ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A man admitted during a television interview to killing his parents and burying them in the backyard of their upstate New York home eight years ago, then was arrested as he left the studio.
The stunning on-camera confession from Lorenz Kraus, 53, came Thursday, a day after police say they recovered two bodies from the home in Albany as part of an investigation that found Kraus' parents, Franz and Theresia Kraus, were still receiving Social Security payments despite not having been seen or heard from in years.
Lorenz Kraus contacted local news outlet CBS6, and sat for a half-hour interview, in which he described the deaths as mercy killings for aging parents who were becoming more frail.
“They knew that this was it for them, that they were perishing at your hand?” news anchor Greg Floyd asked Kraus.
“Yes,” said Kraus. “And it was so quick.”
Kraus was initially reluctant to directly say he had killed the couple, but made the admission after several minutes of questioning from Floyd. Kraus said his parents didn’t ask to be killed but “they knew they were going downhill.”
“I did my duty to my parents,” Kraus said in the interview. "My concern for their misery was paramount.”
Kraus said his mother had recently been injured from falling while crossing a road, and that his father could no longer drive after cataract surgery.
Kraus, who did not mention his parents having any terminal illnesses, was arrested moments after he left the television studio and has been charged with two counts of murder. A public defender entered a not guilty plea during a brief court appearance Friday. Kraus did not speak during the hearing.
Stone Grissom, the TV station's news director, told The Times-Union the interview came about when Kraus emailed a two-page statement to news outlets that included his phone number. Grissom called Kraus, who told him he had buried his parents in his yard.
"When I asked if he killed them, he said, ‘I plead the Fifth,'” Grissom said.
Grissom said he promised to post Kraus’ statement on the station's website if Kraus agreed to come in for an interview. To his surprise, Kraus agreed and arrived within the hour. Grissom said he checked Kraus upon his arrival to ensure he was unarmed.
A plainclothes police officer was also in the front lobby, where the interview was conducted, Grissom said. He added that Floyd had just 10 minutes to prepare for the interview.
“I was thinking that I was on a mission to find the truth of what happened," Floyd told The Associated Press.
During the interview, Kraus repeatedly declined to say how his parents died. Floyd wouldn't let it go, and kept turning back to his most important question: “Did you kill them?” Eight minutes into the interview, Kraus said he had suffocated them both and described how he did it.
“I did not prepare for this because it was thrust upon us with virtually no notice," Floyd said. "And I think that worked out in an advantageous way because I didn’t go in with a set of predetermined questions," he said. "I just followed the script that he laid out. I followed what he was saying and reacted to that.”
The interview was unlike any that Floyd has conducted during his 45-year career. But he said he keeps thinking about the couple, who were 92 and 83 years old, and were described by their son as survivors of World War II in Germany.
“Maybe it’s kept me a little grounded because going through that was a tough thing to go through. And then you think, ‘Well, okay, did we at least do justice for these two people who lost their lives?’"
The discovery of the bodies in the yard on a street of close-together small homes was the culmination of the financial crimes investigation which police say found Kraus had been collecting his parents’ benefits and using the funds for his own personal use.
Floyd said the story came as a complete surprise. No one had reported the couple went missing. Neighbors thought they had moved back to Germany, Floyd said.
“The public never knew anything until Tuesday when an array of police vehicles showed up on that street and started searching a house and digging in the backyard,” he said.
Albany County Assistant Public Defender Rebekah Sokol, who represented Kraus at Friday's hearing, said she would be looking into how the interview came about because “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.”
Lorenz Kraus, a 53-year-old man who was arrested for murder after telling a television news anchor that he killed his parents, speaks to Albany County Assistant Public Defender Rebekah Sokol during Kraus' arraignment on Friday, Sept. 26, 2025, at Albany City Court in Albany, N.Y. (Will Waldron/The Albany Times Union via AP)
Lorenz Kraus, the 53-year-old man who was arrested for murder after telling a television news anchor that he killed his parents, is arraigned before Judge Joshua Farrell on Friday, Sept. 26, 2025, at Albany City Court in Albany, N.Y. (Will Waldron/The Albany Times Union via AP)
Lorenz Kraus, a 53-year-old man who was arrested for murder after telling a television news anchor that he killed his parents, is arraigned before Judge Joshua Farrell on Friday, Sept. 26, 2025, at Albany City Court in Albany, N.Y. (Will Waldron/The Albany Times Union via AP)
U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that a deal to end the Iran war is near, after Tehran dismissed his 15-point ceasefire plan and issued its own sweeping demands to stop fighting as it launched more attacks on Israel and Gulf Arab countries.
