Mountain Park

Meg Richter was branded a “troubled teen” and sent by her parents to Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy. But the rural Missouri facility wasn’t focused on education—it was more like a juvenile detention center masquerading as a Christian reform program. With no licensed therapists and a heavy reliance on corporal punishment, Mountain Park operated like a militaristic cult, where some students stayed well past their 18th birthdays.  

Links:  

I Survived A Cult: https://www.madeofmillions.com/articles/i-survived-a-cult-now-i-m-using-my-voice-to-make-a-difference 

Mountain Park Survivors: https://www.mountainparksurvivors.com/ 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
He puts his hand on my shoulder and he's like,
you're going to go with these girls for a few hours,
and then the girls kind of starts to closing.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
I'm like, get away from me, pushing back, and then.

Speaker 4 (00:17):
He's like, well, we can either do this willingly or forcefully.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Welcome to the Knife. I'm Hannah Smith.

Speaker 5 (00:38):
I'm patia Eton, and this week we speak with Meg Richter.
Meg was sent to a boarding school for troubled teens
located in the Missouri Ozarks. She now refers to the school,
Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy, as a military Christian cult.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Meg has begun to speak out about her experience and
has connected with other former students of Mountain Park. As
a note, this interview focuses on Meg's personal experiences at
Mountain Park, but at the end of the interview we
do discuss a homicide that happened at the school the
year before Meg arrived.

Speaker 5 (01:11):
Let's get into the interview.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
So let's start kind of back before Mountain Park. I'd
love to get an idea of who you were as
a young person and what was your life like growing up.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Well, I grew up in South Florida, and I would
say that I had a very good upbringing as far
as you know, like financial resources or good schools and
things like that. I think though, where unfortunately I was
lacking was a lot of forensal supervision or just kind
of guidance and good role models in my life.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
My mom ran the rape center for Broward County.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
My dad remarried young, so he had a new wife,
you know, new kids, so my time with them was
kind of more going out to eat with my dad
or just random you know, visits it as house. But
I already felt like kind of left behind. So with
my dad kind of with his new life, my mom
helping other victims, which was amazing, but I always felt
like my mom was kind of saving the world while

(02:13):
leaving me behind. I would go out with my mom
late night if she was out drinking or other kids
are at school being able to focus on schoolwork. I
was like, well, man, I was out till two am
last night at the bar, you know, with all of
these adults, and I got started, you know, drinking young.
My mom used to say mixed drinks don't count, so
you know, momosa is not a drink. Or you know,

(02:35):
these little baby beer cans they used to have back
in the day, they were just like these little tiny beers,
So like that didn't count.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
But in reality, when.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
You're you know, twelve years old and you're drinking, it
just makes it hard to be able to really be
who you're supposed to be at a young kid. By
the time high school rolled around, I didn't really feel
much of a need to go anymore. So I dropped
out of high school. I'm doing drugs, I'm drinking. I
have really no parental supervision whatsoever. In my life, I

(03:05):
did develop an eating disorder. I was Interrexican blimex. So
now I'm you know, doing drugs, I'm damaging my body,
and I'm dropped out of school. So my life is
pretty much just out of control and I'm a little angry.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
I feel like as much as my.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Friends, you know, would joke and be like, oh man,
you could really do anything and not get in trouble.
So as much as it's like, oh, it's cool that
my house is a house to hang at, I would
feel sad at the end of the day when my
friends would have a good house to go home to
you know, someone would have parents be there or a
home cooked meal, so that you do tend to then
when you're alone, self sabotage and spiral.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
Out of control.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
And I just felt like my life really was kind
of a free for all. I got a little angry
that my mom at one point had gone on vacation,
so I basically took some of her checks and I
wrote them out to somebody I knew it was an adult,
and we started cashing them.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
We went wild. It is the summer before my sophomore
year in high school.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
I have nobody home, I have unlimited, you know, finances.
We're just cashing checks left and right. So we are
buying clothes. We had got someone to rent as a car,
so we're just really just having you know, a lot
of fun.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
And enjoying life. But by now the bank has gone involved.
They've reached out to my mom.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
So she comes back from her trip and she's just
furious all of a sudden. Now she wants to lay
down the law and she's like, I can't believe you've
been stealing money and you're just acting so wild, and
it's like, well, this isn't new, you know, like I've
been living this way for now almost two years, but
now that it's kind of coming down and everything is crashing,
it's like, oh my gosh, like we have to do

(04:49):
something about this.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
The incident with the fraudulent checks seemed to tip the
scale for Meg's mother. All of a sudden, there were
rules and she expected Meg to obey them, and like
most teenagers, Meg pushed back. In nineteen ninety seven, when
Meg was fifteen, she ran away from home. This prompted
her parents, who were divorced, to join forces and come

(05:12):
up with a plan. Meg's dad called her and told
her they were going on a trip to visit her
grandmother in Missouri. Meg adored her grandmother and so she
was relieved and excited, but once they arrived in Missouri,
something felt off.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
Basically, we're driving up kind of a dirt road and
there's a lot of RVs and cabins around.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
So I asked my dad.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
I was like, well, I thought they lived somewhere else,
and he's like, oh, no, they moved not too long ago.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
Were in the middle of nowhere, Missouri.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
So I walk in just completely expecting to see my grandma,
and instead I am greeted by a group of girls,
and they're very large girls. It's not like they look
like teenagers my age. They look like very you know,
like oh, are you eighteen to twenty. There's about, you know,
six to eight of them, and they're kind of standing

(06:04):
blocking the whole entrance, so it's like, oh, okay. My
first reaction, honestly, is that it's somebody from home and
something is happening, you know, like I'm kind of being
set up. I didn't hang around with some of the
best people, so I think, like I'm about to be jumped.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
So I go to turn and I'm just like dad,
and somebody pulls him in another room.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
So I'm worried for him, you know, and I instantly
go to turn the door to run the doorknob.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
Though it's just turning, the door will not open. It
is locked.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
Meg described a moment of pure panic. At first, she
believed that both she and her father were in danger,
and then a man approached her. He was in his
mid thirties with a calm demeanor that unnerved her. He
was clearly the person in charge. She would later find
out that his name was Sam Gerhardt, but he liked

(06:58):
to be called brother Gar heart.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
And he puts his hand on my shoulder and he's like,
you're gonna go with these girls for a few hours.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
And of course I'm like, no, who the fuck are you?
Where's my dad? What's happening?

Speaker 2 (07:11):
And he's like kind of squeezing a little bit on
my shoulder, like patronizing middle aged man, you know, calm down,
it's okay, And I'm just like, first of all, why
are you so calm?

