‘HOMETOWN TRAGEDY’
WTAE-TV’s Mike Clark revisits ‘Greensburg Six’ case
Time has not made it any easier to stomach the circumstances surrounding Jennifer Daugherty’s murder — certainly not for her family, or the journalists who covered that story more than a decade ago.
Daugherty, an intellectually disabled 30-year-old woman from Mount Pleasant, was tortured and ultimately killed over the course of two-plus days in February 2010 by a group that has become known as the “Greensburg Six.” The pain and humiliation inflicted on Daugherty combined with the extensive legal proceedings in the wake of those six arrests will always stay with the journalists who had to inform the public about every gruesome detail.
“To this day, it was probably one of the worst things that has ever happened to anyone in this region,” said longtime WTAE-TV anchor Mike Clark, who covered much of this case’s aftermath. “This was one I’ll never forget.”
Clark’s recollections of how the case affected and still haunts Westmoreland County will soon be featured in the season premiere of “Hometown Tragedy,” a true-crime docuseries available on the Hearst Television-owned Very Local streaming service.
The “Greensburg Six” episode airs Wednesday and will kick off a fourth season of in-depth (and heart-wrenching) retellings of tragedies that occurred everywhere from Baltimore to New Orleans to Omaha, Nebraska.
The “Greensburg Six” episode of “Hometown Tragedy” features archival footage from the early and mid2010s courtesy of WTAE, which is also owned by Hearst Television. It harkens back to that extremely snowy Western Pennsylvania winter and walks viewers through the twisted series of events that led to the discovery of Daugherty’s body in a garbage can near GreensburgSalem Middle School on Feb. 11, 2010.
“Hometown Tragedy” brought in Clark, multiple investigators and Joy Burkholder, Daugherty’s sister, to unpack what Clark described as “such a high-interest story” to so many folks in the Pittsburgh area. Clark was in his 15th year on the WTAE anchor desk when the “heinous” nature of Daugherty’s murder began to slowly be revealed by law enforcement and subsequent confessions of those involved.
Thirteen years later, Clark finds it more useful to reflect on Daugherty’s love-filled life rather than the cruelty that defined her death. Daugherty’s last words to her mother — on a hand-written note that read in part, “Mom, I hope that you have a good day at work and I also love you very much” — “is kind of what sticks with me,” he said.
“Looking back on this, I really feel sorry for her family,” Clark said. “Covering this story, it was all about following the story as the family was
seeking justice. That’s what’s on my mind. I’m thinking about the family that’s still grieving after all these years.”
“Investigators did a phenomenal job” in uncovering the truth and kickstarting a judicial process that resulted in four long prison tenures and two death sentences, Clark said. From a journalistic perspective, he doesn’t think much would change today coverage-wise from what took place in 2010 since good crime reporting is still all about “getting the facts correct and following the court cases as accurately as possible.”
While Clark hasn’t seen the finished installment of “Hometown Tragedy” yet, he can at least vouch for the role WTAE’s reporting plays in Very Local’s attempt “to tell the story as best as it can” in an effort to keep Daugherty’s memory alive.
“I would hope that whoever watches this will remember what a sweet, loving person Jennifer Daugherty was,” Clark said. “I hope people will keep her family in mind knowing their loss, because it’s a forever loss.”