Criminal - Family Secrets, Part 1

Episode Date: September 11, 2026

In 1985, college student Ian Perkins reconnected with a family friend, Fritz Klenner, who told him a secret. He said he was a CIA agent — and offered to let Ian come along on his next mission. To listen early to Part 2 of this story, sign up for Criminal Plus at patreon.com/criminal. Jerry Bledsoe's book is called Bitter Blood. You can read more of Susan Spear's reporting in the Greensboro News and Record. We're going on tour - and it's a different kind of show than any we've done before. Next week, we'll be in in Durham, NC, and Portland, ME. Find ticket links and updates at ⁠⁠thisiscriminal.com/live⁠⁠. Say hello on ⁠Facebook⁠, ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok⁠. Sign up for our ⁠occasional newsletter⁠. Follow the show and review us on ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠. ⁠Sign up for Criminal Plus⁠ to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Criminal, ad-free listening of all of our shows, invitations to virtual events, special merch deals, and more. We also make ⁠This is Love⁠ and ⁠Phoebe Reads a Mystery⁠. Artwork by ⁠Julienne Alexander⁠. Check out ⁠our online shop⁠. Episode transcripts are posted on ⁠our website⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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at any vet in the U.S. in Canada, with claims paid back in as little as two days. Go to fetchpet.com slash save right now for your free quote. That's fetchpet.com slash save. Dr. Clenner was quite famous. He had, for many decades, touted a theory that megadoses of vitamin C that he administered to patients would cure polio and diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

Greensboro News and Record reporter Susan Spear. He drew patients from all over the United States and some from outside of the U.S. to his small clinic. Dr. Fred Klener opened his clinic in Reedsville, North Carolina, in 1939. The sign on the door read, Fred R. Clenner, diseases of the chest, limited general practice. He said that after he successfully treated his wife's bleeding gums with vitamin C, he used it to cure pneumonia and the measles.

He started giving it to patients for anything from spider bites to arthritis to cancer. One reporter wrote that he was known to take 65 vitamin tablets every day. People started coming from all over for his help. One person later said his patients thought he was, quote, right next to Christ. Inside his office, Dr. Klenner reportedly hung up hornet's nests. He displayed a leather-bound Bible and a large grandfather clock. He also kept segregated waiting rooms.

Dr. Klenner's parents had immigrated from Germany, and during World War II, Dr. Klenner was rumored to be a Nazi sympathizer. He also collected a lot of memorabilia from World War II, a lot of weapons. He kept a farm in Rockingham County where there were reportedly bunkers and great stores of ammo and shooting practice for he and his son, Fritz.

Fritz was Dr. Klenner's youngest child, an only son. By the time Fritz was 11, his father reportedly had given him his first real gun, a German Luger pistol. He'd already given him hundreds. of toy guns by then. Fritz developed a huge interest in guns

and was also fascinated by German military history. One reporter wrote that he often wore an Army fatigue jacket to school. The Klenner family lived in a large brick home on Huntsdale Road in Reedsville. Down the street lived a family with close ties to the Klenner's, the Perkins. Dr. Klenner was the Perkins family, He delivered their son Ian when he was born.

They were neighbors. They were social equals with high status. And Dr. Clenner was credited with curing Ian's mother's polio when Ian's mother was a child. And so there were a lot of links between the family. Dr. Clenner's son Fritz was 11 years older than Ian Perkins, former Forsyth County Detective Alan Gentry. He had seen Fritz growing up around him. He'd been off with him shooting weapons out at his father's farm in Rockingham County.

One neighbor later said that Ian Perkins looked up to Fritz Clenner, like an uncle. Ian Perkins was described. in high school as being quiet and studious. He belonged to the Bible Club. He went to college at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, where he first tried to major in chemical engineering, but later switched to philosophy. He played Dungeons and Dragons,

and he enrolled in the National Guard. During his junior year, he left school for a few months to train in Texas. He was a bit aimless. And he was interested in possibly getting involved in work with the State Department, like one of his great-uncles. At this point, Fritz saw him when Ian was home from college. Fritz and Ian went shooting together when Ian was home, using Fritz's assault rifles, pistols, and machine guns. Then Fritz visited Ian at Washington and Lee. While he was there, he told Ian a secret.

