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A step-uncle came all the way from London, Ontario, to murder his step-niece in Menlo Park, although he claimed it wasn’t premeditated and instead was a crime of passion.
On May 27, 1957, 47-year-old Clare Van Horne entered the bedroom where his step-niece Nancy McLennan, 27, was sleeping. It is unclear whether McLennan was awake or not. Van Horne would sometimes claim that she was asleep and other times claim that she was awake and that there was a confrontation. Van Horne stated that he and his step-niece had been romantically involved up until her mind had become poisoned by a “spiritualistic” church that turned her against him.
What we do know, according to coroner Paul B. Jensen, is that Van Horne struck McLennan approximately 25 times on the right side of her skull with a hammer. According to McLennan’s stepsister Nancy, he then ran down the hall, grabbed his slippers (when he couldn’t find his shoes), fled out the front door, jumped into McLennan’s nearby car and sped off. Several hours later, he would walk into a San Francisco police station and confess: “I’m the one who hit the woman over the head with a hammer in Menlo Park.” He was quickly fetched and brought back to San Mateo County.
The victim was a supervisor at the Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Menlo Park and was the mother of two young daughters. She had left her husband and journeyed from Canada to her stepfather’s home in Menlo Park in November 1956. Similarly, Van Horne was a father of two who had been separated from his wife for, according to him, “a few years.”
Once Van Horne followed her, friends and family suspected trouble. Some friends would later tell Police Chief George Potter, “they were afraid something like this would happen.” Her family ensured the two were never left alone and eventually ordered Van Horne to vacate their home and return to Canada. He refused.
After his arrest, San Mateo psychiatrist Dr. Thomas A. Gonda examined Van Horne and declared the man was “legally sane and fully aware of the nature and quality of his actions.”
The case was headed to trial, with Van Horne’s attorneys confident they could get the charge reduced from first-degree murder to voluntary manslaughter. Van Horne would later plead guilty to the higher charge, with the understanding that he would not receive the death penalty. He said he wanted to spare his family the stress of a trial.
He got his wish. In November 1957, Superior Judge Louis B. Dematteis sentenced Van Horne to life in prison.
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