Man weeps at arraignment in mother's slaying

MAYS LANDING, N.J. - Tears rolled down Steven Pratt's face in an empty courtroom Tuesday and guilt spilled from his mouth.

Pratt, 45, stood alone without an attorney, his hulking frame hunched over as he sobbed, and he seemed eager to skip the proceedings and head back to the place he's called home for 30 years - prison.

Pratt is accused of beating his mother, Gwendolyn Pratt, to death on Sunday, less than two days after she picked him up from Bayside State Prison and threw him a welcome-home party at their house in Atlantic City.

"I don't want a trial," Pratt told Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Michael A. Donio at his arraignment. "I'm guilty."

Pratt, who was 15 when he shot and killed a neighbor in 1984, began crying heavily as soon as Donio read the charges. Donio advised Pratt not to speak without an attorney present, but Pratt continued to talk.

"I have no lawyer," he said. "I have nobody."

When told that his bail was $1 million, Pratt said that it "doesn't matter."

"I have nothing," he said, before being led away.

Pratt was released Friday after serving 30 years for murder. Around 6:30 a.m. Sunday, authorities were called to the McKinley Avenue home, where they found Gwendolyn Pratt, 64, dead, and they detained her son.

Gwendolyn Pratt, according to her brother, worked at Resorts Casino Hotel since 1989 and lived a simple, quiet life in Atlantic City. She had been excited about her son's release, her brother said, and had taken him to IHOP after he was released.

A spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Corrections said prisoners are provided with transitional services prior to release. Prisoner disciplinary records are not public record, but department spokesman Matt Schuman said Pratt had not had any additional sentences applied to his initial term.

Steven Pratt's relatives said he seemed "upbeat" when they visited him through the years at the Cumberland County prison.

A woman bringing items out of the Pratt home in the Westside section of Atlantic City on Tuesday declined to comment. A neighbor said no one wants to talk, and urged a reporter to leave.

"This neighborhood's been through enough," the woman said.