Edwin T. Pratt
Birth date:
December 6, 1930
Death date:
January 26, 1969
Age at Death:
38
About
Edwin T. Pratt was born in Miami and received his bachelor's degree from Clark College and his master's in social work from Atlanta College. Edwin worked in the Urban League of Cleveland, Ohio, and Kansas City, Missouri. He then became the Executive Director of the Seattle Urban League. Edwin was the father of his son Bill and daughter Miriam and he was also married to a woman named Bettye. Pratt is also looked at as an activist in the Civil Rights Movement. He fought for equal education and housing for all people and has a fine arts center named after him.
On the night he died in the city of Shoreline, Washington, Edwin and his family were getting ready for bed on a snowy night when they heard what they thought was a snowball hitting their window. Pratt and his wife Bettye looked outside to check what was going on and noticed two men in their driveway crouched behind his car. Edwin's wife noticed one of the men had a rifle and tried to notify her husband who was going outside to see what was going on, but it was too late as he was shot in the head and died almost instantly. The men escaped in a car and were able to flee the scene without being identified. Witnesses came forward and stated they had seen the two young men in the act, they looked fairly young, and it appeared to be a Buick Skylark that they were driving.
Was justice served?
There are a lot of mysteries that go along with Edwin T. Pratt's death. The two men would never be caught by law enforcement and it was too dark in the family's driveway for his wife Bettye to be able to see what the men looked like. A case was opened where the police went and examined the crime scene, but no trace could be found to be able to tell who the men were. A reward was posted for $10,500 at the time it happened in order to see if anyone had information that could help in the identification of the men and what their motives could have been. However, a year went by without any new information being revealed by the public and they took the offer for a reward down. Since then, there have been people making their own investigations into the murder and other theories made about what could have led to his wrongful death.