An unsettling confession from an Albany man who admitted to murdering his elderly parents and burying their remains in his backyard has led to criminal charges against him.
Lorenz Kraus, aged 53, entered a plea of not guilty to two counts of murder and two counts of concealing a human corpse in connection with the disappearance of his parents, Franz and Theresia Kraus, who vanished eight years prior, during his court appearance on Friday.
During a shocking exclusive interview with CBS6 on Thursday, Kraus spoke freely, but was reticent in court.
“You buried them in your Albany backyard?” CBS6’s Greg Floyd queried during the interview.
“Yes,” Kraus chillingly confirmed.
Describing the deaths of his ailing parents as acts of mercy, the disturbed son recounted his mother sustaining injuries while crossing a street and his father being unable to drive after cataract surgery.
“You suffocated them? You suffocated your parents,” Floyd pressed in a series of exchanges where Kraus attempted to retract his earlier admission and invoke his Fifth Amendment rights.
“Yeah, basically,” he nodded.
Kraus recounted, “My father, after he died, my mother laid his head on his chest, and after some time, I finished her off.”
He went on to detail how he choked his father with his hands before strangling his mother with a rope.
He explained that it took him several days to allegedly bury the bodies in the backyard of their suburban residence.
Stone Grissom, the news director at CBS6, revealed to The Times-Union that the eerie interview arose after Kraus sent a convoluted, two-page statement to news outlets that included his phone number.
Grissom reached out, and Kraus confessed to burying his parents in his yard.
“When I inquired about whether he killed them, he responded with, ‘I plead the Fifth,’” Grissom recounted.
Grissom agreed to publish Kraus’ statement online if he consented to be interviewed, prompting Kraus’s quick arrival at the studio. A plainclothes police officer was stationed in the lobby during the conversation, ensuring safety.
“I was driven by the mission to uncover the truth about what transpired,” Floyd stated to The Associated Press.
“The lack of preparation worked to my advantage; I didn’t have predetermined questions, allowing me to follow the narrative Kraus presented,” he remarked.
After the recording ended, Kraus left CBS6 but was taken into custody immediately.
In a second exclusive interview with Kraus in custody on Friday, Floyd asked if he felt any relief after confessing.
“Not really, no, not at all,” was Kraus’s reply, dressed in orange prison attire.
“The public was unaware of the situation until a significant police presence arrived on the scene, digging up the backyard,” he stated.
Kraus’s Public Defender, Rebekah Sokol, expressed her intent to scrutinize the circumstances surrounding the media interview, noting that if the media acted as an arm of law enforcement, it could affect the admissibility of Kraus’s statements at trial.
The unsettling allegations surround Kraus, a graduate of Albany High School and Siena University, where he was recognized as valedictorian of his political science class, as reported by the Times Union.
Kraus remains held without bail.
With Post wires.
