Men who murdered Alta. family should face 75 years before parole: Crown
RED DEER, Alta. — An Alberta Crown prosecutor says two men who murdered three family members and burned their bodies should spend the rest of their lives in prison without a chance at parole.
Jason Klaus, who is 42, and Joshua Frank, who is 32, were found guilty earlier this month on three charges of first- degree murder.
The bodies of Klaus’s father and sister were found in their burnedout farmhouse near Castor, Alta., in December 2013 — his mother’s body was never found but police believe she also died in the house.
Prosecutor Doug Taylor told court in Red Deer, Alta., that the two men deserve the maximum of 75 years without hope of parole for involvement in what he called a “contract killing of sorts.”
Justice Eric Macklin questioned imposing what he called a “symbolic sentence” and wondered why power should be taken away from the parole board.
Klaus’s lawyer, Allan Fay, in asking for 25 years before parole eligibility, said the crime lacks the “gruesomeness” and “stark horror” in other cases of consecutive parole ineligibilities.
Life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years is automatic for first- degree murder, but there are provisions in the Criminal Code to have sentences served one after the other for multiple murders.
Klaus and Frank each blamed the other for the killings of Gordon Klaus, his wife Sandra Klaus and their daughter Monica Klaus. Both had confessed to an undercover RCMP officer.
During the trial, court heard that Klaus was having problems with his father and offered Frank money to kill the family. Klaus had a cocaine and gambling addiction and forged cheques on his parents account, promising to pay them back.
Frank told police after his arrest that he did it because he was scared that Klaus would shoot him if he didn’t.
Consecutive periods of parole ineligibility have been imposed in Alberta in three different triplemurder cases.
Derek Saretzky was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 75 years last August after being convicted of first- degree murder for killing two- year- old Hailey Dunbar- Blanchette, her father Terry Blanchette and senior Hanne Meketech in the Crowsnest Pass in 2015.
Douglas Garland was sentenced last February to life in prison without parole for 75 years for killing Alvin and Kathy Liknes and their five- year- old grandson, Nathan O’Brien, in 2014.
And armoured- car guard Travis Baumgartner was sentenced in September 2013 to life in prison with no chance at parole for 40 years for killing three of his colleagues during a robbery in a mall at the University of Alberta in June 2012.