A Rockport man accused of killing his mother, his grandparents and a home health worker with a baseball bat last month called a former college music professor shortly before the killings and told him, “I think I have to kill my mom,” according to documents released Wednesday.
Additional documents also revealed that Orion Krause’s mother had called 911 last summer about an incident involving her son. The documents are heavily redacted, so the exact nature of that call and how it was resolved were not clear.
Krause, 22, has been charged with four counts of murder in the Sept. 8 deaths of his mother, Elizabeth Lackey Krause, 60; his maternal grandparents, Frank Darby Lackey III, 89, and Elizabeth Lackey, 85; and their home health care worker, Bertha Mae Parker, 68.
Police have said Krause killed each of them with a baseball bat at his grandparents’ house in Groton, Massachusetts.
Krause has been held at Bridgewater State Hospital since his arrest and last week was found competent to stand trial.
Documents released Wednesday by the Knox County Regional Communications Center in response to a Freedom of Access Act request from the Portland Press Herald provide additional details about Krause that have not been reported. Included in that new information is a record describing a call made to police in Rockport just after 5 p.m. on Sept. 8 by Mary Gray of Oberlin, Ohio.
Gray told Rockport Sgt. James Moore that her husband, Oberlin College professor and renowned jazz drummer Jamey Haddad, had just gotten a call from Krause, a former student, that was disturbing.
The murder suspect’s 60-year-old mother, Elizabeth Lackey Krause
“Krause stated to Haddad that he ‘had done something bad,’ and had stolen some money and his mother’s car,” Moore wrote. “Krause stated to Haddad twice during the conversation, ‘I think I have to kill my mom.’ Haddad asked Krause to repeat himself and that was when Krause stated it a second time.”
Gray told Moore she tried to call the Krauses’ home in Rockport but no one answered.
Moore wrote that he remembered a call two days earlier from Elizabeth Krause, who told him she was concerned about her son. The transcript of that call was included in the documents released Wednesday.
Krause said her son had been acting strangely and had gone missing. She told a dispatcher that “he has been troubled.” She said he was with a girl at some point and may have been headed out of state, possibly to Chicago or to Ohio to visit a college friend.
“But if you were to actually see the car, I don’t want to scare him,” Elizabeth Krause said. “I don’t want to anger him. I mean, he is making this phone call, he has been asking me to trust him. I am praying more than anything he is headed out of state to his friend’s, but you know, since he didn’t take a damn thing with him except probably a wallet, I’m not so sure that is what he’s done.”
Moore recalled those details after talking with Gray, he wrote. He made some calls to Krause’s cellphone number, but got no answer. He did reach Orion Krause’s twin, Cooper Krause, who said his brother and parents were in Massachusetts.
Moore called the Groton Police Department and, after identifying himself, was “immediately asked if this was about Orion Krause,” the sergeant wrote. The department had been receiving multiple calls about Krause.
After Moore had gone home for the day, a Groton police officer left a message with him detailing the quadruple homicide.
AFFIDAVIT DETAILS GRUESOME DISCOVERY
A police affidavit that was unsealed about two weeks after the killings outlined the details:
Police were called to a home on Common Street in Groton shortly before 6 p.m. on Sept. 8. The homeowner, Wagner Alcocer, had called 911 to report that a man, later identified as Krause, had shown up at his house.
Groton police Officer Gordon Candow was one of the first to arrive.
“I walked up the step to the back patio and I could see a white male in his early twenties sitting in a patio chair,” he wrote. “The male was naked and it appeared he had rubbed mud all over his body. The male was also covered in thin cuts. When I approached him I asked, ‘Are you OK?’ and ‘What’s going on?’ The male stated, ‘I murdered four people.’ ”
Krause then told the officer whom he had killed. When asked where it happened, he pointed toward the woods near Alcocer’s house and said, “Somewhere over there.”
At that point, Krause was handcuffed. Candow asked him the name of his grandparents and he responded “Lackey,” and spelled it. The officer contacted dispatchers, who located the home at 80 Common St. – a few houses away from Alcocer’s – owned by Frank and Elizabeth Lackey.
Three officers went to the Lackey residence while Candow and another officer stayed with Krause.
Alcocer brought a sheet from his house and the officers wrapped it around Krause. When he sat back down in the patio chair, Candow wrote, Krause began singing and said, “I freed them.”
Krause was read his Miranda rights. He said he understood them and then declined to speak to Candow any further.
SUSPECT TELLS NURSE HE’S A HEROIN USER
Groton police Sgt. James Goodwin and two others approached the Lackey residence. The sergeant wrote that he could see a light and a television on through a bay window.
“As I looked in the window I observed two elderly looking people seated separately in chairs facing my direction,” Goodwin wrote. “Both persons appeared to have severe trauma to the face and forehead.”
The front door was locked, but Goodwin kicked it open so he could give aid to the victims, not knowing they were already dead. They were identified as the Lackeys, Krause’s maternal grandparents.
“As I walked a little closer I then saw a third victim that I was not able to see prior,” he wrote. “The victim was seated in a chair, slouched down with the back of their head against the corner of the kitchen island.”
The third victim was later identified as Krause’s mother.
After finding the three victims inside, Goodwin and the other two officers found a fourth victim outside, “face-down in the flower bed parallel to the driveway.” That victim was identified as Parker, who was a health care worker for Frank and Elizabeth Lackey.
As police gathered evidence from the scene, including a wooden baseball bat covered in blood and clothes that they suspected belonged to Krause, he was taken by ambulance to a local hospital for an evaluation. It was during that evaluation that Krause told a nurse that he was a heroin user, Candow said in his statement.
DISTRESS CALL FROM MOTHER IN JULY 2016
Krause grew up on Monhegan Island and then in Rockport, an affluent midcoast community. He is a talented jazz drummer and graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio last spring.
Friends and others who knew him and his family said the killings were entirely out of character.
Krause’s father, Alexander “Lexi” Krause, who spoke briefly to a reporter last month, said the tragedy highlights the need “to pay more attention to mental health,” but he didn’t address whether his son suffered from any mental illness.
The final document included in those released Wednesday by the Knox County Regional Communications Center appeared to confirm that Orion Krause had been struggling with mental illness for more than a year.
The 911 call on July 16, 2016 was made by his mother. Although several parts of the conversation are redacted, it’s clear that she is calling about her son and that something has happened.
At one point, according to the transcript of the call, Elizabeth Krause says, “My husband is downstairs with him. I am upstairs calling you.”
“OK, is he breathing,” the dispatcher asks.
The answer is redacted.
“OK, is he awake?”
The answer is redacted.
The dispatcher asks whether it was a suicide attempt, but the mother’s response is redacted.
The dispatcher then tells Elizabeth Krause that she is going to send an ambulance and a police officer.
“Please don’t send a policeman,” she replies. “I’d just as soon not have a policeman.” The dispatcher then says she would send one anyway, just as a precaution.
“OK. Tell them all, my son needs some gentleness. He doesn’t need any force,” the mother says.
“I don’t know what has happened completely. So, I … I’m … he doesn’t need force, he needs gentle.”
Eric Russell can be contacted at 791-6344 or at:
Twitter: PPHEricRussell
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