Man Leaves Chilling Message Before Police Find Him Dead

Telephone callers to Richard Klee’s apartment Wednesday heard a chilling answering machine message in which he said in a slurred voice that he was in “pain and misery,” had taken drugs and planned to “use my .454 and end it all.”

Alerted to the message by Klee’s boss, four Los Angeles police officers entered Klee’s apartment in the 21800 block of Roscoe Boulevard in Canoga Park about 5 p.m. and were met by a gunshot that forced them to dive out of the first-floor apartment through a window, Capt. Valentino Paniccia said.

A police SWAT team fired five canisters of tear gas into the apartment and entered just before 9 p.m., finding Klee dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the head, Paniccia said.

During the earlier exchange of shots, police fired their weapons an unknown number of times but did not know at the time whether their bullets struck Klee.

Occupants of Klee’s 37-unit building were evacuated, joining a crowd of 300 curious spectators on the street.

Before firing the gas, police tried several times without success to contact Klee by telephone, Paniccia said.

Klee’s boss told police that when the balding gun enthusiast arrived at his job Wednesday, he told fellow employees that he was depressed and that he could not feel pain in part of his arm. To prove his point, Paniccia said, Klee horrified his fellow workers by burning his arm with a heating device.

Paniccia said Klee had worked at the firm for five years and had never before caused any problems.

Klee went home for lunch but did not return. His supervisor called his apartment, heard the message, and called police. Police would not release the name of the employer or supervisor.

The message said, in part, “ . . . This is Richard Klee. Basically, life sucks. I’m in pain and misery. I’ve taken 14 (inaudible) tablets in the last 40 minutes and later I intend to use my .454 and end it all. That’s about it.”

The rare .454 Casull handgun is the most powerful pistol made, more than twice as powerful as the .44 magnum made famous by Clint Eastwood in the “Dirty Harry” movies. Neighbors said Klee displayed a bullet-riddled paper target next to his parking place, accompanied by a sign telling others not to park there.

Felipe Polowood, 28, who lives in the apartment next door to Klee’s, said the dead man worked with computers and would leave his apartment door open and sit working at his keyboard. Polowood, a computer programmer, said he tried to engage his neighbor in conversation but that Klee was unresponsive.

Polowood described Klee as “kind of lost all the time” with a “lost look in his eyes.”