WEBVTT - "The Wake" 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.199 Camp Hell. Anawaki is a production of I Heart Radio. 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:06.640 The views and opinions expressing this podcast are solely those 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:09.800 of the author and participants and do not necessarily represent 0:00:09.880 --> 0:00:12.840 those of I Heart Media or its employees. Due to 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:17.720 discussion of traumatic, sexual and violent content, listener discretion is advised. 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:27.840 In the outskirts of Atlanta, just twenty miles west is 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.240 the town of Douglasville. It is here that lies what 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:34.680 was once the largest medical facility in the state of Georgia, 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.760 and all but forgotten organization that you've probably never heard of, 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:46.120 the Anaweki Treatment Center for emotionally disturbed Youth. At its core, 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:49.640 it was meant to help children with emotional behavior issues. 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.640 He says, he enjoys it. They've got a football team 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:56.640 and they sponsored. He says. A counseling helps him a lot. 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:01.040 He is making almost all a he's now. He's very 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:05.199 productive in school, very productive at home. It helped our 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:09.600 whole family pretty much brought us all back together. For 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:12.480 some this is a place where they grew up and 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:14.880 learned how to work and live off of the land. 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:19.040 It taught me a lot for the future. It taught 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.120 me a lot. I think you learned responsibilit Yeah, I 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:26.600 think you learned how to be an adult. For others, 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:29.840 it represents some of the darkest times of their lives. 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.400 I still when I drive Interstate twenty and I get 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:36.520 around Chapel Hill Road or Highway five or ninety two 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:41.680 or anything there, my anxiety still goes up. This organization 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:45.000 would help its founder, Lewis Petter, become one of the 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.280 most wealthy and powerful people in the region, with a 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:51.240 reach that would go far beyond the state of Georgia. 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:56.840 If you've got the church, and you've got the bureaucrats, 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:58.760 and you've got the cops, you know, you can pretty 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:03.480 much get things done for decades. This facility would exploit 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:08.480 its patients, literally building its massive infrastructure off its patients 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:12.720 backs and leaving a trail of shattered lives behind. It 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:15.800 was kind of like a kind of like an outdoor 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.160 summer camp where you would, you know, live in some 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:22.080 cabins and uh, you know, do outdoor things and tike 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:25.280 and go through the woods and all that kind of stuff. 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:29.120 That's really how it is explained. They always seemed to 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:32.280 leave out the building of the buildings and the slave 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:42.400 labor board as they called it. Vocational therapy. They would 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:45.760 have us bend over and they would put a bag 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:51.799 of cement on our back, which weighed four pounds, and 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:55.799 we were to hold that position and carry that bag 0:02:56.080 --> 0:03:00.480 bent over up a mountain in order to make the 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:04.440 footings for the cabins. I would just like to know 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:08.120 why we had to go through what we went through, 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:12.920 why everything was so covered up, Why I was lied to, 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:17.600 why I was cheated. Those are questions that still pop 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.760 up in my head all the time. Annawaki was able 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:26.399 to expand continuously over two decades, all the while funneling 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.880 millions of dollars to the upper management of its organization. 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:33.880 This can only be attributed to its many ties to 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:37.480 people in power, some of which would extend all the 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.720 way to the White House. He was a player who's 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:43.960 a political player, and he'd made sure that he maintained 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:48.320 those kinds of contacts that would benefit him later. You 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:51.880 would see the names of the board members and there 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.960 was a lot of ex Georgia State politicians. He said, well, 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:59.560 I don't think you realize how powerful Petter is. A 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:08.120 lot of powerful people were involved with kind Awaking. What 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.120 you are about to hear is a largely unknown and 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:15.040 dark chapter in Georgia's history, one in which thousands of 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:19.880 children experienced and many never recovered from. This is a 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:24.359 story a systemic abuse in the most literal sense, with 