- Pratt was 15 when he got into an argument with his next door neighbor, Michael Anderson. [...]
Hours later, Pratt knocked on the door of Anderson’s apartment. When the neighbor appeared, Pratt asked him if he recalled their fight earlier that day, then shot him dead.
Pratt was tried as an adult for the murder and began serving his sentence at a maximum security prison. [...]
Pratt was 45 when he got out, and he returned to the Atlantic City neighborhood where his 64-year-old mother resided [...]
On the Sunday morning after Pratt’s release, police found Gwendolyn [Pratt] dead from blunt injuries to the head. Pratt was charged, and at his initial court appearance, he wept.
“I have failed,” Pratt told the judge, his voice barely audible [...] “I don’t want a trial. I’m guilty.”
He officially pleaded guilty to manslaughter this week. He is expected to be sentenced to 25 years in prison [...]
The timing and gruesome repetition of Pratt’s crimes make him an anomaly — one that led many to ask whether he had been destroyed by juvenile incarceration.