Tormu Prall | Homicide Watch Trenton

Jury finds Prall guilty of killing brother with firebomb

Trentonian Staff — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:15:54 -0500

TRENTON – A jury has found Tormu Prall guilty of all the charges stemming from the arson murder of his brother, John Prall, and the near killing of Kim Meadows in September of 2007.

Tormu Prall

The jury deliberated for two hours, not counting an hour for lunch, before returning with the verdict at 2:45 p.m.

Meadows, the suspect’s sister and Jeneya Richardson, the mother of slain Prall’s two children, hugged each other and wept when the decision was announced.
Prall, who had mouthed off a couple of times during the trial, said nothing when the jury foreman read the guilty verdicts and said they all were unanimous.
He stands guilty of burning his brother to death after threatening to do so when the pair argued over household expenses.
The defendant and his lawyer, Mike Dawson, tried to make jurors thinks the threats meant nothing and that John Prall was killed by jealous girlfriends and Blood gangster angry that he switch mob factions.
Tormu Prall was accused of dousing his sleeping brother’s bedroom with charcoal fluid and lighting the deadly spark. In seconds, John Prall was immolating and Meadows was running for her life with flaming feet and legs.
Assistant Mercer County prosecutors Lew Korngut and Renee Robeson received hugs from Meadows after the case was closed.
Superior Court Judge Andrew Smithson called the jury one of the most attentive he’s seen in 45 years, and set the sentencing for April.
Prall faces life, plus.

Prall may testify, but judge issues warning about withheld evidence

Trentonian Staff — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 08:19:13 -0500

TRENTON — Tormu Prall’s lawyer said he might take the stand in his own defense against charges he burned his sleeping brother to death in their Wayne Avenue home in 2007.
But if he does, the judge warned, the jury will hear that he admitted to a city detective he was inside the house when the place went up in flames the morning of Sept. 25, immolating John Prall and badly burning the brother’s girlfriend.

Tormu Prall

Mercer County Superior Court Judge Andrew Smithson outlined the risks after defense lawyer Michael Dawson told Assistant Mercer Prosecutor Renee Robeson during a recess.

“My advice is to testify," Dawson said. "It’s the only way he can win.”

Dawson said it without the jury present.

Prall’s predicament brought to light information not previously disclosed by authorities and which, so far, the judge has ruled against having the jury hear.
In a hearing after yesterday’s testimony and dismissal of the jury, Smithson said Prall allegedly told city detectives when caught after 13 months on the run that he was at the house when the pre-dawn blaze started and burned his hands trying to make a rescue.
Until now, as close to the fire as anyone has placed Prall for the jurors is one block down from the flaming house on the corner of Wayne and Calhoun Street. Trash trucker Paul Bethea testified last week that he saw Prall down the street, at New Rose Street outside the city sanitation yard, staring up Calhoun toward his flaming family home at about 6:30 that morning.
In other testimony Monday, it came out from prominent pathologist Dr. Ian Hood of Philadelphia that breathing in fire is what killed John Prall and that the heat was so intense and “uniform” that much of the brother’s skin melted off his bones.
One of the pictures shown was of a baked “sock” of skin from the foot of the victim, who died on his fifth day in the burn unit at Temple University Hospital.
Mercer Detective Gary Wasko also testified that something more like lighter fluid or charcoal starter, not gasoline, was the accelerant used to create the inferno. He said it was put on the outside of the closed door and doorway of John Prall’s bedroom and inside the room on the floor about five feet from the bed.
Bethea and other witnesses last week testified that Tormu Prall repeatedly threatened to kill John Prall after the brother’s argued over household expenses and the suspect was kicked out of the house.
A girlfriend of the suspect said she refused to drive him to buy gasoline and investigators found a container holding fuel in a back room of house near a lighter and some of the flammable lubricant WD-40. But Wasko testified that they didn’t figure into this case.
The prosecution rested yesterday. Tuesday begins the defense in the trial that has reached its third week.

Detective: Accused firebomb killer's hands scarred by burns

Trentonian Staff — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 17:49:53 -0500

A detective said Tormu Prall’s hands were clearly scarred by burns when he was arrested after 13 months on the run from charges he torched the family home on Wayne Avenue, killing his brother.
Lt. Edgar Rios, the detective, said he ordered pictures taken of Prall hands as soon as he saw them on Oct. 21, 2008, more than a year after the fugitive’s alleged arson-murder on Sept. 25, 2007. Jurors were shown the pictures Thursday.

Tormu Prall

By the time of his arrest under a false name in Connecticut, which led to his return to Trenton, investigators had put out a wanted poster on Prall and, as Rios testified, had heard from four witnesses who linked the suspect to the fiery murder of his brother, John Prall, and serious burning of his bedmate Kim Meadows.

