Bitter Blood

by Jerry Bledsoe

  Paw-Paw and Nanna’s house in Winston-Salem, where the lesson of love was always present until brutal murder intervened. (Photo by Gerry Broome, courtesy of Greensboro News & Record.)

  An ambulance bears Nanna’s body away from her house. (Photo by Gerry Broome, courtesy of Greensboro News & Record.)

  LEFT: Rob Newsom knew something was wrong when his parents didn’t return home as scheduled. CENTER: Hattie Newsom. At eighty-four, Nanna still gardened, cooked chicken pie suppers for her church, and tended her big house. People who knew her could not imagine a more unlikely murder victim. (Courtesy of Greensboro News & Record.) RIGHT: Detective Sergeant Allen Gentry of the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Department was drawn between two loves, fast cars and police work. He thought the Newsom murders were executions.

  LEFT: Florence Newsom had retired from teaching shortly before her death. Strain from family problems depressed her and seemed to turn her hair white overnight, but she was a woman of great will. Police thought she had struggled with her killer, who savaged her body. RIGHT: Robert Newsom, former tobacco company executive, civic leader, devoted son, was preparing to move into his mother’s house to look after her. Friends were shocked that a man so gentle should die so violently. (Photo by Lorillard Co., courtesy of Greensboro News & Record.)

  LEFT: Annie Britt Sharp, standing behind sofa, with four of her children and three grandchildren. Standing with his mother is James Sharp, her youngest son. Seated, left to right, are Annie Hill Klenner, with her daughters, Mary Ann, on end of couch, and Gertrude, Judge Susie Sharp, and Florence Sharp Newsom at right. Susie Newsom, called Susie Q, sits between her mother and Judge Sharp. (Photo by Mrs. Bernadette W. Hoyle.) RIGHT: Judge Susie Sharp, Su-Su, Susie Newsom’s favorite aunt, for whom she was named, became the first woman elected chief justice of a state supreme court in America. Time magazine named her one of America’s twelve most important women. (Photo by Dave Nicholson, courtesy of Greensboro News & Record.)

  At five, Susie Newsom reigned as Queen of the May, but her temper tantrums were so bad that her mother tried to deal with them by putting her under cold showers. (Photo by Coppedge.)

  Susie posed for a photo layout of fraternity sweethearts at Wake Forest University, where she met Tom Lynch. INSERT: Yearbook photo of Susie as a graduate student at Wake Forest, while she waited for Tom to receive his degree.

  LEFT: Tom Lynch, number 21, on the Wake Forest basketball team. His best friend, Jerry Montgomery, number 11, was team captain. RIGHT: Tom’s yearbook photo at Wake Forest in 1969, when he was a junior.

  Tom and Susie’s wedding proceeded with great tension because of bickering between Susie and Delores. But both families posed amicably afterward. Left to right: Florence Newsom, Bob Newsom, Delores Lynch, Chuck Lynch, Susie, Tom, Susie’s cousins, Nancy Dunn and Mary Ann Klenner Palmer, and Janie Lynch.

  LEFT: Susie with her Aunt Su-Su at her wedding. RIGHT: Susie poses with Tom’s parents, Delores and Chuck. Later she would refuse to visit them.

  Dr. Frederick R. Klenner and his wife, Annie Hill Sharp Klenner. Their marriage greatly disturbed the Sharp family. (Photo by Richard T. Davis, courtesy of Greensboro News & Record.)

  RIGHT: Dr. Klenner was a pioneer of vitamin treatments, particularly vitamin C, his cure-all. He was internationally recognized for his work and considered a genius by some. Patients flocked to his run-down clinic in Reidsville, North Carolina, in hope of miraculous cures. (Photo by Dave Nicholson, courtesy of Greensboro News & Record.) LEFT: Entrance to Dr. Klenner’s clinic. (Photo by Dave Nicholson, courtesy of Greensboro News & Record.)

  LEFT: Frederick R. Klenner, Jr., was called Fritz from childhood. His father sent him to a private academy in Atlanta to escape racial integration in his senior year of high school. (Courtesy of Greensboro News & Record.) RIGHT: At Reidsville High School, where he was in the Library Club, Fritz, second from right in back row, was thought to be a nerd. He wore military attire to school, worshipped guns, and spoke favorably of the Ku Klux Klan and Adolf Hitler. His best friend, Randy Clark, peers over his shoulder.

  LEFT: Fritz’s life was mapped out for him by his father, who dreamed that his son would take over his important work. Father and son worked together at the clinic while family members and patients were led to believe Fritz was a medical student at Duke University. (Courtesy of Greensboro News & Record.) RIGHT: Fritz’s worship for his father and his deep need to please him led to a secret life that grew more and more bizarre. (Photo by Richard T. Davis, courtesy of Greensboro News & Record.)

  LEFT: Tom Lynch had to go to court to see his sons. At Christmas 1983, he and his new wife, Kathy, had a happy reunion with Jim, front, and John. RIGHT: Delores rarely got to see her only grandchildren. She wasn’t a typical grandmother. She was happy to see John and Jim, but she was happy when they left, too. They had visited her and her dogs in the big house on Covered Bridge Road in the summer of 1983.

  On their summer visit in 1984, Tom took John and Jim to a ranch in Wagon Mound, New Mexico, where they rode horses and heard ghost tales around a campfire.

  John, Jim, and Kathy on a visit to Delores in 1984.

  LEFT. In November 1984, Tom visited the boys in North Carolina, but the main purpose of his visit was to court Susie’s family in the hope of winning support for more visitation. RIGHT: Tom and Kathy took John and Jim to Disneyland in the spring of 1985. John cried and pleaded not to have to go back home to his mother.

