Women's Silent Shame Unfolds at Reunion
 

The following is used by permission from Park Cities People.
It was published July 1, 1999

Retired Minister Denies Sexually Abusing Children

As they gathered a year ago to relive their childhood adventures in the cultural richness of the African Congo, the students of the old missionary school brought with them mostly happy memories and an eagerness to recall good friends and good times.
And, as well, six of the women who arrived July 10, 1998 for the reunion at the YMCA's Blue Ridge Conference Grounds at Black Mountain NC, carried with them a terrible
secret, a secret each woman thought she alone harbored.

The reunion brought together former students of Central School, a Presbyterian boarding school in the Congo that served grades five through eight.

Back in the 1960's, the six women now in their 40's were children of Presbyterian missionaries. They were pre-teens and pubescents, innocently caught up in the small world of children and their families.

As adults they looked forward to embracing the past and catching up on the lives of their friends.

And as they bought their plane tickets, packed their bags and arranged time off from work, there was no reason to know that the reunion would spawn a storm of controversy, that each of the six would reveal a claim, in each case the same horrible claim, that a kindly, respected and beloved missionary had molested each of them.
That missionary, retired Highland Park Presbyterian Church associate minister Bill Pruitt, now stands accused of sexual misconduct and is being examined by an ecclesiastical investigatory committee.

On the advice of his attorney, S. Michael McColloch, Pruitt has remained silent for months. But Wednesday McColloch revealed an excerpt from a letter written by Pruitt June 17, and sent to his friends and supporters shortly thereafter, according to McColloch in which Pruitt denies allegations against him. "I have been unjustly accused" the letter reads. "Over sixty-four years' service to our Lord Jesus Christ both in Africa and here I have ministered to hundreds of children in many different capacities, as advisor, teacher, comforter, entertainer and friend. I have never fondled or molested or touched a child with any sexual intent. I have never deliberately hurt a child. It was beyond my comprehension that these children would want to cause pain
over what they declare happened 30 or 40 years ago."

According to Dallas attorney Roger Evans, who represents some of the women who have leveled accusations at Pruitt, at least six of the women started talking among themselves at the reunion about Pruitt and his wife, Virginia, who had served as parents in the dormitory where the girls lived.

One by one the women revealed the secret they had kept for more than 30 years: Pruitt, now 88 and living in Dallas, had molested them, they claimed.

The charges -- not legal charges, because the alleged incidents occurred so long ago that criminal charges cannot be pressed -- have created a huge wave of concern within the Highland Park Church and within the Presbyterian denomination.

While church officials have refused to discuss the matter publicly, some have said privately they expect a lawsuit, and angrily accuse at least some of the alleged victims and their families of being motivated by the prospect of a large financial settlement.

"They (the women) filed their court action on June 11, along with a press release, but they haven't sought a hearing to order the depositions," McColloch said.

"By waiting so long its too late to take his (Pruitt's) deposition for the foreseeable future because Rev. Pruitt is in the intensive care unit of a Dallas hospital recovering from major emergency surgery this morning. By filing this action and not following through, it is now apparent that this is a transparent effort to build up some kind of a case in the newspapers to try to pound out a settlement from the church. It's not going to work."

"They know they can't win in the courtroom, so they're trying to put on their case in the newspapers. This raises grave ethical problems. The allegations are bizarre."

The women, says attorney Evans, want justice. They want the church to admit it was negligent on two counts. First, because Pruitt was affiliated with the Highland Park church during at least some of the alleged incidents, and second, Evans claims, because the church was told at least 10 years ago that Pruitt was a sexual predator,
but ignored the warning.

Mission to the Congo

During a span of about eighteen years from 1952 to 1970, missionary schoolteacher John Pritchard knew Bill Pruitt and his wife, Virginia, with whom he worked in the Congo. When Pritchard, then in his mid 20's, made his initial trip to Africa to teach at the Presbyterian school in 1952, the Pruitts were the first people he met. Over the years he got to know them well.

