A TikTok personality with more than four million followers has been named a person of interest in the death of a beloved therapist whose body was found wrapped in a tarp on the side of a Louisiana road.
A passerby noticed the suspicious tarp rolled onto the side of Highway 51 just before 8 a.m. Sunday and alerted the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office. fox 8 live information.
Officers arriving at the scene found the body of well-known therapist and motivational speaker William Nicholas Abraham, 69, inside the tarp.
Just one day later, a Baton Rouge police officer spotted Terryon Ishmael Thomas, 20, better known online as Mr. Prada, driving Abraham’s black Lincoln MKZ, according to an arrest warrant. obtained by WBRZ.
He said Thomas refused to comply when the 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.
An arrest warrant has been issued for Terryon Ishmael Thomas, 20, better known online as Mr. Prada.
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 suspect was later captured on surveillance cameras at a nearby store, which police released Monday night while he remained at large.
Thomas is now wanted for aggravated criminal damage to property, resisting an officer and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
He has not been charged in the therapist’s death, which authorities say was caused by blunt force trauma.
“It was a very physical and very violent attack,” said Tangipahoa Sheriff Gerald Sticker. according to WAFB.
They hit him on the head, shoulders and neck. I had a lot of bruises.
The body of William Nicholas Abraham was found wrapped in a tarp on the side of Highway 51.
The motive for the murder is still 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.
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.
No weapons were found on the side of the road where Abraham’s body was dumped.
Abraham’s friends and family are also demanding answers.
“I want to know who did it and I want to know why,” said his brother, Tommy Abraham. he 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 served as a life coach, “motivational speaker, recording artist, author, teacher and pioneer.” according to their websitewhich notes that he had experience treating substance abuse, anxiety and depression and worked with the LGBTQ community.
“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.”