A Massachusetts man accused of killing his father in Beaver County’s New Sewickley Township told authorities he did so to spare his father humiliation over being duped in a Publishers Clearing House scam, court records show.

Michael Miklaucic, 57, of Plymouth, Mass., is charged with homicide in the death of his 83-year-old father John Miklaucic.

New Sewickley police Chief Ronald Leindecker said in a news conference that officers first had contact with the father and son on Sunday when they went to the police station to report that the elder Miklaucic had been scammed out of some money.

Leindecker did not say how much money was involved but said the scammer or scammers purported to be with Publishers Clearing House. He said police opened an investigation into the alleged scam.

On Tuesday, police received a call from Michael Miklaucic indicating “his father was dead and he was responsible for his death,” Leindecker said.

Responding officers found Michael Miklaucic on the front porch of his father’s Fezell Road home and took him into custody. Inside, police found the elder Miklaucic dead from an apparent strangulation.

Leindecker said the son had been in town for a week, and he’d arrived with the intent of helping his father deal with the scam to which he’d fallen prey.

“He felt that his father was humiliated, so he wanted his father to die at his house and be removed from the humiliation that was going to be brought upon him,” Leindecker said, noting that Michael Miklaucic confessed to strangling his father and did not express any remorse.

Michael Miklaucic is being held in Beaver County Jail without bail. A preliminary hearing on charges of homicide, strangulation and possession of an instrument of crime is scheduled for April 1.

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