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A man who pleaded guilty nearly a decade ago in the 2009 triple murders of an emergency room nurse and two teenagers in Miramar is returning to prison just a few years after he was released — now for nearly 70 years.
Kevin Pratt, 47, pleaded guilty in 2017 to second-degree murder and attempted murder charges in the robbery-turned-shooting deaths of Faith Bisasor, her 15-year-old son Davion Bishop and his friend 15-year-old Nekitta Hamilton at Bisasor’s home on Encino Street. Nekitta’s mother, Camile Hamilton, was shot in the head during the home invasion but survived.
Facing a possible death sentence, Pratt was offered a plea agreement and received 10 years in prison, followed by 15 years of probation. He had already served five years in custody by the time he was sentenced and was released from prison in 2021.
The sentence handed down this week comes after Pratt violated the terms of his probation twice since his release in 2021, once in 2022 and most recently in December.
Felonious Florida: The Encino Murders
Listen to the three-part podcast series that investigates the Kevin Pratt case and the murders he was convicted of.
At the hearing in mental health court on Wednesday, Pratt’s probation was revoked and he was sentenced “after an extensive review process” and witness testimony, State Attorney’s Office spokesperson Paula McMahon said in an email to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Hamilton, the lone survivor, always believed that Pratt would someday end up back in prison. She was proven right.
“He’s gonna mess up again, and he’s gonna go back,” she in an interview with the Sun Sentinel on Friday recalled believing. “And it happened. He’s going away. He’s not gonna come back.”
First violation
Pratt first violated his probation in July 2022 when he was arrested in Miami-Dade County on a charge of resisting an officer without violence, court records show.
Pratt, who was homeless at the time, was accused of trespassing, his attorney Joseph Dewey told the Sun Sentinel on Friday.
McMahon said Pratt absconded upon his release from the Miami-Dade County jail on bond, and he was booked into the Broward County jail in January 2023, where he remained until August 2024.
The judge modified Pratt’s probation to mental health probation in order for him to receive treatment after hearing from his defense attorney, McMahon said, and his case was transferred to mental health court.
Shortly after that, Broward Circuit Judge Ari Porth issued an order that required Pratt be released to Camillus House, a homeless service in Miami-Dade County, and live there until further notice. Pratt was ordered to have random drug tests, participate in medical and mental health treatment at the facility and follow other strict requirements.
But Pratt was back in jail not long afterward.
Second violation
Pratt was accused of smoking marijuana and making threats, violating the court’s order and the facility’s rules, McMahon said. He was evicted from Camillus House in September. He was found a month later living on the streets, when the Salvation Army located him and took him into a shelter.
Dewey said Pratt “was doing well” while staying at the Salvation Army shelter but did not get permission from the court to change addresses.
Pratt was arrested this January on a warrant, court records show, and has remained in the Broward County jail since.
Dewey said that a witness from Camillus House testified at Wednesday’s hearing alleging Pratt had threatened him. The judge determined that met the threshold for being a danger to the community, leading to the 69-year sentence.
“We’re disappointed in the outcome. I spoke with Mr. Pratt today, we do plan to appeal,” his attorney said. “The appeal will be filed shortly, but he’s just waiting at the Broward County jail to head down to South Florida Reception for the Department of Corrections,” he said.
Hamilton said since Pratt’s release from prison in 2021, she’s always feeling as if she is reliving the trauma from the day her daughter, her friend and her friend’s son were murdered.
She has undergone numerous surgeries and still has one remaining, she said. She has lost most of her ability to see out of her left eye and will never hear out of her left ear.
“This man leave me in pain. This is something that I never will forget. Every day I get up, I think about Nikki. It’s my only child,” she said. “Sometimes I talk to her like she’s not gone. But nobody knows my pain.”
Plea agreement
Pratt initially was charged with first-degree murder, but prosecutors faced mounting issues with evidence in the case. The Sun Sentinel reported at the time of the plea agreement that Broward Circuit Judge Bernard Bober was expected to soon rule, against the state’s favor, to suppress key pieces of evidence.
“The judge put on the record that it would behoove the state to try and resolve the case,” prosecutor Shari Tate told the Sun Sentinel in 2017. “Based on the anticipated rulings of the court, we met with the families and with the police and all agreed that it was best to get something rather than risk a loss that would see this defendant go free.”
The police investigation that led to Pratt’s arrest two years after the murders was questionable in some ways, the Sun Sentinel previously reported, including that detectives administered a photo lineup to Hamilton that contained only photos of Pratt. After that photo lineup, Hamilton identified Pratt in a live lineup.
Hamilton on Friday said she will never forget the day she identified Pratt in the live lineup and has no doubt he was the intruder who took three lives and tried to take hers. She takes issue with questions about the veracity of her memory after suffering severe injuries.
“As soon as I came out, I never forgot the number he was wearing, number 4. I have brain injury so I’m not gonna remember? How can I forget something like this? A homicide triple murder, and I’m the only survivor,” she said.
She remembers the moment the man wearing a black hoodie approached them outside of Bisasor’s home and demanded money, then led them all inside, she said. His sweat. His smell. How things quickly escalated. Where each of them were in the room where the nightmare unfolded. How she woke up feeling wet from the blood and managed to get to a phone to call for help.
“I remember everything that happened that night,” she said.
The state’s strongest piece of evidence against Pratt was his DNA found on a roll of duct tape that was used to restrain the victims. Tate told the Sun Sentinel previously that prosecutors were confident the evidence they had showed Pratt was responsible.
One of Pratt’s former defense attorneys, Robert Wills, told the Sun Sentinel in 2017 he believed there was “a good chance” they would have won “on reasonable doubt issues” had they gone to trial.
After Pratt was identified as a suspect, he told police he was not the killer and maintained that he was innocent even after pleading guilty.
Hamilton never doubted it was him. She still doesn’t.
“It was Kevin Pratt,” she said.
Information from the Sun Sentinel archives was used in this report.
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