Speaker 3 (07:22):
I'm freaking out.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
And then the girls kind of start to close in
a little bit more so I'm like, get away from me,
pushing back, and then he's like, well, we can either
do this willingly or forcefully, so as they go to
kind of grab me, I of course instantly start fighting.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
I am afraid.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
I'm also though, been through a lot, so I'm pretty tough.
I feel like, okay, I'm I'm not going down without
a fight here, but I do they get me down
to the floor so fast. I went from a brave
human beings instantly realizing that I absolutely like am nothing
compared to their strength.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
When you just scratch this scene, honestly, it feels like
a scene in a horror movie a little bit. I
think you describe sort of your kind of freaking out
anxious energy really well, but like, what were you feeling
in that moment?

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Really terrified? I mean when you talk about a.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Horror movie or just like being scared, or if you've
ever had this uneasy feeling. It was so much betrayal
in one moment that sometimes it's hard to even grasp
all of the emotions because in that moment, I go
from being excited to see my grandma, which you're.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
Like, oh, you know, I'm already mentally struggling.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
I was on drugs, I have an eating disorder. My
life was spiraling out of control as a kid or
at any age. Honestly, I think some person that takes
you when you're at your lowest and embraces you just
with a hug or it's okay, it does so much.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
For a human being.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
And I needed that so bad and think that I'm
about to be warmly embraced by somebody that genuinely makes
me feel whole. And then to go from thinking something's
happening to my dad like that fast, like oh my god,
some person, a stranger's harming my dad. Granted, and we
weren't that close and our relationship wasn't that great. But

(09:19):
at the end of the day, it's still my dad.
You know, I don't want him being harmed. I'm afraid
now what's happening to him? And then within another split
second to realize, not only is my dad allowing these
people to come torture me, he set this up.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
So you put that together in that moment that he
had set this up, or did they say something to you,
like explain why you were there?

Speaker 3 (09:42):
Brother Gerhart?

Speaker 2 (09:43):
He had mentioned, you know, we're going to talk to
your dad for a few hours while you go down
with these girls, and they're just going to kind of
go over the rules and just kind of let you
know about this place while.

Speaker 3 (09:54):
We show your dad around.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
And I'm just like taking that in, you know, like,
what are you talking about talking to my dad? Like, Dad,
let's go. He's just sitting down. He's not hey, are
you okay, He's not trying to get to me. He
is making no effort to see if I'm okay. He's
just okay, allowing this person to talk to me. So
where it didn't really quite all of the betrayal, you know,

(10:17):
come into play that I grasped.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
It was the aspect of like, hey.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Why aren't you saving me? Why are you coming out
of that room? What is happening right now? Why are
you just standing there watching this. It's a really difficult
thing because you're like, wow, I thought this person loved me.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
They're betraying me. These strangers are attacking me.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
It's a lot of emotions to even feel and to
kind of grasp and realize at the same time.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, I can't even imagine. I think you actually described
it so well, the sort of split second way that
your brain was realizing, Oh no, yeah, this is not
random strangers attacking me and my dad. My dad knows
what's going on. I don't know what's going on, but
my dad clearly does. And now you're thinking he's in
on it, and that's such betrayal. Yeah, And as you

(11:02):
had described, you were already in a really like vulnerable position,
really needing love and support. Where were you basically what
did you learn about where you were and what was
going on?

Speaker 2 (11:12):
So even then it was kind of a lot to grasp,
you know, I stand back up, and they basically kind
of guide me, you know, like holding me, every person
on each side through this basement and down a long hallway,
and then we go into this room where there's a
whole row of sinks, so there's just eight sinks in
a row, and then a room full of about thirty

(11:32):
five bunk beds. You know.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
They're kind of guiding me basically back.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
There, holding me, and they're like, you're going to sit
in this chair and we're all going to sit around you.
And I was like, okay, well how long? And so
my dad comes like what's happening? When am I going
to leave? And that's when they start kind of just
breaking it down, as in, you're not leaving. This is
going to be where you're staying now. This is a
boarding school for teens. I grew up Catholics. So as

(11:58):
they start to kind of talk about their fundamental Baptists
beliefs and the rules of the school, I really am
just like, no, that won't be me. I'm sorry, like
I'm not going to be saying or that sounds horrible,
like I go out, I don't listen to Christian music.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
I don't know what you guys were talking about.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
At this point, Mech said, the adults were nowhere to
be seen. She was surrounded by female students, some of
them told her they were orientation guides, which gave them
more status and power than the other girls. According to Meg,
she learned the rules of this boarding school not from
her parents, not from the adults who ran the school,

(12:40):
but from these other students.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
First of all, they all look like they are dressed
completely alike. You know, they have on high shirts or
T shirts, and they're wearing kind of long shorts, and
they let me know their kulots and then they either
wear you know, coolots or skirts all the time. They
love Jesus, They're there to worship him all the time.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
I'm like, what do you guys do for fun? And
they're like, well, we have Bible study or we memorize
the Bible. Sometimes they'll let us out in the yard
to play basketball. And then they like show me this
yard kind of out by a window and it's just
this huge chain link fifty foot tall fence and a
basketball court on concrete.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
And I was like, so prison. I was like, is
that what this is? Is this the jail?

Speaker 2 (13:24):
And I was like, you guys, it sounds like you
can't leave. And they're like, well, we go to bed
at nine. I was like, who goes to bed at nine? O'clock, like, Oh,
don't worry, you'll be exhausted because they work us all
day long. So you get up at five am and
I'm just like, oh my god. And at one point
I asked, you's the bathroom and I'm thinking, like, okay,
I'll just go to the bathroom.

Speaker 3 (13:43):
They all stand up and follow me, and.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
Even that it is basically a room of just stalls
with no doors, so it's just all these toilets lined
up with like little dividers in between, and then everyone
can see you. So I go obviously now to the
end of the row by myself, and they follow.

Speaker 3 (14:02):
Me and they're like, oh, we have to watch you.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
And they didn't even have like curtains on the shower
that you can see next door, so you can.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
In my head, I'm just like, God, I hope my
dad comes like back.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
I hope like this was it, you know, like this
was the whole part of it, Like is this a
whole scene that like it's going to end, hopefully soon,
But instead I was down there for over five hours.

Speaker 5 (14:24):
You mentioned that these were all students that you were with,
but that some of those students were also orientation guides.
What does that mean.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
An orientation guide. Basically, they are someone that is supposedly,
you know, there to show you the ropes, but let's
be clear, they're there to keep you in line.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
If you were not doing your job as an orientation guy,
you then would get in trouble.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
So it was a double edged sword.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
Is a position because you're excited that you have a
higher position, so you're maybe traded slightly better, but now
you're also enforced to be torturing this other human being,
which is really horrible and awful. And then if you
don't do it correctly, you're still punished. But as far
as the orientation guy, they're there to tell you everything.

