Speaker 1: Camp Hell Anna Wake 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: After hearing all the stories about Carabelle and how in
Speaker 1: Awake had a hotel and marina built by the students,
Speaker 1: I decided I had to see this for myself. I
Speaker 1: booked myself a room at the Moorings of Carabelle, the
Speaker 1: hotel built by an Awake which is still in operation,
Speaker 1: and headed down to Carabelle. I just got into Carabell
Speaker 1: after a quite hairy drive down a two lane Florida
Speaker 1: highway in pouring rain. I've checked in and I am
Speaker 1: at the moorings at Carabelle Hotel and Marina. This is
Speaker 1: the same hotel and the same marina that those boys built.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to go out and speak with some
Speaker 1: locals and see what I can't find out about the
Speaker 1: town of Carabell. My first stop was to visit the
Speaker 1: Carabell History Museum, a small local shrine to the fishing
Speaker 1: town of Carabelle. I figured surely they had to know
Speaker 1: about Antiwaki's history in the area. We really have taken
Speaker 1: on the notion of gateway to the Gulf to go fishing,
Speaker 1: that that fishing charters and eco tourism have gotten really
Speaker 1: big here. This is Tamara Allen. She runs the History
Speaker 1: of Carabelle Museum. For a small town with no red light,
Speaker 1: it has an awful lot of history dating back to
Speaker 1: the Native Seminole tribe in Civil War Arab battles. I
Speaker 1: asked Tamara what she knew about Anawaki. To my surprise,
Speaker 1: it was very little. That is Panama City. We have
Speaker 1: been coming here since the eighties. We were staying at
Speaker 1: the Moorings. That was our place to stay, and we
Speaker 1: were told we were the first like official people to
Speaker 1: stay in the motel of the Moorings back in the
Speaker 1: late eighties. And I just heard it was like a
Speaker 1: rehab place for delinquent kids. And so at the time
Speaker 1: I heard about the fact that it had been part
Speaker 1: of of an Awaki, but I didn't know what that
Speaker 1: meant because I'd say to people what happened and they
Speaker 1: went and tell me, it's a big rabbit hole. What
Speaker 1: Tamara did know was that the boys at the Antiwaki
Speaker 1: South campus were a part of the community, going to
Speaker 1: local schools and even churches. These children were students at
Speaker 1: the facility, but they all went to high school with
Speaker 1: other kids, so they made friends here with other kids.
Speaker 1: I do know that a lot of the kids went
Speaker 1: to either the Baptists, from the Men to just church.
Speaker 1: People knew him in the community, and occasionally they would go.
Speaker 1: A group of them would go to a townsperson and
Speaker 1: say we have to leave that place. Do you have
Speaker 1: any where we could stay? Or they would try to
Speaker 1: run away. They wanted to stay in school, They wanted
Speaker 1: to just have a normal life here, but they didn't
Speaker 1: want to be in the program, and some of the
Speaker 1: kids ended up living here marrying local girls. Since I
Speaker 1: had initially contacted Tamara, she had reached out to some
Speaker 1: people she knew in the area who may have more
Speaker 1: insight into what went on it in Awaki. Several people
Speaker 1: said that a lot of the staff that worked there
Speaker 1: were evil types of people that they abused the children
Speaker 1: and particularly did things like just took a perfectly healthy
Speaker 1: child and deliberately broke their arm or their leg if
Speaker 1: they were missed behaving. I tried to see if Tamara
Speaker 1: may be able to connect me with someone who may
Speaker 1: have had a closer connection to the school I could
Speaker 1: speak with. I started talking to people that I thought
Speaker 1: might have a historical perspective, and then they were reluctant
Speaker 1: to talk about it, which piqued my interest, I must say.
Speaker 1: And then I actually had somebody say to me, I
Speaker 1: don't want to talk to that guy because I might
Speaker 1: end up dead. They wouldn't even tell me what they
Speaker 1: were talking about. And I said, help me understand that comment.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means. He said, Well, a
Speaker 1: lot of people talk to folks they ended up dead.
Speaker 1: They know that Peter had very high connections way up
Speaker 1: in government in Florida and Georgia. Nobody that I've found
Speaker 1: that works there wants to talk to you because they
Speaker 1: are afraid they'll end up dead. Over the past several weeks,
Speaker 1: we have received number of very serious allegations concerning both
Speaker 1: the facility out there in a number of individuals involved
Speaker 1: with him. It was just a wrong with their therapy.
Speaker 1: They were told to do it, and at the time
Speaker 1: he was fourteen and a half fifteen years old. They
Speaker 1: didn't know any better. I asked him, why are you
Speaker 1: letting this happen? Why are you covering up for Louis Batter.
Speaker 1: He had no answer to that question. Having and this
Speaker 1: sitution paid it of little could be such shock destricable place,
Speaker 1: and did do absolutely the contrary of what they should
Speaker 1: have done. I'm disturbed at the fact of something. He
Speaker 1: was stilled, wat on it, and I wake you. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Stein, and this is camp hell in Awake. I
Speaker 1: quickly realized it may be tougher than I originally thought
Speaker 1: to speak with some locals about in Awake. Luckily I
Speaker 1: managed to find a few people scattered throughout the town
Speaker 1: who were willing to tell me what they remembered. I
Speaker 1: guess I first heard about it when they started coming
Speaker 1: to our school. I must have been six or seventh
Speaker 1: grade when they first started coming to school. When I
Speaker 1: went to school with them, I was Kathy Milliner and
Speaker 1: I graduated with probably ten or fifteen of the guys
Speaker 1: from anna Waki. I'm still good friends with a lot
Speaker 1: of them that went to Annawaki that I graduated high
Speaker 1: school with. I stay in contact. I married one right
Speaker 1: out of high school. Just a lot of good friendships
Speaker 1: that have remained over fifty years now. Were you interacted
Speaker 1: with them regularly on through church? I mean that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's what they did. They ring they bring him to church. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think my daughter might have dated one of them
Speaker 1: for a little bit there. I mean, not a daughter
Speaker 1: by my sister. My sister. These kids would come in.
