A St. Clair County judge sent the case of a teenager accused of soliciting support for a terrorist act onto a grand jury as part of a two-hour preliminary hearing in Pell City today.

Judge Alan Furr denied a motion to reduce the $1 million bond for Peyton Pruitt, 18, of Wattsville, who has been held for the past month in St. Clair County Jail.

Witnesses, friends and family members uniformly described Pruitt as a "child" - a teenager with an IQ of 51 who cannot tie his own shoes, soils his clothes, has little verbal skills and lacks the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy.

Yet a St. Clair County investigator testified that Pruitt used the Internet to communicate with what he believed were representatives of the Islamic State and the Pakistani Taliban, and that he told an FBI agent that he provided links to encrypted information on car bombs, pressure cooker bombs and suggested high value targets for acts of terrorism.

Chief Investigator Tommy Dixon testified, reading from an FBI transcript of a four-hour interview on Nov. 13 with Pruitt, that the teenager expressed sympathy with Islam and shared information on how to construct bombs that he obtained from Inspire, an online magazine linked to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. To access the information, Pruitt referred them to a Wicr account, an encrypted instant messaging application.

Dixon said Pruitt had told the FBI "he would be happy" if acts of terrorism were carried out. "He felt it would be understandable," he said. He also suggested targets for terrorism, including the CIA headquarters, police stations and "big events" such as football games, Dixon said. Pruitt sat at a table during the hearing in jail stripes, his hair closely cropped, wearing dark-frame glasses. He said nothing during the hearing, swaying in his chair from side-to-side.

Under repeated questions from Pruitt's attorney Gibson Holladay, Dixon said his testimony came from the FBI transcript and not any first hand evidence. Holladay also questioned the logic of charging Pruitt with soliciting material support for a terrorist act by reading the statute and asking if Pruitt had provided a safe house, or false documents, or money, or transportation to terrorists. Dixon said he had no knowledge of whether he had or hadn't. Prosecutors objected to the questions.

"All you've got is Peyton's statement, right?" Holladay said. "You couldn't tell me if Peyton contacted Santa Claus or a terrorist, can you? Was it a bomb or a recipe for banana pudding? You don't know, do you?"

Dixon said he, District Attorney Richard Minor and others had met with the regional director of the FBI before Nov. 13 to go over "a sizable amount of information" dealing with Pruitt. Authorities said in Pruitt's videotaped statement, he appeared cognizant of what he was talking about.

Furr reviewed a portion of the video of Pruitt's FBI questioning after the hearing. After that, he denied the bond reduction request.

Holladay also called several witnesses testifying to Pruitt's mental competency. A Pell City school worker said Pruitt's IQ had been tested twice when he was five, and probably hadn't changed much since he scored a 51.

Helen Waldrop, a worker with the E.H. Gentry Technical Center in Talladega, said Pruitt had been part of their program until his father withdrew him in May. She said he cannot drive a car, hold down a job or see after his own hygiene. She said he needed constant supervision and was susceptible to suggestion, sometimes saying things that were untrue.

But under questioning from Minor, Waldrop said Pruitt had been written up in April for using a computer to access "the ISIS website."

Pruitt's father Anthony said he withdrew Peyton from Gentry in May but did not learn of the computer incident until his son's arrest. He said he had Peyton under supervision with his daughter at the time of his arrest, and that he had given Peyton a laptop computer for Christmas last year.

He testified he only wants "the truth" for his son, and that he had "lost everything - my home, my land, my job" in trying to protect his son. If he had known about any computer issues, he would have taken action, he said.

"I would have gone to the school, smashed his computer into a billion pieces and grounded him for life," he said.

But he testified his son has no idea what Islam is. Pruitt said when he asked Peyton who Allah is, Peyton replied, "Allah is Jesus in Arabaric."

"But there is no such thing is Arabaric," Anthony Pruitt said.

Dixon said in his testimony that the FBI is still reviewing Pruitt's computer. But several of Minor's questions suggested other evidence. During Waldrop's testimony, Minor asked if she would be surprised to learn Pruitt had used an encrypted website, she said yes.

Reading statements, he asked, "Would it surprise you that he can quote the Koran?" She said yes.

This post was updated at 8:42 p.m. Dec. 22 to reflect Furr's denial of the bond reduction motion.