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Frederick
Robert KLENNER Jr.
A.K.A.: "Fritz"
Classification: Mass murderer
Characteristics: Child custody dispute
Number of victims: 8
Date of murders: 1984 - 1985
Date of birth: July
11, 1952
Victims profile: Five
relatives of his girlfriend / His girlfriend and her two children
Method of murder: Stabbing with knife / Shooting
Location: Kentucky/North Carolina, USA
Status: Committed
suicide by bomb to avoid arrest on June 3, 1985
Police knew Fred Klenner was dangerous when they spotted his van on
the outskirts of Greensboro, North Carolina, on June 3, 1985. A month
earlier, he had slaughtered a family of three at Winston-Salem, and he
was also sought in connection with the 1984 murders of a mother and
daughter in Prospect, Kentucky.
Authorities were ready to subdue him in
the case of physical resistance, but they never got the chance. When
Klenner's van was stopped, he opened fire with a machine gun, wounding
three officers in the initial burst of fire.
Before they could respond
in kind, he threw a switch and detonated an explosive charge inside the
van, killing himself and his three passengers. Identified as 39-year-old
Susie Lynch and her two sons, the latest dead were related by blood or
marriage to all of Klenner's previous victims.
Michael Newton - An Encyclopedia
of Modern Serial Killers
Frederick Robert "Fritz" Klenner
Jr.
In the 1980's, the small town of Reidsville was
rocked by a bizarre multiple-murder case that ultimately pointed to one
of its own, Frederick "Fritz" Klenner Jr. A bitter child custody dispute
between "Fritz'" first cousin and lover Suzie Sharp Newsom Lynch and her
ex-husband preceded the brutal murders of her ex-husband's mother and
sister near Louisville, KY, as well as her mother, father, and
grandmother in Winston Salem, NC. It has been proven that "Fritz"
murdered Lynch's in-laws in Kentucky and is highly suspected that he
murdered Lynch's parents and grandmother as well. Lynch's involvement in
the murders was also suspected by many but never proven.
On June 3, 1985, during a low-speed police chase when
authorities began closing in on them, "Fritz" and Lynch ended their
lives with a car bomb, as well as the lives of her two young sons.
The crimes are the subject of Jerry Bledsoe's book "Bitter
Blood" as well as a made-for-TV movie ("In the Best of Families:
Marriage, Pride & Madness") starring Harry Hamlin, Kelly McGillis and
Keith Carradine. They are also the subject of the seasonal haunted house,
"Nightmare on Scales Street," housed in "Fritz'" father's former
downtown clinic (Waymark WM7CJ7).
Waymarking.com
SEX:
M RACE: W TYPE: N MOTIVE: PC
MO:
Stabbed/shot five relatives of his girlfriend; later murdered the
girlfriend and her two children.
DISPOSITION:
Suicide by bomb to avoid arrest, June 3, 1985.
