Man arrested after admitting in TV interview he killed his parents

A US man has been arrested after admitting during a television interview that he killed his parents.

Lorenz Kraus, 53, was held after leaving the studios of WRGB in Albany, New York State, on Thursday, where he admitted he had suffocated them.

He has been charged with two counts of murder and two counts of concealment of a human corpse. Kraus pleaded not guilty to the charges on Friday as he appeared at Albany City Court.

Kraus described the deaths of Franz and Theresia Kraus, which he said happened “sometime August 2017”, as mercy killings for aging parents who were becoming more frail.

Kraus said his father, who was 92, could no longer drive after cataract surgery, while his 83-year-old mother had recently been injured from falling while crossing a road but did not say if either had life-threatening conditions.

Pressed by interviewer Greg Floyd to clarify if he killed the pair, he said he “buried them in their property”.

Mr Floyd asked: “You buried them in the back of your house in Albany?”

Kraus said: “Yes.”

Asked if he had suffocated them, he said: “Yeah, basically.”

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

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

He said his parents didn’t ask to be killed but “they knew they were going downhill.

“I did my duty to my parents. My concern for their misery was paramount.”

His arrest came a day after two bodies were found at their home in the city by detectives investigating why the couple was still receiving Social Security payments despite not having been seen or heard from in years.

Police say Kraus had been collecting his parents’ benefits and using the funds for his own personal use.

In the half-hour interview, Kraus said: “I did my duty to my parents. My concern for their misery was paramount.”

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Assistant Albany County Public Defender Rebekah Sokol, whose office is representing Kraus, admitted the interview was “shocking”, but said she suspects that it is not admissible in court.

A neighbour who lived next to the couple told NBC, Sky’s US partner, she noticed that they vanished in June 2017.

Since then, Kraus regularly visited the property to collect post, mow the lawn and clear snow, but when asked about his parents, he told her they had moved to Germany.