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Speaker 1: Camp hell an Awake is a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely

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Speaker 1: those of the author and participants and do not necessarily

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Speaker 1: represent those of I Heart Media or its employees. Due

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Speaker 1: to discussion of traumatic, sexual, and violent content, listener discussion

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Speaker 1: is advised. I remember when the lawsuits started. I remember

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Speaker 1: walking through my mother in law's house and stopping dead

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Speaker 1: in my tracks because the news was on, and I

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Speaker 1: heard the word and Waki, and all the hair on

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Speaker 1: the back of my neck stood up, and I walked

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Speaker 1: over to where the TV was and I just stood

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Speaker 1: there staring at the TV, listening to them say that

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Speaker 1: things were going down and that people were getting arrested,

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Speaker 1: and that lawsuits were happening. And I remember starting to

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Speaker 1: I and my mother in law did not know at

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Speaker 1: the time that I had been to Anna Waki, and

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Speaker 1: she knew then. She knew then. I was so glad

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Speaker 1: that it was finally happening, and I was so mortified

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Speaker 1: at the same time because even though things happened, that

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Speaker 1: we're bad there, we were so brainwashed. We loved Ann Wakey.

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Speaker 1: This is Kelly, a survivor of van A Waki remembering

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Speaker 1: her reaction to first hearing about the scandal. With Louis

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Speaker 1: Petter now in jail, multiple civil suits had been filed

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Speaker 1: against him and Anna Wake Incorporated. Attorney Pat edel Kind

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Speaker 1: worked tirelessly along with her partner in the suit, attorney

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Speaker 1: Randy Blackwood. With the number of clients and suits filed,

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Speaker 1: this case would take over three years before it finally

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Speaker 1: went to court. Here's Pat. Once it hit the press

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Speaker 1: of the Atlanta paper and somewhere around the id state,

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Speaker 1: it became known and people would come or they would

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Speaker 1: call me, and they would be interested in talking. And

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Speaker 1: I had dedicated my life to to talking to them.

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Speaker 1: Working on this case. We've basically consolidated in his office,

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Speaker 1: although I had by our own and uh we turned

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Speaker 1: down a ton of paper. We had so many, so

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Speaker 1: many people working for us at someone one time. It

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Speaker 1: was just impossible to keep up with it, but we

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Speaker 1: did it. I've been runched through the sweet much because

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Speaker 1: I talked to all the clients. That was really difficult.

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Speaker 1: That's the one thing that Randy did not want anything

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Speaker 1: to do with. So I did all of that, all

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Speaker 1: the client contacts, and and you can imagine people are

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Speaker 1: talking about their children, and then we're talking to the adlaceness.

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Speaker 1: They were usually adolescents, but the older ones had more

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Speaker 1: to say about everything that happened there because they were

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Speaker 1: just older. They could relate about the sexual abuse that

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Speaker 1: wasn't pretty what they could say it. The younger ones

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Speaker 1: no difficult. At any point in time in the day.

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Speaker 1: I could be called day and night and I would

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Speaker 1: talk to them. You just had to hold their hands

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Speaker 1: as listen to the parents as well as the kids.

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Speaker 1: Over the past several weeks we have received number of

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Speaker 1: very serious allegations concerning both the facility out there in

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Speaker 1: a number of individuals involved with him. It was just

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Speaker 1: a from of this therapy. They were told to do it,

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Speaker 1: and at the time he was fourteen and a half

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Speaker 1: fifteen years old, they didn't know any better. I asked him,

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Speaker 1: why are you letting this happen? Why are you covering

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Speaker 1: up for Louis Batter He had no answer to that question.

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Speaker 1: Involved having and this sitution paid it off little, such

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Speaker 1: shock destricable place, and to do absolutely the contrary of

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Speaker 1: what they should have done. I'm disturbable the fact of

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Speaker 1: something He's still one on it and awake you I'm

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Speaker 1: Josh Stean and this is Camp hell an Awake. Since

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Speaker 1: the initial lawsuits against in Awaki were filed, there had

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Speaker 1: now amassed a total of eight different lawsuits, including up

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Speaker 1: to thirty one defendants associated within Awaki and over one

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Speaker 1: and thirty plaintiffs. The first to go to trial was

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Speaker 1: one involving patients from the inn Awaki North campus in

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Speaker 1: rock Mart for girls. Terry was one of these plaintiffs. Actually,

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Speaker 1: what happened the five girls, which I was one of them,

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Speaker 1: three of us were able to testify. They hadn't even

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Speaker 1: gotten to the boys yet. It was really scary testifying

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Speaker 1: in court. But at the same time it was a

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Speaker 1: good feeling because I had a lot of anger because

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Speaker 1: I felt like I had been stripped at four years

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Speaker 1: of my life with my parents growing up. UM, I

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Speaker 1: was robbed those years and ended up coming out with

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Speaker 1: really no education and UM probably more problems. So it

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Speaker 1: felt really good to be able to testify UM and

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Speaker 1: share about the manual labor that they made us do

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Speaker 1: day in and day out, and the abuse, the physical abuse,

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Speaker 1: the sexual abuse. Just to be able to get that

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Speaker 1: all out and hold them accountable was really a good

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Speaker 1: feeling and It helped me personally to let go and

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Speaker 1: move on. They were originally a good nine form of

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Speaker 1: girls who were in that lawsuit, and Stilt just dropped out.

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Speaker 1: They couldn't take it, or they were fearful, or they

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Speaker 1: were frightened into physicious, but nonetheless um we ended up

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Speaker 1: with four pat says. The proceedings that took place in

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Speaker 1: this first civil trial were shocking and showing the abuse

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Speaker 1: the girls had endured at the rock Mark campus. Difficult

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Speaker 1: as it was, the plaintifts testified and gave their stories.

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Speaker 1: In the one case that went to trial that ended

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Speaker 1: up four rals. They were subject across examination and almost

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Speaker 1: that the sexual abuse, the denial privileges they would be denied,

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Speaker 1: told visits if they told terrupt too much about what

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Speaker 1: was going on, what was really going on, and then

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Speaker 1: come to find out that it was all true. It

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Speaker 1: was just astonishing. That was horrific, really, but we've prepared

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Speaker 1: them very well and they get well. On December nine,

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Speaker 1: after four years of working on the case and a

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Speaker 1: ten week trial at Fulton County Superior Court, jury awarded

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Speaker 1: five point two million dollars to four young women who

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Speaker 1: had been victims of forced labor at Anawaki. At the

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Speaker 1: time of the settlement, this was anheard of number for

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Speaker 1: a suit dealing with child abuse, and one that an

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Speaker 1: Awaki's insurance, who would end up paying out the amount,

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Speaker 1: was not expecting. They were really basically shocked. The insurance

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Speaker 1: to chances lawyers were shocked at what we got for

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Speaker 1: these four girls. They never thought for four girls they

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Speaker 1: would have to pay five point four millions dollars. Know

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Speaker 1: what's all that? It was just I wouldn't be believed,

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Speaker 1: but now it would. Carl Moore was subject to these

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Speaker 1: lawsuits along within a Wiki and its board of directors.

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Speaker 1: He remembers his reaction to the civil suits as they

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Speaker 1: began to go to trial. Oh, I just wanted to

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Speaker 1: crawl under a rock. I thought a trial was coming.

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Speaker 1: I told everybody in the investigation everything that I knew,

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Speaker 1: and I was prepared to do that in trial. And

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Speaker 1: but then there was a civil suit also, and I

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Speaker 1: was named in the civil suit. It's like a perfect

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Speaker 1: storm this whole thing. So I was being suit. I

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Speaker 1: didn't know if I was what was going to happen

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Speaker 1: to me criminally. This went on for a long time.

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Speaker 1: It was at least a couple of years, I think

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Speaker 1: before they finally got around to take him my deposition,

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Speaker 1: it was a really hard thing. I mean, the plaintiffs

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Speaker 1: needed me to testify they were suing me. The insurance

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Speaker 1: company was only representation I had. Because Carl had chosen

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Speaker 1: to testify against an Awaki, he would have no help

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Speaker 1: from them when it came to him being sued or

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Speaker 1: any other litigation he would incur. An Awaki's insurance with St.

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Speaker 1: Paul would be the only legal defense team he would have,

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Speaker 1: as he had been an employee of Anawaki at the time.

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Speaker 1: Antawaki was not going to do anything to help me. St.

