Family Secrets, Part 1

In 1985, college student Ian Perkins reconnected with a family friend, Fritz Klenner, who told him a secret. He said he was a CIA agent — and offered to let Ian come along on his next mission. To listen early to Part 2 of this story, sign up for Criminal Plus at patreon.com/criminal. Jerry Bledsoe's book is called Bitter Blood. You can read more of Susan Spear's reporting in the Greensboro News and Record. We're going on tour - and it's a different kind of show than any we've done before. Next week, we'll be in in Durham, NC, and Portland, ME. Find ticket links and updates at ⁠⁠thisiscriminal.com/live⁠⁠. Say hello on ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok⁠. Sign up for our ⁠occasional newsletter⁠. Follow the show and review us on ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠. ⁠Sign up for Criminal Plus⁠ to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Criminal, ad-free listening of all of our shows, invitations to virtual events, special merch deals, and more. We also make ⁠This is Love⁠ and ⁠Phoebe Reads a Mystery⁠. Artwork by ⁠Julienne Alexander⁠. Check out ⁠our online shop⁠. Episode transcripts are posted on ⁠our website⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:32Speaker 02

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• 1:10Speaker 03

  Dr. Kleiner was quite famous. He had, for many decades, touted a theory that mega doses of vitamin C that he administered to patients would cure polio and diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

• 1:31Speaker 04

  Greensboro News & Record reporter Susan Spear.

• 1:35Speaker 03

  He drew patients from all over the United States and some from outside of the U.S. to his small clinic.

• 1:45Speaker 04

  Dr. Fred Kleiner opened his clinic in Reedsville, North Carolina, in 1939. The sign on the door read, "Fred R. Kleiner: Diseases of the Chest, Limited General Practice." He said that after he successfully treated his wife's bleeding gums with vitamin C, he used it to cure pneumonia and the measles. He started giving it to patients for anything from spider bites to arthritis to cancer. One reporter wrote that he was known to take 65 vitamin tablets every day. People started coming from all over for his help.

• 2:25Speaker 04

  One person later said his patients thought he was, quote, "right next to Christ." Inside his office, Dr. Kleiner reportedly hung up hornet's nests. He displayed a leather-bound Bible and a large grandfather clock. He also kept segregated waiting rooms. Dr. Kleiner's parents had immigrated from Germany, and during World War II, Dr. Kleiner was rumored to be a Nazi sympathizer.

• 2:54Speaker 03

  He also collected a lot of memorabilia from World War II, a lot of weapons. He kept a farm in Rockingham County where there were reportedly bunkers and great stores of ammo and shooting practice for he and his son, Fritz.

• 3:17Speaker 04

  Fritz was Dr. Kleiner's youngest child, and only son. By the time Fritz was 11, his father reportedly had given him his first real gun, a German Luger pistol. He'd already given him hundreds of toy guns by then. Fritz developed a huge interest in guns and was also fascinated by German military history. One reporter wrote that he often wore an army fatigue jacket to school. The Kleiner family lived in a large brick home on Huntsdale Road in Reedsville. Down the street lived a family with close ties to the Kleiners, the Perkins. Dr. Kleiner was the Perkins family doctor.

• 4:01Speaker 04

  He delivered their son Ian when he was born.

• 4:04Speaker 03

  They were neighbors. They were social equals with high status. And Dr. Kleiner was credited with curing Ian's mother's polio when Ian's mother was a child. And so there were a lot of links between the family.

• 4:30Speaker 04

  Dr. Kleiner's son Fritz was 11 years older than Ian Perkins. Former Forsyth County detective Alan Gentry.

• 4:39Speaker 05

  He had seen Fritz growing up around him. He'd been off with him shooting weapons out at his father's farm in Rockingham County.

• 4:49Speaker 04

  One neighbor later said that Ian Perkins looked up to Fritz Kleiner like an uncle. Ian Perkins was described in high school as being quiet and studious. He belonged to the Bible Club. He went to college at Washington & Lee University in Virginia, where he first tried to major in chemical engineering, but later switched to philosophy. He played Dungeons and Dragons, and he enrolled in the National Guard. During his junior year, he left school for a few months to train in Texas.

• 5:25Speaker 03

  He was a bit aimless, and he was interested in possibly getting involved in work with the State Department, like one of his great uncles. At this point, Fritz saw him when Ian was home from college.

• 5:47Speaker 04

  Fritz and Ian went shooting together when Ian was home, using Fritz's assault rifles, pistols, and machine guns. Then Fritz visited Ian at Washington & Lee. While he was there, he told Ian a secret. He said he worked for the CIA.

• 6:06Speaker 03

  Fritz appealed to Ian's interest in government service and Ian's wish to try to go into FBI, CIA-type spy work as a career. And convinced Ian Perkins that he, Fritz, was an operative for the CIA and that he could put in good words for Ian, could help shape his future, and indeed could give him

• 6:46Speaker 03

  some on-the-job training with some, quote, "missions."