"The missionary family is really and truly a family," said Pritchard. "Pruitt was 'Uncle Bill' to all of the children and to all of us." In 1965, Pritchard was named Field Secretary of the Congo mission, a position he would hold for the next five years. Pruitt worked on the evangelical side of things serving as a minister, while his wife who was fluent in several languages, taught at the school. Pritchard himself had a family by then. He and his wife produced five children, four of who were born in Africa.

One daughter, Pamela, born in 1954, would as an adult become beset by personal problems, marital discord, divorces, and alcohol abuse. Eventually, she would wait 44 years before telling her father that she had been molested by "Uncle Bill."

The Pruitts had children too, sons Bobby and Billy, both of whom suffered from hemophilia, an inherited blood disease. According to Pritchard, hemophilia often caused both boys to experience great pain and with the limited medical resources of the Congo there was only so much relief possible.

Pruitt, he said, learned the art of massage. It helped to relax the boys and make them more comfortable. And somewhere along the line Pruitt also learned something Pritchard called "distractive therapy" essentially sleight of hand, magic tricks and hypnotism, designed to direct the boys' attention away from their pain. Pruitt discovered that his magic had another use. It delighted children of all ages.

"I used to see him do tricks in the villages and watch these villagers go, like 'Oh! How'd he do that?'" Pritchard said. "It was hilarious." Though at the time he was ignorant of his daughter's fear of Pruitt, Pritchard became very aware that fear nevertheless was an unwelcome guest in the mission family.

In 1970, Pritchard said two girls who lived at the school accused Pruitt of "inappropriate stroking." When Pritchard became aware of the complaints, he said he contacted school board members, and together they launched an investigation.

By the end of the inquiry, they believed the girls were telling the truth. But because they did not want to disrupt the school and because the Pruitts' term of service was drawing to a close, no formal action was taken, Pritchard said. Instead, the board told the Pruitts to finish out their term and leave. And he said Pruitt was ordered not to be alone with any of the schoolgirls.

He said the board did not generate any documents regarding it and did not contact anyone in the United States. He didn't even inform the mission's governing body, the United World Mission Board. Today, in retrospect, Pritchard said that was clearly a mistake.

Hypnotism, Massages

In 1969, while still assigned to the Congo, the Pruitts visited Otto and Jane Wetzel and their two children, residents of Highland Park, at the Wetzel family's second home in France.

Thirty years later, one of the Wetzels' daughters, Frances "Liebe" Wetzel would describe in her testimony a dinner attended by her family, the Pruitts and a third guest.

During the course of the meal, Liebe Wetzel said in a statement given to the Presbyterian investigative committee this past May, Pruitt announced his skill as a hypnotist and proceeded to place the third dinner guest in a trance. Liebe said he did this by rubbing the guest's back and shoulders and telling the guest to relax. After dinner, he hypnotized Liebe's brother, convincing him that he was surrounded by wild animals. Pruitt then attempted to hypnotize Liebe. He was not successful, she said, but she played along and pretended to pet a deer that she couldn't actually see.
That night, the Wetzels allowed Pruitt to tuck their children into bed. In Liebe's room, she testified, he began rubbing her back and shoulders and again attempting to hypnotize her. Then he turned her over and began kissing her and touching her in an inappropriate manner. Afterward she said, he told her "This'll be our secret. If you get lonely, come and find me."

Liebe claims he sought her out on numerous occasions throughout the ensuing years. She told her lawyer that, back at home in Dallas, Pruitt, who by then had been reassigned to Highland Park Presbyterian, molested her several times in her home, from 1970 through 1973. He would stop by to visit at times when he knew her parents wouldn't be at home, she told Evans.

He did magic tricks for her, attempted to hypnotize her, and touched her in places that she knew he shouldn't be touching, she told Evans. The abuse ended in 1973, Liebe told Evans, after Alice Carter, the Wetzel family's maid, walked in on him and discovered him with Liebe. Alice Carter made sure Pruitt was never alone with Liebe again. Carter was a formidable presence, Evans said. A large woman with thick arms strong from a lifetime of hard work, she would fold her arms and block Pruitt's path when he came calling, fixing him with a fierce glare that turned him away.