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:28.160 an empire, real estate built upon the backs of its patients, 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:33.040 and a system that, instead of helping children, exposed them 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:37.840 to some of the worst horrors imaginable. Before Jeffrey Epstein, 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:41.719 there was Lewis Petter and the network of people that 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:46.400 allowed his exploitive actions. This is the story of an 0:04:46.560 --> 0:05:01.320 awaking I'm gonna passed several weeks. We have received number 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.440 of very serious allegations concerning both the facility out there 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:08.680 in a number of individuals involved with him. It was 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.160 just a form of their therapy. They were told to 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:13.280 do it, and at the time he was fourteen and 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:15.719 a half fifteen years old, they didn't know any better. 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:19.280 I asked him, why are you letting this happen? Why 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:21.360 are you covering up for Louis Batter. He had no 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:27.839 answer to that question. Involved having a insitution paid its 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:34.720 little could be that shock destrick place and did do 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:39.920 absolutely the contrary of what they should have done. I'm 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.320 disturbable the fact of something I can still going on 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:46.800 it Ana Wicky. I'm Josh Stein and this is camp 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:53.479 Hell in Awaki. I've often been asked while conducting interviews 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:56.800 for this podcast, how did you find out about in Awaki? 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:02.240 My name is Josh Stein. I'm in podcast producer. Much 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:05.400 of what I work on are many true crime documentary 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:09.120 style podcasts, some of which you may have heard. In 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:11.960 the summer of two nineteen, I was on a vacation 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:15.080 for my wife's birthday, visiting Disney World and staying in 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:19.240 neighboring Clearwater, Florida. During one of our drives, my wife's 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:22.359 friend Julia, knowing I had been working in true crime lately, 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:26.880 suggested something I'll never forget. You should do a podcast 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:33.080 on Anawaki. Anawaki? What does that even mean? What language 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:37.160 is it? Initially I found very little regarding an Awaki. 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:40.520 There is currently only a two paragraph article on the 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:45.800 Wikipedia page for it. I continued digging and eventually found 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:48.920 a rabbit hole of information, one that will continue to 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:52.440 surprise me with the depths of its scandal and those involved. 0:06:57.080 --> 0:06:59.680 So how is my friend aware of this seemingly forgotten 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:03.799 dar piece of history. Well, it starts with the story 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:09.159 of a donkey George was quite a character. He lived 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:12.800 with my parents on the horse farm that we had 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:18.200 in Douglas County. He was a very interesting donkey. This 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:22.120 is Julia's friend, Georgia. She's a close family friend and 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.480 has known Julia mostly all her life. I grew up 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:29.560 in Douglasville. Moved to Douglasville when I was approximately six 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:33.320 years old with my parents from Tennessee, and grew up 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:37.000 there my whole life. I'm from Douglasville all the way 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:41.920 through in n one when we moved there, I twenty 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:45.920 westbound ended at Highway five in Douglasville. It did not 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:49.840 go any farther than that. It was kind of a sleepy, 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:53.760 sleepy little town and you know, close enough to Atlanta, 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.080 but get far enough. White, kind of a little bedroom community. 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:02.920 I guess that's George's mother. I'm Pat Kirkland. I currently 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:06.840 live in Grace and Georgia. When Georgia was a child, 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:10.560 the Kirklands adopted a donkey from Anna Waki. He came 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.560 to be a bit of a local celebrity. He did 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.320 palm Sunday at Sacred Heart Church. The Sacred Heart Church 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:21.640 is a massive Catholic church in Atlanta, it's towering steeple 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:25.560 can be seen off of alter. Boys would lead him 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:30.480 around and palm leaves on his back. After the first year, 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:33.040 it went over so big. I mean, the media was 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:36.559 there and everything. I mean, George was on TV on 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.440 the evening news, on Palm Sunday services for a long 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:44.319 long time. There was one Sunday he got loose and 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:47.280 he's running down Peachtree Street and I guess the news 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.080 did an article on it, and you know, loose donkey 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.640 in the street. He was a character who he definitely was. 