New York Man Confesses on Live TV to Killing Parents, Arrested Moments After Interview

An on-camera confession led to the arrest of an Albany, New York, man who admitted during a television interview that he killed his parents and buried them in their backyard nearly a decade ago.

Admission During Interview

Lorenz Kraus, 53, sat down for a half-hour interview on Thursday with CBS6 news anchor Greg Floyd. During the conversation, Kraus initially avoided directly saying he killed his parents, Franz and Theresia Kraus. After repeated questioning, however, he admitted suffocating them about eight years ago.

“They knew that this was it for them, that they were perishing at your hand?” Floyd asked.

“Yes,” Kraus replied. “And it was so quick.”

Kraus described the deaths as mercy killings, claiming his parents were struggling with aging and frailty. “They knew they were going downhill,” he said. “I did my duty to my parents. My concern for their misery was paramount.”

He said his mother had been injured in a fall while crossing a road, and his father could no longer drive following cataract surgery. Kraus did not mention any terminal illnesses.

Arrest After Broadcast

Authorities say the confession came just one day after investigators recovered two bodies from the backyard of the family’s Albany home. Police were investigating financial crimes after discovering Kraus’ parents were still receiving Social Security payments despite not being seen in years.

Kraus was arrested immediately after leaving the television studio and charged with two counts of murder. He did not speak during a brief court appearance on Friday, where a public defender entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

How the Interview Happened

Stone Grissom, CBS6 news director, said Kraus had emailed a two-page statement to several outlets that included his phone number. When contacted, Kraus admitted he had buried his parents.

“When I asked if he killed them, he said, ‘I plead the Fifth,’” Grissom recalled. He said he promised to post Kraus’s statement online if Kraus agreed to an interview. To his surprise, Kraus arrived at the station within the hour.

Grissom checked him for weapons, and a plainclothes police officer stood in the lobby during the recording. Floyd had just 10 minutes to prepare.

“I was thinking that I was on a mission to find the truth of what happened,” Floyd said. Eight minutes into the interview, Kraus detailed suffocating his parents and how he did it.

Questions About Legal Impact

Albany County Assistant Public Defender Rebekah Sokol, who represents Kraus, said she intends to review the role of the media in the case. “If the media were 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,” she said.

Neighbors had assumed the elderly couple, who were 92 and 83 when they died, had moved back to Germany. Instead, police say Kraus collected and used their benefits for years until the investigation exposed the crime.

Floyd, reflecting on the rare interview, said the focus remains on the victims. “Maybe it’s kept me a little grounded because going through that was a tough thing to go through,” he said. “And then you think, ‘Well, OK, did we at least do justice for these two people who lost their lives?’”

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