He said he worked for the CIA. Fritz appealed to Ian's interest in government service and Ian's wish to try to go into FBI, CIA-type spy work as a career. and convinced Ian Perkins that he, Fritz, was an operative for the CIA and that he could put in good words for Ian, could help shape his future, and indeed could give him some on-the-job training with some, quote, missions. He said he was being sent to Texas,

where he had been tasked with killing someone who was stealing from government armories and trading the weapons for drugs. He said he'd been authorized to bring Ian along, to see how Ian performed under pressure. A few months later, on Friday, May 17, 1985, Fritz Clenner called Ian Perkins and told him it was time to go.

Fritz had asked him to drive the two of them to Virginia to the peaks of Otter, which is a camping area, and then to create a campsite together and establish an alibi for the weekend. As they drove to the campsite in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Fritz's Chevy Blazer, Fritz told Ian that their mission had changed. They would no longer be going to.

to Texas, but instead would be going to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. When they arrived at the campsite early the next morning, they chose a spot with no one else around them. They set up a tent and went to bed. On Saturday evening, around 5 p.m., they started out for Winston-Salem, several hours away. On the way there, they stopped at a rest stop, where Fritz changed his clothing. He also put on a bulletproof vest. When they got to Winston-Salem, Fritz pulled into a dirt lot near a shopping plaza. He took out a briefcase and walked away. Ian went to a Burger King, where he got a cup of coffee and waited for 45 minutes.

When he started worrying that it had been too long, he drove back to the shopping plaza and looked out for Fritz. When Fritz eventually returned, he told Ian that he didn't want to tell him much, about what had happened, but he said he'd had to kill three people. On the drive back to Virginia, Fritz Klener and Ian Perkins stopped along the highway. Fritz cut up his hat and gloves and threw them into a dumpster. He also threw away his shoes and stopped and shaved off his beard. When they got back to their campsite in Virginia, around seven in the morning, Fritz threw his pistol into a lake and later buried a knife. On their way back to Washington and Lee, Fritz told Ian he had done well.

He believed fully that he was doing something that was a government mandate, and that Fritz Kleiner was trustworthy. Fritz had all of the props, all of the ways to convince a young man that he was the real deal. Fritz put on a convincing show. He had an arsenal of weapons at his disposal. It was a compelling image that Fritz had made for himself, I believe. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. We'll be right back.

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Where some see heroes and others see egos. Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. A fad to some, the future of money to others. We see crypto's trillion-dollar swings. The end of jobs or the end of human struggle. We see the endless funds fueling the AI hype. While others follow the noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com.

Fritz Clenner was quite a character. He seemed to have no trouble whatsoever creating elaborate lies. Much of what we know about Fritz Clenner and the story comes from a book called Bitter Blood, by North Carolina journalist Jerry Bloodsoe. He died last year. According to Jerry Bloodsoe, Fritz Clenner had always planned to become a doctor like his father. As a high school student, Fritz was known to carry a pouch on his belt filled with vitamins and medical supplies. Fritz was the chosen one to Dr. Clenner from many reports.

And Fritz Clinter grew up in his very domineering father's shadow and was quite worshipful of his father according to folks. who knew the family, he enjoyed the cachet of being the son of a beloved physician. After attending the University of Mississippi as an undergrad, Fritz-Klenner told his family that he had gotten into medical school at Duke University, the same program his father had graduated from decades before. But in reality, Fritz had dropped out of Old Miss. and had been hanging out working odd jobs or goofing off, collecting weapons,

and pretending to attend Duke. Fritz kept an apartment in Durham near the school. He told his father that he was working on important blood research. He even had his father take blood samples from his patients and send them to him. He made a habit of... being present at his father's medical office in Reedsville, and he followed stethoscope around neck in a white coat, portraying himself as an MD,

administering medication, sometimes without his father's guidance or directives. And he was assumed to be a physician. No one seemed to question it, even the local pharmacists had a, at-a-glance calendar they printed, which included Fritz Klener's name as an MD and reference. Fritz told people other stories, too, that he'd worked as an undercover narcotics agent at Old Miss

and that he'd attended secret military training in Georgia. He said he had fought in Vietnam as a green beret. and he told some people that he was doing undercover work with the CIA. His cousin Susie Lynch heard the same stories. She was seven years older than him, their mothers or sisters. Were Fritz and Susie close when they were children? Were their families close? Their families were reasonably close,

but Susie and Fritz, I think, forged their bond later. Their first cousins. Yes. Do we know when their relationship turned romantic? It's believed that it turned romantic in 83, 84. Susie Lynch had recently moved back to North Carolina from Albuquerque, New Mexico, after separating from her husband, Tom. She had brought her two young sons, John and Jim, with her.