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.000 How a donkey would come to be involved in this 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:01.719 story was a mystery to me. Georgia explain means. My 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.839 father was an Atlanta police officer for the mount of 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:08.520 Patrol and he had a good friend named Tony Morris, 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:12.640 who was a priest at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Tony 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:16.480 used to visit the boys home to basically talk to 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.920 the boys see how things were going with them, and 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:22.880 while he was there, he noticed some abuse to this 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.199 little donkey that they had. So he came back to 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:30.120 my father and he said, I think that the church 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:35.640 might need a donkey. And my father said, Okay, where 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:37.079 are you going to keep it? And he said, look, 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:41.640 where's at your place? So long story short, George the 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:44.959 donkey came to live with us, and he came from 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:50.160 the Annawiki Boys Home. Georgia was still just a child 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.920 while all of this was happening. She remembers seeing George 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:56.839 for the first time. He said, they don't have a 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.679 place for him anymore, so we're going to keep him 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:04.080 here at our place. And I thought it was cool, thought, oh, great, 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:06.720 you know, a little donkey's gonna be so cute and stuff. 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:08.839 And then when they unloading him from the trailer, I 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:11.640 remember seeing his ears and I said, Dad, what's wrong 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:15.480 with his ears? Why aren't they so burnt? Well? I mean, what, 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:18.640 what are all those marks on him? And why is 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:22.240 he so skittish? And he's so well, that's that's a 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:27.400 story for another day. He had been abused, He had 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:32.640 cigarette burns on him, He had been sexually abused. I 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:35.960 didn't understand it at the time. This was in nineteen 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:42.080 seventy eight. He went through a lot while he was there, 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.760 so I can understand why he was like he was 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:51.880 poor George. Oh, poor George had cigarette burns in his ears, 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:56.040 on his back. It was very, very apparent that that 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:59.640 animal had been abused. I mean, I just can't even 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:03.880 amad Witchen, even with her parents trying to protect her 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.679 from what they knew was about situation. Georgia remembers how 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:12.240 she viewed an awake as a child, especially in the summertimes. 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:14.520 I was home with my sister and we would just 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:17.400 get on our horses. It was our way of entertainment, 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:20.480 and we would get out and stay gone all day, 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:24.320 and we would go past an awake, you know, riding 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:25.959 up but it was less than, you know, maybe five 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:29.719 miles from where we lived. I didn't even want to 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:32.280 ride the horse past there because it almost seemed like 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:41.480 just a cold dungeon. It seemed almost Pollyanna, everything's happy 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:44.640 on the outside, but it seemed to me on the 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:47.280 inside it was there was a lot of darkness in there. 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:54.319 I heard rumors that the boys were being abused sexually, physically, 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:58.240 and to hear. Even at my young age at the time, 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.199 and I was probably the age of some of the 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:05.480 boys there, I just remember feeling a lot of sadness 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:10.240 for them. People were pretty quiet about it. As the 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:15.079 years progressed, it it came out more and more. There 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:17.920 was just you know a lot of talk about it, 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:21.320 and it wasn't good. And I've heard this said many 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:25.920 many times. Those poor boys are much worse off there 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:28.240 than they would have been had they, you know, state 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:31.599 in the situation that they were in. It was a 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:37.760 place where they could be abused physically, sexually, mentally abused, 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:42.400 and nobody said anything about it. You know, nobody really 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.520 cared who is in charge of this place that would 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:48.079 let something like that go on? And I heard that 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.640 more than once. I mean, I don't know why wasn't 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:55.800 the law involved in it. I think that there was 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.480 a lot of money in that place, and I think 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:06.760 people just didn't want to rock the boat. I remember thinking, Wow, 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:10.320 how sad that must be for these people that ended 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:15.400 up there. They're there with people that should care about 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:19.160 them and care about their well being. It was almost 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:22.800 if you were there, you never came out, or if 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:27.959 you came out, they came out a different person. And 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.440 then it started to all make sense why this little 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:35.920 donkey was how he was, and that story for another 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:39.480 time that my father talked about, it all started to 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:43.920 make sense. I began to understand maybe it was offset 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:47.880 or displaced aggression that they took out on this little donkey. 