Richard Praytor, 52, is accused of killing his 86-year-old mother, Maria Enoe Praytor, in 2023 and staging the scene to make her death appear accidental. Authorities allege he choked and strangled her, then placed her head beneath a car tire and ran it over. He was arrested at a hotel earlier this month, nearly three years after his mother was found dead beneath a sedan in a Northeast El Paso garage.
What Investigators Found in 2023
Court documents described by KTSM 9 News say officers went to the neighborhood on Sept. 20, 2023, after an unknown 911 call and found Maria Praytor dead beneath a sedan in the garage. Richard Praytor reportedly told officers at the scene that his mother was under the car. An autopsy listed multiple blunt force injuries as the cause of death; the court records classified the manner of death as an accident, according to KTSM.
What an Accident Classification Means
El Paso County's 2020 medical examiner annual report lists five categories of manner of death: natural, accident, suicide, homicide and undetermined, according to the El Paso County Office of the Medical Examiner.
KTSM reported that Praytor was preparing to leave for Colorado Springs, where he had a child custody hearing scheduled for 1:30 p.m. that day. The city is more than 500 miles north of El Paso, a drive of nearly nine hours, the outlet reported.
A Later Account to Investigators
The case drew renewed attention after a woman on Long Island, New York, contacted investigators. According to an affidavit described by KTSM, she went to Suffolk Police Department Precinct 2 on Aug. 27 and told a New York police officer that Praytor had confessed to killing his mother in 2023. El Paso police investigators flew to Long Island to interview her; she gave a sworn account on Sept. 2 and recorded a phone conversation with Praytor on Sept. 9 in which he allegedly confessed again.
In the recorded conversation, Praytor allegedly said he had to do the best acting of his life. Court records also say he admitted deliberately putting blood on his hands to disrupt the crime scene and throwing away his and his mother's blood-covered clothes in a nearby dumpster, KTSM reported.
What Investigators Say the Case File Contains
According to KTSM's account of court records, Praytor told police he killed his mother at about 6 p.m. on June 19, 2023. He allegedly said she was sick and that he needed to get back to his children in Colorado Springs. He described putting her in a chokehold until she passed out, then pinching her nose, covering her mouth and counting to 100.
Investigators say Praytor kept a computer file named “June 19th” with specific details about the killing. He allegedly told police he placed his mother's head under the sedan's front left tire and put the car in neutral, allowing it to roll back onto her head. According to the court-record account reported by KTSM, he said he staged the scene to make it appear that a car had run over her head and conceal that he had choked her.
Arrest and Custody Status
On Sept. 14, El Paso police obtained a search warrant for a hotel room, where officers arrested Praytor after he agreed to speak with them voluntarily. He was arrested for murder and remains jailed at the El Paso County Detention Facility on a $1 million bond, according to KTSM.