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Speaker 1: Paul was being sued. I mean, that's where the money

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Speaker 1: was going to come from, so they had a vested

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Speaker 1: interest in knowing what I new. I guess I don't

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Speaker 1: think they wanted me to become a plaintiff, which is

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Speaker 1: ultimately what I did. So that's what I mean by

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Speaker 1: conflict of interest. As far as I know, the day

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Speaker 1: after my deposition they settled the case. So I spent

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Speaker 1: a lot of years in agony about that, I mean,

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Speaker 1: trying to get on with my life and not knowing

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Speaker 1: how this thing was going to work out. After in

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Speaker 1: Awaki had lost this initial suit at a cost of

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Speaker 1: over five million dollars. The desire to go to trial

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Speaker 1: with each of these civil cases dwindled quickly, yet again

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Speaker 1: a settlement and negotiation was in the works. For this

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Speaker 1: to happen, however, all one and thirty one plaintiffs would

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Speaker 1: need to agree to the terms of a settlement. They

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Speaker 1: were really right at the verdict that came in with

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Speaker 1: the girls who they saw that they had best settled

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Speaker 1: or jewish again, all these kinds of things would add

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Speaker 1: up to an awful lot of money. They didn't imagine

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Speaker 1: that they would get a verdict like we got. Well,

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Speaker 1: we wanted to settle and they wanted something out that

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Speaker 1: that was the bottom line, and just to show them

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Speaker 1: that it was fair. Who was pretty much disclosed. We

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Speaker 1: disclosed what they were going to get, and we had

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Speaker 1: to get them to agree what patience held out. But

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Speaker 1: eventually opted in the settlement and signed the relief. The

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Speaker 1: insurance paid at all really except for that time in jailed,

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Speaker 1: and they's like that. By March nine, a settlement had

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Speaker 1: been agreed upon by the St. Paul Insurance Company in

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Speaker 1: the thirty one former patients who had sued the organization,

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Speaker 1: a settlement, a thirty four million dollars had been awarded.

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Speaker 1: This amount would be the largest civil suit payout in

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Speaker 1: the history of the State of Georgia at the time.

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Speaker 1: This was the most important case that I've been involved in,

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Speaker 1: because at the time is settled for thirty five billion

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Speaker 1: dollars in today's dollars. I looked you up yesterday and

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Speaker 1: into my amazement, it would be a hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: million dollars today. While the payout for this civil suit

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Speaker 1: was the largest in the state's history, how the payments

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Speaker 1: were split up is a little more complicated. Because Annawiki

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Speaker 1: had agreed to a settlement, this lump sum would be

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Speaker 1: divided between the victims with a point system that would

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Speaker 1: deduce how much a victim would be paid depending on

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Speaker 1: what they had been through. I remember Judgester should us

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Speaker 1: while your now will keep both of you because he

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Speaker 1: gave us our chair. The Wias did not trust Randy

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Speaker 1: Blackwood with it, with any thirty five billion dollars, and

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Speaker 1: they were planned about that he was going to put

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Speaker 1: it in his trust fund. However, they thought he was

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Speaker 1: going to take off to REvil or something. Not the

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Speaker 1: most trusting people after their experiences. In any event, I

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Speaker 1: relaid this to the judge and he liked to also

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Speaker 1: get Randy in on it, and he ended up being

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Speaker 1: in the Courts Trust Fund, so held in trust for

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Speaker 1: the plainest. Well. He had a part of formula of

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Speaker 1: a certain amount. I think it was fifty thousand to

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Speaker 1: the parents who were also joined in the lawsuits and

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Speaker 1: who went to the Statue of limitation to pass on.

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Speaker 1: And everyone got something, but the ones who were really

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Speaker 1: hurting at that in time, which that was within the statue,

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Speaker 1: they got much much more worm under the three hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars. They did it on a point system, and

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Speaker 1: so you would get a certain amount of points depending

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Speaker 1: on how long you were there, and I think that's

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Speaker 1: what I benefited from because I was there for four years,

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Speaker 1: I got more points. And then you've got a certain

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Speaker 1: amount of points for what kind of sexual abuse you

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Speaker 1: suffered or mental abuse, and then you got points for

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Speaker 1: actually how many days and hours of labor, and so

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Speaker 1: it all just added up. So each person had their

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Speaker 1: own sets of points. And my understanding was when I

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Speaker 1: testified and two other girls testified, I guess the jury

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Speaker 1: awarded us each like two or three million dollars a piece,

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Speaker 1: but we didn't get that. Instead they settled for like

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Speaker 1: thirty two million. This is what we were told. They

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Speaker 1: saw that the three girls from the very beginning were

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Speaker 1: awarded two to three million dollars apiece, and they were

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Speaker 1: just getting started. So I think in a wig he

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Speaker 1: probably got scared and said we better settled now because

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Speaker 1: this is going to get really big. I ended up

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Speaker 1: getting about three hundred and sixty thousand dollars. I had

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Speaker 1: no idea. I just got married and had my first child.

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Speaker 1: I think it was only like twenty one or twenty

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Speaker 1: two at the time, and so I remember when we

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Speaker 1: were going to court to testify and I was trying

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Speaker 1: to explain everything to my husband. I said, I think

224
00:15:49,960 --> 00:15:52,800
Speaker 1: I might get like a thousand dollars or something like.

225
00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:56,320
Speaker 1: I had no clue as far as the money. I

226
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Speaker 1: had no idea. So it was a shock. Some of

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00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:03,520
Speaker 1: the victims of Anawaki would never hear about the civil

228
00:16:03,600 --> 00:16:07,280
Speaker 1: suit and would receive no restitution for the damage they

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Speaker 1: had endured. Here's Cheryl, a survivor of the sexual abuse

230
00:16:11,800 --> 00:16:16,040
Speaker 1: which took place in Rock mart I was not involved

231
00:16:16,080 --> 00:16:20,520
Speaker 1: in any lawsuits whatsoever. I wasn't aware of any lawsuits.

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Speaker 1: No one called us or told us anything about that

233
00:16:25,360 --> 00:16:28,200
Speaker 1: or the possibility of getting money. I do know that

234
00:16:28,440 --> 00:16:30,600
Speaker 1: one of I don't know if she was in my

235
00:16:30,720 --> 00:16:33,960
Speaker 1: group or in someone else's group, but one of the

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00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:36,720
Speaker 1: girls her dad was a lawyer. I think that's helped

237
00:16:36,760 --> 00:16:39,160
Speaker 1: to spearhead it. I don't know if they just chose

238
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Speaker 1: to keep it small and not involve all the girls

239
00:16:41,360 --> 00:16:44,280
Speaker 1: are all the people, or they just weren't basically in

240
00:16:44,360 --> 00:16:48,200
Speaker 1: the capacity to deal with all of us per se.

241
00:16:48,800 --> 00:16:51,880
Speaker 1: For me, it wasn't worth it because no amount of

242
00:16:51,920 --> 00:16:55,800
Speaker 1: money would have changed what happened to me. It would

243
00:16:55,840 --> 00:16:58,160
Speaker 1: have been nice, you know. But I do know that

244
00:16:58,280 --> 00:17:00,480
Speaker 1: some of the girls that got money, they went on

245
00:17:00,720 --> 00:17:04,320
Speaker 1: to buy drugs with it, not necessarily spent it in

246
00:17:04,359 --> 00:17:07,399
Speaker 1: the best of ways, because it was a devastating experience

247
00:17:07,480 --> 00:17:11,440
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. A lot of the payouts,

248
00:17:11,720 --> 00:17:16,000
Speaker 1: and nobody who got to pay out is healthy and happy,

249
00:17:16,400 --> 00:17:18,639
Speaker 1: nobody that I know of. None of the girls who

250
00:17:18,720 --> 00:17:21,920
Speaker 1: got to pay out still benefit from that money. That

251
00:17:22,040 --> 00:17:27,159
Speaker 1: money is long gone. I think I was vaguely aware,

252
00:17:27,720 --> 00:17:32,320
Speaker 1: but again I was really just saying, Nope, saved my life,

253
00:17:32,359 --> 00:17:34,800
Speaker 1: didn't see nothing wrong, nothing bad, nothing wrong. And the

254
00:17:34,960 --> 00:17:37,960
Speaker 1: reason for that attitude was again, I did not want

255
00:17:38,040 --> 00:17:41,959
Speaker 1: my parents feeling like they put me in that position

256
00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:43,480
Speaker 1: because I know it would it would kill them with

257
00:17:43,520 --> 00:17:45,440
Speaker 1: the guilt. And if I had missed out on a

258
00:17:45,520 --> 00:17:47,800
Speaker 1: two million dollar settlement, I don't care as long as

259
00:17:47,880 --> 00:17:50,240
Speaker 1: they had that for the rest of their lives. Not

260
00:17:50,720 --> 00:17:55,520
Speaker 1: knowing what all really went on there, I wish I

261
00:17:55,560 --> 00:17:57,000
Speaker 1: hadn't known about it. If I known about it, I

262
00:17:57,040 --> 00:18:02,159
Speaker 1: would have been I didn't find out it until I

263
00:18:02,200 --> 00:18:06,640
Speaker 1: would say twenty years later. I was living a mine

264
00:18:06,720 --> 00:18:08,960
Speaker 1: the beach at the time, and actually a bunch of

265
00:18:09,040 --> 00:18:11,480
Speaker 1: the girls came down. It was a mini ran and

266
00:18:12,240 --> 00:18:14,920
Speaker 1: thebody said that there was a lawsuit and they got money,

267
00:18:15,080 --> 00:18:19,680
Speaker 1: and I was like what. And that's the first time

268
00:18:19,800 --> 00:18:22,600
Speaker 1: I learned about it, that there was even a lawsuit.

