The tragedy of the Klein family. Where did their three sons disappear to? (14 photos)

We've all heard heartbreaking stories about the disappearance of young children. It is difficult to imagine the suffering their loved ones are going through. But there are even sadder stories when not one, but several children disappear at once.





The case that I am going to talk about today is related to the disappearance of the three Klein brothers without a trace. Unfortunately, even after 70 years they have still not been found. So what happened to them?

Going to the park

Saturday, November 10, 1951, turned out to be cold, but in all other respects it was the same as all other weekends. The Klein family, who lived on Colfax Avenue in Minneapolis, was large by modern standards and consisted of parents Kenneth and Betty (she was also 7 months pregnant), as well as their 4 sons.

The boys' names were: Gordon (9 years old), Kenneth Jr. (8 years old), David (6 years old) and Danny (4 years old). That day, the three youngest boys persistently asked their mother to let them go to Farview Park, which was only 3 blocks from the family home. Betty was hesitant at first because it was quite windy and chilly that day, but she finally allowed them to go.



Klein family

The brothers, pleased that their mother had changed her mind, went to the park around 1:30 p.m., talking cheerfully to each other. Their older brother, Gordon, was fiddling with his broken scabbard and wanted to fix it, so he told the brothers that he would come to the park in about an hour or an hour and a half, and asked them to wait for him under the big oak tree. However, when Gordon got there, his brothers were nowhere to be found.

A small retreat

When a case is over 70 years old, it is sometimes very difficult to find detailed information, if any at all. In this case, I was lucky to stumble upon the materials of journalist Jack El-Hai, which served as a source of inspiration for writing the article.

It turned out that El-Hai approached the investigation of the case more than scrupulously and personally met the Klein family in 1997. And he became interested in the disappearance itself after he saw an advertisement placed in the Sunday Star Tribune newspaper, where parents were once again looking for any information about their missing sons.





Jack El-Hai and his book "The Lost Brothers: A Family Search That Lasted Decades"

Jack conducted a detailed investigation and later wrote an entire book entitled: "The Lost Brothers: A Family Search That Lasted Decades."

Start of the search

In the afternoon, the eldest brother, Gordon, came to the park to join his brothers and play. He doesn't remember the exact time, but it seems that it happened about 1.5 hours after the younger boys left the house.

Having searched everything around, he found no signs of the presence of his brothers and, at approximately 16:00, Gordon returned home to tell his parents about what had happened.

Kenneth and Betty immediately contacted the authorities, although police initially wanted to wait 24 hours after the boys disappeared before launching a manhunt. But the parents insisted on their own, and the search began. On the first day they were not large-scale, but on November 11, boy scouts and search engines with sniffer dogs joined the police.



Minneapolis plan in the 1960s

Betty Klein made an emotional appeal to the concerned residents of Minneapolis to “look wherever you can,” and soon several hundred volunteers gathered and walked block after block in search of children.

As for the witnesses, everything was ambiguous. There were many adults and even more children in the park that day. The adults were busy with their own affairs, the children were running and playing, so no one remembered the Klein brothers. However, if they were taken away from there by force, then people would probably pay attention to it.

The Mississippi River flowed about one and a half kilometers from the park. Divers searched it several times, both upstream and downstream, but there were no traces of the children anywhere. Although a little later it is there that a discovery will be made that will completely change the course of the police investigation.

Find in the river

Railway worker Helge Mattson was one of those who volunteered to look for the Klein brothers. In the afternoon, November 13, he walked along the western bank of the river and two or three meters from the edge of the water he noticed two woolen caps lying on thin ice.

The Kleins could not say for sure whether the hats belonged to their children or not. The brothers wore factory-made hats that were almost impossible to distinguish from others produced by the same factory.



Kenneth Klein holding hats found in the river

Betty and Kenneth were almost ready to agree that the hats found belonged to their sons, however, like many others, they did not believe that the hats floated along the river for 3 days, and then, by some miracle, ended up on the ice near the shore . Almost everyone believed that they were planted there deliberately.

But then the Minneapolis police made a decision that defies any logic. After finding the caps, authorities said they believed there had been an accident and the boys had drowned. The case was closed just 5 days after the brothers disappeared.

Inconsistencies

Although the case was closed, several inconsistencies remained. Firstly, the brothers did not ask to go to the river; they all wanted to go to the park. The river where the caps were found was about a mile from Farview Park, where the boys are believed to have been that day.

Secondly, their older brother, Gordon, was adamant that the brothers certainly would not have gone to the river without him. They knew that their elder brother was soon going to join them, and they always waited for him on such occasions. In addition, there were no reports of the boys being seen at or near the river that day (then a pedestrian area).



Klein Brothers

As a result, after the police closed the case, Kenneth and Betty Klein had to take the search for the missing children into their own hands. They offered a reward of $500 for any tips that would help them find the brothers, and set to work.

The residents of Minneapolis sincerely sympathized with the Kleins, but, alas, they could not help. At the same time, parents of missing children had to deal with strange silent calls and cruel letters saying that they “needed to monitor their children better.” There was even a ransom note, but when the FBI helped arrange a meeting with the letter's author, he never showed up.

Continuing the search...

The Kleins did everything they could, but it wasn't enough. Desperate, Betty and Kenneth went so far as to consult a famous psychic horse named Lady Wonder.

This seer horse used a special device made by her owner, Claudia Fonda, with which she raised certain letters and thereby gave the answer. Interestingly, when asked about the Klein brothers, Lady Wonder gave the name of one of the streets (Channel St.) in the neighboring city of St. Paul.



Horse Lady Wonder

Kenneth visited this street, but found nothing there. Much later, in 1990, the Kleins went on the TV show "Unsolved Mysteries" to highlight their children's case. However, shortly before filming began, they were canceled without explanation. Roughly the same story repeated itself with another TV show.