Speaker 1: I mean they had their white shirts and eyes. They
Speaker 1: were just presented. Nice kids, good kids. They're learning, you know,
Speaker 1: they're learning how to better themselves. And they were very
Speaker 1: polite and everything. But I think they're just happy that
Speaker 1: get get out of the the environment that they were in.
Speaker 1: And we had no clue of it. We had no
Speaker 1: really clue of it back then. We never heard about it,
Speaker 1: you know. I went to see what the former grounds
Speaker 1: of the inn Awaki work Camp, or Landside as it
Speaker 1: was known, looked like today. The St. James Bay golf
Speaker 1: course currently resides there. What was once untouched wildlife is
Speaker 1: now a subdivision of sorts surrounding the course. I went
Speaker 1: to eat at its resident grill. It's here where I
Speaker 1: heard a harrowing story from my waitress regarding in Awaki.
Speaker 1: My knowledge is a second hand from a friend of
Speaker 1: my father's I knew of one incident in particular where
Speaker 1: a police officer who was working with some capacity UM
Speaker 1: at the facility, took a young boy out into the
Speaker 1: wooded area. A hunter was there. Um he didn't know
Speaker 1: the hunter was there, but the hunter observed him having
Speaker 1: sex with the with the boy. Was this voluntary? From
Speaker 1: your understanding, it was not. It seemed to be more
Speaker 1: of a punishment type situation. Surprisingly, this story sounded familiar.
Speaker 1: In fact, it showed that someone may have actually witnessed
Speaker 1: one of the worst stories I heard in all of
Speaker 1: my interviews. My name is Mark. My number was B
Speaker 1: fourteen seventy four. I attended Anawaki from nineteen eighty four
Speaker 1: March one to be exact, two about March one, nineteen six.
Speaker 1: At the time I was fifteen years old. My background
Speaker 1: before I went into an awake he I came from
Speaker 1: abusive household. Mom tried her best, Dad was very violent.
Speaker 1: Looking back on it now, there was just a lot
Speaker 1: of negative talk, a lot of um destructive behavior. I
Speaker 1: was just lost, very depressed, and after trying to commit
Speaker 1: suicide a couple of times, just not understanding myself or
Speaker 1: my emotions or who I was I um they put
Speaker 1: me away in a adolescent psychiatric unit for emotionally disturbed children.
Speaker 1: I was at South Campus. That was my primary campus. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we all go through e en O in Douglasville, which
Speaker 1: is Central Campus, and I was there twice, first time
Speaker 1: when I was admitted, and then the second time after
Speaker 1: an incident happened. Mark says that during his time in
Speaker 1: Caribille that an Awaki had once again gotten itself in
Speaker 1: the good graces with the local government. The fact that
Speaker 1: would only hide what was going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: We were told that we were going to do a dance.
Speaker 1: It was my first dance Hanawake. He had two dances,
Speaker 1: Spring and Fall, and they had said that Governor Bob
Speaker 1: Graham and his daughter was coming. I heard about that.
Speaker 1: I was really impressed that the governor's daughter was coming
Speaker 1: paying Awake for the dance. Mark says that Antawaki's ties
Speaker 1: with Florida Governor Bob Graham were so close has to
Speaker 1: even send boys to his home to do work. We
Speaker 1: went up there, and I don't think it was the
Speaker 1: governor's mansion that we went to. I believe it was
Speaker 1: his personal property because it seemed like a regular home.
Speaker 1: We went up and just kind of cleaned the flower
Speaker 1: beds and trimmed hedges. It seemed like pretty much all
Speaker 1: day we had a good time. There was a pool there,
Speaker 1: a couple staff members were there. Even with such close
Speaker 1: ties to local government, the abuse of the Antiweki South
Speaker 1: campus was just as bad, if not worse, than in Douglasville.
Speaker 1: On many occasions, I personally witnessed at least a good handful,
Speaker 1: maybe a dozen different times that staff members either physically abused,
Speaker 1: sexually abused, or just verbally abused students. Group members Mark
Speaker 1: She had a personal story with me. Fair warning, it's
Speaker 1: pretty rough to listen to. You may want to skip
Speaker 1: ahead if that's too much for you. It came to
Speaker 1: me kind of as a shock. I've never seen anything
Speaker 1: like that. I never was traumatized by seeing it until
Speaker 1: I walked back to my first campsite. I was able
Speaker 1: to walk back with a pass three by five or
Speaker 1: and I had to pick up something that I left
Speaker 1: on campus. The staff member was a new staff member.
Speaker 1: He sent me back to the campsite and I heard
Speaker 1: somebody crying, and it kind of scared me because I
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do. So I just ran up
Speaker 1: into the platform tent and one of my group members
Speaker 1: was getting basically raped by a staff member, by a
Speaker 1: unit supervisor. I didn't know this person at first. I mean,
Speaker 1: I knew my group member, but I didn't know the
Speaker 1: staff member. And I was just so shocked to see
Speaker 1: two people doing that. I've never seen anything like that.
Speaker 1: I never thought of anything like that. So I just
Speaker 1: ran off. I was scared. I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: I didn't even I don't remember what I had to
Speaker 1: go back and get. But I just ran and I
Speaker 1: ran back, and my heart was going on a hundred
Speaker 1: miles an hour. And I wanted to tell the new
Speaker 1: staff member, but I knew it wasn't the right thing
Speaker 1: to tell him. I I didn't trust this person, so
Speaker 1: I asked him if I could go to the clinic.
Speaker 1: Next thing I know, I'm in the clinic. I tell
Speaker 1: one of the nurses and I let her know what
Speaker 1: was going on. First, I asked her if I could
Speaker 1: speak to her. And I talked to her and I
Speaker 1: told her and this has happened. I don't know what
Speaker 1: to do. I need some help. Can you call the police?