Susie grew up in Winston-Salem, the daughter of Bob and Florence Newsome. Susie's parents, Bob and Florence, were well-connected in Winston-Salem. Her father was a tobacco company executive. And what was Susie's life-like growing up in Winston? She led a very privileged lifestyle attending good schools afforded many opportunities. She ultimately attended Wake Forest University, which is a private Baptist school. She had a lot of social clout. Susie initially moved in with her parents after her marriage ended.

But as her relationship with her cousin Fritz grew, things reportedly became tense. When Fritz started spending the night, Susie and her parents began fighting more. Eventually, Susie and her two sons moved into their own apartment in Greensboro. Fritz hung out at her apartment quite a bit and eventually became a fixture there.

He could be seen coming and going, wearing jumpsuits, all kinds of military and paramilitary gear. He kept ammunition and all kinds of accoutrements that a soldier of fortune would maintain over at that apartment. But it was very much a cozy kind of situation where they were functioning like a quasi-family. Fritz and Susie told people they were married, and Fritz referred to Susie's boys as his sons. He wanted them to call him Papa. And what were there people in their families saying about this Fritz's relationship with Susie? The fact that Susie was living with him and the children...

They were incensed. Susie's mother, Florence, was rather undone. but folks seem to handle it in a very passive way. No one seems to have taken any kind of decisive, bold action to intervene and say, listen, this is not good for your sons, this is not good for our family, what are you doing? That just didn't seem to happen. When Susie separated from her ex-husband, Tom,

they agreed that Susie would have full custody of their sons. But as time went on, Susie and Tom began to disagree about Tom's visits with the boys. She wanted very much to prohibit Tom from seeing their boys, and she put lots and lots of restrictions on the amount of time. he could have visitation. Susie didn't want her sons to have to fly by themselves to see their father. She wanted Tom to pay for her to fly with them, to drop them off,

something he didn't want to do. She also became convinced that Tom was trying to take her boys away from her. For a while, she insisted that Tom could only see the boys in North Carolina. And when he was eventually granted a visit in New Mexico, he had to put up a $10,000 bond that would be forfeited if he didn't return the boys on time. As the years went on, Tom decided to seek increased visitation with his sons through the courts. He wanted the boys to spend more time in the summer with him and his new wife, Kathy, in New Mexico. And he found a lot of support from Bob Newsom, Susie's father, and Florence, Susie's mother.

And Bob Newsom, in fact, had agreed to testify in court on Tom's behalf to try to help get the grandsons, the time with their father that he, their granddad, thought they deserved. And I believe at this point, Florence and Bob Newsom were fed up, and they may have reached a point where they believed that. that Susie was beyond help in terms of correcting course. According to Tom, Susie's father, Bob, said that Susie was, quote, pathological in her paranoia about her children. In May of 1985, Bob Newsom called his daughter to tell her that he'd be testifying on Tom's behalf at an upcoming visitation hearing. That same day, Susie went to visit her lawyer, who had an office in Reedsville.

She had a bag with her that contained two of her son's stuffed animals. Susie told her lawyer that earlier that year, after she and Tom had had an argument over visitation, someone had broken into their apartment and slit the throats of the stuffed animals. She implied that Tom had something to do with it. Her cousin Fritz had told her that Tom was affiliated with the mafia. Susie had also told her brother Rob about this. She said she never went anywhere without a pistol to protect herself and said that Fritz was protecting her and her boys.

Fritz had also told people that Susie's ex-husband Tom was out to get them. He said he'd found a small bomb attached to the gas tank on Susie's car and that Tom was behind it. They kind of created a narrative in which they were pitted against the world and they believed that they would indeed lose their boys if Tom had the support of Susie's parents. And so a plan was hatched. The visitation hearing was going to be held on May 23rd, 1985.

On May 17th, Ian Perkins drove with Fritz Clenner to the peaks of Otter Campground in Virginia and then on to Winston-Salem. We'll be right back. Thanks to fetch pet insurance for their support. You might know I have a dog. Her name is eight.

