After His Parents Were Slain, He Was Found Praying — and Police Say He’d Made a Chilling Statement Earlier

Authorities in Georgia arrested an interstate fugitive wanted for murder thanks to a tip from a concerned motorist who saw a man praying on the side of the highway.

Deputies with the Taliaferro County Sheriff’s Office apprehended Nicholas Kirchner, 37, after receiving a report of a man dressed in all white and kneeling with his hand raised over his head on the afternoon of June 6, according to a news release.

The man identified himself, provided his birthdate and allegedly stated that he was armed after being approached by Sheriff’s Deputy R. Shapiro, who said that he then ran a records check on the individual.

The TCSO release said that he was taken into custody after that record check revealed there was an active warrant for Kirchner in Sumter County, S.C., where he allegedly pointed a gun at a person earlier that morning.

Kirchner was described as “armed and dangerous with anti-law enforcement views” by the SCSO.

The SCSO confirmed the incident when contacted by detectives with the TCSO, stating that Kirchner was accused of pointing a gun at multiple individuals and threatening to shoot them.

Kirchner then “allegedly held one family member at gunpoint and forced another to enter the home to retrieve someone, threatening to shoot the hostage in the head if the demands were not met,” according to the SCSO.

After informing law enforcement in Georgia of that incident, detectives with the SCSO also said that Kirchner was suspected of killing his parents in Florida, according to the TCSO release.

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It was just a few hours before Kirchner’s arrest on June 6 when the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office arrived at a home in Largo in response to a call for a welfare check on an individual who did not report to work, according to a separate news release.

“When deputies arrived on scene, they located the victims, 53-year-old Elizabeth Lee Kirchner and 64-year-old Steven Eric Kirchner, deceased in the living room from apparent gunshot wounds,” the PCSO release said.

According to the PCSO release, Kirchner had allegedly pointed a gun at a man in South Carolina earlier that day and said, “I’ve already killed two people – I’ll kill some more.”

Kirchner allegedly confessed to the murder of his parents once in custody, according to both the TCSO and PCSO releases.

The PCSO release said that Kirchner referred to the murders as “righteous kills.”

Kirchner is now being held at the McDuffie County Sheriff’s Office jail awaiting extradition to Florida on a felony warrant for two counts of premeditated first-degree murder.