Speaker 1: Campell an Awake is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressing this podcast are solely those
Speaker 1: of the author and participants and do not necessarily represent
Speaker 1: those of I Heeart Media or its employees. Due to
Speaker 1: discussion of traumatic, sexual and violent content, listeners discussion is advised.
Speaker 1: Staff at Camp and Awake would not talk about the
Speaker 1: g b I investigation into possible financial irregularities and alleged
Speaker 1: sexual misconduct between youngsters and camp counselors. The more than
Speaker 1: twelve acre camp is home to around one hundred children.
Speaker 1: Neighbors living here Camp an Awake say they are concerned
Speaker 1: about a lack of supervision at the camp. Two years ago,
Speaker 1: a thirteen year old boy left the facility allegedly stole
Speaker 1: a gun and while attempting to steal a car, shot
Speaker 1: and kill the homeowner. By six, word had started to
Speaker 1: get around that some inappropriate actions were being taken by
Speaker 1: the staff at an Awake. Following Sarah Tillis's realization that
Speaker 1: there may have been sexual abuse taking place on the
Speaker 1: annual Mexican co trips, a report was made to Social Services.
Speaker 1: In June, social worker Pat Griffin laid out her concerns
Speaker 1: and a correspondence to Brett Baxley and Jim Wamack, two
Speaker 1: heads of management at Anawaki. The concerns include secret packs,
Speaker 1: that nothing would be repeated which happened on the Mexico trip,
Speaker 1: that adolescents were encouraged to go into quote whorehouses, and
Speaker 1: that homosexual acts had occurred between a staff member and
Speaker 1: an adolescent. An internal investigation of Annawaki would follow, conducted
Speaker 1: by Director of Therapeutic Services Jim Womack, himself a known
Speaker 1: abuser in the organization. In a letter to the then
Speaker 1: head administrator, James Henry Evans, Walmack reports quote the supervisors
Speaker 1: denied any knowledge of staff encouraging the students to engage
Speaker 1: in any of the activities mentioned. There is no corroborating
Speaker 1: evidence from any of the interviews of the people who
Speaker 1: were directly involved with the Mexico trip. Continued discussion of
Speaker 1: the memo appears without credible value and constructive purpose. Not
Speaker 1: only was the board of directors becoming suspicious of Petter
Speaker 1: and other counselor's actions with the patients, it's financial records
Speaker 1: were narrow under scrutiny as well. Here's journalist Albert Edgin
Speaker 1: there are these money issues that they're concerned about, and
Speaker 1: they've been rubber stamping pretty much. The board has been
Speaker 1: rubber stamping everything. He suggested. Now they've lost trust, so
Speaker 1: how do you deal with that? And we're beginning to think, well,
Speaker 1: with Pedigo dead, Pedigo was a guy that Petter was
Speaker 1: able to control. Let's just stop and see how much
Speaker 1: he was controlled. That was the important thing in their
Speaker 1: minds that they were at a at a juncture in
Speaker 1: an administrative time for Antawaiki where they could get control
Speaker 1: of things that they were frust traded that they didn't
Speaker 1: have control of before. So they began to look at things,
Speaker 1: but they wanted to look at things. At the same time,
Speaker 1: there was talk of sale of Anna Wake. There was
Speaker 1: some rumors about sale and conversation about sale, and conversation
Speaker 1: had begun about maybe Petter and his wife should retire
Speaker 1: or resign. Further in fighting between the upper management of
Speaker 1: an Awake was also going on at this time. This
Speaker 1: came to a head following the funeral of Chief financial
Speaker 1: Officer Bud Pedigo, a meeting between Sarah Tillis and two
Speaker 1: other heads of an Awaki, James Henry Evans and Bud's
Speaker 1: wife and Petter's daughter, Marcia Pedigo, showed some very troubling
Speaker 1: information regarding Bud's death and what occurred shortly before it.
Speaker 1: Just before his fatal car accident, Petter had directed Bud
Speaker 1: Pedigo to take out a key man insurance policy. This
Speaker 1: is like a life insurance policy, except that it pays
Speaker 1: out the company the person worked for before their death.
Speaker 1: This policy had earned in Awake Incorporated a sum of
Speaker 1: over three hundred thousand dollars after Bud's death, leaving his
Speaker 1: wife Marcia only seventy thousand dollars. This was not the
Speaker 1: only issue Upper Management that in Awake was concerned about.