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Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. A fad to some, the future of money to others. We see crypto's trillion dollar swings. The end of jobs or the end of human struggle. We see the endless funds. fueling the AI hype. While others follow the noise, we follow the money.

Learn more at Bloomberg.com. No one ever expected in Winston-Salem that we would have a triple homicide, but we did. Alan Gentry was a sergeant in the Criminal Investigation Division of the Forsyth County Sheriff's Department.

When he got a call from a dispatcher on a Sunday night in May of 1985. The county called me. It was approaching midnight, and as luck would have it, I had been at Charlotte Motor Speedway the day before and that day for a sports car racing event, and so I was pretty exhausted, and they told me that we had a triple homicide. Detective Allen Gentry was 32 at the time and had been working for the Forsyth County Sheriff's Department

for more than a decade. Had you ever gotten a call before that said anything like a triple homicide? No, typically we would have in an average year, maybe five to seven individual homicides. I don't ever remember having any more. than that. And on the way over, which was not all that far from where I lived at the time, I'm thinking, okay, this is going to be a murder suicide. You know, some guys killed two family members and then committed suicide. And when I got there, I realized real quickly that

that was not the case. When Alan Gentry arrived at the location of the murder, a home on Valley Road in Winston-Salem, several police cars from the Winston-Salem Police Department were already there. He walked in the back door and into the living room. The home was pretty gruesome. The gentleman, Susie's dad, was in the foyer, and his mother, who was in her early 80s, was lying on a small sofa, and Susie's mom was in the floor as well, and all three of them had been shot at least once in the chest

and once at the base of the skull. And then Susie's mother had been stabbed multiple times, and it was a pretty gruesome scene. When you first walked in and surveyed the scene, what did you think had happened? Did you have any idea? Did it seem like a robbery? No, there was never any thought given to it being a robbery.

There was some cash on a secretary in the plain view. There was simply no reason to suspect that it was robbery. The TV was still on in the living room. A rocking chair in the fireplace tools had been knocked over, and a hole, about 30 inches wide, had been burned in the living room carpet. There was ash and charred paper in the middle of it. Bullet holes were scattered around the room. In the bedrooms, the dresser drawers were stacked up on the floor.

Bob Newsom's briefcase was lying on the floor opened and emptied. The storm door to the back of the house was broken, and there was a key in the lock. Detectives believed that Bob Florence and Bob's mother, Hattie Newsom, Susie's parents, and grandmother, had been murdered sometime a day or two earlier. When their son Rob couldn't get a hold of his parents, he asked a family friend to check on the house. When they arrived, they could see the bodies of Hattie and Florence through a window, and called police. When Rob Newsom arrived from Greensboro late that night,

he talked with Detective Alan Gentry. Alan asked him about the last time he'd seen his parents and grandmother, and if he knew of anyone who might want to kill them. Rob said no. And then Alan asked if there had been any problems or anything unusual in the family lately. Rob said yes. Something unusual had happened to a single.

sister Susie's former in-laws. He told us that Susie's former mother-in-law and sister-in-law had been murdered in Kentucky the year before. And, you know, the first thought that you have is this cannot be a coincidence. Coming up on our next episode, there were a lot of whispers about that Susie and Fritz must be up to no good. And I'm thinking, he's got this thing booby-jew. trapped or something. He saw

cleaner with sunglasses on looking down the barrel of an Uzi. All of a sudden there was an explosion. He said, you're not going to believe it. Mayhem. If you want to listen to Part 2 right now, sign up for Criminal Plus at patreon.com

slash criminal. You'll be supporting our work and getting access to exclusive benefits like No ads, live events, chat rooms, and early listening. Part two will also be in the regular Criminal podcast feed next Friday. Criminal is created by Lauren Spore and Me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajiko, Lily Clark, and Lena Silison.

This episode was fact-checked by Katie Cedarbork. Special thanks to Stephen Conrad. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at this iscriminal.com. And you can sign up for our newsletter at this iscriminal.com slash newsletter. We're on Facebook at This Is Criminal and Instagram and TikTok at Criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at YouTube.com slash criminal podcast.

Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Advertising on Spotify puts your brand in the moments where Gen Z fandom takes shape. They're 35% of our audience and spend two hours building rituals and shaping culture with every stream. Download the Culture Next report to discover trends and insights that will inspire your next campaign.