April 3, 2024 • 48 mins
In part two with Zoe and Lilly, survivors of Midwest Academy, one of the abusive troubled teen programs in the same organization that was spotlighted in the docuseries The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping, we dig deeper into Lily’s experience. She’ll tell us how she was in solitary confinement for two months, and how her reaction was to rebel in any way she could. We’ll get into how they both left, and how no one believed them for years - in some cases, up until just last month - how this was and still is a multi-billion dollar industry, and where they’re both at in their healing journey.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you have your own story of being in a
cult or a high control group.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Or if you've had experience with manipulation or abusive power
that you'd like to share.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
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Speaker 2 (00:12):
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
Or showed us an email at trust Me pod at
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Speaker 2 (00:20):
Trust Me.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Trust Me.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
I'm like a squat person.
Speaker 5 (00:25):
I've never lived.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
To you, I never If you think that one person
has all the answers, don't welcome to trust Me. The
podcast about Gold's extreme belief manipulation from two troubled adults
who've actually experienced it.
Speaker 6 (00:40):
I'm Lola Blanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Today is part two of our interview with Zoe and Lily,
survivors of Midwest Academy, one of the abusive Trouble Team
programs in the same organization that was spotlighted in the
docu series The Program cons Colts and Kidnapping. Last week
we discussed Zoe's time in solitary confinement at the Academy
at Ivy Bridge and when it was like moving to Midwest,
and today we'll talk more about Lily's experience. She'll tell
(01:04):
us how she was in solitary confinement for two months
and how her reaction was to rebel in any way
she could.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
We'll also get into how they both left and how
no one believed them for years in some cases up
until just last month, how this was and still is
a multi billion dollar industry, and where they're both at
and their healing journey. So check out the program on
Netflix and keep listening to our conversation with them.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Indeed, before we get into it again with them and
warning y'all, this is quite harrowing stuff. Once again, they
have been through a lot. But before we get into it, Megan,
can you tell me your cultiest thing of this week?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah, I'm not sure if you've been following. I mean
also trigger warning for abuse. Ruby Frankie's journey, the mom
blogger in Utah who was arrested for abusing her children.
Have you been following this story at all? No, Well,
she started working with this woman named Jody Hildebrandt, and
Jody has something this program called Connections.
Speaker 6 (02:03):
She basically takes couples and puts.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Them through this intensive program that turns out to be
very abusive and Ruby let her essentially take her two
youngest children to her house. So all of this footage
came out in the last couple weeks of them getting
these two youngest kids out of the house. And it
is so awful, Like, first of all, this woman lives
in a mansion.
Speaker 6 (02:27):
It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
It's like spic and span, so huge, and these kids
are starving.
Speaker 6 (02:34):
There's food everywhere. They've starved the kids so.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Bad, and there's like a person like everyone there is
crying because it's so awful.
Speaker 6 (02:42):
They've duct taped the little boys.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Like wounds shut and put honey on them to like
try to close them.
Speaker 6 (02:48):
And like he got out and ran away and went
to a neighbor's house.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Apparently beyond that, the husband of Ruby, who I think
was sentenced to thirty years in jail. They're both going
to jail for a very long time. Her husband was
estranged from his wife because of this program she did.
But while they were still together, Jody, the woman whose
program was running, came and stayed with them, and he
(03:14):
said she claimed to be possessed and he had to
be her exorcist, and that when she would go into
a trance, stuff would start flying around their house. They'd
hear weird sounds and he would have to give her
blessings to get the lights to stop flickering and all
(03:34):
these light loud noises to go away and all of
this bizarre stuff, and it's just crazy.
Speaker 6 (03:40):
The like Frenzy, he's an engineer.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
This is her ex husband.
Speaker 6 (03:45):
They were estranged, but they had not divorced.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Okay, but he's not like a believer like an actor.
Speaker 6 (03:50):
No follower, Oh oh yeah yeah, yeah no.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
But he's like in his interview, he's like talking to
the police and he's like, I'm an.
Speaker 6 (03:56):
Engineer, Like I'm a smart man.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
I saw these things, like I ever, like I believe
that she was possessed. And it's just like when groups
of people start really believing things. I don't know, I
think you can like actually make weird shit, like if
like enough people believe.
Speaker 6 (04:13):
Oh I don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Meanwhile, I'm like, oh, I wonder what like program she
put into her light system, or like how deeply she
made him meditate or.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
They were at their she was at their house, well
sure so, yes, but of course she was probably of
course she was probably doing something psychotic. She's crazy, But
these kids were practically dead.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
But and so why so the person, the mom who
sent them there? What why? How did that happen?
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Because she wanted them to be better behaved and Jody
was like, well, then give them to me.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
So how did she know Jody because she was part
of her program. Oh I see, I see, Oh my god. Wow.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I don't recommend watching the footage. I just got caught
up in a k hole of true crime and it
popped up, and it's a fascinating story. I would love
to get people's feedback on what they think was actually
happening in this little world that they created.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah. Well, I'm struggling today with the news. I'm struggling
today with besides the mass man made starvation that's happening
and Gauza, I'm struggling with the seven AID workers being killed.
I'm struggling with Al Shiva Hospital being destroyed. I'm struggling
with the fact that we're still sending weapons with no conditions.
(05:29):
I'm having a hard time with that today. But I
did find a story that's politically related but also cultic
thinking related. So a Russian bar owner who is gay
was arrested in Russia for extremism because of being LGBTQ
and facilitating a queer space for people, and it was
(05:52):
the charge was quote organizing extremist activities because there were
drag shows that were hosted there. Oh my god, is
so crazy. The Russia Supreme Court ruled that the international
public this is a quote international public LGBT movement is
an inherently extremist organization. In November, and they're starting to
(06:15):
arrest people for running Pride flags, for doing anything that's
showing their queerness publicly, and they're calling anything that's like
talking about gender affirming healthcare or anything queer related as
propaganda and extremism. So that is just the ultimate example
of hijacking language and using it the absolute wrong way,
(06:38):
using it basically like as a way of telling on
themselves of what they're actually doing, which is extremism. Yeah,
it's fascinating to me how this language gets sort of
hijacked and then people start using it to justify any
kind of punishment they want against people whose lifestyle or beliefs,
or gender or sexuality they don't agree with. It is
(07:00):
the problem.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
We've got a few of them. If y'all haven't noticed,
the world's full of a few problems, just a few.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Anyway, the world is on fire. But at least this
documentary came out and is shedding light on a small
fraction of abuses that are happening in the world, and
we will hear a lot more about them in a second.
And once again, it is real tough stuff, so be prepared, Lily.
(07:36):
What was your experience in terms of the levels and
where you ended up.
Speaker 7 (07:40):
I never made it past level too.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Oh yeah, okay.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
I just got tired of faking it and I was
just like, yeah, this isn't right. What you're doing to
us isn't right. There was one time when we were
in gym. They always forced us to do jim. They
never tried to get out of it. But there was
this one particular time where unfortunately I was on my
period and my breasts were hurting really bad, and they
just gave us crappy sports bras and I was like,
(08:07):
can I please just not run a whole bunch of
laps today?
Speaker 7 (08:11):
Like I'll walk them, you know, but can I not run?
And they threatened me.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
With a refusal consequence, which is a category four, which
would have meant that I would have been put in
an intervention and I wanted lost all my points. I
got upset. So I turned and looked at the staff
member and I told her to fuck off.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Oh I mean, I am pressed with you. Your with
your balls, okay.
Speaker 8 (08:36):
To say a book off. The entire time she was
there waiting to say it. And so I ended up
getting put in intervention. I was an intervention for two months.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
I did get out for one day, and in that
whole process I ended up just making their life a
living hell.
Speaker 7 (08:55):
So they put me back in and I, you know,
I was just like, I don't care. I'll sit in
a room.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
What are you gonna do me, you know, other than
restrain me, and refused to allow me to shower, very
very limited bathroom breaks.
Speaker 7 (09:08):
We ate, so for.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Breakfast we got like a small thing of stale cereal,
and for lunch at dinner we got two peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches, a fruit and a small cart and
of milk. And to this day I cannot eat grape
jelly or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
And then after about two months, I got really fed up.
I was shouting my rights as an American at them,
broke the door handle I tried to escape a few times,
and then.
Speaker 7 (09:35):
Mike so I grew up with my dad. He is
a blue collar man.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
And in the girl's intervention rooms, they had plywood on
the walls all the way around to try to deter
girls from punching holes in the walls. And as I
sat back, I was looking at the wall and I
realized that none of the screws had any uniformity to
them at all, which means that none of the screws
were in the studs.
Speaker 7 (09:57):
And I was sixteen years old at this point.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Never know I would never know that, Okay.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
So I grabbed the sheet of plywood on the wall
and ripped the sheet completely off the wall, compromising the
entire structure of the room, and then I was forced
to leave.
Speaker 7 (10:15):
They called the police on me.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
And the officer showed up and he's like, we could
take you to Juvie. I'm like, take me, please, take
me to jew Get me out.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Of here right, Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
But then they called my dad and they were like,
you need to come get your child. She is violent.
And his response was, well, she wasn't violent when I
sent her. You guys deal with it, and they're like, no,
you're gonna come and get her and that's and that's
how you out of the program. In total, I spent
three months in Mexico and then I was there for
the raid, the shut down, the transfer, and then I
(10:48):
was in six months in Midwest campin.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Hold on what I have more questions to followup on
what you just said, But what's the raid? I don't
know about the raid.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
So in two thousand and four, CASA was raided by
the Mexican government the sat rallies because they were abusing
us and giving us expired medication and just torturing us,
and the Mexican government got wind of it.
Speaker 7 (11:11):
So the whole facility.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Was raided and shut down and we were told that us,
as children in the facility, we were told that either
our parents were going to pick us up escorts were
going to take us to another program, or that we
were going to go into foster care. Wow.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I mean in the documentary you see kids, it's like
on the news, some kids are running into the jungle,
And I was like, what happened to that? Like, was
everybody reaccounted for?
Speaker 4 (11:35):
That was Dundee Ranch got you got you know, we
were going to completely lock down like there were walls
all around us.
Speaker 7 (11:42):
We could not get wow.
Speaker 6 (11:44):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So Mexico took a stand and actually did something about it.
But here in the US we didn't give up up crazy. Okay,
So then you ended up at Midwest got it? And
I just want to know a little bit more about
your time I'm in intervention, because that's a really long
time to not be doing anything, Like did you have schoolwork?