Speaker 1: During this meeting, it was also discussed that Petter was
Speaker 1: still planning to sell in Awake. Petter's son in law
Speaker 1: James Henry Evans and Jim Womack had put in a
Speaker 1: bid to buy the organization, and we're in the process
Speaker 1: of getting their finances together. Louis Petter decided against the sale,
Speaker 1: further aggravating the family involved in Upper Management. At an
Speaker 1: annual Fellowship meeting in six Petter surprised the staff and
Speaker 1: board of directors by announcing a new head of management.
Speaker 1: Just under Petter. One Fred Fulmer Evans was outraged after
Speaker 1: realizing he would not be able to buy in Awake
Speaker 1: and left the gathering early. The board and upper management
Speaker 1: were now beginning to become weary of Petter themselves. In short,
Speaker 1: they wanted Petter out. Their trust in him began to
Speaker 1: erode seriously with that incident in the van in Mexico,
Speaker 1: and they began rethinking some other things that they had
Speaker 1: ignored in the past. If you look at Sarah's testimony,
Speaker 1: she says several times she regrets having been controlled. And
Speaker 1: it's not just by Petter, I mean Petter, it's Sarah
Speaker 1: tillus Is sort of examining her whole life. At one point,
Speaker 1: she says, I've been controlled by white men for too long.
Speaker 1: Sarah Tillis is having an epiphany that starts in eighty four,
Speaker 1: and by the time Pedigo dies, Sarah Tillis's epiphany is
Speaker 1: the death knell for Lewis Petter's abuse. Over the past
Speaker 1: several weeks, we have received member of very serious allegations
Speaker 1: concerning both the facility out there in a number of
Speaker 1: individuals involved with him. It was just a form of
Speaker 1: their therapy. They were told to do it, and at
Speaker 1: the time he was fourteen and a half, fifteen years old,
Speaker 1: they didn't know any better. I asked him, why are
Speaker 1: you letting this happen? Why are you covering up for
Speaker 1: Louis Petcker. He had no answer to that question. Involved
Speaker 1: having a new sitution, paid it little such shock district way,
Speaker 1: and to do absolutely the contrary of what they should
Speaker 1: have done. I'm disturbed over the fact of something and
Speaker 1: he's still going on it. An I wake you. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Stean, and this is camp Hell and awake. Key
Speaker 1: members of an Awaki's upper management were beginning to see
Speaker 1: Louis Petter in a new light and starting to connect
Speaker 1: the dots of the suspicious activity they had seen before.
Speaker 1: Sarah Tillis would attempt to have Petter removed at a
Speaker 1: Board of Directors meeting, but Petter had another trick up
Speaker 1: his sleeve. Yet again, through a technicality of the Board
Speaker 1: of Directors by laws, Petter made it known that Sarah
Speaker 1: Tillis was in fact not even a part of the
Speaker 1: board anymore. Tillis would be unable to voice her concern
Speaker 1: at the board meeting, and it infuriated her. Sarah Tillis
Speaker 1: wanted to remove Petter, believing that they were still potential
Speaker 1: for anawaki. She would soon learn something that would change that.
Speaker 1: Sarah's purpose all along was to get it back into shape.
Speaker 1: She believed in the mission, the fundamental mission of the place,
Speaker 1: because her sons had been treated there. Then one of
Speaker 1: her sons told him that he too had been abused
Speaker 1: sexually by Louis Petter, and I changed her life. That
Speaker 1: changed her goals. At that point. Her goal was to
Speaker 1: get rid of Petter and to get him in jail.
Speaker 1: By June of six, Tillis was keeping daily notes of
Speaker 1: her actions regarding an awake. She had attempted to have
Speaker 1: Petter removed from the board, only to find that he
Speaker 1: had in fact had her and another colleague removed first.
Speaker 1: She then decided to take matters even further into her
Speaker 1: own hands, meeting with the law firm to discuss trying
Speaker 1: to conduct her own investigation into an awake concerning misuse
Speaker 1: of corporate funds, abuse and sexual abuse happening. Tillis writes
Speaker 1: that she was recommended to hire a former FBI agent
Speaker 1: to conduct a private investigation for the cost of up
Speaker 1: to one hundred thousand dollars. Jim Parum was included in
Speaker 1: this meeting as well. Back at the helm of Annawake's
Speaker 1: board of directors, after his stints serving in Jimmy Carter's
Speaker 1: presidential cabinet, Parum stated that an in house committee would
Speaker 1: clean up all of the problems at Anawaki. Sarah wrote
Speaker 1: that as she and her husband left the office, Param's
Speaker 1: last words to her were this quote, Sarah, it will
Speaker 1: never be cleaned up. It will be a whitewash you
Speaker 1: watch and see. In July, Sarah Tillis went to Jim
Speaker 1: Parham again to show him some irregularity she had found
Speaker 1: in the company's finances. A memo from Param covering the
Speaker 1: concerns mentions a laundry list of illegal actions, including embezzlement
Speaker 1: of funds from Petter regarding his pension, a new accountant
Speaker 1: keeping financial records outside of the state for quote safe keeping,
Speaker 1: shady real estate deals with questionable leasing for Anawak's properties,
Speaker 1: a salary in the form of a scholarship from Annawaki
Speaker 1: given to Petter's daughter Dana while she attended the University
Speaker 1: of Georgia, and a large amount of lost or stolen
Speaker 1: money from last year's Mexico trip. Totaling twenty dollars in ash,
Speaker 1: as well as over twelve thousand dollars of expended jewelry.
