ALBANY, NY (AP) – A man who admitted to killing and burying his parents in a backyard in upstate New York eight years ago During a TV interview He was arrested this week when he left the studio.
A stunning camera confession from 53-year-old Lorenz Klaus came Thursday the day after Klaus’ parents Franz and Theresia Klaus said they had recovered two bodies from their Albany home as part of an investigation, which they had not been seen or heard from the years, but were recovered from Social Security Payments.
Lorenzklaus contacted local news outlet CBS6 and sat for a 30-minute interview. There he described death as the mercy murder of two aging and sick parents.
“Did they know this is it for them, that they are perishing in your hands?” News anchor Greg Floyd asked Klaus.
“Yes,” Klaus said. “And it was very fast.”
Klaus was initially reluctant to directly say he had killed the couple, but after a few minutes of questions from Floyd, he entered. Klaus said that his parents did not ask to be explicitly killed, but “they knew it was going downhill.”
“I fulfilled my duties to my parents,” Klaus said in an interview. “My concern about their misery was paramount.”
Klaus was arrested the moment he left the TV studio and charged with two counts of murder. When he appeared in a brief courthouse on Friday, the public defender entered a plea of innocence. Klaus did not speak during the hearing.
Stone Grissom, news director for the TV station, said Times Union Newspaper The interview came when Klaus emailed a two-page statement to the station to other news outlets containing his phone number. Grissom says he called Klaus to confirm his identity and told him over the phone that Klaus had buried his parents in his yard.
“When I asked him if he killed them, he said, ‘I plead for the fifth,'” Grissom said.
Grissom said he has pledged to post Klaus’ statement on the station’s website if Klaus agrees to come to the station for an interview. To his surprise, Klaus agreed and arrived within an hour, and Grissom said he personally frisked Claus on his arrival to assure him that he was not armed.
Grissom said regular police officers were also in the safe front lobby. He added that Floyd only had 10 minutes to prepare for the interview.
“I went in without a note and was reacting to what he was saying,” Floyd told the outlet.
“If the media was essentially a police agent on this issue, we can raise questions about whether (Kraus’) comments in the interview would be legally recognized in court,” said Rebekah Sokol, the Albany County assistant public defense counsel who represented Kraus at Friday’s hearing.
The body was found in the garden on the streets of a small house nearby, and police found Klaus gathering benefits from his parents and using the funds for his own personal use, according to police, and police said.
The body is believed to be the remains of 92-year-old Franz Kraus and 83-year-old Theresia Kraus, but authorities said Friday that a positive identification has still been decided.
