“A Crumbling Empire”

Campus in Rockmart, the all girls facility. She remembers during her time how the staff would handle visits from state agencies that were meant to check on the treatment center and how it operated with an Awake now being a licensed medical facility, it had to be recorded that patients

were getting the proper treatment they were supposed to. And I remember the first time when they came out, they picked like three of us girls to be the one to answer any questions, and so they took the rest of the group like way way out into the woods, like a mile out into the woods. And I can remember when the first inspector lady came, one of the group leaders told her the girls are out on a

work project about a mile out in the woods. I guess they just knew that the inspector probably wasn't going to hike out a mile. But we were available though. They were like three of us, and we were told even before the inspector came, if they asked if we met with a psychiatrist, to let them know that we did, and that we had thirty to forty five minute sessions. At this point in time, Annawiki was sold to the parents of its patients largely as a medical treatment center

with daily therapy. In reality, this therapy was greatly exaggerated, often amounting to know more than a few minutes at most with an actual therapist. I don't think my parents realized until I got out that I really didn't get the help that I needed. We would see a psychiatrist, I want to say once a week. It might have

been every other week. But we would literally like get in a line and go one after the other and you'd only get a few minutes, and they would just right on a clipboard and they would literally look at their clock and say, Okay, time's up next. I mean, it was a joke. We like going to the psychiatrist because it gave us like a five minute break from the heavy labor work. But I mean, we didn't even

get that much time. It was a joke. And I do know um that my parents were charged for like a forty five minute visit, I think is what it was supposed to be. Thirty or forty five minutes, and we used to laugh about it. I guess we knew the doctors are making all this money off of us and they're only seeing us like for a couple of minutes.

Terry says that during these visits from state officials, the designated patients who were allowed to answer questions were to downplay the lack of education as well as how their time was really being spent. They told us to explain to them that it was an owned privilege and that some people did go to school. And then there was another thing that we were told not to let them know. They like encouraged us not to talk about the manual

labor that we did all day. And the only reason why I would go along with it because I knew it wasn't right, like to not tell them the truth on certain things. But it was another way where I thought I was getting brownie points, you know, because they chose me to be the one to talk, so I thought it just hit me on their good side that looking back, that was pretty messed up because they probably could have helped us if I had told the truth.

That that's just the way it went. Although Terry went along within a week he's plan to hide their abuse from government officials, she did try to report the wrongdoing to her family when she had the chance. I did try to tell my parents on one of my home visits, especially about the two counselors that I had that were sleeping together, that had a relationship, and all the sexual things that were going on, and how uncomfortable I was,

and I really wanted to get out of there. Well, it backfired because when they brought me back from my home visit, they met with one of the social workers and then they called me in and the social worker just barrated me. She said, you know, one of your biggest problems, and the reason why you're out here and you're still out here, is because you're a manipulator and what you've done um to your parents trying to make up these things, saying that there's this sexual abuse and

things going on just so you can get out. You're not gonna get away with that. You know, they see right through We see right through it. And so it was like I was a liar, and they didn't they believe the social worker. They didn't believe me anymore. And that she said that I wasn't the only patient out there trying to do that, that there were other kids saying the same thing just so they could get out.

You know, she tried to intimidate me, saying, do you know how serious it is to make allegations like that about your counselors and about other girls doing these things with each other? I just I backed off. I knew over the past several weeks we have received number of very serious allegations concerning both the facility out there in a number of individuals involved with them. It was just a form of their therapy. They were told to do it, and at the time he was fourteen and a half,

fifteen years old, they didn't know any better. I asked him, why are you letting this happen? Why are you covering up for Louis Batterer. He had no answer to that question. Having and this sitution paid its little could be such shock destrica place and to do absolutely the contrary of what they should have done. I'm disturbable the fact of something and he's still going on it. An I wake you. I'm Josh Stein and this is camp hell an Awake. By the mid nineteen eighties, an Awaki had reached its

highest attendance numbers. Yet not only was it operating on three different campuses Douglasville, Rock Martin, and Carabelle, it was now taking its patients on trips to other countries. In a board meeting from nineteen eighty three, plans for an Antawaki University were discussed, a program that would continue on through graduate degree status. Disruptions in the organization had started

to occur. One catalyst began with a legal dispute over the recording rights to the songs written by the patients you just heard from Terry. During this dispute, it was also brought to her parents attention other wrongdoings which occurred while her and her brothers attended, in particular that maybe they weren't getting the treatment which their parents had been paying for. The fact that Terry's brothers had also been involved with the annual trip to Mexico made matters even worse.