(15:09):
This is what we do, this is what you wear,
this is what you say.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
If you don't do this.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Correctly, there's a punishment if you do do something wrong.
They are the ones that then hold you to the
standard or make sure.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
Somebody else does, which is difficult.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
Because again, you know, my orientation guy, she was very sweet,
but at the end of the day, she still then
is making me do certain things that you're just like, oh,
you know, there are some people that got orientation GUIDs
who are absolutely just horrific. There were people, you know,
I think if any of us have ever seen, I
think it's like the Stanford Project or people that get
a higher position of power. There are people that feel

(15:43):
bad about it, and then there are people that seem
like they genuinely loved torturing their new students.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Meg was at a place called Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy.
It was established in nineteen eighty seven by Bob Wills
and his wife, Betty Wills. Bob and Betty Wills had
operated a different teen reform program that had been shut
down by the state of Mississippi. It was called Bethesda
Home for Girls and was founded by fundamentalist Baptist preacher

(16:11):
Lester Rolloff in nineteen seventy two. It was managed by
Bob and Betty Wills. In the nineteen seventies and eighties,
Bethesda became known in the area as the go to
place to send pregnant, unwed teenage girls. The Wills promised
to place their babies for adoption into Christian homes and
the whole thing was hush hush. The facility itself was

(16:34):
in rural Mississippi, only accessible by a dirt road. There
was a federal lawsuit and state investigation into Bethesda after
allegations of abuse arose. Former residents claim they were physically
abused and drugged at Bethesda, and that their babies were
forcefully taken from them after birth. In nineteen eighty seven,

(16:56):
state courts ruled that Bethesda operated as an illegal to center.
They took custody of the remaining students there and shut
the facility down. That very same year, Bob and Betty
Wills moved from Mississippi to Missouri and opened Mountain Park
Baptist Boarding Academy. This time, their daughter Barbara and their

(17:16):
son in law, Sam Gerhart or brother Gerhart as Meg
refers to him, joined them to run Mountain Park operations.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
And a lot of the part of where I say
the military part comes in would be from their son
in law, Sam Gerhart, because he spent years in the
military and he left the military and drove directly to
Mountain Park. He then started working there with his daughter
and their two kids and implementing his military aspect in

(17:48):
with the Christian thing. So everything that he has just
spent learning in the military, he decided to implement as
far as you know, waking up, going to bed, how
you eat, yes.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
Sir, no, sir, no ma'am dropped down and give us,
you know, fifth pushups.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
How was this legal for your parents to hand you over?
What documents did you later learn that they had to sign?

Speaker 2 (18:07):
Not too long ago, was able to find the actual
contract that my parents signed. Basically this like eighty eight
page document saying we will turn over our child. They
sign over a power of attorney to these people, and
they sign this like eighty page you know something documented
a minimum we will keep her here a year. You
have all rights to her. We are giving up everything

(18:30):
of our daughter to you. And then they pay like
on this influctuating scale based on you know, your parents' income,
the tuition, and that basically I allow, by any means
necessary you to do whatever you need to get my
child to comply to obey by your rules.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
All things basically go.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
So you had to be there for a minimum of
a year. And at what point did they tell you, you know,
you're going to be here for at least year.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
When my dad was kind of leading, it's just kind
of like, oh, this is your new home and this
is where you're going to be and everything, and it's
really kind of other students that then are like oh,
you'll be here a year, but most parents make you
stay to graduation.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
And that's when you're just like, oh, are you sure?

Speaker 2 (19:18):
But then everyone that's been there has been there a
long time, so then you think like, oh, in the
contract it says you would forfeitnee money for the year,
so irregardless, you can come get your child after a month,
but you will be paying the whole year. So I
think that's where a lot of the kids other two
are just like, well, no one's going to come get

(19:38):
you because your parents already paid, and you're just like,
oh my god.

Speaker 3 (19:48):
When my dad was saying.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
Goodbye, it was part of my argument that I was like, well,
I don't even understand, Like my mom doesn't even know
how is this happening, Like she would never allow this.
And that's where my dad was like, oh, well she
did sign off. She does know everything's okay. And it
took me a long time to really believe that aspect,
because again, I grew up with my mom, who's this
very independent woman, you know, Women's Hall of Fame. She

(20:12):
runs a sexual assault treatment center. You know, she is
like fault for like women's rights. So to be at
a place that is so anti female. I did not
believe that she really knew at all.

Speaker 3 (20:24):
It was like, there's just no way this can't be happening.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
But when like month after month or year goes by,
you're like, okay, so you're just genuinely okay with what's
happening to me.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
I think for people who weren't there, it's hard to
picture the specifics. So can you kind of just walk
us through, like what a typical day would look like?
Just what did you do?

Speaker 2 (20:45):
We went to school actually year round, so if it
was summertime school, we always went to school. So we
would get up at six am. We were woken up
by a safety patrol person. Lights up, Go, go, go,
and then you have literally two few minutes from the
time lights go on to hit the floor. The first
thing you had to start off your day was, you know,

(21:06):
brush your teeth, go to the bathroom, and then you
had to go make your bed, which obviously had to
be you know, hospital corner, very crisp. You were allowed
one animal, your pillows had to be covered up, so
it's just every single thing that you did there was
some rule aspect to it. You had thirty minutes then
from the time we woke up and did everything to

(21:27):
be a Bible devotion, and then you had to line
up for count and breakfast for the day. You always
had to be reading your Bible, memorizing your Bible memory
while you were in line. When you would sing a song,
they would say a Bible verse, so say they said
John three sixteen, you had to know it. So they
would have staff members walking around while you're in line

(21:50):
making sure when they yelled the Bible verse that you
knew it. And if you didn't know it, you would
get in trouble. If you weren't singing along, you would
get in trouble. And then they would ask someone basically
to pray. And then after that we would stand and
wait in line, which even that the first day, I
was like, why are all the guys going while we

(22:11):
stand here and wait.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
There were guys we weren't allowed to interact with them, but.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
All of the men went first to eat first, then
all the guys students, and we would be sometimes waiting
in line for like an hour and a half just
standing there, being forced to read our Bibles while we
wait for all the men to get their food, and
then we finally got to eat. You had to eat
everything that they gave you, basically after we ate, even
that they had a tray checker, someone that would make

(22:38):
sure you ate all of your food, that you finish everything,
and that you're not keeping any civilware. So some would
make sure where the forks and the knives get put.
And these are just things you don't even realize, like
are something that needs to be checked until someone is literally, hey,
you left this on your plate or where's your fork?
And then after that we would go back to the
dorm and each person had a different job responsibility. You

(23:01):
would have a job that had to do with the
kitchen aspect, so maybe somebody that did the dishes or
somebody that checked the food or whatever.