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Like?
Speaker 7 (12:11):
Nothing, no school work?
Speaker 4 (12:13):
You literally just sat there you were supposed to sit
in a structure and just switches like you know, your
hands in a diamond in your lap, straight up, shoulders back.
Speaker 7 (12:23):
Straight, and sometimes if you were really good, they'd give
you a chair.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Sometimes don't even have a fucking chair. This is so
batshit crazy.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
No mattress, no pillows, no blanket.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Nope, they give you the matches that night they come
and take it in the morning lights on twenty four
to seven?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Where does your mind?
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Where does your mind go to? And these like what
what are you thinking?
Speaker 7 (12:45):
It goes anywhere but where you are?
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Yep?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Did you feel crazy? Because I feel like I would
start to lose my mind, like I know, I mean,
I know people really do in isolation in prison like mentally,
like yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
Start to feel crazy for sure. I just started getting angry,
and I was going to make sure that if they
were going to make my life a living all that
I was going to do the exact thing.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
So, so, are you spending all day like plotting like, Okay,
how can I kind of get back at them? How
can I show some autonomy and some power? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (13:17):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
But what else do you Where else is your mind
supposed to go? I mean like there's yeah, your choices
are like break and submit and let this happen to me,
or like find some way to feel like a human
person who has some power over her life. I mean,
you're completely powerless in that moment. It makes sense to
me that you'd be like revenge fuck these people, and you're.
Speaker 9 (13:43):
Basically powerless to everything. The entire time you're in there,
whether you're an intervention or you're out in the you know,
in the families out and with everybody else. We didn't
have power for anything, I mean anything, Yeah, I mean you.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Even have the power to talk to your family and
in any way.
Speaker 7 (14:00):
To our family.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Everything was monitored. Our letters were monitored, they were censored,
not sent out. Sometimes yep. And then if we said
something that they didn't like in the letters, we would
get in trouble for that.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I think you kind of touched on it. But what
was your thought process in isolation? How was it different?
Speaker 5 (14:15):
I said, I just I was just losing it. I
just lost it. I for the first few days, I said,
I was just sad. I was trying to get out
of the room.
Speaker 9 (14:24):
I kept telling them I was claustrophobic, so I was
banging on doors, I was banging on walls.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
I was trying to peel pieces of the walls off.
Speaker 9 (14:30):
I definitely did try to cut my wrist a few
times with.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
Pieces of the walls that I peeled off.
Speaker 9 (14:36):
And then you know, going from that to being restrained
held on the floor, you know, while they quickly taped
the walls back up, and it's just after they don't
seem to even care. It's just like it was just
a process for them. It's like, oh, we've seen this before,
this is how we handle it. And it didn't matter
how much you cried or screamed or yelled or kicked
(14:57):
or punched. It was like you either you have to
do what they tell you to do or just accept
the fact that you're going to live in this box.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Have either of you spoken to anyone who was on
the staff since this experience.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
That'd be Lily, and she has.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
So I took my revenge to after I got out,
because I felt that it was necessary to expose what
was going on in these because what was done forms
wasn't right. I started fighting. I got out in two
thousand and five. I started fighting back in two thousand
and seven till current day. Eventually I was actually able
to get a staff member undercover into Midwest Academy.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
And then he was there for about nine months, and
then everything was reported to Des Moines because you cannot
report to the area that the school is in because
they buy off the sheriffs, they buy off dhs. They
so your report literally goes nowhere.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
They've also bought off the government essentially. Yes, what that's
important tonight?
Speaker 2 (15:56):
What part of the government?
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Well, I mean Robert Litchfield ran with Mitt Romney on
his board the first time mit Romney ran for president.
The second time Mitt Romney ran for president, he actually
had mel Semblar as his treasurer. And mel Sembler ran
an operated straight ink, which is another string of really
abusive boarding facilities. Wow.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
So when I got the staff member out after about
nine months, everything was reported and that's what began the
FBI investigation. So by the time that the girl came
out in twenty sixteen with her allegations against Ben Train,
the then owner and operator of the school, that's why
the FBI jumped so fast and rated.
Speaker 7 (16:38):
The facility so fast.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
So can you talk a little bit about what this
staff member who was undercover. I just want to know
if we know anything about what their mentality was at
the time, Like, because they are performing psychological torture on children,
so like what, well, how are they justifying that to themselves?
Speaker 4 (16:58):
So the staff member that I had undercover was actually
the father of my kids at the time. So while
he was in there, he was also talking to kids
like hey, I'm with a survivor, you know, like secretly
talking to them like it's okay, you know what I mean,
Like we have to document, you know what I mean,
Like I'm sorry and all that, you know what I mean.
He wasn't like actively joining into the psychological torture. It
(17:19):
was just enough to where we could get enough solid
information because you never find out what's going on behind
the walls. And as Megan said earlier, who's going to
believe a bunch of troubled kids even as adults. Now
we are in our thirties and we're still labeled as
these troubled kids. So it's best to get the information
from the parents or the staff members. So it was
best to have somebody go in undercover. That was with
(17:42):
somebody who is a survivor who has dealt with, you know,
the surviver waking up screaming from nightmares, panic attacks, anxiety.
So he knows exactly what to look for, exactly what
not to participate in, and everything like that.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
What did he see Did he get like an up
close and personal view into the psychology of the other
staff members?
Speaker 7 (18:03):
Yes, he did.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
We noticed that at this particular time when he was there.
For the staff members to be able to advance, they
also had to go through the seminars.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
The layers of cultiness just keep getting like, there's all
these different cults that people are and because in the
doc it's like the staff are also number one, not
educated to do any of these things, no qualification, no qualifications.
It seems like some of these are in small towns
(18:34):
where all of the like, it's giving employment to people,
so they're grateful for the job. They're told that you
guys are absolutely terrible and that they're kind.
Speaker 6 (18:45):
They're helping you by doing these things, and.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
There seems to be a level of brainwashing on the
staffs end as well.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
Oh and then some of the children after they graduate,
they're offering jobs so they can go back and work
there too.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
The torture continues, right, Oh God, And so Zoe, what
was the exit process like for you?
Speaker 9 (19:10):
So my parents basically ran out of money.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
They were broke.
Speaker 9 (19:15):
They had spent close to fifty grand sending me to
this school, and they wanted more money for the next year.
And my parents were like, you know, we have another children,
We're trying to run a business.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
We can't.
Speaker 9 (19:30):
So they came and pulled me from the program randomly.
I can't even tell you what day it was, what
time it was. I just remembered that the sun was out,
so they came and got me. I was eating either
breakfast or lunch, I believe, or it was one of
the meals.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
I was eating a meal. Like I said, I don't
remember what time it day.
Speaker 9 (19:48):
It was, but I was eating a meal and an
upper level, and a staff member came and got me
and said that I had to go on a doctor run.
I was like, okay, Like I never bet on a
doctor run before, So let's go.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
And I go out and there's my parents. They're like, okay,
you ready to go home.
Speaker 9 (20:06):
Here's all your stuff, and I'm like okay, okay, like
and I just and I left.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
And while I was.
Speaker 9 (20:12):
Excited to be leaving, I was also so so hurt,
so broken, Like I was leaving behind my family, my
best friends, these girls who I shared in group every
day with, who knew me inside and out better than
my parents, better than my best friend's back.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Home, and then to leave them there knowing that.
Speaker 9 (20:34):
They were still there, they were still getting abused, they
were still getting tortured, and I could do nothing and
nobody believed me. Like even when we left, I told
my parents we have to do something, and they're like,
it wasn't that bad. You're fine, We're here, We're going home.
And that was basically the end of the conversation.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Wow, you're just completely alone in this immense, enormous trauma,
and also the trauma of knowing so many people you
love are still in trauma. Just completely alone in that
for how long? Like, when did how long did it
take to finally like start communicating with people who had
been through the same thing or at least believed you.
Speaker 9 (21:13):
It took years, I had to I guess we only
had like my space and stuff when we first got
out of the programs, so like we were my spacing.
And then Facebook came along, and slowly but surely, like
I was remembering people's first and last names, like, we
didn't know too many people's first and last so it
was hard to find them. And slowly, like I said,
(21:35):
slowly but surely, we were finding each other one by one.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
And then groups were.
Speaker 9 (21:40):
Created, where then we all started finding the groups and
finding each other. And now we have a huge community
of pretty much every single person who's ever attended Midwest
Academy together on one group.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Wow.
Speaker 9 (21:55):
And that just happened over the course of the last two weeks.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Wow, dude. Facebook groups are, like it seems like the
primary way that survivors find each other and like find
a community and realize they're not alone. Facebook has been
amazing for so many I mean Megan's group that she
was in as well, the two by two. That's how
that's gone.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Ninety percent of my deconstruction has come from a Facebook group.
That's bizarre, And I think it's worth noting that people
in the program who ran the program immediately were like,
these groups are bad, made some statements such as that,
of course.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Of course they did.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
We were just disgruntled former students and don't listen to
what we put out online.
Speaker 7 (22:39):
That's what they tell the parents.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Now, I'm sorry. Why would a group of students be
so disgruntled about just a regular as school. Hmm, yeah,
I wonder that is the question. So, Lily, you were
taken when you left, you said they called the police
and and then did you go home with your with
your parents? Was that what it was?
Speaker 5 (22:58):
Your?
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Yeah? So the next day they came into my room
and they told me that I had a phone call
with my dad, and you know, I'm like about time.
You know, you guys have been promising me that forever,
and like, why am I supposed to believe you now?
But we left the room and they were walking through
the facility and normally when you take phone calls, you
go to the family rep's office. And he's even at
(23:20):
a level too, Like I knew that that's where you go,
because the other girls were levet the threes, you just know.
But they were not taking there. They were taking me
to a different section of facility. And I walked around
the corner into the parent room and my dad was
sitting on the couch and I proceeded to look at
the staff member and say, you could have just opened
the door and I would have just left. I would
have found my way back to Michigan. Like you like,
(23:42):
I'm not afraid of you guys, but that man I'm
sitting on that couch right there, I'm terrified over him.
And but I looked at him and I was like,
so you're going to take me home? And he's like, no,
they're kicking you out, and I'm like that means I
can't come me uck. They were actually trying to send
me to another facility in Jamaica, but my dad would
(24:03):
not allow it because of everything that happened at Cossa.
