Son of missing couple confesses to killing parents after remains discovered 

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) – A man has admitted to killing his parents, after a fraud investigation led to the discovery of human remains in the backyard of the missing couple’s home. The remains have not yet been identified through forensics. 

Search warrants were executed at the couple’s home on Tuesday. On Wednesday, human remains were discovered on the property. And on Thursday, authorities held a press conference and shared the limited information available before the shocking confession that evening. 

Albany Police Chief Brandon Cox said on May 21 investigators from the Social Security Administration reached out for assistance. APD was sent to 6 Crestwood Court to conduct a welfare check on Theresia and Franz Kraus, who would have been 83 and 92 years old. 

“Theresia and Franz Kraus, who live at that address and were receiving benefits from the Social Security Administration. We responded there, met up with the investigator,” said Cox. “It was apparent that Mr. and Mrs. Kraus were no longer at that house.”

That opened up a multi-agency social security fraud investigation – by the Albany Police Department, the Albany County District Attorney’s Office, the Social Security Administration, the New York State Police and several other other federal agencies – that culminated in the execution of a series of search warrants on September 23.

That led to an excavation in the couple’s backyard that started on Wednesday. Two sets of human remains were unearthed. 

“While we are confident that those are the remains of Franz and Theresia Kraus, we still need to do some work and confirm that’s who that is. So we are not going to confirm that is who that is right now, because we need to ultimately go through the actual forensic process,” said Cox. 

He said law enforcement has interviewed the couple’s son, Lorenz Kraus.

“He had told us that they weren’t there, but certainly we had enough suspicion to say we need to find out where they were,” said Cox. 

Records show Theresia and Franz have owned the property since 1986. Cox said in 2020 they received a call from a distant relative requesting a welfare check on the couple. 

“At that time, we had gotten information from a neighbor that they had moved away, moved out of the country. We had tried to contact the person that had called us, which was a distant relative that did not live in the area, and we were not able to contact that person. And we had no reason at that moment to find anything more suspicious at that time,” said Cox.

They determined the information was no longer accurate. A neighbor told us, on Tuesday, the couple was last seen in 2017 and said Lorenz told them the couple had moved to Germany.

“And I thought, OK, because they are German, but then I thought about it more and was like, but they didn’t have any moving equipment with them. They were here one day, gone the next,” said neighbor Kate Calabrese.

“We are still trying to determine the cause and manner of death of both of those people,” said Cox. This is still an active and ongoing investigation.