Man Confesses on Live TV to Killing and Burying Elderly Parents in "Mercy Killing" Case

A man was arrested immediately after exiting a television studio where he had just confessed to killing his parents and burying them in their upstate New York home's backyard eight years ago.

The shocking televised confession from 53-year-old Lorenz Kraus occurred on Thursday, just one day after police recovered two bodies from the Albany home. Authorities had been investigating reports that Franz and Theresia Kraus were still receiving Social Security payments despite not being seen or heard from for years.

Lorenz Kraus had reached out to local news station CBS6 and participated in a 30-minute interview where he described the killings as acts of mercy for his aging parents who were becoming increasingly frail.

When news anchor Greg Floyd asked Kraus if his parents knew "they were perishing at your hand," Kraus simply responded, "Yes. And it was so quick."

Initially hesitant to directly admit killing the couple, Kraus eventually confessed after persistent questioning from Floyd. He claimed his parents didn't request to be killed but "they knew they were going downhill."

"I did my duty to my parents," Kraus stated during the interview. "My concern for their misery was paramount."

Kraus explained that his mother had recently been injured from falling while crossing a road, and his father could no longer drive following cataract surgery. However, he made no mention of either parent suffering from any terminal illness.

Police arrested Kraus moments after he left the studio, charging him with two counts of murder. A public defender entered a not guilty plea during a brief court appearance on Friday, during which Kraus remained silent.

Stone Grissom, the TV station's news director, told The Times-Union that the interview came about after Kraus emailed a two-page statement to news outlets that included his phone number. When Grissom called Kraus, he admitted to burying his parents in his yard.

"When I asked if he killed them, he said, 'I plead the Fifth,'" Grissom recounted.

Grissom had promised to post Kraus' statement on the station's website if he agreed to an interview. Surprisingly, Kraus agreed and arrived within the hour. Grissom verified Kraus was unarmed upon arrival.

A plainclothes police officer was present in the front lobby where the interview took place, and Floyd had only 10 minutes to prepare for the interview.

"I was thinking that I was on a mission to find the truth of what happened," Floyd told The Associated Press.

Throughout the interview, Kraus repeatedly avoided stating how his parents died. Floyd persisted in asking his most crucial question: "Did you kill them?" Eight minutes into the conversation, Kraus admitted he had suffocated both parents and described how he did it.

"I did not prepare for this because it was thrust upon us with virtually no notice," Floyd said. "And I think that worked out in an advantageous way because I didn't go in with a set of predetermined questions. I just followed the script that he laid out. I followed what he was saying and reacted to that."

The interview was unlike any Floyd had conducted in his 45-year career. However, he keeps thinking about the elderly couple, aged 92 and 83, whom their son described as survivors of World War II in Germany.

"Maybe it's kept me a little grounded because going through that was a tough thing to go through. And then you think, 'Well, okay, did we at least do justice for these two people who lost their lives?'"

The discovery of the bodies in the yard of a street lined with closely-built small homes concluded a financial crimes investigation, which police say revealed Kraus had been collecting his parents' benefits for personal use.

Floyd noted the story came as a complete surprise. Nobody had reported the couple missing, and neighbors assumed they had returned to Germany.

"The public never knew anything until Tuesday when an array of police vehicles showed up on that street and started searching a house and digging in the backyard," he said.

Albany County Assistant Public Defender Rebekah Sokol, who represented Kraus at Friday's hearing, said she would investigate how the interview was arranged, noting that "if the media was essentially an agent of police in this matter, that could raise questions about whether (Kraus') comments in the interview would be legally admissible at trial."