Teen Allegedly Typed Plan Before Killing Grandparents

Alexander Kraus faces 2 counts of first-degree murder
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Apr 17, 2019 2:37 AM CDT
Cops: Wisc. Teen Killed Grandparents, Planned School Attack
This booking photo provided by the Outagamie County, Wisconsin, sheriff's office, shows 17-year-old Alexander M. Kraus.   (Outagamie County Sheriff via AP)

A 17-year-old typed out pages on how he planned to fatally shoot his grandparents and law enforcement found those notes with a book on an executioner in the teen's backpack after he called 911 and confessed to the killings, prosecutors in Wisconsin said Tuesday. Alexander Kraus was charged Tuesday in Outagamie County Circuit Court in Appleton, Wis., with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide in the deaths of 74-year-old Dennis Kraus and 73-year-old Letha Kraus, the AP reports. Each charge carries a life sentence. Police found the bodies Sunday at their home in Grand Chute, a small city about 110 miles northwest of Milwaukee, after a male called the police and said he needed to be arrested in the deaths, according to a criminal complaint. The teen is being held on $2 million bond.

An autopsy found that Dennis Kraus was shot once in the head and Letha Kraus suffered two gunshot wounds to the head and one to the right forearm. There were "several pages" in a red folder outlining how Kraus would kill his grandparents, investigators said in the complaint, which provided no motive for the shootings. Police say Kraus also told investigators he was planning to cause unspecified harm at Neenah High School, where he was a junior. Officers found a shotgun with a knife taped to the end of the barrel and a knife sheath on the bed of a downstairs bedroom. A search of an upstairs bedroom uncovered a shotgun on the bed with two gun cases and ammunition, a "large amount of various ammunition" on the floor, and several more guns in a gun cabinet, the complaint said.

(More Wisconsin stories.)

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