0:01

Camp Hell Anawaki is a production

0:03

of I Heart Radio. The views and opinions

0:05

expressing this podcast are solely those

0:07

of the author and participants and do not necessarily

0:10

represent those of I Heart Media or

0:12

its employees. Due to discussion of

0:14

traumatic, sexual and violent content,

0:16

listeners, discussion is advised. That

0:20

was the biggest disappointment of our lives.

0:24

The committee decided

0:26

that, yeah, these things are happening. We

0:28

believe you partially, and

0:31

so what we're gonna do is try

0:34

to do some kind of compromise here, because they didn't

0:36

want to close the camp down. The

0:39

deal was, well, Louisa Kennet, boys

0:41

at your home anymore, you really shouldn't do that.

0:43

We're going to make you a different title, but

0:46

otherwise we're gonna leave you alone. And

0:49

so they said you can continue to be the director,

0:51

that you can't be on the campus, and you can't even do

0:54

with the kids, and otherwise

0:57

nothing changed. Two weeks

0:59

later, we understand and he was back out there. Over

1:03

a year after Roger Brenn and Robert Dacastino

1:05

had reported the abuse at Anawaki, a

1:08

deal had been made. No

1:10

criminal charges were filed, not

1:13

even an official investigation by law

1:15

enforcement was had Louis

1:18

Petter had been cleared of all charges

1:20

under the stipulation that he had

1:22

no future contact with the boys at

1:24

Anawaki, the center

1:26

would continue with little to no

1:28

change in its operation. It

1:32

was emotionally painful to me to see

1:35

the lack of concern and

1:37

reaction by the authorities

1:39

who had the duty to do something

1:41

about this. I couldn't

1:43

even mention the name Louis Petter for

1:45

ten years. My experienced

1:48

an Awake was so disillusioning.

1:50

I just wanted to put into my past. I

1:53

never did volunteer work after that in my

1:55

life. Never ever, was

1:57

the end of that. Shortly

2:00

after the hearing, Dagastino received

2:03

a troubling call from the Assistant Attorney

2:05

General who had represented the state,

2:08

John Hinchy.

2:12

He told me he was calling me from outside

2:14

his office a public film. He was afraid to make

2:16

the call from his office, and

2:19

he said, look, they've stopped

2:21

the hearing. He said, yes,

2:23

they're making a deal and

2:26

they're going to get you if they can. That.

2:29

They have decided that they're going to

2:31

try and stop you from taking the George

2:34

Bar. They're going to go after you

2:36

hammer and tongue. They're

2:38

getting a court order to seal the hearing

2:40

documents, and that court

2:43

orders in process. Now, if

2:45

you can get a copy of the hearing and gave me

2:47

the name of the printer and addressed the printer

2:50

you've got a copy of that, This will protect

2:52

you. So

2:55

I said, I had no money.

2:58

I mean I was working for next

3:00

to nothing, was paying tuition, I was

3:02

paying rent sometimes I could, didn't

3:04

have enough mind to eat. I ran a tab at

3:06

a local restaurant because they trusted me that every

3:08

time I get a paycheck, got even them up.

3:11

So I called a friend of mine from Columbia

3:13

College where I graduated, named

3:16

Jerry Miller, who was trust

3:18

baby, and he had lots of money.

3:21

And I said, Jerry, I need

3:24

five dollars and I need it now.

3:27

And I explayed the situation and Jerry

3:29

said, give me your wiring

3:32

instructures to your bank, which I had, and

3:35

he said, I'm going to my bank now and I will

3:37

do the wire now. He

3:39

went, he wired me, the money, went

3:42

into my account, took it out, gave it to

3:44

Rose Higbee, one of my fellow students.

3:46

So Rose was able to get it. So

3:49

I have it here. It is the copy of the

3:51

transcript. Of

3:53

course, there are all sorts of other things that happened.

4:00

Over the past several weeks. We have received

4:02

a number of very serious allegations concerning

4:04

both the facility out there in a number of individuals

4:07

involved with him.

4:10

It was just a form of their therapy. They

4:12

were told to do it, and at the time he was

4:14

fourteen and a half, fifteen years old, they

4:16

didn't know any better. I asked

4:18

him, why are you letting this happen? Why

4:20

are you covering up for Louis Patter. He had no

4:23

answer to that question, involved

4:25

having in this situation paid

4:28

it host little could

4:30

be such a destricable

4:34

place, and did do absolutely

4:37

the contrary of what they

4:39

should have done. I'm

4:41

disturbed a little the fact of something its stealed.

