October 06, 2026

He wrote a book about killing his own mother — then confessed to a stranger

By The Night Desk

Booking photo via El Paso Times

He wrote a book about killing his own mother — then confessed to a stranger

For three years, the death of 79-year-old Maria Enoe Praytor was ruled an accident: crushed under a car in her own garage in Northeast El Paso.

Police now say it was murder — and that her son wrote a book about it.

The "accident"

On June 20, 2023, officers met Richard Praytor, then 46, at a home in the 4500 block of Sky Hawk Avenue in the Castner Heights neighborhood. His mother lay dead under a 2019 white Nissan Sentra in the garage.

Praytor told officers he had woken at 4 a.m. to drive to Colorado Springs for a child custody hearing and walked into the garage to find his mother's legs under the car. He said he panicked, saw the car in neutral, and pushed it off her.

The El Paso County Medical Examiner found the cause of death was multiple blunt force injuries — and ruled the manner of death an accident.

The woman on Facebook

The case broke open this year, according to a criminal complaint affidavit. On Aug. 27, 2026, Suffolk County (New York) police told El Paso police that a woman had reported information about a murder in El Paso — roughly two weeks after she first came to them.

The woman said she and Praytor met on Facebook. He confessed to her that he had killed his mother in El Paso in 2023, giving her what the affidavit calls "specific details concerning the incident that had not been released to the public and would not have been known to the general public."

Two El Paso detectives flew to Long Island on Sept. 1 and interviewed the woman. Then, on Sept. 9, she reported that Praytor had called her and confessed again — and she recorded the call.

The book titled "June 19th"

According to the affidavit, Praytor told the woman he had "wrote his own book on how he killed his own mother" and had it saved on his personal computer. The book was titled "June 19th" — the day police believe Maria Praytor was killed — and Praytor allegedly said he wrote it "in a way to help him confess."

On the recorded call, the affidavit says, Praytor described how he "had to do the best acting of his life when officers arrived" at the scene. He allegedly told the woman he messed with the blood at the scene, put blood on his own hands on purpose, stripped the bloodied clothes off himself and his mother, bagged them, and threw the bag in a nearby dumpster.

He then "set up the scene," the affidavit states — arranging it to look like the car had run over his mother's head so police would not realize he had previously choked her until she stopped breathing.

The alleged confession to police

When El Paso detectives and Colorado Springs police arrested Praytor on Monday, Sept. 28 — at a La Quinta Inn room in Colorado, under a search warrant — he agreed to speak voluntarily. Police say he then admitted to killing his mother on June 19, 2023, because she was "sick and he needed to get back to his kids in Colorado Springs."

Per the affidavit, Praytor told detectives he:

• Approached his mother from behind in the kitchen and put her in a chokehold until she passed out
• Dragged her to the garage when he realized she was still alive
• Pinched her nose, covered her mouth, got on top of her, and counted to 100
• Placed her head under the front-left tire of the Nissan, put the car in neutral, and let it roll back onto her head

Praytor was brought back to El Paso and booked into the county jail on suspicion of murder. As of Thursday, Oct. 1, he remained jailed on $1 million bond. No attorney is named for him in court records.

Source: El Paso Times (Aaron Martinez). All allegations are per the criminal complaint affidavit; Praytor is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

Source: El Paso Times — read the original report