Neighbors Find Naked 22-Year-Old Covered In Blood And Mud In Backyard: 'Help Me...I Murdered 4 People'

Wagner Alcocer was on his computer Friday evening when he heard someone calling for help outside his home in Groton, Massachusetts. From his backdoor he could see a tall young man, blotches of blood and mud on his naked body.  “Help me please, help me please,” he said. “I murdered four people.”

NBC Boston reports police later identified the young man as 22-year-old Orion Krause. He was a recent graduate of Ohio’s prestigious Oberlin College & Conservatory.

At a press conference Friday night, Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said Krause had been arrested for the murders of three women and a man at a home in Groton. They died from blunt-force trauma. Ryan said Krause knew his victims, and called the quadruple homicide, "a situation of tragic family violence."

According to Boston’s WCBV, Krause may have used a baseball bat to beat the life out of his four victims, whom police described as an older man and woman, and two middle-aged women. While the victims' names have not been released, Groton Police Chief Donald Palma said, “This was not a random act. We do believe at this point that the people were all connected and had relationships.”

Sherman Stanley, who described himself as a family friend, told The Portland Press Herald the victims were Elizabeth “Buffy” Krause, Orion’s mother, as well as her parents and a caretaker who looked after the elderly couple. The Herald says this is consistent with an identification made by a law enforcement officer from Krause’s hometown of Rockport, Maine, “who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.” Property records indicate Danby F. Lackey III and Elizabeth C. Lackey are the owners of the home where police say the killings occurred.

Orion Krause appeared in Ayer District Court this morning to face four counts of murder, according to the website Mass Live. The sullen young man stared down at the ground as he was led into court.

Friends and acquaintances had previously described him as gentle, polite and in former classmate Duryea Decker Griffith's words, “a really good guy.” It’s a sentiment echoed by the man who found him, bloody and dazed in his backyard. As Wagner Alcocer says, “He looked like a nice kid who needed help.”

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