Speaker 1: Harm was informed or at least aware of the concern
Speaker 1: of sexual abuse taking place at Anawaki as well. In
Speaker 1: a letter from PARAM to one of an Awake's lawyers
Speaker 1: from July six, he asks about in Awake's liability in
Speaker 1: the case of any child abuse or molestation taking place.
Speaker 1: There is no mention of concern for the victims, only
Speaker 1: making sure to keep the board safe from any further litigation.
Speaker 1: In a board meeting that same month, it was decided
Speaker 1: that Lewis Petter and his wife Mabel, would leave in
Speaker 1: Awake on a sabbatical, still receiving their monthly salaries until
Speaker 1: the end of the year. After that Petter would officially
Speaker 1: retire from his role. The writing was on the wall
Speaker 1: and it was time for Petter to distance himself from
Speaker 1: the organization. The Board of an Awake was attempting to
Speaker 1: address the issues in house as best they could, but
Speaker 1: it was too late. Local law enforcement had already begun
Speaker 1: their own investigation. While Jim Palm is documented as having
Speaker 1: known of the allegations of child abuse as early as July.
Speaker 1: Nothing was reported to local police by the Anawaki organization.
Speaker 1: PALM had, however, relaid this information to a number of
Speaker 1: attorneys under its employment. The district attorney for Douglasville at
Speaker 1: the time, Frank Wynn, says he had his suspicions about
Speaker 1: in Awake for some time. Once Sarah Tillis decided to
Speaker 1: bring her story to him, he says, Sheriff Earl Lee
Speaker 1: began to investigate and whose scope would be far greater
Speaker 1: than they originally realized. After Earl started talking to whoever
Speaker 1: the ones were that he interviewed to start with, it
Speaker 1: was like a snowball going downhill. Each one of them,
Speaker 1: it seemed, would have other people's names that they would
Speaker 1: suggest or tell Earl he needed to talk to, and
Speaker 1: it became overwhelming a lot quicker than either one of
Speaker 1: us thought as far as people to talk to. Now
Speaker 1: he would try to talk to some of them who
Speaker 1: would not talk to him. And this is purely an example,
Speaker 1: without no without remembering anything specific, he would talk to
Speaker 1: one of the kids. They would give him a list
Speaker 1: of anywhere from two to six or seven other people
Speaker 1: to talk to. Maybe only two of the would talk
Speaker 1: to Earle and the others wouldn't, but the two that
Speaker 1: would talk would say yes, and it was like they
Speaker 1: were finally getting something off their chest. And one of
Speaker 1: them would give Earl a list of another five names,
Speaker 1: and again he would have five more that there would
Speaker 1: be hit or missed with which ones would talk to him.
Speaker 1: But as that list exponentially would grow, some of the
Speaker 1: same names would come up more than once. So somebody
Speaker 1: that might not have talked to Earl to begin with,
Speaker 1: Earl would go back to him and let them know, look,
Speaker 1: you're not alone, and we know from three other people
Speaker 1: that you were somebody who was in the the right
Speaker 1: situation it looked like, and and eventually there were several
Speaker 1: people that wouldn't talk to Earl that later did. Frank
Speaker 1: said that for Earl Lee, it didn't matter what time
Speaker 1: of day or night. If someone wanted to come forward
Speaker 1: and speak, he would be there to listen. I won't
Speaker 1: ever forget Earl getting a phone call from somebody out
Speaker 1: of state and said they wanted to talk to him,
Speaker 1: and Earl basically said, you know, I'll talk to you
Speaker 1: whenever you can get here, and he said, well, I
Speaker 1: can come now, and somewhere around two three o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning. Earl had one of his deputies, Ryani Shattucks,
Speaker 1: was the one that usually got to do it. Earl
Speaker 1: started with the old HS type of camera video in
Speaker 1: the interviews, and so three o'clock in the morning he's
Speaker 1: got Ryane Shattucks out of bed at the office, you know,
Speaker 1: making him video his interview of this kid that just
Speaker 1: gotten in touch with him and said he wanted to talk.
