Speaker 1: Camp hell an Awake is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
Speaker 1: those of the author and participants and do not necessarily
Speaker 1: represent those of I Heart Media or its employees. Due
Speaker 1: to discussion of traumatic, sexual, and violent content, listener discussion
Speaker 1: is advised. I remember when the lawsuits started. I remember
Speaker 1: walking through my mother in law's house and stopping dead
Speaker 1: in my tracks because the news was on, and I
Speaker 1: heard the word and Waki, and all the hair on
Speaker 1: the back of my neck stood up, and I walked
Speaker 1: over to where the TV was and I just stood
Speaker 1: there staring at the TV, listening to them say that
Speaker 1: things were going down and that people were getting arrested,
Speaker 1: and that lawsuits were happening. And I remember starting to
Speaker 1: I and my mother in law did not know at
Speaker 1: the time that I had been to Anna Waki, and
Speaker 1: she knew then. She knew then. I was so glad
Speaker 1: that it was finally happening, and I was so mortified
Speaker 1: at the same time because even though things happened, that
Speaker 1: we're bad there, we were so brainwashed. We loved Ann Wakey.
Speaker 1: This is Kelly, a survivor of van A Waki remembering
Speaker 1: her reaction to first hearing about the scandal. With Louis
Speaker 1: Petter now in jail, multiple civil suits had been filed
Speaker 1: against him and Anna Wake Incorporated. Attorney Pat edel Kind
Speaker 1: worked tirelessly along with her partner in the suit, attorney
Speaker 1: Randy Blackwood. With the number of clients and suits filed,
Speaker 1: this case would take over three years before it finally
Speaker 1: went to court. Here's Pat. Once it hit the press
Speaker 1: of the Atlanta paper and somewhere around the id state,
Speaker 1: it became known and people would come or they would
Speaker 1: call me, and they would be interested in talking. And
Speaker 1: I had dedicated my life to to talking to them.
Speaker 1: Working on this case. We've basically consolidated in his office,
Speaker 1: although I had by our own and uh we turned
Speaker 1: down a ton of paper. We had so many, so
Speaker 1: many people working for us at someone one time. It
Speaker 1: was just impossible to keep up with it, but we
Speaker 1: did it. I've been runched through the sweet much because
Speaker 1: I talked to all the clients. That was really difficult.
Speaker 1: That's the one thing that Randy did not want anything
Speaker 1: to do with. So I did all of that, all
Speaker 1: the client contacts, and and you can imagine people are
Speaker 1: talking about their children, and then we're talking to the adlaceness.
Speaker 1: They were usually adolescents, but the older ones had more
Speaker 1: to say about everything that happened there because they were
Speaker 1: just older. They could relate about the sexual abuse that
Speaker 1: wasn't pretty what they could say it. The younger ones
Speaker 1: no difficult. At any point in time in the day.
Speaker 1: I could be called day and night and I would
Speaker 1: talk to them. You just had to hold their hands
Speaker 1: as listen to the parents as well as the kids.
Speaker 1: Over the past several weeks we have received number of
Speaker 1: very serious allegations concerning both the facility out there in
Speaker 1: a number of individuals involved with him. It was just
Speaker 1: a from of this therapy. They were told to do it,
Speaker 1: and at the time he was fourteen and a half
Speaker 1: fifteen years old, they didn't know any better. I asked him,
Speaker 1: why are you letting this happen? Why are you covering
Speaker 1: up for Louis Batter He had no answer to that question.
Speaker 1: Involved having and this sitution paid it off little, such
Speaker 1: shock destricable place, and to do absolutely the contrary of
Speaker 1: what they should have done. I'm disturbable the fact of
Speaker 1: something He's still one on it and awake you I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Stean and this is Camp hell an Awake. Since
Speaker 1: the initial lawsuits against in Awaki were filed, there had
Speaker 1: now amassed a total of eight different lawsuits, including up
Speaker 1: to thirty one defendants associated within Awaki and over one
Speaker 1: and thirty plaintiffs. The first to go to trial was
Speaker 1: one involving patients from the inn Awaki North campus in
Speaker 1: rock Mart for girls. Terry was one of these plaintiffs. Actually,
Speaker 1: what happened the five girls, which I was one of them,
Speaker 1: three of us were able to testify. They hadn't even
Speaker 1: gotten to the boys yet. It was really scary testifying
Speaker 1: in court. But at the same time it was a
Speaker 1: good feeling because I had a lot of anger because
Speaker 1: I felt like I had been stripped at four years
Speaker 1: of my life with my parents growing up. UM, I
Speaker 1: was robbed those years and ended up coming out with
Speaker 1: really no education and UM probably more problems. So it
Speaker 1: felt really good to be able to testify UM and
Speaker 1: share about the manual labor that they made us do
Speaker 1: day in and day out, and the abuse, the physical abuse,
Speaker 1: the sexual abuse. Just to be able to get that
Speaker 1: all out and hold them accountable was really a good
Speaker 1: feeling and It helped me personally to let go and
Speaker 1: move on. They were originally a good nine form of
Speaker 1: girls who were in that lawsuit, and Stilt just dropped out.
Speaker 1: They couldn't take it, or they were fearful, or they
Speaker 1: were frightened into physicious, but nonetheless um we ended up
Speaker 1: with four pat says. The proceedings that took place in
Speaker 1: this first civil trial were shocking and showing the abuse
Speaker 1: the girls had endured at the rock Mark campus. Difficult
Speaker 1: as it was, the plaintifts testified and gave their stories.
Speaker 1: In the one case that went to trial that ended
Speaker 1: up four rals. They were subject across examination and almost
Speaker 1: that the sexual abuse, the denial privileges they would be denied,
Speaker 1: told visits if they told terrupt too much about what
Speaker 1: was going on, what was really going on, and then
Speaker 1: come to find out that it was all true. It
Speaker 1: was just astonishing. That was horrific, really, but we've prepared
Speaker 1: them very well and they get well. On December nine,
Speaker 1: after four years of working on the case and a
Speaker 1: ten week trial at Fulton County Superior Court, jury awarded
Speaker 1: five point two million dollars to four young women who
Speaker 1: had been victims of forced labor at Anawaki. At the
Speaker 1: time of the settlement, this was anheard of number for
Speaker 1: a suit dealing with child abuse, and one that an
Speaker 1: Awaki's insurance, who would end up paying out the amount,
Speaker 1: was not expecting. They were really basically shocked. The insurance
Speaker 1: to chances lawyers were shocked at what we got for
Speaker 1: these four girls. They never thought for four girls they
Speaker 1: would have to pay five point four millions dollars. Know
Speaker 1: what's all that? It was just I wouldn't be believed,
Speaker 1: but now it would. Carl Moore was subject to these
Speaker 1: lawsuits along within a Wiki and its board of directors.