4:43

Water on it, Anna Wicked. I'm

4:46

Josh Stein and this is camp

4:48

hell. In a week around

4:53

the time of the hearing, Rennan Dagastino

4:56

had moved into an apartment together. One

4:58

night, sometime after the hearing had

5:00

concluded, they received an unexpected

5:03

visit from a patient at Anna Waki,

5:06

one of the boys who was working with

5:09

Louie Petter. He came from my apartment

5:12

and Rose Higbee was there and Roger rent,

5:15

and he started telling me all the things

5:17

that we're gonna do to me. One

5:19

of the kids came in and said Dr

5:22

Petter and his family are

5:25

going to hurt you. And I said,

5:27

what are you talking about? And they said, well, they're

5:29

gonna hurt you. And I said, you're

5:32

talking about physically, what

5:34

other way? In every way?

5:38

And we're gonna have sworn testimony that I

5:40

abused the boys. Well,

5:42

I got a little bit angry. The

5:44

guy came in and said, I lied about you,

5:47

and Bob rand him out of the house. Bob

5:50

has a temper. I've only seen it once.

5:53

There was a couch between him and I.

5:56

I jumped over the couch to try

5:58

and grab him, be to crap out of

6:00

him, and he went right through the

6:02

screen door. Have you ever seen

6:05

a rocket take off? If this was faster

6:07

than a rocket, I'd never seen anymo

6:09

operate. Bob has a lot of physical

6:11

skills my own body. He was there,

6:14

and although he didn't hurt the kid, I'm

6:16

amazed that he didn't. He did run

6:18

him out of the house. So we

6:20

were both scared, and I

6:23

was very concerned. Anytime

6:25

I left the home, I would turn the light on outside

6:27

at night, and then I'd watched and wait for about

6:29

ten minutes. I was scared. Sometimes

6:32

I went out the back door and went around

6:34

the house to see if somebody was hiding there. I

6:37

felt paranoid on occasions

6:40

I thought somebody was out to get me. Well,

6:42

we found out, of course, that somebody was

6:44

out to get us, and it was them, and

6:46

they were talking about what

6:49

they were gonna do to us. According to the kids,

6:54

this unwanted visit was not the last

6:56

rend and Dagostino would see for Manawaki.

7:00

Dagostino would later learn that someone

7:02

had attempted to frame him for drug

7:04

possession. There

7:08

was some testimony that Peter had

7:10

ordered drugs to be planted in

7:12

my car. At that time.

7:15

The car I had was a land Rover. So

7:18

the land Rover was somehow locked, which is

7:20

something I never did because I was hoping someone would steal

7:22

the damn thing because it was such a bad car.

7:25

But anyway, for one reason or another, it was locked

7:27

and they couldn't get into the car, so they put

7:29

the drugs in the wheel well. I

7:32

went off roading that weekend

7:34

afterwards and was bumpy road

7:37

and so someplace in the North Georgia Mountains.

7:39

There's this packet of drugs that fell

7:41

out my wheel. Well, we

7:43

understood that someone had placed in Bob's

7:46

land rover some cocaine

7:49

in the spare tire, and

7:51

that we were about to be rated

7:54

for pushing drugs. And of

7:56

course that scared the dickens out of me when I

7:58

heard that show. Really,

8:00

after this incident, authorities

8:02

showed up at the apartment looking for Dagostino.

8:06

The authorities had been tipped off and the

8:08

threat to get Dagastino arrested proved

8:10

true. Well, we

8:12

had a couple of police officers

8:15

come to the house looking for him,

8:18

and we couldn't figure out

8:20

what was going on. It was very unusual. They

8:23

then swad a warrant from my arrest, so I was arrested

8:25

for a soul. I said, I'm just sorry I didn't

8:27

quite get to do the battery. Bob

8:30

recalls his day in court and how the

8:32

judge reacted to his ordeal. I

8:35

told him some of the backstory, but what he was accused

8:38

me of doing. They didn't show up anyway,

8:40

judge says. Kate dismissed Anna

8:44

wake he had managed to slip through the cracks

8:46

of the Georgia legal system. Following

8:48

their hearing, in Petter,

8:51

having stepped down as director, was

8:54

replaced by a Mr. Charles Rampley.