Speaker 1: Didn't bother Earl to get up at three o'clock, two
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning and go meet a kid. This
Speaker 1: was important to talk to this kid. He needed to talk,
Speaker 1: and Earl was ready to listen to him. It was
Speaker 1: not long after local law enforcement had begun their initial
Speaker 1: investigation until the Georgia Bureau of Investigations began getting involved
Speaker 1: with the case against an Awaki. I can tell you
Speaker 1: it's snowballed fairly quickly, and it would have been within
Speaker 1: when I say, a short period of time. I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, just a few months, and it was more
Speaker 1: a matter of manpower issues than anything. Antawaki was now
Speaker 1: in damage control mode. A letter from Antawaki's attorney, Baxter Davis,
Speaker 1: was sent to all employees of the organization, reminding them
Speaker 1: of the confidentiality of an Awaki business. Jim Parham, now
Speaker 1: heading the board of directors after Petter had stepped down,
Speaker 1: fired three staff members, one including a nurse who had
Speaker 1: sexual relations with a patient on the Mexico trip and
Speaker 1: another who quote lost control while trying to restrain a child.
Speaker 1: Frank Win says that an Awaki was anything but cooperative
Speaker 1: with law enforcement during their investigation. Well, we had to
Speaker 1: get some search warrants, so they weren't. But of course
Speaker 1: his whole family was involved in an Awake, so some
Speaker 1: of the stuff that was going on involved getting search
Speaker 1: warrants to go out there. But I would say a
Speaker 1: lot of the people that Earl interviewed that we're not
Speaker 1: family members. I think a majority of them were were cooperative.
Speaker 1: If it was something to do with the pet Or family,
Speaker 1: the co operation was minimal and sometimes maybe superficial would
Speaker 1: be a better description of the cooperation. Frank says that
Speaker 1: Earl Lee was now going back through any files which
Speaker 1: they had on an Awaki, one of which being the
Speaker 1: suicide that had taken place a few years back. This incident, too,
Speaker 1: seemed to fit the same pattern of abuse which they
Speaker 1: had seen. I won't say enough about Earle and how
Speaker 1: much he worked, but one of the things he would
Speaker 1: also remember stuff about old cases, and he he never
Speaker 1: forgot that. And so one of the things he knew
Speaker 1: when we were looking at other documents was he was
Speaker 1: always wondering if there was anything related to the kid
Speaker 1: that had dove off the chimney onto the concrete slab.
Speaker 1: And he found in during a search we had taken
Speaker 1: some documents, and he found a document related to that kid.
Speaker 1: And of course Earle would have been looking for that
Speaker 1: while while we're going through everything. Earl would have remember
Speaker 1: that kid's name and look for it. And I remember
Speaker 1: him telling me he found the file on the kid,
Speaker 1: and and the kid had been my memory without knowing
Speaker 1: all of the details of what the kids issues were.
Speaker 1: But the kid had progressed and and it appeared that
Speaker 1: Louis Petter had had some uh time with the kid.
Speaker 1: So the Earl and to us, it looked like this
Speaker 1: kid had progressed through the hospital in a way that
Speaker 1: he should have graduated, and he was ready to graduate,
Speaker 1: and he was told that you're not graduating from the program.
Speaker 1: And in that file it also reflected that there appeared
Speaker 1: to have been some time where Louis Petter had wanted
Speaker 1: the kid to go with him some places, and he
Speaker 1: may have actually gone with him. So, without knowing what happened,
Speaker 1: we felt like there had been possibly some rejection, but
Speaker 1: definitely the kid was ready to leave and was prevented
Speaker 1: from leaving, and so it opened up a whole another
Speaker 1: idea or questions about why the kid committed suicide. Recalls
Speaker 1: he had had some time with Lewis Petter and he
Speaker 1: had been prevented from leaving when it appeared that his
Speaker 1: records showed he was ready to leave. By September, news
Speaker 1: had been informed that an official investigation into Annawaki was
Speaker 1: being conducted. Parents of patients were sent letters from the
Speaker 1: new head of the administration, Jim Parham. Scott Hole was
Speaker 1: a patient during this time. He was supposed to go
Speaker 1: on the annual Mexico trip that year. These plans changed, however,
Speaker 1: once the criminal investigation began. So I'll probably remember the
Speaker 1: investigation starting just before we were supposed to take the
Speaker 1: trip to Mexico. You know, we didn't have access to
Speaker 1: media or anything like that, so we had no way
Speaker 1: of knowing anything. That was going on. We couldn't talked
Speaker 1: to our parents for the most part unless we were
Speaker 1: CRESS members, So you know, we we were in this bubble.
