HINTON, Alta. — RCMP have released dramatic video footage of a killer confessing to slashing and strangling a 14-year-old girl.
The hour-long video shows Ross Kleman being taken by detectives to the wooded area where he killed Emily Stauffer.
He tells them how he was feeling frustrated and wanted to “get rid of some anger.”
He then breaks down and weeps as he tells one detective he never said anything to the girl but recalls hearing her scream.
He doesn’t say why he targetted the bubbly blonde teenager, who had been out walking along the trail system in Hinton, Alta., when she was attacked.
Kleman, 45, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced this week to life in prison with no parole for at least 18 years.
Although his motive for the crime has never been made clear, he told investigators he headed out that day with a plan to commit suicide somewhere along the town’s trail system, and had taken rope, wire and a box cutter with him.
Two young boys on bicycles witnessed the attack and went for help, but Emily — the daughter of a local pastor — died before help arrived.
The search for her attacker had the community of Edson gripped in fear for two months until Kleman was arrested.
On the video, he recalls coming across Emily and says he almost immediately “lost it.”
“I remember her screaming and I believe she was screaming ’help’,” Kleman says.
“Did you say anything to her?” the detective asks.
“No . . . I didn’t even stop, I kept going,” he responds.
Kleman says at that point he felt “pure anger toward just everything around me.” As he breaks down in tears, an officer puts a comforting hand on his shoulder.