8:57

With Petter not in this role, there

8:59

was nothing that could be charged against the Innawaki

9:01

Foundation. In a letter

9:04

from Chairman Donald Howe to the panel

9:06

following the hearing, he states, quote,

9:09

the Board will of course scrutinize carefully

9:12

and frequently the activities of this establishment,

9:15

so that it seems to me this situation

9:17

has been resolved in a satisfactory

9:19

manner. Shortly after

9:21

this deal was made to keep Petter off campus

9:24

grounds, a new license was issued

9:26

allowing in Awaki to continue as

9:29

a child caring institution. Journalist

9:31

Albert Edgin says this oversight

9:34

and lack of investigation into child abuse

9:37

was a sign of the times back then. It's

9:40

fair to say that the ideas

9:42

about victims and treatment

9:45

and the whole panoplay were

9:48

I wouldn't say primitive, but they certainly weren't

9:50

as developed as they are today. Not

9:52

at the time, there was

9:55

a tendency to not believe

9:58

victims. Much much

10:02

more acute than it is

10:04

now, and it can be acute now,

10:07

but the best way to describe

10:09

it is that in the nineteen sixties

10:11

there was abuse going on, and people knew

10:13

there was abuse going on. Somehow

10:16

they turned their heads to it. But when

10:18

it finally was litigated

10:20

by the state in a

10:23

administrative way, what happened

10:25

was it the victims, the

10:29

targets of the abuse, were

10:31

questioned, their backgrounds

10:33

were brought out against them. These

10:36

were children who were being treated for emotional

10:38

troubles, and yet when they

10:40

made these accusations, their emotional troubles

10:43

were used as evidence that they were lying.

10:46

The difference between then and now

10:48

is that it was almost as if the assumption was

10:51

that they were lying and they had to prove it. There

10:53

was no or very very little

10:56

wiggle room, given very little

10:58

accommodation, very little thought about

11:00

the idea that they may be telling the truth. Albert

11:03

says that during this time, it would

11:05

be hard for an administrator to even wrap

11:08

their heads around the idea that this type

11:10

of abuse between a man and children

11:12

was even capable of happening. So

11:16

think about now, children

11:19

who are being supervised by somebody

11:22

who is just an abusive

11:24

guy who's having relationships

11:27

sexual relationships with young boys.

11:31

In the minds of an administrator of

11:33

a health department in Georgia. He

11:36

can't comprehend that he

11:38

wants to not believe that because

11:41

he's so confused about the

11:44

question of homosexuality

11:46

in the first place, that that doesn't

11:48

compute with that guy. So

11:52

you have a hearing, and you

11:54

have troubled kids and this has happened

11:56

to them, and the guy who has been accused

11:59

says, hey, come

12:01

on, these kids are liars,

12:03

their pathological liars. I've

12:05

got the evidence of it right here in my psychiatric

12:08

files. That's the

12:10

end of that. It's

12:29

hard to understand how something as serious

12:32

as sexual abuse of miners could have slipped

12:34

by local government in the nineteen seventies.

12:37

To give some context as to what led

12:39

to this massive oversight, you

12:41

have to look at what was going on in Georgia politics

12:44

at the time. In seventy,

12:47

the same year of the Anawaki hearing, Jimmy

12:49

Carter made the shift from state senator

12:52

to governor of Georgia. Petter's

12:54

confidant, Jim Parham, who had

12:56

served as the director for de Facts for

12:58

a number of years, would go on

13:00

to play an integral role in Jimmy Carter's

13:02

cabinet. This career opportunity

13:05

for parm would greatly affect the future

13:07

of Anawaki. Jimmy

13:10

Carter ran for governor at Georgia

13:12

on the idea that he was going to reorganize

13:15

government, and when he

13:17

did when he got into the governor's office,

13:19

the biggest part of that job, that

13:21

promise, was to take all the health

13:24

facilities, state health facilities and

13:26

to get him under one big organized umbrella.

13:29

In order to do that, he appointed

13:31

param to figure it out. Parum

13:34

did figure it out. He did a good job and figuring

13:36

it out, but it had to do with stepping on

13:38

a lot of toes along the way. Every

13:40

legislator, every member

13:42

of the House, every member the Senate had

13:44

a stake in it because their health departments

13:47

in every county, their hospitals.