Speaker 1: But then when we were not allowed to go Mexico
Speaker 1: and had to go out west, that's I guess when
Speaker 1: it really dawned on me that this is a serious
Speaker 1: investigation and you know something's gonna happen. I don't really
Speaker 1: remember an announcement about the investigation. I remember there was
Speaker 1: a lot of scuttle butt and you know, the kids
Speaker 1: talking amongst themselves of rumors that they had heard about
Speaker 1: this or about that. Carl Moore was also supposed to
Speaker 1: go on that year's Mexico trip. That summer's trip, we
Speaker 1: didn't go to Mexico. We just went around the United States.
Speaker 1: But before we left, I knew that something was going on.
Speaker 1: I didn't think too much of it. I just knew
Speaker 1: something was going on. There weren't any details that our
Speaker 1: call at the time. That was at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the summer. I want to say, I think when we
Speaker 1: got back from that trip, it sounded like something serious
Speaker 1: was going on, you know, but it was all post is, like,
Speaker 1: you know, we got a political problem, there's a problem
Speaker 1: with the board or something like that is I think
Speaker 1: the way it was kind of played out in front
Speaker 1: of me. Initially, Carl remembers a conversation with Louis Petter's
Speaker 1: adopted son, Gus, a quadriplegic who Carl believes went through
Speaker 1: the same abuse that he endured for years. At some
Speaker 1: point about that time, I went to visit Gus Gus Petter,
Speaker 1: who was I don't know if he was ever legally
Speaker 1: adopted or not, but probably went through the same things
Speaker 1: I did. I was friends with him, but he was
Speaker 1: a quadriplegic, and he and I never talked about it.
Speaker 1: But when I mentioned to him that something was going on,
Speaker 1: and Gus said, what's It's not about sex, is it?
Speaker 1: And I said, I don't know, he says, well, if
Speaker 1: it's about sex, they'll they'll eat him alive or something
Speaker 1: like that. That was kind of like a moment in
Speaker 1: time where I kind of felt like there was a
Speaker 1: history there that I didn't know about. That was my
Speaker 1: first inkling of that. And it wasn't long after that
Speaker 1: that I went down to meet Patter's attorneys. They essentially
Speaker 1: wanted a video tape me, you know, denying everything anything
Speaker 1: sexual or inappropriate, or financial or anything. I was definitely
Speaker 1: on the party line at that point. At some point
Speaker 1: I had an encounter with Thoroughly. I think they came
Speaker 1: over actually to search the house or something. I had
Speaker 1: noticed somebody was watching the house at any rate, when
Speaker 1: they came to search the house, I called the attorney
Speaker 1: and I think I left there and they gave me
Speaker 1: an attorney. I didn't know Early. I met him there
Speaker 1: at Petter's house first time, but I knew who he was. Anyway,
Speaker 1: It wasn't It wasn't too long after that that Douglas County. Uh.
Speaker 1: They had asked me to come down there for questioning,
Speaker 1: and I did, but I called the attorney. They said,
Speaker 1: if anything happens, you call us. I called them. Carl
Speaker 1: had asked his appointed attorney if he could go pick
Speaker 1: up some of his belongings, as he was going to
Speaker 1: be in custody for some time. I asked if I
Speaker 1: could go back and get some stuff, and he said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna check with Early and see if it's okay
Speaker 1: for you get some of your stuff out of the house.
Speaker 1: So I did. I went back there and that's when
Speaker 1: they arrested me. So Carl had been arrested with the
Speaker 1: charge of sodomy with none other than his own abuser,
Speaker 1: Louis Petter. Because in the state of Georgia, the act
Speaker 1: of sodomy itself was a crime, both Petter and Carl
Speaker 1: could be charged with the same act. I didn't know
Speaker 1: this at the time, but the way they wrote it,
Speaker 1: the statute of limitations had actually expired on it. It
Speaker 1: really wasn't even a valid warrant. But of course they
Speaker 1: brought me in and I just denied it because that's
Speaker 1: what I was told to expect and what and told
Speaker 1: what to do. But they brought me in and put
Speaker 1: me in h the room. So I just spent the
Speaker 1: night in that room. It's the same thing that technically
Speaker 1: they could have charged everybody who was in the accounts
Speaker 1: against Petter with the same thing. That was a hard
Speaker 1: thing to get over. That was the last time I
Speaker 1: saw any of them was the day I was arrested.
