In hours of interviews with police officers following his arrest, Jason Klaus never told them about a scheme to steal a pickup from his family farm.
Klaus, 41, testified earlier this week that he and Joshua Frank, 32, had planned to steal a truck in an insurance scam. But Frank went into the house to steal a prized deer head as well, saw someone and panicked, shooting Gordon and Sandra Klaus and their daughter Monica.
That is not the story Klaus told police the day after he was arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree murder on Aug. 15, 2014.
Klaus said he and Frank planned the murders. Frank, who is also facing three counts of first-degree murder, did the shooting, Klaus told police, while he waited in his vehicle on the road nearby.
Frank’s defence lawyer Tonii Roulston pointed out Klaus had testified that about five days after his parents were killed, Frank told him how the murders happened. Up until then, he did not know, Klaus said earlier in his trial at Red Deer Court of Queen’s Bench.
Klaus later secretly recorded Frank repeating his involvement twice. He still had one of the confessions on a digital audio recorder somewhere in his house or in a vehicle he was driving around the time of his arrest. Another confession was apparently on a pair of cellphones he gave an aunt for safekeeping
So why not tell police he had a recording of Frank confessing? Roulston asked.
Klaus said he feared Frank would follow through on threats to kill him or a family member if he said anything about the murders.
But at the end of a long day of police interviewing Klaus did tell police that Frank was the killer.
“You’re not too scared to tell them that? Correct?” Roulston said to Klaus.
Roulston suggested to him the confessions do not exist, that Frank never confessed.
“No, you’re wrong there,” Klaus said.
Klaus was also questioned closely about his contention that he only confessed to planning the murders with Frank to tell the police what they wanted to hear.
One of the police officers at the Red Deer RCMP detachment told him to do that, he said.
The conversation happened on a break from his interviewing, he said.
Nothing along those lines was recorded that day even though the officers were all wearing audio recorders.
Roulston suggested to Klaus he only made up the story about being told to confess to explain it away “as an excuse to why you would say that.”
“No, I disagree with you,” said Klaus.
The court also heard evidence of bad blood between Frank and Klaus. Klaus had heard rumours that Frank was involved with his girlfriend, which she denied.
“When I see Josh, it’s not going to be f**kin pretty,” Klaus told his girlfriend in a recording of a phone call played in court.
The trial continues Friday.