13:50

During Carter's time as Georgia governor,

13:53

the number of government agencies dropped

13:55

from over three hundred to a consolidated

13:57

two overall departments, with

14:00

the heads of each reporting directly to

14:02

the governor. While this

14:04

may have streamlined the local government bureaucracy,

14:07

it may have also left an opening for lack

14:10

of oversight. One

14:12

of the most controversial of these consolidations

14:14

was the newly formed Department of Human

14:16

Resources. It is under this

14:18

department that every health and welfare

14:21

organization in the state was lumped

14:23

together. Shortly after

14:25

the hearing regarding Anawaki's license,

14:28

Jim Parm was put in charge as the director

14:30

of the Department of Family and Children's Services

14:33

or Defacts, the same department

14:35

which held said hearing. A

14:38

year later, the department would be

14:40

absorbed into the aforementioned Department

14:42

of Human Resources, with Parm

14:44

serving as its deputy commissioner. As

14:48

second in command for this expansive

14:50

department, Parum would

14:52

have sway over a key factor, what

14:54

organizations could qualify as

14:56

a licensed medical facility.

15:01

Harm had been instrumental in helping

15:03

Petter get Anawake he accredited

15:05

as a psychiatric hospital. That

15:08

was pivotal for Antawaki because when they were

15:10

accredited as a hospital, they

15:13

became eligible for third party

15:15

insurance payments, and that

15:17

made an Awake a gold

15:19

mine. The

15:22

first correspondence regarding accrediting

15:24

an Awake as a licensed hospital

15:26

appears to be a letter from the Comptroller

15:28

General of Georgia to Lewis Petter from

15:32

two In it, Comptroller

15:34

General Johnny Calledwell refers

15:36

to a meeting with the staff of an Awake in

15:38

review of the treatment center Calledwell

15:41

provides a list of violations of the building

15:44

which go against the requirements of the Safety

15:46

Code for Hospitals. In the

15:48

trip reports sheets sent to the then director

15:50

of Anawaki, James Henry Evans,

15:53

it states the purpose of

15:55

this visit was to determine whether or not this

15:57

treatment center can be licensed as a psyche

16:00

patric hospital. It

16:02

appears doubtful that this can be done under

16:04

current criteria for psychiatric hospitals.

16:07

There is not a building at the site which in any

16:09

way resembles a psychiatric institution.

16:12

It appears to this organization maybe serving

16:15

a very useful purpose in rehabilitating

16:17

wayward, delinquent or emotionally disturbed

16:19

boys, but it is done in a completely

16:22

an institutionalized setting, in the

16:24

relaxed atmosphere of a summer

16:26

camp. This rejection would

16:28

not be the end of Petter's attempt at getting

16:30

this license. In a string

16:32

of memos provided from the Georgia State

16:35

Archives, we see Petter once

16:37

again using his friends in high

16:39

places to help move red tape.

16:46

The documentation that I found that

16:48

showed the relationship between

16:50

Petter and Parham The most

16:53

troubling of that documentation had

16:55

to do with memos that param

16:57

had written to other administrat

17:00

administrators that worked for him at the Department

17:02

of Human Resources at the time, basically

17:05

pushing them to grant this hospital

17:08

license. They had questions about it, and

17:10

he wrote that basically

17:13

without saying so, and they never do this in

17:15

bureaucratic documents, but it was clear

17:17

that the purpose of the document was to tell

17:19

them grant this guy this license. The

17:23

string of memos to which Albert is referring

17:25

to begins innocently enough with

17:27

a letter from a concerned teacher dating

17:29

from November of nine. This

17:33

would begin a domino effect that

17:35

would forever change the future of

17:37

Annawaki. In the letter,

17:40

she writes of a mentally handicapped student

17:42

of hers who had trouble adapting to

17:44

normal school environments but expressed

17:47

an interest in outdoors and camping,

17:49

whom she believed would be a perfect fit for Annawaki.

17:53

The problem was the ever growing

17:55

cost of enrollment in the program.

17:58

The student's family could simply not afford

18:00

it. Over the next

18:02

months would follow it back and forth of letters

18:05

between the administration of an Awaki and

18:07

a number of people from different health organizations

18:11

the state offered to pay the required rate

18:13

for aid to families with dependent children.

18:16

Administrator of Annawaki, James Evans

18:18

response would be that the rate was so inadequate

18:21

that the institution should not be included

18:23

among any list of programs for whom

18:26

these rates were established. In

18:28

other words, it wasn't enough money.