Here's journalist Albert Edgin. At the same time, there was a parent whose daughter had written a song about Anna Wake and there was a complaint. There was some dispute over the whether she was going to get paid for the song or how the boarding studio was going to be paid. But that parent then, in coincidental parallel track learned about the trips to the Mexican brothels. This cause for alarm regarding payment to Anawaki was not a rare instance.

With an Awaki now collecting payments from its patient's insurance, Oftentimes parents would not realize what they were actually paying for the school. One quota number for yearly tuition to an Awaki was thirty three thousand dollars a year in the early eighties, the equivalent of over one d thousand dollars today. Receiving payment from medical insurance policies was just

one of an Awaki's multiple revenue streams. With the purchase of land for its three campuses and properties in Mexico and Canada, and Awaki had set up a shell corporation called Anawaki Estates. This LLC would own the real estate and Awake had acquired and would then lease the property to its other corporation and Awaki Incorporated in essence shifting funds from the patients back to the owners of aniwaki Estates.

And who were the owners of the shell corporation none other than Lewis Petter's three daughters, Tina, Rita and Marcia. They were leasing them just like anybody else would be leasing real estate from another company, any other business. So the non profit was paying the profit corporation. The nonprofit aniwaki E was paying an awaki Estates rent for lack of a better way of putting it. And I don't recall the amounts and involved there, but the ownership of

that was the three daughters. This is Frank Win. He was the d A for Douglas County in the ninet eighties. He says the business behind Anawaki's financial interest was largely tied to the pattern family. Pet His daughters would go on to marry others involved in the organization. Marcia Petter to Bud Pedigo in a week he's main accountant, and Rita Petter to James Henry Evans one of in a week he's heads of management an awaki Estates. Who would

have been the name of that corporation. Anawaki Inc. Was the not for profit or nonprofit organization that you know. I believe most of the board of directors thought when they authorized stuff that they were authorizing purchases in the name of Anawaki Inc. And actually they were leasing a lot of the facilities from Anawaki Estates. So the family that was the big picture of the family's involvements. You had three of them that owned the for profit corporation.

Both of his daughters were in charge of different departments, two of his son in law's were involved. His wife was also involved. All of them in a director type position. It is around this same time that some changes were happening in the law enforcement agencies of Douglas County. For years, the sheriff had been Claude Abercrombie. Sheriff. Abercrumbie two had close ties with Anna Waki, even teaching a horse breaking class to the boys who would come and work on

his horse farm. Abercrumbie's term ended in the mid seventies after his deputy sheriff, Earl Lee, decided to run against him for the position and was elected. Earl Lee became a known character of Douglas County Lore. Here's what Frank Winn remembers about him. Well, Early was sheriff of Douglas Canty when when I came along, he had a reputation that clearly was a walking tall type of sheriff. Some of it was very much talk. I learned the no Earl and and love him because I could see just

how obsessive he would get investigating a homicide. He couldn't stand that someone was killed and that there wasn't justice trying to find who did it, and he would work very hard. He wouldn't just jump in and arrest somebody. He's certainly the kind of person that would not back down or somebody that you didn't want to have a fight with. So he had developed a reputation with a lot of people local from Douglasville. Pat Kirkland remembers how Earl Lee was thought of at the time. Early has

a reputation on his own. Early was an old West lawman. He was the law. I mean, everybody knew that Earl Lee is the law in Douglas County. Early was just a good old boy, old small town you know, sheriff and everything. Of course he was you know, he was elected by the people and everything, but he just really it and put up with too much stuff from anyone.

