UK prisoner indicted over Mormon murders

A British prisoner who spent two years on Death Row faces being extradited back to America after being indicted in the 1974 murders of two Mormon missionaries.

Robert Elmer Kleason, who is being held by immigration officials in Britain, was indicted by a grand jury yesterday in Austin, Texas, over the murders of Mark Fischer and Gary Darley.

Kleason, 68, was previously convicted of Fischer’s murder and sentenced to death in 1975, but two years later the conviction was overturned.

Advances in DNA analysis and other forensic tools allowed the new indictment in the murders of Fischer and Darley, county prosecutor Ronald Earle said.

He faces life in prison if convicted.

Kleason moved to Britain in 1990 and was given a three-year prison term last year for illegal firearms and munitions possession.

He was living in Barton on Humber, Humberside, before his conviction.

Kleason’s estranged wife, a penfriend he came to Britain to marry, had tipped off police about a stash of illegal weapons in his home.

Home Office officials today refused to say where Kleason was being held or comment on his possible extradition.

A spokeswoman said: ‘‘We can’t comment on individual cases and we can’t confirm or deny extradition requests.’’

Before he was arrested in 1974 Kleason lived in a trailer behind a taxidermy shop west of Austin. That October 28, two missionaries were to dine with him.

Police believe Darley, 20, of California, and Fischer, 19, of Wisconsin, kept that date and were shot to death.

Police found Fischer’s bloody watch and bullet-punctured name tag in Kleasen’s trailer. The victims’ bodies never were found.

Investigators found blood and body tissue on a band saw in the taxidermy shop, and prosecutors at Kleasen’s 1975 murder trial alleged he dismembered the victims and buried the remains.

Kleasen served time in a federal prison for firearms violations and in New York for assault. He was paroled in 1988, two years before emigrating to Britain.