Chad Pruitt was in court Monday for a preliminary hearing to examine evidence relating to criminal charges brought against him in April. High school teacher Donna Kranz filed criminal charges against Chad for alleged threatening comments he made about her last year. After an investigation by Superintendent Tim McGinnis and other board staff, Chad resigned from his position and finished the rest of his contract doing administrative duties at the board office.
At Monday’s hearing, County Attorney H.B. Quinn called Janay Futrell as his first witness. Futrell is a guidance counselor at the high school and is one of two staff members to have reported the statement from Chad. Quinn asked her if she had heard him make the statement in question in December. She said she had and he asked if, although it might be embarrassing, she would repeat the threat for the record.
“He said, ‘If I had a gun, I would shoot that (expletive) (expletive) Donna Kranz,” Futrell said.
Quinn asked her if she had ever heard Chad make any similar after that and she said she had not. Quinn asked her to tell the circumstances in which Chad said the statement. She said in December, a lot of time and research had gone into choosing a schedule for the next school year and that everyone was under a lot of stress. At one point during the month, she, Chad and French teacher Matthew Lindsey were standing in her office discussing the schedule situation. Futrell said Chad had mentioned his fear that Kranz, who is a teacher representative on the school’s site-based decision-making council, might vote against the scheduling committee’s recommendations. She said she did not consider the statement a threat to Kranz’s safety.
Read about Pruitt's first hearing in The Cadiz Record.