• 6:52Speaker 04

  He said he was being sent to Texas, where he had been tasked with killing someone who was stealing from government armories and trading the weapons for drugs. He said he'd been authorized to bring Ian along to see how Ian performed under pressure. A few months later, on Friday, May 17, 1985, Fritz Kleiner called Ian Perkins and told him it was time to go.

• 7:20Speaker 03

  Fritz had asked him to drive the two of them to Virginia to the peaks of Otter, which is a camping area, and then to create a campsite together and establish an alibi for the weekend.

• 7:44Speaker 04

  As they drove to the campsite in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Fritz's Chevy Blazer, Fritz told Ian that their mission had changed. They would no longer be going to Texas, but instead would be going to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. When they arrived at the campsite early the next morning, they chose a spot with no one else around them. They set up a tent and went to bed. On Saturday evening, around 5:00 p.m., they started out for Winston-Salem, several hours away. On the way there, they stopped at a rest stop where Fritz changed his clothing. He also put on a bulletproof vest.

• 8:25Speaker 04

  When they got to Winston-Salem, Fritz pulled into a dirt lot near a shopping plaza. He took out a briefcase and walked away. Ian went to a Burger King where he got a cup of coffee and waited for 45 minutes. When he started worrying that it had been too long, he drove back to the shopping plaza and looked out for Fritz. When Fritz eventually returned, he told Ian that he didn't want to tell him much about what had happened, but he said he'd had to kill three people. On the drive back to Virginia, Fritz Kleiner and Ian Perkins stopped along the highway. Fritz cut up his hat and gloves and threw them into a dumpster.

• 9:09Speaker 04

  He also threw away his shoes and stopped and shaved off his beard. When they got back to their campsite in Virginia around 7:00 in the morning, Fritz threw his pistol into a lake and later buried a knife. On their way back to Washington & Lee, Fritz told Ian he had done well.

• 9:31Speaker 03

  He believed fully that he was doing something that was a government mandate and that Fritz Kleiner was trustworthy. Fritz had all, all of the props, all of the ways to convince a young man that he was the real deal.

• 9:54Speaker 05

  Fritz put on a convincing show. He had an arsenal of weapons at his disposal. It was a compelling image that Fritz had made for himself, I believe.

• 10:07Speaker 04

  I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. We'll be right back. To listen without ads, join Criminal Plus.

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• 11:02Speaker 03

  Fritz Klenner was quite a character. He seemed to have no trouble whatsoever creating elaborate lies.

• 11:14Speaker 04

  Much of what we know about Fritz Klenner and the story comes from a book called Bitter Blood by North Carolina journalist Jerry Bloodsoe. He died last year. According to Jerry Bledsoe, Fritz Klenner had always planned to become a doctor, like his father. As a high school student, Fritz was known to carry a pouch on his belt filled with vitamins and medical supplies.

• 11:40Speaker 03

  Fritz was the chosen one to Dr. Klenner from many reports. And Fritz Klenner grew up in his very domineering father's shadow and was quite worshipful of his father, according to folks who knew the family. He enjoyed the cachet of being the son of a beloved physician.

• 12:12Speaker 04

  After attending the University of Mississippi as an undergrad, Fritz Klenner told his family that he had gotten into medical school at Duke University, the same program his father had graduated from decades before.

• 12:26Speaker 03

  But in reality, Fritz had dropped out of Ole Miss and had been hanging out, working odd jobs, or goofing off collecting weapons and pretending to attend Duke.

• 12:45Speaker 04

  Fritz kept an apartment in Durham, near the school. He told his father that he was working on important blood research. He even had his father take blood samples from his patients and send them to him.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  He made a habit of being present at his father's medical office in Reedsville, and he followed stethoscope around neck in a white coat portraying himself as an MD, administering medication, sometimes without his father's guidance or directives. And he was assumed to be a physician. No one seemed to question it. Even the local pharmacists had a, at a glance, calendar they printed, which included Fritz

• 13:39Speaker 03

  Klenner's name as an MD and reference.

• 13:45Speaker 04

  Fritz told people other stories, too, that he'd worked as an undercover narcotics agent at Ole Miss and that he'd attended secret military training in Georgia. He said he had fought in Vietnam as a Green Beret. And he told some people that he was doing undercover work with the CIA. His cousin, Susie Lynch, heard the same stories. She was seven years older than him. They're mothers or sisters. Were Fritz and Susie close when they were children? Were their families close?

• 14:21Speaker 03

  Their families were reasonably close, but Susie and Fritz, I think, forged their bond later.

• 14:35Speaker 04

  They're first cousins.

• 14:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 14:38Speaker 04

  Do we know when their relationship turned romantic?

• 14:42Speaker 03

  It's believed that it turned romantic in 83, 84.

• 14:49Speaker 04

  Susie Lynch had recently moved back to North Carolina from Albuquerque, New Mexico, after separating from her husband, Tom. She had brought her two young sons, John and Jim, with her.

• 15:02Speaker 03

  Susie grew up in Winston-Salem, the daughter of Bob and Florence Newsom.

• 15:10Speaker 04

  Susie's parents, Bob and Florence, were well-connected in Winston-Salem. Her father was a tobacco company executive. And what was Susie's life like growing up in Winston?

• 15:24Speaker 03

  She led a very privileged lifestyle. Attending good schools afforded many opportunities. She ultimately attended Wake Forest University, which is a private Baptist school. She had a lot of social clout.

• 15:45Speaker 04

  Susie initially moved in with her parents after her marriage ended. But as her relationship with her cousin Fritz grew, things reportedly became tense. When Fritz started spending the night, Susie and her parents began fighting more. Eventually, Susie and her two sons moved into their own apartment in Greensboro.

• 16:08Speaker 03

  Fritz hung out at her apartment quite a bit and eventually became a fixture there. He could be seen coming and going, wearing jumpsuits, all kinds of military and paramilitary gear. He kept ammunition and all kinds of accoutrements that a soldier of fortune would maintain over at that apartment. But it was very much a cozy kind of situation where they were functioning like a quasi-family.

• 16:50Speaker 04

  Fritz and Susie told people they were married, and Fritz referred to Susie's boys as his sons. He wanted them to call him Papa.

• 17:00Speaker 04

  And what were other people in their families saying about Fritz's relationship with Susie? The fact that Susie was living with him and the children?

• 17:09Speaker 03

  They were incensed. Susie's mother Florence was rather undone, but folks seemed to handle it in a very passive way. No one seems to have taken any kind of decisive, bold action to intervene and say, listen, this is not good for your sons, this is not good for our family, what are you doing? That just didn't seem to happen.

• 17:43Speaker 04

  When Susie separated from her ex-husband, Tom, they agreed that Susie would have full custody of their sons. But as time went on, Susie and Tom began to disagree about Tom's visits with the boys.

• 17:58Speaker 03

  She wanted very much to prohibit Tom from seeing their boys. And she put lots and lots of restrictions on the amount of time he could have visitation.

• 18:15Speaker 04

  Susie didn't want her sons to have to fly by themselves to see their father. She wanted Tom to pay for her to fly with them to drop them off, something he didn't want to do.

• 18:28Speaker 04

  She also became convinced that Tom was trying to take her boys away from her. For a while, she insisted that Tom could only see the boys in North Carolina. And when he was eventually granted a visit in New Mexico, he had to put up a $10,000 bond that would be forfeited if he didn't return the boys on time.

• 18:50Speaker 04

  As the years went on, Tom decided to seek increased visitation with his sons through the courts. He wanted the boys to spend more time in the summer with him and his new wife Kathy in New Mexico.

• 19:02Speaker 03

  And he found a lot of support from Bob Newsom, Susie's father, and Florence, Susie's mother. And Bob Newsom, in fact, had agreed to testify in court on Tom's behalf to try to help get the grandsons the time with their father that their granddad thought they deserved. And I believe at this point Florence and Bob Newsom were fed up, and they may have

• 19:40Speaker 03

  reached a point where they believed that Susie was beyond help in terms of correcting course.

• 19:52Speaker 04

  According to Tom, Susie's father, Bob, said that Susie was, quote, "pathological in her paranoia about her children."

• 20:02Speaker 04

  In May of 1985, Bob Newsom called his daughter to tell her that he'd be testifying on Tom's behalf at an upcoming visitation hearing.

• 20:12Speaker 04

  That same day, Susie went to visit her lawyer, who had an office in Reedsville. She had a bag with her that contained two of her sons' stuffed animals.

• 20:23Speaker 04

  Susie told her lawyer that earlier that year, after she and Tom had had an argument over visitation, someone had broken into their apartment and slit the throats of the stuffed animals. She implied that Tom had something to do with it.

• 20:41Speaker 04

  Her cousin Fritz had told her that Tom was affiliated with the mafia. Susie had also told her brother, Rob, about this. She said she never went anywhere without a pistol to protect herself and said that Fritz was protecting her and her boys. Fritz had also told people that Susie's ex-husband, Tom, was out to get them. He said he'd found a small bomb attached to the gas tank on Susie's car and that Tom was behind it.

• 21:11Speaker 03

  They kind of created a narrative in which they were pitted against the world, and they believed that they would indeed lose their boys if Tom had the support of Susie's parents. And so a plan was hatched.

• 21:32Speaker 04

  The visitation hearing was going to be held on May 23, 1985. On May 17, Ian Perkins drove with Fritz Klenner to the peaks of Otter Campground in Virginia and then on to Winston-Salem.

• 22:11Speaker 05

  No one ever expected in Winston-Salem that we would have a triple homicide, but we did.

• 22:22Speaker 04

  Alan Gentry was a sergeant in the Criminal Investigation Division of the Forsyth County Sheriff's Department when he got a call from a dispatcher on a Sunday night in May of 1985.

• 22:34Speaker 05

  The county called me. It was approaching midnight, and as luck would have it, I had been at Charlotte Motor Speedway the day before and that day for a sports car racing event. And so I was pretty exhausted. And they told me that we had a triple homicide.

• 22:57Speaker 04

  Detective Alan Gentry was 32 at the time and had been working for the Forsyth County Sheriff's Department for more than a decade. Had you ever gotten a call before that said anything like a triple homicide?

• 23:12Speaker 05

  No. Typically, we would have, in an average year, maybe five to seven individual homicides. I don't ever remember having any more than that. And on the way over, which was not all that far from where I lived at the time, I'm thinking, okay, this is going to be a murder-suicide. You know, some guy's killed two family members and then committed suicide. And when I got there, I realized real quickly that that was not the case.

• 23:49Speaker 04

  When Alan Gentry arrived at the location of the murder, a home on Valley Road in Winston-Salem, several police cars from the Winston-Salem Police Department were already there. He walked in the back door and into the living room.

• 24:04Speaker 05

  The home was pretty gruesome. The gentleman, Susie's dad, was in the foyer. And his mother, who was in her early 80s, was lying on a small sofa. And Susie's mom was in the floor as well. And all three of them had been shot at least once in the chest and once at the base of the skull. And then Susie's mother had been stabbed multiple times. And it was a pretty gruesome scene.

• 24:45Speaker 04

  When you first walked in and surveyed the scene, what did you think had happened? Did you have any idea? Did it seem like a robbery?

• 25:00Speaker 05

  No, there was never any thought given to it being a robbery. There was some cash on a secretary in plain view. There was simply no reason to suspect that it was robbery.

• 25:17Speaker 04

  The TV was still on in the living room. A rocking chair in the fireplace tools had been knocked over. And a hole about 30 inches wide had been burned in the living room carpet. There was ash and charred paper in the middle of it. Bullet holes were scattered around the room.

• 25:38Speaker 04

  In the bedrooms, the dresser drawers were stacked up on the floor. Bob Newsom's briefcase was lying on the floor, opened and emptied. The storm door to the back of the house was broken, and there was a key in the lock.

• 25:53Speaker 04

  Detectives believed that Bob Florence and Bob's mother, Hattie Newsom, Susie's parents and grandmother, had been murdered sometime a day or two earlier. When their son, Rob, couldn't get a hold of his parents, he asked a family friend to check on the house. When they arrived, they could see the bodies of Hattie and Florence through a window and called the police.

• 26:20Speaker 04

  When Rob Newsom arrived from Greensboro late that night, he talked with Detective Alan Gentry. Alan asked him about the last time he'd seen his parents and grandmother, and if he knew of anyone who might want to kill them. Rob said no. And then Alan asked if there had been any problems or anything unusual in the family lately. Rob said yes. Something unusual had happened to his sister Susie's former in-laws.

• 26:53Speaker 05

  He told us that Susie's former mother-in-law and sister-in-law had been murdered in Kentucky the year before. And, you know, the first thought that you have is, this cannot be a coincidence.

• 27:08Speaker 04

  Coming up on our next episode...

• 27:10Speaker 03

  There were a lot of whispers about that Susie and Fritz must be up to no good.

• 27:17Speaker 05

  And I'm thinking, he's got this thing booby-trapped or something.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  He saw a cleaner with sunglasses on, looking down the barrel of an Uzi.

• 27:28Speaker 05

  All of a sudden, there was an explosion.

• 27:32Speaker 03

  He said, "You're not going to believe it. Mayhem."

• 27:38Speaker 04

  If you want to listen to part two right now, sign up for Criminal Plus at patreon.com/criminal. You'll be supporting our work and getting access to exclusive benefits like no ads, live events, chat rooms, and early listening. Part two will also be in the regular Criminal podcast feed next Friday.

• 27:59Speaker 04

  Criminal is created by Lauren Spoor and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Roberson, Jackie Sajikko, Lilly Clark, and Lena Silison. This episode was fact-checked by Katie Sederborg. Special thanks to Stephen Conrad. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com/newsletter. We're on Facebook at This is Criminal, and Instagram and TikTok at criminal_podcast. We're also on YouTube

• 28:43Speaker 04

  at youtube.com/criminalpodcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.