in the north Idaho wilderness.
- The story began when two men broke into this home
and held nine people at gunpoint.
- The victim had been shot in the head.
- I was screaming, "My husband's been shot."
- The two suspects then ran into the woods.
- They ran into a tree line where I lost sight of them.
- We'd have to track them on foot.
- That's when I heard gunshots.
[gunshots]
I knew somebody was hit. I could hear the dying breaths.
- I don't-- I don't have one childhood memory
that doesn't have him in it.
It was devastating.
- One of our own had been killed.
- The brothers don't care who they kill
in an effort to escape.
- They needed to be stopped before they killed someone else.
**
- Bonner County is near the northern tip of Idaho.
And if you like being outside, that's the place to be.
- We have a big lake. We have a big ski hill.
So we get a lot of tourists.
- People come to water ski in the summer time
and ski in the winter time,
but it was still the kind of place where people
help out their neighbors.
- You never would have heard of something like this
happening in our community.
- On January 11, 1989, at about 9:30 in the evening,
our dispatch received notice of a possible burglary
in progress at a house just outside town
in a very wooded area.
- There were nine people in the house
including two armed suspects.
- When we arrived, we pulled up in front.
At that time, my partner stayed in the front.
I went around to the back side of the residence.
And we could see lights on inside
and some movement.
[gunshots]
Then, I heard gunshots coming from the residence.
I then heard commotion at the top of the landing
to the porch area,
and I see three individuals,
two of them are dressed in full black
with black face masks.
I can see they had handguns.
I told the individuals to freeze
and put their hands up, and the subjects yelled back
that they had a hostage and if we didn't back off
they would kill the hostage.
I didn't feel it would be safe for the hostage or myself
to open fire on the individuals,
so I take cover.
The suspects then came down the staircase
and ran into a treeline where I lost sight of them.
And so I radioed the dispatch that the suspects had left,
south along Fry Creek, and they did have a hostage
with them at that time.
- While deputies knew that there was a hostage situation
somewhere outside the house,
they still really didn't know what was transpiring inside.
- Upon entry to the residence,
we did a sweep of the house,
make sure there was no additional suspects.
Once we cleared the house,
we begin to talk to a number of people there.
One of the individuals had been shot in the head
and the leg.
However, he was up, talking.
- I was a bloody mess.
They took a notch right out of the forehead.
- It didn't appear to be a life threatening injury
at that time,
so we requested emergency medical services to respond
and began to take information on what had transpired.
- We were just kinda settling in for the night.
I was about four months pregnant at the time.
My mom lived in a large house,
and had taken a trip to California.
So my brother and sister in law
and my nieces and nephews were all staying over
with my husband, Mark, and I on a vacation
while my mom was on her trip.
There was nine of us all together in the house.
- I was 11 years old at the time,
and I was in my bedroom with my cousin reading,
and next thing I know the door opened up.
And I looked up, and there was a guy
dressed in all black with a ski mask,
had a gun out, and urged my cousin and I
to get out in the living room
and lay face down.
We didn't have our front door locked,
and it seemed like this guy was walking right in our house.
- There was a big "thunk" on the floor upstairs.
I told Mark, "That's weird. Wonder what happened."
- So that's when me and my wife went upstairs
to see what was going on.
And when we walked up, a person was standing
at the top of the stairs with this mask on
and a pistol, and bam, the guy hit me
on the back of the head with the pistol, saying,
"Hey, dude, this is for real."
- They moved us all out to the living room,
had us lay on our stomachs,
and then taped us with duct tape.
- They kept threatening to kill everybody in the house.
And I did not think we were gonna survive that night.
- Very, very emotional.
Nobody wants to die laying down.
- We could not tell who they were,
and they were trying to disguise their voices.
- The robbers were going crazy, going, "Where is the safe?
"Where is the safe at?"
- My mom was a business owner,
and people knew her to have money.