Speaker 1: What do we do? And she said, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: I'll take care of it. The police already know about it.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be fine. Everything's gonna be okay. Just go
Speaker 1: back to your group. I don't say anything to anybody,
Speaker 1: and everything will be fine. Three days later, I'm walking
Speaker 1: back by myself again, and the same group later sent
Speaker 1: me back to the campsite, and two men stepped off
Speaker 1: of the trail grabbed me, and then Mr Phillips, who
Speaker 1: has head of security, He's standing in front of me
Speaker 1: and he smacks my face open hand smacks my face,
Speaker 1: and anyone can tell you. Mr Phillips was very big,
Speaker 1: he was very strong, and it just dazed me. And
Speaker 1: the next thing I know, I'm on the ground and
Speaker 1: Mr Phillips has kind of got his knee in the
Speaker 1: back of my head between my shoulder blades, and they
Speaker 1: pulled my pants down and both of the other staff
Speaker 1: members raped me, and I just remember I couldn't breathe.
Speaker 1: It's funny because even today I can almost taste the sand.
Speaker 1: I can almost smell it, because everything is sandy in Florida.
Speaker 1: And after that, I just I guess I passed out
Speaker 1: or I'm not sure what happened. Maybe I'm blocking it somewhere.
Speaker 1: But the next thing I remember was waking up in
Speaker 1: the back of one of our passenger vands that they
Speaker 1: used to transport us. We were in I think it
Speaker 1: was Smim, small town in Georgia, and I woke up
Speaker 1: and I had a really bad headache and my butt ched,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't figure out. I was like, I had
Speaker 1: tape on my butt cheeks, and my butt cheeks were
Speaker 1: taped together really super tight for some reason. And I
Speaker 1: was wearing one of those in a waky green eno robes,
Speaker 1: and I had a medical bracelet on like you get
Speaker 1: when you go to the hospital. And I kept on
Speaker 1: wanting to scratch my backside and there was tape there
Speaker 1: and I can't figure out what it was, and I
Speaker 1: was confused. While I was in a van and one
Speaker 1: of the staff members, there was two people driving for
Speaker 1: one person driving another one past some year and then
Speaker 1: another person was sitting a couple of seats ahead of me,
Speaker 1: and I was sitting all the way in the back
Speaker 1: and he said, Mark, you're fine, because I started kind
Speaker 1: of freaking out, and he goes, um, because you you
Speaker 1: tried to hurt yourself, And I knew that was a
Speaker 1: bunch of ship because I didn't try to hurt myself. UM,
Speaker 1: and I became scared all over again, and he said, uh,
Speaker 1: can we we're gonna stop at McDonald's. Would you like
Speaker 1: something to eat and not a start? And I was
Speaker 1: like sure, Yeah. Then I got to n O UM
Speaker 1: went to a doctor uh in the clinic of Eno
Speaker 1: and they looked at me and I had a staple
Speaker 1: in my anus. They stapled it and some small stitches
Speaker 1: had had some gauze that I had to change, and
Speaker 1: they gave me a whole bunch of stuff. They were
Speaker 1: really super nice this time. When I went to You know,
Speaker 1: I never got the rope thrown at me. Uh. Pretty
Speaker 1: much got to be able to walk in and out
Speaker 1: of my room whenever I wanted. I had a little
Speaker 1: bit more privileges than the new guys getting there. But
Speaker 1: they kept on telling me that I tried to commit suicide.
Speaker 1: And I was trying to tell another of the staff
Speaker 1: members and you know, no, that's not what happened to me.
Speaker 1: This happened to me. He told me. He pulled me
Speaker 1: out aside and took me back into the clinic area
Speaker 1: and he told me, you don't want to talk about this.
Speaker 1: You don't want to say anything about this. They will
Speaker 1: keep hurting you, and your parents will be notified and
Speaker 1: you will never basically win this battle that you're trying
Speaker 1: to fight. And he just told me to go back
Speaker 1: and keep my mouth shut, and if anybody approached me,
Speaker 1: just tell them that I wasn't interested and that I
Speaker 1: had spoke to that staff member and to mention his name,
Speaker 1: and then by mentioning his name that was kind of
Speaker 1: a key word that they would leave me alone. Mark
Speaker 1: says that after this traumatic experience, he never spoke to
Speaker 1: his parents about what they were told by the staff
Speaker 1: of Innawaki until years later. Believe it or not, my
Speaker 1: parents were told that I had tried to commit suicide
Speaker 1: again anally, and I didn't know this until probably five
Speaker 1: years ago. I knew they were told something, and we
Speaker 1: just didn't talk about it. It was just one of
Speaker 1: those things. My mom kind of buried her head in
Speaker 1: the sand with a lot of stuff. After hearing Mark's
Speaker 1: heartbreaking story, I found I kept hearing the same name
Speaker 1: of the counselor who fartook in his abuse, Jim Phillips.
Speaker 1: Mr Phillips was a big man. He was a big guy.
Speaker 1: He was probably I'm gonna say, three hundred pounds. If
Speaker 1: you didn't know him, you think that he would have
Speaker 1: a kind heart. He would put himself like he'd be
Speaker 1: want to help you and and you know the weird
Speaker 1: way he would. He was a church going guy who
Speaker 1: has claimed to be It's funny how that works. And
Speaker 1: he also was involved with the sheriff Department down Carribelle, Florida,
Speaker 1: which is where I know Carripil Police Department at the time,
Speaker 1: and the eighties was dirty as ship too. You can't
Speaker 1: tell me they didn't know about this. This is David Whacker.
Speaker 1: He was a patient at Anniwiki South in Caribell. Mr
Speaker 1: Phillips was there for the intimidation purpose. He was the
Speaker 1: intimidation guy. He come. I remember one of the boys
Speaker 1: had done something or I had gotten a fight, and
Speaker 1: next time I saw him after him visiting Mr Phillips,
Speaker 1: he had more bruises in the black eyes and shaking
Speaker 1: than I've ever seen another human being in my life before.
