The girl told Widmer that when she rebuffed Pruett’s advances, he would go out and lie on the couch and pout.
“He would go to couch and pout if he didn’t get what he wanted. … He’d wait to see if I could come out and look at him and feel sorry for him, but I wouldn’t,” she said.
In a later interview, the younger sister told Widmer that she sometimes woke up and watched “through a peeking hole” in her bunk bed as Pruett molested her sister.
“I’ve been keeping a secret,” the younger girl said in the interview. “Now I want to tell.”
Pruett eventually molested the younger sister as well.
[...]
In 1980, he was charged with taking indecent liberties, but most of the records in that case had been lost.
In 1985, he was arrested following an accusation that he had molested a niece in Arco, Idaho. Pruett was charged and then apparently fled the jurisdiction. A bench warrant for his arrest was issued in 1987. The case was dismissed two years later. No one is sure why.
[...]
Fulbright said Pruett has a long pattern of committing “eerily similar” sexual offenses.
“In my view, over the course of his life, he has set no boundaries when it comes to committing sexual offenses. … Everything about the defendant’s life and conduct in Ravalli County has earned him a 100-year sentence,” Fulbright said.
Fulbright also asked that Pruett be designated a Tier 3 sexual offender.
When Langton asked Pruett if he had anything to say, Pruett replied: “I’m so sorry.”
“Is that all?” Langton asked.
Pruett sniffled and nodded his head.