June 8, 2021 • 51 mins
Louis Poetter begins taking groups to Mexico where the boys are treated to an annual visit to a brothel. We hear one of the worst stories from Florida with hints that trafficking of underage boys may have been happening.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Camp Hell Anna Wake is a production of I Heart Radio.
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of the author and participants and do not necessarily represent
those of I Heeart Media or its employees. Due to
discussion of traumatic, sexual and violent content, listeners, discussion is advised.
After hearing all the stories about Carabelle and how in
(00:23):
Awake had a hotel and marina built by the students,
I decided I had to see this for myself. I
booked myself a room at the Moorings of Carabelle, the
hotel built by an Awake which is still in operation,
and headed down to Carabelle. I just got into Carabell
after a quite hairy drive down a two lane Florida
(00:47):
highway in pouring rain. I've checked in and I am
at the moorings at Carabelle Hotel and Marina. This is
the same hotel and the same marina that those boys built.
So I'm going to go out and speak with some
locals and see what I can't find out about the
(01:08):
town of Carabell. My first stop was to visit the
Carabell History Museum, a small local shrine to the fishing
town of Carabelle. I figured surely they had to know
about Antiwaki's history in the area. We really have taken
on the notion of gateway to the Gulf to go fishing,
that that fishing charters and eco tourism have gotten really
(01:32):
big here. This is Tamara Allen. She runs the History
of Carabelle Museum. For a small town with no red light,
it has an awful lot of history dating back to
the Native Seminole tribe in Civil War Arab battles. I
asked Tamara what she knew about Anawaki. To my surprise,
it was very little. That is Panama City. We have
(01:58):
been coming here since the eighties. We were staying at
the Moorings. That was our place to stay, and we
were told we were the first like official people to
stay in the motel of the Moorings back in the
late eighties. And I just heard it was like a
rehab place for delinquent kids. And so at the time
(02:21):
I heard about the fact that it had been part
of of an Awaki, but I didn't know what that
meant because I'd say to people what happened and they
went and tell me, it's a big rabbit hole. What
Tamara did know was that the boys at the Antiwaki
South campus were a part of the community, going to
local schools and even churches. These children were students at
(02:47):
the facility, but they all went to high school with
other kids, so they made friends here with other kids.
I do know that a lot of the kids went
to either the Baptists, from the Men to just church.
People knew him in the community, and occasionally they would go.
A group of them would go to a townsperson and
(03:07):
say we have to leave that place. Do you have
any where we could stay? Or they would try to
run away. They wanted to stay in school, They wanted
to just have a normal life here, but they didn't
want to be in the program, and some of the
kids ended up living here marrying local girls. Since I
had initially contacted Tamara, she had reached out to some
(03:28):
people she knew in the area who may have more
insight into what went on it in Awaki. Several people
said that a lot of the staff that worked there
were evil types of people that they abused the children
and particularly did things like just took a perfectly healthy
(03:49):
child and deliberately broke their arm or their leg if
they were missed behaving. I tried to see if Tamara
may be able to connect me with someone who may
have had a closer connection to the school I could
speak with. I started talking to people that I thought
might have a historical perspective, and then they were reluctant
(04:10):
to talk about it, which piqued my interest, I must say.
And then I actually had somebody say to me, I
don't want to talk to that guy because I might
end up dead. They wouldn't even tell me what they
were talking about. And I said, help me understand that comment.
I don't know what that means. He said, Well, a
lot of people talk to folks they ended up dead.
(04:32):
They know that Peter had very high connections way up
in government in Florida and Georgia. Nobody that I've found
that works there wants to talk to you because they
are afraid they'll end up dead. Over the past several weeks,
we have received number of very serious allegations concerning both
(04:54):
the facility out there in a number of individuals involved
with him. It was just a wrong with their therapy.
They were told to do it, and at the time
he was fourteen and a half fifteen years old. They
didn't know any better. I asked him, why are you
letting this happen? Why are you covering up for Louis Batter.
He had no answer to that question. Having and this
(05:16):
sitution paid it of little could be such shock destricable place,
and did do absolutely the contrary of what they should
have done. I'm disturbed at the fact of something. He
was stilled, wat on it, and I wake you. I'm
Josh Stein, and this is camp hell in Awake. I
(05:42):
quickly realized it may be tougher than I originally thought
to speak with some locals about in Awake. Luckily I
managed to find a few people scattered throughout the town
who were willing to tell me what they remembered. I
guess I first heard about it when they started coming
to our school. I must have been six or seventh
(06:02):
grade when they first started coming to school. When I
went to school with them, I was Kathy Milliner and
I graduated with probably ten or fifteen of the guys
from anna Waki. I'm still good friends with a lot
of them that went to Annawaki that I graduated high
school with. I stay in contact. I married one right
(06:24):
out of high school. Just a lot of good friendships
that have remained over fifty years now. Were you interacted
with them regularly on through church? I mean that's you know,
that's what they did. They ring they bring him to church. Actually,
I think my daughter might have dated one of them
for a little bit there. I mean, not a daughter
by my sister. My sister. These kids would come in.
(06:47):
I mean they had their white shirts and eyes. They
were just presented. Nice kids, good kids. They're learning, you know,
they're learning how to better themselves. And they were very
polite and everything. But I think they're just happy that
get get out of the the environment that they were in.
And we had no clue of it. We had no
really clue of it back then. We never heard about it,
(07:09):
you know. I went to see what the former grounds
of the inn Awaki work Camp, or Landside as it
was known, looked like today. The St. James Bay golf
course currently resides there. What was once untouched wildlife is
now a subdivision of sorts surrounding the course. I went
(07:33):
to eat at its resident grill. It's here where I
heard a harrowing story from my waitress regarding in Awaki.
My knowledge is a second hand from a friend of
my father's I knew of one incident in particular where
a police officer who was working with some capacity UM
(07:53):
at the facility, took a young boy out into the
wooded area. A hunter was there. Um he didn't know
the hunter was there, but the hunter observed him having
sex with the with the boy. Was this voluntary? From
your understanding, it was not. It seemed to be more
of a punishment type situation. Surprisingly, this story sounded familiar.
(08:18):
In fact, it showed that someone may have actually witnessed
one of the worst stories I heard in all of
my interviews. My name is Mark. My number was B
fourteen seventy four. I attended Anawaki from nineteen eighty four
March one to be exact, two about March one, nineteen six.
(08:45):
At the time I was fifteen years old. My background
before I went into an awake he I came from
abusive household. Mom tried her best, Dad was very violent.
Looking back on it now, there was just a lot
of negative talk, a lot of um destructive behavior. I
(09:06):
was just lost, very depressed, and after trying to commit
suicide a couple of times, just not understanding myself or
my emotions or who I was I um they put
me away in a adolescent psychiatric unit for emotionally disturbed children.
(09:31):
I was at South Campus. That was my primary campus. Obviously,
we all go through e en O in Douglasville, which
is Central Campus, and I was there twice, first time
when I was admitted, and then the second time after
an incident happened. Mark says that during his time in
(09:52):
Caribille that an Awaki had once again gotten itself in
the good graces with the local government. The fact that
would only hide what was going on behind the scenes.
We were told that we were going to do a dance.
It was my first dance Hanawake. He had two dances,
Spring and Fall, and they had said that Governor Bob
(10:14):
Graham and his daughter was coming. I heard about that.
I was really impressed that the governor's daughter was coming
paying Awake for the dance. Mark says that Antawaki's ties
with Florida Governor Bob Graham were so close has to
even send boys to his home to do work. We
(10:37):
went up there, and I don't think it was the
governor's mansion that we went to. I believe it was
his personal property because it seemed like a regular home.
We went up and just kind of cleaned the flower
beds and trimmed hedges. It seemed like pretty much all
day we had a good time. There was a pool there,
(10:59):
a couple staff members were there. Even with such close
ties to local government, the abuse of the Antiweki South
campus was just as bad, if not worse, than in Douglasville.
On many occasions, I personally witnessed at least a good handful,
(11:19):
maybe a dozen different times that staff members either physically abused,
sexually abused, or just verbally abused students. Group members Mark
She had a personal story with me. Fair warning, it's
pretty rough to listen to. You may want to skip
(11:40):
ahead if that's too much for you. It came to
me kind of as a shock. I've never seen anything
like that. I never was traumatized by seeing it until
I walked back to my first campsite. I was able
to walk back with a pass three by five or
and I had to pick up something that I left
(12:03):
on campus. The staff member was a new staff member.
He sent me back to the campsite and I heard
somebody crying, and it kind of scared me because I
didn't know what to do. So I just ran up
into the platform tent and one of my group members
(12:24):
was getting basically raped by a staff member, by a
unit supervisor. I didn't know this person at first. I mean,
I knew my group member, but I didn't know the
staff member. And I was just so shocked to see
two people doing that. I've never seen anything like that.
(12:45):
I never thought of anything like that. So I just
ran off. I was scared. I didn't know what to do.
I didn't even I don't remember what I had to
go back and get. But I just ran and I
ran back, and my heart was going on a hundred
miles an hour. And I wanted to tell the new
staff member, but I knew it wasn't the right thing
to tell him. I I didn't trust this person, so
(13:07):
I asked him if I could go to the clinic.