Speaker 3 (23:09):
And then afterwards you had a dorm job.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
And we did our dorm jobs after every meal, so
after breakfast, lunch to dinner, even if nobody used your job,
you still had to clean it. So if you had showers,
you cleaned the showers three times a day. If you
had toilets, you screw up the toilets three times a day.

Speaker 3 (23:27):
So every one of us had a job position that
we had to do.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
When we would get dressed for the day, we are
wearing pantyhose. You have to wear pantyhose every day. You
had to wear a long skirt two inches above the ankle.
Proper shirts they couldn't be more than two inches below
your collar bone. So you imagine, like in Missouri, wearing
all of this stuff. And then your job is outside crew,
which is basically your now having a sweep and be

(23:54):
outside and do all this stuff, you know, Missouri summer heat,
wearing pantyhose to where dress shoeses you know, like meybe
like a loafer or something high heels, depending on the event.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
And then we had a certain amount of time. By
the time you finish your.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Chores, you had a quick moment to brush your teeth
again and to get ready and to get to school.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
To start out the school day again, we pray some more. Again.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Everyone stands up in front of this huge, you know, auditorium,
and we pray. We do the pledge allegiance to the
American flag, and then we do a pledge allegiance to
the Christian flag, and then someone would give a little
mini devotion again and then we would pray, and then
you'd begin your school day.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
According to Meg, there was very little downtime the entire day.
Everything was scheduled, and her orientation guide was with her
watching her all day every day. She said, if a
student had to use the restroom outside of their scheduled
break time, they would receive a demerit.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
If you got three demerits in a school day, you
would have to write what we're called lines, which was
basically they would either give you some form of Bible
verse or some type of quote, which a lot of
the times it was you know like while a student
at Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy, I will behave myself
in a studious manner, So you would have to write this, say,

(25:18):
three hundred and fifty times, and her hand would be cramping,
and there is no downtime, so you're having to find,
like in the shower, any moment you can to.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
Really get this done.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
And if you didn't get it done on time, they
would double it or triple it, or then they would
be like, well, now we're just gonna take away you know,
like sweets or sugar, which then that means like if
you have no sugar, you can't even have jelly on
your peanut butter and jelly sandwich just because you couldn't
complete your lines because you had to go to the
bathroom because you were on your period.

Speaker 5 (25:48):
You know.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
I mean, like this is the vicious cycle that they
would just basically put you in to almost like keep
you down all the time, or that you feel like
you just can't succeed or you're making mistakes. We had
to raise for to get help. So if you forgot
your flag up, you can get into merit. If you
wanted a drink, you got into Merit. If you didn't
push your chair in, you got into Merit. So it

(26:09):
was just kind of really a very stressful thing while
you're trying to do school work. We would finish that
out and then you had more chores to do again,
and then we would have like an hour downtime, but
in that time you had to basically get your shower
taken and do everything before dinner. And then we would
have dinner and do the account again basically everything, and

(26:30):
then we would have a Bible study, which again then
there would be like a male staff member always hosted
Bible study, and we would go do that for about
an hour and a half two hours, and then after
that you had basically just enough time to get ready
for bed.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
Wow, when you had a phone call, like with your
mom or your dad, did you tell them what was
going on? Did you ask to leave? How did that go?

Speaker 2 (26:55):
First of all, you don't get your first phone call,
so you've been there between three and four weeks. And
then for myself, if your parents are divorced, you get
seven minutes with each parent, and that's once for every
two weeks. The phone calls are monitored. There's somebody sitting
there next to you, a phone monitor, who is not
only listening to what you're saying, but they are timing you.

(27:18):
In the contract actually that our parents signed, it gives
them a whole script sheet of if your daughter or
son says.

Speaker 3 (27:25):
This, you hang up. If they say this, you hang up.
If they do this, hang up.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
And it's already been instructed to me again by my
orientation guide and by other people. If you whine, you cry,
they've been told to hang up. So with several people
besides my orientation guide and the other person sitting right
next to me monitoring to me, I was terrified to
say anything. You want to say things, and you're trying

(27:52):
to almost like talking code or like in between the
lines of things that maybe they'll just pick up on.
But you're so afraid to just right be like, oh
my God, please come get me, because you just know
they'll hang up. They have created this environment of just
total fear. I felt like I was in fight or
flight mode all the time, even at just.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
The beginning, because it's like my dad just left me.
Will anybody believe me? Or can I say anything?

Speaker 2 (28:19):
And they're really good about reminding you, all the staff,
all the students, all the time that there's nothing you
can say that's going to convince your parents.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
To come get you. There's nothing you can do to
get kicked out of here.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
This is just reinforced, Like I have heard this, you know,
a thousand times in the first few weeks I've been there.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
Meg told us that every once in a while, all
of the female students would be gathered up. She estimated
this to be between three hundred and three hundred and
fifty girls. The purpose of these gatherings, from her perspective,
was public humiliation. Students would be called out by name
and the staff would admonish them in front of all
the other students, and then the staff would encourage the

(29:00):
other students to join in. Meg said it became a
dreaded event, causing extreme anxiety for her. She remembers once
she was called out for something that she had mentioned
to her dad during a phone call.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
And all of a sudden, this one staff member is
just like, oh, what about Megan Richter? What was she
doing earlier? And then before you know it, this other
staff member stands up and she's like, I heard you
were telling your dad about your stomach and complaining I
didn't hear anything about this, like you didn't come to
medicine call.

Speaker 3 (29:32):
And then I'm just like, oh my god.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
I was like, oh, I just mentioned to him sometimes
I get cramping and then I'm getting in trouble, and
I was like, how do you even know about this?

Speaker 3 (29:41):
You know? And my dad had called her and was like, oh,
how come she's talking about her stomach?

Speaker 2 (29:45):
And then when the staff members like, oh I heard
her on the phone talking about her stomach, and it
was just like, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
You know that fast where your parent.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
May think they're doing something good, it just made everything worse.
Other students than feel like they get praised if they
say something negative about you, if you weren't making your
Bible memory, if.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
You weren't doing school whatever this reason.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
They would just all of a sudden be like, hey
you so and so stand up, and then it'd be
like does anybody have anything to say? Which can you
imagine in high school, taking the whole high school and
being like who all wants to say something about Hannah?
Just letting people say whatever they want about you, and
it just being like, well that's not true.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
You shut up. You don't get to say anything.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
And even if it's not true, you can just go
from being somebody that's actually doing good.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
So like back on orientation, that's how fast it just worked.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
It really didn't matter your level or things you had
possibly accomplished. If somebody had a goal to take you down,
or if they felt that you weren't living them to
their standard, in a moment, you would just be back
at the bottom.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
And that's what just made it so fearful all the time.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah, I mean that's horrible. The public humiliation, the power
of a group coming against you and saying like you
did something wrong is so scary at any time in
our lives, but certainly when you're a teenager, what did
that feel like? If you remember times when that was
directed at you, you know, what was that feeling when
that would happen.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
You couldn't ever relax, you know, you just really didn't
know what was going to happen. I practically had to
like sit on my hands because I would be sweating
so bad. And you don't want then someone to think like, oh,
are you nervous because you did something? And you're like,
I'm nervous because I didn't do anything, Like I have
no idea, Like there is no truth here. There's no
one that's going to be like, oh no, it's okay,