Speaker 7 (24:07):
He was not going to send me out of the
country again. So my dad ended up taking me home.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
And did you tell him about your experience?
Speaker 7 (24:14):
I did.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
He also did not believe me. It took years for
my father to believe me. But I have been an
advocate against these schools for over a decade now, and
in doing that, it kind of woke up my dad
and my stepmom and they were able to see what
was going on, and they started doing research for themselves.
(24:37):
Which is one thing that I always stress on people
is do not believe me. Do not just believe what
I say. Research for yourself. See what everyone else is saying.
You know, not just coming from one person, this is
multiple people. And after a while, my dad just started
to believe me, and it really really hit home for
him when Ben Train was found guilty was sentenced to
(25:00):
nine years in prison, because he could no longer escape
the fact that what I was saying was true.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
The question for both of you, I mean your family
started to believe you. I mean, have they expressed remorse?
Do they feel bad?
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Like?
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Where are they at with it?
Speaker 7 (25:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (25:14):
So, like I said, I just just up until two
weeks ago when the documentary came out. My parents watched
it and I still haven't heard from my dad yet,
but my mom immediately was like, I believe you.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
I'm sorry, I wish I would have believed you.
Speaker 9 (25:30):
She felt guilty, she was shameful, she was embarrassed because
she had been taken advantage of two She had just
lost thousands of dollars and for an unaccredited school and
a you know, almost two years where the torture.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Right, Yeah, I mean that's that's yes. Like, I think
it could be easy to maybe demonize parents in this situation,
but you make a really good point, which is that
they're totally being taken for a ride. They're being told
that this is going to help, this is a great
place for their kids, their kids need it, and all
they have to do is sign here for you know, however,
(26:11):
many thousands of dollars.
Speaker 9 (26:13):
I mean, the brainwashing is so deep too on their
side that, like I said, my mom, my mom, up
until she watched it was like, you know, we did
what was best for you, and kept saying that over
and over and over for the last twenty years and
was hardcore believing that, and until she finally got her
eyes opened and was like, oh my god, what my
(26:36):
daughter said was to like and that's all That's all
I ever wanted was for them to believe me. I
didn't care anybody ever heard my story or if anybody
ever believed me.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
I just wanted my parents to believe me.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, of course mine had.
Speaker 9 (26:51):
Such a strained relationship because of that, and it was
hard for me to tell my parents things after that
or trust in them or have a.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Slid relationship like we used to.
Speaker 9 (27:02):
I'm hoping now that it's out that we can I'm
they know, I'm open to working on things, talking about
anything that they want to talk about.
Speaker 5 (27:10):
It's it's like a weight has been lifted.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I hope y'all can start doing
that repair and kind of reconstruct that relationship because that
that pay must run really deep and probably will for
them as well. Now kind of being hit with all
this information, do we know how much money these programs
were actually making, Like how lucrative was this business for
(27:37):
the people at the top.
Speaker 7 (27:39):
It's a multi billion dollar industry.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Wow. Wow, So they have the money to you know,
lobby lobby people.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
So, I mean, if you think about it, they have.
There was bright Way Adolescence Hospital, Cross Creek, Manor, Carolina Springs,
Spring Creek Lodge, Casta by the Sea, Paradise, Hove, Tranquility Bay,
Dundee Ranch by An Packed.
Speaker 7 (28:05):
It was anything but.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Tranquil, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Paradise was anything but a parentise and then there was
Ivy Ridge, and it just goes on and on and
on and on. So you're thinking, just off the schools
that I've named that are with wasps that I named,
imagine five grand just say, let's say five grand flat
per kid per month, and each school typically holds about
(28:29):
two hundred to three hundred kids.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Holy shit. Yeah, that is so much.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Ease that the parents also pay, because when we were there,
my dad was paying an extra ninety dollars a month
so we could get shampoo, conditioner, toothbairies, toothbrushes which was
all Coldgate dollar store toothpaste, swave of the tampons we
got were like the cardboard applicators. We got literally the
bottom of the bottom. So all the extra fees that
(28:58):
our parents are paying, we're still going into their path.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
I think we kind of touched on it earlier. But
the kids are doing a lot of the work for free.
They're paying people minimum wage, No one's credited, and so
it's just all going to the top of the ladder.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
The kids are doing chores, they're basically like are they.
Speaker 7 (29:16):
Don't think I ever seen a staff member pick up
a broom?
Speaker 5 (29:20):
No, we did that.
Speaker 9 (29:21):
Wow, Okay, I have such OCD now from that place.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
Like my job now is a cleaner.
Speaker 9 (29:26):
I'm a professional cleaner because I cleaned so much in
the program. I was programmed too clean like that. That's
my job now, and I weirdly love it.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
Really, it's like a therapy to me. It's like, I
don't know, it's it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Was it almost like something to it somewhere to at
least put your mind at the time? That was not.
Speaker 9 (29:46):
It's a way for me to zone out when I
am cleaning. I do not think about anything, nothing, not
a thing. I just clean, right, And I think that
was my way of not thinking about what was happening
to me in the program, just to just zone out
during that time.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
So who are these people who were running like walk
us through how justice has happened thus far and what
still remains to happen.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
Okay, So the quick rundown is that Robert Litchfield is
the one who started everything. He actually got his start
at pro Vo Canyon School and then he started his
own organization. He brought in his family and everything like that.
Typically everyone got their start at either Brightway or Cross
(30:40):
Creek Commander for example. Then train went to school with
Robert Litchfield's sons and then started working at Cross Creek
Manor and then it went from there. Brian valfalua I
Hope I pronounced his last name right, he actually was.
He started at Cross Creek Manor as well, and then
he worked in Paradise Call. When Paradise Cove was raided
(31:02):
and shut down, he then moved to Midwest Academy. He
is the one who originally opened Midwest Academy for Brian
was the director and Ben Train was the assistant director.
He then left to go do something and Ben Train
took over and then you know, years and years of
build up and survivors coming forward and the girl coming
out about Ben Train sexually assaulting her in twenty sixteen
(31:26):
is that's when Midwest Academy itself got raided and shut down.
And I'm honestly surprised because typically no one gets charged,
especially high ups, and the program will close and then
a new program will pop up in its place, and
that regular director will be moved to the new program
to starting that. So it's quite a feat that he
(31:48):
actually got charged and sentenced and is currently sitting in prison.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
Ah Gloria.
Speaker 7 (31:55):
It is wonderful.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
My first shot of dopamine of the day.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
When I google, when you google Ivy Ridge Academy. Right now,
there are all these news stories that say DA opens
investigation into Ivy Ridge Academy, which is all it seems
coming now from this Netflix documentary. So it seems like
there's a lot, there's a movement now with a lot
of awareness. Are there still how many of these are
(32:24):
still around?
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (32:25):
So many, there are, very not just WASP. So WASP
has realized that everybody is catching on to them. So
now the biggest thing, Like so when Ben took over,
his biggest thing was we're not lots anymore, We're not
wats but very much they were still lost, but so
they were trying to distance themselves. So now it's a
little harder to pinpoint who's who. But we just play
(32:48):
follow the staff member game.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
They just move around.
Speaker 7 (32:51):
Yep, Sunset Bay is still kicking.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
So have they just gotten sneakier at like looking like
they're owned by different people so they can kind of
go under the radar, but like then they're still moving
around the same directors of them.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Yes, Boss got so much bad press and they did
end up survivors and parents did try to sue a
good couple of years ago with a truly lawsuit where
they cited child torture.
Speaker 7 (33:15):
They were forcing children to eat their own vomit.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
Children have died suicide and other ways, and.
Speaker 7 (33:23):
So they were trying really hard to distance themselves from.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
Their own name.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
And so now the new owners or the current still
owners are just like doing the best they can to
distance themselves.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Wow. I just can't believe that that could even still
exist in twenty twenty four, you know, like you would
think this would be a relic of the past at
this point. I mean, do you think that they've proved
any of the practices since then, or like, are there
stories that are more recent that are still coming out
that are just as.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
Bad worse worse? Yeah, Like what.
Speaker 9 (33:59):
Kinds like even even like up until Ben Train was arrested,
the sexually the amount of sexual and to the level
of sexual abuse that was happening at Midwest blew my mind.
Like what we thought we were experiencing on our level
was I don't want to say nothing compared to what
these other girls went through, but it was it didn't
even touch what these girls went through and that was
(34:20):
ten years later.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
Wow, I clearly got more comfortable with what they were
doing to us to continue further.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Well, there's no oversight, right, there's like no one is
there like hr, Like there's.
Speaker 7 (34:33):
No OHR is paid off too?
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Right right, I'm sure peez. This is so crazy. So
now that y'all have been through this, I mean, like,
where are you at now and you're healing journeys? How
are you doing? Well?
Speaker 9 (34:50):
It's taken and still taking a lot of time to
deal in process with everything. I guess like right away
when I got out, I realized is that all of
the schooling that I thought that I did at Midwest
was nothing. It was not accredited in any way. So
the graduation that I had at Midwest, saying that I
(35:11):
graduated high school was crap. I either when I got
back into my hometown, I wanted to walk with my
class and they were like, well, you'll have to redo
all of your sophomore in junior year before you can
do that. I'm like what They're like, Yeah, these none
of these credits are you know, we can't accept these.
(35:32):
So it was either redo all high school all over
again in person, or you get your ged so I
hit to start there, get my ged so then I
was able to get accepted into a college. And even
that was still a process. Like but on top of
all of the triggers that I've acquired, all of the CPTSD,
(35:55):
the anxiety, the OCD, the nightmares, I deal with that
every day on a daily basis. Some days are better
than others, but some days I don't want to leave
my room or my house or see the light of day.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Yeah, I mean it makes sense, makes sense just for
what y'all have been through. I mean it's like unimaginable.
Speaker 9 (36:16):
And like I said, this documentary just it made us
relive that time all over again.
Speaker 5 (36:22):
But now to be able to relive that in.
Speaker 9 (36:26):
A free, free area, I guess we were allowed to
express how we felt.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
And it took days to get through that documentary.
Speaker 9 (36:35):
For me, days I could only watch a few minutes
at a time before I was.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
You know, a full panic attack and crying my eyes out.
Speaker 7 (36:44):
And oh my god.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
The second the second episode, when I started playing the
two thousand and one Space Odyssey, I literally had to
plug my ears and like, as like is it dons
don is a don is done?