And there had been a safe at one point in time,
but it wasn't here anymore.
- I've been with Tammy since I was sixteen years old.
I've never seen a safe in that house.
- I said, "The safe's not here. She doesn't have it anymore.
"She got rid of it."
- This went on for hours, back and forth,
my aunt and my uncle pleading with them
that there's no safe, there's no safe.
- Meanwhile, the robbers didn't see that my niece
crawled back into the bedroom.
- She ended up calling the police.
- A while there after that, one of the robbers yelled,
"The cops are here."
- They totally panicked.
- One of them said, "Grab him,"
meaning my niece's boyfriend, Pete Quigley.
- When they grabbed that hostage
and that guy got that pistol off of me,
that's when I'm like, "No.
"You ain't taking anybody out of this house."
I broke the tape from behind my back,
and I charged both of the robbers.
When I was fighting, that's when I got shot
in the forehead.
[gun shot]
When I went down, he shot again through the leg.
[gun shot]
That's when they grabbed the hostage
and fled out the back door.
- At the same time, my brother and I ran out
of the house into the cop car,
and, um, I was screaming, "My husband's been shot."
- As we began to talk to the people inside,
we were told that there were only two suspects
demanding cash, and they left with a hostage, Pete Quigley.
- Only a few minutes after talking to the occupants
of the house, suddenly a person emerges from the woods.
- Pete Quigley came running back through the woods
and across the lawn and joined us.
- Pete said the two assailants dragged him up into the woods
and across the road.
- They're running south to a gold colored vehicle
in the area.
- Apparently the suspects had parked their car
some distance away from the residents.
- Pete said that when they got up to the car,
one of the assailants said to the other, "Let him go,"
and he took off and ran back to the house.
- Then they got in their car
and headed south on Lignite Road.
- Pete did not have any additional information
about the suspects or their vehicle.
- Deputies started approaching the scene.
One of those was Detective Harvey Thompson
who worked for the Bonner County Sheriff's Office.
He was driving on a road that was basically
a couple miles away from where this location was,
and he is intercepted by this gold Monte Carlo
traveling at a very high rate of speed on a dirt road,
coming at him.
- He felt that likely was the suspects
as it was several hundred yards
from where the shooting took place.
- He immediately flipped
and started chasing this vehicle.
The Monte Carlo picks up speed
and Detective Thompson turns on his overhead lights
and starts a police chase.
- The lights and sirens were activated,
and I joined the pursuit heading northbound.
- The suspect vehicle was headed north
on Highway 95, going towards Sandpoint,
headed towards The Long Bridge.
- Detective Thompson was immediately behind the suspects,
and then myself.
Sandpoint police had set up a road block at the south end
of the Long Bridge, preventing the suspects
from entering it.
As the suspects approached, they slowed down,
saw the roadblock, and then turned,
west onto Lakeshore Drive.
It's a county road.
The road conditions were not good,
snow covered, and so slick.
- Detective Thompson starts to gain on the vehicle
even though they were doing a high rate of speed,
and sees the passenger stick his arm out the window
with a shot gun.
- One of the suspects opened fire
on Detective Thompson
and put a round from the shotgun
through the windshield.
- There was a gold sedan.
It had gone off the road.
- The suspects had left on foot.
- We were following the footprints
through a very heavily wooded area.
- We had no idea if they were going to keep running
- Just after 10:00 PM on January 11th, 1989,
word had spread through Bonner County law enforcement
that two suspects were on the run
after a home invasion
and they were driving a gold Monte Carlo.
- We have no idea who the suspects are.
All we know is they're armed and dangerous.
- As we're pursuing the suspects,
they open fire with a shotgun on Detective Thompson,
who's the lead vehicle in the pursuit.
- These shots has pierced his windshield,
entered into the seat beside him.
- It's clear the suspects don't care who they hurt
or worse, kill, in an effort to escape.
We start backing off, not getting so close
to the vehicle, to not take additional gunfire.
