My contribution to Patti Abbott’s first nonfiction Friday is a true crime story that happened in my back yard. So to speak.
BITTER BLOOD by Jerry Bledsoe, published in 1989, is a story of a southern family, pride, divorce, and child custody battles that eventually took nine lives. My hometown, Eden, is in a northern county of North Carolina. The town of Reidsville, ten miles away, is where this story starts.
Frederick Klenner was a general practitioner in Reidsville where he maintained a small office on Main Street. He is credited with curing polio with massive doses of vitamin C long before it was an accepted practice. His sister-in-law, Judge Susie Sharp, was Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court.
And then there was Klenner’s son, Fritz, Sharp’s nephew. A slacker, he dropped out of college, unknown to his father at the time, and was something of a survivalist type who was constantly alluding to people that he was a government agent, probably CIA. He carried a variety of weapons with him in a van and was always going on missions with a flunky that bought into his tales.
Susie Lynch was his first cousin, going through a contentious custody battle with her husband for their two sons. The pair began living together and time passed.
The ending of this story was how the general public first became aware that something strange was going on. It was all over the news suddenly one afternoon. The police were trailing Klenner’s van, which held Lynch and the two boys, having been spirited from school when their father was coming into town.
The police held back because every little bit, Klenner would stop, jump out with an automatic weapon and open up with it on the police, who wouldn’t return fire because of the two boys. They were following, waiting for some sort of break. News copters were in pursuit as well, if I remember, and television had broken in with the story.
That’s when the van suddenly exploded!
All this happened about ten miles from my home.
Jerry Bledsoe, a reporter and columnist for The Greensboro News, started investigating and interviewing everyone involved that would talk to him, piecing together the story that would become the book.
The year before that horrific ending, the parents of the boys’ father had been murdered in Kentucky in an apparent break-in. Later, Susie Lynch’s parents and grandmother were murdered similarly. It was proven that Klenner murdered the in-laws and suspected that he murdered Lynch’s family as well.
One last connection. In her younger days, before marriage, my sister lived in a place adjoining property, on the outskirts of Eden, owned by the Klenner family where rumors persist to this day that somewhere there, Fritz has a buried cache of automatic weapons and ammunition. None have ever been found.
The book is an absorbing look into the mind of a man that wasn’t all there and should be read by crime fans. Highly recommended. A miniseries starring Kelly McGinnis as Susie Lynch, Harry Hamlin as Fritz Klenner, and Keith Carradine as the father of the boys was made.
David Cranmer said:
Harrowing story that I had forgotten about. (And I did a Google search of Fred R. and got caught up in his interesting medical life.) Sad how a family can go so wrong.
Patti Abbott said:
I can’t believe this material hasn’t been used in a novel. THE OTHER, oh I remember reading that. Really great stuff.
Terrie Farley Moran said:
A horrible and amazing story. thanks for blogging about it.
Terrie
Pingback: FFB: A Murder In Eden – Alison Pratt « Not The Baseball Pitcher
justin231 said:
I cant believe the ending oh my god that mother was terrible i cant get over the ending i wish i had known about the book before i saw the movie series well to make this short i couldn’t believe the ending i just had to look it up i couldn’t believe its such a tragedy i cried so hard oh my god my prayers go out to that father and his wife
justin231 said:
The thing is i thought my life was terrible as a child and currently I’m only 15 but when i was younger like there age i always seen my parents fight and my mom ran away with us twice to north Carolina i liked being able to relate to that state of north Carolina I went into a foster care for 2 years cause my mother went to prison and my father was in jail over night and so my father (who i never really liked because of how he abused my mother) was trying to get us back and when i say us i have 3 siblings a brother and 2 sisters anyway my mother took us back to north carolina for a 3rd time and was always doing her pot because her and my father sold it well we went there and her family lives there still today and they welcomed us in but to make a short story long she betrade her family and her kids over drugs and many many MANY diffrent guys i have tried writing biographies of this life i have lived so far but its just too painful i love to write and it feels great to share my story with others and counselors but when i watched that i felt thankful for my life i thought i had it bad theres so much to the story of my life that i dont really have enough room to write it if any one is interested in writing this into a novel or wanting to know more about this story … like i said before i love to write its jsut to much for me maybe someone out there will read this and find out that my story couyld be the next big thing but my story is nothing compared to theres obviously cause im still here on this earth if only the cops and the state could of done more to save those boys and same for me and my siblings i have recently found out new things from my past and that my mother would of had 6 kids but she had 2 misscarriages isnt that something you tell your oldest child id ont know but my mother still today hasnt gotten any help and she is into worse drugs yet today if you read this whole thing thank you for listening if you would liek to contact me my cell is 217 502 0978 for any publishing ideas or thoughts about my life but jsut let me say i do not live with neither of my parents still today i reside with my grandparents in a calm inviroment and i believe thta all children should all be in a safe calm inviroment if only something could be done out there for children who cant speak up i went 10 years without speaking up and so much happen but im safe now and nothing will egt in my way to a bright future!
Pingback: What’s Going On?* « Not The Baseball Pitcher