Back several years ago, there he was, he had a prisoner in the back of his car, and I remembered this somehow that prisoner and handcuffs committed suicide in the back of Early's car. Now how and they had did that happen? Earl Lee had a reputation in the county. I think he did a lot of good for the county and everything. But Earl Lee was an old West lawman, and it's gonna be my way or you ain't gonna like the circumstances or the what happens at with it.

I know that there were some a couple of instants where people got shot. People believe that Earl had shot him. But I had reviewed the files when I first came along, just out of curiosity, and had had talked to some people in the Sheriff's department, and the truth was Earle had not been the one that shot the people. But he never for with back down from letting people believe it. He wouldn't correct them because he felt like it helped his reputation as far as uh, you know, law enforcement,

as far as the criminal UH elements were concerned. There were a lot of people. I heard tapes of people that would we're doing drupe transactions and would say I'm not going to Douglas County or I'm not going to Earl Leaves County. That was more likely how they would say it. It was amazing. Sometimes. I'll never forget one case where he told me said, I tried to let my people do the job on their own and let

them branch out and be able to do it. And they had actually gone and searched an apartment and came back and told him they couldn't. They just didn't find anything. And an Earl believed that just didn't make sense in relation to this case, that that person had to have

been somehow involved. And the body that we found in Douglas County, Earl, he asked the guy, you still give us consent search, and Earl went back and searched with the same officers and the first thing he notices is just a few little red spots, real minor red spots on the wall. And he realizes that nobody has turned the bed over, so he makes his officers flip the bed, and the first thing they see is some blood, and then they find some on the bottom side of a pillow.

And whether it's true or not, I remember Earl after they started, after they clearly had found blood, he said, let me show you where the gun is. And he said, so, I took him into the guy's closet and started patting down the clothes, and the gun had been placed on the inside pocket of a coat. This was clearly the

murder weapon, but his officers had missed it. And Earl, once he found the blood, he knew exactly where somebody might hide a gun, and and that his officers might not have looked at and that still might have been a problem. But he he brings the guy into his office and very politely interviews him and and goes over his rights with him and talks to him for a little while, reaches under his desk and pulls up the jacket and says, tell me about this jacket, and the

guy immediately starts explaining why the gun was there. And Earl had made had spent thirty minutes never mentioning the gun, never told the guy the point of the coat, And like Earl told me when we were prosecuting the case, it was better than a confession. Frank says that while Earl Lee had his suspicions about an AWAKEI, he never had enough of a case to make an arrest or conduct a formal investigation. This outlook changed after a tragic

incident occur on the Douglasville campus. From Earl's Lee's standpoint, one of the things that had caught his attention had been that there was a situation where UH kid had killed himself. He had jumped off of I'm going to call it an old rock or brick type of chimney structure and landed onto a concrete slab. And that was something that Earl was very uh touched anytime a kid died and he would get involved, uh and he would become obsessive, compulsive. Carl Moore remembers his reaction when he

was informed there had been a suicide at Annawaki. There was a a chimney of one of the cabins that was left. I can't I think it was just a chimney with the slab. I don't remember why it was that way, but he climbed to the top of that and uh dove off. I had been on a trip somewhere. I can't remember what I was doing now, but I had someone had picked me up the airport and told me that one of the kids who killed themselves. It

just devastated me to hear that. I think I actually arrived back at the campus as the ambulances were still there. I got the idea that a lot of the kids knew him. It was a big deal. That was something he never could figure out why that kid did what he did. That just he wasn't provided with enough information from Mannawaki that made him comfortable that it explained the

kid committing suicide. And so that was just something that bothered him, and he spoke to me about it, and so it was something that we sort in our minds had in the back of our thought process when when other things developed. By eighty Lewis Petter's friend and confident Jim Parham had completed his term as a part of Jimmy Carter's presidential cabinet and had returned to serve as

a member of the board of directors for Anawaki. With Anawaki licensed as an official medical hospital, it was now subject to receive state funding as a mental institute as part of a new mental health program put in a place by the DHR, the same organization which Parum was

once head up. In a document from the Georgia Department of Human Resources from January eighteenth night, it is recorded that the State of Georgia paid an Awake the sum of eight hundred and seventy two thousand dollars of taxpayer money, the purpose of which was to build a brand new evaluation and observation or E and O building that could

