TikTok personality named as suspect in death of therapist found wrapped in tarp off side of Louisiana highway

A TikTok personality with more than four million followers has been named as a person of interest in the death of a beloved therapist whose body was found wrapped in a tarp on the side of a Louisiana highway.

A passerby had noticed the suspicious tarp rolled on the side of Highway 51 just before 8am on Sunday and alerted the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office, Fox 8 Live reports.

Deputies who arrived on the scene then found the body of well-known therapist and motivational speaker William Nicholas Abraham, 69, inside the tarp.

Just one day later, a Baton Rouge police officer spotted 20-year-old Terryon Ishmael Thomas - better known online as Mr. Prada - driving Abraham's black Lincoln MKZ, according to an arrest warrant obtained by WBRZ.

It said Thomas refused to obey as the 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.

The suspect was later captured on a nearby store's surveillance cameras, which police released Monday night as he remained on the loose.

Thomas is now wanted for aggravated criminal damage to property, resisting an officer and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.

He has not been charged in the therapist's death, which authorities say was caused by blunt force trauma.

'It was a very physical and very violent attack,' Tangipahoa Sheriff Gerald Sticker said, according to WAFB.

'He was bludgeoned about in the head, shoulders and neck. There was a lot of bruising.'

A motive for the murder 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 was never charged in the incident, and Sheriff Sticker said that while he is aware of the arrest, he is focusing on locating where the therapist - who had a regular show on Baton Rouge television - was killed.

'Right now we have no inclination as to where this originated,' the sheriff said.

He noted that there were no weapons found on the side of the highway where his body was dumped, and a search of the victim's home in East Baton Rouge Parish also found no indications that a crime had been committed there.

The sheriff's office is now seeking 'any information that the public can give us to help us put the picture together of Saturday... evening, before he was ultimately murdered - which we believe occurred sometime Saturday night,' Sticker said.

Abraham's friends and family are also demanding 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 just sit back there and cringe when I hear someone killed somebody,' he said. 'It's just not the way it's supposed to be.'

'No one should take a life but God. No one,' Tommy added to WWL. 'He's the only one that can take a life, and for someone to take someone else's life, you're a coward.' 

He and his brother, Joseph, said Abraham had worked as a Catholic priest for 14 years, serving in Mississippi and Milwaukee, before ultimately becoming a therapist.

Abraham also doubled as a life coach, 'motivational speaker, recording artist, author, teacher and trailblazer,' according to his website, which notes that he had experience treating substance abuse, anxiety and depression and worked with the LGBTQ community.

'He made a mark on people's lives and helped them be better people,' Joseph said.

'He was kind, loving, a gentle man and frankly not the kind of man that something like this would've happened to,' added Abraham's attorney, Jarret Ambeau.

'I'm absolutely devastated and completely surprised that something like that could've happened to a man who I believe to be so tender and so gentle and have such a service heart.'