Speaker 1: He remembers his reaction to the civil suits as they
Speaker 1: began to go to trial. Oh, I just wanted to
Speaker 1: crawl under a rock. I thought a trial was coming.
Speaker 1: I told everybody in the investigation everything that I knew,
Speaker 1: and I was prepared to do that in trial. And
Speaker 1: but then there was a civil suit also, and I
Speaker 1: was named in the civil suit. It's like a perfect
Speaker 1: storm this whole thing. So I was being suit. I
Speaker 1: didn't know if I was what was going to happen
Speaker 1: to me criminally. This went on for a long time.
Speaker 1: It was at least a couple of years, I think
Speaker 1: before they finally got around to take him my deposition,
Speaker 1: it was a really hard thing. I mean, the plaintiffs
Speaker 1: needed me to testify they were suing me. The insurance
Speaker 1: company was only representation I had. Because Carl had chosen
Speaker 1: to testify against an Awaki, he would have no help
Speaker 1: from them when it came to him being sued or
Speaker 1: any other litigation he would incur. An Awaki's insurance with St.
Speaker 1: Paul would be the only legal defense team he would have,
Speaker 1: as he had been an employee of Anawaki at the time.
Speaker 1: Antawaki was not going to do anything to help me. St.
Speaker 1: Paul was being sued. I mean, that's where the money
Speaker 1: was going to come from, so they had a vested
Speaker 1: interest in knowing what I new. I guess I don't
Speaker 1: think they wanted me to become a plaintiff, which is
Speaker 1: ultimately what I did. So that's what I mean by
Speaker 1: conflict of interest. As far as I know, the day
Speaker 1: after my deposition they settled the case. So I spent
Speaker 1: a lot of years in agony about that, I mean,
Speaker 1: trying to get on with my life and not knowing
Speaker 1: how this thing was going to work out. After in
Speaker 1: Awaki had lost this initial suit at a cost of
Speaker 1: over five million dollars. The desire to go to trial
Speaker 1: with each of these civil cases dwindled quickly, yet again
Speaker 1: a settlement and negotiation was in the works. For this
Speaker 1: to happen, however, all one and thirty one plaintiffs would
Speaker 1: need to agree to the terms of a settlement. They
Speaker 1: were really right at the verdict that came in with
Speaker 1: the girls who they saw that they had best settled
Speaker 1: or jewish again, all these kinds of things would add
Speaker 1: up to an awful lot of money. They didn't imagine
Speaker 1: that they would get a verdict like we got. Well,
Speaker 1: we wanted to settle and they wanted something out that
Speaker 1: that was the bottom line, and just to show them
Speaker 1: that it was fair. Who was pretty much disclosed. We
Speaker 1: disclosed what they were going to get, and we had
Speaker 1: to get them to agree what patience held out. But
Speaker 1: eventually opted in the settlement and signed the relief. The
Speaker 1: insurance paid at all really except for that time in jailed,
Speaker 1: and they's like that. By March nine, a settlement had
Speaker 1: been agreed upon by the St. Paul Insurance Company in
Speaker 1: the thirty one former patients who had sued the organization,
Speaker 1: a settlement, a thirty four million dollars had been awarded.
Speaker 1: This amount would be the largest civil suit payout in
Speaker 1: the history of the State of Georgia at the time.
Speaker 1: This was the most important case that I've been involved in,
Speaker 1: because at the time is settled for thirty five billion
Speaker 1: dollars in today's dollars. I looked you up yesterday and
Speaker 1: into my amazement, it would be a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: million dollars today. While the payout for this civil suit
Speaker 1: was the largest in the state's history, how the payments
Speaker 1: were split up is a little more complicated. Because Annawiki
Speaker 1: had agreed to a settlement, this lump sum would be
Speaker 1: divided between the victims with a point system that would
Speaker 1: deduce how much a victim would be paid depending on
Speaker 1: what they had been through. I remember Judgester should us
Speaker 1: while your now will keep both of you because he
Speaker 1: gave us our chair. The Wias did not trust Randy
Speaker 1: Blackwood with it, with any thirty five billion dollars, and
Speaker 1: they were planned about that he was going to put
Speaker 1: it in his trust fund. However, they thought he was
Speaker 1: going to take off to REvil or something. Not the
Speaker 1: most trusting people after their experiences. In any event, I
Speaker 1: relaid this to the judge and he liked to also
Speaker 1: get Randy in on it, and he ended up being
Speaker 1: in the Courts Trust Fund, so held in trust for
Speaker 1: the plainest. Well. He had a part of formula of
Speaker 1: a certain amount. I think it was fifty thousand to
Speaker 1: the parents who were also joined in the lawsuits and
Speaker 1: who went to the Statue of limitation to pass on.
Speaker 1: And everyone got something, but the ones who were really
Speaker 1: hurting at that in time, which that was within the statue,
Speaker 1: they got much much more worm under the three hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. They did it on a point system, and
Speaker 1: so you would get a certain amount of points depending
Speaker 1: on how long you were there, and I think that's
Speaker 1: what I benefited from because I was there for four years,
Speaker 1: I got more points. And then you've got a certain
Speaker 1: amount of points for what kind of sexual abuse you
Speaker 1: suffered or mental abuse, and then you got points for
Speaker 1: actually how many days and hours of labor, and so
Speaker 1: it all just added up. So each person had their
Speaker 1: own sets of points. And my understanding was when I
Speaker 1: testified and two other girls testified, I guess the jury
Speaker 1: awarded us each like two or three million dollars a piece,
Speaker 1: but we didn't get that. Instead they settled for like
Speaker 1: thirty two million. This is what we were told. They
Speaker 1: saw that the three girls from the very beginning were
Speaker 1: awarded two to three million dollars apiece, and they were
Speaker 1: just getting started. So I think in a wig he
Speaker 1: probably got scared and said we better settled now because
Speaker 1: this is going to get really big. I ended up
Speaker 1: getting about three hundred and sixty thousand dollars. I had
Speaker 1: no idea. I just got married and had my first child.
Speaker 1: I think it was only like twenty one or twenty
Speaker 1: two at the time, and so I remember when we
Speaker 1: were going to court to testify and I was trying
Speaker 1: to explain everything to my husband. I said, I think
Speaker 1: I might get like a thousand dollars or something like.