Due to the winding nature of the road,
we lost sight of the suspects,
but then, approximately three quarters of a mile,
we located the vehicle.
- On the lefthand side of the road,
there was a gold sedan, and it had gone off the road,
and was down into the ditch,
and kind of buried into the snow.
- The vehicle was stuck.
We then approached the vehicle with guns drawn.
- No one was around the car. The suspects were not in sight.
There was ammunition and firearms magazines
in that trunk of that car.
- We knew that they were armed with pistols and a shotgun.
- We were able to tell that the suspects
had left on foot.
There were footprints over a snow bank
leading from the vehicle in a northwesterly direction.
- One looks very much like a Sorel boot.
The other looks like a running shoe.
- We call the license plate into dispatch.
We were then advised that the vehicle was registered
to a Joseph Pratt.
- When I found out that the vehicle was registered
to Joseph Pratt, I knew of him.
He was a 29-year-old who had been living in Sandpoint.
We knew Joseph Pratt had a brother named James Pratt,
and that the Pratt brothers had a lengthy criminal history.
- The Pratt brothers had been in trouble their whole life
in one way or another.
- James Pratt was born on May 3rd, 1959 in Michigan,
and Joseph Pratt, his brother, was born two years later.
- We don't know much about either the mother
or the father.
- The brothers grew up poor. Their dad changed jobs often
and was always trying get rich quick schemes.
The brothers traveled around a lot,
and because they were poor, it tightened their bonds,
and they drew closer together.
- James was tall, somewhat stocky,
very confident.
Joseph was also tall, slimmer,
and had kind of a swagger about him.
James was the leader of the two.
Joseph followed his brother's directions.
- In 1975, the boys and their father
went to Idaho in hopes of striking it rich
in gold or silver mining.
- That yielded a lot of hard work,
but very little results.
- After about five years
of unsuccessfully making a go of it,
the Pratt brothers' father left Idaho when James as 21.
- James and Joseph stayed here in Idaho in the area,
Bonner County, after their father left.
- They ended up working in the cedar mill
that my parents worked out.
Joseph married a local woman
by the name of Evelyn, and they had a couple children.
- The Pratt brothers worked together closely,
which fed into their loyalty,
one to the other.
- When the times were good, the money was good,
but by 1980, times started getting tough.
- Jobs were getting very difficult to come by.
It was a really, really difficult time
trying to make a living.
- When they were 24 and 22, the Pratt brothers
had befriended a woman named Gloria
who lived in a sprawling cabin in an area called Mount Katka
near the northern tip of the Idaho panhandle.
- She was notorious in that she had taken in a number
of people who had problems with the law.
- They decided to ask Gloria for a loan,
trying to get enough money to pay rent and eat.
She decided to do them one better and introduced them
to a man who had been staying at the cabin.
This man introduced himself as Jim Namcek
and offered $200 to use their car for a couple days.
The Pratt brothers agreed, and soon became friends
with this interesting stranger.
- Namcek must have trusted the brothers enough
to reveal his real identity.
He was actually Christopher Boyce.
- Christopher was a Soviet spy that had been on the lam.
- He had escaped from a prison in California
where he was serving a 40 year prison sentence.
- Boyce was one of the most wanted spies
in the United States.
The story was profiled
in "The Falcon and the Snowman" movie.
- While he was in prison, Christopher was taught
how to rob banks by some fellow prisoners.
When he got out, he decided he would share his knowledge.
- The Pratt brothers didn't really care
that he was a fugitive.
Boyce offered James Pratt the opportunity
to be his getaway driver.
James thought it sounded exciting
and he needed the money.
- Soon James would bring in his younger brother Joseph
to participate in the robberies.
James and Joseph Pratt would trade off
driving the vehicle.
- They hit banks in Washington, Idaho,
and Montana, and made off with thousands of dollars
almost every time.