(31:38):
even if it's just silly things, you know, like oh,
she likes to laugh too much, and it's like, how
is this something I'm being punished for? And it's like, well,
why do you think everything's such a joke? And it's like,
oh my god, I'm in hell. I'm just trying to
make things, you know, like manageable. Yeah, it's a lot
of pressure, especially even then when you're an orientation guy,
because you're worrying about somebody else's actions also getting you

(32:01):
in trouble. So it's just like, oh my god, I
have to please so many people all the time, and
I just don't even know who I'm supposed to be
sometimes at what moment To just get through this moment,
you had to basically become different people all the time,
for the different staff members, for the male staff members, for.

Speaker 3 (32:20):
Just whatever it was.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
You just had to basically be a chameleon, which is
really hard.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
When you're trying to stay true to yourself.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
Meg described an environment in which something as simple as
a nervous laugh might land her in trouble. She remembers
that disciplinary measures, both physical and psychological, to be cruel
and sadistic. She witnessed a girl being held down on
an ant hill, the bites from the ants leaving permanent scars.

(32:48):
She also saw on more than one occasion, staff using
brillo pads on students as punishment, rubbing their skin raw.
And not all of this was done by the staff.
She said, students were forced to abuse and harm each
other otherwise they themselves would be punished.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
They would make us run for miles. People would be vomiting.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
You know, you're out sometimes in the sun, you're doing
lunges back and forth for hours. If you got sick,
they would force you to eat your vomit. One of
the head people were people They would take their fingers
and just pound it into your chest, but other girls
would hold you back while they were doing it. One time,
one of my new students, they were putting it on
her ice bath, but then because she was my new student,

(33:31):
I had to hold her in the bath.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
So like I'm being forced in an ice bath.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
And this isn't like you know how now people, I
feel like like to sit in an ice bath and recool.
This is you know, you're in there for a long time,
returning purple. I feel like my body was shutting down.
If you didn't comply in some way. They would physically
force you to do whatever was necessary, by any means, really,
whatever they could to just get you to comply to

(33:56):
the rules. At the time, you didn't know how. But
it was found out they were drugging us with thorazine
and it was found in people's blood, and you're just
constantly reminded that no one is coming to get you.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
In a lawsuit brought against Mountain Park in two thousand
and five, several former students claim that they were drugged
without their knowledge or consent while at Mountain Park. They
described being given pills by staff and forced to swallow them.
They also described feeling like zombies, gaining weight, not having
their menstrual cycles for a long period of time sometimes

(34:37):
six to eight months, noticing orange and purple colored urine,
and many more symptoms, all of which they also claimed
cleared up within two weeks to a month of leaving
Mountain Park. It's important to note that their parents, in
this same lawsuit, said they were told by sam Gerhart
that Mountain Park was a drug free facility. They were

(34:59):
also told that their children would be treated humanly and
that they would be notified of any changes in their
children's health, but said that they were not. One student
in this lawsuit needed hearing aids. She claimed she was
not believed by staff for months and was punished when
she could not hear directions.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
You know, you just feel so degraded as a human
being sometimes that even if it wasn't all physical all
the time, the mental part sometimes almost felt worse. If
you've ever had just constant degradation bring down of you
as a human being, you just feel like you just
can't even go on sometimes mentally you just feel so

(35:42):
broken that you're just literally going through the motions of
being there.

Speaker 1 (35:47):
It sounds truly horrific, and also it sounds like it
doesn't foster connection between the students at all because you're
pitted against each other. Yes, did you feel like you
were able to make friends?

Speaker 3 (36:00):
You know, I would tell people.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
I feel like I communicated a lot with my eyes,
you know, with certain people, and I really would try
as much as I could to help someone, know, like
I equally don't want to be here, you know, or
there are certain people that you feel like this connection
with and you're just kind of like, Okay, we're getting
through this together. But you're also just so afraid at
any point to show that or your true colors, or

(36:24):
to worry, hey, will they tell something you know on me?

Speaker 3 (36:27):
Or is this a trait?

Speaker 2 (36:28):
You know, you just feel like skeptical all the times,
as much as you're trying to form a type of relationship,
if it's real or not.

Speaker 5 (36:37):
What was the response if someone one of the students
needed medical attention? You know, you mentioned that you were
having these stomach pains. How was that treated by Mountain Park.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Well, I started experiencing a lot of hives, and I
was just in constant stomach pain and I was sick
to my stomach. So I went through one month of
being sick for a few days and then kind of
it went away.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
The second month came and I was pretty sick.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
They did take me to the doctor, but then they
couldn't find anything wrong.

Speaker 3 (37:09):
So then I kind of went through this for several.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Months of just I'm not feeling good, I'm in constant pain, vomiting,
but it would only last about four to five days
throughout the month. Sometimes it would take me to the doctor,
I would be feeling fine, because it's not like you know,
a normal child where you're like, oh, sick, just go
right away. It's like, Okay, we'll let somebody know, we'll
see how bad it is if you need to go.

(37:33):
So sometimes by the time i'd finally get to go
to the doctor, I didn't even feel that bad. So
this one on for about a year that I would
occasionally finally get to go to the doctor and then
just go back to school. And they had opened a
sister school called Palm Lane, which was in Florida, which
is only a few hours away from where I lived.
So occasionally even my mom or my dad would come

(37:55):
over bring me back to South Florida for some testing,
and then.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
Go back, which was just horrible in and of itself
because of anyone.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
Most people, you go to the doctor and have an
unpleasant procedure, you want to go home, you want to relax,
like you want to take a bath. But for me,
it was like, oh, you did a colonoscopy this morning, Okay,
let's go back to hell this afternoon. So I did this,
like I said, for almost a year of just all
of these like horrible tests and then going back to

(38:23):
school and having to function like everybody else, which was
really difficult because not only then wohld my parents speak
streaming rude to me and unpleasant, like you're wasting our
time we drove all the way over here, or then
you know, the staff members will be like, oh, you're faking.
You just want attention, And even some of the doctors
had told my parents, are you sure she's not just

(38:43):
looking for attention? Maybe you should get her, you know,
psychological help or see a therapist, so you can imagine,
then my parents would relay this stuff to the staff member.
So I was just extremely ostracized and just punished even
more for being sick, you know, like, oh, maybe it's
sin in your heart. You need to get right with Jesus.
You're obviously lying about things, and it was just like,

(39:04):
oh my god. And finally it was a day before
we were supposed to graduate, finally from this place, and
I was just in so much pain that I couldn't
even like participate or do anything.