Next thing I know, I'm in the clinic. I tell
one of the nurses and I let her know what
was going on. First, I asked her if I could
speak to her. And I talked to her and I
told her and this has happened. I don't know what
to do. I need some help. Can you call the police?
What do we do? And she said, don't worry about it.
(13:28):
I'll take care of it. The police already know about it.
You're gonna be fine. Everything's gonna be okay. Just go
back to your group. I don't say anything to anybody,
and everything will be fine. Three days later, I'm walking
back by myself again, and the same group later sent
me back to the campsite, and two men stepped off
(13:52):
of the trail grabbed me, and then Mr Phillips, who
has head of security, He's standing in front of me
and he smacks my face open hand smacks my face,
and anyone can tell you. Mr Phillips was very big,
he was very strong, and it just dazed me. And
(14:13):
the next thing I know, I'm on the ground and
Mr Phillips has kind of got his knee in the
back of my head between my shoulder blades, and they
pulled my pants down and both of the other staff
members raped me, and I just remember I couldn't breathe.
It's funny because even today I can almost taste the sand.
(14:36):
I can almost smell it, because everything is sandy in Florida.
And after that, I just I guess I passed out
or I'm not sure what happened. Maybe I'm blocking it somewhere.
But the next thing I remember was waking up in
the back of one of our passenger vands that they
used to transport us. We were in I think it
(14:58):
was Smim, small town in Georgia, and I woke up
and I had a really bad headache and my butt ched,
and I couldn't figure out. I was like, I had
tape on my butt cheeks, and my butt cheeks were
taped together really super tight for some reason. And I
(15:18):
was wearing one of those in a waky green eno robes,
and I had a medical bracelet on like you get
when you go to the hospital. And I kept on
wanting to scratch my backside and there was tape there
and I can't figure out what it was, and I
was confused. While I was in a van and one
(15:40):
of the staff members, there was two people driving for
one person driving another one past some year and then
another person was sitting a couple of seats ahead of me,
and I was sitting all the way in the back
and he said, Mark, you're fine, because I started kind
of freaking out, and he goes, um, because you you
tried to hurt yourself, And I knew that was a
(16:01):
bunch of ship because I didn't try to hurt myself. UM,
and I became scared all over again, and he said, uh,
can we we're gonna stop at McDonald's. Would you like
something to eat and not a start? And I was
like sure, Yeah. Then I got to n O UM
went to a doctor uh in the clinic of Eno
(16:23):
and they looked at me and I had a staple
in my anus. They stapled it and some small stitches
had had some gauze that I had to change, and
they gave me a whole bunch of stuff. They were
really super nice this time. When I went to You know,
I never got the rope thrown at me. Uh. Pretty
much got to be able to walk in and out
(16:45):
of my room whenever I wanted. I had a little
bit more privileges than the new guys getting there. But
they kept on telling me that I tried to commit suicide.
And I was trying to tell another of the staff
members and you know, no, that's not what happened to me.
This happened to me. He told me. He pulled me
out aside and took me back into the clinic area
(17:10):
and he told me, you don't want to talk about this.
You don't want to say anything about this. They will
keep hurting you, and your parents will be notified and
you will never basically win this battle that you're trying
to fight. And he just told me to go back
and keep my mouth shut, and if anybody approached me,
(17:34):
just tell them that I wasn't interested and that I
had spoke to that staff member and to mention his name,
and then by mentioning his name that was kind of
a key word that they would leave me alone. Mark
says that after this traumatic experience, he never spoke to
(17:55):
his parents about what they were told by the staff
of Innawaki until years later. Believe it or not, my
parents were told that I had tried to commit suicide
again anally, and I didn't know this until probably five
(18:18):
years ago. I knew they were told something, and we
just didn't talk about it. It was just one of
those things. My mom kind of buried her head in
the sand with a lot of stuff. After hearing Mark's
(18:48):
heartbreaking story, I found I kept hearing the same name
of the counselor who fartook in his abuse, Jim Phillips.
Mr Phillips was a big man. He was a big guy.
He was probably I'm gonna say, three hundred pounds. If
you didn't know him, you think that he would have
a kind heart. He would put himself like he'd be
(19:08):
want to help you and and you know the weird
way he would. He was a church going guy who
has claimed to be It's funny how that works. And
he also was involved with the sheriff Department down Carribelle, Florida,
which is where I know Carripil Police Department at the time,
and the eighties was dirty as ship too. You can't
tell me they didn't know about this. This is David Whacker.
(19:29):
He was a patient at Anniwiki South in Caribell. Mr
Phillips was there for the intimidation purpose. He was the
intimidation guy. He come. I remember one of the boys
had done something or I had gotten a fight, and
next time I saw him after him visiting Mr Phillips,
he had more bruises in the black eyes and shaking
than I've ever seen another human being in my life before.
(19:51):
You did not mess with that man. This man was
so strong, No lie, I've seen this man left the
back of a greyhound bus to change attire. You did
not argue with this man. If you argue with him,
if you got on his wrong side, he would put
you through a concrete wall and a heartbeat and you
wouldn't know what hits you. David was a victim of
(20:12):
the sexual abuse taking place on the Caravel campus. He
claims that there may have been some type of exchange
in return for access to the boys taking place. This
is how he recalls the night his abuser took him
to what he believed was an auctioning off of the boys.
Woke up. I actually felt him get off the bed.
(20:34):
I thought he was going out to take a piss,
and then when he reached down there, I mean, of
course here, I thought, here, well, here we go again.
Instead told me and come with him. So I said, okay,
on of course, I got up through my shoes on.
I followed him out the door. Next thing I know,
I know, we're crossing over the creek. But for some
reason it wasn't of the bridge of somewhere else, and
we were able to cross over I was aware of
at the time. We could end up behind the toolship
(20:56):
that we had there. There was like another door in
the back, but it wasn't visible to just that you
had to either slide or move something out of the way.
He opened the door too many come in. I came in.
It was behind the tool shed. I remember him sliding
the door off to the right like you would a
(21:16):
screen door or a glass door. And then but it
wasn't glasses would. And then I followed him in there
and opened up to another the size of a master bedroom. Chairs,
two seated sofa, stuff like that. And then I was
I turned around. I had to face the wall. Everything
else I was. I was listening to voices, but I
(21:39):
recognized the voices. I knew Mr Brown was in there.
I knew Mr Phillipson there, and I aln't knew Mr
vanillas and there because he was when they escorted me there.
They're debating back and forth, others, what they who, which
which I'm assuming which child they want, who they want,
what they want to do. It's like I said at
that time, I'm I'm facing a wall. Not actually I'm
(22:01):
trying to remember, trying to look and see who's beside me.
To my left. In my right, oh your here is
bags and pleas And you know how don't the sounds
they haunt you too? Not just thinks matches to the sounds. Yeah,
so I'm facing the wall. There was carpet on the wall,
and I was picking at ittles. That's what I did.
(22:23):
I tried his zone out. You try to block everything.
When you're that young and you're facing guys twice your size.
You don't argue, you don't ask questions. You just do this.
Your co that was probably there maybe fift maybe even
thirty minutes. Then Mr Finnell walks me out and then
we get back to the cabinet. And then I went
(22:44):
back in and I got my bed, face the wall,
pull the sheets over me as tight as I fucking could.
I just if you try to forget, but you never do.
Due to some luck, while in Cara Belle, I was
finally able to connect with someone who worked at the
(23:06):
inn Awaki South Campus. My name is Ron Doyle. I
worked in the mental health center in Tallahassee, and one
of the psychiatrists they're also worked down here and suggested
to me that this when I was finishing up my
master's degree, that this would be a good place for
me to work. And so I came down and interviewed
(23:27):
and was hired as a counselor. This was in night
Ron came to visit me at the Mornings Hotel, which
he helped build with the patients. It was a mixed bag.
I really loved working with the boys. I mean, these
were kids who needed a lot of help, and it
was an opportunity for me to learn and practice my
counseling skills. But there were a lot of things that
(23:49):
we're difficult. I worked a hundred and thirty hour work week.
Basically I had a day and a half off a week.
The rest of the time I was on duty. I
lived with the boys in the cabin us, and it
was intensive work. I asked Ron, if you thought it
was normal for the boys to be working on buildings
such as the hotel we were currently in at the time.
(24:10):
I did yes, because the labor that they were doing
was teaching them skills. It was providing structures that they
were actually using and benefiting from, except for this here
at the Mornings, which was a different thing. But at
the time we didn't know that. We thought we were
building it for their use and that the motel part
(24:30):
would be used for parents to stay when they came
to visit campus. It was used to that to some degree,
but I think for the most part. It was used
for as a for profit motel, I think at this
point and his employee and and mine. At that time,
the sexual abuse was happening more away from campus in Mexico.
(24:51):
This is Melinda Ron's wife. She's originally from Caribell and
ended up working there when she met Ron. She and
her friend came along with Ron to talk to me
about in Awaki South. She says that Lewis Petter had
begun taking boys from in Awaki to Mexico for a
yearly trip where there would be an even less watchful
(25:11):
eye than there would be stateside. I think that he
figured out people were onto him, and so there became
a chosen group and I did that in air quotes
to accompanying them to Mexico. It was supposed to be
this big privileged trip every year every summer, Dr Petter
(25:31):
would lead a group on a trip to Mexico. And
summer trips were a big thing in the program. You
know that they would be considered as a reward for
the kids doing well and earning opportunities and making progress,
and so groups would plan like a river trip or something.