- Christopher Boyce taught them the tricks of the trade.
- To make as much money as possible,
Christopher led the Pratt brothers
into riskier crimes.
- Law enforcement at Bonner County
were tracking suspects, and after running
the license plate on the vehicle
that the suspects had ran from,
we began to make some assumptions
that possibly it was James Pratt
and his brother Joseph.
They were known to have been involved in bank robberies
in the past together.
They had shot at least one person,
and they were on foot and armed,
and very dangerous.
- Additional resources were called
to begin tracking the suspects
to overtake them.
- We pulled every resource we could to get these guys
into custody.
- Their footprints were heading in a northwesterly direction,
which would lead towards the Pend Oreille River.
- Which led us to believe that they may be attempting
to cross the river.
- The distance from the road to the river
is about maybe a mile and a half.
The terrain is pretty rough, and a lot of trees.
- There are also a lot of vacation cottages
in the area, so it would be very simple to hide
in numerous places along that stretch.
- At that time we did not have any tracking dogs.
And we would have to track them on foot.
- Me and three other officers were carefully following along
the footprints in the snow in the dark
through a heavily wooded area.
The suspects could be hiding behind any tree, anywhere,
and they could get a position of advantage and ambush us
from any point.
- Every time we come around a corner or a downed tree,
we'd hesitate to make sure that there wasn't anybody there.
We had no idea if they were going to stop
and try to fight it out, or if they were going to
just keep running.
- The tracks ultimately came out on a small road that led us
down to a series of summer rental cabins.
We suspected very highly that they had gone
inside those cabins.
So we formed a plan, and one by one,
we moved through those cabins,
checking each one for entry.
But our suspects weren't inside of them.
Looking at the tracks, we determined that
the footprints had continued in a northwest direction
in that area.
- I knew there was a railroad bridge
in the direction that they were going.
- We were tracking two guys dressed in black carrying guns.
They had been involved in bank robberies
in the past. They're shooting.
There was no doubt that we were dealing with people
who were serious.
- At one point in 1981,
James Pratt began to distrust Christopher Boyce
and became concerned that they weren't
getting their fair share of the proceeds
from the bank robberies.
So he confronted Christopher Boyce
about the money, and Boyce told him
that he wasn't going to give him any more money.
- The Pratt brothers decided they'd had about enough
of this Christopher Boyce.
- In the summer of 1981,
James Pratt read some newspaper articles
about a bounty being offered for Christopher Boyce.
- There was a reward out for several thousands of dollars.
James called the US Marshals number
and said he could lead them to Christopher Boyce.
On August 21st, 1981,
Christopher Boyce was arrested.
in a restaurant in Port Angeles, Washington.
- James and Joseph Pratt
were not only given immunity from prosecution,
for all of their own participation in the robberies,
but they also collected significant rewards monies
for doing so.
- Between 1981 and 1989,
no one really knows what the brothers were doing.
- The brothers had always found a way to survive.
- And no one really knows
how far the Pratt brothers would go.
- At 2:24 AM, the suspect's tracks were found,
heading across, um, a railroad bridge
over by an area called Muskrat Lake.
It was the same Sorel type boot
and a running sneaker.
- Sorel boots would be appropriate for January
with feet of snow on the ground,
but it looked a lot like one of the assailants
was not wearing appropriate clothing for the wintertime.
- We made the decision to cross that railroad bridge.
We had to walk on the railroad ties.
And you could see in between the ties,
down to the river below.
So it was very precarious trying to pay attention
to whether or not our shooters were ahead of us
getting ready to pick us off,
and at the same time
trying not to fall off the bridge
into the river below.
- We knew we had the brothers contained.
- Almost immediately officers are met with gunfire.
[gunshots]
- The brothers were ready to take out anybody
that was going to interfere with their escape.
- In the small town of North Idaho,
we had two suspects
who had cold-bloodedly shot one person
and shot at officers
without any due regard for their life.