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:53.760 I do believe animals remember, they remember good times, they 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:57.880 remember pain. It's my opinion that those boys were doing 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.040 to George what had been done to them, or it 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:02.880 was being done to them. And if that's the case, 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:09.440 that is awful. Makes me sick to my stomach. How 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:12.960 many people's lives, not only the boys that were there, 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.120 but the parents and everyone else. How many lives were 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:21.480 totally destroyed because of that. My thought when I closed 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.960 my eyes and everything is that I see that poor animal. 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.400 That that's what I see. And yes, human life is 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:34.160 certainly much more worthy than animal life is. But you know, 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:36.880 if it had that kind of effect on an animal, 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:40.160 what kind of effect did it have on those children? 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:46.160 You know, an animal is a living, breathing being that 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:50.080 was created by God, just like I was. And if 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:55.320 he could remember those things that stayed with those boys 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.680 all of their life. Even some of them may not 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:02.480 even still be living now, but if they are, I 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:06.200 can assure you that that still has an impact on 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:11.800 their life, their relationship with others and trust issues. You 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:16.920 can't ever erase that. How can you look yourself in 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:18.680 the mirror know and that you had a part of 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:22.640 that that you had a part of destroying and I'm 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:27.240 talking about totally destroying another human being. How can you 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:37.640 look yourself in the mirror. I don't get it. And 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:55.440 after hearing George's story, I had to find out more 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:59.120 about in Awaki. I started coming through newspaper articles from 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.120 through the nineties and couldn't believe how many stories there were. 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:05.840 It seemed at one point that Anna Waki was in 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:09.320 the paper almost every day. I kept finding the same 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:13.360 name covering this story. I'm Albert Auchen. I am a 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:17.680 producer now for CBS News in Washington. I was a 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:21.120 newspaper reporter for about fifteen years and began in my 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:26.640 hometown of Savannah, Georgia, went to Richmond, and finally to Tallahassee, Florida. 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.840 And from Tallahassee, after doing a lot of stories about 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:34.600 the Annawaki situation, I was hired as a consultant for 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:37.800 sixty minutes. Annawaki would come to be the story that 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:41.520 launched Albert's career into the mainstream. It was the main 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:47.040 focus of my journalism from late nine until mid n 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:51.040 It was the main story I was working on. There 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:53.200 were weeks and weeks where it was all I did. 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:57.400 I would spend a lot of overtime. I lived near 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:00.880 the newspaper and was back and forth, you know, at night, 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:02.640 keeping up with things. And of course I had to 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:04.560 pick up the Atlanta paper every day and see what 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.399 they had, and that could change my agenda for the day. 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:10.520 So it was a lot of time. Originally, the story 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.800 involved a small investigation that was taking place in Carabelle, 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:16.480 Florida at the time, one of three locations in a 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:18.960 week he would come to have. It would soon take 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.000 on a life of its own and become a bigger 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:25.960 story than they ever expected. We had a stringer, a 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:31.000 part timer who was covering Franklin County, anything that went 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:33.520 on in Franklin County, which is in the circulation area 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:37.440 of Tallahassee. It's west of Tallahassee in the Panhandle of Florida. 