But this Mexico trip was a big thing and the
(25:51):
kids who went on it were hands selected Dr Petter.
I was invited to go. Dr Petter asked me personally
to go on the trip, and I didn't really want
to go. Had heard enough things about it to make
me leary of it, and so I told Dr Petter
I don't feel like I can go because I need
(26:11):
to be here to help my groups. He wasn't used
to people telling him no that worked for him, so
that put me on his kind of bad list. I
heard things about kids being physically abused. Um. I heard
things about kids being taken to brothels to help them
(26:34):
become a man. Andrew was a former patient of an
Awaki who was asked to attend the annual Mexico trip.
He said Dr Petter reached out to him personally about
attending right before he was about to reach his termination.
What in a wake He would call when you had
completed your time of the facility and we're ready to
leave and return home. They had some kind of policy
(26:58):
there which I've have since been told old that this
was just a policy that was total ludicrous and not
really enforceable, but they would always enforce this on you.
They said, well, if you turn eighteen and you want
to leave. You got to do five days in that
E and O place that we had discussed earlier in
this conversation. And I, UM, I said, whatever, I'll do
(27:19):
five days and then I'm leaving. And so I'm doing
the five days and I'm in there for like about
a day and Petter comes back. Dr Petter, he comes back.
He says, you know, well, Andy or Andrew, I didn't
want you to leave. You know, I want you to
finish the program and the enjoy your time here. I um,
(27:41):
you know, we do these Mexico trips once a year
and I was planning on taking in this would have
been in April, and so he said, I wanted you
to go to Mexico with us this on this next
Mexico trip in nineteen eighty three, which would have been
the summer of eighty three. And I am, I'm like, well,
and I'd heard rumors about what goes on on these
Mexico trips and I've thought about it for a few
(28:03):
minutes there with him sitting there with me, and he
had his chauffeurther with him. UM downam Carl Moore and
um we uh talked for a little bit longer, and
then I said, all right, Will Um, We'll go to
Mexico with you and that Will, That'll be okay, I'll
go And Peter said good and so he said, um,
walk on out of the CNA. Here's Carl Moore and
(28:27):
what he remembers about the Mexico trips. Every group had
a chance to take a trip every year. It would
actually raise money to take their trips and it would
have to be planned and uh we did canoe trips,
ski trips. The big trip to get to go on
was the Mexico trip, and we would take three groups
down to Mexico for almost three months. It seems like
(28:50):
we're probably uh somewhere between ten and twelve weeks something
like that, but we would we would cover the uh
entire country of Mexico most of the time. It was
a big deal for the kids to get selected to
do that. It was a pretty amazing trip traveling like that.
(29:12):
It is just an amazing way to you know. We
would we took the vans and trailers and we would
camp out of the trailers. I mean we would tend camp,
but we kept our food and clothes and stuff and
the trailers. We leave Atlanta get to h stop at
Bourbon Street to go through Bourbon Street, Um, get back
on the road camp probably somewhere in Louisiana or Texas,
(29:37):
and then cross the border in uh Brownsville, Texas going
into Mexico. It was just just amazing way too to
see that part of the United States. But then we
crossed into Mexico. It was like a magical thing. We
would drive down through the mountains. We was always stopped
at a place we called El Salto Falls, which was
(30:00):
I think it was kind of like a honeymoon resort
for people in Mexico. But it was you know, thatched
huts and this just amazing waterfall with the river and uh,
this blue water that was just it was like something
out of it was magical. And we would drive through
the Thomas and Charlie Mountains, which were like nothing that
(30:23):
any of us had ever seen, and people farmed the
sides of these mountains and it was just spectacular greenery
and and terrifying roads through the mountains. And our destination
was typically we would go down to central Mexico put
Yucca in the state of Hidago. It was kind of
(30:44):
a small miracle that we were able to do that
without major And if you told me right now to
to put together a group of thirty six kids and
six or eight staff members and take them down to
Mexico for eight to twelve weeks, I'd say, you gotta
be kidding. But we did stuff like that, and it's
the kind of a I mean, there were there were
wonderful things about it, and there are questionable and terrible
(31:09):
things about it. Former patient Andrew says the pettish connections
had even reached the town of Pachuco, Mexico. The main
place where Petter like to go in Mexico is a
town called Pachuca, which was near now about about an
hour away from Mexico City. And um, I was amazed
(31:31):
that with the kind of connections and stuff that he
had in this little town called Pachuca. But there would
be parties and you know, I could you know that
would be held at private residences for example, inside this
you know, town of Pachuca, and there were I could
tell that these people were you know, upper middle class
(31:53):
I guess so to speak. And you know a lot
of gifts would be exchanged between Petter and these um
in these Mexicans upper class families. I mean these Mexican
upper class families had money. I mean I could tell
that nice houses and stuff like that. At one point
in time, I know, Pedal was given like some kind
of antique pistol and as a sign of friendship, and
(32:16):
patters given him like brand new TVs that we you know,
because we would pull these trailers to Mexico and we
would have these TVs buried in the bottom and these
trailers and stuff, you know, I mean, it was pretty
crazy stuff. Another side note about Mexico. This is also
where the story of George the Donkey began. I remember
(32:37):
what year it was, but yeah, we were driving through
I think we were on a dirt road somewhere in
the mountains of Mexico and this guy had had George
with him and he was he was tying, I mean,
he was, you know, probably just ween and we stopped
and decided it would be a good idea to have him.
So we bought him from the guy for fiacos, which
(32:59):
was back then probably less than five dollars, and he
traveled around Mexico with us. There was all kinds of
wildlife in Mexico and stuff for sale. People driving back
to the border would go through all kinds of animals
for sale, and some of the kids would have bought
like iguanas and things like that for pets. So we
(33:22):
got the bright idea that we could bring George back
into the US with us. So we made a space
in the trailer and put him in one of the trailers.
We crossed the border at about four o'clock in the morning,
and Uh, I don't know Georgy. He could pray he
could make some noise if he had started doing that,
and it was. It was the funniest thing. It was
(33:43):
four o'clock in the morning. We were all wide awake,
trying to look like we weren't wide awake, just praying
that George didn't decide to let loose, and he didn't,
and that's how we brought him into the country. Injury
says that the contraband brought back into the United States
from these Mexico trips was not just limited to goods
and even animals. There was like a couple on one
(34:07):
of those Mexico trips. I think it was brought back
like two kids from Mexico and um I thought they
were going into the Aniwaki program. I don't know whatever happened.
To those kids that they vanished, that they were abused
and vanished or what. I had no likeas I never
ever saw them again. But there was two Mexican kids,
(34:28):
teenage kids. They were put into the group that Doc
had personally and they were brought back to America UM
and taken to Douglas Hills, Georgia. I never ever saw
those kids AGAINA here's Carl Moore. We brought people back
(34:49):
from Mexico, which was a pretty big deal. I think
some of them worked at Aniwaki and and we had
relationships with people down there and that uh, you know,
people expected to see us every year, and you know,
we would always take stuff down there for them. You know,
there's a lot of gift exchanging, and that was another
(35:10):
one of the things that that that he was good at.
He did this with everybody that was important. And we
would always buy jewelry down there, and you know that
would end up in the hands of various people as gifts.
Carl says that the possibility of an Awaki moving into
(35:32):
Mexico with another campus was something that was not out
of the question at the time. I think we could
have had a Mexico campus. We ended up buying a
house down there, So I think the more was going
to happen there or there was an opportunity and I
and I didn't distinguish that from from any other thing
that you would do with the Antiwaki funds. You know,
(35:55):
it was all the same thing to me. One aspect
of the Mexico a trip that was well known among
the patients at in Awaki was an annual trip to
a brothel. As Melinda Doyle had mentioned. In Pachuca, they
had a a strip on a hillside that was their
red light district, I guess you'd call it, and on
(36:19):
several of the trips anyway, I mean, it was a
regular thing. One of the big not so secret secrets
was that, you know, that was part of the Mexico trip.
But we would, you know, get everybody together and say,
you know, it's kind of like a Tonight's tonight kind
of thing, and Petter would give us speech, you know,
trying to coach everybody how to get through this in
(36:40):
a way. But ultimately it might have been it might
have been something that could have been a positive thing
for some people. For some people, it's terrifying, and the
reality of it was it's a really, really really pour
away to introduce somebody to that experience. Former patient Chris
(37:02):
McKnight remembers one such outing during his trip to Mexico.
Would they in awake most years? They took us to
a house of ill repew house of prostitution, whatever you
wanna call it. This story is still kind of a
tough one to tell. So I lost my virginity in
the Patuca, Mexican horhouse. I was so scared. This is
(37:27):
summer eighty three. It's it's an alley in these girls
as side. I don't know what to do. I'm a virgin.
