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| Prison Death Ends 29-year Quest for Justice |
| By Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel / Associated Press |
| Published: 05/02/2003 |
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Cathy Fischer believes Robert Kleasen denied her son the chance to fulfill his wonderful promise. And now, Kleasen's death has denied her the chance to see justice brought to the man she believes killed her son. Kleasen died April 21 at a hospital in London, where he had been taken after suffering heart failure at the Belmarsh Prison. He was being held there while awaiting extradition to Texas, where he was to be tried in the murders of Mark Fischer, 19, of Milwaukee and Gary Darley, 20, of Simi, Calif. The two Mormon missionaries disappeared on Oct. 28, 1974, after meeting with Kleasen in his trailer home near Austin. Fischer's parents, who still live in the Milwaukee area, lived the nightmare of their son's murder through Kleasen's first trial in 1975, his successful appeal in 1977 and the filing of a new indictment against him in 2001. They were looking forward to a new trial that would finally bring their son's killer to justice. 'I guess that I really wanted him to pay the price a little bit,' Cathy Fischer said last week. 'He'd done so many terrible things and he always just fell between the cracks. 'He never really paid.' A jury convicted Kleasen in 1975, based on the evidence discovered during a search around his home. Authorities found parts of the missionaries' bodies near his trailer and a bloody watch and Darley's name tag pierced by a bullet. They believed that Kleasen killed the two missionaries, then cut up their bodies with a taxidermist's band saw from a nearby shop. An appeals court ruled that the search was illegal, and the crucial physical evidence linking Kleasen to the missionaries was suppressed. Spared the electric chair by the ruling, Kleasen faced prosecution again after DNA testing showed that Fischer's blood was on a pair of the suspect's pants. 'I don't know how I feel about him dying, but I'm just sorry the Texas judicial system let him go in the first place,' said Melissa Pietrzak, Mark Fischer's sister. 'I don't want to say I'm glad he's dead, but he won't be able to hurt anybody anymore.' Cathy Fischer cried when she heard about the news of Kleasen's death, as she had cried many times since her son was murdered. His pictures still smile at her from their frames in her home, and the memories of him are just as permanent. 'It makes me sad when I think of the potential that was lost, the grandchildren that we could have had or the service that he could have done,' Fischer said. To her, Kleasen's death means very little. 'It really shouldn't matter because I had made up my mind that whatever punishment he got here on earth, eventually he would have to meet a different judge, and it will all be taken care of there,' she said. |
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