Man to face trial in girlfriend's death

ON THE MORNING of March 20, Jule Pratt smelled something rotten in the West Philly boarding house where he was living.

"I thought it was the guy from downstairs," he testified Tuesday. "He had body odor."

But it wasn't. It was something worse.

Pratt testified at a preliminary hearing that he later learned from cops who came to the house that morning that there was a dead body on the first floor.

There was a "box spring and piece of plywood over it," Pratt said of the woman's body.

The woman was Geneva Owens, 29, who was staying at the time in the third-floor rear room of the boarding house on Spruce Street near 51st.

Two of Owens' sisters testified Tuesday that Owens had been dating the man who was the landlord of the house - William Pratt, a/k/a William Rucker - for about four or five years.

Authorities contend William Pratt, 44, shot and killed Owens in the third-floor rear bedroom of the house several days before her body was found March 20.

They contend Pratt dragged her body down to the first floor early that March 20 morning, and covered it with the box spring and plywood, intending to move it, but that another person in the house saw it first and called 9-1-1.

Her body was already decomposing when it was found.

Jule Pratt, an uncle of the defendant who was staying in a second-floor room of the boarding house, was called to testify by Assistant District Attorney Gail Fairman.

He testified that on the night of March 19, he saw his nephew, known as "Bam," go upstairs to the third-floor room where he sometimes stayed - at times alone, at times with Owens.

Taylor Owens, 18, one of Owens' sisters, testified that she last saw Geneva on the night of March 8. She said her sister and William Pratt's relationship during that weekend was "tense" and they were arguing.

Erika Owens, 24, another sister, testified that she last spoke to Geneva by phone on March 8.

Both sisters testified that Pratt had expressed concerns that Geneva was seeing someone else.

After the hearing, Municipal Judge Patrick Dugan held Pratt for trial on all charges - murder, abuse of corpse and weapon offenses.

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