Trial Begins In Pace Student's Electrical Cord Slay
NEW YORK (WCBS 880/AP) -- The trial has just begun in the slaying of a Pace University student killed over Labor Day weekend two years ago.
Kevin Pravia, a 19-year-old honors student from Peru, Massachusetts, was found dead in his Manhattan apartment with an electrical cord wrapped around his neck in August of 2008.
Pravia had gone out drinking with friends then picked up a stranger outside a gay club near Union Square, he took him home to the apartment he had just rented on 15th Street, WCBS 880's Irene Cornell reported.
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WCBS 880 Reporter Irene Cornell with details on the trial
Pravia was so drunk, he quickly fell asleep in his own bed, leaving the defendant 22-year-old Jeromie Cancel roaming the apartment looking for things to steal. Cancel said he took electronics, then decided to kill Pravia because of boredom.
Cancel told police "I had the stuff, I could have walked out, but I had no place to go, I was bored, so I decided to kill him." He admitted to taking a wire from behind the television set and slowing strangling the struggling Pravia, while he watched a horror movie.
Prosecutors said Cancel took advantage of Pravia's drunken misjudgment, but a defense lawyer told jurors they might see the case differently after hearing about Cancel's deep psychological problems.
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