Report Concludes Late HP Minister Molested Girls
Presbyterian Panel Also Finds Allegations Against Other Missionaries
10/01/2002

By Mark Wrolstad / The Dallas Morning News

National Presbyterian officials have uncovered broader allegations of sexual abuse by missionaries while concluding that a late minister at a prominent Highland Park church molested at least two dozen girls and women, mostly in Africa, in his 40-year career.
The denomination confirmed long-standing accusations against the Rev. Bill Pruitt as part of an unprecedented 18-month investigation that doubled the number of Mr. Pruitt's known victims.

A report to be released Tuesday called for the parent church to make significant policy changes aimed at preventing clergy abuse and recommended further inquiries. The 173-page report centered on mission work at boarding schools in Congo during Mr. Pruitt's service there from 1945 to 1978.

But it urged that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) investigate new separate allegations rising from the Congo inquiry that missionaries' children also were sexually and physically abused at schools in Egypt from the 1950s to the 1980s and in Cameroon in the 1960s.

In addition, the Presbyterian investigation by an independent five-member committee concluded that an unnamed Methodist missionary abused children in Congo from 1968 to 1970 and that the United Methodist Church should undertake an investigation of its own.

"We are committed to preventing abuse from happening again," Barbara Renton, chairwoman of the Presbyterian Church's governing council, said in a statement that pledged action on the report. "We are committed to addressing each of the concerns" raised in the "thorough report and recommendations." National officials, including Ms. Renton, declined to comment further until the report's official release Tuesday.
The investigation found that Mr. Pruitt, who died in 1999, had at least 17 victims in Congo and that the abuse continued after he was transferred to Highland Park Presbyterian, from 1970 to 1976, and returned there in 1978 after two years back in Africa. He retired from the Highland Park church in 1985.

"This evidence was more than compelling; it was overwhelming," the report said. "At the close of the investigation, with the puzzle pieces in place, the ... [committee] is left with an inescapable conclusion about which there can be no doubt," that Mr. Pruitt molested 22 females, including three adults, a total of "at least 48 times." Their median age was 12 to 13. Two girls were not believed when they told other missionaries that they had been molested by the kindly man who entertained children with magic tricks and humor.

The report doesn't name victims or even Mr. Pruitt, although supporting documentation and the details of cases make it clear that he is the primary "missionary and male staff member" in the chronicle.

The document concluded that at least four girls and one woman were sexually abused on dates that correspond with Mr. Pruitt's stints as an associate pastor at Highland
Park Presbyterian, one of the largest and most influential congregations in the 2.6
million-member denomination and a leader in mission work.

Accusations consistent

One of the women said she was abused frequently from 1971 to 1974. Of the 22 women who gave testimony to investigators, she was one of several to report fondling that included penetration. Their overall accusations were consistent: that a "trusted and talented man," according to the report, used massage and self-taught hypnosis techniques in a calculating pattern to fondle children.

The other Highland Park incidents happened in the 1970s, and one occurred in 1985. The first alleged molestation in 1946 and the 1985 abuse would form bookends to Mr. Pruitt's long career.

The report said there were probably many more victims.

"For many, if not all, of his victims, his abuse left lifelong injury," the report said.
The document also said Mr. Pruitt's wife, Virginia, "played an active role in concealing the truth about her husband." She died this year at 89.

At Highland Park Presbyterian, the responses included some doubt. "With everybody dead, they can't prove or disprove anything, so from that sense, it's a moot point," said the Rev. Ron Scates, the church's senior pastor, who had not read the report. "We're trying to do whatever we can pastorally for the alleged victims. Those who feel they were abused need to be cared for."

For the women who said they were abused decades ago, the report represented another milestone in a 4-year-old ordeal since the first accusations against Mr. Pruitt resurfaced.

He died at age 88, ending by church law an investigation by the denomination's regional body into the unfolding allegations and disappointing the dozen women who had made accusations by that time. Their cases were first reported by The Dallas Morning News.

The women continued to say they would rather promote truth than sue the church, and the investigation eventually moved to the national church with support from its large missionary division. "My hat is off to the investigating committee," Pamela Pritchard, who was Mr. Pruitt's first accuser in an original group of six, said Monday. "I'm sure they came up against walls that needed to be knocked down along the way. I'm impressed with their recommendations. They're very workable, they're very real, and they can happen. But the Presbyterian Church being what it is, a huge business, my fear is that it'll stall."

National officials have said they don't want that to happen.

All speed vowed

Last week, the executive committee of the church's governing council directed the council and the missionary division to apologize to "the survivors" and tell them "we will work expeditiously to develop or improve ways to prevent abuse in the future."
Another of the women, Becky Washburn Scott, called the policy re-evaluations an encouraging step.

Ms. Pritchard, who lives in Tennessee, criticized Highland Park Presbyterian for not doing enough to locate and help additional victims of Mr. Pruitt, who taught adult Sunday school and did other pastoral work at the church until shortly before his death. "Highland Park has just shut the door," said Ms. Pritchard, 48. "I will go to my grave believing that he harmed other children within the last years of his life."

Dick Dzina, a lay leader at the church, said officials there have no "hard facts" about any supposed abuse but would support other women who come forward. "But we're not in that kind of investigative business, necessarily," he said.


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