Speaker 1: You did not mess with that man. This man was
Speaker 1: so strong, No lie, I've seen this man left the
Speaker 1: back of a greyhound bus to change attire. You did
Speaker 1: not argue with this man. If you argue with him,
Speaker 1: if you got on his wrong side, he would put
Speaker 1: you through a concrete wall and a heartbeat and you
Speaker 1: wouldn't know what hits you. David was a victim of
Speaker 1: the sexual abuse taking place on the Caravel campus. He
Speaker 1: claims that there may have been some type of exchange
Speaker 1: in return for access to the boys taking place. This
Speaker 1: is how he recalls the night his abuser took him
Speaker 1: to what he believed was an auctioning off of the boys.
Speaker 1: Woke up. I actually felt him get off the bed.
Speaker 1: I thought he was going out to take a piss,
Speaker 1: and then when he reached down there, I mean, of
Speaker 1: course here, I thought, here, well, here we go again.
Speaker 1: Instead told me and come with him. So I said, okay,
Speaker 1: on of course, I got up through my shoes on.
Speaker 1: I followed him out the door. Next thing I know,
Speaker 1: I know, we're crossing over the creek. But for some
Speaker 1: reason it wasn't of the bridge of somewhere else, and
Speaker 1: we were able to cross over I was aware of
Speaker 1: at the time. We could end up behind the toolship
Speaker 1: that we had there. There was like another door in
Speaker 1: the back, but it wasn't visible to just that you
Speaker 1: had to either slide or move something out of the way.
Speaker 1: He opened the door too many come in. I came in.
Speaker 1: It was behind the tool shed. I remember him sliding
Speaker 1: the door off to the right like you would a
Speaker 1: screen door or a glass door. And then but it
Speaker 1: wasn't glasses would. And then I followed him in there
Speaker 1: and opened up to another the size of a master bedroom. Chairs,
Speaker 1: two seated sofa, stuff like that. And then I was
Speaker 1: I turned around. I had to face the wall. Everything
Speaker 1: else I was. I was listening to voices, but I
Speaker 1: recognized the voices. I knew Mr Brown was in there.
Speaker 1: I knew Mr Phillipson there, and I aln't knew Mr
Speaker 1: vanillas and there because he was when they escorted me there.
Speaker 1: They're debating back and forth, others, what they who, which
Speaker 1: which I'm assuming which child they want, who they want,
Speaker 1: what they want to do. It's like I said at
Speaker 1: that time, I'm I'm facing a wall. Not actually I'm
Speaker 1: trying to remember, trying to look and see who's beside me.
Speaker 1: To my left. In my right, oh your here is
Speaker 1: bags and pleas And you know how don't the sounds
Speaker 1: they haunt you too? Not just thinks matches to the sounds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm facing the wall. There was carpet on the wall,
Speaker 1: and I was picking at ittles. That's what I did.
Speaker 1: I tried his zone out. You try to block everything.
Speaker 1: When you're that young and you're facing guys twice your size.
Speaker 1: You don't argue, you don't ask questions. You just do this.
Speaker 1: Your co that was probably there maybe fift maybe even
Speaker 1: thirty minutes. Then Mr Finnell walks me out and then
Speaker 1: we get back to the cabinet. And then I went
Speaker 1: back in and I got my bed, face the wall,
Speaker 1: pull the sheets over me as tight as I fucking could.
Speaker 1: I just if you try to forget, but you never do.
Speaker 1: Due to some luck, while in Cara Belle, I was
Speaker 1: finally able to connect with someone who worked at the
Speaker 1: inn Awaki South Campus. My name is Ron Doyle. I
Speaker 1: worked in the mental health center in Tallahassee, and one
Speaker 1: of the psychiatrists they're also worked down here and suggested
Speaker 1: to me that this when I was finishing up my
Speaker 1: master's degree, that this would be a good place for
Speaker 1: me to work. And so I came down and interviewed
Speaker 1: and was hired as a counselor. This was in night
Speaker 1: Ron came to visit me at the Mornings Hotel, which
Speaker 1: he helped build with the patients. It was a mixed bag.
Speaker 1: I really loved working with the boys. I mean, these
Speaker 1: were kids who needed a lot of help, and it
Speaker 1: was an opportunity for me to learn and practice my
Speaker 1: counseling skills. But there were a lot of things that
Speaker 1: we're difficult. I worked a hundred and thirty hour work week.
Speaker 1: Basically I had a day and a half off a week.
Speaker 1: The rest of the time I was on duty. I
Speaker 1: lived with the boys in the cabin us, and it
Speaker 1: was intensive work. I asked Ron, if you thought it
Speaker 1: was normal for the boys to be working on buildings
Speaker 1: such as the hotel we were currently in at the time.
Speaker 1: I did yes, because the labor that they were doing
Speaker 1: was teaching them skills. It was providing structures that they
Speaker 1: were actually using and benefiting from, except for this here
Speaker 1: at the Mornings, which was a different thing. But at
Speaker 1: the time we didn't know that. We thought we were
Speaker 1: building it for their use and that the motel part
Speaker 1: would be used for parents to stay when they came
Speaker 1: to visit campus. It was used to that to some degree,
Speaker 1: but I think for the most part. It was used
Speaker 1: for as a for profit motel, I think at this
Speaker 1: point and his employee and and mine. At that time,
Speaker 1: the sexual abuse was happening more away from campus in Mexico.
Speaker 1: This is Melinda Ron's wife. She's originally from Caribell and
Speaker 1: ended up working there when she met Ron. She and
Speaker 1: her friend came along with Ron to talk to me
Speaker 1: about in Awaki South. She says that Lewis Petter had
Speaker 1: begun taking boys from in Awaki to Mexico for a
Speaker 1: yearly trip where there would be an even less watchful
Speaker 1: eye than there would be stateside. I think that he
Speaker 1: figured out people were onto him, and so there became
Speaker 1: a chosen group and I did that in air quotes
Speaker 1: to accompanying them to Mexico. It was supposed to be
Speaker 1: this big privileged trip every year every summer, Dr Petter
Speaker 1: would lead a group on a trip to Mexico. And
Speaker 1: summer trips were a big thing in the program. You
Speaker 1: know that they would be considered as a reward for
Speaker 1: the kids doing well and earning opportunities and making progress,
Speaker 1: and so groups would plan like a river trip or something.