We believed they were very likely
James and Joseph Pratt,
two brothers that were known to law enforcement.
They were ready to take out anybody
that was going to interfere with their attempts at escape.
We were tracking these suspects
across the Pend Oreille River on a railroad bridge,
and we didn't know quite what to expect
as we were going across that bridge
to the north side of the river.
- Once we'd safely crossed the bridge,
unfortunately, because it was so dark at that point,
we kinda lost their tracks.
- Around 4:00 AM, a decision was made
to give those of us who were initially tracking them a rest.
- The undersheriff determined
that everybody should back out of there
for the safety of all the officers,
and we would start again in the morning.
- By sunup the next morning, it was really unclear
as to where these two men were at that time.
But the investigation shifts from the south side of the river
to the north side of the river.
And there had been news throughout the community
that there had been this home invasion robbery.
- A lot of people were questioning what was going on.
And the news reporters were all over everything,
all the way to Spokane.
- The story begins shortly before 10 Wednesday night,
when two men broke into this home
just south of Sandpoint,
held nine people at gunpoint, and demanded cash.
The two men got involved in a car chase,
firing bullets at the pursuing deputy.
Their car crashed in a snowbank.
The two suspects then ran off into the woods.
- The sheriff's office
set up an incident command center
to the west of Sandpoint.
Anyone who has a gun and a badge
in North Idaho was assisting.
- We were assigned to teams.
My team consisted of Steve Barbieri,
Ed [indistinct], myself, and Brent Jacobson.
Brent was Forest Service federal law enforcement.
He had specializations and skills in tracking
and a lot of knowledge of the area.
- They're all out in the cold
chasing after two very, very dangerous men
and basically just looking for footprints.
- They had to cross the road at some point
to continue to go west.
So around 3 PM we went up Carr Creek Road
trying to find the section where they had crossed the road.
That's when we saw what we assumed
was one set of footprints
along an access road for a power line.
We stopped the patrol car, and we started to follow
the tracks a little bit.
And then the single set of tracks,
they split.
So we could clearly tell that now there were two people.
- The Pratt brothers were trying
to elude law enforcement.
They walked in each other's track
so it was hard for us to track them.
- The tracks go off into the woods.
They were Sorel boots and tennis shoes.
- So at that point we knew we picked up their track again.
We knew that was them.
We notified everybody
that they were still heading west,
and they were heading toward an area called Smith Creek Road.
- We knew we had 'em contained between Smith Creek
and the next road over, Wrenco Loop,
which is probably not more than 200 yards.
- We positioned officers in a number of different areas.
- The captain told me to come down to Smith Creek Road
and just park at the end,
sit and watch and just be alert,
and any movement whatsoever, to just let them know.
- I sat up on Wrenco Loop
and was coming in from that side.
Steve Barbieri and Brent Jacobson
started to track on a fresh set of tracks
coming off from Smith Creek Road.
As I was heading towards where Barbieri, Jacobson were,
that's when I heard gunshots.
[gunshots]
It was dusk,
so you couldn't see very far ahead of you,
but it was very clear that there was a gun battle going on.
I didn't know who was who,
so I could not engage at that point.
[gunshots]
And then the shooting stopped.
I knew somebody was hit and seriously injured,
because I could hear the dying breaths.
**
- We believed two brothers,
James and Joseph Pratt,
had been on the run in the North Idaho wilderness.
They committed a home invasion robbery
and shot a victim in the head.
[gunshot]
Law enforcement officers were following fresh tracks
that very likely belonged to the two assailants
we were looking for.
- The area where we were tracking
was a very mountainous area,
dense forest,
and it's very difficult
as far as radio traffic is concerned.
And because of that,
officers were unable to communicate.
- Brent Jacobson and Steve Barbieri
were actually following the tracks,
and I was coming in to kind of intercept 'em
when I heard the gunfire.
[gunshots]
Unfortunately, I couldn't help them at that point.