house up to forty five additional patients. While Annawaki was clearly still in good graces with state government agencies, others were beginning to become suspicious of the tax exempt organization. Following the suicide on campus in Antawaki's resistance to investigate it, local authorities were now looking more closely into the financial

organization behind in Awaki. In nine two, Douglas County decided to revoke an Awake's nonprofit tax exemption, followed by an attempt to recoup hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. The county felt it was owed. Insurance companies, who were now being charged hundreds of thousands of dollars also began

to question the validity of an Awaki's treatment. An early correspondence from shows Blue Cross Blue Shield arguing that the treatment, costing upwards of one thousand dollars for a patient was not covered under their plan. Another correspondence from the United States Department of Defense Division of Health Affairs regarding the son of a retired Army officer shows a decline to cover the treatment provided it Innawaki upon further review and

called the treatment quote not medically necessary. While state agencies and insurance companies alike were beginning to grow skeptical of Anawaki's practices, other things were starting to make parents of the students and even board members of an Awaki suspicious. One of these board members that would greatly affect the future of an Awaki was one Sarah Tillis. Here's journalist

Albert Edgin. Sarah Tillis was the mother of several children who had been treated in an Awake and who are still being treated at an Awake in the eighties, but also an important member of the board, a very influential member of the board of directors, and eventually the chairman of the Board of Directors. She and her husband were very involved in all sorts of activities there and very supportive friends with Petter and wealthy in their own right

and had been seduced by Petter. Petter made sure that her children were given special attention. At the end of the day, Petter was a good counselor. If he wanted to be a good counselor, he could be a good counselor. So if he had somebody he needed to curry favor with, and the way to do it was to counsel her children in a very professional and accomplished way, he did it. And that's what he did with Sarah tell Us, he

lured her in. He seduced her in the same way that he seduced those boys through his manipulation of her emotions. So Sarah became an Antiwaki advocate on deroids. I mean, she was the she was an awake's face. And in return, her children were taken care of, and she was introduced by Petter to the you know, political hierarchy in two different states. You know, she could go to all sorts of affairs and events with the governor of Florida or the governor Georgia away. It was very you know, very

high cotton for a suburban housewife in Atlanta. He gave her those avenues. During one of an Awake's annual Mexico trips, in a group of board members joined along a number of incidents occurred which gave alarm to Sarah Tillis and others, in particular witnessing what she believed to be an inappropriate

relationship with Carl Moore and Petter's teenage granddaughter Shari. You have to think that was a pretty well developed system by four when Sarah stumbled onto just one aspect of it, and the aspect of it that she stumbled on was is important in the narrative because it changed her opinion of Petter, and that was that Petter's granddaughter, who was fourteen, was engaging in sexual for play with the driver of a van that was taking an Awakey officials around Mexico,

and Petter knew this was happening. It was his granddaughter. A couple of the the board members, Sarah Tillis being

the main one, noticed that and complained about it. Looking back on it, it's amazing and it's sort of as a testament to Petter's um sheer control over the over people he could control people's opinion of him, and so even though this was something that that Sarah disapproved of, she was able to put that in some sort of a uh place where it was something that troubled her, but it didn't completely alter her opinion and initially, Peter I asked Carl Moore about his involvement with Petter's then

teenage granddaughter. He says this was just another sign of how bad things had gotten for him. There was a larger context to it. Um doesn't justify or really change anything about it. I think it was another example, in a way of how twisted things were for me at the time. And I don't think it's I don't think I can say anything else about it. I have to think it was smoke screen in some ways. After this episode published, I was contacted by both Carl and Sari.

Carl and Shery both stated that their relationship was strictly as friends and never sexual. When asked about her relationship with Carl, Charis stated quote, Carl has never been anything but good to me. He cared about what happened to me without ever wanting something in return. When asked again about his relationship with Shari, Karl stated quote, I was being her friend without being sexual. I knew there was a risk that my affection was being misunderstood by others,

and I did not care what they thought. It is ironic to me that, after all these years, that an act of kindness caused the outrage required for the Board of Directors at Annawaki to ultimately act. Sarah Tillis would later give a written statement outlining this trip to Mexico. A group from Anauake's board of trustees flew to Mexico City to join the rest of the group from Anawaki.

