ATLANTIC CITY, N.J., Oct. 13 (UPI) -- A New Jersey man was charged with killing his mother two days after he finished a 30-year prison term for shooting a neighbor when he was 15.
Steven L. Pratt, 46, was arrested early Sunday. Police responding to an emergency call to Gwendolyn Pratt's house in Atlantic City at about 6:30 a.m. found the 64-year-old woman dead of "massive blunt head injuries," the Atlantic County prosecutor said in a statement.
Pratt was released Friday from Bayside Prison after spending his entire adult life behind bars. He was tried as an adult and convicted of murder for shooting a neighbor, Michael Anderson, during a fight on Oct. 11, 1984.
"It's usually quiet back there. But a guy stays in prison for 30 years, since he was 15, and who knows," Warren Massey, the former chairman of the Atlantic City Housing Authority, told the Philadelphia Daily News. "He probably just snapped."
Ruan Tilghman-Pugh, a neighbor, told the Press of Atlantic City the family celebrated Pratt's return with a welcome home party. But he said he overheard Pratt asking a cousin for a place to stay, saying he was having trouble with an aunt who had taken him in.
Pratt was held in lieu of $1 million bail.
