Alberta man opens up on how he helped police catch friend’s killer
RED DEER Brady Flett says he knew within days of the deaths of an Alberta couple and their daughter that the supposedly grief-stricken son was involved somehow.
Flett, though, did not see Jason Klaus as a killer at first, despite details he kept dropping that pointed to Gordon, Sandra and Monica Klaus having been murdered.
“What I wanted to believe was maybe he owed some bad people a whole lot of money, and they ended up taking out his family for that reason,” said Flett, who was Monica’s boss and friend at Vortex Production Services in Stettler.
“Never did I want to believe that he would do that.”
The Klauses were shot and killed early on the morning of Dec. 8, 2013. Their farmhouse just outside Castor was burned to the ground. The family dog was killed and left in the yard.
Flett was a key witness in the trial of Klaus and his accomplice, Joshua Frank, who were sentenced last month to life in prison. Flett recently discussed his participation in the case with the Red Deer Advocate.
During the trial, court heard that Klaus had a cocaine and gambling addiction and forged cheques on his parents account. He offered Frank money to kill the family. Frank told police he killed them because he was scared Klaus would shoot him if he didn’t.
The dead dog immediately raised suspicions with police.
After a number of disturbing conversations with Klaus, Flett was convinced that he was directly responsible. On Jan. 15, 2014, Flett volunteered to become a police informant and encouraged Klaus to open up.
He went to police after Klaus told him bizarre stories of ghosts providing details of the crime, including the kind of gun used, where it was dumped and the use of aviation fuel to start the fire.
On one occasion, standing with Flett in the debris-filled basement of the remains of his family home, Klaus performed a chilling pantomime.
Pointing his finger like a gun, he mimicked how his parents and sister were killed.
“That’s the time where I had no doubt in my mind this was done out of a pile of anger,” Flett said.
From mid-January 2014 to the arrest of Klaus and Frank the following August, every conversation and phone call Flett had with Klaus was secretly recorded by police.