Frightened Brother Spoils ‘Perfect Murder’

Except for a frightened brother, it “could have been the perfect murder,” Los Angeles police said in announcing that a suspect is in custody in the 1984 slaying of a Los Angeles man.

Martin Kleinow, 30, who owned a Los Angeles auto body shop, is accused of fatally shooting a business associate, Elbert Farris, 44, at the shop during an apparent disagreement. Kleinow then stuffed the body into a 55-gallon oil drum and hid it in remote Fish Canyon north of Azusa, police said Thursday.

Nine months later, Kleinow’s older brother, Aaron, disclosed the crime to police in Florida, where he said he and his brother had fled after the killing.

“It could have been the perfect murder if Kleinow’s brother had not been frightened enough to go to the Florida police,” Southwest Division Homicide Detective Richard Hoffman said.

“The victim was totally isolated in Los Angeles,” the detective said. “He had no close relatives who would have been concerned enough about his disappearance to have gone to the police. And that oil drum was hidden in such an isolated place, we might never have known someone had been murdered.”

But on Jan. 3, Aaron Kleinow, 34, walked into a police station in Fort Lauderdale and talked about the murder. “He told the Florida officers he’d had a row with his brother, Martin, and was afraid because he knew what his brother could do when he was angry,” Hoffman said.

Hoffman and Detective L. J. Jones went to the body shop formerly owned by Martin Kleinow in the 4700 block of Jefferson Boulevard to inquire if anyone had seen Farris recently.

“People told us he had disappeared about nine months earlier, and then we really began to believe the story might be true,” Hoffman said. “We asked Azusa police to go to Fish Canyon and look for a sealed 55-gallon drum.

Identified as Farris

“It was there, all right. We went there with the coroner, brought the drum back to the coroner’s office and opened it. There was a man’s body in it that we identified from fingerprints as Farris.”

Hoffman flew to Florida on Jan. 16 to interview Aaron Kleinow. He returned to Los Angeles and obtained a warrant for the arrest of Martin Kleinow.

A nationwide hunt began and Martin Kleinow was seized in Phoenix on Feb. 13. He has since been extradited to California. A preliminary hearing is scheduled April 30.