then police started looking into the son…
A Bad Track Record
When investigators started looking into Karl Clinkenbeard, everything started making sense. According to police, Clinkenbeard had a long history of violence, drug abuse, and mental health issues that all began when he was a teenager. According to old records, Clinkenbeard started smoking marijuana at 14, started drinking when he was 15 and was drinking about a case of beer every day by the time he was 17 years old. Later, he occasionally did other drugs like cocaine, PCP, and narcotics.
The Diagnosis
Clinkenbeard had 2 felony convictions for burglary in 1988 and possession of a weapon by a felon in 1990. In 2013, he also was charged with domestic battery after punching a male family member. Over the years, he spent time in mental health facilities and was eventually diagnosed as bipolar…
A Sad Realization
In 2018, the 50-year-old was still living at home with his parents and was unemployed. His parents had never known how to handle him and allowed him to be dependant on them for decades. However, recently, they had realized that they had only enabled his behavior and dependency.
A Son’s Revenge
The couple had planned to make Clinkenbeard move out from their home in the hopes that it would help him finally get his life on track. When he discovered their plan, however, police explained that he snapped and made sure that would never happen.
50-Year-Old Son Exacts Revenge When Elderly Parents Want To Evict Him is an article from: LifeDaily