I'm scared shitless. I'm you know, and always probably Hey,
come on, Chris, you gotta go incredible amounts of here
pressure kron. You gotta grow on there and have sex
with a woman. And and it's just guyss. Just such
(37:48):
a surreal and i frightening situation. I really was scared,
not because sex to me was a lot of baggage.
Chris was another victim of sexual abuse at an awaking
by the hands of a counselor. Chris says that during
this trip to a brothel, his abuser had just been
with the same woman he was being pressured to have
(38:09):
sex with, so I I had my first sexual experience
with a woman. It's like my mind was so fucked
up about sex at that moment in my life that
the only safe woman I could have sex with wizard
of the woman who had just had sex with the
(38:30):
guy who had molested me years before. There's a lot
of baggage right there, a lot of pain too, girls
like grab my hand. He's trying to push for someone else,
just like trying to push me through the door. And
I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry, I wanted
to run away. I was afraid. I was scared, I
(38:52):
was shaking. I mean, it was consensual, it was legal
in Mexico, no laws were broken. But there was a
lot of heavy ship going on right there. And I
remember getting out and running down and throwing up, and
I didn't eat for a couple of days. Still have
issues that situation. It's hard to make hedge details of it.
(39:15):
It's a really messed up situation. A teenager shouldn't have
been put in. Here's former councilor Ron Doyle again. He says,
after seeing the effect the Mexico trip had on one
of his patients under his supervision, he saw a red flag.
I think probably the real catalyst that read my my
(39:37):
resignation was I had a boy who was brought into
one of my groups after returning from a trip to Mexico.
He had been considered a troublemaker in his previous group,
but after this trip to Mexico, he just went off
the deep end, and so they put him in my group,
thinking that that might might help end. I had been
(39:59):
effective and helping kids get past problems like that, So
I worked with this kid and and he began to
open up to me and to tell me about some
of the things that had happened to him on that
Mexico trip, which were just inexcusable physical abuse that the
other kids were used to help abuse him because he
(40:20):
wasn't cooperating. This was the Apache roundup. Basically, they put
him in a circle of other kids and would ask
him questions and if he didn't answer properly, they were
on him, basically beat him to a pull. Carl says
that these so called Apache roundups a racially insensitive term,
(40:43):
to say the least, we're supposed to be another part
of pettish therapy. One that he was told to lead.
They were probably a handful of times where I was
actually physically involved with anybody. You know. One of the
things that that Petter would talk out where the Apache
round up, and we went through a couple of those,
(41:05):
and that's where the group confronts an individual and the
idea is to be physical about Ron says that after
hearing about the Mexico trip, he decided to try to
do something to help the situation and make known the
atrocities he had heard about. Well, of course the stories
about the trips to the prostitutes and that kind of stuff.
(41:27):
So at that point I realized that there was a
really ugly underbelly to the program. I thought it was
a wonderful program that did a lot of good things
for kids, but then I saw it ruining kids like
this one. And so, knowing that Dr Putter was the
one who was arranging all that stuff, I had no
trust in him whatsoever. I wasn't sure what to do,
(41:48):
so I wrote a letter to the Board of directors, thinking,
you know, these are community people who don't really know
what's going on here, and they need to know. So
I wrote a letter to the board of director's outlining
some of my concerns, and I was very careful not
to say things that I couldn't back up, but but
just bringing attention to some things that I was concerned about.
(42:11):
I assumed that that letter had gone to the board,
and shortly thereafter Dr Petter came down to Carriville and
convened a meeting at the top leadership. Here, he said
he had been appointed by the board to investigate my
my concerns and my claims. I don't remember the details,
but I do remember that the other administrators all basically
(42:34):
said now they hadn't heard nothing of any of this kind,
and everything was wonderful as far as they knew, and
that I had probably fallen for some stories that the
boys were making up. So Dr Petter decided that my
problem was that I was just naive and needed some
more training, and that I had shown good promise. But
but he wanted me to work as his assistant and
(42:57):
moved to Douglasville to work under him so that he
trained me properly. I told him I wasn't interested in
moving to Douglasville. He told me I didn't have a choice,
and I told him I always have a choice, and
my choice was to leave rather than to accept when
he was offering. So that's when I left. That was
after four years here. After hearing about Ron's experience at
(43:39):
an Awaki as a counselor in Carabelle, we went to
visit some of the old sites to remember what they
were and what they had now become. So we are,
we're at the arena right now. Well, it looked a
lot different when we first started. I mean, there was
really nothing much here except for the docks, and in fact,
at the time there were wood docks, not in this
concrete nice stuff. You see now that's the hotel. The
(44:02):
boys built this building. The boys built building we're standing under.
The boys built. We were under the impression at the
time that we were building a facility that was going
to be used for the program. As far as I know,
it never was. Once it was finished, we didn't come
back here anymore. We next went to see what had
become of the inn Awaki South Campus formally referred to
(44:25):
as Landside. Yeah, at the St. James bake Off Course
formerly an Awaki. Walking around looking at some of the
old buildings and what they are now. But it looks
like they took the whole building down and just built
it on the same foundation. Okay, this was the yeah,
(44:47):
the lodge. This was the administration area. Oh, this is
the courtyards is that? Yeah? This is what we called
the quad because of the four buildings I can see.
I can't walk right past this. This looks just like
the pictures of the quad with the courtyard and in
the middle of the four buildings every year. See that
(45:08):
tree right there, the big one. Yeah, my group planted
it when it was a sapling. That sas what kind
of tree is? Well? This was administration here, these buildings
where the social workers were housed. Mm hmm. And was
this all grass? Was this center here too? This was
here they laid these bricks, the boys laid these bricks.
(45:33):
That was a fountain. Wow. Yeah, this looks just like it.
I can't believe I walked past it. Didn't see this.
Over there what was formerly the Quad was still in
practically the same setup at St. James, four small buildings
(45:57):
built on what was once the four posts of the
radar tower from Camp Gordon Johnston. I couldn't believe that.
I had been walking around trying to find some remnants
of the old an Awaki and it was right under
my nose the whole time. The same buildings built by
former patients of an Awaki are still in use by
this now golf course and resort. One aspect of the
(46:19):
Caravel campus. I still had not been able to track
down was the original motel, referred to as Bayside. Ron
said he could take me down there to show me
what was left of it today. We drove down to
a small beach off the side of the highway, a
light rain coming down and me frantically trying to protect
my microphone and recorder. This is where by side was.
(46:45):
There were two strips here along here, about four units
on east side, four rooms on east side, with our
courtyard in the middle, like I said, had been a
little kind of hotel, and and then the um. There
was one group on one side and one group on
the other side. They camped in the woods out that
(47:07):
way just I guess, just to the right of that house,
there was a trail that went back through the woods.
You can tell how far it was to the campus
from here. So it was a he's a good twenty
minute walk to get from here over to main campus.
So these kids will wake up here, you know, six
(47:27):
o'clock in the morning, get up and get ready walk
that trail to get the breakfast. Two houses built again
with the with the kid's labor. The first house here
was Dr. Petter's house where he would stay when he
was down here. And then the other house was the
Carrabelle Campus director's house. Now they've been sold and there's
(47:49):
just yeah, family's living on. We're walking off the side
of US Highway. Why you here cars going by and
this just looks like this deserted beach here. Really, all
that was left of the once motel was some broken
up slabs of concrete scattered across the sandy beach. A
(48:11):
hurricane had left it in ruins. A few years back.
Across the street were two Mexican style built houses painted
that all familiar and awaky beige as it was known.
Now you can see the hurricane kind of messed up
to sea wall there. Ah, like that's what's the left
of it. You can see far. The more you had
the picture of the boys putting down sandbags along there,
(48:36):
I went to see if Ron's wife and her friend
hit any memories of this place. You know what happened here?
Nothing relevant? An awaky bayside was now just concrete chunks
of the once motel and broken oyster shells. Much like
(48:59):
the rest of my trip to Caravell, all I could
find was pieces of what was the inn Awake South Campus,
fragments of stories from those who experienced it or who
knew family or others involved. The site of the original motel,
which I had been looking for all week. I must
have driven past a dozen times, a piece of Carabell's
(49:21):
history sitting right in plain sight, yet still so hard
to find. An Awake would continue to expand past Florida,
more Land was being acquired in Mexico and even Canada.
The next step in Petter's master plan to build an
all girls campus right in the state of Georgia. Next
(49:50):
time on Camp Hill an Awake. The girls campus was
set back along a very widdening gravel road. We would
work from eight thirty or nine until eleven thirty. Girls
(50:10):
were getting heat, exhaustion and heat stroke. We built an
empire for a pedophile. That's a very difficult thing to
think about. She shared with us that she had a
marriage ceremony out on the beach and that they were
a couple. I don't know it changed her, but it
(50:33):
didn't seem like in a good way. Campell Anawaki was
created and hosted by Josh Thane, with producer Miranda Hawkins
and executive producers Alex Williams and Matt Frederick. The soundtrack
(50:55):
was written and performed by Josh Thane and Adrian Barry.
Archival footage provide did by ws B and CBS News.
Find us on Instagram at camp hell pod. That's c
A M p h E L L p O D.
Educate yourself about the issue of child abuse and things
that you should look for at the Darkness to Light
(51:15):
website D two ll dot org. That's d the number
two l dot org. Camp hell Anawaki is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to podcasts.
