Lorenz Kraus is Totally Insane

What this episode is about

The main topic follows Lawrence Krauss, a man who controversially reached out to a news station to discuss his confession of murdering his parents eight years prior, ultimately leading to plans for his arrest following the interview. The narrative details the bizarre circumstances surrounding his request, his appearance, and his previous failed political ambitions, all contributing to the outrageous nature of the situation.

Key takeaways

• When the killer seeks attention, it's the tragic plot twist of reality TV gone wrong.
• Buried secrets can still cash in; Social Security checks don’t know how to take a hint.
• Local news isn’t just reporting; it’s an unscripted courtroom drama that keeps the audience guessing.
• Who needs socks when your life is about to air on national TV and you're the star villain?
• In a world of 24/7 news, even confessions can be marketed like a new shoe drop.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Lawrence Krauss (Host) · 5 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Lawrence Krauss, Albany, Teresa Krauss, Westfield, Massachusetts
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Lawrence Krauss, Albany, Teresa Krauss, American people
3. 10:00 – 15:00: American people
4. 15:00 – 20:00: Social Security
5. 20:00 – 24:28: Germany, American people

Notable quotes from "Lorenz Kraus is Totally Insane"

• Hope you're doing well. So I got a hell of a story for you today. A week ago, a man named Lawrence Krauss reaches out to the local Albany, New York news station and requests an interview to discuss, among other things, how eight years ago.

  about Lawrence Krauss · at 0:23

• Up all night laying in bed at the Airbnb we rented just thinking, Man, that was so fun. So, come check it out. October 18th at Hudsky's at the Nook, Westfield, Massachusetts. I'll put a ticket link in the description of this video.

  about Westfield, Massachusetts · at 2:58

• So, the local Albany police went out to France and Teresa Krauss's house to investigate what they thought was going to be most likely a financial crime.

  about Albany · at 3:55

• News station is out there interviewing the neighbors and the neighbors are saying things like we would see France and Teresa all the time and then eight years ago all of a…

  about Fron Krauss · at 4:40

• Their duty as an as to for their parents. The American people. So the interviewer flips that and says, The American people want to know, did you kill your parents?

  about American people · at 10:35

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Lawrence Krauss — Person · Primary subject (referenced perpetrator in news story) · 8 mentions · first at 0:28
  Central figure of the episode’s narrative: he contacts an Albany news station, gives an interview, and admits to killing and burying his parents while framing it as a political/ethical argument about end-of-life choices.
• Teresa Krauss — Person · Victim (parent of Lawrence Krauss; Social Security beneficiary referenced) · 3 mentions · first at 3:33
  Second parent referenced as missing/deceased; her disappearance and benefits payments are part of the fraud suspicion and subsequent homicide investigation described in the episode.
  Contacted the local Albany, New York police and said, There's some suspicious things going on with Fron and Teresa Krauss's social security payments.
• Fron Krauss — Person · Victim (parent of Lawrence Krauss; Social Security beneficiary referenced) · 1 mention · first at 3:40
  One of the two parents reported missing for ~8 years; their Social Security payments trigger the investigation that leads to discovery of the bodies and Lawrence’s interview/arrest.

Concepts & topics

• Social Security — Concept · Core topic · 3 mentions · first at 3:23
  Central to the investigation, as suspicious activity with Social Security payments led to the discovery of the crime.
  Contacted the local Albany, New York police and said, There's some suspicious things going on with Fron and Teresa Krauss's social security payments.
• American people — Concept · Key argument · 3 mentions · first at 5:59
  Lawrence Krauss frequently references 'the American people' in his political rhetoric during the interview, framing his actions as a public service.

