Ross Edward Kleman
Edson, Alberta, Canada, a small town in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, has about 8000 residents, and one of them is a murderer.
The victim was 14 year old Emily Stauffer, the daughter of the local Pastor. She was intelligent and loved to sing and play the piano and violin. She came from a loving family, and, as with most crimes of this nature, didn’t deserve to have this happen to her.
When this horrific crime took place the entire town was put on curfew and it’s citizens warned not to engage in any vigilante activity. At the same time, the RCMP searched for a suspect, who was originally thought to be a hitchhiker or visitor. No one ever suspected that the murderer was one of their own, an married equipment operator for the town who also worked odd jobs.
According to his boss, Ross Edward Kleman was the last person you would ever imagine hurting anyone. His Facebook profile lists him as ‘church-going’ and ‘enjoyed hiking and fishing’. I wasn’t able to locate that Facebook page anymore, apparently it was taken down.
So on a Sunny Saturday in September 2008 Emily Stauffer wanted to go for a walk. She was a nature lover and loved 
photography, so she decided to grab her camera and go to the park area that bordered the residential neighborhood to see if she could find anything worth shooting.
Emily was walking along the path that lined the park when she was attacked by Ross Kleman at approximately 4:40pm. She was seen by two boys who were riding their dirt bikes struggling with her attacker. They raced to the closest residence to ask the woman who lived there to call police, but by the time cops arrived it was too late.
Emily Stauffer was pronounced dead at the scene. She had been beaten, strangled, and her throat had been slashed with a hunting knife. Over 1000 people showed up for this beautiful young woman’s funeral to celebrate her life.
It took two months for the police to finally arrest Ross Kleman, because the DNA evidence tying him to the scene took that long to be processed. This shocking crime rocked this community and the people in it lived in fear for those two months.
At his arrest, RCMP Cpl. Wayne Oakes had this to say about Ross Edward Kleman’s crime:
“If you look at the context of first-degree murder it does indicate a need for some degree of planning and preparatio. To what extent that existed, again, that’s actual evidence that will have to be presented in court.”
Ross Kleman originally pled not guilty to first degree murder but later plead guilty to second degree murder, which carries an automatic life sentence.
It appears that Ross may have been a budding serial killer. In Oct 2006, Kleman contacted police and told them that he stepped off a trail to urinate and found the body of Margaret Findley. Coincidence? He also plead guilty in an unrelated case of sexually touching a 5 year old girl.
Should Ross Edward Kleman Burn In Hell?
- Yes (89%, 266 Votes)
- No (11%, 34 Votes)
Total Voters: 300
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22 Comments »
What a piece of shit! I hope he rots! Emily was a beautiful girl with her whole life ahead of her! He is undoubtedly going to hell. He found another body???? There is no way that, that was a coincidence, I hope they find something to tie him to that too!
This article isn’t well written like others are on the website. How did he kill her? Motive? Was she raped or just killed? How could this happen in broad daylight at a park?
Well, you’re right about us not reporting the cause of death – I missed that when I was doing the editing, so you should be blaming me. But I fact checked this story and Kleman never mentioned why he did it, and there were no signs of rape , which is why it wasn’t in the story.
And if you go back and read the story again, Kleman really wasn’t able to get away with pulling this crime in brad daylight. Those two kids saw the attack and ran to the nearest house to report it. The cops just didn’t have enough time to catch him in the act.
Except for the one mistake, which I was responsible for fixing before the story made it to our front page, Kajun99 did a very good job on this story. You’re more than welcome to try out writing for us if you think you can do a better job than she does, but I’m quite happy with her work.
I think she did a very good job with what information was available. However you missed it saying that “Ross Edward Kleman was pronounced dead at the scene.” when you were editing it!
Lol, not trying to piss you off; I actually thought I misread it a couple of times.
Also, to Ryan, it does say “She had been beaten, strangled, and her throat had been slashed with a hunting knife.” I take that as being how he killed her.
That would be me again. Thanks for letting me now.
It’s not that I object to criticism – I don’t. I want to know about mistake. It unfair criticism, like “how did he get away with doing it in broad daylight?” that bothers me. I’m very protective of my writers, because I know how hard it is to write one of these stories.
But typos, or missing data – absolutely let me know about it. Chances are it’s my fault anyways, as in this case.
rightfully so Max, you should be protective of them. I for one wouldn’t knock anyone that wrote a story on here because they took the time to write it and they obviously feel passionate enough to tell the stories of the victims! My hats off to all the writers here and i thank you for showing me how crazy this world is and reminding me to keep a closer eye on my child, not that i don’t already!! :-)
“Just the facts, Mam”–Good write up, Kajun99.
What I found interesting was his picture that looks like he is almost smiling. Umm, is that because he is in Canada and knows he won’t get a serious sentence? Inquiring minds want to know….