269
00:18:23,800 --> 00:18:27,000
Speaker 1: I found out about it after the fact. I was

270
00:18:27,080 --> 00:18:30,359
Speaker 1: at an Awaking longer than anybody that ever went to

271
00:18:30,400 --> 00:18:34,000
Speaker 1: an Awaki. I was a younger than anybody. Yeah, no

272
00:18:34,080 --> 00:18:37,760
Speaker 1: one said anything. I didn't get anything. I I never

273
00:18:37,880 --> 00:18:40,040
Speaker 1: called me. I was on the West Coast. I was

274
00:18:40,119 --> 00:18:44,440
Speaker 1: out of the loop. I had gotten a phone call

275
00:18:44,840 --> 00:18:48,800
Speaker 1: months before they had asked if there was a lawsuit,

276
00:18:49,240 --> 00:18:52,240
Speaker 1: would I be available. And at the time I had

277
00:18:52,280 --> 00:18:56,800
Speaker 1: a my son was a toddler and he had pediatric cancer,

278
00:18:57,920 --> 00:19:00,560
Speaker 1: and I was too busy try to make sure that

279
00:19:00,680 --> 00:19:04,399
Speaker 1: my baby lived, and he did, he survived his cancer.

280
00:19:05,200 --> 00:19:07,919
Speaker 1: But I was too busy to even think about helping

281
00:19:09,200 --> 00:19:12,680
Speaker 1: this lawsuit. And I was still conflicted with my emotions

282
00:19:12,760 --> 00:19:16,240
Speaker 1: about it because I was just a few years out

283
00:19:16,359 --> 00:19:19,840
Speaker 1: of Antiwaki and the brainwashing and the fear was still there.

284
00:19:20,320 --> 00:19:23,639
Speaker 1: I still dreamed about it. I still dream about it,

285
00:19:24,640 --> 00:19:27,520
Speaker 1: and in the dreams, they're always chasing me, trying to

286
00:19:27,560 --> 00:19:30,240
Speaker 1: get me to come back. And when I was a

287
00:19:30,280 --> 00:19:32,119
Speaker 1: young mother, I used to dream they were chasing me

288
00:19:32,200 --> 00:19:34,840
Speaker 1: and my children and trying to get us to go

289
00:19:35,119 --> 00:19:41,879
Speaker 1: to Antiwaki to try and help in the cases of

290
00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:45,320
Speaker 1: victims who had not been included in the lawsuits. A

291
00:19:45,440 --> 00:19:52,080
Speaker 1: one million dollar trust fund was established. Pat explains actually

292
00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:58,200
Speaker 1: settled I had of the former anawacupatients who had not

293
00:19:58,640 --> 00:20:02,720
Speaker 1: been included in the money that we left. I left

294
00:20:02,840 --> 00:20:06,760
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand dollars and Randy Brentwood left five hundred

295
00:20:06,800 --> 00:20:12,720
Speaker 1: thousand dollars to form a crust for those patients who

296
00:20:13,359 --> 00:20:17,359
Speaker 1: we won't representing so that could receive some money. At

297
00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:19,639
Speaker 1: the time, it was more than it would be today.

298
00:20:20,080 --> 00:20:24,400
Speaker 1: And this kid pumps up in his car and he's

299
00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:28,200
Speaker 1: in my driveway and he says, I don't want that

300
00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:31,960
Speaker 1: because I told him we have a trust fund for you,

301
00:20:32,880 --> 00:20:38,200
Speaker 1: and he says, I want money. He booked for rather frightening,

302
00:20:38,960 --> 00:20:43,160
Speaker 1: but he sure got my attention. We all did agree

303
00:20:44,359 --> 00:20:46,560
Speaker 1: to put a certain amount of money aside for a

304
00:20:46,640 --> 00:20:50,639
Speaker 1: trust fund for those that didn't get involved in the lawsuits.

305
00:20:50,720 --> 00:20:52,960
Speaker 1: Some people didn't know about it, some people knew about

306
00:20:53,040 --> 00:20:55,879
Speaker 1: and chose not to, but there were still a lot

307
00:20:55,920 --> 00:20:58,000
Speaker 1: of people out there didn't that needed help, so there

308
00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:02,440
Speaker 1: was a certain amount of money for that. Kelly was

309
00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:05,800
Speaker 1: one former patient who later received some help from the

310
00:21:05,880 --> 00:21:10,119
Speaker 1: trust fund. I don't know how much that care trust

311
00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:12,560
Speaker 1: fund was, but it was supposed to be for us

312
00:21:12,680 --> 00:21:18,719
Speaker 1: to get therapy and education. I also felt as if

313
00:21:18,800 --> 00:21:22,879
Speaker 1: Annawaki had given me an eating disorder and I wanted

314
00:21:22,920 --> 00:21:25,480
Speaker 1: to get help for that. They paid for me to

315
00:21:25,560 --> 00:21:30,040
Speaker 1: go to career assessment and a psychological assessment, and then

316
00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:33,760
Speaker 1: they paid for me to have therapy, and they paid

317
00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:35,480
Speaker 1: for me to go to school. So I went to

318
00:21:35,520 --> 00:21:38,120
Speaker 1: school to be a surgical tag and then they gave

319
00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:41,720
Speaker 1: me a three thousand dollar check. And it was near

320
00:21:41,800 --> 00:21:45,200
Speaker 1: the end. It was my understanding that the fund was

321
00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:48,919
Speaker 1: coming to an end, that the funds were going away

322
00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:53,639
Speaker 1: and the board was dissolving. I do not believe what

323
00:21:53,760 --> 00:21:57,480
Speaker 1: I got from the trust fund was retribution for what

324
00:21:57,720 --> 00:22:02,320
Speaker 1: I went through at Antiwaki. And I don't believe that

325
00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:07,960
Speaker 1: even the people who got large sums of money, no

326
00:22:08,080 --> 00:22:11,480
Speaker 1: matter how much money you get, it doesn't rebuild what

327
00:22:11,760 --> 00:22:17,880
Speaker 1: was broken in us. It doesn't. I asked Pat edel

328
00:22:17,960 --> 00:22:21,240
Speaker 1: Kind if she felt justice was brought to the victims

329
00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:26,440
Speaker 1: from an Awaki. It's difficult to say, because it's really

330
00:22:26,600 --> 00:22:31,760
Speaker 1: difficult to take that those kinds of experiences that they suffered.

331
00:22:32,359 --> 00:22:36,359
Speaker 1: But in some small way it did. It shows me

332
00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:40,720
Speaker 1: do it gave him something to starve on to recuperate,

333
00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:46,320
Speaker 1: So in that sense it did. But have lived what

334
00:22:46,520 --> 00:22:49,680
Speaker 1: they lived through, No one would trade money for that.

335
00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:54,680
Speaker 1: An Awake He changed my life. I had no idea

336
00:22:54,960 --> 00:22:58,440
Speaker 1: but I would be doing stuff like this, But just

337
00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:01,640
Speaker 1: is where I ms it up. And I had decided

338
00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:05,880
Speaker 1: to go out with Felo practitioner, and I never knew

339
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:08,680
Speaker 1: I'd be doing something like this, but I feel that

340
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:12,320
Speaker 1: I have done something that matters in this world. I

341
00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:16,720
Speaker 1: feel that I have helped people, and that is the

342
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:21,440
Speaker 1: greatest feeling I've ever had and be able to give.

343
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:28,680
Speaker 1: You know, yes, I became wealthy, However, money is not

344
00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:34,080
Speaker 1: the only thing that satisfies this feeling of having done

345
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:49,520
Speaker 1: well from my self, of human beings matters m M.

346
00:23:56,160 --> 00:23:59,119
Speaker 1: While the civil suit against an awake he was taking place,

347
00:23:59,760 --> 00:24:02,640
Speaker 1: Louis Petter had been serving out his sentence of eight

348
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:06,040
Speaker 1: years in a Georgia prison. Petter would go on to

349
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:10,719
Speaker 1: serve seven just shy of his full sentence. Petter had

350
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:15,080
Speaker 1: been tried for parole in n and was initially denied

351
00:24:15,400 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 1: after a flood of calls were made to the parole board. However,

352
00:24:20,359 --> 00:24:26,480
Speaker 1: on January nine, at the age of seventy six, Louis

353
00:24:26,560 --> 00:24:30,639
Speaker 1: Petter was granted parole with the stipulation that he remained

354
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:34,000
Speaker 1: on probation and that he not returned to Douglas County

355
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:40,360
Speaker 1: or have any contact with miners. By nine, Petter attempted

356
00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:42,639
Speaker 1: to appeal the ruling that he not be allowed to

357
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:46,080
Speaker 1: return to Douglas County due to the fact that his

358
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:49,960
Speaker 1: probation officer had been moved to Douglas County. The appeal

359
00:24:50,119 --> 00:24:54,760
Speaker 1: was upheld and considered moot. The governor of Georgia at

360
00:24:54,800 --> 00:24:58,840
Speaker 1: the time was Roy Barnes, a former attorney. Barnes had

361
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:02,240
Speaker 1: represented in a week Key during litigation over its status

362
00:25:02,359 --> 00:25:05,879
Speaker 1: as a nonprofit in the nineteen eighties. It is this

363
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 1: same year that the long outdated sodomy law in Georgia

364
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:14,000
Speaker 1: was overturned. Due to this overturning of the sodomy law,

365
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:17,400
Speaker 1: Louis Petter would no longer have to have his name

366
00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:21,960
Speaker 1: on a sex offender's list. Petter would soon after attempt

367
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:25,359
Speaker 1: to overturn his conviction as sodomy was no longer against

368
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:29,119
Speaker 1: the law. His reason for doing so was that he

369
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:32,639
Speaker 1: could quote travel out of the country to see family

370
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:38,560
Speaker 1: and visit property he owns in Mexico. For the last

371
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:41,320
Speaker 1: years of his life, Louis Petter would live in a

372
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:45,359
Speaker 1: small ranch home in Lawrenceville, Georgia, with his wife, Mabel,

373
00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:49,240
Speaker 1: and two German shepherds. Petter would go on to live

374
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:53,560
Speaker 1: another nearly twenty years as a freeman. Former patient Kelly

375
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:58,359
Speaker 1: Lewis says that after reconnecting with other Innawaki survivors. She

376
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: went on what she called Petters Death Watch. When we

377
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,399
Speaker 1: began the first it was message boards back in the

378
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:11,360
Speaker 1: eighties for Anawaki survivors, and we would get on these

379
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:14,399
Speaker 1: message boards and we would yell and scream at each other,

380
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:17,800
Speaker 1: but we also had very close bonds to each other.