Speaker 5 (36:53):
There?
Speaker 9 (36:54):
I think are major triggers where I will drop to
my knees.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Yeah, and these were these songs that they would play
while you were in Oh my God you were girls,
and like, yeah, it's really brave of you to talk
about it, and especially to talk about it given how
sensitive it all must be right now with the documentary
and everything, Like, I just want to, you know, thank
(37:23):
you for sharing with us and for reaching out.
Speaker 9 (37:26):
And we thank you because right now is the time
that we have to do it. Now that we finally
have the world's attention and everybody is finally believing our stories.
Now we have to push and push and fight and
keep talking and keep spreading the word.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
So that all of these schools can get shut down.
Speaker 9 (37:45):
If it wasn't for honestly, Little I probably wouldn't have
said anything. She has been my inspiration to speak up.
She has been the only girl that I know from
Midwest to say anything, to stand up, to go back
to the school after it was shut down, to retrieving
all of our files that were scattered in the hallways,
to you know, publicly naming our attackers and doing something,
(38:12):
and that it took twenty years. It sucks that we're
having to keep doing it.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Now.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
But but there's momentum at least, right, there's something, there's
a tension. Yeah, thank god, Lily. How has your healing
journey been, And just also tell us a little bit
about you know, you've been trying for so long, like
what has that been like?
Speaker 4 (38:33):
So when I got out, like I said, my parents
didn't believing for the longest time, and I just kept
fighting and I didn't care.
Speaker 7 (38:41):
I didn't care what anybody said. I knew, I knew
what they were doing. Trust was wrong.
Speaker 4 (38:45):
No one deserved what we went through, no adults, let
alone children, because at the end of the day, we
were children.
Speaker 7 (38:52):
Yeah we could have.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
Been trouble teens or whatever, but most of us didn't
have a criminal record, most of us were not court ordered.
Speaker 7 (38:58):
We were not really that bad of kids.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
And I just I kept pushing and pushing and fighting
back and doing whatever I could to expose what was
going on.
Speaker 7 (39:09):
I ended up starting safety in Schools.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
I do video blogs, I expose facilities all in the industry.
I focus on mental health, the CPTSD, anxiety, the long
term effects of social isolation, and all of that.
Speaker 7 (39:24):
I do.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
Also I work as the lead researcher and investigator at
icapinnetwork dot org, and we're currently focused on legislation to
try to make it harder for these places to operate
and move forward and making it so like with one
school shuts down the owner and then can't just jump
to anyone and start, you know, the process all over again.
Like we're working very hard to try to save as
(39:48):
many lives as we can because the unfortunate side effect
of these programs is not just deaths and suicides in
these programs, but it is the suicides and ods that
happen a after we come out of them. We have
lost so many survivors, just su aus We just lost
another one just a couple of months ago that both
(40:09):
me and Megan we're in with.
Speaker 7 (40:11):
We are losing our people. We cannot survive this.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Children were not metical through this amount of brainwashing in torture,
because essentially that's what it is.
Speaker 7 (40:22):
It is torture.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Yeah, absolutely, it is.
Speaker 7 (40:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Well, I commend you and for keeping this fight going
for so long and so multifaceted, coming at it from
all angles. It's incredible. It's so impressive. And yeah, I
mean I just like any time anyone has comes out
with that level of trauma. Of course that's going to
disrupt the rest of their lives. And that separate from
the fact that they also don't have a high school degree,
(40:48):
and so now they have to start their lives over
and how do you you know, like, what do you
do then? Like they just run?
Speaker 4 (40:52):
Actually on disability now because I cannot hold down a
job because of what was done to me there and
the trauma that I have gone through, I can no
longer function as an actual adult in society to work
a proper job. So I am on disability now because
of this. The rest of my life is ruined, you know,
(41:13):
because of this?
Speaker 2 (41:15):
And is there a law Is there a lawsuit? Is
there a class action lawsuit happening where survivors would get
compensation of any kind?
Speaker 7 (41:24):
None that I'm aware of.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
But the problem with that is is that for a
lot of us, the statue of limitations is up for us,
so there's almost nothing we can do. So we spent
the majority of the time during the time where we
could have sued, dealing with nobody else believing us, everyone
gaslighting us, saying that it wasn't that bad, saying that
we were just manipulating, we were being dramatic, so nobody
(41:47):
really stood up.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Statutes of limitations are arbitrarily decided by the law and
can be lifted temporarily by the law, which has happened before.
It happened to New York for sexual assault survivors. So
I fucking hope someone gets on that, because y'all deserve
your fair compensation all you went through. Yeah, and are
(42:08):
you guys, I hope are you in therapy? Are you
getting are you getting treatments?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
I hope I'm in weekly therapy.
Speaker 9 (42:15):
Speaking to the girls who I was in the program
with has been the best therapy I think I could have.
Speaker 5 (42:22):
It's also hard.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
For us to trust therapists now because we were abused
in the name of therapy.
Speaker 9 (42:28):
I don't I don't trust any therapist really. I've tried.
I did try. I gave it a valid effort, Like
I've tried a few different therapists. It just I just
got the ick every time and I couldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
And so, yeah, whatever is working for you, I mean
community is honestly, like something we've talked about a bit
on this show too, is there are studies that show
that the relationship with a therapist is more important than
the actual like modality that they're using. So if you
are developing that relationship of trust and support with other serves,
(43:00):
that can be justice.
Speaker 7 (43:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
So if people want to learn more, where should they go?
Who can they reach out to? What's the Facebook group?
Speaker 4 (43:09):
So they can reach out to WASP Survivors Alliance on Facebook.
That is where survivors, parents and advocates, reporters, all that
goes to that group. The WASP Survivors group itself is
strictly for survivors, so we have a safe space to
go out of public eye so we can deal and
(43:30):
talk about what has happened to us, and others are
there to understand. There is I Kappa Network dot org
as well, where again we focus on the legislation. I
can also be found on Facebook under Safety and Schools
or on YouTube under Safety and Schools, and I'm starting
to build my TikTok for safety and Schools as well.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Are you saying safe team?
Speaker 3 (43:54):
Okay?
Speaker 7 (43:55):
No?
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Not safety okay? Cool?
Speaker 6 (43:57):
Got it?
Speaker 2 (43:59):
Accent? I'm a fellow Misha Gander. I Well, thanks so
so so much for joining us and for sharing with us.
I'm so sorry for everything that you've experienced, but I'm really,
I mean, we are really really proud of y'all for
coming out and talking about this and getting the word out.
Speaker 9 (44:16):
So thank you, yeah, thank you so much for having
us and spreading the word.
Speaker 7 (44:20):
Yes, thank you guys, so so much.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
So, Lola.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Last week we talked a little bit about whether we
were bad kids. What what we think some possibilities are
you could do if you have a bad.
Speaker 6 (44:30):
Kid, like just some you know, we're not moms.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
We don't know, but I thought today maybe I could
ask you, like, have you ever Not that it's the same,
but have you ever been to camp?
Speaker 4 (44:40):
So?
Speaker 2 (44:41):
First of all, I was always jealous of like kids
who got to go to camp every summer because it
seems so friacking fun to me. Yeah, I didn't have
that experience, but I did go to Mormon camp.
Speaker 6 (44:51):
No, what is that?
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (44:53):
So I went to ef Y it's called which now
I'm forgetting what it stands for.
Speaker 6 (44:57):
I let me look everything fun.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Yeahoo, y'all, it's especially for youth. Ef why. The objective
of the if Why, according to this website, is to
strengthen you and their commitment to live the Gospel of
Jesus Christ by providing learning opportunities and wholesome blah blah blah,
unlike the troubled team camps. I think this is actually
their goal. And all I really remember, I think maybe
(45:21):
I've talked about this a little bit. I remember that
it was fun to be around young people without my parents,
because that's all you want at that age. I want
to say. I was like thirteen, maybe did you do
any French kissing? I had not kissed anyone yet, and
I really wanted to, like desperately wanted to. But the
boy I liked at ef Y I ended up liking
(45:41):
my cousin.
Speaker 6 (45:43):
That sounds super Mormon in my brand.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
And so they ended up like going out, which is
funny because it's like for like two days, but like
they went out instead, and I was so mad for
like six hours, and then I was like, I love
my cousin. I should be happy for them. Is honestly
the most mature I've ever been in my life. I've
never been that mature before or since.
Speaker 6 (46:05):
There was something about camp that was good for you.
Then this certain kind of camp, Yes it was yes,
I'd be so.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Yeah, and then it was just like a church. It
was just like lots of like scripture study and like
church with your fellow youth. And the memory that I
was referring to that I think I've talked about a
little bit is that people would go up and bear
their testimony about how much they knew the Church was true,
and people would be crying. And that was the first
time I'd ever seen that, not in like a parental
a parentally guided setting. So that was the first time
(46:33):
I was like, is there something wrong with me that
I'm not crying? You know. Turns out no, there was
nothing wrong with me, but it felt like it at
the time. But all in all, ef y I would
say pretty positive experience.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I remember going to like a youth group once with
one of my friends, which was not allowed, but I
snuck out to go to this youth group thing, and
like I tried like that. Everybody put their hands in
the air, you know, like pray to praise, and I
like tried it for a second.
Speaker 6 (46:59):
I was like, oh, no, I can't do that.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
I also tried that at other people's churches. Yeah, yea, yeah,
this is like no, I don't feel this.
Speaker 6 (47:08):
I yeah, anyway.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
No, that's it. What I really want to do now
is have summer camp for adults, which I know exists,
but I've never been invited, and I want to do
that and go with all my friends because that seems
fun as fun.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
I think you just have to look it up and
sign up. I don't think they personally invite you.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Well, sometimes it's like, hey, friends, we're gathering a group, right,
or sometimes people have their weddings at camps, you know,
which that's fun. Everyone complains about, but it sounds amazing
to me.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Yeah, no, I'd like that, Yeah, I'd like it. All right, whatever,
I'll do it. Thanks for listening to another week with us.
We can't wait to see you again next week. As always,
remember to follow your gut, watch out for at flags.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
And never ever trust me. I Trust Me is produced
by Kirstin Woodward, Gabby Rapp and Steve Delemator.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
With special thanks to Stacy Para and.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Her theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me Podcast,
Twitter at trust Me Cult Pod, or on TikTok at
trust Me Cult Podcast.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
I'm Ula Lola on Instagram and Ola Lola on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
And I am Megan Elizabeth Eleven on Instagram and Debraham
Hicks on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Remember to rate and review and spread the word
If you have your own story of being in a
cult or a high control group.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Or if you've had experience with manipulation or abusive power
that you'd like to share.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Leave us a message on our hotline number at three
four seven eight six trust.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
That's three four seven eight six eight seven eight seven eight.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Or showed us an email at trust Me pod at
gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Trust Me.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Trust Me.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
I'm like a squat person.
Speaker 5 (00:25):
I've never lived.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
To you, I never If you think that one person
has all the answers, don't welcome to trust Me. The
podcast about Gold's extreme belief manipulation from two troubled adults
who've actually experienced it.
Speaker 6 (00:40):
I'm Lola Blanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Today is part two of our interview with Zoe and Lily,
survivors of Midwest Academy, one of the abusive Trouble Team
programs in the same organization that was spotlighted in the
docu series The Program cons Colts and Kidnapping. Last week
we discussed Zoe's time in solitary confinement at the Academy
at Ivy Bridge and when it was like moving to Midwest,
and today we'll talk more about Lily's experience. She'll tell
(01:04):
us how she was in solitary confinement for two months
and how her reaction was to rebel in any way
she could.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
We'll also get into how they both left and how
no one believed them for years in some cases up
until just last month, how this was and still is
a multi billion dollar industry, and where they're both at
and their healing journey. So check out the program on
Netflix and keep listening to our conversation with them.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Indeed, before we get into it again with them and
warning y'all, this is quite harrowing stuff. Once again, they
have been through a lot. But before we get into it, Megan,
can you tell me your cultiest thing of this week?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah, I'm not sure if you've been following. I mean
also trigger warning for abuse. Ruby Frankie's journey, the mom
blogger in Utah who was arrested for abusing her children.
Have you been following this story at all? No, Well,
she started working with this woman named Jody Hildebrandt, and
Jody has something this program called Connections.
Speaker 6 (02:03):
She basically takes couples and puts.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Them through this intensive program that turns out to be
very abusive and Ruby let her essentially take her two
youngest children to her house. So all of this footage
came out in the last couple weeks of them getting
these two youngest kids out of the house. And it
is so awful, Like, first of all, this woman lives
in a mansion.
Speaker 6 (02:27):
It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
It's like spic and span, so huge, and these kids
are starving.
Speaker 6 (02:34):
There's food everywhere. They've starved the kids so.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Bad, and there's like a person like everyone there is
crying because it's so awful.
Speaker 6 (02:42):
They've duct taped the little boys.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Like wounds shut and put honey on them to like
try to close them.
Speaker 6 (02:48):
And like he got out and ran away and went
to a neighbor's house.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Apparently beyond that, the husband of Ruby, who I think
was sentenced to thirty years in jail. They're both going
to jail for a very long time. Her husband was
estranged from his wife because of this program she did.
But while they were still together, Jody, the woman whose
program was running, came and stayed with them, and he
(03:14):
said she claimed to be possessed and he had to
be her exorcist, and that when she would go into
a trance, stuff would start flying around their house. They'd
hear weird sounds and he would have to give her
blessings to get the lights to stop flickering and all
(03:34):
these light loud noises to go away and all of
this bizarre stuff, and it's just crazy.
Speaker 6 (03:40):
The like Frenzy, he's an engineer.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
This is her ex husband.
Speaker 6 (03:45):
They were estranged, but they had not divorced.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Okay, but he's not like a believer like an actor.
Speaker 6 (03:50):
No follower, Oh oh yeah yeah, yeah no.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
But he's like in his interview, he's like talking to
the police and he's like, I'm an.
Speaker 6 (03:56):
Engineer, Like I'm a smart man.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
I saw these things, like I ever, like I believe
that she was possessed. And it's just like when groups
of people start really believing things. I don't know, I
think you can like actually make weird shit, like if
like enough people believe.
Speaker 6 (04:13):
Oh I don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Meanwhile, I'm like, oh, I wonder what like program she
put into her light system, or like how deeply she
made him meditate or.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
They were at their she was at their house, well
sure so, yes, but of course she was probably of
course she was probably doing something psychotic. She's crazy, But
these kids were practically dead.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
But and so why so the person, the mom who
sent them there? What why? How did that happen?
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Because she wanted them to be better behaved and Jody
was like, well, then give them to me.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
So how did she know Jody because she was part
of her program. Oh I see, I see, Oh my god. Wow.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I don't recommend watching the footage. I just got caught
up in a k hole of true crime and it
popped up, and it's a fascinating story. I would love
to get people's feedback on what they think was actually
happening in this little world that they created.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah. Well, I'm struggling today with the news. I'm struggling
today with besides the mass man made starvation that's happening
and Gauza, I'm struggling with the seven AID workers being killed.
I'm struggling with Al Shiva Hospital being destroyed. I'm struggling
with the fact that we're still sending weapons with no conditions.
(05:29):
I'm having a hard time with that today. But I
did find a story that's politically related but also cultic
thinking related. So a Russian bar owner who is gay
was arrested in Russia for extremism because of being LGBTQ
and facilitating a queer space for people, and it was
(05:52):
the charge was quote organizing extremist activities because there were
drag shows that were hosted there. Oh my god, is
so crazy. The Russia Supreme Court ruled that the international
public this is a quote international public LGBT movement is
an inherently extremist organization. In November, and they're starting to
(06:15):
arrest people for running Pride flags, for doing anything that's
showing their queerness publicly, and they're calling anything that's like
talking about gender affirming healthcare or anything queer related as
propaganda and extremism. So that is just the ultimate example
of hijacking language and using it the absolute wrong way,
(06:38):
using it basically like as a way of telling on
themselves of what they're actually doing, which is extremism. Yeah,
it's fascinating to me how this language gets sort of
hijacked and then people start using it to justify any
kind of punishment they want against people whose lifestyle or beliefs,
or gender or sexuality they don't agree with. It is
(07:00):
the problem.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
We've got a few of them. If y'all haven't noticed,
the world's full of a few problems, just a few.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Anyway, the world is on fire. But at least this
documentary came out and is shedding light on a small
fraction of abuses that are happening in the world, and
we will hear a lot more about them in a second.
And once again, it is real tough stuff, so be prepared, Lily.
(07:36):
What was your experience in terms of the levels and
where you ended up.
Speaker 7 (07:40):
I never made it past level too.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Oh yeah, okay.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
I just got tired of faking it and I was
just like, yeah, this isn't right. What you're doing to
us isn't right. There was one time when we were
in gym. They always forced us to do jim. They
never tried to get out of it. But there was
this one particular time where unfortunately I was on my
period and my breasts were hurting really bad, and they
just gave us crappy sports bras and I was like,
(08:07):
can I please just not run a whole bunch of
laps today?
Speaker 7 (08:11):
Like I'll walk them, you know, but can I not run?
And they threatened me.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
With a refusal consequence, which is a category four, which
would have meant that I would have been put in
an intervention and I wanted lost all my points. I
got upset. So I turned and looked at the staff
member and I told her to fuck off.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Oh I mean, I am pressed with you. Your with
your balls, okay.
Speaker 8 (08:36):
To say a book off. The entire time she was
there waiting to say it. And so I ended up
getting put in intervention. I was an intervention for two months.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
I did get out for one day, and in that
whole process I ended up just making their life a
living hell.
Speaker 7 (08:55):
So they put me back in and I, you know,
I was just like, I don't care. I'll sit in
a room.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
What are you gonna do me, you know, other than
restrain me, and refused to allow me to shower, very
very limited bathroom breaks.
Speaker 7 (09:08):
We ate, so for.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Breakfast we got like a small thing of stale cereal,
and for lunch at dinner we got two peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches, a fruit and a small cart and
of milk. And to this day I cannot eat grape
jelly or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
And then after about two months, I got really fed up.
I was shouting my rights as an American at them,
broke the door handle I tried to escape a few times,
and then.
Speaker 7 (09:35):
Mike so I grew up with my dad. He is
a blue collar man.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
And in the girl's intervention rooms, they had plywood on
the walls all the way around to try to deter
girls from punching holes in the walls. And as I
sat back, I was looking at the wall and I
realized that none of the screws had any uniformity to
them at all, which means that none of the screws
were in the studs.
Speaker 7 (09:57):
And I was sixteen years old at this point.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Never know I would never know that, Okay.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
So I grabbed the sheet of plywood on the wall
and ripped the sheet completely off the wall, compromising the
entire structure of the room, and then I was forced
to leave.
Speaker 7 (10:15):
They called the police on me.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
And the officer showed up and he's like, we could
take you to Juvie. I'm like, take me, please, take
me to jew Get me out.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Of here right, Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
But then they called my dad and they were like,
you need to come get your child. She is violent.
And his response was, well, she wasn't violent when I
sent her. You guys deal with it, and they're like, no,
you're gonna come and get her and that's and that's
how you out of the program. In total, I spent
three months in Mexico and then I was there for
the raid, the shut down, the transfer, and then I
(10:48):
was in six months in Midwest campin.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Hold on what I have more questions to followup on
what you just said, But what's the raid? I don't
know about the raid.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
So in two thousand and four, CASA was raided by
the Mexican government the sat rallies because they were abusing
us and giving us expired medication and just torturing us,
and the Mexican government got wind of it.
Speaker 7 (11:11):
So the whole facility.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Was raided and shut down and we were told that us,
as children in the facility, we were told that either
our parents were going to pick us up escorts were
going to take us to another program, or that we
were going to go into foster care. Wow.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I mean in the documentary you see kids, it's like
on the news, some kids are running into the jungle,
And I was like, what happened to that? Like, was
everybody reaccounted for?
Speaker 4 (11:35):
That was Dundee Ranch got you got you know, we
were going to completely lock down like there were walls
all around us.
Speaker 7 (11:42):
We could not get wow.
Speaker 6 (11:44):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
So Mexico took a stand and actually did something about it.
But here in the US we didn't give up up crazy. Okay,
So then you ended up at Midwest got it? And
I just want to know a little bit more about
your time I'm in intervention, because that's a really long
time to not be doing anything, Like did you have schoolwork?
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Like?
Speaker 7 (12:11):
Nothing, no school work?
