As we all know by now, the child’s grandparents can be some of their favorite people. Because they’re part of the family, but not directly connected like parents, grandparents can often be easier on them and therefore very desirable people to spend time with.
However, when a grandparent abuses their close relationship with a child, as one 55-year-old man did, it can be one of the most disgusting and heinous crimes imaginable.
Mikeal Shane Pruett, of Stevensville, Mont., raped his 11-year-old granddaughter and got her pregnant. To make it even worst he also molested the girl’s younger sister. A judge sentenced him to 200 years on two incest charges.
Ravalli County District Judge Jeffrey Langton said the 55-year-old man had little potential for rehabilitation because he had a history of being a sexual predator.
“You seem to lack any semblance of a conscience,” the judge said.
The girl gave birth in August. She told child welfare authorities that her grandfather had prompted her to say she had a boyfriend who was responsible for her pregnancy.
She didn’t know she was pregnant until a doctor diagnosed her at 32 weeks, she said.
“I didn’t know what pregnant felt like. So I didn’t know,” she told child advocates.
She also said she had seen her grandfather molest her sister at age 9.
Community members are furious and asking how Pruett had been able to become the sole guardian of his two granddaughters, ages 9 and 11, considering his past history of sex crimes. In 1980 Pruett was charged with ‘taking indecent liberties’ and in 1985 he was arrested for molesting a niece in Arco, Idaho.
The 1985 case saw Pruett flee the state, only to have a bench warrant issued for his arrest two years later. Then, suddenly, in 1989 all charges were dropped. It was reported by ravallirepublic.com an investigator who interviewed Pruett’s past victim accused Pruett of molesting “her over a three-year period of time by coming into her bedroom at night and committing sexual acts.”
Pruett was sentenced to one hundred years for each charge of incest.
“The only real question is how much should be suspended,” Ravalli County Attorney Bill Fulbright said. “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.”
Sources: OpposingViews, WTVR-TV, ravallirepublic.com