381
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:21,639
Speaker 1: We went through trauma together. So when you as a

382
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:24,000
Speaker 1: child go through trauma, you bond with the people who

383
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 1: help you through it. And I am still very very

384
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 1: close with a lot of the people who went to

385
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:31,560
Speaker 1: Anna Wake with me. I mean to the point of

386
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 1: where I see them once a month, twice a month.

387
00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:37,320
Speaker 1: They come to my house and eat food and and

388
00:26:37,480 --> 00:26:40,199
Speaker 1: we go and do events together and and that kind

389
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:44,320
Speaker 1: of thing. I'm very close to them. And I remember

390
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:50,119
Speaker 1: at one point people arguing after Mabel Petters death. I

391
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:55,720
Speaker 1: found Mabel Petters obituary online and I posted it. I

392
00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:58,000
Speaker 1: can't remember at the time if we had a Facebook

393
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:00,080
Speaker 1: group or if it was a message board. By I

394
00:27:00,119 --> 00:27:03,760
Speaker 1: think it was a Facebook group. We had graduated from

395
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:08,040
Speaker 1: uh you know, the dial ups, squealing too real Internet,

396
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:11,520
Speaker 1: and we were on Facebook and I remember announcing and

397
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:15,280
Speaker 1: posting the obituary and it said she was survived by

398
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:19,120
Speaker 1: her husband, Louis Petter. So it was at that time

399
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:21,359
Speaker 1: that I went on death watch, and that's what I

400
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:25,080
Speaker 1: ended up calling it. I went to obituary dot Com

401
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:28,240
Speaker 1: and I had them send me a notice every month

402
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:32,440
Speaker 1: to tell me if there had been any Petters who

403
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:37,359
Speaker 1: had an obituary. And for years I didn't trust it.

404
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:39,880
Speaker 1: So I would actually drive by his house to see

405
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 1: if he still lived there. And eventually he didn't live

406
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:48,639
Speaker 1: at his house anymore. He I guess was probably and

407
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:51,680
Speaker 1: I guess this probably in some sort of nursing home.

408
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:54,760
Speaker 1: He was a very old man when he died. Now,

409
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 1: the first time I saw his house, I was shocked

410
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:01,480
Speaker 1: because it was just a brick aunt's house. I expected

411
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:06,760
Speaker 1: that he lived in this big, beautiful, fancy house, but

412
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:09,960
Speaker 1: he didn't. So I remember going by his house. I

413
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:11,920
Speaker 1: would drive by his house to see if he still

414
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:15,239
Speaker 1: lived there, and I could tell that he lived there

415
00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 1: because of the dogs there, Because he had German shepherds

416
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 1: with him at all times. It was known that no

417
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:24,399
Speaker 1: matter where he went, those dogs went with him. They

418
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:27,439
Speaker 1: were trained German shepherds and they were with him all

419
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 1: the time. So when I would drive by his house,

420
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:33,440
Speaker 1: if I saw the dogs in the yard, I knew

421
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 1: that he was still living there. And then the dogs

422
00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:41,320
Speaker 1: weren't there anymore, and I started panicking because I didn't

423
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 1: know how to trace him anymore, and I, you know,

424
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: would express this on the Facebook page or to other

425
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 1: people who went to Anna Waki and I ended up

426
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 1: going to where Mabel was buried to see the gravestone,

427
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:59,120
Speaker 1: and I saw that his marker was next to hers,

428
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:02,400
Speaker 1: and it had a birth date on it, but the

429
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:06,720
Speaker 1: death date was still open. And that cemetery actually was

430
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 1: not too far from the house that I lived in

431
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 1: in Atlanta for eleven years. So for eleven years, at

432
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:16,280
Speaker 1: least once a month I would go by the cemetery

433
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:20,520
Speaker 1: to see if they added a death date onto it,

434
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:25,000
Speaker 1: because I didn't trust that they would do an obituary,

435
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:32,400
Speaker 1: which they did not. On January, Padder passed away at

436
00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 1: the age of one day, I went and the death

437
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 1: date was there, and I took pictures of it. I

438
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 1: remember shaking, and I remember having to steady my hand

439
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: to take pictures of it. He hurt so many people.

440
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:53,960
Speaker 1: I was so glad he was dead. I felt like

441
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 1: the balance between good and evil on this planet shifted

442
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:03,920
Speaker 1: when he died, and I was I was glad to

443
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:09,200
Speaker 1: bring that news to people who had been abused by

444
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:15,960
Speaker 1: him and affected their lives changed because of him. And

445
00:30:16,080 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 1: I posted the pictures, and I wouldn't tell them at first.

446
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:24,560
Speaker 1: I made people work for it, because I'm not going

447
00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:27,440
Speaker 1: to be the one that causes somebody to go and

448
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:33,160
Speaker 1: desecrate a grave or a graveyard. I don't remember telling

449
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 1: them what graveyard it was, but that but that it

450
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:39,320
Speaker 1: had happened. And I posted the pictures, and I knew

451
00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:41,440
Speaker 1: that people could find out if they were smart enough

452
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:45,480
Speaker 1: to look the way I always looked. I was glad

453
00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:47,720
Speaker 1: that he went to prison for the short period of

454
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:51,320
Speaker 1: time that he went to prison, but it infuriated me.

455
00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 1: Only the good die young, and that's why he lived forever.

456
00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 1: So that was death Watch, and I was glad when

457
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 1: it was over. And I remember my husband that night

458
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 1: holding me and telling me it's okay now, because it

459
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:14,880
Speaker 1: was okay. He's gone, and and now our story is

460
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:17,960
Speaker 1: being told and we won't be forgotten anymore. And I'm

461
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 1: glad of that. We deserve for people to know, and

462
00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 1: not only do we deserve it, but future children deserve

463
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 1: for people to know that these kinds of situations where

464
00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:38,880
Speaker 1: they isolate children are dangerous. They're dangerous, and humans can't

465
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 1: be trusted in situations of power and money. They just

466
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 1: can't be trusted. In the end, the only time served

467
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,480
Speaker 1: by any of the staff from Anawaki was the seven

468
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:57,320
Speaker 1: years Louis Petter spent in prison, and an additional three

469
00:31:57,440 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 1: years served by Jim Wamack Walmac was eventually released due

470
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 1: to a statute of limitations ruling against dis charges. Louis

471
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:10,520
Speaker 1: Petter and family had turned over eight hundred thousand dollars

472
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,920
Speaker 1: of property to Douglas County in the settlement, with over

473
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 1: five million dollars worth of real estate left in the

474
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:21,680
Speaker 1: control of Anawaki Incorporated, it's nonprofit branch of the organization.

475
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 1: By January of seven, the Hospital Corporation of America, or

476
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 1: the h c A, agreed to take over day to

477
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 1: day operations of an Awaki's three campuses. This deal would

478
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: prevent the Department of Human Resources from taking away an

479
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 1: Awake's license to operate as a medical facility for a

480
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 1: few years. The campuses would go by the new and Awake,

481
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 1: eventually changing hands again and dropping any name connecting it

482
00:32:52,080 --> 00:32:56,720
Speaker 1: to the scandal. Much still remains unknown about where the

483
00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 1: payment for the Anawaki takeover ended up, or who profited

484
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:03,480
Speaker 1: from such items as the sale of the Carabell campus

485
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:08,680
Speaker 1: or the marina. Since Antawaki's demise, a whole industry of

486
00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:13,520
Speaker 1: quote emotional growth schools has been established. Many of these

487
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:16,240
Speaker 1: seem to have taken pages out of an Awake's playbook,

488
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 1: from solitary confinement to force labor, and some of which

489
00:33:21,120 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 1: have also seen charges of abuse, both sexual and physical.