Speaker 3 (39:16):
And I was like, I'm begging you please, like take
me to the hospital or something.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
So finally they take me and this doctor was like,
you know what, let's just take out your appendix. So
the doctor removes my appendix and it turned out my
appendix was fine, but I had a carconoid cancerous tumor
growing on it. So then they were like, oh, you
would have actually probably just died if we wouldn't have
taken this out.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
No one would have ever known. And even that where
I thought there would have been some like relief or we're.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
So sorry we doubted you or thank God, instead it
was just like Okay, well, now what you think you're special?
You know, because then I'm still at the school, and
then like, oh, well, you must think you're so special
taking all this time off for your doctors, and it's
like to go.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
To my oncologist.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
So although it was like really horrible, it actually ended
up being the thing to save me and to help
me get out, because then they just started making me
feel so isolated and unwanted, like I was just so
tainted now from being sick, that they really more started
pushing me out, if that makes sense. Where before it

(40:23):
was like trapping me in, it's now we're done with
you in this aspect.

Speaker 1 (40:28):
Were you eighteen at that point?

Speaker 3 (40:30):
I was actually now twenty.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
I was there and so I was twenty years old,
which I know it's confusing that most people think you
just leave at eighteen, but until that point, they make
it really so you can't leave. They kind of forced
until you graduate, which I'm graduate. I was graduating a
year late from everything in their system. But now then
it's like I had stayed on as a staff member
because I felt it's kind of indoctrinated in you that

(40:55):
you graduate, you either stay or you would go to
a Christian college.

Speaker 3 (40:59):
So I had stay.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
And your parents make you feel my parents, like you know,
it's telling anyone made me feel like they wanted me
to come home. And I'm so rainwashed at this point
that they the people that run this place that made
me feel this is where you're supposed to be, this
is what's required this is what's supposed to happen, and
anyone else I had seen show their true colors of

(41:20):
not wanting to partake anymore. It doesn't go well. All
the doors are locked, there's nowhere to leave. They make
that clear. You know this One person one time was like,
I'm eighteen, let's go, and they're like, okay, find an
open door and there's no open doors. Well, those are
your parents closed and they don't want you to leave,
so you'd have to get naked. Oh, there's a police
officer waiting out front. It's going to arrest you. Because now,

(41:42):
in decent exposure, they work with local law enforcement, you know,
even the local sheriff. His wife worked at the kitchen.
The whole aspect of the town involved and feeling like
there's nowhere to go.

Speaker 3 (41:54):
That's it. You have to remember.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
As much as many people think like you're an adult,
you have free will, you don't think that. You don't
believe that your parents have signed away your rights. You
are locked up somewhere and think like, what's to say
they won't put me somewhere else?

Speaker 1 (42:10):
And how long were you there? In total?

Speaker 3 (42:12):
I was there for.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
Total five years, from ages fifteen to twenty.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
And those are pivotal years. Yes, you know, when you're
becoming legally an adult, and so, yeah, it makes sense
to me that your reality for so long was so
skewed intentionally by them that by the time you were
an adult, it still didn't really register. I'm an adult,
I have free will. It would have been difficult to leave.
I wanted to ask you about the involvement of the town,

(42:39):
you know, the involvement of like you said, the sheriff's wife.
Was there any sort of political affiliation or involvement with
local politicians.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
You know, it was a huge thing for them, even
making us go like campaign for certain people that they
would want to stay in office.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
You know.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
So there are different times where you know, everyone would
have to put on these shirts for certain people in
office and go door to door, go picketing and for
signs and be like, hey, make sure you vote for
this person because they know if this person's in office,
they're going to keep the school open. It's a very
vicious cycle of hey, we go to this doctor, Well,
this doctor's going to want the school to stay open

(43:17):
because you bring me thousands of patients a year. It's
a very unfortunately hand in aspect where then a lot
of people they know what's happening, they don't want to
say anything or like how does this all benefit all
of us? You know, when you talk about being eighteen
and feeling like an adult, I think one of the
most controlling things they did where most people feel like

(43:37):
they have a voice, is they controlled our voting. Myself
and several others that were eighteen. They put us all
in a room. They gave us our absenceee ballots, and
they watched who we voted for and demanded who we
voted for at that time.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
You know, it's horrifying to hear that there were adults
in the community that were aware of what was going
on that we're willing to look the other way or
participate paid in it.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
They would even go and recruit people that way as well,
like go to local churches and preach. You know, what
they were doing and that is, you know, the same
way that Lesser roll Off got the Wills is the
same way than the Wills and the Girl Hearts would
get staff members. There's no background check, there's no teaching involved,
you know, just like whatever.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
And what did you later learn about your accreditation?

Speaker 3 (44:24):
As far as graduating, they actually didn't even file with
a Board of Education.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
So basically, once they finally did close down, you know,
I think there were some people while they were still
open that were able to get like their transcripts and
at least have some of the stuff count towards their education,
but as far as really anybody else, once they shut down,
there was no proof that we even went to school.
They didn't file with the Board of Education, there's no
record of anything. So basically, after all of that, the

(44:53):
four years I insert of having to go to their
horrible education, you still have to get your ged, none
of it even at all. So we had to go
through all of that for nothing.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yeah, so you had to then go get your ged.
And how much did your parents pay for you monthly
or yearly?

Speaker 2 (45:11):
It was fifteen hundred a month, and we're talking about
in nineteen ninety seven to two thousand and two.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
Yeah, obviously we know there's no easy way to get
over trauma. It's a long process. How long did it
take you to really start to unwind some of the
things that had been pounded into your head.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
When I left, it was a lot of still the
fear of complying with what my parents wanted me to do.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
You know, my mom's like, don't talk about it, just
get over it.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
I had met somebody in church, I got pregnant right away,
and even that was instantly being pressured into marriage. I
felt like after my son started school, once he was
in pre K, I felt like by getting my own
group of people or meeting a teacher and realizing like
other people being like you aren't amazing for you're a
good mom, Like I have your back, I felt like

(46:03):
it started giving me a little bit of myself back.
It's now like ten years of just this abuse that
I felt like it kind of like washed over me
that I was like, I.

