A man accused of threatening people with a gun in Sumter County on Friday has been detained and charged in connection with his parents’ deaths in Florida.
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office in Florida said on Saturday afternoon that 37-year-old Nicholas Steven Kirchner, who had been detained the day before in connection with a threat in Sumter County, was now charged with the killings of Steven Eric and Elizabeth Lee Kirchner in Largo, Florida.
Florida detectives say Sumter County authorities alerted them following the Sumter County incident in which Nicholas Steven Kirchner reportedly held someone at gunpoint and intimidated others to bring another person out of a home on Green View Parkway. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, he allegedly told the Sumter County victims, “I’ve already killed two people—I’ll kill some more.”
He fled before deputies arrived but was apprehended in Taliaferro County, Georgia, after the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office issued a regional notice identifying him as Nikolas Steven Kirchner-Prola.
Florida officials said the man repeatedly acknowledged killing his parents, describing it as a “righteous kill.” He was arrested in McDuffie County, Georgia, and charged with two counts of first-degree premeditated murder.
In addition, he faces a charge in South Carolina for pointing and exhibiting a pistol to a person in connection with the Sumter County incident.
Deputies in Pinellas County discovered Kirchner’s parents dead after a caller requested a welfare check on an employee who did not show up for work on Friday. Elizabeth Lee and Steven Eric Kirchner were discovered shot and killed in the living room of their Saunders Avenue home in Largo.
According to deputies, the couple’s kid was present at the home and departed before the welfare check.