Police say a three-year-old garage death became a murder case after new information led investigators back to the victim’s son.

EL PASO, Texas — A 2023 death that first appeared to be a garage accident is now being prosecuted as a homicide after El Paso police arrested Richard Praytor and charged him with murder in the death of his mother, Maria Praytor. Police say the case changed after investigators received new information years after officers found her beneath a vehicle at a Northeast El Paso home.

The arrest marked a sharp reversal from the first official account. Officers were called to the 4500 block of Sky Hawk at 4:26 a.m. on June 20, 2023, after Praytor told police that he had found his mother under a vehicle. Special Traffic Investigations personnel responded, and the death was initially treated as an accidental run-over, according to a Sept. 29, 2026, El Paso Police Department release. Police identified Richard Praytor as 49 and Maria Praytor as 79 in that release. Investigators continued looking at the circumstances, however, and eventually concluded that the death was intentional.

The break police describe came more than three years later. According to an arrest affidavit reported by KTSM and Law&Crime, authorities were contacted on Aug. 27 by a woman on Long Island, New York, who said Praytor had told her he killed his mother. The woman said she had met him on Facebook and reported that he had described details about the death that had not been released publicly. Investigators then obtained a recording of a phone conversation in which Praytor allegedly discussed the death and his conduct when police arrived, the affidavit says. That new account gave detectives a reason to compare Praytor’s alleged statements with the original scene and the earlier accident finding. The affidavit says Praytor described acting surprised in front of officers after his mother was found near the sedan in the garage. He allegedly characterized his behavior for police as a performance. Investigators also said he claimed he had told only one other person what happened and had once tried to tell a priest. Those statements, as described in the affidavit, became part of the renewed homicide investigation.

The affidavit gives a markedly different version of what happened inside the home than the accident theory first accepted by authorities. Praytor allegedly told detectives that he attacked his mother on June 19, 2023, while she was inside the house and then moved her to the garage. Police say he acknowledged taking additional steps after the attack to make the scene appear consistent with an accidental vehicle death. The affidavit further says he changed clothing, discarded clothing from both himself and his mother and positioned her near the car before moving the vehicle. Investigators say Praytor also described trying to confuse the scene that officers would later examine. According to the affidavit, he said he put his mother’s blood on his hands after the killing. He also allegedly said he had dressed her in different clothing before arranging the scene in the garage. Those allegations are important to the police theory because they address why the first responding investigators could have encountered circumstances that appeared to support an accident rather than an intentional killing. None of those allegations has been proved at trial.

The medical findings added another layer to the case. The affidavit, as reported by Law&Crime, said Maria Praytor’s cause of death was multiple blunt force injuries while the manner of death was initially classified as accidental. The police department’s later release did not spell out which evidence caused investigators to reject that original conclusion, but it said the investigation continued and ultimately determined that Richard Praytor had intentionally killed his mother. The distinction between cause and manner of death is central to the case because the same physical injuries were first interpreted in the context of an accident scene that police now say was staged.

Police say the alleged confession also included a written record. According to the affidavit reported by KTSM, Praytor told investigators that his personal computer contained a file titled “June 19th” in which he had written specific details about his mother’s death. A woman who went to police on Long Island also told authorities that Praytor had written about the killing in a novel, according to the affidavit. The publicly available police release does not describe the computer file, and authorities have not publicly released the writing itself. There is no indication in the materials reviewed that the document has been tested in court. After the renewed investigation, El Paso detectives worked with the Colorado Springs Police Department to locate Praytor. The affidavit says he was found at a hotel in Colorado on Sept. 14 and agreed to speak with detectives. Police say he then admitted killing his mother and described the circumstances surrounding the death. El Paso police later had him returned to Texas. The department’s Sept. 29 announcement said he had been charged with murder and booked into the El Paso County Detention Facility.

Secondary reports published after the arrest said Praytor was being held on a $1 million bond. KVIA reported that jail records showed that bond amount after his booking, and Law&Crime reported the same figure on Oct. 1. The available reports do not establish that he has entered a plea in the Texas murder case, and no later verified court development was found in the material reviewed for this article. The arrest affidavit records investigators’ allegations and Praytor’s alleged statements; a criminal charge is an accusation, and prosecutors would still have to prove the case in court.

The case also shows how information from outside the original jurisdiction can change the direction of an older death investigation. The woman who approached police on Long Island was not at the El Paso scene, according to the reports, but investigators considered her account significant because she allegedly knew details that had not been made public. Detectives then sought corroborating material, including the recorded conversation described in the affidavit, before coordinating with police in Colorado Springs. That sequence connected agencies in New York, Texas and Colorado to a death that had originally been handled as an accident in one El Paso garage.

Several questions remain unanswered in the public record. Authorities have not released the complete evidence file, the reported computer writing or a full explanation of when investigators formally changed the death classification. The materials reviewed also do not identify a current defense attorney speaking on Praytor’s behalf. Police have alleged that he said his mother was sick and that he wanted to return to his children in Colorado Springs, but that statement is an allegation contained in the reported affidavit, not an independently established motive. The available reports also contain conflicting ages for both Praytor and his mother. This article uses the ages published by El Paso police in its formal Sept. 29 release, rather than the inconsistent figures in some secondary accounts.

The latest verified status available from the reviewed sources is that Praytor had been extradited to El Paso, charged with murder and held on a $1 million bond. The case now turns on the court process, where prosecutors can present the evidence they say transformed an apparent accident into a homicide case and the defense can challenge the state’s account. No trial outcome has been reported.

Author note: Last updated Nov. 10, 2026.