Places & events

• Albany — Place · Setting · 5 mentions · first at 0:31
  Primary location where the events involving Lawrence Krauss took place, including the news station interview and police investigation.
• Germany — Place · Referenced location · 3 mentions · first at 4:56
  Mentioned as a possible destination Lawrence Krauss's parents might have moved to, and referenced in his bizarre legal defense strategy.
  Years ago all of a sudden we never saw them again. One neighbor said they said something about maybe moving to Germany.
• Westfield, Massachusetts — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at 2:19
  Mentioned as the location of an upcoming standup comedy performance by the host, unrelated to the main story.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Did they both pass away peacefully? Did they did they struggle as you did it? Um I would say the last minute. No. Um Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Hope you're doing well. So I got a hell of a story for you today. A week ago, a man named Lawrence Krauss reaches out to the local Albany, New York news station and requests an interview to discuss, among other things, how eight years ago he killed his parents and buried them in the backyard. Lawrence Krauss is bald with long hair in the back. It's a tough look to pull off. You end up looking like a deranged Carney and Lawrence Krauss is no different. He also tried to run for president as a writein in 2020 with predictably pathetic results, but he does picture himself a politician.

1:04 The producer of the local Albany news station actually called the police before the interview. I don't know exactly how the conversation went, but I assume it went something like this. Yeah. Hi, this is the producer at the local news station. How you doing? So, we have this guy, Lawrence Krauss, reaching out to us. He's requesting to do an interview on the news today at 400 p.m. about his parents and the backyard. And I don't know, it sounds real bad. And I don't know exactly what the cop said back to him, but I assume it's something like, "Let him do the interview. We know all about it. We're playing dumb right now, but if he wants to get on camera with you guys and talk all about it, let's let him. We were going to bring him down to the police station and hope that he wanted to talk about it. So, he's just making our job easier. Let him do the interview. We'll be out in the parking lot of the news station to arrest him as

2:03 soon as the interview is over. The interview is outrageous. The circumstances leading up to the interview are also insane. So, let me set it up and then we'll talk about the interview. So, here we go. Oh, yeah. Real quick, on October 18th, I'm going to be performing standup comedy back in Westfield, Massachusetts at Hutskies at the Nook. Can you see that? It's a cool rock and roll venue and bar. We just played there. Us three dudes, we just played there a couple months ago. It's not ideal to go back to the same place so soon, but the owner loves us and we love the owner and the place. So, we're going back. Since I was just there, I'm going to write a whole new set or I'm writing a whole new set. I'm actually kind of nervous. Hopefully, I don't bomb. But, come out to the show. The show we did a couple months ago was so fun. And meeting fans of the show afterwards was so fun. I actually stayed

2:58 up all night laying in bed at the Airbnb we rented just thinking, "Man, that was so fun." So, come check it out. October 18th at Hudsky's at the Nook, Westfield, Massachusetts. I'll put a ticket link in the description of this video. All right. So, how Lawrence Krauss ended up sitting in the local news station doing this interview starts a few days before when the Social Security office contacted the local Albany, New York police and said, "There's some suspicious things going on with Fron and Teresa Krauss's social security payments.

3:40 Nobody's seen them in 8 years. their son, Lawrence Krauss, the bald guy with long hair in the back, he's been signing all of their checks every month and depositing the money into his account. So, the local Albany police went out to France and Teresa Krauss's house to investigate what they thought was going to be most likely a financial crime. So, all of a sudden, there's a couple police cars parked out front of Fron and Teresa Krauss's house. A couple police cars turn into four or five police cars, which turned into a mobile police command center parked out front, which turned into a huge backhoe in the backyard digging up the backyard. All of that police activity caught the attention of the neighbors and the local news station. So the local news station is out there interviewing the neighbors and the neighbors are saying things like we would see France and Teresa all the time and then eight

4:50 years ago all of a sudden we never saw them again. One neighbor said they said something about maybe moving to Germany. We would see their son Lawrence Krauss coming in and out of the house. He was the one that upkept the property. But we haven't seen Fran or Teresa in years. And so the police are there. They're talking with Lawrence Krauss, the son. And it'll be interesting more information that comes out. But somehow talking to Lawrence, they convinced Lawrence to tell them what happened. He didn't necessarily come out and said he killed his parents, but he did tell them where they were buried in the backyard.

