I support expanding the death penalty to lesser crimes. You molest a kid? You die. Rape? You dead.
I am with you right here. Anyone remember what happened to that poor little girl up in Dayton? That ***** had a track record a mile long of sexual assaults, kidnapping, and all sorts of other crazy stuff. He was put in prison, released, and immediately offended again. He was put back in prison, released, and immediately offended again. Rinse and repeat. Had the state just put a bullet in that guys head and ended all of this they would have saved a lot of people a lot of trauma and heartbreak.... and saved a little girl's life.
Seriously... look at this timeline and tell me that this piece of garbage should have ever been released from prison. The system screwed the pooch on this one. A monster can't be rehabilitated.
May 15, 1971 — Michael James Klunder is born to Jimmy and Cheryl Klunder of Kensett.
The couple divorces 10 years later and Cheryl Klunder gets custody of Michael, the youngest of her three sons, and his two brothers. Three years later, however, their father files and receives custody of Michael and another son still at home.
One of his classmates calls him “real shy and a quiet kid ... a typical teenager.â€
Nov. 15, 1986 — Attacks Ev Leasure, 15, in Kensett. Klunder is taken into custody by juvenile authorities and is eventually found guilty of a delinquent act.
Klunder is sent to the Boys State Training School in Eldora, to Meyer Hall in Des Moines, to Bremwood (a juvenile home) in Waverly and to the Mental Health Center in Cherokee.
February 1988 — Klunder is released from juvenile detention. He returns to Mason City and moves in with his father and stepmother.
Feb. 22, 1989 — Klunder appears at the home of a Mason City co-worker and asks to use the phone, saying his car had stalled. When the co-worker offers to give him a ride home, Klunder accepts. As they walk to her car, he strikes her to the ground and tries to choke her. Court records show he choked her until she had trouble breathing, and had visible marks on her throat.
March 30, 1989 — Cerro Gordo District Court rules Klunder would be tried as an adult, citing the closeness to his 18th birthday and his record of assault. He is charged with assault with intent to commit serious injury.
He is also charged with second-degree burglary that had occurred on Feb. 15, 1989, but no other details of the burglary are released.
May 17, 1989 — Klunder is sentenced to five years in prison and two years for assault with intent to commit assault; sentences to be served concurrently; the sentence came after a plea bargain.
June 15, 1989 — Judge agrees to reconsider Klunder’s prison sentence.
Sept. 16, 1989 — Judge Paul Riffel cancels the reconsideration hearing. He cites a report from prison officials that says while Klunder is doing well, he was in the midst of a sexual offender treatment program and should be able to complete it.
February 1991 — Klunder is released from Mount Pleasant Treatment Center.
Dec. 16, 1991 — Klunder is now living at the Lantern Park Apartments in Charles City and working at Comprehensive Systems recycling center.
But he loses his job on the morning of Dec. 16.
“He was really depressed, said he needed friends. He was really blue,†said Kristin Hesse, one of Klunder’s neighbors.
Klunder becomes the main suspect in the kidnapping of two, 3-year-old girls, who were taken from the front yard of their Charles City day care.
Both are found later that day in a garbage receptacle in Worth County. One of the children had been choked hard enough to raise concerns about her health. Other residents at the complex point to Klunder as a potential suspect.
He is questioned but he becomes uncooperative. When police try to find him again, they find he has fled the city in his 1982 Honda Civic.
He is wanted on two counts of first-degree kidnapping and false imprisonment.
Dec. 24, 1991 — Klunder is found in a Houston, Texas, bus station. Authorities are called there after being tipped off by a relative. His car is found abandoned on a road near Tallahassee, Fla.
Jan. 3, 1992 — Klunder is extradited to Iowa.
Jan. 4, 1992 — Klunder is held on a $1 million bond in Floyd County District Court.
Jan. 10, 1992 — News is released that Klunder is a suspect in an assault on a 21-year-old Rudd woman, in an incident that occurred on Dec. 15, 1991 — one day before the kidnappings of the two girls.
The woman reports she was driving on Highway 18 in early morning Dec. 15, when a man she identified as Klunder drove behind her, flashing his lights.
She pulled over and he approached the vehicle, saying she had a broken tail light. She got out of the vehicle to check the light and Klunder grabbed her, assaulted her and forced her into his car. A passing car saw her waving frantically for help, and started following Klunder’s car. When Klunder saw a car following him, he pushed the woman from the moving vehicle and drove off.
Klunder is charged in Cerro Gordo County District Court with third-degree kidnapping and assault with intent to commit sexual assault.
Feb. 24, 1992 — Change of venue on the kidnapping charges in the Charles City case is granted and trial moved from Floyd County to Bremer County.
Feb. 26, 1992 — Change of venue is denied in Cerro Gordo County on the charges stemming from the Dec. 15 incident that involved the Rudd woman.
April 15, 1992 — Klunder’s trial begins in Cerro Gordo County on the alleged abduction of the Rudd woman. His attorney claims his arrest came as a result of mistaken identity. The woman, it is said, found Klunder in a line-up and identified him during the trial. A question is raised about the color of his vehicle — it was blue; she said it was a white car — but that apparently does not bother the jury. He is found guilty on April 17.
May 16, 1992 — Klunder’s son is born.
May 29, 1992 — Klunder is sentenced to 11 years in prison on the Cerro Gordo County kidnapping charge and one year on the assault. He maintains his innocence.
Aug. 13, 1992 — Klunder reaches a plea agreement on the kidnapping of the two girls. He will serve 30 years.
Sept. 18, 1992 — Klunder is sentenced to 30 years in prison on reduced charges of third-degree kidnapping and one count of willful injury.
All told, he is sentenced to 41 years in prison during the 1992 trials.
Dec. 29, 1993 — A request made by Klunder to the Iowa Court of Appeals to dismiss his conviction on the Cerro Gordo County charges, citing sensational pre-trial publicity, is denied.
Dec. 25, 2011 — Klunder is paroled, having served 18 years of his 41-year sentence.
May 20, 2013 — Klunder entices a 12-year-old girl and 15-year-old Kathlynn Shepard of Dayton to get in his truck when he tells him he can get them lawn-mowing jobs in the summer. According to Hughes, he said he would give them a ride to their homes so they could ask their parents’ permission. He drives them to a remote area.
The 12-year-old escapes from Klunder. Klunder commits suicide and is later found in his truck.
Friday, June 7 — Shepard’s body is found in the Des Moines River. An autopsy shows she died of sharp and blunt-force trauma wounds.