  The O. Henry shopping center in Greensboro, where Ian Perkins twice secretly taped conversations with Fritz, trying to trap him into an admission of murder. (Photo by John Page, courtesy of Greensboro News & Record.)

  LEFT: Rear view of Susie’s apartment, second from right, top floor, being roped off by police after shoot-out with Fritz. (Photo by Joseph Rodriguez, courtesy of Grensboro News & Record.) RIGHT: SBI agent Ed Hunt commanded the operation to trap and arrest Fritz. (Courtesy of Greensboro News & Record.)

  Fritz’s Blazer after the explosion. Lieutenant Dan Davidson took one look inside, saw what he feared he would see, and turned away. (Photo by Duane Hall, courtesy of Greensboro News & Record.)

  Bomb-disposal truck pulling up to Susie’s apartment after explosion. (Photo by Joseph Rodriguez, courtesy of Greensboro News & Record.)

  LEFT: Site of final pursuit and explosion. RIGHT: Ian Perkins, left, surrendering to authorities with his lawyer, Jim Medford. (Photo by Joseph Rodriguez, courtesy of Greensboro News & Record.)

  Acknowledgments

  This book evolved from a series of articles that appeared in the Greensboro News & Record in August 1985. Cole Campbell and Van King conceived that series and assigned me to report and write it and I am indebted to them. Campbell is due additional credit for editing it so ably. Ben Bowers and Ned Cline allowed that series to be published at extraordinary length and I admire them for it. I also thank the News & Record, a newspaper that I love, for allowing me to use material from the series in this book and for granting me time to work on it.

  Special thanks are due Annie Henry, who had faith in this book, and me, from the beginning. Joyce Engelson, my editor, has my lasting gratitude. All of her suggestions were sound. My copy editor, Ravin Korothy, should receive a medal for catching my multitude of mistakes.

  I long ago lost track of the number of people—in the hundreds—who gave me their time and supplied me with helpful information, but I am grateful to all. I am most grateful to those who opened their lives to me so that this book could be written. Their names will be obvious in the text. I have changed a few names to protect privacy, but the names of all the major characters in this tragic story are their own.

  For friendship and encouragement in time of need, I offer thanks to Sarah Avery, David Boul, Hubert Breeze, Mutt Burton, Penny Craver, Pat Gubbins, Nick Hancock, Karl Hill, Dot Jackson, Jim Jenkins, Maria Johnson, Bill and Harriet Lee, Phil Link, Sara Looman, Susan Luce, Mark McDonald, June Milby, Don Patterson, Buck Paysour, Chip Rabon, Jim Schlosser, Kay and Stan Swofford, Nat Walker, Terri Wackel
in, and Ernie Wyatt. I can never repay Bernard Dekle, who first told me that I could write, then tried to teach me how; Tom Wingate, who first gave me a chance to report and write; Irwin Smallwood, who had faith in me when few others did, and whose support has continued, unflagging, into a third decade; and Greta Tilley, who prodded, pushed and cheered me throughout these long months of work. I love you all.

  More from Jerry Bledsoe

  Before He Wakes: A True Story of Money, Marriage, Sex and Murder

  She led an almost perfect life, and committed an almost perfect crime.

  Barbara Stager appeared to be a devoted mother, loving wife, and dedicated church leader in her Durham, North Carolina, community. When she “accidentally” shot her husband, popular high school coach Russ, the police were inclined to believe her—until they found out ten years earlier her first husband had died in a strangely similar way. Detective Rick Buchanan’s relentless investigations into Stager’s life revealed a stunning vortex of compulsive lying, obsessive spending, and sexual promiscuity.

  With every shocking new discovery, more of Barbara’s impeccable image unraveled. But the greatest shock—a damning piece of evidence Russ Stager left behind—revealed the nightmare truth about Barbara. New York Times bestselling author Jerry Bledsoe takes us deep into one of the most spellbinding cases of double life, lethal lust, and almost perfect murder.

  Death Sentence: The True Story of Velma Barfield’s Life, Crimes, and Punishment

  A shocking true story of a double life undone by murder.

  When North Carolina farmer Stuart Taylor died after a sudden illness, his 46-year-old fiancée Velma Barfield, was overcome with grief. Taylor’s family grieved with her—until the autopsy revealed traces of arsenic poisoning. Turned over to the authorities by her own son, Velma stunned her family with more revelations. This wasn’t the first time the born-again Christian and devout Sunday school teacher had committed cold-blooded murder. Tried by the “world’s deadliest prosecutor,” and sentenced to death, Velma turned her life around and gained worldwide attention.

  With chilling precision, New York Times bestselling author Bledsoe probes Velma’s stark descent into madness. From her harrowing childhood to the shocking crimes that incited a national debate over the death penalty, to the dark, final moments of her execution—broadcast live on CNN—Velma Barfield’s riveting life of crime and punishment, revenge and redemption is true crime reporting at its most gripping and profound.

  Blood Games: A True Account of Family Murder

  From the New York Times bestselling author of Bitter Blood comes the story of a greed so powerful it led to an unspeakable crime.

  Wealthy Lieth von Stein lay dead and his wife Bonnie near death in their North Carolina home after a vicious assault with knife and baseball bat as they slept. The crime seemed totally baffling until police followed a trail that led to the charming von Stein stepson, Chris Pritchard, and his brilliant, drug-using, Dungeons-&-Dragons playing friends at N.C. State University. Blood Games is the shattering true story of degraded young minds—and a son’s gruesome greed turned horrifyingly real. Jerry Bledsoe masterfully reconstructs the bloody crime and its aftermath, as he takes us on a riveting journey into the secret twisted hearts of three young murderers.

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