18:31

This was just the opportunity had or needed

18:33

to finally license an Awake as

18:35

a medical facility, and he

18:37

would call on his friend Jim Para to

18:40

help make it happen. In

18:42

a letter from ninety three, PARAM

18:44

inquired at the Division of Mental Health would

18:46

recommend that Anawaki be granted

18:48

a provisional license as a special

18:50

psychiatric hospital and

18:53

if so, what steps would be

18:55

required to obtain said license.

19:00

Their superior he was a deputy director of

19:02

the division of the department. He

19:04

had written this to three bureaucrats

19:07

who were his underlinks this parallel

19:09

documentation that was in the state archives

19:12

that shows that Peder was

19:14

pressuring part to

19:17

accelerate the process. In

19:24

a reply to one of param's inquiries,

19:26

director of the Legal Services Unit

19:29

Rights, assuming the facility

19:31

can convince the various units making

19:33

recommendations to the Quality Control

19:35

Unit. The department presently has

19:37

the legal authority to license the facility

19:40

without any additional legislation. Anawaki

19:44

was soon fast tracked to receive their license

19:46

to operate in the State of Georgia as

19:48

a psychiatric hospital. In

19:51

a memo regarding this matter, it has stated

19:54

the quote, if consideration is

19:56

given to licensing this center, we

19:58

believe it will be necessary to waigh physical

20:01

plant requirements and let the program

20:03

of services be the determining factor.

20:06

Basically, if the State of Georgia

20:08

was going to give Anawaki a license, a

20:11

special exemption would have to be made

20:13

around any building requirements. Shortly

20:16

after this, the Division of Mental

20:18

Health wrote a glowing review of an Awaki

20:21

to the Chief of the Standards and Licensing Unit,

20:24

the department in charge of granting licenses.

20:28

In March of seventy four, Annawake

20:31

was granted a six month provisional license

20:33

to operate as a state mental hospital.

20:36

The special provision was made which ignored

20:38

any violations of the building requirements

20:41

of a medical hospital. Jim

20:43

Parum followed up with a letter to Louis Petter.

20:46

It read, Dear Lewis, just

20:49

a quick note to thank you for the tour. I

20:51

was greatly impressed with your program and the

20:53

attitudes of boys with whom I spoke. You

20:56

and the staff deserve great credit for the job

20:59

you were doing. If I could send more

21:01

state kids, I certainly would.

21:04

They all seem to be doing well again.

21:07

Thanks, keep up the good work as

21:10

ever, Jim.

21:12

Not five years after Louis Petter and

21:14

Anna Wake were put on trial, Jim

21:17

Parum was singing their praises. Harms

21:20

influence would help keep Anna Wake in good

21:22

standing and would later lead to a permanent

21:24

license as a medical facility in the state

21:26

of Georgia. Now and Awake

21:29

could collect third party payments from

21:31

any of their patients medical insurance, essentially

21:34

opening the floodgates to increased premiums

21:37

through which the Petter family stood to make millions.

21:41

Parm in the meantime, would continue working

21:43

his way up the chain of government bodies,

21:45

ultimately leading to his highest ranking

21:47

government he would take just a few years

21:50

later. When

21:52

Carter ran for president, he said he

21:54

was going to reorganize the federal government, and

21:57

he was gonna do it in the same way that he

21:59

had reorganized the state government, which he said

22:01

had been so successful. And when he

22:03

became president, he appointed

22:05

Parham to oversee that

22:07

effort. Harum, who was a

22:10

poor boy who grew up in a cotton

22:12

mill village in the city of Atlanta,

22:14

went all away from the cotton mill villages

22:17

of Atlanta to Washington with Jimmy

22:19

Carter. Anna

22:21

Wake had received their medical license

22:24

and now had one of its biggest proponents

22:26

in the White House. Serving under Jimmy

22:28

Carter's cabinet, it seemed

22:30

nothing was shut down the facility. By

22:33

most accounts, Petter felt he was

22:35

untouchable by the law, and

22:37

at this point he may as well have been.

