Robert Elmer Kleasen will return to a London courtroom Tuesday so attorneys can wrangle over whether he should be extradited to Texas to face murder charges in the slaying of two LDS missionaries 27 years ago.
Kleasen, 69, was convicted in 1975 of killing Elder Mark Fischer, 19, Milwaukee, and sentenced to die. Kleasen was never tried in the slaying of Elder Gary Darley, 20, Simi Valley, Calif., and his conviction in Fischer's death was later overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals because of a faulty search warrant. Both men were serving missions in Austin, Texas, for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
New DNA technology allowed Texas prosecutors to re-examine evidence from the case and indict Kleasen last year with two counts of capital murder in connection with both missionaries' deaths.
But getting Kleasen back to Texas to face those charges could be a few years off.
A Gonzaga University law professor has joined Kleasen's British attorney in challenging the extradition. Kleasen's defense team says there are chain-of-custody problems with evidence used to obtain the latest indictments in Texas.
The evidence is a jumpsuit that was found stuffed in a barrel outside of Kleasen's trailer behind a taxidermy shop west of Austin in 1974. During his 1975 trial, prosecutors alleged Kleasen dismembered the victims and buried the remains. Their bodies were never found.
Kleasen's attorneys also say there's no way to guarantee Texas will honor an agreement with British authorities not to seek the death penalty against Kleasen if he's extradited. Kleasen's attorneys have raised the issue that Kleasen has not been afforded a speedy trial.
An attorney from the U.S. State Department will represent Texas prosecutors' interests at a hearing Tuesday in London. Prosecutors say the arguments raised by Kleasen's attorneys opposing extradition are "vastly misguided."
"It's certainly troublesome to think that a court in England would go about trying to figure out what a technical point of Texas law is," said Bryan Case, Appellate Division director for the Travis County District Attorney's Office.
Even if the British court rules in favor of extradition, Kleasen could still appeal the decision, delaying his return to Texas by another couple of years, Case said.
Ken Driggs, an Atlanta defense attorney who specializes in death penalty cases, has written a book on the missionary murders and Kleasen's crime-riddled past. He sees this latest attempt as one more way for Kleasen to delay the murder case against him.
"Kleasen is going to do anything he can to drag this out," Driggs said. "Even so, you are talking about a case where the state is seeking life imprisonment. If he remains in prison in England while he drags this out on appeal, it sort of accomplishes the same thing."
Kleasen was sent to prison in England after police raided his home in April 1999 and found 44 guns, including a Thompson submachine gun. Handgun ownership in Great Britain is severely restricted and is not a right as in America. A British judge sentenced Kleasen to three years in prison in June 2000 on the charges.
Kleasen spent two years on death row in Texas after he was convicted of Fischer's murder, then spent time in prison in New York and psychiatric wards for federal firearms convictions before moving to England in the early 1990s.
Attempts to reach Kleasen's attorney in England, Peter Cadman, were unsuccessful.
"He has no authority from Mr. Kleasen to speak to you, and he won't speak to you," an assistant in Cadman's office told the Deseret News.
Even if Kleasen is returned to face the Texas murder charges, getting a conviction won't be easy.
Prosecutors say blood samples taken from the jumpsuit found outside Kleasen's trailer matched DNA samples from Darley's relatives, a process known as paternity testing. But DNA matches were less conclusive in Fischer's case, according to Texas prosecutors.
"Obviously, the better case is Gary Darley," Case admitted.
Case said it's still too early to consider a plea agreement in Kleasen's case. "It would certainly be something to consider if we get that far."
E-MAIL: djensen@desnews.com