Photo source: Summerfield Fire District posting on Facebook
Bitter Blood Shooting, Chase, and Vehicle Explosion
Guilford County, North Carolina — June 3, 1985
Chronological narrative created by ChatGPT and compiled from the Greensboro News & Record, June 4, 1985. Plus annotations by Legeros
By June 3, 1985, law-enforcement officers in North Carolina and Kentucky were seeking Frederick “Fritz” Klenner III and his first cousin, Susie Sharp Newsom Lynch, in connection with five murders. The victims were Lynch’s mother and maternal grandmother, killed in Winston-Salem in May 1984, and Klenner’s mother, sister, and young nephew, killed in Kentucky in July 1984. Investigators suspected that the two sets of murders were related to a child-custody dispute involving Lynch and her former husband.
During the mid-afternoon of Monday, June 3, officers from four law enforcement agencies went to the Friendly Hills Apartments in Greensboro to arrest Klenner on charges connected to the murders. Before officers could apprehend him, Klenner and Lynch left the complex in a Chevy Blazer [incorrectly cited in the news stories as a Ford Bronco] with her two sons, 13 year-old John, and 10 year-old James.
Greensboro police officer Tommy Dennis followed the Blazer toward the intersection of Friendly Avenue and New Garden Road near Guilford College. When the Blazer stopped, Klenner jumped out and opened fire on Dennis with an automatic weapon. Klenner then returned to the Blazer and continued firing as the vehicle moved through the intersection and headed north on New Garden Road.
Dennis was struck twice. One bullet became embedded in his flak jacket, and the other produced only a bruise after striking near his belt buckle. A 12 year-old bystander was wounded in the arm by a bullet or metal fragment. Two Kentucky law enforcement officers also suffered minor injuries during the gunfire. All of the wounded were treated at Greensboro-area hospitals and released.
The Blazer continued north on New Garden Road to U.S. 220 and then traveled north toward Summerfield. Officers described the pursuit less as a conventional high-speed chase than an effort to overtake the vehicle. Police cars traveled with emergency lights and sirens operating, but officials said their speeds apparently did not exceed about 35 or 40 miles per hour.
At the intersection of U.S. 220 and N.C. 150, two Guilford County sheriff’s deputies waited for the approaching Blazer. The Blazer turned east onto N.C. 150, and Deputies David Thacker and Hubert Jackson followed in their patrol car. As both vehicles rounded a bend and entered a straight section of highway near Blazer Lane and the Sunburst Farm, the deputies saw the barrel of an automatic weapon protruding from the Blazer’s window.
The occupants of the Blazer fired at the patrol car for roughly 100 yards. Bullets shattered its windshield and struck the vehicle repeatedly. One deputy suffered a superficial metal-fragment wound to the shoulder; another bullet reportedly struck the gun he was carrying. The deputies ducked below the dashboard and escaped more serious injuries.
At approximately 3:10 p.m., about eight-tenths of a mile east of U.S. 220 on N.C. 150 near Strader Road, the Blazer exploded. Witnesses heard an enormous blast and saw debris thrown across the highway, nearby yards, woods, and pasture. Some residents initially believed that an airplane had crashed, a house had exploded, or a traffic accident had occurred.
The blast destroyed the Blazer and killed Klenner, Lynch, John, James, and the family’s dog. The bodies of the two adults were thrown into a roadside ditch, while the children were found in the wreckage. The newspaper reported that all four people were badly burned. Investigators believed a homemade bomb inside the vehicle had detonated, although officials had not yet determined whether the explosion was intentional or accidental.
Law enforcement officers reached the scene with guns drawn and warned nearby residents that additional explosions were possible. Police closed N.C. 150, surrounded the wreckage, and searched the road, pasture, and woods for debris, evidence, and any other explosives that might have survived the blast.
Summerfield Fire Department firefighters stood by in a nearby field while police and explosives specialists examined the wreckage. Ambulances lined the roadway, and two vehicles from a company that recovered bodies waited for officials to complete their work. After 6:00 p.m., a Greensboro Fire Department truck equipped with a cherry-picker basket arrived so officers could take elevated photographs of the scene.
The explosion also intensified police activity at the Friendly Hills Apartments. Officers surrounded the building where Klenner had lived and evacuated residents from at least 36 apartments while bomb squad personnel searched for explosives. A Greensboro police SWAT member covered the apartment from a nearby building, and the Greensboro bomb squad responded. The evacuation, begun shortly after the 3:10 p.m. explosion, expanded during the evening and ended at approximately 10:50 p.m., after officers completed their search.
Crowds gathered along the highway through the afternoon and into the evening as officers continued processing the explosion scene. The combined shootings, pursuit, explosion, deaths, evacuations, and searches brought a violent conclusion to the sequence of events later widely associated with the “Bitter Blood” case.
Source: Greensboro News & Record, Tuesday, June 4, 1985, pages A1, A8, and A9. Narrative paraphrased and arranged chronologically from contemporaneous reporting. Times, locations, casualty details, and descriptions reflect information available to the newspaper on the day after the incident.