Camp Hell Anna Wake is a production of I Heart Radio.
The views and opinions expressing this podcast are solely those
of the author and participants and do not necessarily represent
those of I Heeart Media or its employees. Due to
discussion of traumatic, sexual and violent content, listeners, discussion is advised.
After hearing all the stories about Carabelle and how in
(00:23):
Awake had a hotel and marina built by the students,
I decided I had to see this for myself. I
booked myself a room at the Moorings of Carabelle, the
hotel built by an Awake which is still in operation,
and headed down to Carabelle. I just got into Carabell
after a quite hairy drive down a two lane Florida
(00:47):
highway in pouring rain. I've checked in and I am
at the moorings at Carabelle Hotel and Marina. This is
the same hotel and the same marina that those boys built.
So I'm going to go out and speak with some
locals and see what I can't find out about the
(01:08):
town of Carabell. My first stop was to visit the
Carabell History Museum, a small local shrine to the fishing
town of Carabelle. I figured surely they had to know
about Antiwaki's history in the area. We really have taken
on the notion of gateway to the Gulf to go fishing,
that that fishing charters and eco tourism have gotten really
(01:32):
big here. This is Tamara Allen. She runs the History
of Carabelle Museum. For a small town with no red light,
it has an awful lot of history dating back to
the Native Seminole tribe in Civil War Arab battles. I
asked Tamara what she knew about Anawaki. To my surprise,
it was very little. That is Panama City. We have
(01:58):
been coming here since the eighties. We were staying at
the Moorings. That was our place to stay, and we
were told we were the first like official people to
stay in the motel of the Moorings back in the
late eighties. And I just heard it was like a
rehab place for delinquent kids. And so at the time
(02:21):
I heard about the fact that it had been part
of of an Awaki, but I didn't know what that
meant because I'd say to people what happened and they
went and tell me, it's a big rabbit hole. What
Tamara did know was that the boys at the Antiwaki
South campus were a part of the community, going to
local schools and even churches. These children were students at
(02:47):
the facility, but they all went to high school with
other kids, so they made friends here with other kids.
I do know that a lot of the kids went
to either the Baptists, from the Men to just church.
People knew him in the community, and occasionally they would go.
A group of them would go to a townsperson and
(03:07):
say we have to leave that place. Do you have
any where we could stay? Or they would try to
run away. They wanted to stay in school, They wanted
to just have a normal life here, but they didn't
want to be in the program, and some of the
kids ended up living here marrying local girls. Since I
had initially contacted Tamara, she had reached out to some
(03:28):
people she knew in the area who may have more
insight into what went on it in Awaki. Several people
said that a lot of the staff that worked there
were evil types of people that they abused the children
and particularly did things like just took a perfectly healthy
(03:49):
child and deliberately broke their arm or their leg if
they were missed behaving. I tried to see if Tamara
may be able to connect me with someone who may
have had a closer connection to the school I could
speak with. I started talking to people that I thought
might have a historical perspective, and then they were reluctant
(04:10):
to talk about it, which piqued my interest, I must say.
And then I actually had somebody say to me, I
don't want to talk to that guy because I might
end up dead. They wouldn't even tell me what they
were talking about. And I said, help me understand that comment.
I don't know what that means. He said, Well, a
lot of people talk to folks they ended up dead.
(04:32):
They know that Peter had very high connections way up
in government in Florida and Georgia. Nobody that I've found
that works there wants to talk to you because they
are afraid they'll end up dead. Over the past several weeks,
we have received number of very serious allegations concerning both
(04:54):
the facility out there in a number of individuals involved
with him. It was just a wrong with their therapy.
They were told to do it, and at the time
he was fourteen and a half fifteen years old. They
didn't know any better. I asked him, why are you
letting this happen? Why are you covering up for Louis Batter.
He had no answer to that question. Having and this
(05:16):
sitution paid it of little could be such shock destricable place,
and did do absolutely the contrary of what they should
have done. I'm disturbed at the fact of something. He
was stilled, wat on it, and I wake you. I'm
Josh Stein, and this is camp hell in Awake. I
(05:42):
quickly realized it may be tougher than I originally thought
to speak with some locals about in Awake. Luckily I
managed to find a few people scattered throughout the town
who were willing to tell me what they remembered. I
guess I first heard about it when they started coming
to our school. I must have been six or seventh
(06:02):
grade when they first started coming to school. When I
went to school with them, I was Kathy Milliner and
I graduated with probably ten or fifteen of the guys
from anna Waki. I'm still good friends with a lot
of them that went to Annawaki that I graduated high
school with. I stay in contact. I married one right
(06:24):
out of high school. Just a lot of good friendships
that have remained over fifty years now. Were you interacted
with them regularly on through church? I mean that's you know,
that's what they did. They ring they bring him to church. Actually,
I think my daughter might have dated one of them
for a little bit there. I mean, not a daughter
by my sister. My sister. These kids would come in.
(06:47):
I mean they had their white shirts and eyes. They
were just presented. Nice kids, good kids. They're learning, you know,
they're learning how to better themselves. And they were very
polite and everything. But I think they're just happy that
get get out of the the environment that they were in.
And we had no clue of it. We had no
really clue of it back then. We never heard about it,
(07:09):
you know. I went to see what the former grounds
of the inn Awaki work Camp, or Landside as it
was known, looked like today. The St. James Bay golf
course currently resides there. What was once untouched wildlife is
now a subdivision of sorts surrounding the course. I went
(07:33):
to eat at its resident grill. It's here where I
heard a harrowing story from my waitress regarding in Awaki.
My knowledge is a second hand from a friend of
my father's I knew of one incident in particular where
a police officer who was working with some capacity UM
(07:53):
at the facility, took a young boy out into the
wooded area. A hunter was there. Um he didn't know
the hunter was there, but the hunter observed him having
sex with the with the boy. Was this voluntary? From
your understanding, it was not. It seemed to be more
of a punishment type situation. Surprisingly, this story sounded familiar.
(08:18):
In fact, it showed that someone may have actually witnessed
one of the worst stories I heard in all of
my interviews. My name is Mark. My number was B
fourteen seventy four. I attended Anawaki from nineteen eighty four
March one to be exact, two about March one, nineteen six.
(08:45):
At the time I was fifteen years old. My background
before I went into an awake he I came from
abusive household. Mom tried her best, Dad was very violent.
Looking back on it now, there was just a lot
of negative talk, a lot of um destructive behavior. I
(09:06):
was just lost, very depressed, and after trying to commit
suicide a couple of times, just not understanding myself or
my emotions or who I was I um they put
me away in a adolescent psychiatric unit for emotionally disturbed children.
(09:31):
I was at South Campus. That was my primary campus. Obviously,
we all go through e en O in Douglasville, which
is Central Campus, and I was there twice, first time
when I was admitted, and then the second time after
an incident happened. Mark says that during his time in
(09:52):
Caribille that an Awaki had once again gotten itself in
the good graces with the local government. The fact that
would only hide what was going on behind the scenes.
We were told that we were going to do a dance.
It was my first dance Hanawake. He had two dances,
Spring and Fall, and they had said that Governor Bob
(10:14):
Graham and his daughter was coming. I heard about that.
I was really impressed that the governor's daughter was coming
paying Awake for the dance. Mark says that Antawaki's ties
with Florida Governor Bob Graham were so close has to
even send boys to his home to do work. We
(10:37):
went up there, and I don't think it was the
governor's mansion that we went to. I believe it was
his personal property because it seemed like a regular home.
We went up and just kind of cleaned the flower
beds and trimmed hedges. It seemed like pretty much all
day we had a good time. There was a pool there,
(10:59):
a couple staff members were there. Even with such close
ties to local government, the abuse of the Antiweki South
campus was just as bad, if not worse, than in Douglasville.
On many occasions, I personally witnessed at least a good handful,
(11:19):
maybe a dozen different times that staff members either physically abused,
sexually abused, or just verbally abused students. Group members Mark
She had a personal story with me. Fair warning, it's
pretty rough to listen to. You may want to skip
(11:40):
ahead if that's too much for you. It came to
me kind of as a shock. I've never seen anything
like that. I never was traumatized by seeing it until
I walked back to my first campsite. I was able
to walk back with a pass three by five or
and I had to pick up something that I left
(12:03):
on campus. The staff member was a new staff member.
He sent me back to the campsite and I heard
somebody crying, and it kind of scared me because I
didn't know what to do. So I just ran up
into the platform tent and one of my group members
(12:24):
was getting basically raped by a staff member, by a
unit supervisor. I didn't know this person at first. I mean,
I knew my group member, but I didn't know the
staff member. And I was just so shocked to see
two people doing that. I've never seen anything like that.
(12:45):
I never thought of anything like that. So I just
ran off. I was scared. I didn't know what to do.
I didn't even I don't remember what I had to
go back and get. But I just ran and I
ran back, and my heart was going on a hundred
miles an hour. And I wanted to tell the new
staff member, but I knew it wasn't the right thing
to tell him. I I didn't trust this person, so
(13:07):
I asked him if I could go to the clinic.
