Chapter 4: Confronting

Explicit content warning

08/31/17 • 30 min

Hanging

K.W. Klaver didn’t know I was coming to Oklahoma. He didn’t know I would show up at the Atoka livestock auction barn on the edge of town. I had come with a brazen question no investigator had ever posed, and wasn’t quite sure how to phrase it: How do you ask a man if he killed his 10-year-old son?

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Chapter 3: Connecting

Josh’s mother Kathy Atkins was ready to give up in 2014 when the Facebook message arrived from a stranger. “You don’t know me, but I know that sob klaver. He’s here in okla i have alot to tell you.” But were the suspicions swirling around Josh’s father driven by spurned lovers and their need for revenge? Or did K.W. Klaver’s abusive tendencies — documented in court files — give credence to their darkest fears?

Next Episode

Chapter 5: Hurting

The coroner returned to the barn in San Martin to re-enact a hanging. And for the first time in almost three decades, something new was added to the official story of Joshua Klaver’s death. But other essential parts of the story remained untold until I began to share them — shocking the judge who made a fateful ruling in Josh’s custody case.