Maine man pleads guilty to 2017 murder of his family

LOWELL, Mass. — In Lowell Superior Court, 26-year-old Orion Krause pleaded guilty to second-degree murder to the baseball beating deaths of his mother, both his grandparents and their home health aide in a brutal attack in Groton.

The plea deal means Krause will be eligible for parole in 25 years.

Krause and his mother lived in Rockport, Maine. The murders happened while they were visiting the grandparents at their Groton, Massachusetts home on September 8, 2017.

Superior Court Judge Kenneth W. Salinger, before accepting Krause’s guilty verdicts, first asked him a series of questions.

“Mr. Krause, when you hit each of these people in the head with a baseball bat, did you do so on purpose?

“Yes, I was in a pervasively psychotic state, which impaired my ability to do anything,” Krause responded.

The only explanation Krause offered for the killings, was the condition of his mental health that day. His aunt, murder victim Elizabeth Krause’s sister, told the judge, no explanation was possible.

“The utter brutality, the human indecency, the cruelty of these acts, is beyond comprehension,” Carolyn Lackey told the court.

Just before he was sentenced, Krause addressed his surviving family members.

“I acknowledge there is confusion, and the family, our family, my family, hasn’t been able to process this. It is an insane thing. I pray that we will be able to process it in the future, hopefully together,” Krause told the court.

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