The San Luis Obispo County District attorney's office announced Thursday the sentencing of an man found guilty of a murder in Oceano in 2019.
David Krause is sentenced to 30 years to life in prison for the murder of Lawrence Albert Bross, according to the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney's Office.
On October 4, Krause pleaded guilty to second degree murder and elder abuse resulting in death. He also admitted a prior conviction for residential burglary, a “strike” under California’s Three Strikes sentencing law doubling his sentence.
Bross, 90, was found dead inside his home on the 1400 block of Strand Way on Jan. 24, 2019.
Sheriff's officials said an autopsy determined Bross's cause of death to be "multiple chop force traumatic injuries."
Krause, 41, was reportedly already in custody at the San Luis Obispo County Jail on unrelated charges when he was arrested in April 2021 in connection with Bross's murder.
San Luis Obispo County Sheriff detectives said forensic evidence, specifically a DNA match, helped identify Krause as the suspect.
The district attorney's office said the victim and suspect had met before but could not go into detail on their relationship or the motive for the killing.
Larry Bross, moved to Oceano full-time in 1988 after serving in the Coast Guard during the Korean War, then teaching high school History and Government for 30 years in Northern California.
At the sentencing hearing Mr. Bross’s daughter offered the following appreciation for her father, “my father was a collector of ideas and people. When he walked the beach he would strike up conversations and invite people to his home, a place where he loved to share his art and wisdom, and that zest for life that he just had. Our home was a place of peace for our family, friends, and strangers alike – and my father, a rock amid the turmoil of life.”
