A TikToker known as Prada has been arrested in connection with the murder of a Louisiana therapist.
Terryon Ishmael Thomas, 20, was arrested Thursday in Dallas, Texas, after a manhunt. WVUE reported.
The influencer was named a person of interest in the murder of William Nicholas Abraham, 69, whose body was found in a tarp that had been dumped on a highway Sunday in Baton Rouge.
Thomas was seen driving the therapist’s vehicle while fleeing from authorities during a traffic stop. He has not been charged in the therapist’s death, which authorities say was caused by blunt force trauma.
He faces charges of aggravated criminal damage to property, resisting an officer and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
An arrest warrant has been issued for Terryon Ishmael Thomas, 20, better known online as Mr. Prada.
The body of William Nicholas Abraham was found wrapped in a tarp on the side of Highway 51.
The TikTokeer reportedly refused to comply when an officer attempted to make a traffic stop and instead backed into the police vehicle and fled on foot while officers recovered the victim’s vehicle.
Thomas was later captured on surveillance cameras at a nearby store, which police released Monday night while he remained at large.
“It was a very physical and very violent attack,” Tangipahoa Sheriff Gerald Sticker said of the therapist’s death, according to WAFB.
They hit him on the head, shoulders and neck. I had a lot of bruises.
The motive for the murder remains unclear, but East Baton Rouge Parish court records obtained by WWL show Abraham was previously arrested in 2015 for allegedly inappropriately touching an 11-year-old boy during a therapy session.
Abraham was never charged in the incident, and Sheriff Sticker said that while he is aware of the arrest, he is focusing on locating where the therapist, who had a regular show on Baton Rouge television, was murdered.
“At this point we don’t know where this originated,” the sheriff said.
He noted that no weapons were found on the side of the road where her body was dumped, and a search of the victim’s home in East Baton Rouge Parish also found no indication that a crime had been committed there.
Baton Rouge police say Thomas was driving a Lincoln MKZ on Monday that belonged to a beloved therapist who was found dead just a day earlier.
The sheriff’s office is now seeking “any information the public can give us to help us piece together the picture Saturday…night, before he was ultimately murdered, which we believe occurred sometime Saturday night “Sticker said.
Abraham’s friends and family are also demanding answers.
“I want to know who did it and I want to know why,” his brother, Tommy Abraham, told WBRZ.
“I watch the news every night and I sit there and cringe when I hear that someone killed someone,” he said. “It’s just not how it’s supposed to be.”
‘No one should take life except God. Nobody,” Tommy added to WWL. “He’s the only one who can take a life, and for someone to take another person’s life, you’re a coward.”
He and his brother Joseph said Abraham had worked as a Catholic priest for 14 years, serving in Mississippi and Milwaukee, before eventually becoming a therapist.
Abraham also worked as a life coach, “motivational speaker, recording artist, author, teacher and pioneer,” according to his website, which notes that he had experience treating substance abuse, anxiety and depression and worked with the community. LGBTQ.
“He left a mark on people’s lives and helped them become better people,” Joseph said.
“He was kind, loving, a gentle man and, frankly, not the type of man that something like that would have happened to,” added Abraham’s attorney, Jarret Ambeau.
“I am absolutely devastated and completely shocked that something like this has happened to a man who I think is so tender and gentle and has such a helpful heart.”