Speaker 4 (12:13):
You literally just sat there you were supposed to sit
in a structure and just switches like you know, your
hands in a diamond in your lap, straight up, shoulders back.
Speaker 7 (12:23):
Straight, and sometimes if you were really good, they'd give
you a chair.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Sometimes don't even have a fucking chair. This is so
batshit crazy.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
No mattress, no pillows, no blanket.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Nope, they give you the matches that night they come
and take it in the morning lights on twenty four
to seven?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Where does your mind?
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Where does your mind go to? And these like what
what are you thinking?
Speaker 7 (12:45):
It goes anywhere but where you are?
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Yep?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Did you feel crazy? Because I feel like I would
start to lose my mind, like I know, I mean,
I know people really do in isolation in prison like mentally,
like yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
Start to feel crazy for sure. I just started getting angry,
and I was going to make sure that if they
were going to make my life a living all that
I was going to do the exact thing.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
So, so, are you spending all day like plotting like, Okay,
how can I kind of get back at them? How
can I show some autonomy and some power? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (13:17):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
But what else do you Where else is your mind
supposed to go? I mean like there's yeah, your choices
are like break and submit and let this happen to me,
or like find some way to feel like a human
person who has some power over her life. I mean,
you're completely powerless in that moment. It makes sense to
me that you'd be like revenge fuck these people, and you're.
Speaker 9 (13:43):
Basically powerless to everything. The entire time you're in there,
whether you're an intervention or you're out in the you know,
in the families out and with everybody else. We didn't
have power for anything, I mean anything, Yeah, I mean you.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Even have the power to talk to your family and
in any way.
Speaker 7 (14:00):
To our family.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Everything was monitored. Our letters were monitored, they were censored,
not sent out. Sometimes yep. And then if we said
something that they didn't like in the letters, we would
get in trouble for that.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I think you kind of touched on it. But what
was your thought process in isolation? How was it different?
Speaker 5 (14:15):
I said, I just I was just losing it. I
just lost it. I for the first few days, I said,
I was just sad. I was trying to get out
of the room.
Speaker 9 (14:24):
I kept telling them I was claustrophobic, so I was
banging on doors, I was banging on walls.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
I was trying to peel pieces of the walls off.
Speaker 9 (14:30):
I definitely did try to cut my wrist a few
times with.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
Pieces of the walls that I peeled off.
Speaker 9 (14:36):
And then you know, going from that to being restrained
held on the floor, you know, while they quickly taped
the walls back up, and it's just after they don't
seem to even care. It's just like it was just
a process for them. It's like, oh, we've seen this before,
this is how we handle it. And it didn't matter
how much you cried or screamed or yelled or kicked
(14:57):
or punched. It was like you either you have to
do what they tell you to do or just accept
the fact that you're going to live in this box.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Have either of you spoken to anyone who was on
the staff since this experience.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
That'd be Lily, and she has.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
So I took my revenge to after I got out,
because I felt that it was necessary to expose what
was going on in these because what was done forms
wasn't right. I started fighting. I got out in two
thousand and five. I started fighting back in two thousand
and seven till current day. Eventually I was actually able
to get a staff member undercover into Midwest Academy.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
And then he was there for about nine months, and
then everything was reported to Des Moines because you cannot
report to the area that the school is in because
they buy off the sheriffs, they buy off dhs. They
so your report literally goes nowhere.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
They've also bought off the government essentially. Yes, what that's
important tonight?
Speaker 2 (15:56):
What part of the government?
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Well, I mean Robert Litchfield ran with Mitt Romney on
his board the first time mit Romney ran for president.
The second time Mitt Romney ran for president, he actually
had mel Semblar as his treasurer. And mel Sembler ran
an operated straight ink, which is another string of really
abusive boarding facilities. Wow.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
So when I got the staff member out after about
nine months, everything was reported and that's what began the
FBI investigation. So by the time that the girl came
out in twenty sixteen with her allegations against Ben Train,
the then owner and operator of the school, that's why
the FBI jumped so fast and rated.
Speaker 7 (16:38):
The facility so fast.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
So can you talk a little bit about what this
staff member who was undercover. I just want to know
if we know anything about what their mentality was at
the time, Like, because they are performing psychological torture on children,
so like what, well, how are they justifying that to themselves?
Speaker 4 (16:58):
So the staff member that I had undercover was actually
the father of my kids at the time. So while
he was in there, he was also talking to kids
like hey, I'm with a survivor, you know, like secretly
talking to them like it's okay, you know what I mean,
Like we have to document, you know what I mean,
Like I'm sorry and all that, you know what I mean.
He wasn't like actively joining into the psychological torture. It
(17:19):
was just enough to where we could get enough solid
information because you never find out what's going on behind
the walls. And as Megan said earlier, who's going to
believe a bunch of troubled kids even as adults. Now
we are in our thirties and we're still labeled as
these troubled kids. So it's best to get the information
from the parents or the staff members. So it was
best to have somebody go in undercover. That was with
(17:42):
somebody who is a survivor who has dealt with, you know,
the surviver waking up screaming from nightmares, panic attacks, anxiety.
So he knows exactly what to look for, exactly what
not to participate in, and everything like that.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
What did he see Did he get like an up
close and personal view into the psychology of the other
staff members?
Speaker 7 (18:03):
Yes, he did.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
We noticed that at this particular time when he was there.
For the staff members to be able to advance, they
also had to go through the seminars.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
The layers of cultiness just keep getting like, there's all
these different cults that people are and because in the
doc it's like the staff are also number one, not
educated to do any of these things, no qualification, no qualifications.
It seems like some of these are in small towns
(18:34):
where all of the like, it's giving employment to people,
so they're grateful for the job. They're told that you
guys are absolutely terrible and that they're kind.
Speaker 6 (18:45):
They're helping you by doing these things, and.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
There seems to be a level of brainwashing on the
staffs end as well.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
Oh and then some of the children after they graduate,
they're offering jobs so they can go back and work
there too.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
The torture continues, right, Oh God, And so Zoe, what
was the exit process like for you?
Speaker 9 (19:10):
So my parents basically ran out of money.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
They were broke.
Speaker 9 (19:15):
They had spent close to fifty grand sending me to
this school, and they wanted more money for the next year.
And my parents were like, you know, we have another children,
We're trying to run a business.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
We can't.
Speaker 9 (19:30):
So they came and pulled me from the program randomly.
I can't even tell you what day it was, what
time it was. I just remembered that the sun was out,
so they came and got me. I was eating either
breakfast or lunch, I believe, or it was one of
the meals.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
I was eating a meal. Like I said, I don't
remember what time it day.
Speaker 9 (19:48):
It was, but I was eating a meal and an
upper level, and a staff member came and got me
and said that I had to go on a doctor run.
I was like, okay, Like I never bet on a
doctor run before, So let's go.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
And I go out and there's my parents. They're like, okay,
you ready to go home.
Speaker 9 (20:06):
Here's all your stuff, and I'm like okay, okay, like
and I just and I left.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
And while I was.
Speaker 9 (20:12):
Excited to be leaving, I was also so so hurt,
so broken, Like I was leaving behind my family, my
best friends, these girls who I shared in group every
day with, who knew me inside and out better than
my parents, better than my best friend's back.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Home, and then to leave them there knowing that.
Speaker 9 (20:34):
They were still there, they were still getting abused, they
were still getting tortured, and I could do nothing and
nobody believed me. Like even when we left, I told
my parents we have to do something, and they're like,
it wasn't that bad. You're fine, We're here, We're going home.
And that was basically the end of the conversation.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Wow, you're just completely alone in this immense, enormous trauma,
and also the trauma of knowing so many people you
love are still in trauma. Just completely alone in that
for how long? Like, when did how long did it
take to finally like start communicating with people who had
been through the same thing or at least believed you.
Speaker 9 (21:13):
It took years, I had to I guess we only
had like my space and stuff when we first got
out of the programs, so like we were my spacing.
And then Facebook came along, and slowly but surely, like
I was remembering people's first and last names, like, we
didn't know too many people's first and last so it
was hard to find them. And slowly, like I said,
(21:35):
slowly but surely, we were finding each other one by one.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
And then groups were.
Speaker 9 (21:40):
Created, where then we all started finding the groups and
finding each other. And now we have a huge community
of pretty much every single person who's ever attended Midwest
Academy together on one group.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Wow.
Speaker 9 (21:55):
And that just happened over the course of the last two weeks.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Wow, dude. Facebook groups are, like it seems like the
primary way that survivors find each other and like find
a community and realize they're not alone. Facebook has been
amazing for so many I mean Megan's group that she
was in as well, the two by two. That's how
that's gone.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Ninety percent of my deconstruction has come from a Facebook group.
That's bizarre, And I think it's worth noting that people
in the program who ran the program immediately were like,
these groups are bad, made some statements such as that,
of course.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Of course they did.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
We were just disgruntled former students and don't listen to
what we put out online.
Speaker 7 (22:39):
That's what they tell the parents.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Now, I'm sorry. Why would a group of students be
so disgruntled about just a regular as school. Hmm, yeah,
I wonder that is the question. So, Lily, you were
taken when you left, you said they called the police
and and then did you go home with your with
your parents? Was that what it was?
Speaker 5 (22:58):
Your?
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Yeah? So the next day they came into my room
and they told me that I had a phone call
with my dad, and you know, I'm like about time.
You know, you guys have been promising me that forever,
and like, why am I supposed to believe you now?
But we left the room and they were walking through
the facility and normally when you take phone calls, you
go to the family rep's office. And he's even at
(23:20):
a level too, Like I knew that that's where you go,
because the other girls were levet the threes, you just know.
But they were not taking there. They were taking me
to a different section of facility. And I walked around
the corner into the parent room and my dad was
sitting on the couch and I proceeded to look at
the staff member and say, you could have just opened
the door and I would have just left. I would
have found my way back to Michigan. Like you like,
(23:42):
I'm not afraid of you guys, but that man I'm
sitting on that couch right there, I'm terrified over him.
And but I looked at him and I was like,
so you're going to take me home? And he's like, no,
they're kicking you out, and I'm like that means I
can't come me uck. They were actually trying to send
me to another facility in Jamaica, but my dad would
(24:03):
not allow it because of everything that happened at Cossa.
Speaker 7 (24:07):
He was not going to send me out of the
country again. So my dad ended up taking me home.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
And did you tell him about your experience?
Speaker 7 (24:14):
I did.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
He also did not believe me. It took years for
my father to believe me. But I have been an
advocate against these schools for over a decade now, and
in doing that, it kind of woke up my dad
and my stepmom and they were able to see what
was going on, and they started doing research for themselves.
(24:37):
Which is one thing that I always stress on people
is do not believe me. Do not just believe what
I say. Research for yourself. See what everyone else is saying.
You know, not just coming from one person, this is
multiple people. And after a while, my dad just started
to believe me, and it really really hit home for
him when Ben Train was found guilty was sentenced to
(25:00):
nine years in prison, because he could no longer escape
the fact that what I was saying was true.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
The question for both of you, I mean your family
started to believe you. I mean, have they expressed remorse?
Do they feel bad?
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Like?
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Where are they at with it?
Speaker 7 (25:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (25:14):
So, like I said, I just just up until two
weeks ago when the documentary came out. My parents watched
it and I still haven't heard from my dad yet,
but my mom immediately was like, I believe you.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
I'm sorry, I wish I would have believed you.
Speaker 9 (25:30):
She felt guilty, she was shameful, she was embarrassed because
she had been taken advantage of two She had just
lost thousands of dollars and for an unaccredited school and
a you know, almost two years where the torture.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Right, Yeah, I mean that's that's yes. Like, I think
it could be easy to maybe demonize parents in this situation,
but you make a really good point, which is that
they're totally being taken for a ride. They're being told
that this is going to help, this is a great
place for their kids, their kids need it, and all
they have to do is sign here for you know, however,
(26:11):
many thousands of dollars.
Speaker 9 (26:13):
I mean, the brainwashing is so deep too on their
side that, like I said, my mom, my mom, up
until she watched it was like, you know, we did
what was best for you, and kept saying that over
and over and over for the last twenty years and
was hardcore believing that, and until she finally got her
eyes opened and was like, oh my god, what my
(26:36):
daughter said was to like and that's all That's all
I ever wanted was for them to believe me. I
didn't care anybody ever heard my story or if anybody
ever believed me.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
I just wanted my parents to believe me.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, of course mine had.
Speaker 9 (26:51):
Such a strained relationship because of that, and it was
hard for me to tell my parents things after that
or trust in them or have a.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Slid relationship like we used to.
Speaker 9 (27:02):
I'm hoping now that it's out that we can I'm
they know, I'm open to working on things, talking about
anything that they want to talk about.
Speaker 5 (27:10):
It's it's like a weight has been lifted.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I hope y'all can start doing
that repair and kind of reconstruct that relationship because that
that pay must run really deep and probably will for
them as well. Now kind of being hit with all
this information, do we know how much money these programs
were actually making, Like how lucrative was this business for
(27:37):
the people at the top.
Speaker 7 (27:39):
It's a multi billion dollar industry.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Wow. Wow, So they have the money to you know,
lobby lobby people.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
So, I mean, if you think about it, they have.
There was bright Way Adolescence Hospital, Cross Creek, Manor, Carolina Springs,
Spring Creek Lodge, Casta by the Sea, Paradise, Hove, Tranquility Bay,
Dundee Ranch by An Packed.
Speaker 7 (28:05):
It was anything but.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Tranquil, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Paradise was anything but a parentise and then there was
Ivy Ridge, and it just goes on and on and
on and on. So you're thinking, just off the schools
that I've named that are with wasps that I named,
imagine five grand just say, let's say five grand flat
per kid per month, and each school typically holds about
(28:29):
two hundred to three hundred kids.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Holy shit. Yeah, that is so much.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Ease that the parents also pay, because when we were there,
my dad was paying an extra ninety dollars a month
so we could get shampoo, conditioner, toothbairies, toothbrushes which was
all Coldgate dollar store toothpaste, swave of the tampons we
got were like the cardboard applicators. We got literally the
bottom of the bottom. So all the extra fees that
(28:58):
our parents are paying, we're still going into their path.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
I think we kind of touched on it earlier. But
the kids are doing a lot of the work for free.
They're paying people minimum wage, No one's credited, and so
it's just all going to the top of the ladder.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
The kids are doing chores, they're basically like are they.
Speaker 7 (29:16):
Don't think I ever seen a staff member pick up
a broom?
Speaker 5 (29:20):
No, we did that.
Speaker 9 (29:21):
Wow, Okay, I have such OCD now from that place.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
Like my job now is a cleaner.
Speaker 9 (29:26):
I'm a professional cleaner because I cleaned so much in
the program. I was programmed too clean like that. That's
my job now, and I weirdly love it.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
Really, it's like a therapy to me. It's like, I
don't know, it's it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Was it almost like something to it somewhere to at
least put your mind at the time? That was not.
Speaker 9 (29:46):
It's a way for me to zone out when I
am cleaning. I do not think about anything, nothing, not
a thing. I just clean, right, And I think that
was my way of not thinking about what was happening
to me in the program, just to just zone out
during that time.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
So who are these people who were running like walk
us through how justice has happened thus far and what
still remains to happen.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
Okay, So the quick rundown is that Robert Litchfield is
the one who started everything. He actually got his start
at pro Vo Canyon School and then he started his
own organization. He brought in his family and everything like that.
Typically everyone got their start at either Brightway or Cross
(30:40):
Creek Commander for example. Then train went to school with
Robert Litchfield's sons and then started working at Cross Creek
Manor and then it went from there. Brian valfalua I
Hope I pronounced his last name right, he actually was.
He started at Cross Creek Manor as well, and then
he worked in Paradise Call. When Paradise Cove was raided
(31:02):
and shut down, he then moved to Midwest Academy. He
is the one who originally opened Midwest Academy for Brian
was the director and Ben Train was the assistant director.
He then left to go do something and Ben Train
took over and then you know, years and years of
build up and survivors coming forward and the girl coming
out about Ben Train sexually assaulting her in twenty sixteen
(31:26):
is that's when Midwest Academy itself got raided and shut down.
And I'm honestly surprised because typically no one gets charged,
especially high ups, and the program will close and then
a new program will pop up in its place, and
that regular director will be moved to the new program
to starting that. So it's quite a feat that he
(31:48):
actually got charged and sentenced and is currently sitting in prison.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
Ah Gloria.
Speaker 7 (31:55):
It is wonderful.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
My first shot of dopamine of the day.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
When I google, when you google Ivy Ridge Academy. Right now,
there are all these news stories that say DA opens
investigation into Ivy Ridge Academy, which is all it seems
coming now from this Netflix documentary. So it seems like
there's a lot, there's a movement now with a lot
of awareness. Are there still how many of these are
(32:24):
still around?
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (32:25):
So many, there are, very not just WASP. So WASP
has realized that everybody is catching on to them. So
now the biggest thing, Like so when Ben took over,
his biggest thing was we're not lots anymore, We're not
wats but very much they were still lost, but so
they were trying to distance themselves. So now it's a
little harder to pinpoint who's who. But we just play
(32:48):
follow the staff member game.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
They just move around.
Speaker 7 (32:51):
Yep, Sunset Bay is still kicking.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
So have they just gotten sneakier at like looking like
they're owned by different people so they can kind of
go under the radar, but like then they're still moving
around the same directors of them.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Yes, Boss got so much bad press and they did
end up survivors and parents did try to sue a
good couple of years ago with a truly lawsuit where
they cited child torture.
Speaker 7 (33:15):
They were forcing children to eat their own vomit.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
Children have died suicide and other ways, and.
Speaker 7 (33:23):
So they were trying really hard to distance themselves from.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
Their own name.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
And so now the new owners or the current still
owners are just like doing the best they can to
distance themselves.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Wow. I just can't believe that that could even still
exist in twenty twenty four, you know, like you would
think this would be a relic of the past at
this point. I mean, do you think that they've proved
any of the practices since then, or like, are there
stories that are more recent that are still coming out
that are just as.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
Bad worse worse? Yeah, Like what.
Speaker 9 (33:59):
Kinds like even even like up until Ben Train was arrested,
the sexually the amount of sexual and to the level
of sexual abuse that was happening at Midwest blew my mind.
Like what we thought we were experiencing on our level
was I don't want to say nothing compared to what
these other girls went through, but it was it didn't
even touch what these girls went through and that was
(34:20):
ten years later.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
Wow, I clearly got more comfortable with what they were
doing to us to continue further.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Well, there's no oversight, right, there's like no one is
there like hr, Like there's.
Speaker 7 (34:33):
No OHR is paid off too?
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Right right, I'm sure peez. This is so crazy. So
now that y'all have been through this, I mean, like,
where are you at now and you're healing journeys? How
are you doing? Well?
Speaker 9 (34:50):
It's taken and still taking a lot of time to
deal in process with everything. I guess like right away
when I got out, I realized is that all of
the schooling that I thought that I did at Midwest
was nothing. It was not accredited in any way. So
the graduation that I had at Midwest, saying that I
(35:11):
graduated high school was crap. I either when I got
back into my hometown, I wanted to walk with my
class and they were like, well, you'll have to redo
all of your sophomore in junior year before you can
do that. I'm like what They're like, Yeah, these none
of these credits are you know, we can't accept these.
(35:32):
So it was either redo all high school all over
again in person, or you get your ged so I
hit to start there, get my ged so then I
was able to get accepted into a college. And even
that was still a process. Like but on top of
all of the triggers that I've acquired, all of the CPTSD,
(35:55):
the anxiety, the OCD, the nightmares, I deal with that
every day on a daily basis. Some days are better
than others, but some days I don't want to leave
my room or my house or see the light of day.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Yeah, I mean it makes sense, makes sense just for
what y'all have been through. I mean it's like unimaginable.
Speaker 9 (36:16):
And like I said, this documentary just it made us
relive that time all over again.
Speaker 5 (36:22):
But now to be able to relive that in.
Speaker 9 (36:26):
A free, free area, I guess we were allowed to
express how we felt.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
And it took days to get through that documentary.
Speaker 9 (36:35):
For me, days I could only watch a few minutes
at a time before I was.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
You know, a full panic attack and crying my eyes out.
Speaker 7 (36:44):
And oh my god.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
The second the second episode, when I started playing the
two thousand and one Space Odyssey, I literally had to
plug my ears and like, as like is it dons
don is a don is done?
Speaker 5 (36:53):
There?