A Woman's Story

The Pruitts left Africa and came to Highland Park in 1970, when Pruitt accepted a position on the pastoral care staff of Highland Park Presbyterian.

In his position, Pruitt was primarily expected to visit shut-ins and patients in hospitals. The bulk of his work involved older people. Children were still a part of the equation though. Pruitt gathered the children around him for story telling during the Sunday morning service each week and he continued to perform magic tricks.

During this time as well, Pruitt allegedly befriended a shy, introverted girl whose parents worked at the church. Now an adult, she claims Pruitt molested her. "I was not very popular and did not have a lot of friends," she said. She spoke with People Newspapers under conditions of anonymity, but also gave a statement to the Presbytery's investigatory committee. "I was a bit of a wallflower and after school, instead of having friends to stay with, I would go hang out at the church."

One sunny day in 1972, when she was 12 or 13 years old, she said, she visited Pruitt in his office at the church. He shut the door. She was sitting in a chair and he moved behind her. He started massaging her shoulders and back, trying to hypnotize her, she said. He was not successful but she sat with her head down, staring at her lap.

She claims he slid his hands inside her shirt. And then someone, she doesn't know who, knocked on the door. "There was no mistaking what he was doing", she said. "It wasn't like, oh, I wonder what he's up to. No, he meant to do what he was doing, and he would talk while he was doing it.

"You could hear him licking his lips. You could hear his voice getting tight and when the knock came at the door, he had to clear his throat, and run around to get behind his desk".

"It was gross. It was yucky. I felt like that and partly because he was so old and I was so young, and so that's all I thought was gross, yuck, yucky. I'll tell you something else-when he was doing it, I was like this with my head down. He could not see that I knew what he was doing. I didn't even want him to know that I knew what he had done."

She remains worried that Pruitt may have molested her on more than just that one occasion but that the memory of those other events was removed from her while she was hypnotized.

"He uses hypnosis," she said, "and the reason that I recall what he did is because he was interrupted. Someone knocked on the door so he was unable to tell me, 'You're not going to remember; this you are not going to talk, you're going to keep our secret.' So therefore I remember, and I would never go to his office alone again."

Now, the woman says she believes the abuse by Pruitt resulted in her sexual dysfunction. Normal adult sexual relationships became highly distasteful to her, she said. For the next 27 years though, she kept the secret, she said. He was "Uncle Bill". He was a friend, she thought. He thought she was special. And she felt guilty for telling on him.

Pruitt in Retirement

Pruitt stayed on at HP Presbyterian until his retirement in 1985, although the church paid for Pruitt's return to the Congo on mission trips from 1976 to 1978.

In 1989 Pruitt had settled into a retirement routine, volunteering at the church, teaching an adult Sunday school class, and helping out at vacation Bible school.
By this time, he was 78 years old, and once again allegations surfaced. This time they came from a prominent Highland Park resident and real estate broker, Allie Beth Allman.

Allman is an aunt of Liebe Wetzel, and though she wouldn't speak with People Newspapers, court documents quote her as saying that Dec. 26, 1989, Allman went to see her personal friend, HP Presbyterian associate pastor, Leland "Mac" Kennedy at his home, and told him about Pruitt's abuse of Liebe.

According to a motion filed in Dallas District Court by Evans that seeks to compel testimony by the Pruitts in the case, Kennedy reportedly contacted Allie Beth Allman later and said, "Pruitt retired and there's not much we can do."

Six months later, Liebe told her attorney, her father, Otto Wetzel, contacted Pruitt directly to discuss the molestation. In response, she said, Pruitt sent a letter saying he was sorry for causing distress but not admitting to any guilt.

Nothing more was heard from Pruitt, from Kennedy, who has since died, or until recently, or from anyone else within the Presbyterian hierarchy.

A Different Time

By 1998, Pritchard, now in his early 70's, had left the mission field and settled in the Atlanta area.

Contacted by phone, Pritchard said he is amazed at how the world has changed. His was a simpler, more innocent era. It wasn't until the 1980's, he said, that word began to trickle out about the serious emotional consequences facing victims of sexual abuse.
But he and the school board members believed that simply separating Pruitt from the opportunity to victimize was an adequate solution. At the time, the Congo mission, along with most of the other Presbyterian missions world wide, was in the midst of a transition.