Speaker 1: But this Mexico trip was a big thing and the
Speaker 1: kids who went on it were hands selected Dr Petter.
Speaker 1: I was invited to go. Dr Petter asked me personally
Speaker 1: to go on the trip, and I didn't really want
Speaker 1: to go. Had heard enough things about it to make
Speaker 1: me leary of it, and so I told Dr Petter
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I can go because I need
Speaker 1: to be here to help my groups. He wasn't used
Speaker 1: to people telling him no that worked for him, so
Speaker 1: that put me on his kind of bad list. I
Speaker 1: heard things about kids being physically abused. Um. I heard
Speaker 1: things about kids being taken to brothels to help them
Speaker 1: become a man. Andrew was a former patient of an
Speaker 1: Awaki who was asked to attend the annual Mexico trip.
Speaker 1: He said Dr Petter reached out to him personally about
Speaker 1: attending right before he was about to reach his termination.
Speaker 1: What in a wake He would call when you had
Speaker 1: completed your time of the facility and we're ready to
Speaker 1: leave and return home. They had some kind of policy
Speaker 1: there which I've have since been told old that this
Speaker 1: was just a policy that was total ludicrous and not
Speaker 1: really enforceable, but they would always enforce this on you.
Speaker 1: They said, well, if you turn eighteen and you want
Speaker 1: to leave. You got to do five days in that
Speaker 1: E and O place that we had discussed earlier in
Speaker 1: this conversation. And I, UM, I said, whatever, I'll do
Speaker 1: five days and then I'm leaving. And so I'm doing
Speaker 1: the five days and I'm in there for like about
Speaker 1: a day and Petter comes back. Dr Petter, he comes back.
Speaker 1: He says, you know, well, Andy or Andrew, I didn't
Speaker 1: want you to leave. You know, I want you to
Speaker 1: finish the program and the enjoy your time here. I um,
Speaker 1: you know, we do these Mexico trips once a year
Speaker 1: and I was planning on taking in this would have
Speaker 1: been in April, and so he said, I wanted you
Speaker 1: to go to Mexico with us this on this next
Speaker 1: Mexico trip in nineteen eighty three, which would have been
Speaker 1: the summer of eighty three. And I am, I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: and I'd heard rumors about what goes on on these
Speaker 1: Mexico trips and I've thought about it for a few
Speaker 1: minutes there with him sitting there with me, and he
Speaker 1: had his chauffeurther with him. UM downam Carl Moore and
Speaker 1: um we uh talked for a little bit longer, and
Speaker 1: then I said, all right, Will Um, We'll go to
Speaker 1: Mexico with you and that Will, That'll be okay, I'll
Speaker 1: go And Peter said good and so he said, um,
Speaker 1: walk on out of the CNA. Here's Carl Moore and
Speaker 1: what he remembers about the Mexico trips. Every group had
Speaker 1: a chance to take a trip every year. It would
Speaker 1: actually raise money to take their trips and it would
Speaker 1: have to be planned and uh we did canoe trips,
Speaker 1: ski trips. The big trip to get to go on
Speaker 1: was the Mexico trip, and we would take three groups
Speaker 1: down to Mexico for almost three months. It seems like
Speaker 1: we're probably uh somewhere between ten and twelve weeks something
Speaker 1: like that, but we would we would cover the uh
Speaker 1: entire country of Mexico most of the time. It was
Speaker 1: a big deal for the kids to get selected to
Speaker 1: do that. It was a pretty amazing trip traveling like that.
Speaker 1: It is just an amazing way to you know. We
Speaker 1: would we took the vans and trailers and we would
Speaker 1: camp out of the trailers. I mean we would tend camp,
Speaker 1: but we kept our food and clothes and stuff and
Speaker 1: the trailers. We leave Atlanta get to h stop at
Speaker 1: Bourbon Street to go through Bourbon Street, Um, get back
Speaker 1: on the road camp probably somewhere in Louisiana or Texas,
Speaker 1: and then cross the border in uh Brownsville, Texas going
Speaker 1: into Mexico. It was just just amazing way too to
Speaker 1: see that part of the United States. But then we
Speaker 1: crossed into Mexico. It was like a magical thing. We
Speaker 1: would drive down through the mountains. We was always stopped
Speaker 1: at a place we called El Salto Falls, which was
Speaker 1: I think it was kind of like a honeymoon resort
Speaker 1: for people in Mexico. But it was you know, thatched
Speaker 1: huts and this just amazing waterfall with the river and uh,
Speaker 1: this blue water that was just it was like something
Speaker 1: out of it was magical. And we would drive through
Speaker 1: the Thomas and Charlie Mountains, which were like nothing that
Speaker 1: any of us had ever seen, and people farmed the
Speaker 1: sides of these mountains and it was just spectacular greenery
Speaker 1: and and terrifying roads through the mountains. And our destination
Speaker 1: was typically we would go down to central Mexico put
Speaker 1: Yucca in the state of Hidago. It was kind of
Speaker 1: a small miracle that we were able to do that
Speaker 1: without major And if you told me right now to
Speaker 1: to put together a group of thirty six kids and
Speaker 1: six or eight staff members and take them down to
Speaker 1: Mexico for eight to twelve weeks, I'd say, you gotta
Speaker 1: be kidding. But we did stuff like that, and it's
Speaker 1: the kind of a I mean, there were there were
Speaker 1: wonderful things about it, and there are questionable and terrible
Speaker 1: things about it. Former patient Andrew says the pettish connections
Speaker 1: had even reached the town of Pachuco, Mexico. The main
Speaker 1: place where Petter like to go in Mexico is a
Speaker 1: town called Pachuca, which was near now about about an
Speaker 1: hour away from Mexico City. And um, I was amazed
Speaker 1: that with the kind of connections and stuff that he
Speaker 1: had in this little town called Pachuca. But there would
Speaker 1: be parties and you know, I could you know that
Speaker 1: would be held at private residences for example, inside this
Speaker 1: you know, town of Pachuca, and there were I could
Speaker 1: tell that these people were you know, upper middle class
Speaker 1: I guess so to speak. And you know a lot
Speaker 1: of gifts would be exchanged between Petter and these um
Speaker 1: in these Mexicans upper class families. I mean these Mexican
Speaker 1: upper class families had money. I mean I could tell
Speaker 1: that nice houses and stuff like that. At one point
Speaker 1: in time, I know, Pedal was given like some kind
Speaker 1: of antique pistol and as a sign of friendship, and
Speaker 1: patters given him like brand new TVs that we you know,
Speaker 1: because we would pull these trailers to Mexico and we
Speaker 1: would have these TVs buried in the bottom and these
Speaker 1: trailers and stuff, you know, I mean, it was pretty
Speaker 1: crazy stuff. Another side note about Mexico. This is also
Speaker 1: where the story of George the Donkey began. I remember
Speaker 1: what year it was, but yeah, we were driving through
Speaker 1: I think we were on a dirt road somewhere in
Speaker 1: the mountains of Mexico and this guy had had George
Speaker 1: with him and he was he was tying, I mean,
Speaker 1: he was, you know, probably just ween and we stopped
Speaker 1: and decided it would be a good idea to have him.