Speaker 1: I never went back and saw anybody. Do you ever
Speaker 1: speak with Petter again? No, Carl says it was with
Speaker 1: the help of his attorney, David Botts, that he decided
Speaker 1: what he ultimately had to do. The next morning, I
Speaker 1: happened to be looking out the window and I saw
Speaker 1: my dad walking across the parking lot. I hadn't seen him,
Speaker 1: and probably five years or six years, David Botts ended
Speaker 1: up coming down and he said the perfect thing to me.
Speaker 1: He said, you can tell the truth about this stuff.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be okay. He says, you can lie about it.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be okay, but it's gonna cost you a
Speaker 1: lot more money. It was something like that, and uh,
Speaker 1: what he was doing was it was helping me to
Speaker 1: do the right thing. And uh, I'll always be grateful
Speaker 1: to him for that. I can tell you that. Well.
Speaker 1: The redeeming thing about the whole thing was that they
Speaker 1: could have treated me a lot different than they did.
Speaker 1: It wasn't easy, and I was really really precarious state,
Speaker 1: and I hadn't given them the impression I was going
Speaker 1: to cooperate. And the experience of, you know, going through that,
Speaker 1: it was like, uh, it's so hard to describe this
Speaker 1: time when it was almost like I had been blind
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden I could see. It was
Speaker 1: almost just that dramatic, the stripping off of the denial,
Speaker 1: and it was just a brutal to do. It can't
Speaker 1: go back and change anything about it, and I don't
Speaker 1: know if it would have worked any different in any
Speaker 1: other way. It's just the way it was. Carl Moore
Speaker 1: would have been initially charged because of what we believed
Speaker 1: he had done, and all we may have known to
Speaker 1: start with would have been the side of me with
Speaker 1: Lewis Petter. That may have been all we knew, but
Speaker 1: we believed there was more to it as far as
Speaker 1: Carl Moore helping Lewis Petter or being involved with Lewis
Speaker 1: Petter in some ways. So the charge was brought to
Speaker 1: get him to to talk in a shortcut way. That
Speaker 1: is what happened, but it's not actually what we were
Speaker 1: thinking because we didn't know that he would ever talk,
Speaker 1: and we believed he was involved, and if he wanted
Speaker 1: to protect Lewis better than he was just gonna have
Speaker 1: to deal with consequences of what he had done. If
Speaker 1: he was a party to the crime, then he was
Speaker 1: gonna have to deal with the consequences if he if
Speaker 1: he had been trained and groomed, then we were ready
Speaker 1: to do what we could to help him. Carl Moore
Speaker 1: at the time, I believe was leaving with Lewis Better.
Speaker 1: He was either still there or had just moved out,
Speaker 1: so we believed he was involved, but Carl cooperated later.
Speaker 1: He was one of the ones that gave us a
Speaker 1: lot of good information. We spent about I think I
Speaker 1: went in there every day for a week, and he
Speaker 1: and a couple other guys interviewed me all day long
Speaker 1: for like seven or eight days, just covered everything. As
Speaker 1: you can imagine, it was not an easy thing. At
Speaker 1: some point along the way, I met a couple of
Speaker 1: guys and I don't remember who they were, who had
Speaker 1: been through the same thing I had been through. They
Speaker 1: were from an earlier time, maybe from the seventies. We
Speaker 1: ended up in roomed together, and uh don't remember how
Speaker 1: it happened, but we all knew and we all had
Speaker 1: the same story. Frank says that ultimately they did not
Speaker 1: pursue charges against Carl Moore. He says in an investigation
Speaker 1: like this, the line between victim and abuser can sometimes
Speaker 1: be blurred. Such was also the case with Sarah Tillis's
Speaker 1: son David, who had also been a victim of Petter's abuse,
Speaker 1: but may have also had some accusations against him. However,
Speaker 1: no criminal charges or cases were filed against David Tillis
Speaker 1: surrounding these events. I remember vaguely that there had been
Speaker 1: some accusations about till Us. I can't tell you why
Speaker 1: he wasn't charged, because I don't remember the details of
Speaker 1: any involvement that David Tillis had, but I do know
Speaker 1: that he was someone that had been in my mind,
Speaker 1: I believe he was someone that had been abused and
Speaker 1: groomed by Petter. That would have been the number one
Speaker 1: thought going through my mind. David was, from my perspective,
Speaker 1: just like everyone else who had gone through what I
Speaker 1: had gone through, no question about it. I mean, he
Speaker 1: definitely went through at least most of the things I did.