Next thing I know, I'm in the clinic. I tell
one of the nurses and I let her know what
was going on. First, I asked her if I could
speak to her. And I talked to her and I
told her and this has happened. I don't know what
to do. I need some help. Can you call the police?
What do we do? And she said, don't worry about it.
(13:28):
I'll take care of it. The police already know about it.
You're gonna be fine. Everything's gonna be okay. Just go
back to your group. I don't say anything to anybody,
and everything will be fine. Three days later, I'm walking
back by myself again, and the same group later sent
me back to the campsite, and two men stepped off
(13:52):
of the trail grabbed me, and then Mr Phillips, who
has head of security, He's standing in front of me
and he smacks my face open hand smacks my face,
and anyone can tell you. Mr Phillips was very big,
he was very strong, and it just dazed me. And
(14:13):
the next thing I know, I'm on the ground and
Mr Phillips has kind of got his knee in the
back of my head between my shoulder blades, and they
pulled my pants down and both of the other staff
members raped me, and I just remember I couldn't breathe.
It's funny because even today I can almost taste the sand.
(14:36):
I can almost smell it, because everything is sandy in Florida.
And after that, I just I guess I passed out
or I'm not sure what happened. Maybe I'm blocking it somewhere.
But the next thing I remember was waking up in
the back of one of our passenger vands that they
used to transport us. We were in I think it
(14:58):
was Smim, small town in Georgia, and I woke up
and I had a really bad headache and my butt ched,
and I couldn't figure out. I was like, I had
tape on my butt cheeks, and my butt cheeks were
taped together really super tight for some reason. And I
(15:18):
was wearing one of those in a waky green eno robes,
and I had a medical bracelet on like you get
when you go to the hospital. And I kept on
wanting to scratch my backside and there was tape there
and I can't figure out what it was, and I
was confused. While I was in a van and one
(15:40):
of the staff members, there was two people driving for
one person driving another one past some year and then
another person was sitting a couple of seats ahead of me,
and I was sitting all the way in the back
and he said, Mark, you're fine, because I started kind
of freaking out, and he goes, um, because you you
tried to hurt yourself, And I knew that was a
(16:01):
bunch of ship because I didn't try to hurt myself. UM,
and I became scared all over again, and he said, uh,
can we we're gonna stop at McDonald's. Would you like
something to eat and not a start? And I was
like sure, Yeah. Then I got to n O UM
went to a doctor uh in the clinic of Eno
(16:23):
and they looked at me and I had a staple
in my anus. They stapled it and some small stitches
had had some gauze that I had to change, and
they gave me a whole bunch of stuff. They were
really super nice this time. When I went to You know,
I never got the rope thrown at me. Uh. Pretty
much got to be able to walk in and out
(16:45):
of my room whenever I wanted. I had a little
bit more privileges than the new guys getting there. But
they kept on telling me that I tried to commit suicide.
And I was trying to tell another of the staff
members and you know, no, that's not what happened to me.
This happened to me. He told me. He pulled me
out aside and took me back into the clinic area
(17:10):
and he told me, you don't want to talk about this.
You don't want to say anything about this. They will
keep hurting you, and your parents will be notified and
you will never basically win this battle that you're trying
to fight. And he just told me to go back
and keep my mouth shut, and if anybody approached me,
(17:34):
just tell them that I wasn't interested and that I
had spoke to that staff member and to mention his name,
and then by mentioning his name that was kind of
a key word that they would leave me alone. Mark
says that after this traumatic experience, he never spoke to
(17:55):
his parents about what they were told by the staff
of Innawaki until years later. Believe it or not, my
parents were told that I had tried to commit suicide
again anally, and I didn't know this until probably five
(18:18):
years ago. I knew they were told something, and we
just didn't talk about it. It was just one of
those things. My mom kind of buried her head in
the sand with a lot of stuff. After hearing Mark's
(18:48):
heartbreaking story, I found I kept hearing the same name
of the counselor who fartook in his abuse, Jim Phillips.
Mr Phillips was a big man. He was a big guy.
He was probably I'm gonna say, three hundred pounds. If
you didn't know him, you think that he would have
a kind heart. He would put himself like he'd be
(19:08):
want to help you and and you know the weird
way he would. He was a church going guy who
has claimed to be It's funny how that works. And
he also was involved with the sheriff Department down Carribelle, Florida,
which is where I know Carripil Police Department at the time,
and the eighties was dirty as ship too. You can't
tell me they didn't know about this. This is David Whacker.
(19:29):
He was a patient at Anniwiki South in Caribell. Mr
Phillips was there for the intimidation purpose. He was the
intimidation guy. He come. I remember one of the boys
had done something or I had gotten a fight, and
next time I saw him after him visiting Mr Phillips,
he had more bruises in the black eyes and shaking
than I've ever seen another human being in my life before.
(19:51):
You did not mess with that man. This man was
so strong, No lie, I've seen this man left the
back of a greyhound bus to change attire. You did
not argue with this man. If you argue with him,
if you got on his wrong side, he would put
you through a concrete wall and a heartbeat and you
wouldn't know what hits you. David was a victim of
(20:12):
the sexual abuse taking place on the Caravel campus. He
claims that there may have been some type of exchange
in return for access to the boys taking place. This
is how he recalls the night his abuser took him
to what he believed was an auctioning off of the boys.
Woke up. I actually felt him get off the bed.
(20:34):
I thought he was going out to take a piss,
and then when he reached down there, I mean, of
course here, I thought, here, well, here we go again.
Instead told me and come with him. So I said, okay,
on of course, I got up through my shoes on.
I followed him out the door. Next thing I know,
I know, we're crossing over the creek. But for some
reason it wasn't of the bridge of somewhere else, and
we were able to cross over I was aware of
at the time. We could end up behind the toolship
(20:56):
that we had there. There was like another door in
the back, but it wasn't visible to just that you
had to either slide or move something out of the way.
He opened the door too many come in. I came in.
It was behind the tool shed. I remember him sliding
the door off to the right like you would a
(21:16):
screen door or a glass door. And then but it
wasn't glasses would. And then I followed him in there
and opened up to another the size of a master bedroom. Chairs,
two seated sofa, stuff like that. And then I was
I turned around. I had to face the wall. Everything
else I was. I was listening to voices, but I
(21:39):
recognized the voices. I knew Mr Brown was in there.
I knew Mr Phillipson there, and I aln't knew Mr
vanillas and there because he was when they escorted me there.
They're debating back and forth, others, what they who, which
which I'm assuming which child they want, who they want,
what they want to do. It's like I said at
that time, I'm I'm facing a wall. Not actually I'm
(22:01):
trying to remember, trying to look and see who's beside me.
To my left. In my right, oh your here is
bags and pleas And you know how don't the sounds
they haunt you too? Not just thinks matches to the sounds. Yeah,
so I'm facing the wall. There was carpet on the wall,
and I was picking at ittles. That's what I did.
(22:23):
I tried his zone out. You try to block everything.
When you're that young and you're facing guys twice your size.
You don't argue, you don't ask questions. You just do this.
Your co that was probably there maybe fift maybe even
thirty minutes. Then Mr Finnell walks me out and then
we get back to the cabinet. And then I went
(22:44):
back in and I got my bed, face the wall,
pull the sheets over me as tight as I fucking could.
I just if you try to forget, but you never do.
Due to some luck, while in Cara Belle, I was
finally able to connect with someone who worked at the
(23:06):
inn Awaki South Campus. My name is Ron Doyle. I
worked in the mental health center in Tallahassee, and one
of the psychiatrists they're also worked down here and suggested
to me that this when I was finishing up my
master's degree, that this would be a good place for
me to work. And so I came down and interviewed
(23:27):
and was hired as a counselor. This was in night
Ron came to visit me at the Mornings Hotel, which
he helped build with the patients. It was a mixed bag.
I really loved working with the boys. I mean, these
were kids who needed a lot of help, and it
was an opportunity for me to learn and practice my
counseling skills. But there were a lot of things that
(23:49):
we're difficult. I worked a hundred and thirty hour work week.
Basically I had a day and a half off a week.
The rest of the time I was on duty. I
lived with the boys in the cabin us, and it
was intensive work. I asked Ron, if you thought it
was normal for the boys to be working on buildings
such as the hotel we were currently in at the time.
(24:10):
I did yes, because the labor that they were doing
was teaching them skills. It was providing structures that they
were actually using and benefiting from, except for this here
at the Mornings, which was a different thing. But at
the time we didn't know that. We thought we were
building it for their use and that the motel part
(24:30):
would be used for parents to stay when they came
to visit campus. It was used to that to some degree,
but I think for the most part. It was used
for as a for profit motel, I think at this
point and his employee and and mine. At that time,
the sexual abuse was happening more away from campus in Mexico.
(24:51):
This is Melinda Ron's wife. She's originally from Caribell and
ended up working there when she met Ron. She and
her friend came along with Ron to talk to me
about in Awaki South. She says that Lewis Petter had
begun taking boys from in Awaki to Mexico for a
yearly trip where there would be an even less watchful
(25:11):
eye than there would be stateside. I think that he
figured out people were onto him, and so there became
a chosen group and I did that in air quotes
to accompanying them to Mexico. It was supposed to be
this big privileged trip every year every summer, Dr Petter
(25:31):
would lead a group on a trip to Mexico. And
summer trips were a big thing in the program. You
know that they would be considered as a reward for
the kids doing well and earning opportunities and making progress,
and so groups would plan like a river trip or something.
