2023-05-01 01:10:00
Robert Kleasen had received the death penalty after murdering two Mormon missionaries in 1974, in a crime so grotesque that it was compared to the movie “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre). However, in 1977 he received a pardon due to an error in the investigation. After obtaining his freedom, he decided to move to the English town of Barton Upon Humber. In his new home He kept his past hidden for ten years, so his neighbors believed that he was someone “harmless”.
On October 28, 1974, two Mormon missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disappeared after having dinner with Kleasen in his trailer, located behind the taxidermy shop where he worked. The victims were Gary Darley, 20, and Mark Fischer, 19, and the incident occurred in Austin, Texas.
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When the young people did not return from their visit, the elders of the Church became concerned and notified the authorities. When reviewing your premises, investigators They discovered human hair and bones in the band saw he used to dismember animals.. Added to this, in his home they discovered tags with the names of the victims, each with bullet holes.
The man was arrested, tried and sentenced to death. According to prosecutors, Kleasen dumped the dismembered corpses of the Mormons with animal remains which were then taken to an incinerator. Likewise, the authorities maintained that the man passed the heads of the victims several times through the chainsaw to make it easier to hide them.
Due to the sinister nature of his crimes, the case was dubbed “The Real Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. In that sense, the event occurred just days after the release of the slasher film of the same name, so one theory is that Kleasen saw the feature film and was inspired to imitate the crimes of the murderer in the tape, Leatherface.
In 1977, after three years of being on “death row” waiting to go to the electric chair, he received a pardon. The appeals court found that the search warrant used in his towing was not properly obtained, so his conviction was overturned.
Despite regaining his freedom, the man could not continue living in the United States since he was recognized and harassed constantly due to the revulsion generated by his crimes. For this reason, in 1990 Kleasen decided to move to Barton Upon Humber, in the north of Lincolnshire, England, where Marie Longley lived, a woman with whom he had established a friendship through letters.
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The news about the heinous acts he committed had not reached the English town, so Kleasen kept his past hidden for ten years. Upon arrival, Marie received the man at her home. The murderer had told the woman that he was a God-fearing member of the same Church, a prison teacher, and had served with honors in the Korean War who had worked as a CIA agent.
Four months after his move, Kleasen convinced Longley to marry him. However, in 1999, the son of a friend of Marie’s conducted an Internet investigation on her husband, revealing her true past. With this new information, the woman devised a plan to flee her home with her best friend, Liz Butterfield.
In this sense, Marie notified the British authorities that Kleasen possessed a set of illegal weapons that he had accumulated over the years. Besides, the woman ran away from her house during the morning while the man was sleeping.
In order not to arouse suspicion of the preparations, Longley kept his belongings in bags that were used to be donated. “Marie supported charities and, in particular, the Cat Protection League. She placed her belongings in Cat Protection League bags as if they were being donated to the bazaar sale,” Liz explained in 2003. .
“I drove there at 8 in the morning and first we got the dog in the car, that was the top priority, then we put these four bags together from what seemed like a jumble. In case (Kleasen) woke up and tried to follow us, we used the back roads. I know Lincolnshire like the back of my hand and we use routes he couldn’t possibly know,” the best friend continued.
Once the plan was successful, Marie found a safe house about 50 miles away. The woman was left living there under a false name. until her husband was arrested for possession of illegal firearms.
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When the police began to investigate the disappearance of the woman, discovered more illegal firearms. In addition to this, they found a band saw on the property. “His first thought of her was that she was in the Humber (river) in pieces,” Liz explained when she found the tool.
Following these discoveries, Kleasen was arrested and tried before Grimsby Crown Court in 2000. In addition, he was imprisoned for three years in Belmarsh prison, located in south-east London.
While he was in custody, US authorities made a breakthrough in the 1974 murders: They found DNA that linked him to the crime scene. This new evidence meant that the man could be tried again for the crimes of the young missionaries, so extradition proceedings began. However, before returning to the United States, he fell ill and was transferred to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Dulwich, where he died of heart failure in April 2003.
According to residents of the area, Marie, who is currently 91 years old, was only able to return to her home when the man was arrested. However, she “could only feel safe” after Kleasen’s death. “It was only after his death in 2003 that Marie could feel confident that she was free of him, if he had stayed alive she would always have been looking over her shoulder,” one resident said.
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Added to this, acquaintances of the woman indicated that the marriage had become “a nightmare”, so Longley used to hide from her violent husband in a locked room at the back of the house. “No one knows the full extent of what she suffered under the same roof as that man, it’s a subject she will never feel comfortable talking about,” the neighbor said.
According to the man’s statements, Kleasen’s ex-wife returned to their cabin and “lives a calm and normal life.” “She is well-loved in this city and she has a group of friends who take care of her and make sure that she is well taken care of and that her garden, which she loves, is taken care of. In many ways, what happened to him feels a bit unreal, like something from a movie“, he expressed.
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Alan Sipling, 52, was a member of the same shooting club as Kleasen, whom he described as a “harmless until I saw what he was really capable of”. In this sense, the man recalled an afternoon in which he saw the convicted man point a shotgun at another man’s face for a fight over a parking space.
“Because Bob was not so good with his feet, he had parked near the pond just for easy access to the gun club,” Sipling began his account. Immediately after, another shooter arrived at the parking lot and he argued with Kleasen when he saw where he had parked.
“I continued to speak to the man, aware that Bob had disappeared. He returned shortly thereafter with his rifle drawn and shoved the barrels under this man’s chin. If I had shot at that distance, I would have blown his head off.Allan explained.
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After calming Kleasen down, the other man involved called the police. However, the authorities forced them “to keep the peace, as if it were an argument that got out of hand.” “I knew then that he was potentially a very dangerous man, but obviously at the time I had no idea about his past.”Sipling said.
Until that episode, the convict was a firearms adviser for the Humberside Police. “To think that a man like that was advising the police really defies logic,” the neighbor argued. And he added: “Eventually, the weapons that he brought to his house were the ones that got him in trouble. He had all kinds of weapons and some of them were illegal.”
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Regarding his arrival in the city, he explained that Kleasen commented “braggadocios and nonsense that many people accepted and took at face value”. In that sense, the man had said that he was a test pilot in the United States, that he had his own plane, that he was a CIA agent and that he had made an elephant gun for a sheikh. Likewise, he stated that he had fought in the Vietnam War, in addition to mentioning that he had blood ties to the royalty of the Netherlands. “He was completely crazy, but there were a lot of people who enjoyed it and believed him,” he said.
Asked about his latest arrest, Alan said: “It’s pretty clear he would have eventually been found guilty, but he died before anything could be proven for sure.” In addition, he opined that his death “allowed things to return to normal for his ex-wife, but his name will always be remembered in Barton.” “He certainly left his mark on the place for all the wrong reasons”he concluded.
mb / ds
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