The Real Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Taxidermy Murder of Two Mormon Missionaries in Austin, Texas.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre premiered in Austin, Texas, on October 1, 1974. Twenty-seven days later, a local man murdered two Mormon missionaries and dismembered their bodies with a rusted, six-foot taxidermist band saw.
An early introduction to guns, hunting, and mental illness
Robert Elmer Kleasen was born September 20, 1934, in Buffalo, New York. He grew up with a mentally ill father who introduced him to guns and hunting. When he was eighteen, Kleasen stepped on a rusty nail while in the woods. His mother took him to the ER, where he sat with her until a switch flipped. Kleasen hit his mother before pulling a gun from her car and returning to the ER shooting. No one was hurt, but he spent two years in a psychiatric facility.
For the rest of the ’50s, Kleasen traveled, married, and completed a mail-order course in taxidermy. He told big lies about his occupation𑁋CIA agent, an Olympic athlete, and so on. He even told gruesome and detailed stories about his “missions.” Being so good at deception, he was hired as a deputy sheriff in upstate New York. That lasted for two years until 1964 when the higher-ups felt he was too unstable.