5:41 And that's when they brought like the backhoe and started digging up the backyard and they found them. Right after Lawrence told them where that they where they were buried in the backyard, he emailed the local news station with what he calls a statement to the public. It's all this like the American people and he pictures himself a politician. After emailing the local news station, then he called them and requested to do the interview at 400 p.m. That's when the producer called the police and said, "This guy wants to do an interview."

6:18 They said, "Let him do it, like I said." So, the interview was on. Lawrence Krauss also called one of his friends and said, "Watch the news. I'm about to drop a bomb." So, Lawrence Krauss goes down to the local news station to do the interview. One thing you'll notice in the comments of the interview is Laurens wore shorts and sneakers with no socks. It's like this is probably going to be the defining footage of your whole life. You're talk, you're making your spiel that this was necessary and you're doing the whole thing. You're talking about your dead parents. You can't put on a pair of socks. It also looks like the interviewer is also not wearing socks. So, it might be the least amount of socks in one interview we've ever seen.

7:15 But anyway, so Lawrence Krauss sits down with his bald long hair in the back shorts, sneakers with no socks to do the biggest interview of his life. And so the interviewer, he did a really good job. People are already talking about how he should maybe get like an Emmy for this. The interview is going viral. This local Albany news station has the big interview right now. So good for them. And at first, Lawrence thinks he's going to be all political about it and say, so the interviewer will say like, "Did you end your parents with your own hand?"

7:54 And Lawrence is saying, "I want people to read the statement that I emailed you first. I'm not going to say whether I killed my parents. I want everybody to read my statement to the public first." And then there's an order of things that I want every interviewer basically presses them and says, "Look, it's not in the statement. The statement is a little bit rambly. It's not in the statement. You don't address it in the statement. So, did you end your parents' lives? And Lawrence pretending to be a politician looking like a deranged carney says, and he's not wrong. That's the thing is most people would agree with him. saying in this country we need an option for once people are getting old and they're in misery and they're in pain there needs to be an option where they can end their life on their own terms with dignity and we don't have that and there needs to be one and the interviewer is going

8:58 yeah all right well that's great well did you end your parents' lives and where it becomes one for the books is before he straight straight out comes out and just admits it. He says what he thinks warranted him killing his parents. And so in my head, I'm thinking, "Oh, he's about ready to talk about how they both have cancer and they're in pain or one of them has brutal, painful, awful cancer and it's a total their whole life is misery and a painful nightmare." But what he says is, "Yeah, so my wife or my mom fell down and bruised her face. She had black and blue marks on her face. And recently I noticed she wasn't using her turn signal properly."

9:49 And the interviewer is like, "You know, that's it." He goes, "Yeah, and my dad my dad has to wear a hearing aid and recently his vision went double." And so, you know, I I had to do it. And at first, he's not coming out and admitting it. And he's saying, you know, I want I don't want to say that right now. I don't want to just admit that it was at my hand. And I want to use my fifth amendment right. And the interviewer does a good job to just squash all that. He goes, "I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a cop." The American people uses his phrase. He says that a lot. The American people need to have an option to do their duty as an as to for their parents. The American people. So the interviewer flips that and says, "The American people want to know, did you kill your parents?"

10:48 And finally he it just sort of slowly comes out and he admits to it and you can see the phrase that Lauren says in the interview where you can see why he did it. He he says quote it was a huge burden to have to face this coming up. So basically Lawrence, it sounds like his parents were just sort of having some minor health problems. Like he was like, "Hey dad, what do you want for lunch? You want me to make you a sandwich?" His dad was like, "Huh? What'd you say? Say that again. I didn't hear you." Well, dad's got to go. He He has a hearing aid and his double vision. Mom has a bruise on her face and messed up the turn signal. I better choke them to death tonight.