I didn't know who was there.
I didn't know where they were at.
It had gotten so dark at that point
I backtracked out to the road to get help.
- It wasn't all that long before Deputy Barbieri
came out of the woods
and came in front of my patrol car
in the headlight,
and he got into the car,
and all they could say was that they had shot Brent Jacobson.
He didn't know if he was dead,
and he's kind of rambling about what happened.
- Deputy Barbieri told us that he and Brent Jacobson
were tracking through the snow
when suddenly they came upon
these two individuals dressed in black.
The suspects had taken refuge
under a pine tree a little bit below them,
kind of in a dark area.
- They yell out, "Sheriff's office,
show me your hands!"
Almost immediately they are met with gunfire.
[gunshots]
- That's when the initial shots hit Jacobson.
And Barbieri dove for cover.
- Deputy Barbieri returned fire with a shotgun.
He emptied it
and then pulled his handgun.
- When he went to shoot the gun,
it wouldn't fire.
We thought maybe it had frozen.
At that time it was very full dark.
And he and Officer Jacobson were separated.
- Deputy Barbieri calls out to see if Brent is okay.
[gunshots]
- The suspects began shooting at the sound of his voice,
trying to kill him.
So he was not able to locate Brent.
- That's when he made his way back down to Smith Creek
where he met fellow officers.
- And at this point we are very concerned
that Officer Brent Jacobson was seriously injured.
- The officers then immediately make their way
back to the scene.
- At that time the Pratts had left the area.
They were tracked West.
But it was too dark to start following the tracks.
We were shining our flashlights around.
And we saw Jacobson
lying in the snow.
- He was on his back,
dressed in a camouflage type snowsuit
with a rifle laying across his belly.
- The first thing I did was check his pulse.
There was no pulse whatsoever.
I knew that he had died.
- It was determined that the first round
struck Jacobson in the thigh.
He turned to duck for cover,
and Brent was struck in the back
just below the vest.
- You could see that it was a buckshot from a shotgun
that passed through him and up into his chest cavity.
- It appeared that he bled out within minutes.
- Myself and another officer brought Brent out of the woods
in the early evening.
A very solemn moment
and one that I'm not gonna forget.
- Brent "Jake" Jacobson was born in 1947 in Utah.
- His friends all called him "Jake."
He was...
very energetic, very athletic.
He had been a Navy SEAL in the military.
He had transferred to Sandpoint
as a law enforcement officer for the US Forest Service.
Brent was a good friend.
Worked with him on many cases.
- Officers informed Brent Jacobson's family.
- My mom and I were the only ones home.
And...
I remember my mom opening the door...
And gasping and just crumpling to the ground instantly.
And it was just a blur after that.
It was just a lot of crying.
It was one of the hardest moments of my life.
Jake was my stepdad, technically,
but he was my dad.
I don't-I don't have one childhood memory
that doesn't have him in it.
And to have Jake taken away from me and my family,
it was heartbreaking.
Devastating.
- A call came in to dispatch.
- I was dispatcher
in the Bonner County Sheriff's Office
when I received a phone call from Max Singleton.
- Max confirmed at that time that our suspects,
Joe and James Pratt, were at his house.
- Max Singleton said that the Pratt brothers
came upon his house accidentally.
- The Pratt brothers had barricaded
themselves in his home
on Wrenco Loop to the west of our location.
They said they were intending to give up.
- It surprised us.
- We didn't know quite what the motive was.
Was it possible that this is all some sort of a ruse
- In the evening of January 12th,
there was a massive manhunt going on
in Bonner county for two individuals
who had murdered a police officer.
- Around 6 PM, the Bonner County Sheriff's Department
received a call from a local by the name of Max Singleton
who tod us that the Pratt brothers
were at his house, and they wanted to surrender.
- We were completely on guard
for anything to go wrong.
- What was left of my team
moved to the Singleton residence,
and we set up a perimeter on the outside.