Speaker 1: So we bought him from the guy for fiacos, which
Speaker 1: was back then probably less than five dollars, and he
Speaker 1: traveled around Mexico with us. There was all kinds of
Speaker 1: wildlife in Mexico and stuff for sale. People driving back
Speaker 1: to the border would go through all kinds of animals
Speaker 1: for sale, and some of the kids would have bought
Speaker 1: like iguanas and things like that for pets. So we
Speaker 1: got the bright idea that we could bring George back
Speaker 1: into the US with us. So we made a space
Speaker 1: in the trailer and put him in one of the trailers.
Speaker 1: We crossed the border at about four o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 1: and Uh, I don't know Georgy. He could pray he
Speaker 1: could make some noise if he had started doing that,
Speaker 1: and it was. It was the funniest thing. It was
Speaker 1: four o'clock in the morning. We were all wide awake,
Speaker 1: trying to look like we weren't wide awake, just praying
Speaker 1: that George didn't decide to let loose, and he didn't,
Speaker 1: and that's how we brought him into the country. Injury
Speaker 1: says that the contraband brought back into the United States
Speaker 1: from these Mexico trips was not just limited to goods
Speaker 1: and even animals. There was like a couple on one
Speaker 1: of those Mexico trips. I think it was brought back
Speaker 1: like two kids from Mexico and um I thought they
Speaker 1: were going into the Aniwaki program. I don't know whatever happened.
Speaker 1: To those kids that they vanished, that they were abused
Speaker 1: and vanished or what. I had no likeas I never
Speaker 1: ever saw them again. But there was two Mexican kids,
Speaker 1: teenage kids. They were put into the group that Doc
Speaker 1: had personally and they were brought back to America UM
Speaker 1: and taken to Douglas Hills, Georgia. I never ever saw
Speaker 1: those kids AGAINA here's Carl Moore. We brought people back
Speaker 1: from Mexico, which was a pretty big deal. I think
Speaker 1: some of them worked at Aniwaki and and we had
Speaker 1: relationships with people down there and that uh, you know,
Speaker 1: people expected to see us every year, and you know,
Speaker 1: we would always take stuff down there for them. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of gift exchanging, and that was another
Speaker 1: one of the things that that that he was good at.
Speaker 1: He did this with everybody that was important. And we
Speaker 1: would always buy jewelry down there, and you know that
Speaker 1: would end up in the hands of various people as gifts.
Speaker 1: Carl says that the possibility of an Awaki moving into
Speaker 1: Mexico with another campus was something that was not out
Speaker 1: of the question at the time. I think we could
Speaker 1: have had a Mexico campus. We ended up buying a
Speaker 1: house down there, So I think the more was going
Speaker 1: to happen there or there was an opportunity and I
Speaker 1: and I didn't distinguish that from from any other thing
Speaker 1: that you would do with the Antiwaki funds. You know,
Speaker 1: it was all the same thing to me. One aspect
Speaker 1: of the Mexico a trip that was well known among
Speaker 1: the patients at in Awaki was an annual trip to
Speaker 1: a brothel. As Melinda Doyle had mentioned. In Pachuca, they
Speaker 1: had a a strip on a hillside that was their
Speaker 1: red light district, I guess you'd call it, and on
Speaker 1: several of the trips anyway, I mean, it was a
Speaker 1: regular thing. One of the big not so secret secrets
Speaker 1: was that, you know, that was part of the Mexico trip.
Speaker 1: But we would, you know, get everybody together and say,
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of like a Tonight's tonight kind
Speaker 1: of thing, and Petter would give us speech, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to coach everybody how to get through this in
Speaker 1: a way. But ultimately it might have been it might
Speaker 1: have been something that could have been a positive thing
Speaker 1: for some people. For some people, it's terrifying, and the
Speaker 1: reality of it was it's a really, really really pour
Speaker 1: away to introduce somebody to that experience. Former patient Chris
Speaker 1: McKnight remembers one such outing during his trip to Mexico.
Speaker 1: Would they in awake most years? They took us to
Speaker 1: a house of ill repew house of prostitution, whatever you
Speaker 1: wanna call it. This story is still kind of a
Speaker 1: tough one to tell. So I lost my virginity in
Speaker 1: the Patuca, Mexican horhouse. I was so scared. This is
Speaker 1: summer eighty three. It's it's an alley in these girls
Speaker 1: as side. I don't know what to do. I'm a virgin.
Speaker 1: I'm scared shitless. I'm you know, and always probably Hey,
Speaker 1: come on, Chris, you gotta go incredible amounts of here
Speaker 1: pressure kron. You gotta grow on there and have sex
Speaker 1: with a woman. And and it's just guyss. Just such
Speaker 1: a surreal and i frightening situation. I really was scared,
Speaker 1: not because sex to me was a lot of baggage.
