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Killing suspect offers no defense
By BRADY DENNIS, Times Staff Writer BROOKSVILLE -- John Ernest Krause has remained silent in front of the five women and seven men who will deliberate his fate today. But chances are, it is his words that will weigh most heavily on their minds. A day after playing a 911 tape in which Krause admitted to killing his parents, prosecutors on Tuesday played a videotaped interview in which Krause again says he shot both his parents on Jan. 8, 2001. In the hourlong interview, Krause tells Detective Billy Beetz how he walked from his small mobile home on his parents' property to their back yard and shot his father once in the head and twice in the body. Edward Krause, 70, died at the scene. Krause said he then strode past his father's body and went inside his parents' mobile home, where he shot his mother in the head. Gertrude Krause, 67, was flown to Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg and died the next day. Krause said he was angry with his parents because they kept nagging him to get a job. He told Beetz that after the shooting, he had planned to go into a patch of nearby woods with the .22-caliber revolver and kill himself. Instead, he walked to the home of Kim Trudell and asked to use the phone. She gave it to him, and he called 911 from the front yard. Krause never threatened Trudell. And, as he promised the 911 operator, he surrendered peacefully, placing the gun on a nearby fence post and raising his hands above his head. Trudell said that Krause calmly asked for a cigarette while he waited for deputies to arrive. On Tuesday, prosecutors also called a medical examiner who showed jurors autopsy photos of Mr. and Mrs. Krause, detailing how they were shot about the same place in the side of the head. The prosecution rested its case after playing the taped interview with Beetz. The defense also rested. Krause chose to neither testify nor call witnesses in his defense. Krause had no criminal record before the shootings, but now faces two charges of first-degree murder. He could face the death penalty if convicted. Closing arguments are scheduled to begin today at 9 a.m. Afterward, the jury will deliberate.
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