Two officials from Pakistan described the 15-point U.S. proposal broadly, saying it included sanctions relief, a rollback of Iran’s nuclear program, limits on missiles and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is normally shipped.
Iran issued its own plan via state TV, which includes a halt to killings of its officials, means to make sure no other war is waged against it, reparations for the war, the end of hostilities, and Iran’s sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.
“No negotiations have happened with the enemy until now, and we do not plan on any negotiations,” Iran’s foreign minister later told state TV.
Trump insisted at a Republican fundraiser Wednesday night that talks were underway with Iran's leaders.
“They are negotiating, by the way, and they want to make a deal so badly, but they’re afraid to say it because they figure they’ll be killed by their own people,” Trump said.
The death toll from the war has risen to more than 1,500 people in Iran, nearly 1,100 people in Lebanon, 20 in Israel and 13 U.S. military members, as well as a number of civilians on land and sea in the Gulf region. Millions of people in Lebanon and Iran have been displaced.
Here is the latest:
PUBLISHABLE:
Iran’s parliament is working on a bill to formalize the fees it is reportedly charging on some ship transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, local media reported.
The Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both close to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, quoted lawmaker Mohammadreza Rezaei Kouchi as saying that “that “parliament is pursuing a plan to formally codify Iran’s sovereignty, control and oversight over the Strait of Hormuz, while also creating a source of revenue through the collection of fees.”
“This is entirely natural, just as goods pay transit fees when passing through other corridors, the Strait of Hormuz is also a corridor,” he reportedly said. “We provide its security, and it is natural that ships and oil tankers should pay such fees.”
The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, is considered an international waterway open to all shipping. Imposing fees would end that and likely be strongly opposed by the Gulf Arab states, the United States and others.
The comment by Sultan al-Jaber, who leads the massive state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., signaled the hardening rhetoric of the United Arab Emirates as the war nears its one-month mark.
“Weaponizing the Strait of Hormuz is not an act of aggression against one nation,” al-Jaber said in a speech for an event hosted by the Middle East Institute in Washington.
“It is economic terrorism against every consumer, every family that depends on affordable energy and food. When Iran holds Hormuz hostage, every nation pays the ransom, at the gas pump, at the grocery store and at the pharmacy. No country can be allowed to destabilize the global economy in this way. Not now. Not ever.”
Sirens sounded about an hour after sunrise across a large swath of central Israel, including areas around Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and in the occupied West Bank.
Israel’s military said early Thursday morning that Iran had launched missiles toward the country.
The first such alert of the day came after an unusually long lull of more than 14 hours.
Hezbollah rocket fire, however, remained constant overnight in northern Israel, and once reached the Tel Aviv area overnight.
Iran is running a “de facto ‘toll booth’ regime” in Strait of Hormuz, controlling which ships come through and getting payment for their safe passage, a leading shipping intelligence firm said Thursday.
Lloyd’s List Intelligence published an analysis highlighting Iran’s practices through the strait.
It described vessels having to provide manifests, crew details and their destination to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
The information goes to the Guard’s “Hormozgan Provincial Command for sanctions screening, cargo alignment checks that currently prioritizes oil over all other commodities, and for what is described as ‘geopolitical vetting,’” Lloyd’s List said.
“While not all ships are paying a direct toll at least two vessels have and the payment is settled in yuan,” Lloyd’s List said, referring to China’s national currency.
Such payments likely would run afoul of American and European sanctions on the Guard, a key power center within Iran that controls its ballistic missile arsenal and was key in suppressing nationwide protests in January.
Iran has not directly explained the process for ships to go through the strait, though a Foreign Ministry spokesperson appeared to acknowledge Tehran was receiving payments for some ships in an interview.
Fuel prices in Thailand surged Thursday after the government lifted a cap on diesel prices and reduced fuel subsidies.
The majority of fuel types rose by 6 baht ($0.18) per liter.
Diesel prices jumped by about 18%.
The increase is expected to hit the industrial and transportation sectors particularly hard and has raised concerns about a ripple effect on the cost of goods.
Videos and photos shared on social media showed long lines forming at gas stations after the price hike was announced late Wednesday night.
Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said earlier this week the government would allow fuel prices to adjust in line with global market rates, aiming to manage demand following a surge in panic buying.
Australia has temporarily restricted some Iranians from traveling to the country for fear that they would be unwilling or unable to return to their homeland because of the war.
The restrictions apply from Thursday for six months to Iranian Visitor (Subclass 600) visa holders.
These visas have been issued to more than 7,000 Iranians who intend to visit Australia for tourism, business or to see family.
“When you get a sudden conflict like has happened with Iran, who have a large number of people who’ve been issued visas who, if they applied now, would in fact not be eligible,” Immigration Minister Tony Burke told Parliament on Thursday.
Authorities will use the six months to reassess visa applicants. An unknown number will be exempt.
Activists in Iran reported heavy strikes early Thursday morning around Isfahan, a city some 330 kilometers (205 miles) south of Iran’s capital, Tehran.
The pro-reform newspaper Ham Mihan reported online about strikes in the area.
Isfahan is home to a major Iranian air base and other military sites, as well as one of the nuclear sites bombed by the United States during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June.
The semiofficial Fars news agency, close to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, described the attacks as targeting “two residential areas,” without elaborating.
Earlier, Israel’s military said it had completed “a wide-scale wave of strikes” across Iran, including in Isfahan.
A missile alert sounded on mobile phones in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Thursday morning.
Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry said it intercepted multiple drones over its oil-rich Eastern Province on Thursday morning.
Kuwait reported it was working to intercept incoming Iranian fire early Thursday morning.
Bahrain sounded its missile alert sirens early Thursday morning.
The United Arab Emirates air defenses early Thursday also worked to intercept incoming fire.
U.S. forces have hit more than 10,000 targets so far in the Iran war, the head of the American military’s Central Command said.
U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper made the comments in a video released early Thursday by Central Command.
“If you combine what we’ve accomplished with the success of our Israeli ally, together, we have struck thousands more,” Cooper said. “Our precision strikes have overwhelmed Iranian air defenses and our combat flights are having tangible effects.”
Cooper added that the U.S. has destroyed 92% of “the Iranian navy’s largest vessels.”
“They’ve now lost the ability to meaningly project naval power and influence around the region and around the world,” Cooper said.
Iran maintains its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, through drone and missile attacks on shipping, however.
Cooper also said the U.S. has struck over two-thirds of Iran’s munitions plants.
“Today, we have damaged or destroyed over two-thirds of Iran’s missile, drone and naval production facilities and shipyards — and we’re not done yet,” he said. “We are on a path to completely eliminate Iran’s wider military manufacturing apparatus.”
Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press, though delayed by two weeks by Planet Labs PBC, have shown Israeli and U.S. strikes targeting shipyards and missile facilities.
Iran has not acknowledged any of its materiel losses through the war.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius described the Iran war as an economic “catastrophe” and said Germany did not want to get “sucked into” the conflict.
Pistorius said on Thursday Germany was ready to help secure any peace once that was achieved and appealed for a ceasefire as soon as possible.
“To make it crystal clear, this war is a catastrophe for the world’s economies,” Pistorius told reporters at the Australian Parliament House.
“From the beginning on, we have not been consulted before. Nobody asked us before. It’s not our war and therefore we don’t want to get sucked into that war,” Pistorius added.
Pistorius addressed the media in the national capital Canberra following a meeting with his Australian counterpart Richard Marles.
People take cover in a bomb shelter as air raid sirens warn of incoming Iranian missile strikes in Bnei Brak, Israel, Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Smoke and flames rise following an Israeli military strike on a target in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Wednesday, March, 25, 2026.(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Members of the displaced Abd el-Hajj family, and two of their cousins, right, who fled Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon, sit inside a tent used as a shelter in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Members of a family, who fled Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon, sit around a bonfire outside a tent used as a shelter in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Pro-government supporters chant slogans and wave Iranian flags during a rally, in a square in western Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, March 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