Before, missions were largely autonomous, cut-off as they were from the rest of the world. The missions-and the missionaries who worked there-had to function on their own without awaiting approval of every decision from some higher body. That could be weeks or even months.

Big decisions went to the missions board, smaller ones, the day-to-day ones remained at the operational level.

"It was a transitional period," Pritchard said. "We were trying to move from autonomy to a place where the local church was more involved."

So Pritchard and the school board decided in 1970 to follow the mission board's new policies and handle the Pruitt situation as a local matter. No one thought to document their decision. No one involved the United World Missions Board at all.

It would be 28 years before his daughter's shocking story would cause him to review his earlier actions. In August 1998, Pamela came to visit him in Atlanta.

She had attended the reunion in North Carolina and had been among the women who discussed Pruitt and the abuse they claimed they suffered from him.

Evans said that at least one member of the group was aware that Pruitt continued to have contact with children through his volunteer work at HP Presbyterian. Six of the women, including Pamela, decided to do something.

Shortly before she left her father's home, Pritchard said, Pamela told him her secret. When she was young, she said, somewhere between the ages of 11 and 13, one of her dorm "parents" had molested her. Not just once, but on several occasions.
She told her father that Pruitt had confined himself to inappropriate touching and massaging her breasts and, once, between her legs. Her account, Pritchard said, included elements of magic and hypnotism. "I felt anger, shock, disbelief, incredulity, and relief," Pritchard said. "I felt relief at finally understanding what was going on in her life. She had so many problems. Part of me was wondering how in the world Uncle Bill could do it. I wanted to ask him, 'How could you do this?' But I guess he didn't understand himself."

After learning that Pamela wasn't the only one that had complained of being abused, Pritchard contacted officials at the United World Missions Board in Louisville. The board, he said, appointed two or three people to look into the charges. He said the missions board was "marvelous" offering to help the women in any way they could.
Later, in December 1998 or January 1999, he said the missions board contacted officials at Grace Presbytery, the regional governing body of the Presbyterian Church.
Going Public

The original six women, Evans said, did not wish to go public with their stories. They were not pursuing criminal charges, and they did not want to file a civil suit for damages. They just wanted to prevent what happened to them from happening to anyone else.

But, as time passed and Pruitt remained in place, Pamela and her father took their story to the press. Soon, Liebe came forward and others followed.

Three of the women, including Liebe, engaged Evans as their attorney.
Grace Presbytery formed a three-member investigatory committee charged with examining the evidence against Pruitt and deciding whether it warrants an ecclesiastical trial. If Pruitt were to be found guilty in such a trial, he could be removed from all of his clerical responsibilities and duties.

As in the state judicial system, there is a system of appeals. If Pruitt is punished by the church court he can still appeal his punishment to a permanent judicial commission of the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), the highest governing body within the denomination.

On June 11, Evans filed in district court in Dallas, a motion to perpetuate testimony, asking permission to question Pruitt and his wife on the record and naming the Rev. Clayton Bell of HP Presbyterian, Bell's church, Grace Presbytery, and the Presbyterian Church (USA) as potential parties to a civil suit.

Evans says there are several unanswered questions. For instance, how could the United World Missions Board and Presbyterian Church (USA) officials-including the then senior pastor at Highland Park Presbyterian and the Grace Presbytery-not have know about the allegations brought against Pruitt in the Congo?

At the time those allegations were made, the senior minister at HP Presbyterian was the Rev. William M. Elliot, Jr., who was a long-time member of the United World Missions Board.

Not only did Elliot see the church grow into the single biggest congregation in the denomination during his 29 year pastorate, but he also served on the missions board for 26 years, chairing it for 10.

Evans believes Elliot must have known about the claims against Pruitt in the Congo. Why, he wonders, would Elliot hire Pruitt to work at HP Presbyterian?

The answer to those questions may have died with Elliot. Bell, who took over as senior minister when Elliot retired in 1973, and who is himself planning to retire later this year, has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Pruitt's alleged misconduct.