Speaker 1: Chris was another victim of sexual abuse at an awaking
Speaker 1: by the hands of a counselor. Chris says that during
Speaker 1: this trip to a brothel, his abuser had just been
Speaker 1: with the same woman he was being pressured to have
Speaker 1: sex with, so I I had my first sexual experience
Speaker 1: with a woman. It's like my mind was so fucked
Speaker 1: up about sex at that moment in my life that
Speaker 1: the only safe woman I could have sex with wizard
Speaker 1: of the woman who had just had sex with the
Speaker 1: guy who had molested me years before. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of baggage right there, a lot of pain too, girls
Speaker 1: like grab my hand. He's trying to push for someone else,
Speaker 1: just like trying to push me through the door. And
Speaker 1: I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry, I wanted
Speaker 1: to run away. I was afraid. I was scared, I
Speaker 1: was shaking. I mean, it was consensual, it was legal
Speaker 1: in Mexico, no laws were broken. But there was a
Speaker 1: lot of heavy ship going on right there. And I
Speaker 1: remember getting out and running down and throwing up, and
Speaker 1: I didn't eat for a couple of days. Still have
Speaker 1: issues that situation. It's hard to make hedge details of it.
Speaker 1: It's a really messed up situation. A teenager shouldn't have
Speaker 1: been put in. Here's former councilor Ron Doyle again. He says,
Speaker 1: after seeing the effect the Mexico trip had on one
Speaker 1: of his patients under his supervision, he saw a red flag.
Speaker 1: I think probably the real catalyst that read my my
Speaker 1: resignation was I had a boy who was brought into
Speaker 1: one of my groups after returning from a trip to Mexico.
Speaker 1: He had been considered a troublemaker in his previous group,
Speaker 1: but after this trip to Mexico, he just went off
Speaker 1: the deep end, and so they put him in my group,
Speaker 1: thinking that that might might help end. I had been
Speaker 1: effective and helping kids get past problems like that, So
Speaker 1: I worked with this kid and and he began to
Speaker 1: open up to me and to tell me about some
Speaker 1: of the things that had happened to him on that
Speaker 1: Mexico trip, which were just inexcusable physical abuse that the
Speaker 1: other kids were used to help abuse him because he
Speaker 1: wasn't cooperating. This was the Apache roundup. Basically, they put
Speaker 1: him in a circle of other kids and would ask
Speaker 1: him questions and if he didn't answer properly, they were
Speaker 1: on him, basically beat him to a pull. Carl says
Speaker 1: that these so called Apache roundups a racially insensitive term,
Speaker 1: to say the least, we're supposed to be another part
Speaker 1: of pettish therapy. One that he was told to lead.
Speaker 1: They were probably a handful of times where I was
Speaker 1: actually physically involved with anybody. You know. One of the
Speaker 1: things that that Petter would talk out where the Apache
Speaker 1: round up, and we went through a couple of those,
Speaker 1: and that's where the group confronts an individual and the
Speaker 1: idea is to be physical about Ron says that after
Speaker 1: hearing about the Mexico trip, he decided to try to
Speaker 1: do something to help the situation and make known the
Speaker 1: atrocities he had heard about. Well, of course the stories
Speaker 1: about the trips to the prostitutes and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So at that point I realized that there was a
Speaker 1: really ugly underbelly to the program. I thought it was
Speaker 1: a wonderful program that did a lot of good things
Speaker 1: for kids, but then I saw it ruining kids like
Speaker 1: this one. And so, knowing that Dr Putter was the
Speaker 1: one who was arranging all that stuff, I had no
Speaker 1: trust in him whatsoever. I wasn't sure what to do,
Speaker 1: so I wrote a letter to the Board of directors, thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, these are community people who don't really know
Speaker 1: what's going on here, and they need to know. So
Speaker 1: I wrote a letter to the board of director's outlining
Speaker 1: some of my concerns, and I was very careful not
Speaker 1: to say things that I couldn't back up, but but
Speaker 1: just bringing attention to some things that I was concerned about.
Speaker 1: I assumed that that letter had gone to the board,
Speaker 1: and shortly thereafter Dr Petter came down to Carriville and
Speaker 1: convened a meeting at the top leadership. Here, he said
Speaker 1: he had been appointed by the board to investigate my
Speaker 1: my concerns and my claims. I don't remember the details,
Speaker 1: but I do remember that the other administrators all basically
Speaker 1: said now they hadn't heard nothing of any of this kind,
Speaker 1: and everything was wonderful as far as they knew, and
Speaker 1: that I had probably fallen for some stories that the
Speaker 1: boys were making up. So Dr Petter decided that my
Speaker 1: problem was that I was just naive and needed some
Speaker 1: more training, and that I had shown good promise. But
Speaker 1: but he wanted me to work as his assistant and
Speaker 1: moved to Douglasville to work under him so that he
Speaker 1: trained me properly. I told him I wasn't interested in
Speaker 1: moving to Douglasville. He told me I didn't have a choice,
Speaker 1: and I told him I always have a choice, and
Speaker 1: my choice was to leave rather than to accept when
Speaker 1: he was offering. So that's when I left. That was
Speaker 1: after four years here. After hearing about Ron's experience at
Speaker 1: an Awaki as a counselor in Carabelle, we went to
Speaker 1: visit some of the old sites to remember what they
Speaker 1: were and what they had now become. So we are,
Speaker 1: we're at the arena right now. Well, it looked a
Speaker 1: lot different when we first started. I mean, there was
Speaker 1: really nothing much here except for the docks, and in fact,
Speaker 1: at the time there were wood docks, not in this
Speaker 1: concrete nice stuff. You see now that's the hotel. The
Speaker 1: boys built this building. The boys built building we're standing under.