22:57

As the seventies progressed in a

23:00

Waky became more ingrained in Georgia

23:02

and neighboring state's way of dealing with troubled

23:04

youth, wards of the state

23:06

were now being sent there, and the

23:09

program continued to devolve into

23:11

something much harsher than when it initially

23:13

began. One of the main

23:15

structures on the Innawaki campus mentioned

23:17

in the State Archives licensing documents

23:20

is the E and O Building. This

23:23

was mentioned in an earlier episode as

23:25

it was formerly known among patients as the

23:27

Quiet Room, a form of solitary

23:30

confinement which was meant to break down patients

23:32

upon their arrival or for punishment

23:35

when acting out. Evaluation

23:37

and observation had progressed to being

23:39

one of the cruelest aspects of an awaki,

23:42

one that every patient would be met with immediately

23:45

upon arrival. Here's Mark

23:47

Sublett, an Anawaki survivor. Your

23:54

first arrival, you would go in and meet with

23:56

a case worker lady, and then that's when

23:58

things kind of started

24:01

turning a different way.

24:04

They told me you would have to be processed

24:06

and evaluation, so

24:09

you would go to a place called the

24:11

E. N O Unit. So

24:13

you'd first be led into this little room

24:16

eight by eight. Anyway,

24:18

they take in and tell you you're gonna have to take

24:20

off all your clothes and they're gonna have to

24:22

evaluate you and observe you to make sure

24:25

you're not gonna harm yourself or do anything. For twenty

24:27

four hours, you're removed of your clothes

24:30

and you're giving a green robe just

24:32

like at the hospital, a little bit

24:34

more concealing, but not much.

24:37

And then you're put into a room

24:39

and you're locked up for forty

24:41

eight hours. And

24:44

that's how you're initially brought into

24:47

the anawaking system.

24:50

Here's another survivor Chris McKnight.

24:53

The gentleman buzzed the door, and they buzzed you

24:55

in, and you walk into

24:57

a small fourier with two chi

25:00

airs and a really small round table. The

25:03

room is about ten ft by eight

25:05

ft. Two doors,

25:07

both locked, the glass

25:09

top plexiglass top part of

25:11

the door. So you

25:14

go in there, and the first thing

25:16

you do is they tell you to strip.

25:20

I had just turned nine ten days

25:22

before this. I looked more

25:24

like I was seven. I

25:27

was really confused, and

25:30

I sat down and said no. And

25:32

so the gentleman leaned over and

25:34

in a much harsher voice, said, you need to strip

25:36

naked now, or I'm going to do it for

25:38

you. So I

25:40

started to get pretty scared. I

25:43

was a very small child. So what did I do. I

25:45

started to take off my clothes. I'm

25:48

naked, and they rolled up my

25:50

clothes and they buzzed me through

25:53

the other door with the group leader. And

25:55

I looked to my left and there's

25:58

a day room and

26:00

there's about fifteen teenage

26:03

boys with their clothes on, and

26:06

a couple other older gentleman

26:08

group leaders as it turned out, and

26:11

they're all looking at me, and

26:13

I'm standing there naked, and

26:15

I just start to cry. I

26:18

felt alone many times in my life, but

26:21

this was like I felt like on

26:23

my own alone. This

26:26

was like a whole another kind of level

26:28

of being scared and

26:30

frightened. So

26:34

they walk you through the day room, which is

26:37

room about forty by

26:39

forty ft and you walk

26:41

through it, and you go through another door,

26:44

and immediately to your left is

26:47

a bathroom and they tell

26:49

you have a one minute to take a shower, and

26:53

you take a quick shower, and

26:55

then they give you a robe, a green robe,

26:58

tell you to put it on. You walk

27:01

out of the bathroom. To your

27:03

immediate left is

27:05

a room. They put you in its room

27:07

about twelve ft

27:09

by a eight ft with

27:12

a mattress, a blanket,

27:15

a pillow, and a bible and

27:17

that was it. High ceilings

27:20

with a big plexiglass window at the top,

27:23

and then they locked the door. And

27:26

there you spend twenty four hours and they bring

27:28

you your meals. You

27:30

are in the room by yourself. It's

27:33

very degrading. I mean, I understand

27:35

kind of like they want to break you down to build

27:37

you up, but this was your humiliation.

27:40

This wasn't breaking you down to

27:42

get to the root of maybe your problems

27:44

or your issues, or what's going on in your

27:46

life. This was just straight up humiliation.

27:50

There was no need to parade kids through

27:52

a day room naked to

27:54

enter a program like this. After

28:00

the initial forty eight hours

28:02

of solitary confinement, patients

28:04

were then put in a room that would be shared with anywhere

28:07

from four to six other boys. Talking

28:10

was still not permitted at any time, and

28:12

exercise was very limited. The

28:15

rest of the days were spent in silence,

28:17

and patients had to ask permission for any

28:19

type of movement like going to the restroom.