490
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 1: The amount of oversight given to these organizations is often lacking,

491
00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:34,600
Speaker 1: varying from state to state, with no federal organization to

492
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 1: regulate them. Journalist Albert Edgin, who covered the Anawaki case

493
00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:42,840
Speaker 1: for over seven years, says he is still concerned that

494
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:46,360
Speaker 1: some of the former abusers from Antawaki may still be

495
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 1: involved in child treatment. The most troubling thing to me

496
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:55,479
Speaker 1: about the implications, long term implications, is that there are

497
00:33:55,720 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 1: still people who were abusing patients at an Awakey who

498
00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: are in the health care systems around the South, who

499
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 1: are providing treatment for troubled children or people. And we

500
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 1: know that because Florida had made a list of abusers

501
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:16,800
Speaker 1: that were elsewhere they weren't able to do anything about it,

502
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:20,080
Speaker 1: or they didn't do anything about it. There were at

503
00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:25,759
Speaker 1: the time attempts, particularly in Florida, to review the way

504
00:34:25,920 --> 00:34:30,239
Speaker 1: the state managed places like an Awake. I think that's

505
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:34,440
Speaker 1: one piece of evidence that it had at least the

506
00:34:34,480 --> 00:34:37,120
Speaker 1: positive effect of getting the attention of the bureaucrats long

507
00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:39,840
Speaker 1: enough where they could issue a report that maybe some

508
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:42,879
Speaker 1: people have paid attention to through the years. I think

509
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:50,439
Speaker 1: in terms of the American culture that Annawaki is one

510
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:54,920
Speaker 1: of the many things that woke the country up in

511
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:58,800
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties to the kinds of manipulation and

512
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:03,239
Speaker 1: abuse that on institutions were going through. That was a

513
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:07,880
Speaker 1: very gradual process, and now it's become something that we

514
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 1: read about the papers every day. It's not just institutions

515
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:14,359
Speaker 1: like an Awake. He has institutions like Hollywood, and we've

516
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:19,120
Speaker 1: become because of little things like an Awake. He became

517
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 1: exposed and people became aware than we are more aware

518
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 1: of this kind of thing today. For many in Awaki survivors,

519
00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:30,080
Speaker 1: coming to grips with what they went through has been

520
00:35:30,120 --> 00:35:34,000
Speaker 1: a year's long process. Many of them have connected with

521
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:37,399
Speaker 1: each other over the years through the Internet and later

522
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:41,680
Speaker 1: at Facebook group which was created specifically for former patients.

523
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:45,919
Speaker 1: They will still have reunions from time to time. Many

524
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:48,440
Speaker 1: would attempt to track down their own records from the

525
00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:51,360
Speaker 1: time they spent it in Awaki. A few I spoke

526
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:53,680
Speaker 1: with were able to do so up to a point

527
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:58,640
Speaker 1: past that point, though, according to the facility, all records

528
00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 1: from an Awake were distry. Foyd Here's survivor Chris McKnight.

529
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:06,319
Speaker 1: He is currently working on a book about his experience

530
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 1: at an Awaki. There was a window of opportunity for

531
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 1: us to get our medical records. I found out this information.

532
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:18,120
Speaker 1: We have a chat group, an Internet chet group that

533
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 1: only an Awaki students can be a part of, and

534
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:24,840
Speaker 1: we vet you know, we know what questions to ask someone.

535
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:27,400
Speaker 1: You know, we've had group leaders that tried to get in,

536
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:31,560
Speaker 1: you know, like no, a couple of bad ones too.

537
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 1: You know, we know the question is to ask that

538
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:37,040
Speaker 1: to tell if someone actually has been an Aniwaki. You know,

539
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:39,759
Speaker 1: what's the crest mean, what was your laundry number? What

540
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:42,040
Speaker 1: was the name of your first school group? Who is

541
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 1: you know, we know the questions to ask. So anyway,

542
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:47,760
Speaker 1: it was found out that we could get our medical records.

543
00:36:47,800 --> 00:36:50,400
Speaker 1: I want to say this is two thousand three. I

544
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:53,319
Speaker 1: think two thousand four. Actually, basically you had to um

545
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:57,800
Speaker 1: just sign a release and pay the copying costs. I

546
00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 1: think it was seven dollars. Because I stayed twice, I

547
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 1: had to pay fourteen. I had four pages of paperwork

548
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:07,960
Speaker 1: to copy, so I signed the release center to him.

549
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 1: Every day you were at Annawaki, there is something written

550
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:15,520
Speaker 1: about you. Most days there are two entries, some days

551
00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 1: three if you saw a doctor and maybe a nurse

552
00:37:17,719 --> 00:37:21,960
Speaker 1: that day, and to be somebody group leader. My second day.

553
00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 1: Reading my records, every day there's probably three entries from people,

554
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:30,840
Speaker 1: sometimes four. So they up the ANNIE against the insurance

555
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:34,920
Speaker 1: company later on about entries into your records. So a

556
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:37,040
Speaker 1: lot of us were able to get our records. And

557
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 1: then we had a reunion in two thousand five, and

558
00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 1: right after the reunion a bunch of people came to

559
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:47,960
Speaker 1: this reunion. They accommodated us at Douglasville. It was the

560
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:50,720
Speaker 1: first time I had been back to that campus since

561
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 1: I had left, and it was it was very healium

562
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:58,840
Speaker 1: for me, but it was also really heavy, bizarre. It

563
00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:03,400
Speaker 1: was emotionally ranching. It's just I couldn't eat for days,

564
00:38:04,040 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 1: but I needed to do that. It was painful, but

565
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:09,960
Speaker 1: I went back and I'm glad I did. So they

566
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:13,560
Speaker 1: got a whole run glutton of people asking requesting the records.

567
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 1: You know, I had gotten my records right before the reunion,

568
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:20,640
Speaker 1: so because all these people on site requested their records,

569
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 1: they had a whole mess of papal requesting. And then

570
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 1: shortly after that, within I want to say two or

571
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:29,760
Speaker 1: three months, it became known that there was a fire

572
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:34,879
Speaker 1: at the warehouse where they were keeping our records. Had

573
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:38,719
Speaker 1: been an employee of Annawaki. I heard he was hired

574
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:41,560
Speaker 1: around eighty three and had actually worked for an Awaki.

575
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:44,960
Speaker 1: So there was anybody that was still working there from

576
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:50,120
Speaker 1: prior that probably knew any Shenanigans or something. He probably did,

577
00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:52,719
Speaker 1: but he said that there was a fire in the

578
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:56,400
Speaker 1: warehouse and that no one could access the records anymore.

579
00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:59,640
Speaker 1: They were gone, And he said that the warehouse was offsite,

580
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:05,480
Speaker 1: was close to the downtown Atlanta area, but wouldn't stay where.

581
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 1: No one knew an address when you sent for your records,

582
00:39:09,239 --> 00:39:12,880
Speaker 1: that it was too old Annawaki Douglas Phil address. So

583
00:39:13,560 --> 00:39:15,920
Speaker 1: I don't know if our records were actually offside or not.

584
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 1: It could have been fabricated. And because the whole bunch

585
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:23,480
Speaker 1: of people at once asked to see the records, my

586
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 1: suspicion is that there really wasn't a fire and they

587
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:30,320
Speaker 1: just don't want to release any more records, not necessarily

588
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:35,160
Speaker 1: for liability reasons, maybe for liability reasons. Maybe they're afraid

589
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: of kids that were there. Later on that there's still

590
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:41,439
Speaker 1: a statue limitations that they can't get from out under.

591
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:46,359
Speaker 1: I I don't know, but it seemed very very suspicious.

592
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:49,000
Speaker 1: I highly doubt that there was to fire, and if

593
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:52,759
Speaker 1: there was, somebody said it on purpose. It's just too

594
00:39:52,840 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 1: many weird coincidences about it all. Either they got rid

595
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:01,160
Speaker 1: of those records or there somewhere, and I got a

596
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:04,320
Speaker 1: feeling that they're not very far from the Aniuaki campus.

597
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:07,680
Speaker 1: I really doubt that they would have hauled all that

598
00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:11,879
Speaker 1: records thousands of kids there. If my records was one

599
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:16,279
Speaker 1: file box. You're talking about thousands of file boxes. You know,

600
00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:18,800
Speaker 1: it's a lot of manpower. That's a lot of records

601
00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:38,480
Speaker 1: to move. When I first began to look into the

602
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 1: Innawaki case, I had no idea how far this story

603
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:45,600
Speaker 1: went or where it would take me. Two years of

604
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:48,560
Speaker 1: trying to track down the many facets of its history

605
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:51,880
Speaker 1: has taken me on a journey all around the Southeast,

606
00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:56,280
Speaker 1: speaking with dozens of survivors. The effects of an Awaki

607
00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:59,600
Speaker 1: are still seen today in the hundreds of former patients

608
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 1: still dealing with the backlash from the abuse they endured.

609
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:06,359
Speaker 1: Many survivors that I have talked to have long term

610
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 1: health issues due to what they've been through, not to

611
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:13,080
Speaker 1: mention the years of therapy and counseling it takes to

612
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 1: heal from something like that. Even with everything which the

613
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:20,680
Speaker 1: patients of an Awaki went through, many still say while

614
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:26,280
Speaker 1: they were abused, the program did have some benefits. I learned,

615
00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:29,800
Speaker 1: I learned how to be, I learned how not to be.