Meadows, the mother of John Prall’s children, Tormu Prall’s girlfriend, and Paul Bethea, an acquaintance of them all, have testified that they heard the suspect repeatedly threaten to kill the brother after they argued about household finances.
Defense lawyer Michael Dawson has raised questions about the testimony of them all, and during a recess Thursday, Prall turned to the audience and told The Trentonian to “stop printing lies about me.’’
One of the four plainclothes New Jersey Corrections officers guarding him approached and quietly told him to settle down. Prall loudly accused Mercer County Superior Court Judge Andrew Smithson of trying to railroad him at a hearing earlier this month, but has behaved during the trial.

Prall trial: Victim’s lover bursts into tears on stand

Trentonian Staff — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 09:02:11 -0500

Slain John Prall’s longtime lover broke into tears Wednesday as she testified about seeing his Wayne Avenue house in flames less than 24 hours after the victim’s brother allegedly threatened to kill him and her.

Tormu Prall

Jeneya Richardson, 40, who had three children with the victim, said the blaze occurred soon after she and the kids visited the home until late the night of Jan. 24, 2007. At daybreak the next morning, friend Paul Bethea called and told her the house on Wayne was aflame.
Richardson also testified that, like Bethea on the stand on Tuesday, she heard suspect Tormu Prall make threats on the life of his brother, with whom he had been arguing over household expenses and getting kicked out of the place.
For more trial coverage, see the full story at Trentonian.com.

Witnesses: Prall planned to burn his brother alive

Joe D'Aquila — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 08:53:25 -0500

TRENTON — Two more witnesses added to the circumstantial evidence against suspected brother killer Tormu Prall yesterday, both testifying to hearing him make death threats.

Tormu Prall

Ex-girlfriend Jessie Harley testified that Prall told her “Cain killed Abel” and said he was going to kill his brother, John Prall. She also said she refused to take him to buy gasoline for a plastic gallon container he had.
City sanitation worker Paul Bethea testified that he had known the brothers for 10 years when, on the morning of Jan. 24, 2007, he spotted them from his trash rig arguing face to face outside the bank at East State and North Warren streets.

“It was serious. I started getting nosey and Tormu is like ‘Word is Bond,’"Betea said. "That means you got to get him before he gets you.”

For more on this case, see our story at Trentonian.com.

Victim's girlfriend testifies in Tormu Prall trial

Brian Dzenis — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:03:02 -0500

Kim Meadows, with burns over 40 precent of her body, took the stand Friday morning and began testifying tearfully that Tormu Prall repeatedly threatened to kill his own brother John Prall, who burned to death hours later in a firebombing.
“You’re food," Meadows said the suspected arson killer told John, 40, over and over, explaining that the expression meant “dead" to Assistant Mercer County Prosecutor Lew Korngut.
Meadows was seriously burned when the bedroom she was sharing with John Prall burst into flames the morning of Jan. 25, 2007.

Prosecutors cast Prall as ‘Cain’ in trial opening for 2007 murder

Trentonian Staff — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 08:11:16 -0500

TRENTON — “Cain killed Abel, and I’m going to kill my brother.”

A prosecutor on Thursday accused Tormu Prall of making this vow to a friend hours before he allegedly set fire to the sibling’s house, burning him alive.

Tormu Prall

In the days leading up to the arson-murder on Jan. 25, 2007, Assistant Mercer County Prosecutor Lew Korngut said Tormu repeatedly threatened to kill John Prall for kicking him out of the family home on Trenton’s Wayne Avenue for not helping with the finances.

See more on this story at Trentonian.com.

Prall protests nearly all-white jury to no avail

Trentonian Staff — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 08:20:32 -0500

TRENTON — Tormu Prall’s lawyer played the race card Wednesday when a jury with only one black person was selected for his arson-murder trial.

Tormu Prall

Defense lawyer Michael Dawson called for their dismissal after Mercer County Superior Court Judge Andrew Smithson told the six men and eight women — all but one white — he’d swear them in Thursday morning. Opening arguments are expected to begin afterward.
Dawson said the 13 whites and sole black woman chosen did not represent a jury of the peers of Prall, an ex-con from Trenton’s Wayne Avenue charged with killing his brother John in a firebombing the morning of Sept. 25, 2007.
For more on this story, visit Trentonian.com.

Judge thins jury pool for Prall murder trial

Trentonian Staff — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:31:45 -0500

TRENTON – A third group of 70 prospective jurors is being brought before a Superior Court judge this afternoon to determine how many of them are qualified to face questioning about serving at the trial of suspected brother killer Tormu Prall.

Tormu Prall

From 69 brought in on Monday, Mercer Superior Court Judge Andrew Smithson gleaned 22 people without reasons to be excused from service.
This morning, 23 of 70 didn’t have excuse enough and made the cut.

Smithson said going through another 70 this afternoon should leave enough qualified jurors for himself and the opposing lawyers to question and challenge and still arrive at a panel of 12 and two alternates.
Tormu Prall is accused of murder, aggravated arson and other offense for allegedly firing a firebomb through the bedroom window of his brother, John Prall, the morning of Sept. 25, 2007.

John Prall

The brother died four days later of severe burns. John Prall’s girlfriend suffered burns over 40 percent of her body when the flames engulfed the bed they were sleeping in.