Good writeup Kajun99. Just to make sure no one feels any undue sorrow for this piece of junk, could you check the paragraph above and change the name of the victim to please to Emily?
“Ross Edward Kleman was pronounced dead at the scene. She had been beaten, strangled, and her throat had been slashed with a hunting knife. Over 1000 people showed up for this beautiful young woman’s funeral to celebrate her life.”
I hope I’m not sounding nit-picky. :-)
Whoops, someone beat me to it and I didn’t realize it. Sorry.
What is with all of these horrific stories coming out of my province?
Ok that’s it I’m canceling my trip to Canada. I mean if I’m going to be beaten, murdered, raped etc. I’d just as soon it be right here in the USA!
This is horrible.. Its early on in the case so I can understand why he hasn’t given his ‘reason’ (as if there COULD be any reason to brutally murder a young girl) to the police… I’m hoping there will be more developments as time goes on.. I’m glad they were able to tie him to this one, and I hope they’re able to connect him to the “body’ he “found” .. but if they do it’s going to make me wonder how many more there are out there that we just don’t know about.. Im sure he’s done more than this..
P.S. What do you have to do to spend the rest of your life in prison in Canada?? Seriously?? I know he’s probably not going to get any sort of death sentence, but I can so imagine using the firing squad in Canada..
I enjoyed the write-up, Kajun99. I’m an editor and not a writer so I say please, keep it up.
Good story on a hideous subject. I keep saying how we just have these cretins popping out of the Canadian woodwork! And the cops say, NAH, it is a COINCIDENCE that all these people died/disappeared mysteriously. Like the fact that the Canadian colonel is finally getting charged and it turns out he was a buddy of Paul Bernardo and was posted all over Canada. That’s another story of Canadian jurisprudence that drives me to my aspirin bottle. :-)
But really, what’s up with Alberta lately? And that isn’t even addressing the ‘highway of tears’ deaths. Spooky.
The Highway of Tears is going to be a very interesting solve when they eventually get around to trying to do something about it.
The Colonel I actually just wrote an article for the site on yesterday and it is pending approval. Turns out he did go to the same school as Paul Bernardo but they had no affiliations and were not friends. He also attended boarding school during a time that one of the instructors was molesting young boys and was later convicted for it, but apparently there was no connection to Williams there either.
It is true that the Canadian justice system is hesitant about warning the general public about the possibility of true danger. Even with the Colonel Williams story there were 43 break in’s reported in Tweed (SMALL town) over the course of a couple years and the police never reported it to the people. Eventually Williams graduated to rape and murder and no one had any warning…
The Ross Kleman incident though was interesting because there was a lot of daily reporting on it here. Apparently he is mentally unstable, the body that he found was of a preists sister (something with religion I guess) and the town went crazy when this happened to Emily. The police had to initiate a curfew for the town because they were afraid that the townspeople would go vigilate and start attacking any hitchhikers or people passing through.
When we saw the video evidence on the news the part that I found most interesting is that this ‘wooded area’ that she was attacked in is very common here. There are lots of little wooded paths in small block sized parks but I would never look at one and think ‘oooo thats really out of the way, I could attack someone there and not get caught’. I mean, he was seen while attacking her….obviously somethings wrong with the guy, fckn idiot.
Send Kleman to Belarus, where he’ll be shot at the back of his head!
Who the hell voted NO he didnt deserve hell…. because I hope ya’ll are responsible for keeping him out of trouble if he gets a light sentence.. to the point that if he does anything again you get a trip to hell too.
This happened about an hour from where I live, it was absolutely horrific. I wish I could personally boot fuck him, then proceed to stomp his face in. He will get life in prison there is no doubt about it.
To many of us, hundred and even thousands of miles away it is a simple story. But to those who are closer, know the victim and/or the perp or value life, it’s a story that deserves to be told.
Sure it’s a “simple murder”, lacking gorey detail, but it’s a murder none the less.
I find it sad that people are upset that this story is “boring”, do these same people get the same joy from reading the obituaries as I do the comics?
This is horrible. Hes disgusting. She never hurt anyone. I know there are sick fucks who do this and rape people but it seems he didnt rape her, I guess it was just a child because of opportunity. He needs to burn in hell. Its so sad all she was trying to do was explore in nature and take pictures, and he took her young innocent life away. God rest her little soul.
What I can not unerstand is how people can vote no about him burning in hell. Who are these people. Seriously I would love someone to explain to me how or why you would vote no.
I am personally from the town Emily was murdered in. I saw Ross Kleman in public quite often. I didn’t know Emily personally, but I strongly felt the effects her murder had on the town, and to this day we still live in fear of our walking trails. I am very happy Kleman got life in prison, but that won’t bring Emily back.