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Murder testimony to begin this week
By CARY DAVIS NEW PORT RICHEY -- Richard Andrew Pratt admits he is partly to blame for his mother's murder. He said he was in the house the night Suerita Pratt was killed in June 1998. He said he probably could have prevented her death. But he said he did not kill his mother. Still, Pratt said in a jailhouse interview with the St. Petersburg Times, "I appear extremely guilty." This week, it will be up to a Pasco jury to decide what happened at 2220 Amity Court on June 24, 1998. Pratt, now 21, is charged with first-degree murder. A conviction could bring a death sentence. In a May interview with the Times, Pratt refused to discuss the evidence in the case. "That's all going to come out at trial," he said. Asked to reveal his defense strategy, he replied: "My contention is that Eric did it." Eric Iranpur, 22, is the state's key witness. Iranpur, prosecutors say, was at Mrs. Pratt's house when she was killed. Iranpur has told prosecutors that he saw Pratt enter the house carrying a rifle. Moments later, Iranpur has said, he heard a shot ring out. "The jury's either going to believe me or believe Eric," Pratt said. "When it comes out, it's going to be a weird situation, and that's all I'm going to say." Matricide -- the killing of one's own mother -- defies logic. Pratt knows this. "This is something completely unnatural that's an aberration of criminal behavior," he said. Pratt said he doesn't fit the profile of a matricidal son. He described his relationship with his mother as "very low-key." But there was tension. "Laziness," Pratt said, "was the big thing between us." Court records suggest a much bigger rift. In fact, records show, Pratt had a history of violence in the home. About three years before the murder, when the family lived in California, Pratt hit his mother in the head with a hammer when she tried to make him go to school, according to records. Pratt was arrested and spent some time in a mental institution, the records show. Pratt continued to give his parents problems after the family moved to Florida. He repeatedly lied to his parents and stole from them, his stepfather, Kenneth Pratt, told detectives. Richard Pratt, who worked as a banquet server, moved out and ended up sleeping on the floor of a friend's home in Holiday. The final struggle between mother and son, prosecutors say, was over a girl. In late 1997, Pratt started dating a 16-year-old named Jessica Stroud. Parents of both teens opposed the relationship, court records show. Twice, Jessica Stroud ran away from home and left the state with Pratt, according to records. Her parents filed a missing person report after she disappeared the second time. At one point, records show, Pratt wrote in a day planner: Kill Mr.& Mrs. Stroud. Dispose of bodies in personal vehicles. The Strouds obtained a restraining order against Pratt. He was arrested for violating the order but was never prosecuted. Prosecutors say Suerita Pratt demanded that her son break off the relationship with Jessica. It was that demand, prosecutors allege in court papers, that drove Pratt to murder. Pratt told the Times that his mother never told him to end the relationship. He and Jessica split up, he said, "on amicable terms of our own arrangement." On the night of June 24, 1998, Pratt, then 18, went to his stepfather's house on Garland Court in New Port Richey, accompanied by Iranpur. Kenneth and Suerita Pratt, though married, lived in separate houses. Kenneth Pratt was out of state on a business trip. Pratt stole two of his stepfather's guns, Iranpur said. Then they drove to Suerita Pratt's house. When they arrived, Pratt loaded a .22-caliber rifle and walked inside, Iranpur told authorities. Iranpur said he stayed outside and played fetch with a German shepherd on the Pratt's backyard tennis court. "I heard a gunshot," Iranpur told prosecutors in an interview days after the murder. "Then I started shaking. I knew what he had done, you know?" Authorities say 50-year-old Suerita Pratt was shot in the back of the head as she slept. It didn't take long for news of the murder to spread. Iranpur, authorities said, began telling friends what he had seen. Pratt was furious and demanded that Iranpur and others help him dispose of the murder weapon and other evidence, prosecutors say. The day after the murder, Pratt returned to the Amity Court house and dragged his mother's body into the back yard, authorities say. Meanwhile, Kenneth Pratt began to worry when his calls to his wife went unanswered. He cut his business trip short and drove back to Florida. When he got to his wife's house and found no sign of her inside, he called police. Deputies with the Pasco County Sheriff's Office discovered Mrs. Pratt's body, covered in a blue plastic tarp, next to a fence at the back of the property. The next day, with Iranpur's help, a Sheriff's Office dive team recovered a .22-caliber rifle from the Anclote River. Nearby, detectives found a pillow and blanket that belonged to Mrs. Pratt. Richard Pratt was arrested three days after the murder. "I wish it never happened," Pratt said in the May interview with the Times. "There was no reason for it." Asked if he had anything to do with his mother's murder, he said, "Not really. Never did I want this to happen. There is no purpose." It's not clear how much of Pratt's story will come out at this week's trial. He said he wants to testify, but whether he will take the stand or not "is up to my lawyers." His court-appointed attorneys, John Swisher and Sam Williams, could not be reached for comment last week. They have previously declined to comment on the case. Also, Iranpur could not be reached for comment last week. Pratt said he doesn't expect any sympathy from the jury. If the case comes down to whether jurors believe him or Iranpur, Pratt doesn't like his chances. "The jury is going to have more reason to convict me," he said. "Our justice system wasn't built for cases like mine. "If the jury believes (Iranpur), then I'm a stone-cold killer, and they're going to give me the death penalty." -- Cary Davis covers courts in west Pasco County. He can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6236, or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6236. His e-mail address is
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