11:38 So, in Lauren's mind, it was over for them. She messed up with the turn signal. Dad's got a hearing aid. This is a burden that I can't even begin to deal with. And the interviewer goes, "Did they pass away peacefully? Did they struggle as you did it?" and he goes, "Um," and there's a really long pause. If they if there was no struggle and they were just at the end, like hospice and there was no struggle at all, he would have come out right out and said, "No, there wasn't a struggle at all." But he goes, "Um, I would say the last minute." No. It's like, well, that pretty much guarantees there was a really awful, brutal struggle. And then he's saying things like, they lived a really harsh life. My mom was a He's trying to make it not sound so insane that he choked his parents to death when they barely had any health problems. And he's going, "My parents, they were they lived a serious life. My dad was in a

12:52 communist concentration camp when he was 12. and my mom used to chase funerals after World War II. So, they lived really serious, harsh lives. So, this just is kind of par for the course for him. But the story that he tells of doing it, he thinks that it's a political like he thinks he's a politician saying we need to change the laws in this country. So to make squeeze the laws to fit the humans, not the humans to fit the laws, stuff like this needs to be done. He keeps saying there's 40 million boomers that are all getting, you know, old in age. They're all going to have a horrible death. And we need to have a a conversation as a country and give people a realistic solution for as their parents so they can do their duty as a kid for their parents.

13:49 And so it's like when he's talking about that, it's like all right, you know, I'm not totally disagreeing with every point that you're making. So, but then the interviewers are like, "All right, so like what happened? Did you did you poison them? Was there medication? He's going, "No." He goes, "Did you suffocate them?" And he he nods his head, "Yes." And he goes, "Okay, who did you kill first?" And he says, "My father." And they and he goes, "Did they know that in when it was happening, did they know that you that they were perishing at your hand?" And he goes, "Oh, yeah.

14:27 Yeah." And he says that he killed his father first with going like this. And the way he reacted to was there struggle. You know there was and then he said he waited a couple hours and during those couple hours his mom this is heartbreaking just put her head on her husband's his dad's chest. just laid her head on the chest two hours later and then he strangled his mom with a rope. And again, this is all because the mom screwed up a turn signal, had a bruise on her face, and the dad had a hearing aid. It sounds like they had at least one and possibly a couple good chapters left before it got really bad. And so he's he asked him, "What did you do in between? you did your father and then it was a couple hours. What did you do? And you could tell that he remembers exactly what he did, but he just goes, "H, you know, I don't remember." And they had a daughter that passed away years ago from cancer. And

15:43 he said that he was sitting with his parents before he did it. It's like 3:00 in the morning. Such a terrifying scene. Picture. He's bald with deranged long hair, messed up in the back. And he said that when he was in 11th grade, he stayed up two nights in a row. He had a test and then he had a paper due in the 11th grade. And good grades were really important in his family. So he stayed up two nights in a row. And when he tried to go to bed that second night after laying in bed, he said he popped out of his body, went up to the ceiling, saw the nooks and crannies in the ceiling, and then the world fell away, and he was in a black void with doors, and in one of the doors was his dead sister. And so he said that he sat down on his parents' bed before he killed them, told them that story, and then told his dad, "Go find Rosa. Go find Rosa." And strangled them.

16:45 Killed them both. The bodies sat in the house for three days while he was going, "What do I do? I can't do this. I can't do that." And then all of a sudden, he it said it hit him. I'll just bury them in the backyard. He said it was a sunny day. It felt right. And he buried them in the backyard. Then the interview a interview interviewer asked him about keeping their social security payments. And he said, "Well, what was I supposed to do? We there needs to be an office for the government where you can go in and tell them these things happened." And he's like "Everything is hidden away in this country. There needs to be a place you can go and tell them that this happened and it was he always refers to it as like I did my duty to my parents. So he buries them in the backyard. He said that most of the money from their social security he used to feed starving people in the Philippines. So he said the government

17:43 shouldn't be mad that he took the money because he used it to save starving people in the Philippines. Let's see. Um, let's see. Three days later. All right. So, he's doing the interview. As you can imagine, it's outrageous. And then is arrested after the interview. A day or two later, the same interviewer, because the interview did really well, went national, the same interviewer went into the jail and did a jailhouse interview. So now Lawrence is in the classic orange t-shirt, still thinking he had he was righteous for doing it and that he did his duty as a son to his parents and that the process he's has to go through the court process but it's might end up in his favor.

