A TikToker known as Mr. Prada has been arrested in connection with the murder of a Louisiana therapist.
Terryon Ishmael Thomas, 20, was taken into custody Thursday in Dallas, Texas, following a manhunt. WVUE reported.
The influencer was named as a person of interest in the killing of William Nicholas Abraham, 69, whose body was found in a tarp dumped on a road in Baton Rouge on Sunday.
Thomas was seen driving the therapist’s vehicle when he fled 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 is charged with aggravated criminal damage to property, resisting an officer and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
An arrest warrant has been issued for 20-year-old Terryon Ishmael Thomas – 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 conduct 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 a nearby store’s surveillance cameras, which police released Monday evening 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.
‘He was hit in the head, shoulders and neck. There were a lot of bruises.”
A motive for the killing 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 has never been charged in the incident, and Sheriff Sticker said that while he is aware of the arrest, he is focused on locating where the therapist — who had a regular show on Baton Rouge television — was killed .
“At this time we have no idea where this came from,” the sheriff said.
He noted that no weapons were found on the side of the highway where his body was dumped, and that a search of the victim’s home in East Baton Rouge Parish also found no evidence that a crime had been committed there.
Baton Rouge police say Thomas on Monday was driving a Lincoln MKZ belonging to a beloved therapist who was found dead a day earlier
The sheriff’s office is now seeking “any information the public can give us to help us piece together the picture of Saturday evening, before he was ultimately killed – which we believe occurred sometime Saturday evening,” Sticker said .
Abraham’s friends and family also demand 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 cringe when I hear that someone has killed someone,” he said. “It’s just not the way it should be.”
‘No one is allowed to take a life except God. Nobody,” Tommy added to WWL. “He’s the only one who can take a life, and if anyone takes someone else’s life, you’re a coward.”
He and his brother, Joseph, said Abraham worked as a Catholic priest for 14 years, ministering in Mississippi and Milwaukee, before eventually becoming a therapist.
Abraham also served as a life coach, “motivational speaker, artist, author, teacher and pioneer,” according to his website, which notes that he had experience treating substance abuse, anxiety and depression and working 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, quite frankly, not the kind of man something like this would have happened to,” Abraham’s attorney, Jarret Ambeau, added.
“I am absolutely devastated and completely surprised that something like this could have happened to a man who I believe to be so tender and gentle and has such a serving heart.”