For decades, Kenneth and Betty regularly placed advertisements in newspapers asking for any information about their missing children. One of the advertisements read:

- We really want our 3 boys to return home. We know they are alive. The hats found in the river were just a distraction. Call or write to us if you know something.

3 years after the disappearance of their sons, the Kleins moved to the city of Monticello (also located in Minnesota), and they had 4 more boys. But despite this, the desire to find their missing sons never left them.

Versions

Because the police closed the case very quickly, there was not a single person involved. Without a doubt, the boys really could have drowned, and this version remains one of the most plausible, but it is by no means the only one.

Richard Foss

Richard Foss worked at Farview Park in 1951 and the boys are said to have known him. As Jack El-Hai managed to find out, the man left Minneapolis just a couple of weeks after the children disappeared.



Klein family

Interestingly, in 1955, Foss was investigated for the murders of three other Chicago boys: Pete Peterson (age 13), John (age 13), and Anton (age 11) Schussler. But Richard Foss's involvement was never proven, and he died free in 1962.

Lloyd Paddock

Another possible culprit is Lloyd Paddock, a truck driver who lived near the Kleins. He acted too strangely around the time the boys disappeared.

According to one neighbor, Paddock poured a new concrete floor in his basement around the same time. Moreover, he had previously agreed on this with a team of builders, but when they arrived, Lloyd told them that he did not need help and would do everything himself. In addition, the man replaced the body trim in his pickup truck in November-December 1951.



Newspaper article about the disappearance of the Klein brothers

And when the aforementioned neighbor asked Paddock if he was going to join the search for the boys, he replied: “They’re not worth looking for.” It is also important to note that if the boys wanted to take a shortcut, their road would pass by Paddock's house.

Tenant

Another possible suspect was found by Michael Sadovich, a private investigator hired by the Klein family. One of the residents of Minneapolis told about him.

In the summer of 1951, she rented a room in the area to "a creepy 50-year-old man and a strange teenager." The woman claimed she saw her tenant playing basketball with boys she didn't know. This happened around the time the Kleins disappeared. They matched the age of the missing children, but she did not remember their appearance.



Betty Klein with photographs of her children

The tenant moved out a couple of months after the children disappeared, and she thought he was in a hurry. The woman remained silent about this man for a long time, as she was afraid of him even after he left.

Kidnapping

There is another theory that is not associated with a specific person - this is adoption on the black market. Although there is no evidence that this could have happened to the Klein brothers, such cases were not uncommon at the time.

Perhaps the suggestion of a "fun adventure" could easily convince three little boys to go somewhere with someone they didn't know. The relatives of the missing Klein brothers are leaning towards this scenario.



Newspaper article about the disappearance of the Klein brothers

For example, their younger brothers, born after 1951, always imagined that the missing children were being raised in a good family and they were happy. If you think about it, imagining this version is much easier and calmer than other possible options.

Drowned in the river?

As for the police theory that the boys drowned in the river, it had and still has many critics. Thus, a former Hennepin County medical examiner, who was retired at the time, said that the police version does not hold water:

- The probability that the Klein brothers drowned is close to 1 in 1,000,000. If 3 people drowned in a river, then at least one of them should have surfaced, but this did not happen. In addition, divers searched the bottom several times. The conclusion suggests itself...

Main clue

Another blow to this investigation came in the early 2000s, when a box of hats that may have belonged to the missing children went missing.

It is unknown what happened to her. Was it stolen or lost by accident? The family has different versions on this matter. But the saddest thing is that it is now impossible to test them for traces of DNA.



Betty Klein with her son, Gordon

Whether it was a coincidence or not, just at this time the Klein brothers were planning to send evidence for DNA testing, which became available to private individuals. Could the kidnapper have been watching the family all this time and stealing the hats so that the crime would not be solved?

Police interest

Surprisingly, in recent decades, law enforcement agencies have begun to show renewed interest in this case. In 2013, Minneapolis sheriff's deputies Jessica Miller and Lance Salls wanted to get closer to the case.

They contacted Jack El-Hai, making copies of his notes on the case, and also spoke with members of the Klein family. Alas, it all ended there; the re-investigation froze as soon as it began.



Klein Brothers

Of course, it’s good that this disappearance is still remembered and is being worked on. It's also worth noting that members of the Klein family have submitted their DNA to missing persons matching registries, but as of 2021 there have been no matches.

Epilogue

As for my thoughts, I find it hard to believe that the boys drowned that day. I don't see any reason why they would want to go to the river without Gordon, given the fact that he was going to join them. It was cold and windy that day, the park was a few blocks away, and it was a kilometer and a half to get to the river.

It's strange that no one saw the boys going to the park or on the Farview grounds. And it was a big city and the middle of a Saturday afternoon, so no doubt there were a lot of people around. Did they even make it to the park? Or did they go somewhere else? I think whatever happened to the Klein brothers happened shortly after they left the house.



Klein family

Unfortunately, Kenneth Klein died in 2005 without ever learning the fate of his missing children. Betty Klein died in 2013 at the age of 88. For several decades they tirelessly searched for their lost children. The remaining brothers, especially Gordon, continue this sad work.

I can’t even imagine the grief the Klein family lived with all these years. God gave them more children, but every day they were haunted by thoughts of the missing boys.

- From the outside it seems that we have lived a rich and happy life, but inside each of us there remains a huge hole. Or rather, there were three of them. Boys are always on our minds... - Betty Klein once said.

It's likely we'll never know the events that transpired that day, but for Kenneth Jr.'s family, David and Danny Klein, who disappeared forever on November 10, 1951, it's certainly a tragedy multiplied by three.