616
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:32,600
Speaker 1: I learned everything I thought I was supposed to learn

617
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:34,600
Speaker 1: to be a man and to go out into the

618
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:38,040
Speaker 1: world and do my thing. You know, tell me a

619
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:44,200
Speaker 1: whole lot. There are positive ways that Antawaki affected me.

620
00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:47,560
Speaker 1: I built a lot of inner strength because of the

621
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:50,800
Speaker 1: struggles and the hard work that we had to do

622
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:57,560
Speaker 1: and everything. But there was also very negative effects that

623
00:41:57,640 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 1: it had on me because I was robbed of my

624
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:06,200
Speaker 1: education and I was robbed of age fourteen to eighteen,

625
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 1: of being a teenager and live in a normal life.

626
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:13,880
Speaker 1: You know, I felt like I was in jail for

627
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:17,759
Speaker 1: four years working. I mean, it was like a punishment,

628
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:21,080
Speaker 1: and the worst part is it didn't help me, and

629
00:42:21,160 --> 00:42:27,160
Speaker 1: I still suffer from depression to this day. For other survivors,

630
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 1: their history with an Awaki still comes up in their

631
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:33,920
Speaker 1: day to day life. Friends and family's reaction to this

632
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:39,359
Speaker 1: are not always the most understanding. I would have to say,

633
00:42:40,280 --> 00:42:43,360
Speaker 1: having to explain to people. Look, I went to this

634
00:42:43,480 --> 00:42:47,399
Speaker 1: boys school. There's a lot of sexual most conduct, there's

635
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:51,919
Speaker 1: a lot of force laborers. You get to know someone

636
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:54,400
Speaker 1: you want to know, Oh, where do you go to school?

637
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:59,640
Speaker 1: And that's the hardest thing. I still got that way

638
00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 1: in my childer. I'm still carrying it around and I

639
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:04,719
Speaker 1: still have to expose it every once in a while.

640
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:10,200
Speaker 1: It's still really hard to talk about because I felt

641
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:13,879
Speaker 1: like I've been punished for it several times by people

642
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:16,880
Speaker 1: that I trusted, a group groups of my peers. It

643
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:18,920
Speaker 1: was kind of kind of rough. I know that I

644
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:22,560
Speaker 1: was a kid, I was a teenager, and I know

645
00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:24,960
Speaker 1: that I didn't do anything to deserve it. I know

646
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:29,279
Speaker 1: all those things, but I also think that for a

647
00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:31,040
Speaker 1: place that was supposed to try to teach us to

648
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:36,000
Speaker 1: learn how to communicate and deal with people on a

649
00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:39,400
Speaker 1: daily basis and and the social aspect of it, it

650
00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 1: really messed a lot of us up. It made a

651
00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:44,080
Speaker 1: lot of us angry, and it made a lot of

652
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:48,839
Speaker 1: us uh. I feel like in relationships. I know I've

653
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:50,680
Speaker 1: heard this from a lot of people that went there.

654
00:43:51,440 --> 00:43:54,960
Speaker 1: Is they struggle because everything is a confrontation. Everything is

655
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:57,640
Speaker 1: we need to sit down and talk and we need

656
00:43:57,719 --> 00:43:59,880
Speaker 1: to you know, figure this out, and we need to

657
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:02,359
Speaker 1: hit this head on. And in a lot of ways,

658
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:05,520
Speaker 1: I feel embarrassed to talk about it. It's hard to

659
00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:08,880
Speaker 1: talk to my kids, my parents, my siblings about this.

660
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 1: There's so many details, and it's so complicated. It's so

661
00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:16,399
Speaker 1: complicated that it's almost just easier just to not think

662
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:19,640
Speaker 1: about it. It helped my communication skills in a lot

663
00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:22,600
Speaker 1: of ways. I've had to work really hard to undo

664
00:44:22,719 --> 00:44:26,840
Speaker 1: damage that happened to me there, and that happened in

665
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:30,400
Speaker 1: the ways that they taught us, you know, to communicate.

666
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 1: I mean, they had us teenagers policing each other, which

667
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:38,040
Speaker 1: never should happen because teenagers our brains weren't developed. We

668
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 1: didn't know what we were doing. I have grandkids that

669
00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:44,200
Speaker 1: are pushing on the age of when I went to Anawaki,

670
00:44:44,600 --> 00:44:46,840
Speaker 1: and I have three daughters. I would never want that

671
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 1: to ever ever happen to them. I just hope that

672
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:53,160
Speaker 1: something comes from this. I hope that as a group,

673
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 1: those of us that are survivors that have had, oh

674
00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:59,480
Speaker 1: my gosh, such a huge gamut range of experiences. Some

675
00:44:59,600 --> 00:45:02,000
Speaker 1: people laim it saved their lives, but it also messed

676
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:04,320
Speaker 1: up their life. That's kind of where I am. I

677
00:45:04,400 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 1: think while in a week He's program may have had

678
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:11,960
Speaker 1: some benefits for its patients, the harm for many greatly

679
00:45:12,040 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 1: outweighed the good. I've had a lot of problems diagnosed

680
00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:21,719
Speaker 1: with bipolar PTSD in and out of psyche hospitals. I

681
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 1: didn't deal with it for a long time. I pushed

682
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:26,800
Speaker 1: it down for a long time. And then when I

683
00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:30,879
Speaker 1: started reading these reports coming up and what really happened there,

684
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:34,160
Speaker 1: and feeling sorry for all of my friends I had

685
00:45:34,239 --> 00:45:37,240
Speaker 1: to go through it, you know, it just really started

686
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:40,440
Speaker 1: to affect me the fact that I really didn't have

687
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:44,279
Speaker 1: any guidance in my life except our antiwiki because my

688
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:48,480
Speaker 1: dad was not a guide for me. You know. Once

689
00:45:48,520 --> 00:45:51,120
Speaker 1: I got in an Antiwaki, he still wasn't there to

690
00:45:51,160 --> 00:45:53,920
Speaker 1: guide me. So I just had to figure it out

691
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:57,640
Speaker 1: on myself. Started with a little job, became a bigger job,

692
00:45:57,719 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 1: became a bigger job. But uh, it has caused me

693
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:11,440
Speaker 1: definite mental problems. I think that some people have managed

694
00:46:11,560 --> 00:46:17,120
Speaker 1: to cope and deal with their experience at ant Waky

695
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:20,960
Speaker 1: more so than others, and I think that that's to

696
00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:25,920
Speaker 1: be expected because we're all different human beings. We all

697
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:32,160
Speaker 1: deal with situations in a different manner. So I know

698
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:36,640
Speaker 1: for myself and some of the people that I know

699
00:46:37,280 --> 00:46:40,360
Speaker 1: have had a very hard time dealing with all of

700
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:45,640
Speaker 1: the pain and the things that they've witnessed and experienced there.

701
00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:51,440
Speaker 1: Um it has absolutely changed my life. It changed my body,

702
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:55,560
Speaker 1: It changed the entire course of my life having been there.

703
00:46:55,600 --> 00:46:58,279
Speaker 1: So I think that there is a tremendous amount of

704
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:03,040
Speaker 1: unrest and I'm hoping that by doing this podcast that

705
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:09,000
Speaker 1: it will bring me some closure. Some of the long

706
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:14,520
Speaker 1: lasting results from being Anna Waki is the aggressive confrontation.

707
00:47:15,719 --> 00:47:19,880
Speaker 1: I feel like learning to confront people the way that

708
00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:24,160
Speaker 1: I did has affected my relationships, not only with partners,

709
00:47:24,200 --> 00:47:28,040
Speaker 1: in life, but with my children, we always had to

710
00:47:28,600 --> 00:47:30,920
Speaker 1: sit and talk out our feelings, and we always had

711
00:47:31,200 --> 00:47:33,840
Speaker 1: even if they were angry feelings, which a lot of

712
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:36,879
Speaker 1: people would say, oh, that's a good thing, Well it isn't.

713
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 1: When you are screaming and yelling. You know, it's good

714
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:43,759
Speaker 1: to talk out your feelings, but it isn't. It isn't

715
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:46,960
Speaker 1: okay to scream and yell. It isn't okay to scream

716
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:50,360
Speaker 1: and yell at children, or to encourage children to scream

717
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:54,239
Speaker 1: and yell at each other. I do want to say

718
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:57,600
Speaker 1: that I'm I'm grateful that the story is being told.

719
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:00,440
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people who went to Awakey

720
00:48:00,719 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 1: are grateful. They may not agree with exactly how the

721
00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:07,800
Speaker 1: story will be told, because everybody's story is different. And

722
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:12,320
Speaker 1: Awake both saved and ruined my life, and that's a

723
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:17,839
Speaker 1: difficult thing to explain to people. I most likely would

724
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:21,960
Speaker 1: not have been a successful adult. Without the work ethic

725
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:25,360
Speaker 1: I gained from getting up early every day and working

726
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:29,080
Speaker 1: every day and knowing the importance of work and knowing

727
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:33,480
Speaker 1: the feeling of accomplishing my goals, I wouldn't be the

728
00:48:33,560 --> 00:48:37,120
Speaker 1: person I am today. But I also wouldn't be broken.

