What became a triple murder and an arson started out as a simple plan to steal a deer head, accused killer Jason Klaus told police.
Klaus said he and his friend, Joshua Frank, had schemed to steal a valuable mounted deer head from Klaus’s parents’ house to sell for quick cash. But when Klaus went to pick up Frank from a Castor hotel early on Dec. 8, 2013 the plan was murder.
“The deer head was actually our plan to begin with. But then when I picked him up the plan was that he was gonna go in there and kill the family,” Klaus told Staff Sgt. Michael McCauley after hours of questioning at the Red Deer RCMP detachment the day after Klaus was arrested in Stettler on Aug. 15
Klaus said he was waiting in his vehicle a couple of miles down the road when Frank went into the house on a farm just outside Castor in the early hours of Dec. 8, 2013 and killed Jason’s parents, Gordon and Sandra, and his sister, Monica.
Frank then set fire to the house. He also killed the family dog, Klaus told police.
Klaus said at the last minute he tried to stop what was happening.
“I was gonna go back when he was at the yard. I was gonna go back and stop the whole thing.”
McCauley asked why he didn’t.
“It was too late,” he said, adding “‘cause I could see he started the fire already.”
Klaus, 41, and Frank, 32, are on trial in Red Deer Court of Queen’s Bench on three counts of first-degree murder and arson. Frank is also charged with killing the dog.
Klaus insisted he never stepped foot on the property the night of the murders.
“I was not in the yard at all,” Klaus told McCauley.
McCauley pointed out that his blood was found at the scene on top of freshly fallen snow.
“I wasn’t at the crime scene that night. Where the blood came from, I can’t explain that but I was not there,” he said in a later exchange.
He said he did not know why Frank had told police that Klaus was in the house with him.
Earlier in the day, Klaus told police he had nothing to do with the murders. He blamed it on Frank, saying he found what his friend had done after tricking him into admitting it.
As the day and hours of questioning wore on, Klaus’s story began to change and he admitted being involved in the planning.
At one point, video recordings from family members urging him to tell the truth and asking why he did it.
“What happened? If you could do that for us, we’d like to know Jason,” said his grandfather in one message. “Only you can tell us.”
A cousin said Klaus was a hero to him as a boy and pleaded with him to tell the family why it happened and to be honest.
“Be that hero to me, that you were when I was a little boy. ‘Cause I know you can.”
Klaus said Frank did the murders for cash — $20,000 to $25,000, which he would get sometime down the road.
McCauley tried to get Klaus to explain why it happened.
Klaus said he had forged three or four cheques worth several thousand dollars on his father’s account. His dad was controlling but they loved each other, he insisted.
He said it was not about getting the farm or money.
“I don’t know what it was. I really don’t. I really don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”
“I’m not a bad guy at all,” he said later, adding “my parents, my family meant the world to me. More than anybody would know.”
The hours of police interviews was played as part of avoid dire to test their admissibility in court.
Justice Eric Macklin ruled the statements were voluntary and allowed them as evidence.
The trial resumes on Tuesday with a void dire on the admissibility of Frank’s statements to police.
pcowley@reddeeradvocate.com
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