"I've been at the church for 26 years and until all of this I've never heard the slightest hint of any impropriety with regard to Bill", Bell told People Newspapers.

Evans said he is "personally aware" of the account of seven alleged victims, though he and others claim the number of complainants has grown to between 10 and 15.
All seven of the accounts, he said, contain references to magic and hypnotism.

"If you could hear this testimony," he said, "you would find compelling evidence in the form of independent corroboration. Certain themes run throughout the accounts of these women. There are common themes and consistency but not an exactitude that would make you suspicious."

If a lawsuit is brought, documents already on file suggest it would attempt to implicate officials of the Presbyterian denomination in a conspiracy to cover up Pruitt's alleged crimes and would also seek reparation for the alleged victims who, Evans said, blame other traumatic events in their lives on their alleged molestation by Pruitt.

Evans said Liebe Wetzel has undergone 15 years of therapy and has been unable to enter a church without breaking down in tears for the at least 20 years. The woman who said she was victimized at HP Presbyterian said the molestation she suffered negatively impacted her first marriage and has affected the way she has raised her daughter, who is now 13.

"I want the church to step forward," she said. "I want the church to support and help others in coming forward and getting help."

"This molestation should not have happened. It should never happen again. And I know he's old now, and I'm very concerned for him actually, and I want him to get help. I want him to get some help."

"You have to remember that he was already a senior citizen when he molested me. It doesn't matter that it was 27 years ago--he's just older and I was a child.

"It doesn't matter what it happened then; he needs to be accountable for what he did. It's not about degrading or humiliating him; it's not about destroying his good work. It's about the truth."

By Ken Raymond
Staff Writer
Notes about the article, "Women's Silent Shame Unfolds at Reunion" by Park Cities
People staff writer, Ken Raymond:

The women who were victims of Bill Pruitt have read this article and have agreed that it accurately describes his abusive behavior towards them. There are some statements that need to be corrected. They do not change the essence of the article but might be helpful to those who are familiar with certain details of these events. An example is that three MK's (missionary kids) attended the reunion at the Blue Ridge Conference Grounds in July, 1998. As they began dealing with their terrible secret, they knew that some other women had suffered Pruitt's abuse but none of them had stepped forward to confront him and the Church.

There were two schools involved in the history of the MKs and Bill Pruitt. The first school was Central School for Missionaries Children (CS) at Lubondai Station in the Kasai Province. This was a boarding School. As far as any of the victims know, Bill Pruitt was never a dorm parent at this school, but lived at the station before 1960. Virginia was a teacher at Central School in her early years as a missionary before she married Bill Pruitt. They were not teachers or dorm parents while the six identified victims attended CS from 1962 to 1968, nor were they stationed at Lubondai during this time . One of the victims recalls that during her years at CS, Pruitt was stationed elsewhere but made frequent trips in his camper, the "Congo Chariot" to Lubondai Station and to the school. He brought the children candy, soft drinks, trinkets and movies that they did not have access to in Post-Independent Congo. He cultivated a relationship with them. They saw him more often during the school year than they saw their own parents.

The second school that was involved was The American School of Kinshasa, TASOK, located in the capitol city, Kinshasa. It was 700 miles from the Presbyterian mission field. TASOK was on or near the American Baptist Mission station but was not considered a school exclusively for missionary children. It offered an American school education in the francophone Congo (Zaire) and was governed by its own Board. Mission Boards (denominations) had hostels where their children were boarded while attending TASOK. The Pruitts were assigned as hostel parents in 1968-69 to the Methodist-Presbyterian Hostel. John Pritchard was the Field Secretary of the Presbyterian Mission in 1968-69. He received the report of the abuse of two of the girls in the Methodist-Presbyterian Hostel. During these years, it was difficult for the children to communicate with their parents. They saw them only three times during the school year; at Christmas, Easter, and summer vacations. They were separated not only by miles, but had no telephone contact and the mail system was very sporadic.
Information clarifying these issues was provided by Becky Washburn Scott, one of the survivors.

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