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:41.159 And he was a part timer and a very good journalist, 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.879 and he came across the story first and did a 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:48.240 few pieces about the situation in Carrabelle, Florida. And then 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:52.159 we began watching that just curiously in the newsroom, and 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:54.280 it was exploding at the same time up in the 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:58.159 Atlanta papers. So we learned about the Douglasville Facility, and 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:01.720 at a certain point the story grew enough where the 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:04.680 managing editor asked me to keep an eye on it 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.120 and to start doing the fundamental reporting because he wanted 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:10.440 a regular staff never doing it. It became a bigger 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:13.840 story for us than just an occasional piece from the stringer. 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.239 But after a while it became important to understand how 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:21.200 the system was being manipulated. So in order to understand that, 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:23.840 we needed to understand more about what the system was. 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:29.639 It's important here to note how in Awake he was 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.600 perceived by many of the parents who sent their children there. 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:36.800 Learning disabilities like a d h D and others are 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:39.840 now well known ailments with understood treatments of how to 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:43.440 deal with them. However, in the nineties sixties, parents and 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:46.000 teachers alike were in the dark on how to address 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:52.560 these issues. Enter and Awaki. It is a place where 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:57.639 the upper middle class of Atlanta sends their troubled kids. Initially, 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:00.480 it was supposed to be the kinds of children that 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:04.640 went there were very, very troubled people who had severe 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:10.960 debilitating not necessarily mental illness in the sense of you know, 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:17.200 severe pathologies, severe psychological problems that could be diagnosed medically, 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:23.680 but emotional issues which caused behavioral problems, and the behavioral 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.359 problems that they were dealing with were the kinds of 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:30.360 things that in those days in the sixties, conventional institutions 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:35.359 like schools and churches were not capable of dealing with. 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:38.760 When the place was established in the early sixties, they 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.680 may have only been taking very troubled kids, but it 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:45.280 seemed to me that by the time I knew anything 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:49.119 about it, that it had partly devolved into this place 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:53.720 where if you had a kid who was obstreprous and 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:58.480 you were financially in good shape, you could send kids 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:01.960 there and they would take care of them for you. 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:07.000 The Aniwaki program was based on what is called wilderness therapy. 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:11.080 Since the nineteen forties, wilderness therapy has proven to be 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:15.280 truly helpful, with many programs still practicing it today and 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:18.399 Awake he managed to take that and twisted into something 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:21.719 that would allow counselors and others to run wild with abuse. 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:26.080 Fundamental idea behind it was not unlike the fundamental idea 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:30.960 behind the Marine Corps. You take somebody, in this case 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:34.040 troubled children, and for lack of a better term, you 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.359 break them down. The goal is to make them, in 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:40.680 this case, self reliant. It's not like the Marines. It's 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.040 not to make them do what you tell them to do. 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.200 It's to make them learn to do what they think 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.160 they should be doing, to learn a set of values 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:51.960 and to learn a way to be self reliant. It 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:57.640 was innovative, but it was also subject for severe abuse. 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:02.280 At the top of the hierarchy was Lewis Petter, or 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:05.800 Doc Petter as he was known, the founder and president 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:09.640 of an Awake. Not a doctor in any actual degree, 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.520 he and his family would rule over an Awake and 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:17.040 its profits, taking whatever they wanted along the way. He 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:22.560 had innovative thoughts about child treatment and that was revolutionary 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:27.000 in Georgia. That was very, very commendable and got him 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:29.960 a lot of attention and a lot of respect. But 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:33.000 he had his own personal troubles in his own fundamental 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:42.040 corruption that went across the whole myriad of things. To 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:45.080 truly understand and Awake, I had to go back to 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:48.680 the beginning to see how this treatment center devolved into 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:52.639 what it became. The land of the friendly People. That 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:54.440 is said to be what the word and awake he 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:57.720 means in Cherokee, one of many Native American names which 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:01.280 would be used on its grounds. The irony is not lost. 