28:22

If allowed, you were to follow a yellow

28:25

line painted on the floor and not permitted

28:27

to stray from it. Mark

28:29

Butler says that like the rest of the Innawiki

28:31

program, every basic rite,

28:34

even wearing clothes, had to

28:36

be earned. It takes you while

28:38

to earn the privileges of being able

28:41

to wear regular clothes.

28:43

So I don't remember how long that was in

28:46

the road flo, I think

28:48

a couple of weeks. Then they

28:50

allowed me to have clothes and

28:54

pretty much the whole day be

28:57

clean. If

28:59

you're a real good you got to go outside to

29:02

this little it was like a little triangular,

29:04

a little courtroom, half the size

29:07

of this room that you can get a little

29:09

bit of sign and if you're good, every couple

29:11

of days and let you go out there like ten or fifteen

29:13

minutes. The

29:16

amount of time a patient would stay in I

29:19

and OH could vary from weeks to

29:21

months for some patients. Here's

29:23

Stephen, he attended an awake in

29:25

the mid seventies. I

29:28

was probably in the n O for

29:30

a couple of months, which

29:33

was fairly standard. I

29:35

might have been in a hair longer, but

29:38

I think they wanted to get me outside,

29:41

you know that. I don't think they wanted to hold

29:44

me much longer. There's

29:47

Chris McKnight again. So

29:50

ian O for me turned out to be I

29:53

want to say, close to two and a half

29:55

months. Other kids were in their

29:57

shorter other kids were in their long

30:00

or It really depended on you

30:03

accepting your problems. And

30:05

I finally realized that I was just gonna have to go along

30:07

and say what they wanted to hear to get

30:09

out of the You know, I had never

30:12

been in any sort of lock up. I

30:14

mean I had heard from other kids about juvenile

30:17

hall and that was like jail

30:19

to me, and I felt like I was in

30:21

jail. Putting

30:23

a child in solitary confinement could

30:25

wear on them mentally, sometimes

30:27

causing mental breakdowns. I

30:32

had long fingernail shoot my fingernails

30:34

down to like a saw a pattern.

30:37

It was trying to scratch through

30:39

my veins and my arm. I

30:41

just I literally wanted to die. My

30:44

whole life had been taken from me. They

30:46

don't really tell you when you get there and how the program

30:49

works, when you're gonna

30:51

get to go outside, when

30:53

you're gonna see other people. It

30:55

was just a day to day, stay

30:58

behind us line, don't ask questions, and do

31:00

your word. It was pretty

31:03

intense. It's

31:06

a big shock when you first leave home, and of course

31:08

I was only thirteen, so you

31:10

kind of start dawning on what's

31:12

gonna go on, you know, like I'm

31:14

not going back home, and kind

31:17

of start I break down. You have your own moments,

31:19

did you start realizing, start

31:22

figuring out what's happening. I

31:25

remember this one kid who

31:27

went crazy in that twenty four hour confinement

31:30

and I want to punching

31:33

out the little glass window on the door

31:35

and really messing up his hand

31:37

pretty bad, and they had to restrain him.

31:41

My second stay at Anniwaki happened

31:43

to another kid. I witnessed the

31:45

kid just went crazy, but he had been

31:47

an EO for months. And then I found out that he

31:49

had been in email for months after that, and they wound up

31:51

shipping the box to another hospital. He

31:54

never left the you know, and he was an ANNI waking

31:56

for like nine months or so. Catherine

32:00

Perkins is a psychology professor

32:02

who was studied emotionally disturbed behavior

32:04

in children extensively. She

32:07

says this type of treatment can make a situation

32:09

with a troubled team go from bad

32:12

to worse. Kids

32:15

or kids, and most kids need engagement,

32:17

they need human contact, they need more.

32:21

If you are already vulnerable

32:23

for emotional and mental

32:26

health illness, if

32:28

you already have that level of vulnerability

32:31

and then you're subjected to further abuse,

32:34

you're just exacerbating a problem

32:37

that was already there by

32:39

no means is anything good going to come out

32:41

of that. I mean, you're just taking a bad

32:43

situation and making it worse. Fred

32:47

Knox was only a small child when

32:49

he was admitted to an AWAKE. It

32:51

was during this initial processing that

32:53

he realized the type of abuse that

32:56

was about to take place. My

32:58

number was K twelve twenty.