Speaker 1: I had no clue as far as the money. I
Speaker 1: had no idea. So it was a shock. Some of
Speaker 1: the victims of Anawaki would never hear about the civil
Speaker 1: suit and would receive no restitution for the damage they
Speaker 1: had endured. Here's Cheryl, a survivor of the sexual abuse
Speaker 1: which took place in Rock mart I was not involved
Speaker 1: in any lawsuits whatsoever. I wasn't aware of any lawsuits.
Speaker 1: No one called us or told us anything about that
Speaker 1: or the possibility of getting money. I do know that
Speaker 1: one of I don't know if she was in my
Speaker 1: group or in someone else's group, but one of the
Speaker 1: girls her dad was a lawyer. I think that's helped
Speaker 1: to spearhead it. I don't know if they just chose
Speaker 1: to keep it small and not involve all the girls
Speaker 1: are all the people, or they just weren't basically in
Speaker 1: the capacity to deal with all of us per se.
Speaker 1: For me, it wasn't worth it because no amount of
Speaker 1: money would have changed what happened to me. It would
Speaker 1: have been nice, you know. But I do know that
Speaker 1: some of the girls that got money, they went on
Speaker 1: to buy drugs with it, not necessarily spent it in
Speaker 1: the best of ways, because it was a devastating experience
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. A lot of the payouts,
Speaker 1: and nobody who got to pay out is healthy and happy,
Speaker 1: nobody that I know of. None of the girls who
Speaker 1: got to pay out still benefit from that money. That
Speaker 1: money is long gone. I think I was vaguely aware,
Speaker 1: but again I was really just saying, Nope, saved my life,
Speaker 1: didn't see nothing wrong, nothing bad, nothing wrong. And the
Speaker 1: reason for that attitude was again, I did not want
Speaker 1: my parents feeling like they put me in that position
Speaker 1: because I know it would it would kill them with
Speaker 1: the guilt. And if I had missed out on a
Speaker 1: two million dollar settlement, I don't care as long as
Speaker 1: they had that for the rest of their lives. Not
Speaker 1: knowing what all really went on there, I wish I
Speaker 1: hadn't known about it. If I known about it, I
Speaker 1: would have been I didn't find out it until I
Speaker 1: would say twenty years later. I was living a mine
Speaker 1: the beach at the time, and actually a bunch of
Speaker 1: the girls came down. It was a mini ran and
Speaker 1: thebody said that there was a lawsuit and they got money,
Speaker 1: and I was like what. And that's the first time
Speaker 1: I learned about it, that there was even a lawsuit.
Speaker 1: I found out about it after the fact. I was
Speaker 1: at an Awaking longer than anybody that ever went to
Speaker 1: an Awaki. I was a younger than anybody. Yeah, no
Speaker 1: one said anything. I didn't get anything. I I never
Speaker 1: called me. I was on the West Coast. I was
Speaker 1: out of the loop. I had gotten a phone call
Speaker 1: months before they had asked if there was a lawsuit,
Speaker 1: would I be available. And at the time I had
Speaker 1: a my son was a toddler and he had pediatric cancer,
Speaker 1: and I was too busy try to make sure that
Speaker 1: my baby lived, and he did, he survived his cancer.
Speaker 1: But I was too busy to even think about helping
Speaker 1: this lawsuit. And I was still conflicted with my emotions
Speaker 1: about it because I was just a few years out
Speaker 1: of Antiwaki and the brainwashing and the fear was still there.
Speaker 1: I still dreamed about it. I still dream about it,
Speaker 1: and in the dreams, they're always chasing me, trying to
Speaker 1: get me to come back. And when I was a
Speaker 1: young mother, I used to dream they were chasing me
Speaker 1: and my children and trying to get us to go
Speaker 1: to Antiwaki to try and help in the cases of
Speaker 1: victims who had not been included in the lawsuits. A
Speaker 1: one million dollar trust fund was established. Pat explains actually
Speaker 1: settled I had of the former anawacupatients who had not
Speaker 1: been included in the money that we left. I left
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand dollars and Randy Brentwood left five hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars to form a crust for those patients who
Speaker 1: we won't representing so that could receive some money. At
Speaker 1: the time, it was more than it would be today.
Speaker 1: And this kid pumps up in his car and he's
Speaker 1: in my driveway and he says, I don't want that
Speaker 1: because I told him we have a trust fund for you,
Speaker 1: and he says, I want money. He booked for rather frightening,
Speaker 1: but he sure got my attention. We all did agree
Speaker 1: to put a certain amount of money aside for a
Speaker 1: trust fund for those that didn't get involved in the lawsuits.
Speaker 1: Some people didn't know about it, some people knew about
Speaker 1: and chose not to, but there were still a lot
Speaker 1: of people out there didn't that needed help, so there
Speaker 1: was a certain amount of money for that. Kelly was
Speaker 1: one former patient who later received some help from the
Speaker 1: trust fund. I don't know how much that care trust
Speaker 1: fund was, but it was supposed to be for us
Speaker 1: to get therapy and education. I also felt as if
Speaker 1: Annawaki had given me an eating disorder and I wanted
Speaker 1: to get help for that. They paid for me to
Speaker 1: go to career assessment and a psychological assessment, and then
Speaker 1: they paid for me to have therapy, and they paid
Speaker 1: for me to go to school. So I went to
Speaker 1: school to be a surgical tag and then they gave
Speaker 1: me a three thousand dollar check. And it was near
Speaker 1: the end. It was my understanding that the fund was
Speaker 1: coming to an end, that the funds were going away
Speaker 1: and the board was dissolving. I do not believe what
Speaker 1: I got from the trust fund was retribution for what
Speaker 1: I went through at Antiwaki. And I don't believe that
Speaker 1: even the people who got large sums of money, no
Speaker 1: matter how much money you get, it doesn't rebuild what
Speaker 1: was broken in us. It doesn't. I asked Pat edel
Speaker 1: Kind if she felt justice was brought to the victims
Speaker 1: from an Awaki. It's difficult to say, because it's really
Speaker 1: difficult to take that those kinds of experiences that they suffered.
Speaker 1: But in some small way it did. It shows me
Speaker 1: do it gave him something to starve on to recuperate,
Speaker 1: So in that sense it did. But have lived what
Speaker 1: they lived through, No one would trade money for that.
Speaker 1: An Awake He changed my life. I had no idea
Speaker 1: but I would be doing stuff like this, But just
Speaker 1: is where I ms it up. And I had decided
Speaker 1: to go out with Felo practitioner, and I never knew
Speaker 1: I'd be doing something like this, but I feel that
Speaker 1: I have done something that matters in this world. I
Speaker 1: feel that I have helped people, and that is the
Speaker 1: greatest feeling I've ever had and be able to give.