A lavish trip is recorded, with the group being housed by presidents of different areas in Mexico and other government officials. She describes inappropriate behavior involving Karl Moore, then Petter's fourteen year old granddaughter Sharie. When Petters confronted by some of the board members, he states, quote, it's not any of your goddamn business or the trustees as to why I brought Cheri to Mexico, even stating that he will call a board meeting himself to tell the trustees the same thing.

No such meeting ever happened. I think the turning point was when he was dismissive of the complaints about the relationship that was observed between his granddaughter and Karl Moore. What he said after that he heard complaints about this relationship with Karl Moore was something like, she's going to get screwed by somebody, it may as well be Karl Moore.

So that was shocking to the people that heard that and heard that he had said that, and that set up a sort of a permanent avenue that he would never get out of, a permanent avenue of disapproval that he had never had to deal with before. Really, it was later in the fall when board members who knew

about the relationship between Petter's granddaughter and Karl Moore. Now we're learning that some of the children, some of the kids had gone to brothels at the same time, which would then, I mean, that's just an example of how it began to get out of that one avenue and expand. And it took a long time before uh, it exploded, But maybe not that long when you think about it in retrospect, because if he was doing it since nine, somebody notices in and the disapproval sticks in their mind.

It only took a year and a half from there for it to fall apart. Upon returning from Mexico trip, Sarah Tillis began asking questions to the upper management of

an Awaki. She claimed that she had been told by one of the patients who had consistently not been given a bet on the trip, that it was due to Petter wanting to quote play the sex game, according to a statement by Sarah Tillis, When this was brought to Petter's wife, Mabel's attention, her response was that those types of matters were not reported, possibly influenced by the confrontations by board members or issues involving receiving payment from insurance companies.

Louis Petter attempted a sale of an Awake shortly after the Mexico trip. In according to his statement by Jim Parren, Petter had received offers for up to thirty million dollars for the center. The only problem was that Petter was not willing to let an Awak's books be scrutinized. The deal shortly fell through. Board members were beginning to become suspicious not just a Petter's actions, but also of how

in a week's finances were being handled. Suspicions had begun to build around in Awaki and its multiple revenue streams. An incident would bring further scrutiny to the program on March of that year, when a youth being evaluated for in Aweki treatment escaped from his Florida caseworker and fled the property. Fourteen year old Billy Ray White disappeared into

the center's wooded surroundings. Three days later, while attempting to steal a dump truck, White shot and killed local resident James D. Hall with a revolver stolen from a truck in the neighborhood. The death shocked the community, raising concerns to Anawaki was not properly watching over what could sometimes be dangerous patients being kept there. The whole community will miss him because he's lived here most of his life,

sure will, Frankie Gibbons says. The killing continues to worry homeowners. Yeah, we tried to have meanings upcoming alert systems so that they would let us know when one was off. Doesn't worry you when some of them get out, Yeah, we've reported since we've been out here. We call him running through our property, property across road rolfe and call him I not mad and we've notifiedment Leaf for the time.

An Awaki officials had been warned months earlier that White was a quote homicidal threat and could possibly kill without feeling any remorse. Sheriff Earl Lee responded at the time, I would have intensified my search for him if I had known what they knew, but they wouldn't tell me anything at all. Government agencies and insurance companies were both

beginning to inquire into Antawak's financial irregularities. Soon, another tragic event would take place that would shake the foundation structure. Bud Pedigo was Antawak's main accountant and the person who would have to answer to anyone looking into its finances. He was also married to Petter's daughter Marcia, both largely involved with the inner workings of the organization. In May of Pedago was killed in an automobile accident just a

few blocks away from Antawaki. A drunk driver struck Pedigo's car with him and his young daughter in the front seat. His daughter thankfully lived, but Bud was not so lucky. Carl Moore remembers being one of the first people to be notified about Pedigo's death. I think Bud was. He was a nice guy. He was the financial losser like the CFO. I can't even remember how I heard about it, but I went there. It was right almost on the campus. I went there and the car was pushed off the road.

