The teen phoned cantonal police on Tuesday at 8.30pm when he confessed to the murder, Zurich police said in a statement.

He turned himself into the police station at Pfäffikon, where he was interviewed and arrested.

Police checked the residence where the teen lived and found his 67-year-old father, who was already dead.

No information was disclosed as to how the man died or what the motive for the killing was.

The 20 Minuten newspaper reported that the victim was a former editor at Neue Zürcher Zeitung who had worked for the last eight years in the PR industry for a communications agency.

(NZZ confirmed that the dead man was a former editor for the Zurich daily.)

The father and son were living together after the mother died several years ago of a serious illness, the newspaper said.

"The father seemed to be very strict with his son," a neighbour told the daily.

The son has no apparent psychological problems, a police spokesman told the SDA news agency.

Investigators are assuming that the son’s admission is a true version of the facts.

However, the cantonal police force and the local prosecutor’s office have launched an investigation into the case in conjunction with forensic scientists.