But this Mexico trip was a big thing and the
(25:51):
kids who went on it were hands selected Dr Petter.
I was invited to go. Dr Petter asked me personally
to go on the trip, and I didn't really want
to go. Had heard enough things about it to make
me leary of it, and so I told Dr Petter
I don't feel like I can go because I need
(26:11):
to be here to help my groups. He wasn't used
to people telling him no that worked for him, so
that put me on his kind of bad list. I
heard things about kids being physically abused. Um. I heard
things about kids being taken to brothels to help them
(26:34):
become a man. Andrew was a former patient of an
Awaki who was asked to attend the annual Mexico trip.
He said Dr Petter reached out to him personally about
attending right before he was about to reach his termination.
What in a wake He would call when you had
completed your time of the facility and we're ready to
leave and return home. They had some kind of policy
(26:58):
there which I've have since been told old that this
was just a policy that was total ludicrous and not
really enforceable, but they would always enforce this on you.
They said, well, if you turn eighteen and you want
to leave. You got to do five days in that
E and O place that we had discussed earlier in
this conversation. And I, UM, I said, whatever, I'll do
(27:19):
five days and then I'm leaving. And so I'm doing
the five days and I'm in there for like about
a day and Petter comes back. Dr Petter, he comes back.
He says, you know, well, Andy or Andrew, I didn't
want you to leave. You know, I want you to
finish the program and the enjoy your time here. I um,
(27:41):
you know, we do these Mexico trips once a year
and I was planning on taking in this would have
been in April, and so he said, I wanted you
to go to Mexico with us this on this next
Mexico trip in nineteen eighty three, which would have been
the summer of eighty three. And I am, I'm like, well,
and I'd heard rumors about what goes on on these
Mexico trips and I've thought about it for a few
(28:03):
minutes there with him sitting there with me, and he
had his chauffeurther with him. UM downam Carl Moore and
um we uh talked for a little bit longer, and
then I said, all right, Will Um, We'll go to
Mexico with you and that Will, That'll be okay, I'll
go And Peter said good and so he said, um,
walk on out of the CNA. Here's Carl Moore and
(28:27):
what he remembers about the Mexico trips. Every group had
a chance to take a trip every year. It would
actually raise money to take their trips and it would
have to be planned and uh we did canoe trips,
ski trips. The big trip to get to go on
was the Mexico trip, and we would take three groups
down to Mexico for almost three months. It seems like
(28:50):
we're probably uh somewhere between ten and twelve weeks something
like that, but we would we would cover the uh
entire country of Mexico most of the time. It was
a big deal for the kids to get selected to
do that. It was a pretty amazing trip traveling like that.
(29:12):
It is just an amazing way to you know. We
would we took the vans and trailers and we would
camp out of the trailers. I mean we would tend camp,
but we kept our food and clothes and stuff and
the trailers. We leave Atlanta get to h stop at
Bourbon Street to go through Bourbon Street, Um, get back
on the road camp probably somewhere in Louisiana or Texas,
(29:37):
and then cross the border in uh Brownsville, Texas going
into Mexico. It was just just amazing way too to
see that part of the United States. But then we
crossed into Mexico. It was like a magical thing. We
would drive down through the mountains. We was always stopped
at a place we called El Salto Falls, which was
(30:00):
I think it was kind of like a honeymoon resort
for people in Mexico. But it was you know, thatched
huts and this just amazing waterfall with the river and uh,
this blue water that was just it was like something
out of it was magical. And we would drive through
the Thomas and Charlie Mountains, which were like nothing that
(30:23):
any of us had ever seen, and people farmed the
sides of these mountains and it was just spectacular greenery
and and terrifying roads through the mountains. And our destination
was typically we would go down to central Mexico put
Yucca in the state of Hidago. It was kind of
(30:44):
a small miracle that we were able to do that
without major And if you told me right now to
to put together a group of thirty six kids and
six or eight staff members and take them down to
Mexico for eight to twelve weeks, I'd say, you gotta
be kidding. But we did stuff like that, and it's
the kind of a I mean, there were there were
wonderful things about it, and there are questionable and terrible
(31:09):
things about it. Former patient Andrew says the pettish connections
had even reached the town of Pachuco, Mexico. The main
place where Petter like to go in Mexico is a
town called Pachuca, which was near now about about an
hour away from Mexico City. And um, I was amazed
(31:31):
that with the kind of connections and stuff that he
had in this little town called Pachuca. But there would
be parties and you know, I could you know that
would be held at private residences for example, inside this
you know, town of Pachuca, and there were I could
tell that these people were you know, upper middle class
(31:53):
I guess so to speak. And you know a lot
of gifts would be exchanged between Petter and these um
in these Mexicans upper class families. I mean these Mexican
upper class families had money. I mean I could tell
that nice houses and stuff like that. At one point
in time, I know, Pedal was given like some kind
of antique pistol and as a sign of friendship, and
(32:16):
patters given him like brand new TVs that we you know,
because we would pull these trailers to Mexico and we
would have these TVs buried in the bottom and these
trailers and stuff, you know, I mean, it was pretty
crazy stuff. Another side note about Mexico. This is also
where the story of George the Donkey began. I remember
(32:37):
what year it was, but yeah, we were driving through
I think we were on a dirt road somewhere in
the mountains of Mexico and this guy had had George
with him and he was he was tying, I mean,
he was, you know, probably just ween and we stopped
and decided it would be a good idea to have him.
So we bought him from the guy for fiacos, which
(32:59):
was back then probably less than five dollars, and he
traveled around Mexico with us. There was all kinds of
wildlife in Mexico and stuff for sale. People driving back
to the border would go through all kinds of animals
for sale, and some of the kids would have bought
like iguanas and things like that for pets. So we
(33:22):
got the bright idea that we could bring George back
into the US with us. So we made a space
in the trailer and put him in one of the trailers.
We crossed the border at about four o'clock in the morning,
and Uh, I don't know Georgy. He could pray he
could make some noise if he had started doing that,
and it was. It was the funniest thing. It was
(33:43):
four o'clock in the morning. We were all wide awake,
trying to look like we weren't wide awake, just praying
that George didn't decide to let loose, and he didn't,
and that's how we brought him into the country. Injury
says that the contraband brought back into the United States
from these Mexico trips was not just limited to goods
and even animals. There was like a couple on one
(34:07):
of those Mexico trips. I think it was brought back
like two kids from Mexico and um I thought they
were going into the Aniwaki program. I don't know whatever happened.
To those kids that they vanished, that they were abused
and vanished or what. I had no likeas I never
ever saw them again. But there was two Mexican kids,
(34:28):
teenage kids. They were put into the group that Doc
had personally and they were brought back to America UM
and taken to Douglas Hills, Georgia. I never ever saw
those kids AGAINA here's Carl Moore. We brought people back
(34:49):
from Mexico, which was a pretty big deal. I think
some of them worked at Aniwaki and and we had
relationships with people down there and that uh, you know,
people expected to see us every year, and you know,
we would always take stuff down there for them. You know,
there's a lot of gift exchanging, and that was another
(35:10):
one of the things that that that he was good at.
He did this with everybody that was important. And we
would always buy jewelry down there, and you know that
would end up in the hands of various people as gifts.
Carl says that the possibility of an Awaki moving into
(35:32):
Mexico with another campus was something that was not out
of the question at the time. I think we could
have had a Mexico campus. We ended up buying a
house down there, So I think the more was going
to happen there or there was an opportunity and I
and I didn't distinguish that from from any other thing
that you would do with the Antiwaki funds. You know,
(35:55):
it was all the same thing to me. One aspect
of the Mexico a trip that was well known among
the patients at in Awaki was an annual trip to
a brothel. As Melinda Doyle had mentioned. In Pachuca, they
had a a strip on a hillside that was their
red light district, I guess you'd call it, and on
(36:19):
several of the trips anyway, I mean, it was a
regular thing. One of the big not so secret secrets
was that, you know, that was part of the Mexico trip.
But we would, you know, get everybody together and say,
you know, it's kind of like a Tonight's tonight kind
of thing, and Petter would give us speech, you know,
trying to coach everybody how to get through this in
(36:40):
a way. But ultimately it might have been it might
have been something that could have been a positive thing
for some people. For some people, it's terrifying, and the
reality of it was it's a really, really really pour
away to introduce somebody to that experience. Former patient Chris
(37:02):
McKnight remembers one such outing during his trip to Mexico.
Would they in awake most years? They took us to
a house of ill repew house of prostitution, whatever you
wanna call it. This story is still kind of a
tough one to tell. So I lost my virginity in
the Patuca, Mexican horhouse. I was so scared. This is
(37:27):
summer eighty three. It's it's an alley in these girls
as side. I don't know what to do. I'm a virgin.
I'm scared shitless. I'm you know, and always probably Hey,
come on, Chris, you gotta go incredible amounts of here
pressure kron. You gotta grow on there and have sex
with a woman. And and it's just guyss. Just such
(37:48):
a surreal and i frightening situation. I really was scared,
not because sex to me was a lot of baggage.
