The actions of officers at the intersection were “reasonable,” Morgan concluded.
“Knowing what is now known, and after reflecting on what did occur, one might speculate that some other approach should have been made,” he said. “But that was a judgmental decision that had to be made under extreme time constraints and very tense conditions. The several officers involved had no opportunity to call ‘time out’ and plan another strategy.”
That officer Dennis was left shot at the scene was “not accurate,” Morgan said, although all cars involved in the operation sped off in pursuit of Fritz, according to Dennis and other witnesses. Questioned later, Morgan acknowledged that he had not talked to Dennis during his investigation.
In summary, Morgan found the actions of the officers not only faultless but laudable, although he did recognize that a problem in communications existed, which under later questioning he acknowledged “could have been disastrous.”
Asked why the officers tried to stop Fritz knowing that the children were in the Blazer, Morgan said that they had information that Fritz cared very much for the boys and “would do nothing” to hurt them.
About the file on Fritz, Morgan said that it had been kept in the intelligence files of the Bureau’s Special Operations Division. The file was submitted by agent Mike Kelly on July 13, 1981, Morgan said, which was two and a half months after Sam Phillips had told Kelly about Fritz.
Referring to Phillips as a “confidential informant,” Morgan called him a member of a “survivalist group” to which he said Fritz also belonged. He said that Fritz had talked the informant’s wife into leaving him. “The informant’s wife had left him and taken the children, and they all were living with Klenner in his apartment at that time,” Morgan said, although in fact Cynthia Phillips never left her home and at no time did Fritz live there.
Morgan went on to list the contents of the bag of medical paraphernalia and prescription drugs that Sam Phillips had turned over to Kelly. The drugs included an antibiotic, a muscle relaxant, plus Darvon and Dexamyl, both controlled substances.
“The possession of six Darvon and one Dexamyl tablet was not sufficient to indicate that an individual was selling drugs,” Morgan said.
Kelly, he said, supported by Assistant Director Cuyler Windham and Drug Supervisor Charlie Overton, determined that the contents of the bag were not a “drug dealer stash.”
While Morgan was making it appear that Phillips reported Fritz for dealing drugs, the intelligence report submitted by Kelly, which Morgan refused to release, made it clear that Phillips only wanted Fritz investigated for practicing medicine without a license.
“Klenner was introduced to everyone in the group as a medical student at Duke University,” Kelly wrote. “From that point, Klenner began treating group members for various medical problems. The CI [confidential informant] subsequently learned that Klenner’s father was in fact a practicing physician in Reidsville, N.C., who mailed checks to his son for large amounts. Klenner, Jr. was supposed to be paying for his education with the money from his father.
“The CI advised that Klenner, Jr. had treated his two sons and his wife, including giving them oral medication and an injection on occasion. It was believed that Klenner was getting the medicine from his father with his dad’s knowledge. Group members eventually found out that Klenner was not in medical school, and in fact did not work or go to any school. Most of the money from his father was being used to buy weapons, which most group members possessed several of.
“The CI said Klenner was a very paranoid person, and usually carried several weapons with him along with his black medical bag. He also said he had a bag of various drugs obtained form [
sic
] Klenner that he would give to Writer if it would help in an investigation of Klenner.”
Morgan said that Kelly had investigated the matter by making routine checks of the apartment complex where Fritz lived, by checking with the Durham police vice squad, which said it had no information on him, and by asking agent Fred Tucker in the Greensboro office to check around Reidsville for information that might be helpful about Fritz or his father.
“Tucker reported back that there was nothing unusual about Dr. Klenner or his son,” Morgan said.
Morgan went on to say that in his own investigation following the newspaper report, he had gone to Rockingham County and talked with Sheriff Bobby Vernon about the Klenners. “He said that he knew that the family was a prominent family in the area and that to his knowledge, neither Klenner or anyone in the family had ever been involved in any kind of illegal or suspicious activities and that they all enjoyed the finest reputation.”
Morgan’s conclusions were that the report about Fritz had been handled appropriately and that “the possession of the six Darvon and one Dexamyl did not indicate a ‘drug dealer stash’ or give cause for further proceedings.”
Questioned persistently about details of the case after finishing his report, Morgan grew angry and abruptly shut down the press conference.
He got angry again the following day, when he read the
Winston-Salem Journal’s
report of his findings. The story noted that Morgan still declined to release the tape of the third conversation between Fritz and Ian. It quoted District Attorney Tisdale as saying that even he still had been unable to get a copy of the tape. “I’ve been getting the runaround,” Tisdale said.
In a fit of pique, Morgan fired off a letter to Tisdale.
He quoted law and said that the attorney general as well as himself had decided that the tape shouldn’t be released and that Tisdale’s stand was “a specific affront” to both that also eroded public confidence in law enforcement. Nevertheless, he would provide the tape if Tisdale demanded it, he said, adding that if Tisdale played it for reporters, “I think you will have violated the law.”
In all of his years as a prosecutor, Tisdale had never known an SBI director to get involved in an individual case, and he wondered why Morgan was so wrapped up in this one. He also wondered why Morgan had come to Winston-Salem during his investigation and not bothered to call him. Now he wondered who Morgan thought he was.
He composed a three-page letter to the attorney general to tell him that he didn’t appreciate Morgan’s letter or his attitude.
“It is not appropriate for the director, who is, after all, a police officer, to instruct me as to what the law is,” Tisdale wrote. “I believe the director is way out of line both in the tone of his letter and in issuing a subtle threat to me.”
He requested the tape and said he intended to play it for reporters unless Thornburg asked that he not.
Thornburg responded with a conciliatory letter saying that he hadn’t taken affront at Tisdale’s actions and that he hadn’t seen Morgan’s letter before it was mailed, nor had Morgan discussed it with him. He made it clear, however, that he didn’t want the tape made public.
“Our concern goes to the much broader problem of protecting sensitive information in a variety of cases. The tape, in this instance, could be considered innocuous. The release, though, could add to the difficulties we are already experiencing.”
Tisdale dropped his request for the tape, although he still thought it should be made public.
“I would have pushed the thing further,” he said later, “except for my relationship with Ed Hunt. I wasn’t going to put him in the middle.”
The contents of the tape were never made public by the SBI, nor did the agency reveal any more information about the Newsom murder investigation. Letting the public know whether Susie played any role in the murders of her parents and grandmother, or whether she took a hand in the killing of her children, clearly was of no interest to North Carolina’s top police organization.
48
Dan Davidson blamed himself for not becoming more suspicious of Susie early in his investigation. Yet, he had to ask, what did he have to go on? Gossip from Delores’s friends that she and Susie didn’t get along well? That was about it. Hell, half the mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law he’d ever encountered didn’t get along, but that was no reason for murder. Not even Tom had thought Susie capable of the murders when Davidson asked about the possibility, and if anybody should have been suspicious, surely it was Tom.
“Who’s going to think some damn daughter-in-law over children?” Davidson grumbled to fellow detectives.
Too, it was not as if he had let Susie escape investigation. On the day of Delores’s and Janie’s funeral, when suspicion was still directed toward Tom, Detective Tom Swinney had been assigned to call Susie and interview her. She told him she had no idea who might want to kill Delores and Janie. Swinney reported back to Davidson that she said Tom was very close to his mother and sister and she thought him incapable of killing them. She described Delores as “overbearing” and “very demanding of her family.”
In August, Davidson had run an intelligence check on Susie with North Carolina authorities, which produced nothing to arouse suspicions toward her.
Later, after Tom had been eliminated as a suspect, Davidson had included reinterviewing Susie on a list of things that needed to be done, but not until two days after Christmas did Detective Sherman Childers call the Greensboro Police Department and ask if a detective could question Susie. Sergeant Furman Melton was assigned the task, and Childers filled him in about the case. Two hours later, Melton called back.
“Sgt. Melton advised he interviewed Susan Sharp, the ex-wife of Thomas Lynch,” Childers wrote in his report. “Sgt. Melton stated she didn’t know anything about the murders or have any idea who would commit such a crime. Sgt. Melton advised he doesn’t believe Susan Sharp had anything to do with the homicide and she does have a good reputation in the community.”
Now Davidson knew that, months before this interview, Susie had been telling family and friends that Tom had had his mother and sister killed by the Mafia so he could inherit money to pay off gambling debts. Yet when two detectives showed up to question her about the murders, she made no mention of any of that.
This was just one more reason to make Davidson think that Susie had directed the executions of Delores and Janie. And as soon as he and his two wounded detectives had returned to Kentucky after the distressing events of June 3, Davidson set out to do what North Carolina authorities had failed to accomplish and now showed no interest in doing: proving that Susie had had a hand in murder.
That Susie could have plotted or committed murder was something that her brother, her aunts Susie and Louise, her lawyers and close friends could not fathom and refused to believe. Fritz had gone to so much trouble to fool Susie about being a doctor and a CIA agent, as well as so many other things, that they were convinced that he had fooled her about the murders, too. He had killed Delores and Janie, they figured, not only to stop Delores from encouraging Tom’s visitation and custody notions but also to instill fear in Susie, to give him control over her and make her dependent on him for protection. The Mafia story was solely the product of Fritz’s troubled mind, they were certain, and Susie’s irrational actions were evidence of the effectiveness of it. Those who knew her best had no doubt that Susie sincerely believed the Mafia had killed Delores and Janie, just as they had no doubt of the authenticity of her fear that the Mafia was after her and the boys.
Sandy Sands, who had seen that fear close up when Susie brought the boys’ toy animals to show him how their throats had been slit, could not accept that she had been pretending. Later, it was clear to him that it was Fritz who had slit the toys’ throats (the slits were almost identical to the one he inflicted on Florence) and made the “two down and two to go” call that had so frightened and intimidated Susie. Why would he have done that except to build her fear and allow him to continue to manipulate her?
The fake bombs that Fritz had planted and other supposed attempts on his and Susie’s lives were, to Susie’s defenders, further evidence of Fritz’s determination to control her with fear. The slayings of Bob, Florence, and Nanna had been carried out by Fritz, they thought, for several reasons: to stop the visitation hearing, to punish Florence for her opposition to Susie’s relationship with Fritz, to wreak retribution on Bob for being a “traitor” to his daughter by agreeing to testify for Tom, to further convince Susie that the Mafia was closing in on her, and perhaps to make Susie the beneficiary of her considerable inheritance.
Some of Susie’s defenders thought that with Susie nearing completion of her degree and talking of starting a career in some faroff place, Fritz feared losing her and the boys and that only by pulling her deeper and deeper into his deadly games could he hold onto her.
“Fritz created a lot of self-fulfilling prophecies for Susie,” Rob said. “‘Tom will have his family wiped out. Tom will have your parents killed.’ Everything Fritz was telling her was coming true.”
Susie’s aunt Frances and cousin Nancy were among those who did not subscribe to the theory that Susie was an innocent, duped and manipulated by her devious cousin. She was too intelligent for that, they thought. If she hadn’t been involved, they were sure that she was smart enough to become suspicious of Fritz and begin asking questions. Her irrational behavior of recent years, her lack of grief about the deaths of her parents and grandmother, her strange actions after the murders, all pointed to her involvement.