Killer professes love for dead family
Convicted triple-murderer Jason Klaus apologized Monday for his limited role in the contract killings of his parents and adult sister.
“I did not kill my family and the little involvement that I did have, I will regret for the rest of my life,” he told a packed Red Deer courtroom.
Klaus said at one time he contemplated suicide, but “I plan to fight through this.”
Before those comments, Klaus read from a prepared statement he wrote, which he read at their memorial service on May 2, 2015.
“It breaks my heart that I could not be there to say goodbye to the three ... most important people in my life,” he said.
“The emptiness and pain ... will never go away,” he said. “I love you, Mom, Dad and Monica.”
Klaus’s accomplice in the murders of his family, Joshua Frank, also addressed court.
“I am truly deeply sorry for your loss,” Frank said, addressing the family members of his three victims in the courtroom gallery.
He also thanked his own family for their support. “I love you guys,” he said. Both Klaus, 42, and Frank, 32, were convicted Jan. 10, of three counts of first-degree murder in the Dec. 8, 2013 shooting deaths of Gordon, Sandra and Monica Klaus.
The three victims were each shot twice in their Castor farmhouse by Frank after the killer was dropped at the residence by Jason Klaus, who supplied the handgun used in the killings. The farmhouse was then set ablaze.
In convicting the pair, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Eric Macklin rejected their testimony they lied about their involvement to undercover RCMP officers and the other was responsible for the killings.
In seeking the maximum punishment available in law, life in prison without parole for a minimum 75 years, Crown prosecutor Doug Taylor said there were multiple aggravating factors justifying such a punishment.
“They chose to take the witness box and blame the other,” he said, as he detailed those factors.
The prosecutor said people living on rural properties are particularly vulnerable to violence, because they live in isolation. “They are easily targeted,” Taylor said.
He noted Klaus told Frank where he could find a house key, but the gunman didn’t need it as the home was unlocked.
But Macklin questioned whether three periods of consecutive parole ineligibility for the two killers was necessary, considering their freedom could be left in the hands of the Parole Board of Canada.
“Why are we taking things out of the hands of the parole board?” he asked.
Defence lawyers Allan Fay and Andrea Urquhart argued a sentence of life in prison without parole for a minimum 25 years (the automatic sentence for a conviction of one count of first-degree murder) would be sufficient.
Fay said parole ineligibility of 75 years, or even 50 — another option available to Macklin — would effectively lock his client, Klaus, up for the rest of his days.
“Consecutive sentences ... in effect amount to a death sentence,” he said.
Urquhart added Macklin has to consider the issue of the rehabilitation of Frank. “In Canada, rehabilitation is what defines us,” she said.
Macklin will hand down a decision on Feb. 14.