Speaker 1: You know, yes, I became wealthy, However, money is not
Speaker 1: the only thing that satisfies this feeling of having done
Speaker 1: well from my self, of human beings matters m M.
Speaker 1: While the civil suit against an awake he was taking place,
Speaker 1: Louis Petter had been serving out his sentence of eight
Speaker 1: years in a Georgia prison. Petter would go on to
Speaker 1: serve seven just shy of his full sentence. Petter had
Speaker 1: been tried for parole in n and was initially denied
Speaker 1: after a flood of calls were made to the parole board. However,
Speaker 1: on January nine, at the age of seventy six, Louis
Speaker 1: Petter was granted parole with the stipulation that he remained
Speaker 1: on probation and that he not returned to Douglas County
Speaker 1: or have any contact with miners. By nine, Petter attempted
Speaker 1: to appeal the ruling that he not be allowed to
Speaker 1: return to Douglas County due to the fact that his
Speaker 1: probation officer had been moved to Douglas County. The appeal
Speaker 1: was upheld and considered moot. The governor of Georgia at
Speaker 1: the time was Roy Barnes, a former attorney. Barnes had
Speaker 1: represented in a week Key during litigation over its status
Speaker 1: as a nonprofit in the nineteen eighties. It is this
Speaker 1: same year that the long outdated sodomy law in Georgia
Speaker 1: was overturned. Due to this overturning of the sodomy law,
Speaker 1: Louis Petter would no longer have to have his name
Speaker 1: on a sex offender's list. Petter would soon after attempt
Speaker 1: to overturn his conviction as sodomy was no longer against
Speaker 1: the law. His reason for doing so was that he
Speaker 1: could quote travel out of the country to see family
Speaker 1: and visit property he owns in Mexico. For the last
Speaker 1: years of his life, Louis Petter would live in a
Speaker 1: small ranch home in Lawrenceville, Georgia, with his wife, Mabel,
Speaker 1: and two German shepherds. Petter would go on to live
Speaker 1: another nearly twenty years as a freeman. Former patient Kelly
Speaker 1: Lewis says that after reconnecting with other Innawaki survivors. She
Speaker 1: went on what she called Petters Death Watch. When we
Speaker 1: began the first it was message boards back in the
Speaker 1: eighties for Anawaki survivors, and we would get on these
Speaker 1: message boards and we would yell and scream at each other,
Speaker 1: but we also had very close bonds to each other.
Speaker 1: We went through trauma together. So when you as a
Speaker 1: child go through trauma, you bond with the people who
Speaker 1: help you through it. And I am still very very
Speaker 1: close with a lot of the people who went to
Speaker 1: Anna Wake with me. I mean to the point of
Speaker 1: where I see them once a month, twice a month.
Speaker 1: They come to my house and eat food and and
Speaker 1: we go and do events together and and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. I'm very close to them. And I remember
Speaker 1: at one point people arguing after Mabel Petters death. I
Speaker 1: found Mabel Petters obituary online and I posted it. I
Speaker 1: can't remember at the time if we had a Facebook
Speaker 1: group or if it was a message board. By I
Speaker 1: think it was a Facebook group. We had graduated from
Speaker 1: uh you know, the dial ups, squealing too real Internet,
Speaker 1: and we were on Facebook and I remember announcing and
Speaker 1: posting the obituary and it said she was survived by
Speaker 1: her husband, Louis Petter. So it was at that time
Speaker 1: that I went on death watch, and that's what I
Speaker 1: ended up calling it. I went to obituary dot Com
Speaker 1: and I had them send me a notice every month
Speaker 1: to tell me if there had been any Petters who
Speaker 1: had an obituary. And for years I didn't trust it.
Speaker 1: So I would actually drive by his house to see
Speaker 1: if he still lived there. And eventually he didn't live
Speaker 1: at his house anymore. He I guess was probably and
Speaker 1: I guess this probably in some sort of nursing home.
Speaker 1: He was a very old man when he died. Now,
Speaker 1: the first time I saw his house, I was shocked
Speaker 1: because it was just a brick aunt's house. I expected
Speaker 1: that he lived in this big, beautiful, fancy house, but
Speaker 1: he didn't. So I remember going by his house. I
Speaker 1: would drive by his house to see if he still
Speaker 1: lived there, and I could tell that he lived there
Speaker 1: because of the dogs there, Because he had German shepherds
Speaker 1: with him at all times. It was known that no
Speaker 1: matter where he went, those dogs went with him. They
Speaker 1: were trained German shepherds and they were with him all
Speaker 1: the time. So when I would drive by his house,
Speaker 1: if I saw the dogs in the yard, I knew
Speaker 1: that he was still living there. And then the dogs
Speaker 1: weren't there anymore, and I started panicking because I didn't
Speaker 1: know how to trace him anymore, and I, you know,
Speaker 1: would express this on the Facebook page or to other
Speaker 1: people who went to Anna Waki and I ended up
Speaker 1: going to where Mabel was buried to see the gravestone,
Speaker 1: and I saw that his marker was next to hers,
Speaker 1: and it had a birth date on it, but the
Speaker 1: death date was still open. And that cemetery actually was
Speaker 1: not too far from the house that I lived in
Speaker 1: in Atlanta for eleven years. So for eleven years, at
Speaker 1: least once a month I would go by the cemetery
Speaker 1: to see if they added a death date onto it,
Speaker 1: because I didn't trust that they would do an obituary,
Speaker 1: which they did not. On January, Padder passed away at
Speaker 1: the age of one day, I went and the death
Speaker 1: date was there, and I took pictures of it. I
Speaker 1: remember shaking, and I remember having to steady my hand
Speaker 1: to take pictures of it. He hurt so many people.
Speaker 1: I was so glad he was dead. I felt like
Speaker 1: the balance between good and evil on this planet shifted
Speaker 1: when he died, and I was I was glad to
Speaker 1: bring that news to people who had been abused by
Speaker 1: him and affected their lives changed because of him. And
Speaker 1: I posted the pictures, and I wouldn't tell them at first.
Speaker 1: I made people work for it, because I'm not going
Speaker 1: to be the one that causes somebody to go and
Speaker 1: desecrate a grave or a graveyard. I don't remember telling
Speaker 1: them what graveyard it was, but that but that it
Speaker 1: had happened. And I posted the pictures, and I knew
Speaker 1: that people could find out if they were smart enough
Speaker 1: to look the way I always looked. I was glad
Speaker 1: that he went to prison for the short period of
Speaker 1: time that he went to prison, but it infuriated me.
