man confesses to killing his parents in chilling tv interview

Lorenz Kraus admitted to killing his parents in the TV interview (Picture: AP)

A man confessed to killing his parents eight years ago in a television interview before being arrested as he left the studio.

Lorenz Kraus,53,made the startling admission during an interview with a local TV station a day after their bodies were discovered by police.

He called their deaths ‘quick’ and described how he let his mum rest her head on her dead husband’s chest before killing her.

Kraus defended their deaths to TV anchor Greg Floyd as mercy killings for his parents who were ‘going downhill’.

Kraus appeared in court on Friday after being arrested following the interview (Picture: AP)

Police uncovered the bodies of Franz and Theresia Kraus,and have investigating why the pair were still receiving Social Security payments despite not having been seen or heard from in years.

Their son then emailed local news channel CBS6 and other outlets a two-page statement,the station’s director Stone Grissom told The Times-Union newspaper.

Grissom then called Kraus,who admitted to burying his parents over the phone but refused to answer if he had killed his parents.

Kraus accepted an invite go on the station for an interview and arrived within an hour for the publicised interview.

During the half-an-hour sit down,presenter Floyd pressed the suspect on what happened to his parents.

‘I buried them in their property,’ Klaus admitted.

Kraus first refused to disclose whether he killed his parents,despite being repeatedly asked that by Floyd.

But then he eventually answered ‘yeah,basically,’ when he was asked: ‘You suffocated them? You suffocated your parents?’

The suspect came to the studio with an hour’s notice to talk to interviewer Greg Floyd (Picture: AP)

He then went on to explain that he chocked his father with his own hands and then used a rope to suffocate his mother.

He continued: ‘My father,after he died – my mother put her head on his chest,and after a few hours,I finished her.’

Kraus described his actions as his ‘duty to my parents’.

‘They knew they were going downhill,’ he added.

The suspect argued that there was a need to ‘widen up the law so that people can deal with these kind of problems’.

By the end of the discussion,police officers were waiting in the car park and arrested Kraus after he left in the studio.

The interview was then aired at 6pm during the usual broadcast slot.

Kraus was subsequently charged with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of concealment of a human corpse.

He appeared in court on Friday and pleaded not guilty to the charges and was held without bail.

Defence lawyer Rebekah Sokol,who represented Kraus on Friday,said she had ‘very serious concerns’ about the interview partly because ‘it looked like a police interrogation’.

She argued: ‘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.’

However local district attorney Lee Kindlon said Kraus’s confesssion was helpful to prosecutors.