A TikTok personality known as Mr. Prada is charged in the bludgeoning death of a Louisiana therapist whose body was discovered over the weekend in a rolled-up tarp near a state highway, authorities said Thursday.
The body of Nicholas Abraham, 69, of Baton Rouge, was found Sunday in rural Tangipahoa Parish, which is east of Baton Rouge and north of New Orleans.
On Tuesday, police in Dallas arrested 20-year-old Terryon Thomas, who is known on social media as Mr. Prada, after Baton Rouge police said he fled from them in Abraham’s car.
Thomas' relationship with the victim and a motive for the killing were unclear as of Thursday morning, the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. Thomas is charged with second-degree murder and was awaiting extradition from Texas to Louisiana, the news release said.
Get Tri-state area news delivered to your inbox.> Sign up for NBC New York's News Headlines newsletter.
“At this time, there is no evidence to suggest that Thomas was a client of Abraham,” the release said.
Online booking records in Dallas County did not list an attorney who could be contacted for comment on Thomas' behalf.
According to an arrest warrant from the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office, Abraham was seen on surveillance video entering Thomas' apartment complex Saturday. He was wearing the same clothing he had on when his body was discovered, the warrant says.
U.S. & World
Witnesses told investigators that Thomas was seen hours later struggling to drag something wrapped in a blue tarp down the apartment building stairs before placing the tarp in Abraham's car, according to the affidavit. Investigators later got a search warrant for Thomas' apartment, where they found signs of a struggle, including blood “throughout the apartment” and indications that Thomas had tried to clean up before departing, the affidavit said.
“It was a very physical and very violent attack,” Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Gerald Sticker told WAFB. “He was bludgeoned about in the head, shoulders, and neck.”
Casey Hicks, a public information officer with the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office, says the medical examiner determined Abraham's cause of death was blunt force trauma.
After his body was discovered, investigators determined Abraham's black Lincoln was missing. Police later spotted it at a shopping center and after releasing surveillance images showing the driver, Thomas was identified as a person of interest.
When police in Baton Rouge tried to pull him over, they say he led them on a chase, crashed then ran.
“We now know that he called for help, got somebody to pick him up, bring him back to his apartment,” said Hicks.
Thomas took a bus to Dallas, officials say, where he was arrested by U.S. Marshals on Tuesday.
A biography of Abraham on his website said he had 30 years of experience treating substance abuse, depression, and anxiety. It also said he spent 11 years as a Roman Catholic priest.
“Dr. Abraham was a very kind, very tender, very gentle man,” said Jarrett Ambeau, a Baton Rouge lawyer who has represented Abraham in legal matters and also counted him as a friend. “No one deserves to die this way, but I would have never expected someone of his disposition to have been violently murdered.”