18:48 And the interviewer is asking him, "So, how how are you going to like what's your defense going to be?" Something like that. And I got to read his word for word answer. Lauren says, "One of my goals was to create a board of trustees in New York State and to create the that initial trustee. Someone needs to know what to do. So, I'm making the claim that I'm the initial trustee of the New York State Board of Trustees and they would have prosecutorial immunity. So, I appeal to that having prosecutorial immunity for this case.

19:25 So, plan A to beat these murder charges is he's hoping to create an imaginary board of trustees, make himself the initial board of trust board of trustees, which would give him prosecutotorial immunity, and then he could go on his way. Seems a little far-fetched, but that's plan A. plan B if that doesn't work is he said he's going to request that he be tried un under ancient German law and he said it doesn't hurt to ask maybe they'll say yes it's like yeah maybe pal can't imagine how fast the judge is going to deny that motion imagine being his lawyer first he does all these interviews you're like can you please stop doing interviews where you say you did it, it's going to be hard, right to um it's going to be hard to defend you.

20:29 Also, too, I don't know how much time and effort we should put in for the whole imaginary New York board of trustees thing. It's And then he's like, "Okay, well then at least put in the motion where we can request to be tried under ancient German law." Hopefully Daryl Brooks or Sarah Boone don't get word of that. You know that's s gonna be Sarah's next defense to I want the ancient German law too. Can I be And then he also said Laurens also said oh yeah he he goes so what did you the interviewer goes what did you do after you killed them with were you scared you were going to get caught? Did you feel bad? And Lauren said, "Well, I just dedicated my life to doing something great." And he said, quote, "Trying to make good on their lives to try to start a new civilization."

21:31 So his goal after he killed his parents and buried them in the backyard was to start a new civilization to recultivate the German people. I don't think he did anything even I don't think he made any strides towards that goal either. So took the money claims to fed starving people in the Philippines. Tried to recultivate the German people tried to start an imaginary board of trustees and is hoping he will be tried under ancient German law. So, we're a week later. He has appeared in court a couple times. He's got this like big deranged smile on his face at court.

22:22 why the interview happened is he's very political and I think what he wanted more than anything else in the world was to be a politician that people respected and that he had a following and he would do speeches and everybody would cheer and clap and everybody be would be interested in the nonsense political ideas that he has. And so the attention he he basically thought, "All right, so I can reach out to the news. They're going to want to talk about my parents, and I can use this. Finally, people are going to be paying attention. I'm going to be a a politician just like I always wanted to be with his long hair in the back all messed up. I'm finally going to be a politician."

23:18 And that's because it's like why would he go on the news and spill the beans and incriminate himself? He was finally getting to pretend he was the politician he's always wanted to be. And that's what led to the outrageous interview and the righteous energy. And he thought he was talking to the American people about how we need to change the law and give give our parents a some dignity as they get into old age. but he just came off as a deranged carney. So anyway, we'll follow it. Pretty wild. I love you all. I'm gonna cut it off there. Why sting? Why sh

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Lorenz Kraus is Totally Insane"?

Lawrence Krauss (Host).

What is "Lorenz Kraus is Totally Insane" about?

The main topic follows Lawrence Krauss, a man who controversially reached out to a news station to discuss his confession of murdering his parents eight years prior, ultimately leading to plans for his arrest following the interview. The narrative details the bizarre circumstances surrounding his request, his appearance, and his previous failed political ambitions, all contributing to the…

What is mentioned in this TRUE CRIME Loser episode?

8 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Lawrence Krauss, Albany, Social Security, Teresa Krauss, Fron Krauss, American people. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Lorenz Kraus is Totally Insane"?

The episode runs 24 min; the transcript is about 3,639 words in 26 timestamped sections.

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