ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. >> Just two days after a convicted murderer had been released from prison, he was arrested and charged in the beating death of his 64-year-old mother, authorities said.

Gwendolyn Pratt was found dead around 6:30 a.m. Sunday at a home in Atlantic City, The Press of Atlantic City reported. An autopsy determined that she died from massive blunt injuries to the head, Atlantic County prosecutor Jim McClain said in a statement.

Her 45-year-old son, Steven Pratt, was detained at the scene and charged with murder. He was being held on $1 million bail, and it was not known if he has retained an attorney.

A neighbor of the victim told the newspaper that Pratt’s family threw him a large welcome-home party after he was released from prison. The neighbor, Ruan Tilghman-Pugh, said Pratt had asked a cousin whether he could stay with him after having a disagreement with an aunt with whom he was staying over the weekend.

“He said: ‘Cuz, I need to live with you. Aunt CeCe, she be on me,'” Tilghman-Pugh told the paper.

“It’s so devastating,” Tilghman-Pugh said. “You just never know what people are going through.”

Pratt was 15 when he shot and killed his next-door neighbor, Michael Anderson, in an Atlantic City apartment building in 1984. He was tried as an adult and convicted of first-degree murder in 1986. He received a 30-year prison sentence and was freed on Friday.

According to court records, Pratt and Anderson argued after Pratt and some of his friends refused to leave an apartment hallway where they were noisily hanging out. Pratt came back to Anderson’s apartment with a lead pipe, but Anderson took the pipe away from Pratt and bloodied his face, according to the newspaper.

Pratt then returned with a borrowed handgun and shot Anderson in the face and shoulder. Anderson, who Pratt said acted like a father to him, died days after the shooting.