Robert Elmer Kleason

Robert Elmer Kleason (September 20, 1934 – April 21, 2003) was an American who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1975 for the murder of two young men near Austin, Texas. His conviction was later overturned and Kleason emigrated to the United Kingdom where he was eventually imprisoned on gun violations. Kleason died in the United Kingdom while fighting extradition back to the US for retrial on the murder charges.

Early Life

Robert Kleason was born on September 20, 1934 in Buffalo, New York. He was the only child of a store clerk and his wife. Guns and hunting were a passion of the boy as well as his mentally ill father.

In 1950, 18-year-old Kleasen stepped on a rusty nail while hunting in the woods and his mother took him to the hospital. While waiting impatiently for doctors to see him, he went berserk, hit his mother, got a gun from her car, and returned to the emergency room shooting. No one was hurt, but the outburst landed him in a psychiatric facility until 1952.

In 1971, a year after gaining a sociology degree, he shot a man's toe off in a dispute. He later jumped bail in the state and moved to Texas.

Texas

On October 28, 1974, two young male missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) disappeared in an area known as Oak Hill, on the southern outskirts of Austin, Texas.^[1][2] Kleason had joined the LDS Church only to alienate most of his local congregation with erratic behavior. He had also previously been convicted of Federal gun violations.

Police investigation of the disappearance led to the scenario that missionaries Gary Darley (20) and Mark Fischer (19) were shot dead after having agreed to meet Kleason for dinner.^[1] Police discovered Fischer's bloody watch and bullet-punctured name tag in Kleasen's trailer but bodies never were found. Investigators also discovered blood and tissue on a bandsaw in the taxidermy shop where Kleasen worked. Prosecutors at Kleasen's 1975 murder trial alleged he dismembered the victims and buried the remains. Kleason was believed to have held a grudge against the LDS Church after he felt church members did not support him during a poaching trial.

Kleason was convicted and sentenced to death. But in 1977, after two years on Texas' death row, an appeals court overturned Kleasen's conviction. The appeals court ruled that the search warrant for his home was improper and that key evidence should have been excluded.^[1] Authorities opted to not retry Kleason.

Emigration to the UK

After his release from Texas prison, Kleason relocated to New York, where he was later imprisoned on assault charges. He lived for a time in a Buffalo, New York charity mission. He drew attention from the local media, and police had to be posted near the mission for Kleason's protection. He only congregated with the other people living in the mission during church services prior to eating. During this time, the local Buffalo TV channels updated the story every night on their news broadcasts.

In 1990, Kleason moved to Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire, England. He married local woman Marie Longley, who he met as a pen pal while living in the US. He ingratiated himself with local residents, and began to amass a huge gun collection.^[2] A shooting club member became suspicious of Kleason's claims of being a decorated military veteran and CIA agent, and confirmed from U.S. military officials that Kleason had never served in the U.S. armed forces. This information was passed on to police, resulting in a more thorough background check on Kleason.

English authorities learned of Kleason's U.S. murder conviction, which he had unlawfully omitted from his residency application. The investigation also uncovered several gun law violations. He was given a three-year prison term in 2000 for possession of illegal firearms and munitions and began to serve time in an English prison.

His wife found out about his criminal background and at one point, Kleason threatened her with death if she tried to leave him. Being too scared to leave she stayed for almost a decade, only to come up with an escape plan with a close friend. His wife was briefly considered a missing person, possibly killed by Kleason, until authorities learned she had fled her home during the investigation into his gun law violations.

Extradition battle and death

In 2001 while imprisoned in the UK on the guns violations, Texas authorities began the process of extradition. DNA analysis and other forensic tools were used to obtain new evidence in the 1977 murders of Darley and Fischer, specifically by matching Darley's DNA to blood found near Kleason's residence .^[2] Kleasen fought extradition, due to England's objection to the death penalty. Officials in Texas promised not to seek the death penalty, but English officials were unsure that they would honor their assurances.^[1] Before he could be extradited, Kleason died on April 21, 2003 of heart failure. He was 68 years old.^[3]

Media

Ken Driggs wrote a book about the murders, Evil Among Us: The Texas Mormon Missionary Murders. The book was published by Signature Books, a Salt Lake City, Utah company that specializes in Mormon-related topics.

Kleason was the subject of a 2003 British documentary titled The Real Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

References

Further reading

• Driggs, Ken (2000), Evil Among Us: The Texas Mormon Missionary Murders, Signature Books, ISBN 1-56085-138-4