Speaker 9 (36:54):
I think are major triggers where I will drop to
my knees.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Yeah, and these were these songs that they would play
while you were in Oh my God you were girls,
and like, yeah, it's really brave of you to talk
about it, and especially to talk about it given how
sensitive it all must be right now with the documentary
and everything, Like, I just want to, you know, thank
(37:23):
you for sharing with us and for reaching out.
Speaker 9 (37:26):
And we thank you because right now is the time
that we have to do it. Now that we finally
have the world's attention and everybody is finally believing our stories.
Now we have to push and push and fight and
keep talking and keep spreading the word.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
So that all of these schools can get shut down.
Speaker 9 (37:45):
If it wasn't for honestly, Little I probably wouldn't have
said anything. She has been my inspiration to speak up.
She has been the only girl that I know from
Midwest to say anything, to stand up, to go back
to the school after it was shut down, to retrieving
all of our files that were scattered in the hallways,
to you know, publicly naming our attackers and doing something,
(38:12):
and that it took twenty years. It sucks that we're
having to keep doing it.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Now.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
But but there's momentum at least, right, there's something, there's
a tension. Yeah, thank god, Lily. How has your healing
journey been, And just also tell us a little bit
about you know, you've been trying for so long, like
what has that been like?
Speaker 4 (38:33):
So when I got out, like I said, my parents
didn't believing for the longest time, and I just kept
fighting and I didn't care.
Speaker 7 (38:41):
I didn't care what anybody said. I knew, I knew
what they were doing. Trust was wrong.
Speaker 4 (38:45):
No one deserved what we went through, no adults, let
alone children, because at the end of the day, we
were children.
Speaker 7 (38:52):
Yeah we could have.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
Been trouble teens or whatever, but most of us didn't
have a criminal record, most of us were not court ordered.
Speaker 7 (38:58):
We were not really that bad of kids.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
And I just I kept pushing and pushing and fighting
back and doing whatever I could to expose what was
going on.
Speaker 7 (39:09):
I ended up starting safety in Schools.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
I do video blogs, I expose facilities all in the industry.
I focus on mental health, the CPTSD, anxiety, the long
term effects of social isolation, and all of that.
Speaker 7 (39:24):
I do.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
Also I work as the lead researcher and investigator at
icapinnetwork dot org, and we're currently focused on legislation to
try to make it harder for these places to operate
and move forward and making it so like with one
school shuts down the owner and then can't just jump
to anyone and start, you know, the process all over again.
Like we're working very hard to try to save as
(39:48):
many lives as we can because the unfortunate side effect
of these programs is not just deaths and suicides in
these programs, but it is the suicides and ods that
happen a after we come out of them. We have
lost so many survivors, just su aus We just lost
another one just a couple of months ago that both
(40:09):
me and Megan we're in with.
Speaker 7 (40:11):
We are losing our people. We cannot survive this.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Children were not metical through this amount of brainwashing in torture,
because essentially that's what it is.
Speaker 7 (40:22):
It is torture.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Yeah, absolutely, it is.
Speaker 7 (40:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Well, I commend you and for keeping this fight going
for so long and so multifaceted, coming at it from
all angles. It's incredible. It's so impressive. And yeah, I
mean I just like any time anyone has comes out
with that level of trauma. Of course that's going to
disrupt the rest of their lives. And that separate from
the fact that they also don't have a high school degree,
(40:48):
and so now they have to start their lives over
and how do you you know, like, what do you
do then? Like they just run?
Speaker 4 (40:52):
Actually on disability now because I cannot hold down a
job because of what was done to me there and
the trauma that I have gone through, I can no
longer function as an actual adult in society to work
a proper job. So I am on disability now because
of this. The rest of my life is ruined, you know,
(41:13):
because of this?
Speaker 2 (41:15):
And is there a law Is there a lawsuit? Is
there a class action lawsuit happening where survivors would get
compensation of any kind?
Speaker 7 (41:24):
None that I'm aware of.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
But the problem with that is is that for a
lot of us, the statue of limitations is up for us,
so there's almost nothing we can do. So we spent
the majority of the time during the time where we
could have sued, dealing with nobody else believing us, everyone
gaslighting us, saying that it wasn't that bad, saying that
we were just manipulating, we were being dramatic, so nobody
(41:47):
really stood up.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
Statutes of limitations are arbitrarily decided by the law and
can be lifted temporarily by the law, which has happened before.
It happened to New York for sexual assault survivors. So
I fucking hope someone gets on that, because y'all deserve
your fair compensation all you went through. Yeah, and are
(42:08):
you guys, I hope are you in therapy? Are you
getting are you getting treatments?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
I hope I'm in weekly therapy.
Speaker 9 (42:15):
Speaking to the girls who I was in the program
with has been the best therapy I think I could have.
Speaker 5 (42:22):
It's also hard.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
For us to trust therapists now because we were abused
in the name of therapy.
Speaker 9 (42:28):
I don't I don't trust any therapist really. I've tried.
I did try. I gave it a valid effort, Like
I've tried a few different therapists. It just I just
got the ick every time and I couldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
And so, yeah, whatever is working for you, I mean
community is honestly, like something we've talked about a bit
on this show too, is there are studies that show
that the relationship with a therapist is more important than
the actual like modality that they're using. So if you
are developing that relationship of trust and support with other serves,
(43:00):
that can be justice.
Speaker 7 (43:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
So if people want to learn more, where should they go?
Who can they reach out to? What's the Facebook group?
Speaker 4 (43:09):
So they can reach out to WASP Survivors Alliance on Facebook.
That is where survivors, parents and advocates, reporters, all that
goes to that group. The WASP Survivors group itself is
strictly for survivors, so we have a safe space to
go out of public eye so we can deal and
(43:30):
talk about what has happened to us, and others are
there to understand. There is I Kappa Network dot org
as well, where again we focus on the legislation. I
can also be found on Facebook under Safety and Schools
or on YouTube under Safety and Schools, and I'm starting
to build my TikTok for safety and Schools as well.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Are you saying safe team?
Speaker 3 (43:54):
Okay?
Speaker 7 (43:55):
No?
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Not safety okay? Cool?
Speaker 6 (43:57):
Got it?
Speaker 2 (43:59):
Accent? I'm a fellow Misha Gander. I Well, thanks so
so so much for joining us and for sharing with us.
I'm so sorry for everything that you've experienced, but I'm really,
I mean, we are really really proud of y'all for
coming out and talking about this and getting the word out.
Speaker 9 (44:16):
So thank you, yeah, thank you so much for having
us and spreading the word.
Speaker 7 (44:20):
Yes, thank you guys, so so much.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
So, Lola.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Last week we talked a little bit about whether we
were bad kids. What what we think some possibilities are
you could do if you have a bad.
Speaker 6 (44:30):
Kid, like just some you know, we're not moms.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
We don't know, but I thought today maybe I could
ask you, like, have you ever Not that it's the same,
but have you ever been to camp?
Speaker 4 (44:40):
So?
Speaker 2 (44:41):
First of all, I was always jealous of like kids
who got to go to camp every summer because it
seems so friacking fun to me. Yeah, I didn't have
that experience, but I did go to Mormon camp.
Speaker 6 (44:51):
No, what is that?
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (44:53):
So I went to ef Y it's called which now
I'm forgetting what it stands for.
Speaker 6 (44:57):
I let me look everything fun.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Yeahoo, y'all, it's especially for youth. Ef why. The objective
of the if Why, according to this website, is to
strengthen you and their commitment to live the Gospel of
Jesus Christ by providing learning opportunities and wholesome blah blah blah,
unlike the troubled team camps. I think this is actually
their goal. And all I really remember, I think maybe
(45:21):
I've talked about this a little bit. I remember that
it was fun to be around young people without my parents,
because that's all you want at that age. I want
to say. I was like thirteen, maybe did you do
any French kissing? I had not kissed anyone yet, and
I really wanted to, like desperately wanted to. But the
boy I liked at ef Y I ended up liking
(45:41):
my cousin.
Speaker 6 (45:43):
That sounds super Mormon in my brand.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
And so they ended up like going out, which is
funny because it's like for like two days, but like
they went out instead, and I was so mad for
like six hours, and then I was like, I love
my cousin. I should be happy for them. Is honestly
the most mature I've ever been in my life. I've
never been that mature before or since.
Speaker 6 (46:05):
There was something about camp that was good for you.
Then this certain kind of camp, Yes it was yes,
I'd be so.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Yeah, and then it was just like a church. It
was just like lots of like scripture study and like
church with your fellow youth. And the memory that I
was referring to that I think I've talked about a
little bit is that people would go up and bear
their testimony about how much they knew the Church was true,
and people would be crying. And that was the first
time I'd ever seen that, not in like a parental
a parentally guided setting. So that was the first time
(46:33):
I was like, is there something wrong with me that
I'm not crying? You know. Turns out no, there was
nothing wrong with me, but it felt like it at
the time. But all in all, ef y I would
say pretty positive experience.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I remember going to like a youth group once with
one of my friends, which was not allowed, but I
snuck out to go to this youth group thing, and
like I tried like that. Everybody put their hands in
the air, you know, like pray to praise, and I
like tried it for a second.
Speaker 6 (46:59):
I was like, oh, no, I can't do that.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
I also tried that at other people's churches. Yeah, yea, yeah,
this is like no, I don't feel this.
Speaker 6 (47:08):
I yeah, anyway.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
No, that's it. What I really want to do now
is have summer camp for adults, which I know exists,
but I've never been invited, and I want to do
that and go with all my friends because that seems
fun as fun.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
I think you just have to look it up and
sign up. I don't think they personally invite you.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Well, sometimes it's like, hey, friends, we're gathering a group, right,
or sometimes people have their weddings at camps, you know,
which that's fun. Everyone complains about, but it sounds amazing
to me.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Yeah, no, I'd like that, Yeah, I'd like it. All right, whatever,
I'll do it. Thanks for listening to another week with us.
We can't wait to see you again next week. As always,
remember to follow your gut, watch out for at flags.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
And never ever trust me. I Trust Me is produced
by Kirstin Woodward, Gabby Rapp and Steve Delemator.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
With special thanks to Stacy Para and.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Her theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me Podcast,
Twitter at trust Me Cult Pod, or on TikTok at
trust Me Cult Podcast.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
I'm Ula Lola on Instagram and Ola Lola on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
And I am Megan Elizabeth Eleven on Instagram and Debraham
Hicks on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Remember to rate and review and spread the word
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