Speaker 3 (46:13):
Don't have to do this anymore.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
I sold all of my belongings and got a great
attorney and I got full custody of my son, and
I felt like that really started the first journey of like, wow,
I do not have to take this anymore. I was
mentioned in a lawsuit through things with Mount Park from
being someone's orientation guide that it kind of then made

(46:36):
me want to start processing and really started looking up
stuff about the school, finding news articles, and I felt
like that was the first time, you know that I
had not only realized like, oh, what the school was like.
I had started knowing I'd been through stuff and like
finding myself, but I just never really realized that other
people thought that the school was as bad, or that

(46:58):
other people had the courage, you know, sue them.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
The two thousand and five lawsuit brought by five former students,
sued Bob and Betty Wills, along with Sam and Deborah Gerhart.
The former students claimed that they were both physically and
mentally abused at Mountain Park. It also alleges that Mountain
Park was a for profit organization that increased their profit

(47:21):
margin by putting students in charge of each other through
the orientation guide program, as opposed to hiring trained staff members.
This created an abusive environment in which kids were encouraged
to physically harm one another. Meg's name is mentioned multiple
times in this lawsuit since she was the orientation guide

(47:42):
to one of the students involved in the lawsuit. It
describes instances of Meg pushing and berating this student, but
Meg is not unique. Mountain Park encouraged orientation guides to
act this way to keep students in line. Meg has
had to process what was done to her at Mountain Park,

(48:02):
but she has also had to process what she was
forced to do to others.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
You know, there's a lot of things you do in
survival that it's not you. You're just trying to survive. And
I always had felt so bad about what I had
done to survive, you know, being an orientation diet or
not leaving at eighteen. You know, you feel so bad
that sometimes you feel so ashamed of things you've done
that I didn't want to talk about it. That realizing

(48:28):
that even though I may have been a bad teenager
or I partook in these things to survive, that does
not make it okay what everyone else did to us.
They created an environment, and I felt like hearing just
females say it's okay or like you're amazing, you're strong,
was the first time I really realized that it was
okay to share, and then to be brave enough to

(48:50):
say I did make a mistake.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
You know, in this moment or whatever you want to
call it, when you're in.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
Survival, you're so afraid that I did have to become
somebody else, and yes, absolutely ashamed of who that person
was in that moment. That's not who I am. And
you know, I don't have to feel this shame for
what I did. Other people created this, They should feel ashamed.
I feel horrible, But in part of my feeling bad
is sharing what happened, is helping.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
Other people not feel alone. You know, somebody asked me one.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
Time, is there a day that goes by that I
don't think about Mountain Park?

Speaker 3 (49:22):
And there's not.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
I wish there were, But there are so many things
between a smell, a sight seeing my kids grow up
that it has made me realize just so much more
about what I would do, you know, like how I
am as a mom, and just things that we went
through and just how impactful those years were. That to
be able to take control of that trauma has been

(49:45):
crucial to my life. So when I'm reminded of certain things,
it's not like, oh my god, I want to crawl
on a hole. It's like, oh my god, I'm so
proud of myself.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
That's such a good perspective, and I imagine it takes
a lot of work and time, especially when you we're
told so often that you were like bad or that
there was something wrong with you. It's hard to get
those messages, you know, out of our heads. Anyone who's
told that and especially told over and over and over
and treated so horribly. And you've also said that you

(50:15):
have connected with a bunch of other people from Mountain Park.
How often are you speaking with.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
People a good amount?

Speaker 2 (50:22):
I feel like a lot of people are now processing
a lot where I'm very thankful that I did process
it a few years ago, where I see a lot
of people processing it now, but it is very helpful
to be able to speak with them and kind of
relay certain things. Or there's been you know, a few
people I've helped get in, you know, like a trauma center.
It can be mentally draining, and sometimes it's really sad

(50:43):
to see so many people still struggling and trying to
navigate through it. It's very sad, but also very motivating.
Like this is why I feel like I've taken on
this kind of role, like this spokesperson of people that
went through mount Park to just share our story.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
And it's been incredible. How many people actually from.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
The same article that you found me will randomly reach
out for my boring school and are like, oh my god,
reading that made me feel like everything I've always felt.
You said it, and we've felt so great to be
able to show my loved one or my partner your
article and just be like, this is what I've been
trying to tell you about.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy was closed in two thousand
and four amid scrutiny over the use of corporal punishment,
but eight years prior to that, in nineteen ninety six,
there was a murder at Mountain Park. William Poutrelle or
will was sixteen years old when he was brutally murdered
by two of his fellow students, one of whom was

(51:46):
his orientation guide. Joseph Burris and Anthony Rutherford, who were
teenagers themselves at the time, were both sentenced to life
in prison. That was nineteen ninety six. One year later,
Meg arrived at Mountain Park. At the time, she knew
about the murder, but she didn't know details. She said

(52:07):
it was used as a threat by staff. She was
told she had a better chance of dying than successfully
running away from Mountain Park. Years later, she finally looked
into the details of the murder, and to her, it
seemed to confirm that Mountain Park created a dangerous and
violent atmosphere where something like this could take place.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
Will was Joseph's new student, so Joseph was his orientation guide.
So their relationship already was that of Joseph having to
constantly get will you know to comply basically the other person.
Anthony had said to Joseph one day, like.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
I can't do this anymore, like we need to run away,
like we have to get out of here, and the
three of them and another person not mentioned in the lawsuit,
all the four of them decided we're going to run away. Weird,
today's a day, this time we can when we're supposed
to be stacking.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
Wood, let's get out of here.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
So as it's time to happen and they're ready to go,
Will changed his mind and did not want to leave anymore.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
Anthony was like, no, like we're leaving. Joseph had been
there less than a year before he got sent away.
His father had just passed away in front of him,
so he just was going through a lot mentally, so
when he hearned like we are leaving, we are getting
out of here, He's like, That's all I could focus
on that day, was just getting out of there. So

(53:35):
when Will was like, I'm not I'm going to go
tell and unfortunately in that moment they did take his
life and just pure fear of him telling on them,
you know, and that thought that they were not going
to get to be free. Their goal was if we
get out of here, we can get the police, like
what can we do to get the school shut down? Like,

(53:56):
we just have to get out of here.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
And then when that did not happen, they did that
horrible act.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
They instantly went and turned themselves in.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
They said, what happened. The main person, brother Gerhart, then
called the sheriff.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
They took him to jail.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
His parents waived all rights, they allowed the girl hearts
to handle everything, and then.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
You know, from there they were sentenced to life.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
They weren't even allowed to mention any of the situation
im boarding school. We're not talking about the school, We're
not talking about their mental wellbeing. We're just mentioning these
are two troubled teens that are locked up in our facility.
You know, it's easy to paint anyone, obviously that's in
a trouble teen industry as a trouble teen, even if
they weren't, but especially if you had been in any

(54:38):
trouble whatsoever.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
So from there then Joseph talked about his bomb wasn't
even there, you know, when they interviewed him.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
She didn't make sure he had anyone else with it,
you know, except brother Gerhart, and they held him. I
think it was over, you know, twenty something hours in questioning.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
At that point, it just didn't really go well.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
So when I reached out to him and just to
find out more about it and if there was anything
I could do, I always felt like he's just the
one student still kind of trapped in captivity, and it's like,
I'm not condoning or justifying what you did with Will.
I just want people to understand how horrible these places are.

