Pruitt sentenced to seven years
Bill Stevenson/Columbia Basin Herald<br> Brandon Timothy Pruitt, 17, Othello, enters Grant County Juvenile Court Tuesday to hear a discussion on his bail being set at $100,000 for charges of first degree murder of Michael Mallon.
EPHRATA — More than five years after an elderly Soap Lake man was killed and then buried on his property, Brandon T. Pruitt, 19, Othello, was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison.
Pruitt pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the first degree in Grant County Superior Court.
Douglas County Superior Court Judge John Hotchkiss sentenced him after he entered his guilty plea on Monday.
Pruitt, along with his brother, Dustin Abrams, 25, Moses Lake, went to Michael Mallon’s house in Soap Lake on March 26, 2004, after Mallon told the men he wouldn’t be in that day, according to a Grant County sheriff’s report.
Pruitt told police he saw his brother steal coins out of a car, then go around the side of the house and come back with guns. Abrams later told a private investigator, he killed Mallon because the man found him robbing the house, according to the police report.
Witnesses reported hearing Abrams say, “I would like to have Mike’s rifles. I could knock Mallon on the head and take them,” according to court records.
Abrams also provided the investigator with a map to where Mallon’s body was buried near his Willow Lakes home, about eight miles north of Soap Lake, eight months after he’d gone missing.
Police found the stolen guns and coins at several locations including Abrams’ house, a car sold by Abrams and on Abrams’ grandfather’s property.
Pruitt, who was 14 when the murder happened, was originally charged in juvenile court, the charges were later transferred to superior court.