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:04.800 The beginning of the Nawaki School for Troubled Boys is 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:07.600 a mysterious one. What we do know is that a 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:10.679 plot of land was bought in nineteen sixty two by 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:13.639 Lewis Petter and his wife Mabel, along with a co 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:18.399 worker from Petter's Jason Savannah, Georgia, named Brett Baxley or 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:21.760 Mr B. I spoke with one of the very first 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:25.879 patients who attended. Hey, I'm Dale Strickland. I grew up 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:28.520 here in Atlanta, been here since I was knee how 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:31.280 to goat? Grew up here a seminar euclid. Haven't you hear? 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:35.240 A little? Five points? And raising raised myself over on Cleveland? 0:22:35.359 --> 0:22:37.600 Have you after that? And then went on out into 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:41.120 the world and started digging in. Every patient who attended 0:22:41.160 --> 0:22:44.520 an awake was given a number upon entry. This was 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:47.560 referred to as their laundry number, as it was written 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:50.359 on every piece of clothing or personal item they owned. 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:54.600 These numbers were given chronologically, corresponding to when the patient 0:22:54.640 --> 0:22:58.480 attended an awake. Over the course of this podcast, I 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:01.359 spoke with people who had numbers in the fifties into 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:06.200 the thousands. My number was seventy four. One of the 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:08.200 first times to years I was in the testing phase 0:23:08.640 --> 0:23:10.600 the years in an awaken. I'm a little bit fuzzy 0:23:10.640 --> 0:23:14.360 on sometime back in the early sixties, I was young. 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:17.960 I'm gonna stay around twic over thirteen somewhere, maybe eleven. 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:20.879 You know, it was before I started high school. I 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:22.880 know that because I started high school while I was there. 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:26.680 Dale says he, like many other survivors of an Awaki, 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:29.560 was sent for acting up in school arts Ley, in 0:23:29.680 --> 0:23:32.000 part to his A d h D. Yeah, I was 0:23:32.080 --> 0:23:34.639 way out of control. I was never diagnosed with the 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:36.280 A d D and a d h D because they 0:23:36.320 --> 0:23:38.679 didn't know anything about it at the time. When they 0:23:38.720 --> 0:23:40.959 did learn about it, I was long out of an Awaki, 0:23:41.080 --> 0:23:42.320 but I went there for a d D and a 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:45.160 d h D. A lot a lot of lines, stealing, 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:47.440 you know, talking back and getting in a lot of 0:23:47.480 --> 0:23:50.200 trouble and just you know, pretty much normal kids stuff. 0:23:50.240 --> 0:23:52.840 But you know, hearing it too extremes, mostly because of 0:23:52.920 --> 0:23:56.120 my A d D and D. Dale remembers first meeting 0:23:56.160 --> 0:23:59.560 Louis Petder before attending in Awaki. At this point in time, 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:01.840 pet Or did not yet have an office on campus 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:04.960 and was using a professional building in downtown Atlanta to 0:24:05.080 --> 0:24:08.240 conduct his business. We were taking down to the King 0:24:08.280 --> 0:24:11.720 Professional Building. I was and my parents walked in Dr 0:24:11.760 --> 0:24:15.119 Petter's office and I was allowed to meet Dr Petter 0:24:15.440 --> 0:24:17.600 and he, you know, shook hands with me, and we 0:24:17.800 --> 0:24:20.840 talked for a long time there, and then my parents 0:24:20.960 --> 0:24:23.640 left the room, and then I spoke with Doc by myself. 0:24:24.520 --> 0:24:28.080 And after that, and I would say about three months later, 0:24:28.359 --> 0:24:31.560 I was in an Awaken. When first entering in Awaki, 0:24:32.080 --> 0:24:36.520 residents were cut off from any contact with their family. Well, 0:24:36.720 --> 0:24:38.440 you first have to go out there, and you've got 0:24:38.520 --> 0:24:40.960 three months that you can't visit with your parents anything. 0:24:41.600 --> 0:24:44.359 I said, that's probably about the worst part of it, 0:24:44.520 --> 0:24:47.359 you know, waiting those three months. You're trying to adjust, 0:24:47.480 --> 0:24:50.080 you know, and and get everything together. I mean you 0:24:50.160 --> 0:24:52.960 can write letters and stuff and and send them mail 0:24:53.000 --> 0:24:55.480 on everything, but you weren't allowed to view them for 0:24:55.560 --> 0:24:59.160 ninety days. Being one of the first attendees of an Awaki, 0:24:59.400 --> 0:25:01.520 Dell was the first to be subjected to what was 0:25:01.600 --> 0:25:05.240 referred to at the time as the quiet Room. This 0:25:05.440 --> 0:25:08.720 room would serve as the equivalent of solitary confinement, and 0:25:08.800 --> 0:25:10.520 would go on to be an essential part of the 0:25:10.720 --> 0:25:14.359 entry process to anawaki. This would later be called and 0:25:14.680 --> 0:25:19.600 oh or evaluation and observation. I'm the only one that 0:25:19.680 --> 0:25:21.680 went there at this time. I was the only one 0:25:21.720 --> 0:25:24.520 in there. I had gotten a fight with somebody, can't 0:25:24.520 --> 0:25:27.520 remember who it was, and they just snatched my butt 0:25:27.600 --> 0:25:29.520 up and put me in what we called the quiet room. 0:25:30.119 --> 0:25:33.720 It was a stainless steel mesh with hard edges around it, 0:25:34.000 --> 0:25:36.960 like a channel line, you know. And I was in there, 0:25:37.000 --> 0:25:40.320 I want to say, for maybe about three or four week. 0:25:41.000 --> 0:25:44.440 Oh yeah, like a month. I really have nobody to 0:25:44.480 --> 0:25:46.639 talk to you about yourself. Nobody come by and visit you. 0:25:47.160 --> 0:25:49.479 They're bringing your food when it's time to have that now. 0:25:49.600 --> 0:25:53.160