729
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:41,319
Speaker 1: There are parts of me that are broken, that are

730
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:45,400
Speaker 1: stuck in the woods of an Awaki, that won't probably

731
00:48:45,480 --> 00:48:48,280
Speaker 1: ever come out. And I have to remind myself sometimes

732
00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:51,000
Speaker 1: that you're not in the woods anymore. You're out, you're

733
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:54,320
Speaker 1: an adult, you're grown, you're past all of that. But

734
00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:57,800
Speaker 1: it rears its head and you have to reckon with it.

735
00:48:58,719 --> 00:49:02,480
Speaker 1: And a lot of people will say either or either

736
00:49:02,560 --> 00:49:05,560
Speaker 1: Anna Wicky saved their life or ruin their life, and

737
00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:11,760
Speaker 1: for me it's both. For many victims of childhood abuse

738
00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:15,279
Speaker 1: or people that were in the vicinity of it, survivor's

739
00:49:15,320 --> 00:49:18,760
Speaker 1: guilt is a feeling that often haunts them for years.

740
00:49:20,080 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 1: I still live with survivor's guilt. I still deal with

741
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:32,120
Speaker 1: group members that For example, staff member Mr Goldberg was

742
00:49:32,239 --> 00:49:35,200
Speaker 1: taking a student down the road what we called the

743
00:49:35,239 --> 00:49:39,520
Speaker 1: boulevard there south campus. We were coming in taking showers,

744
00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:45,000
Speaker 1: walking through the breezeway, and we saw his car and

745
00:49:45,160 --> 00:49:48,799
Speaker 1: the student leaving with them, and I got so frustrated,

746
00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:52,759
Speaker 1: and so I was just angry because it's told one

747
00:49:52,800 --> 00:49:55,920
Speaker 1: of them. I told my group member George, I said, George,

748
00:49:56,400 --> 00:49:58,480
Speaker 1: look at such and such. He gets to ride home

749
00:49:58,560 --> 00:50:03,319
Speaker 1: with Mr Goldberg almost every night and we're stuck here

750
00:50:03,800 --> 00:50:07,880
Speaker 1: taking showers, getting eaten up by mosquitoes and dealing with

751
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:11,640
Speaker 1: all this crap. And I had animosity towards that student

752
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:16,360
Speaker 1: until later on in life I realized what was happening

753
00:50:16,400 --> 00:50:19,120
Speaker 1: to him. Now, obviously I wasn't there wasn't a fly

754
00:50:19,280 --> 00:50:22,000
Speaker 1: on the wall. But if it looks like a zebra

755
00:50:22,520 --> 00:50:25,840
Speaker 1: and it walks and talks and smells and looks and

756
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:29,560
Speaker 1: everything else, then it's probably a zebra. And after what

757
00:50:29,719 --> 00:50:32,680
Speaker 1: had happened to me, I would say that that staff

758
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:37,840
Speaker 1: member was getting abused nightly, and I still live with that.

759
00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:42,000
Speaker 1: I still have bad dreams of being in that passenger

760
00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:44,600
Speaker 1: van but running Shotgun. That was a big thing for us,

761
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:48,880
Speaker 1: and Antawaki Crest members got to ride choking, and I

762
00:50:49,080 --> 00:50:52,320
Speaker 1: still have dreams to this day of being in that

763
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:59,120
Speaker 1: van writing Shotgun and group members being in the back crying, screaming,

764
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:03,239
Speaker 1: and me turning around and seeing no one, you know,

765
00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:06,560
Speaker 1: knowing there's no one driving and we're just going down

766
00:51:06,600 --> 00:51:10,360
Speaker 1: a road real fast and may not be able to

767
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:14,640
Speaker 1: do anything. And I know now from therapy and group

768
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:18,520
Speaker 1: and working with counselors and dealing with my own stuff

769
00:51:18,560 --> 00:51:23,000
Speaker 1: and investigating on my own that it's survivors guilt. I

770
00:51:23,040 --> 00:51:28,360
Speaker 1: don't know if that'll ever leave me. Some former patients

771
00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:31,200
Speaker 1: still have yet to try to unravel the damage done

772
00:51:31,239 --> 00:51:35,000
Speaker 1: to them. Since my interviews with the survivors of an Awaki,

773
00:51:35,560 --> 00:51:38,480
Speaker 1: some have reached back out to me saying they finally

774
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:41,239
Speaker 1: decided to go to therapy after all these years after

775
00:51:41,360 --> 00:51:45,040
Speaker 1: telling their story, are finally decided to tell their parents

776
00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:50,000
Speaker 1: what actually happened to them. I don't think I realized

777
00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:54,319
Speaker 1: until recently what an effect Annawaki has had all my life.

778
00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:57,239
Speaker 1: You know, from the trauma that that I went through

779
00:51:57,280 --> 00:52:01,480
Speaker 1: there that I'm not able to to this day. I mean,

780
00:52:01,560 --> 00:52:03,920
Speaker 1: like I said, I'm doing fine, but I know that

781
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:07,279
Speaker 1: going through therapy would have been really helpful. But they

782
00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:10,040
Speaker 1: they kind of took that away from me. So that's

783
00:52:10,120 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 1: one thing. But you know, my wife, when I told

784
00:52:12,520 --> 00:52:15,759
Speaker 1: her about this podcast and everything, she was really happy

785
00:52:15,800 --> 00:52:17,960
Speaker 1: about it because, you know, she's like, I think it

786
00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:20,600
Speaker 1: could beat therapeutic for you to to actually kind of

787
00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:22,920
Speaker 1: talk about this stuff. Because she's the only one that

788
00:52:23,040 --> 00:52:25,960
Speaker 1: I've I've really told the whole thing too, and that

789
00:52:26,160 --> 00:52:28,759
Speaker 1: was just a couple of years ago. Um didn't even

790
00:52:28,760 --> 00:52:30,279
Speaker 1: tell her that much until a couple of years ago.

791
00:52:32,640 --> 00:52:36,280
Speaker 1: Many survivors found solace in each other through the network

792
00:52:36,320 --> 00:52:39,160
Speaker 1: of former patients who have connected through the Internet and

793
00:52:39,280 --> 00:52:43,600
Speaker 1: reunions over the years. Some even managed to find love.

794
00:52:45,120 --> 00:52:47,360
Speaker 1: I'm very close to a lot of them as adults,

795
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:51,360
Speaker 1: and I think we all share that same mentality of

796
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:54,359
Speaker 1: we have to discuss this, we have to talk this out.

797
00:52:56,040 --> 00:52:58,480
Speaker 1: We have one Facebook you can go to that say

798
00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:02,120
Speaker 1: anytime and there's something. Yeah, it's a place for jokes,

799
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:04,680
Speaker 1: it's a place for fun, it's it's a place for seriousness.

800
00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:10,840
Speaker 1: It's a place for planning reunions and many reunions, and

801
00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:14,600
Speaker 1: it's a place that everybody feels so safe that they

802
00:53:14,640 --> 00:53:17,640
Speaker 1: can talk about any single thing that's going on with

803
00:53:17,719 --> 00:53:22,000
Speaker 1: them that they can't talk with anybody else. Yeah. I know.

804
00:53:22,080 --> 00:53:23,680
Speaker 1: I've had to reach out a couple of times. What

805
00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:27,640
Speaker 1: I do, I'm in a situation, and I get tons

806
00:53:27,719 --> 00:53:32,919
Speaker 1: and tons of feedback. It's a survivor site. A little

807
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:37,880
Speaker 1: over twelve years ago, I finally decided to do some research.

808
00:53:37,960 --> 00:53:40,160
Speaker 1: I guess at that point Google had just come out,

809
00:53:41,040 --> 00:53:45,480
Speaker 1: and I decided to just Google and away heat to

810
00:53:45,600 --> 00:53:51,080
Speaker 1: see what popped up, if anything, and I was really

811
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:56,120
Speaker 1: surprised by some of the information that I read regarding

812
00:53:56,200 --> 00:54:00,919
Speaker 1: the lawsuits, regarding you know, a lot of the things

813
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:04,600
Speaker 1: that I was not privy to. In the initial lawsuit,

814
00:54:05,320 --> 00:54:13,160
Speaker 1: there were a compilation of stories that different survivors told,

815
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:17,080
Speaker 1: a brief synopsis of whatever it was that they wanted

816
00:54:17,200 --> 00:54:23,920
Speaker 1: to say. And I read my husband's story and it

817
00:54:24,160 --> 00:54:29,000
Speaker 1: touched me so much. Even then that had brought tears

818
00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:34,040
Speaker 1: to my eyes. And once I joined this group, a

819
00:54:34,200 --> 00:54:39,000
Speaker 1: situation came up and he ended up private messaging me

820
00:54:40,000 --> 00:54:45,640
Speaker 1: and we just started talking and just had so much

821
00:54:45,719 --> 00:54:52,120
Speaker 1: in common, either through our childhood experiences or our experiences there.

