Frederick Robert Klenner Jr., known as Fritz, was a native of Reidsville, North Carolina. He was never tried for any crime. He died on June 3, 1985, in Guilford County, on the day officers moved to arrest him and his first cousin, Susie Newsom Lynch. The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources describes him as the suspect in the killings of five members of two related families, two in Kentucky in 1984 and three in Winston-Salem in 1985. No court heard evidence against him, and no killing attributed to him has been proven.
The state history office describes Klenner as a man who deceived family and friends for years. It says he pretended to be a medical student at Duke University in order to please his father. He was a first cousin of Susie Newsom Lynch, and after her divorce the two became romantically involved.
Spectrum News, reporting in 2015 on the thirtieth anniversary of the case, wrote that police had described him as a survivalist. His date of birth and his schooling and work history are not on record.
Susie Newsom Lynch had two young sons. Spectrum News reported that the boys were at the center of a custody fight between her and her former husband. The state history office writes that the killings appear to be rooted in a belief shared by Klenner and Lynch that her former husband and other relatives were conspiring to take the boys from her.
Investigators think relatives were killed to keep them from testifying at the custody hearing, Spectrum News wrote in 2015. That is the investigators' stated theory, reported thirty years afterward, and it was never tested at a trial.
In July 1984, the mother and the sister of Lynch's former husband were killed in suburban Louisville, Kentucky, on a Sunday morning, according to a Kirkus Reviews review of Jerry Bledsoe's book on the case. The review says the deaths looked motiveless and resembled a gangland killing. Spectrum News also places the home in suburban Louisville. The county and town are not on record.
The state history office stops short of calling these two deaths Klenner's work. It says he is suspected of them, and that the aim was to make Lynch's former husband appear to have ties to organized crime. The same account, as reprinted in The Robesonian, calls him a suspect in five murders in all, two in Kentucky and three in Winston-Salem. No arrest, charge or court finding for the Kentucky deaths is on record.
In mid-May 1985, Lynch's father, mother and grandmother were killed in Winston-Salem. The state history office gives the date only as mid-May 1985.
That office states that Klenner killed the three with assistance from a friend, whom it does not name, and who believed he was "auditioning" for the Central Intelligence Agency. Whether the friend was charged or tried is not on record.
Police had been watching the apartment where Klenner and Lynch lived, Spectrum News reported, and on June 3, 1985, officers moved to arrest them. Klenner, Lynch and her two sons died that day in the Summerfield area of Guilford County.
The boys were children, and no agency or court has found that Klenner caused their deaths. The state history office attributes their deaths to their mother and says they died before the final events on the highway. Spectrum News reported that the deaths of the people in the vehicle came from an act of either Klenner or Lynch, without saying which. Klenner died that day. No statement by him is on record.
No conviction exists for anyone in these events. Three people are connected to the killings: Klenner, named as the suspect in all five deaths and attributed with the Winston-Salem deaths; Lynch, who died on June 3, 1985; and an unnamed friend. Kirkus Reviews notes that opinion is still divided on whether Lynch played any part in the killings of her own relatives.
Several points remain open. A charge, a warrant or a grand jury finding against Klenner is not on record. The Kentucky county and town are not on record. Whether the friend in the Winston-Salem killings was ever charged is not on record. And no court ever examined the sequence of the deaths on the highway.
A newspaper reporter in Greensboro, Jerry Bledsoe, wrote a book about the families that the state history office describes as a bestseller. Kirkus Reviews called it a gripping true-crime account. In 2015 Spectrum News marked thirty years since the case with interviews of local people and a former police officer, and reported that Lynch's former husband, who had moved away, did not return its calls. The state history office published its own account on June 3, 2016.
Every killing attributed to Klenner is unproven in a court. The state history office's statement that he killed the three Winston-Salem victims is that office's account, not a verdict, and the same account calls the Kentucky killings suspected. The motive offered for the Kentucky deaths, to suggest the former husband had criminal connections, comes from the state history office alone. Whether Lynch took part in any killing is described by Kirkus Reviews as a question on which opinion is divided. Accounts differ on who caused the deaths of the occupants of the vehicle.
July 1984: the mother and the sister of Lynch's former husband are killed in suburban Louisville, Kentucky. Klenner is suspected.
Mid-May 1985: Lynch's father, mother and grandmother are killed in Winston-Salem. The state history office attributes the killings to Klenner, with a friend's help.
June 3, 1985: officers move to arrest Klenner and Lynch; Klenner, Lynch and her two sons die in Guilford County.
June 4, 2015: Spectrum News reports on the thirtieth anniversary.
June 3, 2016: the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources publishes an account of the killings.