Introducing Camp Hell: Anneewakee

The Anneewakee Treatment Center for Emotionally Disturbed Youth operated in Douglasville, Georgia for over 25 years. Purportedly, it was a place that parents could send their troubled kids for help. But in reality, it was a breeding ground for abuse. This is the story of Anneewakee, as never told before.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
In the town of Douglasville lies what was once the
largest medical facility in Georgia. It is here where a
largely unknown story began. Remember the name an Awake. It
was mostly obscured a few months ago, but in the
months ahead it may come to represent everything that's right
and wrong with juvenile justice and rehabilitation, not just here

(00:23):
in Duglas County, but throughout all of Georgia. Louis Petter
began the Inn, a weekie center for emotionally disturbed youth,
in nineteen sixty two. For over two decades, thousands of
patients would attend. It was based on what they called
wilderness therapy that started out with tents and shovels, and
from there he built that massive complex, or his kids

(00:46):
built it. By the brochures, I thought I was going
to a camp. I didn't realize I was going to
be locked up. It was kind of like a outdoor
summer camp where you would live in some cabins and
do outdoor things. They always seemed to leave out the
slave labor board, as they called it. Vocational therapy aniwaki

(01:07):
was meant to break you down. They wanted to make
you into a machine. Anna Wiki has come to represent
the tip of an iceberg of discovery and to the
abuse of children. In addition to years of child labor,
was a network of abusers that went from the top
of the organization all the way to the patients. He
took kids out of the program and brought him into

(01:28):
his family. That was what happened to me, and I
knew older guys that had happened to them. It's a
system that is built for abuse. Everybody knew, and everybody
get their mouth shut. It would take decades for this
abuse to come to light, largely in part to Petters
many political ties, some even reaching the White House. He

(01:49):
was a player. He was a political player. G b
I agents have been looking into possible financial improprieties in
the Anawaki operation. It was not just treatment of troubled kids.
It was the eloping land and real estate in Florida,
real estate in Georgia, and real estate in Mexico. And
that made an Awake a gold mine. We brought people

(02:11):
back from Mexico. I was transported across state lines. I
was trafficing basically. Petda charged with five counts, including sodomy,
cruelty to children, and simple battery. Remains in the Douglas
County Jail on one million dollars bond. You have to
think how many of these people that they didn't find
are still working at these places now. This is the

(02:33):
story of an Awake as never told before, from government
officials to former councilors and the survivors who withstood the abuse.
Thousands of patients passed through an Awake. Some of them
received justice, but many are still waiting Camp Hell. An
Awake debuts April. Listen and subscribe on the I Heart

(02:56):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favor it shows.