822
00:54:52,760 --> 00:54:56,840
Speaker 1: We actually lived at different states. The initial part of

823
00:54:56,880 --> 00:55:02,520
Speaker 1: our relationship was just through email and calls, and eventually

824
00:55:02,880 --> 00:55:06,160
Speaker 1: we lived in the same town and and several years

825
00:55:06,239 --> 00:55:09,240
Speaker 1: later we got married. We've actually been together for about

826
00:55:09,320 --> 00:55:14,440
Speaker 1: twelve years. While the Anawaki treatment center is no longer

827
00:55:14,560 --> 00:55:18,400
Speaker 1: in operation, there are still many long term stay treatment

828
00:55:18,480 --> 00:55:22,279
Speaker 1: centers for youth all over the country. It is now

829
00:55:22,400 --> 00:55:25,960
Speaker 1: more important than ever that parents know exactly where they

830
00:55:26,080 --> 00:55:28,719
Speaker 1: choose to send their kids and what to look for

831
00:55:29,080 --> 00:55:32,680
Speaker 1: if they do choose to go that route. Former an

832
00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:36,600
Speaker 1: Awaki counselor Carl Moore had some words of advice for

833
00:55:36,719 --> 00:55:40,920
Speaker 1: both survivors of abuse such as himself, and parents who

834
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:43,640
Speaker 1: may be thinking about sending their children to a program

835
00:55:44,040 --> 00:55:49,680
Speaker 1: such as ANAWAKI. I would say to anybody who had

836
00:55:50,239 --> 00:55:54,960
Speaker 1: been to an Awake that it's uh. I still was

837
00:55:55,040 --> 00:55:57,480
Speaker 1: thinking about this the other night. I know a lot

838
00:55:57,520 --> 00:56:00,480
Speaker 1: of people think of themselves in terms of surve divers,

839
00:56:01,760 --> 00:56:05,320
Speaker 1: and it's funny and Awake you had. The name of

840
00:56:05,400 --> 00:56:10,040
Speaker 1: the football team was the Warriors. So that's how I think, Oh,

841
00:56:10,239 --> 00:56:13,759
Speaker 1: not as survivors, but as warriors. And that's a good

842
00:56:13,840 --> 00:56:20,279
Speaker 1: thing to take something that would break you and take

843
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:23,160
Speaker 1: that thing and make it a part of rebuilding your life.

844
00:56:24,400 --> 00:56:27,800
Speaker 1: People that matter to me, we're compassionate with me about this.

845
00:56:28,920 --> 00:56:30,720
Speaker 1: That's the way I like to be with other people.

846
00:56:31,520 --> 00:56:33,719
Speaker 1: It took me a long long time to get to

847
00:56:33,800 --> 00:56:38,400
Speaker 1: where I could do that. You have strengths that nobody

848
00:56:38,440 --> 00:56:41,319
Speaker 1: will tell you about because of the things you've been through.

849
00:56:42,960 --> 00:56:46,080
Speaker 1: You're not going to be easily fooled. You can go

850
00:56:46,280 --> 00:56:51,960
Speaker 1: too far with that. You have to learn it, but

851
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:57,760
Speaker 1: it's there and it's a strength. There's the saying pass

852
00:56:57,840 --> 00:57:01,879
Speaker 1: it on or pass it back, pass it back, don't

853
00:57:01,920 --> 00:57:05,520
Speaker 1: pass it on. Is there anything else you would say

854
00:57:05,600 --> 00:57:07,920
Speaker 1: to a parent who's thinking about sending one of their

855
00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:12,239
Speaker 1: children to his treatment center? Find out everything you can

856
00:57:12,360 --> 00:57:17,360
Speaker 1: about it before you do it, and again, trust your instincts.

857
00:57:19,360 --> 00:57:24,280
Speaker 1: I think that's it. I think there's nothing more difficult

858
00:57:24,360 --> 00:57:26,520
Speaker 1: for a parent than trying to deal with something like

859
00:57:26,680 --> 00:57:30,120
Speaker 1: this with their child. I don't think you can be

860
00:57:30,280 --> 00:57:33,880
Speaker 1: any more vulnerable than when you give someone your child.

861
00:57:35,040 --> 00:57:37,600
Speaker 1: Looking at it from the point of being a parent,

862
00:57:38,520 --> 00:57:41,320
Speaker 1: if someone is going to restrict your access to your kid,

863
00:57:41,480 --> 00:57:44,200
Speaker 1: I think that's a no. You're gonna have to work

864
00:57:44,280 --> 00:57:49,120
Speaker 1: that out somehow. There are some absolute declaration that no,

865
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:52,800
Speaker 1: you're just not gonna be able to communicate with your child,

866
00:57:53,880 --> 00:57:57,400
Speaker 1: and there's always exceptions. If there's an exception to that,

867
00:57:57,600 --> 00:58:00,400
Speaker 1: then there there had better be a I'm kind of

868
00:58:00,480 --> 00:58:05,320
Speaker 1: advocate in place, because you know, I can hear people saying, well,

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00:58:05,360 --> 00:58:09,440
Speaker 1: the parents are part of the problem, Well, then make

870
00:58:09,480 --> 00:58:13,080
Speaker 1: um part of the solution. If not, you you know,

871
00:58:13,760 --> 00:58:17,480
Speaker 1: maybe it's not the right fit. And trust your instincts.

872
00:58:18,760 --> 00:58:21,240
Speaker 1: When when you think something wrong, you've got to look

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00:58:21,280 --> 00:58:26,280
Speaker 1: into it. Thank you all for listening to this podcast.

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00:58:27,120 --> 00:58:29,240
Speaker 1: I hope that it is in some way help the

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00:58:29,320 --> 00:58:32,480
Speaker 1: survivors of an Awaki come to terms with their past

876
00:58:33,200 --> 00:58:35,800
Speaker 1: and help bring light to this sometimes hard to speak

877
00:58:35,880 --> 00:58:40,280
Speaker 1: of issue of child abuse. The reaction to this podcast

878
00:58:40,400 --> 00:58:42,760
Speaker 1: has continued to surprise me as we worked on it.

879
00:58:43,800 --> 00:58:46,240
Speaker 1: If you would like to see some of the correspondence

880
00:58:46,640 --> 00:58:49,960
Speaker 1: and other pictures and stories about in Awaki, you can

881
00:58:50,080 --> 00:58:53,720
Speaker 1: check out the Camp hell in Awake podcast discussion group

882
00:58:53,920 --> 00:58:57,600
Speaker 1: on Facebook. It has quickly become a place for survivors

883
00:58:57,680 --> 00:59:02,000
Speaker 1: and listeners alike to share and discuss subjects from the podcast.

884
00:59:03,040 --> 00:59:05,760
Speaker 1: If you have enjoyed listening, or just want to tell

885
00:59:05,840 --> 00:59:09,760
Speaker 1: us what you think, please consider leaving a review. We

886
00:59:09,920 --> 00:59:12,520
Speaker 1: always can learn from any feedback you'd like to give.

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00:59:13,560 --> 00:59:15,560
Speaker 1: I would also like to give a special thanks to

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00:59:15,720 --> 00:59:19,560
Speaker 1: Rima il k Ali, one of our producers, who was

889
00:59:19,720 --> 00:59:23,720
Speaker 1: especially helpful in finishing out this season. Thank you again, Rema.

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00:59:24,440 --> 00:59:27,360
Speaker 1: If you're looking for another good true crime podcast, I

891
00:59:27,360 --> 00:59:30,520
Speaker 1: would suggest checking out Algorithm, a show one of my

892
00:59:30,600 --> 00:59:34,200
Speaker 1: co producers, ben Kiebrick, is currently making. It deals with

893
00:59:34,280 --> 00:59:39,400
Speaker 1: the tools used by authorities to detect serial killers. Until

894
00:59:39,560 --> 00:59:47,840
Speaker 1: next time, Camp Hell Anawaki was created and hosted by

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00:59:47,920 --> 00:59:52,080
Speaker 1: Josh Thane, with producer Miranda Hawkins and executive producers Alex

896
00:59:52,160 --> 00:59:55,800
Speaker 1: Williams and Matt Frederick. The soundtrack was written and performed

897
00:59:55,920 --> 00:59:59,920
Speaker 1: by Josh Thane and Adrian Barry. Archival footage provided by

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01:00:00,200 --> 01:00:04,280
Speaker 1: ws B and CBS News. Find us on Instagram at

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01:00:04,400 --> 01:00:07,960
Speaker 1: camp hell pod. That's c A M p h E

900
01:00:08,360 --> 01:00:11,880
Speaker 1: L L p O D. Educate yourself about the issue

901
01:00:11,920 --> 01:00:14,240
Speaker 1: of child abuse and things that you should look for

902
01:00:14,480 --> 01:00:17,760
Speaker 1: at the Darkness to Light website d too well dot org.

903
01:00:18,040 --> 01:00:22,800
Speaker 1: That's d the number two l dot org. Camp hell

904
01:00:22,960 --> 01:00:26,040
Speaker 1: Anawaki is a production of I Heart Radio. For more

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01:00:26,160 --> 01:00:29,200
Speaker 1: podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

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01:00:29,320 --> 01:00:32,440
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.