Speaker 1: Only the good die young, and that's why he lived forever.
Speaker 1: So that was death Watch, and I was glad when
Speaker 1: it was over. And I remember my husband that night
Speaker 1: holding me and telling me it's okay now, because it
Speaker 1: was okay. He's gone, and and now our story is
Speaker 1: being told and we won't be forgotten anymore. And I'm
Speaker 1: glad of that. We deserve for people to know, and
Speaker 1: not only do we deserve it, but future children deserve
Speaker 1: for people to know that these kinds of situations where
Speaker 1: they isolate children are dangerous. They're dangerous, and humans can't
Speaker 1: be trusted in situations of power and money. They just
Speaker 1: can't be trusted. In the end, the only time served
Speaker 1: by any of the staff from Anawaki was the seven
Speaker 1: years Louis Petter spent in prison, and an additional three
Speaker 1: years served by Jim Wamack Walmac was eventually released due
Speaker 1: to a statute of limitations ruling against dis charges. Louis
Speaker 1: Petter and family had turned over eight hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: of property to Douglas County in the settlement, with over
Speaker 1: five million dollars worth of real estate left in the
Speaker 1: control of Anawaki Incorporated, it's nonprofit branch of the organization.
Speaker 1: By January of seven, the Hospital Corporation of America, or
Speaker 1: the h c A, agreed to take over day to
Speaker 1: day operations of an Awaki's three campuses. This deal would
Speaker 1: prevent the Department of Human Resources from taking away an
Speaker 1: Awake's license to operate as a medical facility for a
Speaker 1: few years. The campuses would go by the new and Awake,
Speaker 1: eventually changing hands again and dropping any name connecting it
Speaker 1: to the scandal. Much still remains unknown about where the
Speaker 1: payment for the Anawaki takeover ended up, or who profited
Speaker 1: from such items as the sale of the Carabell campus
Speaker 1: or the marina. Since Antawaki's demise, a whole industry of
Speaker 1: quote emotional growth schools has been established. Many of these
Speaker 1: seem to have taken pages out of an Awake's playbook,
Speaker 1: from solitary confinement to force labor, and some of which
Speaker 1: have also seen charges of abuse, both sexual and physical.
Speaker 1: The amount of oversight given to these organizations is often lacking,
Speaker 1: varying from state to state, with no federal organization to
Speaker 1: regulate them. Journalist Albert Edgin, who covered the Anawaki case
Speaker 1: for over seven years, says he is still concerned that
Speaker 1: some of the former abusers from Antawaki may still be
Speaker 1: involved in child treatment. The most troubling thing to me
Speaker 1: about the implications, long term implications, is that there are
Speaker 1: still people who were abusing patients at an Awakey who
Speaker 1: are in the health care systems around the South, who
Speaker 1: are providing treatment for troubled children or people. And we
Speaker 1: know that because Florida had made a list of abusers
Speaker 1: that were elsewhere they weren't able to do anything about it,
Speaker 1: or they didn't do anything about it. There were at
Speaker 1: the time attempts, particularly in Florida, to review the way
Speaker 1: the state managed places like an Awake. I think that's
Speaker 1: one piece of evidence that it had at least the
Speaker 1: positive effect of getting the attention of the bureaucrats long
Speaker 1: enough where they could issue a report that maybe some
Speaker 1: people have paid attention to through the years. I think
Speaker 1: in terms of the American culture that Annawaki is one
Speaker 1: of the many things that woke the country up in
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties to the kinds of manipulation and
Speaker 1: abuse that on institutions were going through. That was a
Speaker 1: very gradual process, and now it's become something that we
Speaker 1: read about the papers every day. It's not just institutions
Speaker 1: like an Awake. He has institutions like Hollywood, and we've
Speaker 1: become because of little things like an Awake. He became
Speaker 1: exposed and people became aware than we are more aware
Speaker 1: of this kind of thing today. For many in Awaki survivors,
Speaker 1: coming to grips with what they went through has been
Speaker 1: a year's long process. Many of them have connected with
Speaker 1: each other over the years through the Internet and later
Speaker 1: at Facebook group which was created specifically for former patients.
Speaker 1: They will still have reunions from time to time. Many
Speaker 1: would attempt to track down their own records from the
Speaker 1: time they spent it in Awaki. A few I spoke
Speaker 1: with were able to do so up to a point
Speaker 1: past that point, though, according to the facility, all records
Speaker 1: from an Awake were distry. Foyd Here's survivor Chris McKnight.
Speaker 1: He is currently working on a book about his experience
Speaker 1: at an Awaki. There was a window of opportunity for
Speaker 1: us to get our medical records. I found out this information.
Speaker 1: We have a chat group, an Internet chet group that
Speaker 1: only an Awaki students can be a part of, and
Speaker 1: we vet you know, we know what questions to ask someone.
Speaker 1: You know, we've had group leaders that tried to get in,
Speaker 1: you know, like no, a couple of bad ones too.
Speaker 1: You know, we know the question is to ask that
Speaker 1: to tell if someone actually has been an Aniwaki. You know,
Speaker 1: what's the crest mean, what was your laundry number? What
Speaker 1: was the name of your first school group? Who is
Speaker 1: you know, we know the questions to ask. So anyway,
Speaker 1: it was found out that we could get our medical records.
Speaker 1: I want to say this is two thousand three. I
Speaker 1: think two thousand four. Actually, basically you had to um
Speaker 1: just sign a release and pay the copying costs. I
Speaker 1: think it was seven dollars. Because I stayed twice, I
Speaker 1: had to pay fourteen. I had four pages of paperwork
Speaker 1: to copy, so I signed the release center to him.
Speaker 1: Every day you were at Annawaki, there is something written
Speaker 1: about you. Most days there are two entries, some days
Speaker 1: three if you saw a doctor and maybe a nurse
Speaker 1: that day, and to be somebody group leader. My second day.
Speaker 1: Reading my records, every day there's probably three entries from people,
Speaker 1: sometimes four. So they up the ANNIE against the insurance
Speaker 1: company later on about entries into your records. So a
Speaker 1: lot of us were able to get our records. And
Speaker 1: then we had a reunion in two thousand five, and
Speaker 1: right after the reunion a bunch of people came to
Speaker 1: this reunion. They accommodated us at Douglasville. It was the
Speaker 1: first time I had been back to that campus since
Speaker 1: I had left, and it was it was very healium
Speaker 1: for me, but it was also really heavy, bizarre. It
Speaker 1: was emotionally ranching. It's just I couldn't eat for days,
Speaker 1: but I needed to do that. It was painful, but
Speaker 1: I went back and I'm glad I did. So they
Speaker 1: got a whole run glutton of people asking requesting the records.
Speaker 1: You know, I had gotten my records right before the reunion,
Speaker 1: so because all these people on site requested their records,
Speaker 1: they had a whole mess of papal requesting. And then
Speaker 1: shortly after that, within I want to say two or
Speaker 1: three months, it became known that there was a fire
Speaker 1: at the warehouse where they were keeping our records. Had
Speaker 1: been an employee of Annawaki. I heard he was hired
Speaker 1: around eighty three and had actually worked for an Awaki.
Speaker 1: So there was anybody that was still working there from
Speaker 1: prior that probably knew any Shenanigans or something. He probably did,
Speaker 1: but he said that there was a fire in the
Speaker 1: warehouse and that no one could access the records anymore.
Speaker 1: They were gone, And he said that the warehouse was offsite,
Speaker 1: was close to the downtown Atlanta area, but wouldn't stay where.
Speaker 1: No one knew an address when you sent for your records,
Speaker 1: that it was too old Annawaki Douglas Phil address. So
Speaker 1: I don't know if our records were actually offside or not.
Speaker 1: It could have been fabricated. And because the whole bunch
Speaker 1: of people at once asked to see the records, my
Speaker 1: suspicion is that there really wasn't a fire and they
Speaker 1: just don't want to release any more records, not necessarily
Speaker 1: for liability reasons, maybe for liability reasons. Maybe they're afraid
Speaker 1: of kids that were there. Later on that there's still
Speaker 1: a statue limitations that they can't get from out under.
Speaker 1: I I don't know, but it seemed very very suspicious.
Speaker 1: I highly doubt that there was to fire, and if
Speaker 1: there was, somebody said it on purpose. It's just too
Speaker 1: many weird coincidences about it all. Either they got rid
Speaker 1: of those records or there somewhere, and I got a
Speaker 1: feeling that they're not very far from the Aniuaki campus.
Speaker 1: I really doubt that they would have hauled all that
Speaker 1: records thousands of kids there. If my records was one
Speaker 1: file box. You're talking about thousands of file boxes. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of manpower. That's a lot of records
Speaker 1: to move. When I first began to look into the
Speaker 1: Innawaki case, I had no idea how far this story
Speaker 1: went or where it would take me. Two years of
Speaker 1: trying to track down the many facets of its history
Speaker 1: has taken me on a journey all around the Southeast,
Speaker 1: speaking with dozens of survivors. The effects of an Awaki
Speaker 1: are still seen today in the hundreds of former patients
Speaker 1: still dealing with the backlash from the abuse they endured.
Speaker 1: Many survivors that I have talked to have long term
Speaker 1: health issues due to what they've been through, not to
Speaker 1: mention the years of therapy and counseling it takes to
Speaker 1: heal from something like that. Even with everything which the
Speaker 1: patients of an Awaki went through, many still say while
Speaker 1: they were abused, the program did have some benefits. I learned,
Speaker 1: I learned how to be, I learned how not to be.
Speaker 1: I learned everything I thought I was supposed to learn
Speaker 1: to be a man and to go out into the
Speaker 1: world and do my thing. You know, tell me a
Speaker 1: whole lot. There are positive ways that Antawaki affected me.
Speaker 1: I built a lot of inner strength because of the
Speaker 1: struggles and the hard work that we had to do
Speaker 1: and everything. But there was also very negative effects that
Speaker 1: it had on me because I was robbed of my
Speaker 1: education and I was robbed of age fourteen to eighteen,
Speaker 1: of being a teenager and live in a normal life.
Speaker 1: You know, I felt like I was in jail for
Speaker 1: four years working. I mean, it was like a punishment,
Speaker 1: and the worst part is it didn't help me, and
Speaker 1: I still suffer from depression to this day. For other survivors,
Speaker 1: their history with an Awaki still comes up in their
Speaker 1: day to day life. Friends and family's reaction to this
Speaker 1: are not always the most understanding. I would have to say,
Speaker 1: having to explain to people. Look, I went to this
Speaker 1: boys school. There's a lot of sexual most conduct, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of force laborers. You get to know someone
Speaker 1: you want to know, Oh, where do you go to school?
Speaker 1: And that's the hardest thing. I still got that way
Speaker 1: in my childer. I'm still carrying it around and I
Speaker 1: still have to expose it every once in a while.
Speaker 1: It's still really hard to talk about because I felt
Speaker 1: like I've been punished for it several times by people
Speaker 1: that I trusted, a group groups of my peers. It
Speaker 1: was kind of kind of rough. I know that I
Speaker 1: was a kid, I was a teenager, and I know
Speaker 1: that I didn't do anything to deserve it. I know
Speaker 1: all those things, but I also think that for a
Speaker 1: place that was supposed to try to teach us to
Speaker 1: learn how to communicate and deal with people on a
Speaker 1: daily basis and and the social aspect of it, it
Speaker 1: really messed a lot of us up. It made a
Speaker 1: lot of us angry, and it made a lot of
Speaker 1: us uh. I feel like in relationships. I know I've
Speaker 1: heard this from a lot of people that went there.
Speaker 1: Is they struggle because everything is a confrontation. Everything is
Speaker 1: we need to sit down and talk and we need
Speaker 1: to you know, figure this out, and we need to
Speaker 1: hit this head on. And in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: I feel embarrassed to talk about it. It's hard to
Speaker 1: talk to my kids, my parents, my siblings about this.
Speaker 1: There's so many details, and it's so complicated. It's so
Speaker 1: complicated that it's almost just easier just to not think
Speaker 1: about it. It helped my communication skills in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways. I've had to work really hard to undo
Speaker 1: damage that happened to me there, and that happened in
Speaker 1: the ways that they taught us, you know, to communicate.
Speaker 1: I mean, they had us teenagers policing each other, which
Speaker 1: never should happen because teenagers our brains weren't developed. We
Speaker 1: didn't know what we were doing. I have grandkids that
Speaker 1: are pushing on the age of when I went to Anawaki,
Speaker 1: and I have three daughters. I would never want that
Speaker 1: to ever ever happen to them. I just hope that
Speaker 1: something comes from this. I hope that as a group,
Speaker 1: those of us that are survivors that have had, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, such a huge gamut range of experiences. Some
Speaker 1: people laim it saved their lives, but it also messed
Speaker 1: up their life. That's kind of where I am. I
Speaker 1: think while in a week He's program may have had
Speaker 1: some benefits for its patients, the harm for many greatly
Speaker 1: outweighed the good. I've had a lot of problems diagnosed
Speaker 1: with bipolar PTSD in and out of psyche hospitals. I
Speaker 1: didn't deal with it for a long time. I pushed
Speaker 1: it down for a long time. And then when I
Speaker 1: started reading these reports coming up and what really happened there,
Speaker 1: and feeling sorry for all of my friends I had
Speaker 1: to go through it, you know, it just really started
Speaker 1: to affect me the fact that I really didn't have
Speaker 1: any guidance in my life except our antiwiki because my
Speaker 1: dad was not a guide for me. You know. Once
Speaker 1: I got in an Antiwaki, he still wasn't there to
Speaker 1: guide me. So I just had to figure it out
Speaker 1: on myself. Started with a little job, became a bigger job,
Speaker 1: became a bigger job. But uh, it has caused me
Speaker 1: definite mental problems. I think that some people have managed
Speaker 1: to cope and deal with their experience at ant Waky
Speaker 1: more so than others, and I think that that's to
Speaker 1: be expected because we're all different human beings. We all
Speaker 1: deal with situations in a different manner. So I know
Speaker 1: for myself and some of the people that I know
Speaker 1: have had a very hard time dealing with all of
Speaker 1: the pain and the things that they've witnessed and experienced there.
Speaker 1: Um it has absolutely changed my life. It changed my body,
Speaker 1: It changed the entire course of my life having been there.
Speaker 1: So I think that there is a tremendous amount of
Speaker 1: unrest and I'm hoping that by doing this podcast that
Speaker 1: it will bring me some closure. Some of the long
Speaker 1: lasting results from being Anna Waki is the aggressive confrontation.
Speaker 1: I feel like learning to confront people the way that
Speaker 1: I did has affected my relationships, not only with partners,
Speaker 1: in life, but with my children, we always had to
Speaker 1: sit and talk out our feelings, and we always had
Speaker 1: even if they were angry feelings, which a lot of
Speaker 1: people would say, oh, that's a good thing, Well it isn't.
Speaker 1: When you are screaming and yelling. You know, it's good
Speaker 1: to talk out your feelings, but it isn't. It isn't
Speaker 1: okay to scream and yell. It isn't okay to scream
Speaker 1: and yell at children, or to encourage children to scream
Speaker 1: and yell at each other. I do want to say
Speaker 1: that I'm I'm grateful that the story is being told.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people who went to Awakey
Speaker 1: are grateful. They may not agree with exactly how the
Speaker 1: story will be told, because everybody's story is different. And
Speaker 1: Awake both saved and ruined my life, and that's a
Speaker 1: difficult thing to explain to people. I most likely would
Speaker 1: not have been a successful adult. Without the work ethic
Speaker 1: I gained from getting up early every day and working
Speaker 1: every day and knowing the importance of work and knowing
Speaker 1: the feeling of accomplishing my goals, I wouldn't be the
Speaker 1: person I am today. But I also wouldn't be broken.
Speaker 1: There are parts of me that are broken, that are
Speaker 1: stuck in the woods of an Awaki, that won't probably
Speaker 1: ever come out. And I have to remind myself sometimes
Speaker 1: that you're not in the woods anymore. You're out, you're
Speaker 1: an adult, you're grown, you're past all of that. But
Speaker 1: it rears its head and you have to reckon with it.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people will say either or either
Speaker 1: Anna Wicky saved their life or ruin their life, and
Speaker 1: for me it's both. For many victims of childhood abuse
Speaker 1: or people that were in the vicinity of it, survivor's
Speaker 1: guilt is a feeling that often haunts them for years.
Speaker 1: I still live with survivor's guilt. I still deal with
Speaker 1: group members that For example, staff member Mr Goldberg was
Speaker 1: taking a student down the road what we called the
Speaker 1: boulevard there south campus. We were coming in taking showers,
Speaker 1: walking through the breezeway, and we saw his car and
Speaker 1: the student leaving with them, and I got so frustrated,
Speaker 1: and so I was just angry because it's told one
Speaker 1: of them. I told my group member George, I said, George,
Speaker 1: look at such and such. He gets to ride home
Speaker 1: with Mr Goldberg almost every night and we're stuck here
Speaker 1: taking showers, getting eaten up by mosquitoes and dealing with
Speaker 1: all this crap. And I had animosity towards that student
Speaker 1: until later on in life I realized what was happening
Speaker 1: to him. Now, obviously I wasn't there wasn't a fly
Speaker 1: on the wall. But if it looks like a zebra
Speaker 1: and it walks and talks and smells and looks and
Speaker 1: everything else, then it's probably a zebra. And after what
Speaker 1: had happened to me, I would say that that staff
Speaker 1: member was getting abused nightly, and I still live with that.
Speaker 1: I still have bad dreams of being in that passenger
Speaker 1: van but running Shotgun. That was a big thing for us,
Speaker 1: and Antawaki Crest members got to ride choking, and I
Speaker 1: still have dreams to this day of being in that
Speaker 1: van writing Shotgun and group members being in the back crying, screaming,
Speaker 1: and me turning around and seeing no one, you know,
Speaker 1: knowing there's no one driving and we're just going down
Speaker 1: a road real fast and may not be able to
Speaker 1: do anything. And I know now from therapy and group
Speaker 1: and working with counselors and dealing with my own stuff
Speaker 1: and investigating on my own that it's survivors guilt. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that'll ever leave me. Some former patients
Speaker 1: still have yet to try to unravel the damage done
Speaker 1: to them. Since my interviews with the survivors of an Awaki,
Speaker 1: some have reached back out to me saying they finally
Speaker 1: decided to go to therapy after all these years after
Speaker 1: telling their story, are finally decided to tell their parents
Speaker 1: what actually happened to them. I don't think I realized
Speaker 1: until recently what an effect Annawaki has had all my life.
Speaker 1: You know, from the trauma that that I went through
Speaker 1: there that I'm not able to to this day. I mean,
Speaker 1: like I said, I'm doing fine, but I know that
Speaker 1: going through therapy would have been really helpful. But they
Speaker 1: they kind of took that away from me. So that's
Speaker 1: one thing. But you know, my wife, when I told
Speaker 1: her about this podcast and everything, she was really happy
Speaker 1: about it because, you know, she's like, I think it
Speaker 1: could beat therapeutic for you to to actually kind of
Speaker 1: talk about this stuff. Because she's the only one that
Speaker 1: I've I've really told the whole thing too, and that
Speaker 1: was just a couple of years ago. Um didn't even
Speaker 1: tell her that much until a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: Many survivors found solace in each other through the network
Speaker 1: of former patients who have connected through the Internet and
Speaker 1: reunions over the years. Some even managed to find love.
Speaker 1: I'm very close to a lot of them as adults,
Speaker 1: and I think we all share that same mentality of
Speaker 1: we have to discuss this, we have to talk this out.
Speaker 1: We have one Facebook you can go to that say
Speaker 1: anytime and there's something. Yeah, it's a place for jokes,
Speaker 1: it's a place for fun, it's it's a place for seriousness.
Speaker 1: It's a place for planning reunions and many reunions, and
Speaker 1: it's a place that everybody feels so safe that they
Speaker 1: can talk about any single thing that's going on with
Speaker 1: them that they can't talk with anybody else. Yeah. I know.
Speaker 1: I've had to reach out a couple of times. What
Speaker 1: I do, I'm in a situation, and I get tons
Speaker 1: and tons of feedback. It's a survivor site. A little
Speaker 1: over twelve years ago, I finally decided to do some research.
Speaker 1: I guess at that point Google had just come out,
Speaker 1: and I decided to just Google and away heat to
Speaker 1: see what popped up, if anything, and I was really
Speaker 1: surprised by some of the information that I read regarding
Speaker 1: the lawsuits, regarding you know, a lot of the things
Speaker 1: that I was not privy to. In the initial lawsuit,
Speaker 1: there were a compilation of stories that different survivors told,
Speaker 1: a brief synopsis of whatever it was that they wanted
Speaker 1: to say. And I read my husband's story and it
Speaker 1: touched me so much. Even then that had brought tears
Speaker 1: to my eyes. And once I joined this group, a
Speaker 1: situation came up and he ended up private messaging me
Speaker 1: and we just started talking and just had so much
Speaker 1: in common, either through our childhood experiences or our experiences there.
Speaker 1: We actually lived at different states. The initial part of
Speaker 1: our relationship was just through email and calls, and eventually
Speaker 1: we lived in the same town and and several years
Speaker 1: later we got married. We've actually been together for about
Speaker 1: twelve years. While the Anawaki treatment center is no longer
Speaker 1: in operation, there are still many long term stay treatment
Speaker 1: centers for youth all over the country. It is now
Speaker 1: more important than ever that parents know exactly where they
Speaker 1: choose to send their kids and what to look for
Speaker 1: if they do choose to go that route. Former an
Speaker 1: Awaki counselor Carl Moore had some words of advice for
Speaker 1: both survivors of abuse such as himself, and parents who
Speaker 1: may be thinking about sending their children to a program
Speaker 1: such as ANAWAKI. I would say to anybody who had
Speaker 1: been to an Awake that it's uh. I still was
Speaker 1: thinking about this the other night. I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people think of themselves in terms of surve divers,
Speaker 1: and it's funny and Awake you had. The name of
Speaker 1: the football team was the Warriors. So that's how I think, Oh,
Speaker 1: not as survivors, but as warriors. And that's a good
Speaker 1: thing to take something that would break you and take
Speaker 1: that thing and make it a part of rebuilding your life.
Speaker 1: People that matter to me, we're compassionate with me about this.
Speaker 1: That's the way I like to be with other people.
Speaker 1: It took me a long long time to get to
Speaker 1: where I could do that. You have strengths that nobody
Speaker 1: will tell you about because of the things you've been through.
Speaker 1: You're not going to be easily fooled. You can go
Speaker 1: too far with that. You have to learn it, but
Speaker 1: it's there and it's a strength. There's the saying pass
Speaker 1: it on or pass it back, pass it back, don't
Speaker 1: pass it on. Is there anything else you would say
Speaker 1: to a parent who's thinking about sending one of their
Speaker 1: children to his treatment center? Find out everything you can
Speaker 1: about it before you do it, and again, trust your instincts.
Speaker 1: I think that's it. I think there's nothing more difficult
Speaker 1: for a parent than trying to deal with something like
Speaker 1: this with their child. I don't think you can be
Speaker 1: any more vulnerable than when you give someone your child.
Speaker 1: Looking at it from the point of being a parent,
Speaker 1: if someone is going to restrict your access to your kid,
Speaker 1: I think that's a no. You're gonna have to work
Speaker 1: that out somehow. There are some absolute declaration that no,
Speaker 1: you're just not gonna be able to communicate with your child,
Speaker 1: and there's always exceptions. If there's an exception to that,
Speaker 1: then there there had better be a I'm kind of
Speaker 1: advocate in place, because you know, I can hear people saying, well,
Speaker 1: the parents are part of the problem, Well, then make
Speaker 1: um part of the solution. If not, you you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's not the right fit. And trust your instincts.
Speaker 1: When when you think something wrong, you've got to look
Speaker 1: into it. Thank you all for listening to this podcast.
Speaker 1: I hope that it is in some way help the
Speaker 1: survivors of an Awaki come to terms with their past
Speaker 1: and help bring light to this sometimes hard to speak
Speaker 1: of issue of child abuse. The reaction to this podcast
Speaker 1: has continued to surprise me as we worked on it.
Speaker 1: If you would like to see some of the correspondence
Speaker 1: and other pictures and stories about in Awaki, you can
Speaker 1: check out the Camp hell in Awake podcast discussion group
Speaker 1: on Facebook. It has quickly become a place for survivors
Speaker 1: and listeners alike to share and discuss subjects from the podcast.
Speaker 1: If you have enjoyed listening, or just want to tell
Speaker 1: us what you think, please consider leaving a review. We
Speaker 1: always can learn from any feedback you'd like to give.
Speaker 1: I would also like to give a special thanks to
Speaker 1: Rima il k Ali, one of our producers, who was
Speaker 1: especially helpful in finishing out this season. Thank you again, Rema.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for another good true crime podcast, I
Speaker 1: would suggest checking out Algorithm, a show one of my
Speaker 1: co producers, ben Kiebrick, is currently making. It deals with
Speaker 1: the tools used by authorities to detect serial killers. Until
Speaker 1: next time, Camp Hell Anawaki was created and hosted by
Speaker 1: Josh Thane, with producer Miranda Hawkins and executive producers Alex
Speaker 1: Williams and Matt Frederick. The soundtrack was written and performed
Speaker 1: by Josh Thane and Adrian Barry. Archival footage provided by
Speaker 1: ws B and CBS News. Find us on Instagram at
Speaker 1: camp hell pod. That's c A M p h E
Speaker 1: L L p O D. Educate yourself about the issue
Speaker 1: of child abuse and things that you should look for
Speaker 1: at the Darkness to Light website d too well dot org.
Speaker 1: That's d the number two l dot org. Camp hell
Speaker 1: Anawaki is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.