Speaker 3 (55:16):
To create an environment.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
That's someone that has never caused harm to any human
being in the world before, and now all of a sudden,
you're committing murder, Like what would create someone to go
to such a one to eighty of who they are
as a human being. So I was able to actually
go before the pro board. He had an opportunity to
be up for parole, and I went to Missouri, which
was my first time back after leaving Mount Park, and

(55:42):
I was able to share my testimony before the pro
board and just really helped them understand not speaking, you
know so much as you know his behalf or on him,
but really truly just testifying as this is what mount
Park was like. You know, I was here for five
years and this is everything I endured as.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
A human being. For the pro Board to be like,
Oh my god, that's horrific. You know, I can't believe
these places exist.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
So he was granted a release date, So I do
feel like, you know, it just was good even for
other people, hopefully to hear what that was like, what
that would do to somebody struggling.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
Yeah, and has he been released yet?

Speaker 3 (56:20):
Unfortunately it was a four year release date, so he
has one more year to go. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
I just really am grateful for you that you came
on here and shared your story with us and everything
and that you went through and that you're shedding more
light on what happened at Mountain Park.

Speaker 5 (56:39):
That was such a mind blowing conversation with Meg. I mean,
she has clearly spent so much time and energy unpacking
what she went through there, and you know that's a
really brave and difficult thing to do.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
Yeah, I'm so glad she spoke with us. There is
some stuff about Mountain Park out there on the internet now,
but there's not a whole lot. People are starting to
speak out about it. But I'm really grateful that Meg
wanted to tell her story.

Speaker 5 (57:06):
Yeah, and we should mention to listeners that Meg transferred
from Mountain Park Baptist Sporting Academy in Missouri to a
sister school called Palm Lane Academy in Arcadia, Florida. We
didn't go into that in the interview, but did want
to note it. Meg transferred to Palm Lane hoping that
it would have better conditions, but it did not. She

(57:27):
was closer to her family when she was at Palm Lane,
so when she spoke about her parents then picking her
up to go to her oncologist appointments with her, she
was in Florida by then. Palm Lane Academy closed the
same time as Mountain Park in two thousand and four.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
Yeah, I wanted to follow up about the lawsuit that
we mentioned in the episode that Meg mentioned. It was
a civil lawsuit brought by multiple former students, all female students,
Kaufman versus Mountain Park. You know, there was a lot
of allegations in that lawsuit. We mentioned some of them

(58:03):
in the interview. These students all alleged that they were
physically and emotionally abused, and there was also allegations that
they were drugged against their will and without their knowledge.
So I did look more into that civil case and
I spoke with an attorney who worked on the case

(58:24):
and represented Mountain Park. One of the attorneys who represented
Mountain Park, and he told me that they did go
to a trial, they had a jury trial, and ultimately
the verdict came back in favor of Mountain Park that
we fund. It is just like, how is that possible? Yeah,
I'm not sure. I wonder if they didn't have enough
physical evidence, I don't know, you know, how you would
prove that they were drugged. So ultimately that was what

(58:47):
happened with the case. There was one count of battery
against one of the students that the jury did come
back and say this did happen, but they didn't award
any damages, so none of those students got any money
from that. But the teacher was charged with battery.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
Battery.

Speaker 5 (59:04):
Yeah, it was actually Betty Wills. Betty Wills, Okay, Bob
Wells's wife, right. So they took over after Leicster Rollo
off it founded the school. They were like the headhun shows.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
Yeah, and so battery is not as like serious I
guess in the courts as like abuse. But it was
zero dollars damage, so they did say that they acknowledged
it that happened. So I just wanted to be clear
about that. When I asked Meg about this civil suit,
because as we mentioned in the episode, she was listed
in the suit. Her name was listed because she was

(59:35):
the orientation guide to one of the students who brought
this suit. And Meg said that she knew two of
the girls and that when this was happening, she had
left Mountain Park. She had a young child, her life
was still kind of chaotic, and at the time, she said,
a private investigator came to her home and she said,

(59:58):
you know, threatened her not to participate in the civil lawsuit,
not to testify. And Meg didn't, you know, she was scared.
She was still trying to like find her footing, so
she did not participate. There was one other civil lawsuit
against Mountain Park and the Willses. Federal jurors and Cape
Girardo awarded a student named Jordan Blair twenty thousand dollars

(01:00:19):
for allegedly being shoved against a sink by a staff member,
but that was the only thing that came up with
the civil lawsuits.

Speaker 5 (01:00:26):
Damages are so important in civil suits because it's like,
how else do you make a business a little more
scared of not abiding by the law or mistreating students
in this case, a slap on the wrist? What does
that mean to a school who's using corporal punishment sort
of under this disguise of Christianity.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
Yeah, it's also just the more we know about trauma
over time. A lot of these students they left and
they were dealing with it for years and are still
ill dealing with it. So being able to have resources
to go to therapy, I don't know, that's just really
important and damages would help a student with that, So
I think that's another aspect. Yeah, it's huge. Well, that

(01:01:13):
was a really powerful episode. You know, we did talk
about the murder that happened at Mountain Park at the
very end of the episode. We talked about that with
Meg and we were going to cover that at the
end here, but there was a lot to go into,
so we're actually going to talk about it next week.

Speaker 5 (01:01:28):
On an off record. We true to form just thought
let's find what we can online and Hannah ends up
calling the courthouse and going through about seven hundred pages
so we will be able to do a deep dive
with you guys.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
Yeah, when we were like we're not going to do
homework for these at records, it's like, well, I don't know.
Somehow I find myself reading through hundreds of court documents
because they can't help it. Yeah, can't help it.

Speaker 5 (01:01:52):
And you know, when Meg's story was already so intense,
and then to learn about the murder, it was like, okay,
well this is part of her story and her unpacking
what she really did go through and we needed to
sort of know more to really talk about it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
Yeah, So join us next week on the off record
and we will fill you in on that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
Thanks for listening.

Speaker 5 (01:02:14):
If you have a story for us, we would love
to hear it. Our email is The Knife at exactlyrightmedia
dot com, or you can follow us on Instagram at
the Knife podcast or a Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
This has been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced
by me Hannah Smith and me Paytia Eating.

Speaker 5 (01:02:30):
Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and Alexis Samarosi.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel.

Speaker 5 (01:02:36):
Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport Artwork
five and S a Lilac executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff,
Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer