Mercy Killing or Murder? Was Lorenz Kraus Delusional or Justifying Evil?
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
True Crime Today
3.3 • 907 Ratings
🗓️ 30 September 2025
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Lorenz Kraus said he did it out of mercy. But the facts — and his own words — suggest something much darker.
In this segment of Hidden Killers Live, we dig into the psychology behind Kraus’s televised confession to killing both his parents and burying them behind their Albany home. He claims it was a "necessary act." Prosecutors say it was second-degree murder.
We dissect the possibility that Kraus is operating under a god complex — one where his need for control and righteousness overtook reality. His phrasing, posture, and tone in the CBS6 confession video offer clues, but they also raise disturbing questions:
-
Did he kill his parents with their consent — or was that invented after the fact?
- Is he mentally ill, or simply manipulative and calculating?
- What role did financial dependence and isolation play?
- And where does the line fall between assisted suicide and homicide with motive?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there, True Crime Podcast fans. It's Patrick and Jillian from True Crime Obsessed. |
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| 0:38.2 | So find and subscribe True Crime Obsessed wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:45.6 | Hey there, True Crime Podcasts. It's Patrick and Jillian from True Crime Obsessed. |
| 0:50.0 | Each week on TCO, we recap a true crime documentary everyone's talking about, and we do it with hearts, sass, and just the right amount of humor. So if you like the kind of podcast where two good friends chat about a case in a thoughtful way that centers the victims, you really got to check us out. Yeah, we cover the well-known cases that you hear about in the news and the underreported cases that desperately need more attention. For almost nine years, we've been one of the most popular true crime podcasts out there. |
| 1:13.7 | We have over 30,000 five-star reviews on Apple Podcasts, |
| 1:16.7 | and our brand-new YouTube channel has over 50,000 subscribers watching our full length of video episodes, too. |
| 1:22.5 | So find and subscribe, True Crime Obsessed, wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 1:28.1 | This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Bruske, Stacey Cole, and Todd Michaels. |
| 1:37.2 | Lorenz Krause is this guy's name. |
| 1:41.2 | He's now charged a second-degree murder for killing his parents and then burying their |
| 1:49.2 | bodies in the backyard. And we're watching what he confessed to live on television here in the |
| 1:58.2 | conference room at CBS 6 in Albany last week. |
| 2:04.4 | He, I'll give, I'll give the interviewer some credit here. |
| 2:08.2 | He certainly is getting this out of him. |
| 2:10.7 | He's doing the work of police pretty well. |
| 2:13.5 | So I don't think there's going to be a lot of question here in terms of... |
| 2:17.2 | Do you think the cops said, hey, here's some things you should ask him? No. Were the cops? No, you don't think so? This guy, from what it sounds like, he just showed up at the TV station. Can you imagine... I don't know what the interviewer guy's name is, and I'm not trying to denigrate. I want to call him Herb. He seems like a Herb. He feels like a Herb. |
| 2:34.8 | It's like Herb Maxwell and the latest on the six team investigates. |
| 2:40.9 | You know, he's probably sitting at his cubicle. |
... |
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