Man admits in TV interview to killing and burying his parents
[September 27, 2025]
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A man admitted during a television interview to
killing his parents and burying them in the backyard of their upstate
New York home eight years ago, then was arrested as he left the studio.
The stunning on-camera confession from Lorenz Kraus, 53, came Thursday,
a day after police say they recovered two bodies from the home in Albany
as part of an investigation that found Kraus' parents, Franz and
Theresia Kraus, were still receiving Social Security payments despite
not having been seen or heard from in years.
Lorenz Kraus contacted local news outlet CBS6, and sat for a half-hour
interview, in which he described the deaths as mercy killings for aging
parents who were becoming more frail.
“They knew that this was it for them, that they were perishing at your
hand?” news anchor Greg Floyd asked Kraus.
“Yes,” said Kraus. “And it was so quick.”
Kraus was initially reluctant to directly say he had killed the couple,
but made the admission after several minutes of questioning from Floyd.
Kraus said his parents didn’t ask to be killed but “they knew they were
going downhill.”
“I did my duty to my parents,” Kraus said in the interview. "My concern
for their misery was paramount.”
Kraus said his mother had recently been injured from falling while
crossing a road, and that his father could no longer drive after
cataract surgery.

Kraus, who did not mention his parents having any terminal illnesses,
was arrested moments after he left the television studio and has been
charged with two counts of murder. A public defender entered a not
guilty plea during a brief court appearance Friday. Kraus did not speak
during the hearing.
Interview came together quickly
Stone Grissom, the TV station's news director, told The Times-Union the
interview came about when Kraus emailed a two-page statement to news
outlets that included his phone number. Grissom called Kraus, who told
him he had buried his parents in his yard.
"When I asked if he killed them, he said, ‘I plead the Fifth,'” Grissom
said.
Grissom said he promised to post Kraus’ statement on the station's
website if Kraus agreed to come in for an interview. To his surprise,
Kraus agreed and arrived within the hour. Grissom said he checked Kraus
upon his arrival to ensure he was unarmed.

A plainclothes police officer was also in the front lobby, where the
interview was conducted, Grissom said. He added that Floyd had just 10
minutes to prepare for the interview.
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Lorenz Kraus, a 53-year-old man who was arrested for murder after
telling a television news anchor that he killed his parents, speaks
to Albany County Assistant Public Defender Rebekah Sokol during
Kraus' arraignment on Friday, Sept. 26, 2025, at Albany City Court
in Albany, N.Y. (Will Waldron/The Albany Times Union via AP)

“I was thinking that I was on a mission to find the truth of what
happened," Floyd told The Associated Press.
During the interview, Kraus repeatedly declined to say how his
parents died. Floyd wouldn't let it go, and kept turning back to his
most important question: “Did you kill them?” Eight minutes into the
interview, Kraus said he had suffocated them both 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," he said. "I just followed the script that he laid out. I
followed what he was saying and reacted to that.”
The interview was unlike any that Floyd has conducted during his
45-year career. But he said he keeps thinking about the couple, who
were 92 and 83 years old, and were described by their son 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?’"
Investigation began as fraud inquiry
The discovery of the bodies in the yard on a street of
close-together small homes was the culmination of the financial
crimes investigation which police say found Kraus had been
collecting his parents’ benefits and using the funds for his own
personal use.
Floyd said the story came as a complete surprise. No one had
reported the couple went missing. Neighbors thought they had moved
back to Germany, Floyd said.
“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 be looking
into how the interview came about because “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.”
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