Speaker 1: The boys built. We were under the impression at the
Speaker 1: time that we were building a facility that was going
Speaker 1: to be used for the program. As far as I know,
Speaker 1: it never was. Once it was finished, we didn't come
Speaker 1: back here anymore. We next went to see what had
Speaker 1: become of the inn Awaki South Campus formally referred to
Speaker 1: as Landside. Yeah, at the St. James bake Off Course
Speaker 1: formerly an Awaki. Walking around looking at some of the
Speaker 1: old buildings and what they are now. But it looks
Speaker 1: like they took the whole building down and just built
Speaker 1: it on the same foundation. Okay, this was the yeah,
Speaker 1: the lodge. This was the administration area. Oh, this is
Speaker 1: the courtyards is that? Yeah? This is what we called
Speaker 1: the quad because of the four buildings I can see.
Speaker 1: I can't walk right past this. This looks just like
Speaker 1: the pictures of the quad with the courtyard and in
Speaker 1: the middle of the four buildings every year. See that
Speaker 1: tree right there, the big one. Yeah, my group planted
Speaker 1: it when it was a sapling. That sas what kind
Speaker 1: of tree is? Well? This was administration here, these buildings
Speaker 1: where the social workers were housed. Mm hmm. And was
Speaker 1: this all grass? Was this center here too? This was
Speaker 1: here they laid these bricks, the boys laid these bricks.
Speaker 1: That was a fountain. Wow. Yeah, this looks just like it.
Speaker 1: I can't believe I walked past it. Didn't see this.
Speaker 1: Over there what was formerly the Quad was still in
Speaker 1: practically the same setup at St. James, four small buildings
Speaker 1: built on what was once the four posts of the
Speaker 1: radar tower from Camp Gordon Johnston. I couldn't believe that.
Speaker 1: I had been walking around trying to find some remnants
Speaker 1: of the old an Awaki and it was right under
Speaker 1: my nose the whole time. The same buildings built by
Speaker 1: former patients of an Awaki are still in use by
Speaker 1: this now golf course and resort. One aspect of the
Speaker 1: Caravel campus. I still had not been able to track
Speaker 1: down was the original motel, referred to as Bayside. Ron
Speaker 1: said he could take me down there to show me
Speaker 1: what was left of it today. We drove down to
Speaker 1: a small beach off the side of the highway, a
Speaker 1: light rain coming down and me frantically trying to protect
Speaker 1: my microphone and recorder. This is where by side was.
Speaker 1: There were two strips here along here, about four units
Speaker 1: on east side, four rooms on east side, with our
Speaker 1: courtyard in the middle, like I said, had been a
Speaker 1: little kind of hotel, and and then the um. There
Speaker 1: was one group on one side and one group on
Speaker 1: the other side. They camped in the woods out that
Speaker 1: way just I guess, just to the right of that house,
Speaker 1: there was a trail that went back through the woods.
Speaker 1: You can tell how far it was to the campus
Speaker 1: from here. So it was a he's a good twenty
Speaker 1: minute walk to get from here over to main campus.
Speaker 1: So these kids will wake up here, you know, six
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning, get up and get ready walk
Speaker 1: that trail to get the breakfast. Two houses built again
Speaker 1: with the with the kid's labor. The first house here
Speaker 1: was Dr. Petter's house where he would stay when he
Speaker 1: was down here. And then the other house was the
Speaker 1: Carrabelle Campus director's house. Now they've been sold and there's
Speaker 1: just yeah, family's living on. We're walking off the side
Speaker 1: of US Highway. Why you here cars going by and
Speaker 1: this just looks like this deserted beach here. Really, all
Speaker 1: that was left of the once motel was some broken
Speaker 1: up slabs of concrete scattered across the sandy beach. A
Speaker 1: hurricane had left it in ruins. A few years back.
Speaker 1: Across the street were two Mexican style built houses painted
Speaker 1: that all familiar and awaky beige as it was known.
Speaker 1: Now you can see the hurricane kind of messed up
Speaker 1: to sea wall there. Ah, like that's what's the left
Speaker 1: of it. You can see far. The more you had
Speaker 1: the picture of the boys putting down sandbags along there,
Speaker 1: I went to see if Ron's wife and her friend
Speaker 1: hit any memories of this place. You know what happened here?
Speaker 1: Nothing relevant? An awaky bayside was now just concrete chunks
Speaker 1: of the once motel and broken oyster shells. Much like
Speaker 1: the rest of my trip to Caravell, all I could
Speaker 1: find was pieces of what was the inn Awake South Campus,
Speaker 1: fragments of stories from those who experienced it or who
Speaker 1: knew family or others involved. The site of the original motel,
Speaker 1: which I had been looking for all week. I must
Speaker 1: have driven past a dozen times, a piece of Carabell's
Speaker 1: history sitting right in plain sight, yet still so hard
Speaker 1: to find. An Awake would continue to expand past Florida,
Speaker 1: more Land was being acquired in Mexico and even Canada.
Speaker 1: The next step in Petter's master plan to build an
Speaker 1: all girls campus right in the state of Georgia. Next
Speaker 1: time on Camp Hill an Awake. The girls campus was
Speaker 1: set back along a very widdening gravel road. We would
Speaker 1: work from eight thirty or nine until eleven thirty. Girls
Speaker 1: were getting heat, exhaustion and heat stroke. We built an
Speaker 1: empire for a pedophile. That's a very difficult thing to
Speaker 1: think about. She shared with us that she had a
Speaker 1: marriage ceremony out on the beach and that they were
Speaker 1: a couple. I don't know it changed her, but it
Speaker 1: didn't seem like in a good way. Campell Anawaki was
Speaker 1: created and hosted by Josh Thane, with producer Miranda Hawkins
Speaker 1: and executive producers Alex Williams and Matt Frederick. The soundtrack
Speaker 1: was written and performed by Josh Thane and Adrian Barry.
Speaker 1: Archival footage provide did by ws B and CBS News.
Speaker 1: Find us on Instagram at camp hell pod. That's c
Speaker 1: A M p h E L L p O D.
Speaker 1: Educate yourself about the issue of child abuse and things
Speaker 1: that you should look for at the Darkness to Light
Speaker 1: website D two ll dot org. That's d the number
Speaker 1: two l dot org. Camp hell Anawaki is a production
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts.