For ten years, the residents of a sleepy Lincolnshire community in Barton Upon Humber had no idea they were living on the same road as a man who had been convicted of crimes so grisly they drew comparison with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Neither as it happens did Marie Longley who believed her American lover Robert Elmer Kleasen was a prison teacher and war hero who had worked as an operative for the CIA.
What he had neglected to mention was that he’d spent three years on Death Row for feeding two Christian missionaries through a bandsaw at a taxidermist’s shop in a crime that horrified the United States.
The murders in Austin, Texas, became known as ‘The Real Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, coming just days after the release of the infamous slasher movie.
One theory is that Kleasen watched the film and was inspired to emulate the ghastly exploits of the murderous villain, Leatherface.
The sleepy community of Barton Upon Humber has a dark secret
His wife Marie Longley had no idea Kleasen had been accused of crimes so grisly they drew comparison with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Tobe Hooper’s gruesome 1974 horror classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacare, which was banned in several countries following its release
He died in 2003 while awaiting extradition to the US to answer for his crimes
Kleasen won his freedom on a legal technicality but his crimes had caused such a wave of revulsion through the US that he was recognised and hounded wherever he went on his release.
However his notoriety had not reached peaceful Barton upon Humber in North Lincolnshire where policeman’s widow Marie had struck up a friendship with him through a pen pal scheme.
Their relationship gave Kleasen the chance he needed to flee the States and start a new life in the unlikely setting of the historic small town on the south bank of the Humber estuary.
It is 20 years since Robert Kleasen died aged 70 in a London hospital while awaiting extradition back to the United States – but the mention of his name still draws a sharp intake of breath in Barton upon Humber.
Alan Sipling’s eyebrows raise as he stands behind the counter of his pet shop at the mention of Kleasen’s name.
Alan, 52, was a member of the same gun club and recalls the impact on the town of a ‘Walter Mitty’ maverick who he came to known in Barton as ‘The Mad Yank.’
The mention of his name still draws a sharp intake of breath in Barton upon Humber
Alan Sipling was a member of the same gun club as Kleasen and saw him threaten a man
But any amusement he might have felt at Kleasen’s tall tales quickly evaporated when he saw him push a loaded double barrelled shotgun under another man’s chin in a trivial parking dispute.
Mr Sipling said: ‘Everyone remembers Bob Kleasen in this town, the fact he lived here among us now seems a bit surreal considering the crimes he was convicted for.
‘He came here full of bluster and nonsense that to me always seemed ridiculous, but which many people accepted and took at face value.
‘He said he was a test pilot in the US, he owned his own plane, was a CIA agent and had made an elephant gun for a sheikh.
‘On top of that he’d been a peace observer in the Vietnam war and had actually been shot in the chest without even noticing until someone else saw the blood under his uniform
‘He was related to Dutch royalty and either Goring or Goebbles – I forget which – was his uncle. It was complete madness but there were quite a lot of people who lapped it up and believed him.
‘I’d put him down as a harmless Walter Mitty until I saw what he was actually capable of.
‘He and I were part of the same wildfowlers shooting club and we had been on a duck shoot together.
‘Because Bob wasn’t so good on his feet he had parked close to the pond just to make it easier to get access.
‘Another shooter was on his way back to his own car when he saw how Bob had parked and pretty bluntly asked him what he was playing at.
‘I continued talking to the guy, aware that Bob had disappeared. He returned soon afterward with his rifle out of its sheath and he pushed the barrels under this guy’s chin.
‘This was a 20 bore over and under shotgun. If it had gone off at that range it would have blown the guy’s head off. I stood and watched as the colour drained from his face, not knowing what was coming next.
‘Bob told him ‘drop your gun’ before he grabbed the other guy’s rifle and threw it into the pond.
‘I was genuinely very worried about what he was going to do and started trying to calm him down. I said ‘Bob, what are you doing? Put the gun down’ and slowly took it from him.
‘Me and the other man were both very shaken by it, I couldn’t quite believe what I had witnessed.
‘The other man informed the police and they got involved. It was incredible really, but both of them ended up being bound over to keep the peace by magistrates as though it was some argument that got out of hand.
‘I knew then that he was potentially a very dangerous man, but obviously at that point I had no idea of his past.’
Kleasen’s ex-wife Marie Longley still lives in Barton Upon Humber
Incredibly, up until the incident at the pond, Kleasen had been working as a firearms adviser to Humberside police.
Mr Sipling said: ‘Bob was able to collect guns and had an RDF licence – a registered firearms dealer. It was through his connections that he somehow worked his way in with Humberside police force.
‘To think that a man like that was advising the police really defies belief.
‘Eventually the guns he was bringing into his home was what landed him in trouble. He had all sorts of weapons and some of them were illegal.
‘For instance he had an old Thompson submachine gun, the type you’d see in old gangster movies. Once the police got to know about the weapons, that was the end of him.’
Marie was oblivious to Kleasen’s crimes and took him into her home believing him to be a God-fearing stalwart of his church who had served with distinction in the Korean war.
Within four months of his arrival in Barton in 1990, he had talked her into marriage.
Their 10 year relationship ended with Kleasen was arrested by British police for gun smuggling and the shattering revelation of his sickening past were revealed.
In 1999 a friend’s son carried out internet research which revealed the truth about Kleasen to Marie.
She discovered that 25 years earlier, on October 28, 1974, two Mormon missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints had been the victims of an appalling murder which her husband was deemed to have carried out.
Gary Darley, 20, and Mark Fischer, 19, vanished in Austin after they were last known to have visited Kleasen for a dinner of venison in his trailer at the rear of the taxidermy business where he worked.
Kleasen lived there alone after his third wife left him because she caught him sharing a bath with a deer he’d recently disembowelled.
When Gary and Mark did not return from their visit, the alarm was raised by worried church elders.
No sign was found of either young missionary until a search was conducted of the taxidermist’s and human hair and bone was discovered on the bandsaw where animals were dismembered.
A subsequent search of Kleasen’s trailer discovered their name tags each with bullet holes in them.
Kleasen was arrested, tried and convicted of the murders. Prosecutors told how he threw the remains of the dismembered boys in with animal remains which were then taken off to an incinerator.
Because their heads were too large and conspicuous to be hidden among the chopped up remains, Kleasen passed them through the mechanical saw several times to make them easier to conceal.
His crimes were considered so depraved that the death penalty was the only suitable punishment and he spent three years in prison awaiting the electric chair.
But in 1977 he received an unexpected reprieve when the appeal court found the search warrant used in the raid on his trailer had not been correctly obtained and his conviction was overturned.
For ten years exiled US murderer Robert Kleasen stalked the streets of the Lincolnshire town
Kleasen was eventually arrested for gun smuggling with police finding dozens of rifles in his home
When Marie discovered the truth she immediately fled her listed cottage after hatching a plan to make a dawn escape with her best pal, Liz Butterfield.
The two stole away in the early hours while Kleasen was still asleep and Marie hid at a secret location until British justice had caught up with him.
It marked the end of a marriage that had gradually become a nightmare and had seen her hiding away from the increasingly violent Kleasen in a locked room at the back of the house.
Neighbours say 91-year-old Marie returned to her home after her husband had been arrested and jailed for illegally holding a cache of firearms he’d been building up.
One said: ‘It was only after his death in 2003 that Marie could feel certain she was free of him, if he’d remained alive she would always have been looking over her shoulder.
‘She returned to her cottage and she lives a peaceful, normal life. In many ways what happened to her feels a little bit unreal, like something from a film.
‘She is much loved in this town and has a group of friends who look out for her and make sure she’s well cared for and her garden, which she loves, is tended.
‘No one knows the full extent of what she suffered under the same roof as that man, it’s a subject she will never be comfortable discussing.’
It was Marie who tipped off the police after she discovered the truth about him.
She and her friend, Liz , hatched an elaborate plan to get her out of the house while Kleasen was sleeping by arranging a fake jumble sale.
Liz, from Grimsby, who died in 2022, spoke in 2003 of how she managed to get her friend away from her gun-obsessed husband.
She said: ‘Marie supported charities and in particular the Cats Protection League. She placed her belongings in Cats Protection League bags as though they were being donated to the jumble sale.
‘I drove up there at 8am and we got the dog in the car first, that was top priority, then gathered up these four bags of what appeared to be jumble.
‘Just in case he woke up and tried to follow, we used the back roads. I know Lincolnshire like the back of my hand and we used routes he could not possibly know.’
Marie found a safe house 50 miles away and stayed there under an assumed name.
Police began to investigate her disappearance and while they were questioning her husband they discovered more illegal firearms, including an assassin’s pistol. They also discovered there was a bandsaw in the property.
Liz claimed: ‘Their first thought was that she was in the Humber in pieces.’
Eventually Kleasen was arrested and brought before Grimsby Crown Court in 2000 over his cache of illegally held firearms and he was jailed for three years.
Whilst he was in Belmarsh prison in south east London, American law enforcement had a breakthrough in the 1974 murders, finding DNA evidence which linked him to the scene.
This fresh evidence would have been enough to retry Kleasen for the murders of the young missionaries and extradition proceedings began.
But before he could be returned to face trial a second time in the US, he took ill and was transferred to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Dulwich, where he died of heart failure in April 2003.
Alan Sipling said: ‘It’s pretty clear he’d have eventually been found guilty, but he died before anything could be proven for certain.
‘It’s allowed things to return to normal for his former wife but his name will always be remembered in Barton, he’s certainly left his mark on the place for all the wrong reasons.’