Speaker 1: It's like Carl Moore, No matter what we believed at
Speaker 1: the beginning, we didn't pursue the charges because we knew
Speaker 1: he was he was truly a victim. It makes it
Speaker 1: hard for me to tell you why we did or
Speaker 1: didn't do something on David Tillis or any of them,
Speaker 1: other than I know that Better had taught them what
Speaker 1: he tried to teach several of them. After months of
Speaker 1: gathering testimony, the authorities now had enough evidence to obtain
Speaker 1: an arrestaurrant for Louis Petter. The only problem was Petter
Speaker 1: had fled the country at the advice I said Jim Parham.
Speaker 1: Louis Petter and his wife Mabel left the country to
Speaker 1: stay at their residence in Pachuco, Mexico. In a statement
Speaker 1: from Parham, he said, quote Mr Petter went on vacation
Speaker 1: last week to Mexico. I'm sure they will return once
Speaker 1: their attorney informed them of the charges. We want everyone
Speaker 1: to know that at the beginning of the investigation we
Speaker 1: offered our cooperation to the g v I and the
Speaker 1: sheriff's officers. Psychologist Roger Wren, one of the original whistleblowers
Speaker 1: who attempted to report the abuse back in nine received
Speaker 1: a call one day from out of the blue. I
Speaker 1: was in my practice seeing patients and my secretary interrupted.
Speaker 1: She said, Dr wrenn, I've got somebody on the phone
Speaker 1: and needs to talk to you. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: who's that and she said a sheriff. I said, oh,
Speaker 1: what sheriff And she said, Sheriff Lee. I don't know
Speaker 1: a Sheriff Lee, but I'll talk to him. And he
Speaker 1: had a very distinct Southern accent. I had met him.
Speaker 1: I found out later years before when he was a
Speaker 1: deputy with the Abercrombie. But you know, he and I
Speaker 1: didn't get together at all at that point. But he
Speaker 1: called me but he said doctor ran and I hate
Speaker 1: to mimic his voice, but he was such a cool character.
Speaker 1: I said yes, sir, and he said this sheriff early.
Speaker 1: I said yes, sir. He said, we got the s
Speaker 1: O B. And I said what, And I had no
Speaker 1: idea who's talking about? He said, yeah, it looks like
Speaker 1: a duck. Fly is like a duck, swims like a duck,
Speaker 1: cracks like a duck. Probabilit DIDs a duck. And I
Speaker 1: said who are you talking about? And he said, louis
Speaker 1: your room heater and I almost cried. I mean I
Speaker 1: got emotionally. My patient was sitting there one and what's
Speaker 1: wrong with that guy? And I said hallelujah. And then
Speaker 1: he told me there were something like two hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy instants is of sexual assault and that they had
Speaker 1: no question and he was really wanting the transcript of
Speaker 1: the hearing. And I told him that Bob Dextino had
Speaker 1: it and it purchased it with his own money for
Speaker 1: this day and the man. You could you can hear
Speaker 1: him laughing on the other side. He said, I'm so happy,
Speaker 1: no matter whatever happened to uh shareff Lee. That is
Speaker 1: his proudest moment. I was very happy for him, but
Speaker 1: I was happier for the for the kids. The one
Speaker 1: reason we did this, because it was not a picnic,
Speaker 1: is to protect these kids. And I don't think the
Speaker 1: kids knew what was going on and how much pain
Speaker 1: we had because we didn't share it with him. But
Speaker 1: it was a tough road to hole. But at that
Speaker 1: moment I completely relaxed. I realized I'd been carrying that
Speaker 1: load for fifteen to twenty years. It was just a
Speaker 1: relief off my back. And then Bob and I talked
Speaker 1: in the rest of courses history. On October five, Louis
Speaker 1: Petter had finally surrendered to the authorities. Sheriff Earl Lee,
Speaker 1: along with help from the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, were
Speaker 1: now intrenched in a full blown investigation of the operation.
Speaker 1: Jim Parham, now taking over Petter's role, has headed the
Speaker 1: Board of Directors, issued a statement to the press. If
Speaker 1: anybody has committed acts of wrongdoing I have noticed, are
Speaker 1: whom anyway protect them from whatever the law provides. Petter
Speaker 1: was charged with three counts of si to me, one
Speaker 1: count of cruelty to children, and one count of simple battery.
