Terryon “Mr. Prada” Thomas, a 20-year-old TikTok personality, is charged with 1st-degree murder in the beating death of a 69-year-old therapist.
Thomas’s charges were upgraded to 1st-degree murder from 2nd-degree murder because of the victim’s age said the district attorney.
Police found the body of Dr. William Nick Abraham wrapped in a tarp along a rural highway in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana on Sept. 29.
Thomas was arrested in Dallas, Texas on October 1. He was extradited to Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Monday, October 7.
Thomas’s father attended his initial court hearing on Monday afternoon. “I send my condolences to the other family,” he told WAFB-TV outside the courtroom.
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An autopsy revealed Abraham was beaten to death with a blunt object. He suffered fatal injuries to the head and neck during the attack.
Sheriff Gerald Sticker described the homicide as a “very physical, very violent death.”
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An investigation determined Abraham was killed inside Thomas’s apartment on Mancuso Lane in Baton Rouge. Abraham was observed on surveillance video entering the apartment around 11 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28.
The next day, Abraham’s body was found in a ditch along Highway 51 near the Village of Tangipahoa. His body was clad in the same clothes he had on when he arrived at Thomas’ apartment.
Police released surveillance images of a man believed to be Thomas fleeing the scene in the victim’s black 2018 Lincoln MKZ sedan.
A police chase ensued and Thomas crashed the car into a business. A witness said Thomas tried to reverse the car out of the business but a wheel fell off the car, so he fled on foot.
Thomas hitched a ride back to his apartment in Baton Rouge, where he gathered some items and left again.
The prosecutor’s office is investigating whether Thomas had help from his family to escape.
“When that information went out to everyone, we had family members that reached out and said he got a ride back to his apartment after the pursuit with BRPD, and somehow he got to the bus station. And from the bus station, he took the bus to Dallas, Texas,” Hicks said.
In 2015, Abraham was accused of molesting an 11-year-old boy during a counseling session, WAFB reported.
Sheriff Sticker said there is no evidence that Thomas was a patient of Abraham’s.
Abraham’s former attorney, Jarrett Ambeau, denied TikTok rumors that Thomas was the 11-year-old accuser. Thomas would have been 11 years old at the time of Abraham’s arrest.
“It’s unequivocally not him,” Ambeau told WAFB on Wednesday.
