It was supposed to be a simple plan.
Joshua Frank would go to the Klaus farm and steal a pickup.
With a new paint job and a false vehicle identification number, Frank would have himself a vehicle he did not have the cash to buy. All Jason Klaus had to do was report the stolen vehicle and wait for the insurance cheque.
But the scheme hatched by Frank and Klaus after a night of cocaine and hard drinking on Dec. 8, 2013, went terribly wrong a few hours later, Klaus testified in Red Deer Court of Queen’s Bench on Tuesday.
The pickup theft turned into a triple homicide. Klaus’ parents, Gordon and Sandra, and sister Monica would be shot to death, and the family farmhouse burned to the ground.
Klaus and Frank are on trial for three counts of first-degree murder.
Klaus testified he had misgivings about stealing the pickup, even though it was basically his anyway, as the two drove to the Klaus farm, 10 km northeast of Castor.
“(Frank) said it will be fine. It will be an easy in and out. It will be OK.” Klaus said.
As Klaus waited in his vehicle on the road outside the farm, he got his first sense that was something was amiss.
“It was taking longer than I thought it should,” he said.
When Frank finally came out of the property with the truck he headed north, not south into Castor as they had discussed. Klaus followed Frank for about 30 km before the stolen pickup stopped. Frank got out and threw the keys into the ditch.
“I’m baffled,” recalled Klaus.
Frank would explain he did not want to get caught with the keys to a stolen truck. He would return the next day with a friend to move the truck and retrieve the keys.
On the drive back to Castor, Frank said he took so long at the farm because he heard a dog barking and out-waited it in the truck before leaving.
“I noticed he was quite agitated.”
A few hours later, Klaus said he awoken by the phone and told his parents’ home was on fire. By the time he got there it was fully engulfed.
Despite Frank’s insistence that morning that he saw nothing unusual at the farm during the pickup theft, Klaus remained suspicious.
Getting together a few days after the fire, Klaus coaxed the story out of Frank.
“He concluded to tell me what had happened, and how it was an accident,” Klaus said in emotional testimony.
He said Frank told him once in the farmyard, he decided to sneak into the Klaus family home and steal a prized whitetail deer head worth $200,000 or so that Jason Klaus had shot years earlier. He figured the two could sell it and pocket the cash.
But as he removed the deer head from the wall he was startled by a dog barking, accidentally knocking over a Christmas tree.
When a person appeared he panicked and shot Monica. He then saw Gordon approaching down a hall armed with a gun and shot him. A woman screamed and Frank shot Sandra. Monica, who had not died, was shot a second time.
“I started crying. I asked him, ‘What the f**k were you thinking?’ ” Klaus testified.
“He said he got scared. He got spooked.
“He couldn’t believe what he had done and told me it was a complete accident.”
Klaus’ version of events is significantly different than the story he told undercover police officers in the summer of 2014.
During a four-month Mr. Big undercover sting, Klaus told an undercover officer that he had planned the murders and paid Frank to pull the trigger. The confession was secretly recorded by police and is among numerous audio and video recordings taken, including one in which Frank describes how he killed the Klaus family.
On Tuesday, Klaus’ lawyer, Allan Fay, asked him why he did not tell police about the pickup theft when he was approached by police soon after the fire.
Klaus said he was scared he would somehow be tied to the deaths.
Klaus said he tried to point police in Frank’s direction by offering clues, some of which came to him from the spirit of his sister, who visited him several times.
To protect himself, he twice secretly recording conversations with Frank, in which he recounts how he killed the Klauses. The first recording’s sound quality was poor and the second conversation was preserved on two cellphones later thrown out by an aunt.
But at both meetings when the recordings were taken, Frank had a .223-calibre rifle with him and warned Klaus what would happen if he spoke to police.
Klaus will be back on the stand on Wednesday. Frank is expected to testify later in this week.
pcowley@reddeeradvocate.com
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