Speaker 1: These charges would grow as the investigation would broaden. With
Speaker 1: Petter now in police custody, they had to make sure
Speaker 1: he would stay in Douglas County before his trial. Frank
Speaker 1: Winn says that in order to do this they used
Speaker 1: the only tool they had, his bond. Petter's bond was
Speaker 1: set to an unheard of amount at the time of
Speaker 1: one million dollars. By many sources, this was considered to
Speaker 1: be an impossible bond and one that was not meant
Speaker 1: to be paid. When we arrested Lewis Petter, him being
Speaker 1: in charge of the biggest emotional care hospital in the
Speaker 1: state of Georgia, if not the Southeast, it was certainly
Speaker 1: a major deal. And so he's also had enough prestige,
Speaker 1: and I say that in cheek, but certainly enough influence
Speaker 1: and enough presence in the community and in the state
Speaker 1: that that's a big deal to arrest somebody like that,
Speaker 1: especially for the type of charges that we were arresting
Speaker 1: him for. And I don't recall what all Judge James
Speaker 1: may have said at any bond hearing we had, and
Speaker 1: I don't recall exactly how the million dollar amount came about,
Speaker 1: but it sort of was a compromise between the idea
Speaker 1: that we've uh that somebody has been arrested that is
Speaker 1: well known and possibly well respected, and at the same
Speaker 1: time we thought he was a horrible person and horrible charges.
Speaker 1: And so the bond at that time would have been
Speaker 1: ten times larger than probably any bond I'd ever dealt with.
Speaker 1: Uh uh. I think the largest bond I had dealt
Speaker 1: with before that was a hundred thousand dollar bond that
Speaker 1: had been granted in a case. So the million dollar
Speaker 1: bond was way out of the ordinary, but we felt
Speaker 1: like at the time it gave us some assurance that
Speaker 1: he wasn't going anywhere. Nearly five weeks after Petter had
Speaker 1: been taken into custody, a group of friends and supporters
Speaker 1: had managed to pull together the one million dollars to
Speaker 1: have him released. Two hundred thousand dollars of this money
Speaker 1: was taken from Anawaki estates, many of the other payments
Speaker 1: from members of Aniwaki's board. What had been thought to
Speaker 1: be an impossible bond had been reached, Petter was released
Speaker 1: from the Douglas County Jail on November seven. Petter expressed
Speaker 1: his thanks to the friends and family responsible for his release.
Speaker 1: I want to express my appreciation to the many families
Speaker 1: and friends that have united together to make an impossible
Speaker 1: bond possible, and I appreciate their love and concern, and
Speaker 1: my God bless each one of a comment on the chargers.
Speaker 1: He's not guilty of the chargers, and he's gonna prove it.
Speaker 1: Petter was free from jail while the investigation into an
Speaker 1: Awake he grew. More faculty members were being charged daily.
Speaker 1: At this time, multiple civil suits against an Awake and
Speaker 1: Lewis Petter were also being filed. Petter's world was literally
Speaker 1: falling down around him, yet the community was still in
Speaker 1: his corner. Would the authorities finally have enough evidence to
Speaker 1: put Petter away for good and put an end to
Speaker 1: the decades long history of abuse and awake he had perpetuated?
Speaker 1: Next Time Camp help in a week. I believe what
Speaker 1: we did was to take what we could from the
Speaker 1: Petter family and place it where it needed to be.
Speaker 1: Don't you think he knew that what people we could
Speaker 1: go to and say we'd better check into this thing
Speaker 1: about Louis powder sodomizing patients, said an awake was unreasonably
Speaker 1: to expect that the head of a huge department would
Speaker 1: perform that kind of direct service. This was the most
Speaker 1: important caation that I've been involved in. We had so
Speaker 1: many simple working for us someone one time that it
Speaker 1: was just impossible to keep up with it, but we
Speaker 1: did it. It was really scary testifying in court, but
Speaker 1: at the same time it was a good feeling because
Speaker 1: I had a lot of anger, because I felt like
Speaker 1: I had been stripped at four years of my life.
Speaker 1: Kemp how Anna Wake was created and hosted by Josh Thane,
Speaker 1: with producer Miranda Hawkins and executive producers Alex Williams and
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick. The soundtrack was written and performed by Josh
Speaker 1: Thane and Adrian Barry. Archival footage provided by ws B
Speaker 1: and CBS News. Find us on Instagram at camp hell
Speaker 1: pod That's c A M p h E L l
Speaker 1: p O. D. Educate yourself about the issue of child
Speaker 1: abuse and things that you should look for at the
Speaker 1: Darkness to Light website d too well dot org. That's
Speaker 1: d The number two l dot org camp hell Ana
Speaker 1: Wake is a production of I heart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.