Chris was another victim of sexual abuse at an awaking
by the hands of a counselor. Chris says that during
this trip to a brothel, his abuser had just been
with the same woman he was being pressured to have
(38:09):
sex with, so I I had my first sexual experience
with a woman. It's like my mind was so fucked
up about sex at that moment in my life that
the only safe woman I could have sex with wizard
of the woman who had just had sex with the
(38:30):
guy who had molested me years before. There's a lot
of baggage right there, a lot of pain too, girls
like grab my hand. He's trying to push for someone else,
just like trying to push me through the door. And
I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry, I wanted
to run away. I was afraid. I was scared, I
(38:52):
was shaking. I mean, it was consensual, it was legal
in Mexico, no laws were broken. But there was a
lot of heavy ship going on right there. And I
remember getting out and running down and throwing up, and
I didn't eat for a couple of days. Still have
issues that situation. It's hard to make hedge details of it.
(39:15):
It's a really messed up situation. A teenager shouldn't have
been put in. Here's former councilor Ron Doyle again. He says,
after seeing the effect the Mexico trip had on one
of his patients under his supervision, he saw a red flag.
I think probably the real catalyst that read my my
(39:37):
resignation was I had a boy who was brought into
one of my groups after returning from a trip to Mexico.
He had been considered a troublemaker in his previous group,
but after this trip to Mexico, he just went off
the deep end, and so they put him in my group,
thinking that that might might help end. I had been
(39:59):
effective and helping kids get past problems like that, So
I worked with this kid and and he began to
open up to me and to tell me about some
of the things that had happened to him on that
Mexico trip, which were just inexcusable physical abuse that the
other kids were used to help abuse him because he
(40:20):
wasn't cooperating. This was the Apache roundup. Basically, they put
him in a circle of other kids and would ask
him questions and if he didn't answer properly, they were
on him, basically beat him to a pull. Carl says
that these so called Apache roundups a racially insensitive term,
(40:43):
to say the least, we're supposed to be another part
of pettish therapy. One that he was told to lead.
They were probably a handful of times where I was
actually physically involved with anybody. You know. One of the
things that that Petter would talk out where the Apache
round up, and we went through a couple of those,
(41:05):
and that's where the group confronts an individual and the
idea is to be physical about Ron says that after
hearing about the Mexico trip, he decided to try to
do something to help the situation and make known the
atrocities he had heard about. Well, of course the stories
about the trips to the prostitutes and that kind of stuff.
(41:27):
So at that point I realized that there was a
really ugly underbelly to the program. I thought it was
a wonderful program that did a lot of good things
for kids, but then I saw it ruining kids like
this one. And so, knowing that Dr Putter was the
one who was arranging all that stuff, I had no
trust in him whatsoever. I wasn't sure what to do,
(41:48):
so I wrote a letter to the Board of directors, thinking,
you know, these are community people who don't really know
what's going on here, and they need to know. So
I wrote a letter to the board of director's outlining
some of my concerns, and I was very careful not
to say things that I couldn't back up, but but
just bringing attention to some things that I was concerned about.
(42:11):
I assumed that that letter had gone to the board,
and shortly thereafter Dr Petter came down to Carriville and
convened a meeting at the top leadership. Here, he said
he had been appointed by the board to investigate my
my concerns and my claims. I don't remember the details,
but I do remember that the other administrators all basically
(42:34):
said now they hadn't heard nothing of any of this kind,
and everything was wonderful as far as they knew, and
that I had probably fallen for some stories that the
boys were making up. So Dr Petter decided that my
problem was that I was just naive and needed some
more training, and that I had shown good promise. But
but he wanted me to work as his assistant and
(42:57):
moved to Douglasville to work under him so that he
trained me properly. I told him I wasn't interested in
moving to Douglasville. He told me I didn't have a choice,
and I told him I always have a choice, and
my choice was to leave rather than to accept when
he was offering. So that's when I left. That was
after four years here. After hearing about Ron's experience at
(43:39):
an Awaki as a counselor in Carabelle, we went to
visit some of the old sites to remember what they
were and what they had now become. So we are,
we're at the arena right now. Well, it looked a
lot different when we first started. I mean, there was
really nothing much here except for the docks, and in fact,
at the time there were wood docks, not in this
concrete nice stuff. You see now that's the hotel. The
(44:02):
boys built this building. The boys built building we're standing under.
The boys built. We were under the impression at the
time that we were building a facility that was going
to be used for the program. As far as I know,
it never was. Once it was finished, we didn't come
back here anymore. We next went to see what had
become of the inn Awaki South Campus formally referred to
(44:25):
as Landside. Yeah, at the St. James bake Off Course
formerly an Awaki. Walking around looking at some of the
old buildings and what they are now. But it looks
like they took the whole building down and just built
it on the same foundation. Okay, this was the yeah,
(44:47):
the lodge. This was the administration area. Oh, this is
the courtyards is that? Yeah? This is what we called
the quad because of the four buildings I can see.
I can't walk right past this. This looks just like
the pictures of the quad with the courtyard and in
the middle of the four buildings every year. See that
(45:08):
tree right there, the big one. Yeah, my group planted
it when it was a sapling. That sas what kind
of tree is? Well? This was administration here, these buildings
where the social workers were housed. Mm hmm. And was
this all grass? Was this center here too? This was
here they laid these bricks, the boys laid these bricks.
(45:33):
That was a fountain. Wow. Yeah, this looks just like it.
I can't believe I walked past it. Didn't see this.
Over there what was formerly the Quad was still in
practically the same setup at St. James, four small buildings
(45:57):
built on what was once the four posts of the
radar tower from Camp Gordon Johnston. I couldn't believe that.
I had been walking around trying to find some remnants
of the old an Awaki and it was right under
my nose the whole time. The same buildings built by
former patients of an Awaki are still in use by
this now golf course and resort. One aspect of the
(46:19):
Caravel campus. I still had not been able to track
down was the original motel, referred to as Bayside. Ron
said he could take me down there to show me
what was left of it today. We drove down to
a small beach off the side of the highway, a
light rain coming down and me frantically trying to protect
my microphone and recorder. This is where by side was.
(46:45):
There were two strips here along here, about four units
on east side, four rooms on east side, with our
courtyard in the middle, like I said, had been a
little kind of hotel, and and then the um. There
was one group on one side and one group on
the other side. They camped in the woods out that
(47:07):
way just I guess, just to the right of that house,
there was a trail that went back through the woods.
You can tell how far it was to the campus
from here. So it was a he's a good twenty
minute walk to get from here over to main campus.
So these kids will wake up here, you know, six
(47:27):
o'clock in the morning, get up and get ready walk
that trail to get the breakfast. Two houses built again
with the with the kid's labor. The first house here
was Dr. Petter's house where he would stay when he
was down here. And then the other house was the
Carrabelle Campus director's house. Now they've been sold and there's
(47:49):
just yeah, family's living on. We're walking off the side
of US Highway. Why you here cars going by and
this just looks like this deserted beach here. Really, all
that was left of the once motel was some broken
up slabs of concrete scattered across the sandy beach. A
(48:11):
hurricane had left it in ruins. A few years back.
Across the street were two Mexican style built houses painted
that all familiar and awaky beige as it was known.
Now you can see the hurricane kind of messed up
to sea wall there. Ah, like that's what's the left
of it. You can see far. The more you had
the picture of the boys putting down sandbags along there,
(48:36):
I went to see if Ron's wife and her friend
hit any memories of this place. You know what happened here?
Nothing relevant? An awaky bayside was now just concrete chunks
of the once motel and broken oyster shells. Much like
(48:59):
the rest of my trip to Caravell, all I could
find was pieces of what was the inn Awake South Campus,
fragments of stories from those who experienced it or who
knew family or others involved. The site of the original motel,
which I had been looking for all week. I must
have driven past a dozen times, a piece of Carabell's
(49:21):
history sitting right in plain sight, yet still so hard
to find. An Awake would continue to expand past Florida,
more Land was being acquired in Mexico and even Canada.
The next step in Petter's master plan to build an
all girls campus right in the state of Georgia. Next
(49:50):
time on Camp Hill an Awake. The girls campus was
set back along a very widdening gravel road. We would
work from eight thirty or nine until eleven thirty. Girls
(50:10):
were getting heat, exhaustion and heat stroke. We built an
empire for a pedophile. That's a very difficult thing to
think about. She shared with us that she had a
marriage ceremony out on the beach and that they were
a couple. I don't know it changed her, but it
(50:33):
didn't seem like in a good way. Campell Anawaki was
created and hosted by Josh Thane, with producer Miranda Hawkins
and executive producers Alex Williams and Matt Frederick. The soundtrack
(50:55):
was written and performed by Josh Thane and Adrian Barry.
Archival footage provide did by ws B and CBS News.
Find us on Instagram at camp hell pod. That's c
A M p h E L L p O D.
Educate yourself about the issue of child abuse and things
that you should look for at the Darkness to Light
(51:15):
website D two ll dot org. That's d the number
two l dot org. Camp hell Anawaki is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to podcasts.
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