Musician accused in quadruple murder told police: "I freed them"
GROTON, Mass. — A recent college graduate charged with fatally beating his mother, grandparents and their caretaker with a baseball bat told authorities he "freed them," according to police reports released Friday.
Orion Krause, 22, was naked and covered in mud and cuts when officers found him at a neighbor's house, according to the documents. He allegedly told officers: "I murdered four people." After police wrapped him in a sheet, he began to sing quietly, according to the records.
He is being held without bail at a mental health facility, pending a competency evaluation.
Krause also told a nurse during a medical evaluation that he uses heroin, the records said.
Krause, from Rockport, Maine, recently graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio, a liberal arts college with a prestigious music program. He was reportedly a jazz drummer.
Edward Wayland, Krause's lawyer, had fought the release of the records, saying they should remain closed to protect his client's right to a fair trial and the privacy interests of his family. But a judge said Wednesday that some records could be made public, following a challenge from media outlets.
Wayland said Friday that Krause's "mental state at the time of his arrest is an open question."
"No one should make any assumptions about anything he is alleged to have said, including that any of it was actually true," Wayland said in an email. "Determining the truth is what the legal process is designed to do and it has barely begun to do it."
Krause has pleaded not guilty in the killings of his mother, Elizabeth Krause, 60; his maternal grandparents, Frank Darby Lackey III, 89, and Elizabeth Lackey, 85; and their caretaker, Bertha Mae Parker, 68.