33:01

I was there from August

33:05

to November one.

33:08

I was eleven. I

33:11

was made to take off all my clothes and I

33:13

was told to put on this blue,

33:16

kind of greenish type robe. I

33:18

couldn't wear any underwear. I couldn't

33:22

do anything, and I was having people

33:24

yell fresh meat seeing

33:27

me crying. Tears

33:30

were just falling out of my eyes.

33:32

I didn't know what I was doing. I was made to squat.

33:36

I didn't know if I was going into jail or

33:38

what. I had no idea it

33:42

was. It was a building called the en O. It

33:46

basically had about four different units.

33:48

The men the boys were on one side that were

33:50

kind of split up with the bathroom, the offices

33:53

in the middle, the rooms on the side, and

33:55

the middle was kind of cafeteria,

33:58

two little tiny courtyard, the

34:00

infirmary or clinic, I guess

34:03

as they called it was connected to

34:05

that. You know, you had to go through

34:07

about two or three doors to get

34:09

to the infirmary. There

34:11

were locked doors almost like every

34:15

no phone to call anybody for

34:19

Fred. The abusive antawaki

34:22

was coming from the patients as well. I

34:25

was sexually molested by a student.

34:28

They would do it when other people were supposedly

34:30

sleeping. I mean, you know, it

34:33

was almost kind of like if a counselor

34:35

group later turned his cheek or turned his head

34:37

the other way. You know, Hey, what can I get away

34:39

with? I had that. I guess

34:42

that thought process, that that was a

34:44

normal way of life. Fred

34:48

remembers another patient who he experienced

34:51

E and O with, who would later make

34:53

national news. He

34:55

might have heard his name mentioned, but his name was Stephen

34:58

Anthony Mobley. I

35:00

guess an Awaky messed him up pretty bad. He

35:03

killed a Domino's Pizza

35:06

manager and shot him

35:08

in the back of the head, execution style. Arrested

35:12

in in Gainesville, Georgia,

35:15

Stephen Anthony Mobley became known

35:18

in the crime world as the first defendant

35:20

to use predisposition of genes as

35:22

a defense for murder. He

35:25

was executed on death Row by

35:27

lethal injection. Thinking two

35:29

thousand five, it was Annawak's

35:34

program was becoming psychologically traumatizing

35:37

for patients. The E and O

35:40

was now the first experience of anyone

35:42

in the program, setting the bar for

35:44

what would come later. Since

35:46

Anna Wake now had its medical license,

35:49

it was free to expand its program.

35:51

They would soon begin a girl's treatment center

35:54

and move into other states, even

35:56

other countries. Anna

35:58

Wake was now accepting patients

36:00

each year by the hundreds and making

36:03

a fortune doing so, and

36:05

without any real oversight the damage

36:07

being done to these patients would only

36:10

get worse next

36:16

time. On Camp hell in

36:18

a Week and Awake, he had

36:20

been established for sixty

36:23

years, but by nineteen

36:26

the numbers were

36:28

up above six hundreds.

36:32

It's like two different worlds, you know. There was a

36:34

Aniwaki outside and the competitor

36:36

inside. At that time

36:39

they sent the toughest of

36:41

the students to Florida. There

36:45

was another guy that got bit by a rattlesnake

36:48

when we were cutting out some and trails.

36:51

I think the air lifted them to Tallahassee.

36:55

I saw other kids be abused

36:57

by their peer group, and I

36:59

saw a lot of kids being abused

37:01

by group leaders. I mean

37:03

terribly so. Camp

37:12

hell an Awake was created and

37:14

hosted by Josh Thane, with producer

37:16

Miranda Hawkins and executive producers

37:18

Alex Williams and Matt Frederick. The

37:21

soundtrack was written and performed by Josh

37:23

Thane and Adrian Barry. Archival

37:25

footage provided by ws B and

37:28

CBS News find us on

37:30

Instagram at camp hell pod

37:32

that's c A M p h

37:34

E L l p O D educate

37:37

yourself about the issue of child abuse and

37:40

things that you should look for at the Darkness

37:42

to Light website D two ll dot

37:44

org. That's D the number two

37:47

l dot org. Camp

37:49

hell an Awake is a production of I

37:51

heart Radio. For more podcasts from

37:53

my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio

37:56

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

37:58

you listen to podcasts.