Max Singleton was helping to negotiate
with the Pratt brothers to get out of the house.
There was a takedown team that was set up.
- I took a position behind a large pine tree,
using that as cover.
I had my weapon drawn.
I was fully prepared to engage in a firefight
with these guys.
- The suspects stated that they had put their weapons outside
and were unarmed.
They were told that if they came outside
with their hands up, empty,
they would not be shot.
- The first one that came out was James Pratt.
I was able to take him into custody.
And I can remember him screaming in pain
and yelling that he'd been hit.
Mr. Pratt had received
a pretty serious wound to his leg.
Clearly what motivated them to surrender
was the fact that James had been injured and needed help.
Joseph Pratt was then brought out of the house,
uh, where other officers took him into custody.
- They both looked tired.
They'd been tracked for quite some period of time.
- There were multiple weapons, handguns and a shotgun
and several kinds of rounds of shotgun ammunition.
Those were all seized,
and the injured Pratt brother was taken to the hospital.
- It was a relief for law enforcement safety
that the Pratt brothers were in custody,
but the fact that one of our own
had been killed by these men was heartbreaking.
- I mean, you're-you're happy that you caught him.
But you always wonder, was it worth the-the cost?
- The two brothers did not speak to the police officers.
And they certainly did not show any type of remorse.
After the brothers are safely taken into custody,
it became time to kind of figure out and piece together
what had transpired.
- The next morning at daylight,
the victims of the home invasion were further interviewed,
and we learned one of the suspects
knew the homeowner.
- Joe Pratt had worked off and on for my mom,
Lee Turner.
He had done some odd jobs around her house for her.
- Joe Pratt came to believe
that Lee had a lot of money in safes
that she put inside her house.
Joe and James decided
that they would go to Lee Turner's house
and rob her.
And that's how this went down.
Joseph and James Pratt were each charged
with one count of 1st degree murder
on a law enforcement officer,
two counts of second degree kidnapping,
one count of robbery,
four counts of aggravated assault,
and one count of 1st degree burglary.
- Both James and Joseph Pratt were to be
tried in a single trial.
When I met the brothers,
James strikes you as the type of person
who has little affinity or remorse.
Joseph on the other hand,
he went along with his brother's lead.
The Pratt brothers were loyal to each other,
extremely.
James told me that his brother
was literally freezing to death.
Joseph didn't have proper footwear on.
He had tennis shoes.
James felt the need to protect Joseph.
- On May 9th, 1989,
the trial against James and Joseph Pratt started.
- I remember
the Pratt brothers smirked quite often at the family
when they would look over their shoulders
during the trial.
- After a month-long trial,
on June 8th, 1989,
the jury found the Pratt brothers guilty
of 1st degree murder and 16 other charges,
including kidnapping and 1st degree assault.
Joseph Pratt was sentenced to life in prison.
James Pratt was sentenced to death.
- It was determined through ballistics
that Brent Jacobson's wound came from one of the rounds
from James Pratt's 12 gauge shotgun.
- James is the one that fired the fatal shot.
And therefore he was actually deserving
of the death penalty.
- James Pratt's sentence was later overturned in 1993.
- The Idaho Supreme Court determined
the death penalty was excessive.
- The sentence was changed to life in prison.
- In April, 2021,
I learned that James and Joseph Pratt
had both been granted parole from their sentences.
- We have to suffer still for the rest of our life
and they now are out free,
and it's not right.
We have a permanent sentence
of not having Jake in our lives forever.
- We're here to dedicate this ground
to the memory of Brent Jacobson as you all know.
- The US Forest Service
renamed a mountain east of Sandpoint
"Jake's Mountain" in his honor.
- They put up a memorial tribute to him,
with a plaque.
If Jake were in front of me right now...
I would thank him for his service
and his dedication,
not only to his family, but our community
in his career.
And I'd tell him I love him.