There was a van there that had run into him almost ahead on wreck that hit the driver's side of the car. When I got there, Bud was actually in the passenger seat, and Uh, I went down there. I didn't know why there was nobody down there. I went down there like I was gonna help him out, and and he was gone. I didn't know it for a little while. His daughter was in the car. This is uh youngest daughter. I think she was four or five. She had crawled out the back window of the car.

What I understand. The guy driving the van, he was drunk and he was injured. He said, Hey, the guy that's driving the van ran off through the woods, which was a lie. It was actually him and I think he was charged with it. Yeah, it was a hard thing.

Then Bud Pettigo died. Between the Mexico revelations in the middle of the summer of eighty four and his death in March, there was a lot of conversation going on, a lot of rumors were swirling around and that encouraged children who may have been abused to talk about it among themselves at least. And if you think about Douglas County, well, Douglas County is a small place, so a lot of

people began hearing about these things. All of those things, taken together, contributed to an environment in which, in the spring, a couple of board members started saying, we need to see an audit, We need to see what's going on with the money. Things that they had ignored about the money began to become of interest to them. With a murder and suicide both connected to an awake. Within a few years time, law enforcement began to take a closer look at in awake. What they would find out would

go far beyond what they ever could have imagined. Law enforcement became aware in Douglas County of the abuse. Once that happened, then the genie was out of the bottle. There was no way that it was going to become anything other than what it became. Once Sheriff Eli knew about it, that was the end. Former d A. Frank Winn says that he and his assistant David McDade had begun to hear complaints about in Awake for some time, and had even begun to keep a file of said complaints.

One afternoon, he received a visit from Sarah Tillis. It seemed to confirm some of the suspicions when and Sheriff Earl Lee had had m she believed that Petter had been misleading her and the other board members, so it wasn't just sexual. She gave me enough details that I sat there to ten thirty with the lady that when she walked in the office that morning, I would have thought she was possibly a crazy lady. I had no idea why somebody is just showing up to talk about anawake.

But she wasn't crazy enough for me to refuse to talk to her, And she certainly immediately caught my attention, and I didn't feel like she's crazy at all after I got talking to her. But I was there till late that evening, and and so the investigation that actually started was I talked to David McDade a little bit about some of the things that had bothered us. David and I realized we had information that bothered us from

multiple sources. Some of the sources would have been teachers, some of it administration, uh some of its kids that were at an awake and now we had a board member. So we made the decision at that point that to ask early to start an investigation. And Earle always believed that Lewis better was something wasn't right. Earl started working so hard it was impossible for anybody to keep up

with him. An official criminal investigation and now begun to look into the inner workings of an Awaki and follow up on the numerous complaints against the center. But Pedico's death would open the center to a financial audit from the board, and fighting amongst the upper management was only getting worse and soon they too would be answering to authorities. Petter's empire was beginning to fall apart at the seams, and he was going to do everything he could to

save himself along with it. Next time on camp held in awaking. After Earle started talking to whoever the ones were that he interviewed to start with, it was like a snowball going downhill. It became overwhelming. His whole family was involved and not awaking. If it was something to do with the Petter family, the cooperation was minimal. We had no way of knowing anything that was going on. We can't talk to our parents. For the most part,

we were in this bubble. It wasn't long after that that I went down to meet Petters at They essentially wanted to videotape me denying everything anything sexual or inappropriate, or financial or anything. He calls me him, he said, doc Raham. I said, yes, sir, he said, we got the s LB. Camp hell anna Waki was created and hosted by Josh Thane, with producer Miranda Hawkins and executive producers Alex Williams and Matt Frederick. The soundtrack was written

and performed by Josh Thane and Adrian Barry. Archival footage provided by ws B and CBS News. Find us on Instagram at camp hell pod. That's c A M p h E L L p O D Educate yourself about the issue of child abuse and things that you should look for at the Darkness to Light website, d too well dot org. That's D the number two L dot O r G. Camp hell Anawaki is a production of

I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts,