“Mexico”

I decided I had to see this for myself. I booked myself a room at the Moorings of Carabelle, the hotel built by an Awake which is still in operation, and headed down to Carabelle. I just got into Carabell after a quite hairy drive down a two lane Florida highway in pouring rain. I've checked in and I am at the moorings at Carabelle Hotel and Marina. This is the same hotel and the same marina that those boys built.

So I'm going to go out and speak with some locals and see what I can't find out about the town of Carabell. My first stop was to visit the Carabell History Museum, a small local shrine to the fishing town of Carabelle. I figured surely they had to know about Antiwaki's history in the area. We really have taken on the notion of gateway to the Gulf to go fishing, that that fishing charters and eco tourism have gotten really big here. This is Tamara Allen. She runs the History

of Carabelle Museum. For a small town with no red light, it has an awful lot of history dating back to the Native Seminole tribe in Civil War Arab battles. I asked Tamara what she knew about Anawaki. To my surprise, it was very little. That is Panama City. We have been coming here since the eighties. We were staying at the Moorings. That was our place to stay, and we were told we were the first like official people to stay in the motel of the Moorings back in the

late eighties. And I just heard it was like a rehab place for delinquent kids. And so at the time I heard about the fact that it had been part of of an Awaki, but I didn't know what that meant because I'd say to people what happened and they went and tell me, it's a big rabbit hole. What Tamara did know was that the boys at the Antiwaki South campus were a part of the community, going to

local schools and even churches. These children were students at the facility, but they all went to high school with other kids, so they made friends here with other kids. I do know that a lot of the kids went to either the Baptists, from the Men to just church. People knew him in the community, and occasionally they would go. A group of them would go to a townsperson and say we have to leave that place. Do you have any where we could stay? Or they would try to

run away. They wanted to stay in school, They wanted to just have a normal life here, but they didn't want to be in the program, and some of the kids ended up living here marrying local girls. Since I had initially contacted Tamara, she had reached out to some people she knew in the area who may have more

insight into what went on it in Awaki. Several people said that a lot of the staff that worked there were evil types of people that they abused the children and particularly did things like just took a perfectly healthy child and deliberately broke their arm or their leg if they were missed behaving. I tried to see if Tamara may be able to connect me with someone who may have had a closer connection to the school I could

speak with. I started talking to people that I thought might have a historical perspective, and then they were reluctant to talk about it, which piqued my interest, I must say. And then I actually had somebody say to me, I don't want to talk to that guy because I might end up dead. They wouldn't even tell me what they were talking about. And I said, help me understand that comment. I don't know what that means. He said, Well, a lot of people talk to folks they ended up dead.

They know that Peter had very high connections way up in government in Florida and Georgia. Nobody that I've found that works there wants to talk to you because they are afraid they'll end up dead. Over the past several weeks, we have received number of very serious allegations concerning both the facility out there in a number of individuals involved with him. It was just a wrong with their therapy. They were told to do it, and at the time he was fourteen and a half fifteen years old. They

didn't know any better. I asked him, why are you letting this happen? Why are you covering up for Louis Batter. He had no answer to that question. Having and this sitution paid it of little could be such shock destricable place, and did do absolutely the contrary of what they should have done. I'm disturbed at the fact of something. He was stilled, wat on it, and I wake you. I'm Josh Stein, and this is camp hell in Awake. I quickly realized it may be tougher than I originally thought

to speak with some locals about in Awake. Luckily I managed to find a few people scattered throughout the town who were willing to tell me what they remembered. I guess I first heard about it when they started coming to our school. I must have been six or seventh grade when they first started coming to school. When I went to school with them, I was Kathy Milliner and I graduated with probably ten or fifteen of the guys

from anna Waki. I'm still good friends with a lot of them that went to Annawaki that I graduated high school with. I stay in contact. I married one right out of high school. Just a lot of good friendships that have remained over fifty years now. Were you interacted with them regularly on through church? I mean that's you know, that's what they did. They ring they bring him to church. Actually, I think my daughter might have dated one of them for a little bit there. I mean, not a daughter

by my sister. My sister. These kids would come in. I mean they had their white shirts and eyes. They were just presented. Nice kids, good kids. They're learning, you know, they're learning how to better themselves. And they were very polite and everything. But I think they're just happy that get get out of the the environment that they were in. And we had no clue of it. We had no really clue of it back then. We never heard about it,

you know. I went to see what the former grounds of the inn Awaki work Camp, or Landside as it was known, looked like today. The St. James Bay golf course currently resides there. What was once untouched wildlife is now a subdivision of sorts surrounding the course. I went to eat at its resident grill. It's here where I heard a harrowing story from my waitress regarding in Awaki.

My knowledge is a second hand from a friend of my father's I knew of one incident in particular where a police officer who was working with some capacity UM at the facility, took a young boy out into the wooded area. A hunter was there. Um he didn't know the hunter was there, but the hunter observed him having sex with the with the boy. Was this voluntary? From your understanding, it was not. It seemed to be more of a punishment type situation. Surprisingly, this story sounded familiar.

In fact, it showed that someone may have actually witnessed one of the worst stories I heard in all of my interviews. My name is Mark. My number was B fourteen seventy four. I attended Anawaki from nineteen eighty four March one to be exact, two about March one, nineteen six. At the time I was fifteen years old. My background before I went into an awake he I came from abusive household. Mom tried her best, Dad was very violent. Looking back on it now, there was just a lot

of negative talk, a lot of um destructive behavior. I was just lost, very depressed, and after trying to commit suicide a couple of times, just not understanding myself or my emotions or who I was I um they put me away in a adolescent psychiatric unit for emotionally disturbed children.

I was at South Campus. That was my primary campus. Obviously, we all go through e en O in Douglasville, which is Central Campus, and I was there twice, first time when I was admitted, and then the second time after an incident happened. Mark says that during his time in Caribille that an Awaki had once again gotten itself in the good graces with the local government. The fact that would only hide what was going on behind the scenes. We were told that we were going to do a dance.

It was my first dance Hanawake. He had two dances, Spring and Fall, and they had said that Governor Bob Graham and his daughter was coming. I heard about that. I was really impressed that the governor's daughter was coming paying Awake for the dance. Mark says that Antawaki's ties with Florida Governor Bob Graham were so close has to even send boys to his home to do work. We went up there, and I don't think it was the

governor's mansion that we went to. I believe it was his personal property because it seemed like a regular home. We went up and just kind of cleaned the flower beds and trimmed hedges. It seemed like pretty much all day we had a good time. There was a pool there, a couple staff members were there. Even with such close ties to local government, the abuse of the Antiweki South campus was just as bad, if not worse, than in Douglasville.

On many occasions, I personally witnessed at least a good handful, maybe a dozen different times that staff members either physically abused, sexually abused, or just verbally abused students. Group members Mark She had a personal story with me. Fair warning, it's pretty rough to listen to. You may want to skip ahead if that's too much for you. It came to me kind of as a shock. I've never seen anything like that. I never was traumatized by seeing it until

I walked back to my first campsite. I was able to walk back with a pass three by five or and I had to pick up something that I left on campus. The staff member was a new staff member. He sent me back to the campsite and I heard somebody crying, and it kind of scared me because I didn't know what to do. So I just ran up into the platform tent and one of my group members was getting basically raped by a staff member, by a

unit supervisor. I didn't know this person at first. I mean, I knew my group member, but I didn't know the staff member. And I was just so shocked to see two people doing that. I've never seen anything like that. I never thought of anything like that. So I just ran off. I was scared. I didn't know what to do. I didn't even I don't remember what I had to go back and get. But I just ran and I ran back, and my heart was going on a hundred

miles an hour. And I wanted to tell the new staff member, but I knew it wasn't the right thing to tell him. I I didn't trust this person, so I asked him if I could go to the clinic. Next thing I know, I'm in the clinic. I tell one of the nurses and I let her know what was going on. First, I asked her if I could speak to her. And I talked to her and I told her and this has happened. I don't know what to do. I need some help. Can you call the police?

What do we do? And she said, don't worry about it. I'll take care of it. The police already know about it. You're gonna be fine. Everything's gonna be okay. Just go back to your group. I don't say anything to anybody,

and everything will be fine. Three days later, I'm walking back by myself again, and the same group later sent me back to the campsite, and two men stepped off of the trail grabbed me, and then Mr Phillips, who has head of security, He's standing in front of me and he smacks my face open hand smacks my face, and anyone can tell you. Mr Phillips was very big,

he was very strong, and it just dazed me. And the next thing I know, I'm on the ground and Mr Phillips has kind of got his knee in the back of my head between my shoulder blades, and they pulled my pants down and both of the other staff members raped me, and I just remember I couldn't breathe. It's funny because even today I can almost taste the sand. I can almost smell it, because everything is sandy in Florida. And after that, I just I guess I passed out

or I'm not sure what happened. Maybe I'm blocking it somewhere. But the next thing I remember was waking up in the back of one of our passenger vands that they used to transport us. We were in I think it was Smim, small town in Georgia, and I woke up and I had a really bad headache and my butt ched, and I couldn't figure out. I was like, I had tape on my butt cheeks, and my butt cheeks were

taped together really super tight for some reason. And I was wearing one of those in a waky green eno robes, and I had a medical bracelet on like you get when you go to the hospital. And I kept on wanting to scratch my backside and there was tape there and I can't figure out what it was, and I

was confused. While I was in a van and one of the staff members, there was two people driving for one person driving another one past some year and then another person was sitting a couple of seats ahead of me, and I was sitting all the way in the back and he said, Mark, you're fine, because I started kind of freaking out, and he goes, um, because you you tried to hurt yourself, And I knew that was a

bunch of ship because I didn't try to hurt myself. UM, and I became scared all over again, and he said, uh, can we we're gonna stop at McDonald's. Would you like something to eat and not a start? And I was like sure, Yeah. Then I got to n O UM went to a doctor uh in the clinic of Eno and they looked at me and I had a staple in my anus. They stapled it and some small stitches had had some gauze that I had to change, and they gave me a whole bunch of stuff. They were

really super nice this time. When I went to You know, I never got the rope thrown at me. Uh. Pretty much got to be able to walk in and out of my room whenever I wanted. I had a little bit more privileges than the new guys getting there. But they kept on telling me that I tried to commit suicide. And I was trying to tell another of the staff members and you know, no, that's not what happened to me.

This happened to me. He told me. He pulled me out aside and took me back into the clinic area and he told me, you don't want to talk about this. You don't want to say anything about this. They will keep hurting you, and your parents will be notified and you will never basically win this battle that you're trying

to fight. And he just told me to go back and keep my mouth shut, and if anybody approached me, just tell them that I wasn't interested and that I had spoke to that staff member and to mention his name, and then by mentioning his name that was kind of a key word that they would leave me alone. Mark says that after this traumatic experience, he never spoke to his parents about what they were told by the staff

of Innawaki until years later. Believe it or not, my parents were told that I had tried to commit suicide again anally, and I didn't know this until probably five years ago. I knew they were told something, and we just didn't talk about it. It was just one of those things. My mom kind of buried her head in the sand with a lot of stuff. After hearing Mark's heartbreaking story, I found I kept hearing the same name of the counselor who fartook in his abuse, Jim Phillips.

Mr Phillips was a big man. He was a big guy. He was probably I'm gonna say, three hundred pounds. If you didn't know him, you think that he would have a kind heart. He would put himself like he'd be want to help you and and you know the weird way he would. He was a church going guy who has claimed to be It's funny how that works. And he also was involved with the sheriff Department down Carribelle, Florida, which is where I know Carripil Police Department at the time,

and the eighties was dirty as ship too. You can't tell me they didn't know about this. This is David Whacker. He was a patient at Anniwiki South in Caribell. Mr Phillips was there for the intimidation purpose. He was the intimidation guy. He come. I remember one of the boys had done something or I had gotten a fight, and next time I saw him after him visiting Mr Phillips, he had more bruises in the black eyes and shaking than I've ever seen another human being in my life before.

You did not mess with that man. This man was so strong, No lie, I've seen this man left the back of a greyhound bus to change attire. You did not argue with this man. If you argue with him, if you got on his wrong side, he would put you through a concrete wall and a heartbeat and you wouldn't know what hits you. David was a victim of the sexual abuse taking place on the Caravel campus. He claims that there may have been some type of exchange

in return for access to the boys taking place. This is how he recalls the night his abuser took him to what he believed was an auctioning off of the boys. Woke up. I actually felt him get off the bed. I thought he was going out to take a piss, and then when he reached down there, I mean, of course here, I thought, here, well, here we go again. Instead told me and come with him. So I said, okay, on of course, I got up through my shoes on. I followed him out the door. Next thing I know,

I know, we're crossing over the creek. But for some reason it wasn't of the bridge of somewhere else, and we were able to cross over I was aware of at the time. We could end up behind the toolship that we had there. There was like another door in the back, but it wasn't visible to just that you had to either slide or move something out of the way. He opened the door too many come in. I came in. It was behind the tool shed. I remember him sliding the door off to the right like you would a

screen door or a glass door. And then but it wasn't glasses would. And then I followed him in there and opened up to another the size of a master bedroom. Chairs, two seated sofa, stuff like that. And then I was I turned around. I had to face the wall. Everything else I was. I was listening to voices, but I recognized the voices. I knew Mr Brown was in there. I knew Mr Phillipson there, and I aln't knew Mr vanillas and there because he was when they escorted me there.

They're debating back and forth, others, what they who, which which I'm assuming which child they want, who they want, what they want to do. It's like I said at that time, I'm I'm facing a wall. Not actually I'm trying to remember, trying to look and see who's beside me. To my left. In my right, oh your here is bags and pleas And you know how don't the sounds they haunt you too? Not just thinks matches to the sounds. Yeah, so I'm facing the wall. There was carpet on the wall,

and I was picking at ittles. That's what I did. I tried his zone out. You try to block everything. When you're that young and you're facing guys twice your size. You don't argue, you don't ask questions. You just do this. Your co that was probably there maybe fift maybe even thirty minutes. Then Mr Finnell walks me out and then we get back to the cabinet. And then I went back in and I got my bed, face the wall, pull the sheets over me as tight as I fucking could.

I just if you try to forget, but you never do. Due to some luck, while in Cara Belle, I was finally able to connect with someone who worked at the inn Awaki South Campus. My name is Ron Doyle. I worked in the mental health center in Tallahassee, and one of the psychiatrists they're also worked down here and suggested to me that this when I was finishing up my master's degree, that this would be a good place for me to work. And so I came down and interviewed

and was hired as a counselor. This was in night Ron came to visit me at the Mornings Hotel, which he helped build with the patients. It was a mixed bag. I really loved working with the boys. I mean, these were kids who needed a lot of help, and it was an opportunity for me to learn and practice my counseling skills. But there were a lot of things that we're difficult. I worked a hundred and thirty hour work week. Basically I had a day and a half off a week.

The rest of the time I was on duty. I lived with the boys in the cabin us, and it was intensive work. I asked Ron, if you thought it was normal for the boys to be working on buildings such as the hotel we were currently in at the time. I did yes, because the labor that they were doing was teaching them skills. It was providing structures that they were actually using and benefiting from, except for this here at the Mornings, which was a different thing. But at

the time we didn't know that. We thought we were building it for their use and that the motel part would be used for parents to stay when they came to visit campus. It was used to that to some degree, but I think for the most part. It was used for as a for profit motel, I think at this point and his employee and and mine. At that time, the sexual abuse was happening more away from campus in Mexico. This is Melinda Ron's wife. She's originally from Caribell and

ended up working there when she met Ron. She and her friend came along with Ron to talk to me about in Awaki South. She says that Lewis Petter had begun taking boys from in Awaki to Mexico for a yearly trip where there would be an even less watchful eye than there would be stateside. I think that he figured out people were onto him, and so there became a chosen group and I did that in air quotes

to accompanying them to Mexico. It was supposed to be this big privileged trip every year every summer, Dr Petter would lead a group on a trip to Mexico. And summer trips were a big thing in the program. You know that they would be considered as a reward for the kids doing well and earning opportunities and making progress, and so groups would plan like a river trip or something. But this Mexico trip was a big thing and the kids who went on it were hands selected Dr Petter.

I was invited to go. Dr Petter asked me personally to go on the trip, and I didn't really want to go. Had heard enough things about it to make me leary of it, and so I told Dr Petter I don't feel like I can go because I need to be here to help my groups. He wasn't used to people telling him no that worked for him, so that put me on his kind of bad list. I heard things about kids being physically abused. Um. I heard things about kids being taken to brothels to help them

become a man. Andrew was a former patient of an Awaki who was asked to attend the annual Mexico trip. He said Dr Petter reached out to him personally about attending right before he was about to reach his termination. What in a wake He would call when you had completed your time of the facility and we're ready to

leave and return home. They had some kind of policy there which I've have since been told old that this was just a policy that was total ludicrous and not really enforceable, but they would always enforce this on you. They said, well, if you turn eighteen and you want to leave. You got to do five days in that E and O place that we had discussed earlier in this conversation. And I, UM, I said, whatever, I'll do

five days and then I'm leaving. And so I'm doing the five days and I'm in there for like about a day and Petter comes back. Dr Petter, he comes back. He says, you know, well, Andy or Andrew, I didn't want you to leave. You know, I want you to

finish the program and the enjoy your time here. I um, you know, we do these Mexico trips once a year and I was planning on taking in this would have been in April, and so he said, I wanted you to go to Mexico with us this on this next Mexico trip in nineteen eighty three, which would have been the summer of eighty three. And I am, I'm like, well, and I'd heard rumors about what goes on on these Mexico trips and I've thought about it for a few minutes there with him sitting there with me, and he

had his chauffeurther with him. UM downam Carl Moore and um we uh talked for a little bit longer, and then I said, all right, Will Um, We'll go to Mexico with you and that Will, That'll be okay, I'll go And Peter said good and so he said, um, walk on out of the CNA. Here's Carl Moore and what he remembers about the Mexico trips. Every group had a chance to take a trip every year. It would actually raise money to take their trips and it would have to be planned and uh we did canoe trips,

ski trips. The big trip to get to go on was the Mexico trip, and we would take three groups down to Mexico for almost three months. It seems like we're probably uh somewhere between ten and twelve weeks something like that, but we would we would cover the uh entire country of Mexico most of the time. It was a big deal for the kids to get selected to do that. It was a pretty amazing trip traveling like that.

It is just an amazing way to you know. We would we took the vans and trailers and we would camp out of the trailers. I mean we would tend camp, but we kept our food and clothes and stuff and the trailers. We leave Atlanta get to h stop at Bourbon Street to go through Bourbon Street, Um, get back on the road camp probably somewhere in Louisiana or Texas, and then cross the border in uh Brownsville, Texas going into Mexico. It was just just amazing way too to

see that part of the United States. But then we crossed into Mexico. It was like a magical thing. We would drive down through the mountains. We was always stopped at a place we called El Salto Falls, which was I think it was kind of like a honeymoon resort for people in Mexico. But it was you know, thatched huts and this just amazing waterfall with the river and uh, this blue water that was just it was like something

out of it was magical. And we would drive through the Thomas and Charlie Mountains, which were like nothing that any of us had ever seen, and people farmed the sides of these mountains and it was just spectacular greenery and and terrifying roads through the mountains. And our destination was typically we would go down to central Mexico put

Yucca in the state of Hidago. It was kind of a small miracle that we were able to do that without major And if you told me right now to to put together a group of thirty six kids and six or eight staff members and take them down to Mexico for eight to twelve weeks, I'd say, you gotta be kidding. But we did stuff like that, and it's the kind of a I mean, there were there were wonderful things about it, and there are questionable and terrible

things about it. Former patient Andrew says the pettish connections had even reached the town of Pachuco, Mexico. The main place where Petter like to go in Mexico is a town called Pachuca, which was near now about about an hour away from Mexico City. And um, I was amazed that with the kind of connections and stuff that he

had in this little town called Pachuca. But there would be parties and you know, I could you know that would be held at private residences for example, inside this you know, town of Pachuca, and there were I could tell that these people were you know, upper middle class I guess so to speak. And you know a lot of gifts would be exchanged between Petter and these um in these Mexicans upper class families. I mean these Mexican upper class families had money. I mean I could tell

that nice houses and stuff like that. At one point in time, I know, Pedal was given like some kind of antique pistol and as a sign of friendship, and patters given him like brand new TVs that we you know, because we would pull these trailers to Mexico and we would have these TVs buried in the bottom and these trailers and stuff, you know, I mean, it was pretty crazy stuff. Another side note about Mexico. This is also

where the story of George the Donkey began. I remember what year it was, but yeah, we were driving through I think we were on a dirt road somewhere in the mountains of Mexico and this guy had had George with him and he was he was tying, I mean, he was, you know, probably just ween and we stopped and decided it would be a good idea to have him. So we bought him from the guy for fiacos, which was back then probably less than five dollars, and he

traveled around Mexico with us. There was all kinds of wildlife in Mexico and stuff for sale. People driving back to the border would go through all kinds of animals for sale, and some of the kids would have bought like iguanas and things like that for pets. So we got the bright idea that we could bring George back into the US with us. So we made a space in the trailer and put him in one of the trailers. We crossed the border at about four o'clock in the morning,

and Uh, I don't know Georgy. He could pray he could make some noise if he had started doing that, and it was. It was the funniest thing. It was four o'clock in the morning. We were all wide awake, trying to look like we weren't wide awake, just praying that George didn't decide to let loose, and he didn't, and that's how we brought him into the country. Injury says that the contraband brought back into the United States from these Mexico trips was not just limited to goods

and even animals. There was like a couple on one of those Mexico trips. I think it was brought back like two kids from Mexico and um I thought they were going into the Aniwaki program. I don't know whatever happened. To those kids that they vanished, that they were abused and vanished or what. I had no likeas I never ever saw them again. But there was two Mexican kids, teenage kids. They were put into the group that Doc had personally and they were brought back to America UM

and taken to Douglas Hills, Georgia. I never ever saw those kids AGAINA here's Carl Moore. We brought people back from Mexico, which was a pretty big deal. I think some of them worked at Aniwaki and and we had relationships with people down there and that uh, you know, people expected to see us every year, and you know, we would always take stuff down there for them. You know, there's a lot of gift exchanging, and that was another one of the things that that that he was good at.

He did this with everybody that was important. And we would always buy jewelry down there, and you know that would end up in the hands of various people as gifts. Carl says that the possibility of an Awaki moving into Mexico with another campus was something that was not out of the question at the time. I think we could

have had a Mexico campus. We ended up buying a house down there, So I think the more was going to happen there or there was an opportunity and I and I didn't distinguish that from from any other thing that you would do with the Antiwaki funds. You know, it was all the same thing to me. One aspect of the Mexico a trip that was well known among the patients at in Awaki was an annual trip to

a brothel. As Melinda Doyle had mentioned. In Pachuca, they had a a strip on a hillside that was their red light district, I guess you'd call it, and on several of the trips anyway, I mean, it was a regular thing. One of the big not so secret secrets was that, you know, that was part of the Mexico trip.

But we would, you know, get everybody together and say, you know, it's kind of like a Tonight's tonight kind of thing, and Petter would give us speech, you know, trying to coach everybody how to get through this in a way. But ultimately it might have been it might have been something that could have been a positive thing for some people. For some people, it's terrifying, and the reality of it was it's a really, really really pour

away to introduce somebody to that experience. Former patient Chris McKnight remembers one such outing during his trip to Mexico. Would they in awake most years? They took us to a house of ill repew house of prostitution, whatever you wanna call it. This story is still kind of a tough one to tell. So I lost my virginity in the Patuca, Mexican horhouse. I was so scared. This is summer eighty three. It's it's an alley in these girls as side. I don't know what to do. I'm a virgin.

I'm scared shitless. I'm you know, and always probably Hey, come on, Chris, you gotta go incredible amounts of here pressure kron. You gotta grow on there and have sex with a woman. And and it's just guyss. Just such a surreal and i frightening situation. I really was scared, not because sex to me was a lot of baggage. Chris was another victim of sexual abuse at an awaking

by the hands of a counselor. Chris says that during this trip to a brothel, his abuser had just been with the same woman he was being pressured to have sex with, so I I had my first sexual experience with a woman. It's like my mind was so fucked up about sex at that moment in my life that the only safe woman I could have sex with wizard of the woman who had just had sex with the guy who had molested me years before. There's a lot of baggage right there, a lot of pain too, girls

like grab my hand. He's trying to push for someone else, just like trying to push me through the door. And I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry, I wanted to run away. I was afraid. I was scared, I was shaking. I mean, it was consensual, it was legal in Mexico, no laws were broken. But there was a lot of heavy ship going on right there. And I remember getting out and running down and throwing up, and I didn't eat for a couple of days. Still have

issues that situation. It's hard to make hedge details of it. It's a really messed up situation. A teenager shouldn't have been put in. Here's former councilor Ron Doyle again. He says, after seeing the effect the Mexico trip had on one of his patients under his supervision, he saw a red flag. I think probably the real catalyst that read my my resignation was I had a boy who was brought into one of my groups after returning from a trip to Mexico.

He had been considered a troublemaker in his previous group, but after this trip to Mexico, he just went off the deep end, and so they put him in my group,

thinking that that might might help end. I had been effective and helping kids get past problems like that, So I worked with this kid and and he began to open up to me and to tell me about some of the things that had happened to him on that Mexico trip, which were just inexcusable physical abuse that the other kids were used to help abuse him because he

wasn't cooperating. This was the Apache roundup. Basically, they put him in a circle of other kids and would ask him questions and if he didn't answer properly, they were on him, basically beat him to a pull. Carl says that these so called Apache roundups a racially insensitive term, to say the least, we're supposed to be another part of pettish therapy. One that he was told to lead. They were probably a handful of times where I was

actually physically involved with anybody. You know. One of the things that that Petter would talk out where the Apache round up, and we went through a couple of those, and that's where the group confronts an individual and the idea is to be physical about Ron says that after hearing about the Mexico trip, he decided to try to do something to help the situation and make known the atrocities he had heard about. Well, of course the stories about the trips to the prostitutes and that kind of stuff.

So at that point I realized that there was a really ugly underbelly to the program. I thought it was a wonderful program that did a lot of good things for kids, but then I saw it ruining kids like this one. And so, knowing that Dr Putter was the one who was arranging all that stuff, I had no trust in him whatsoever. I wasn't sure what to do, so I wrote a letter to the Board of directors, thinking, you know, these are community people who don't really know

what's going on here, and they need to know. So I wrote a letter to the board of director's outlining some of my concerns, and I was very careful not to say things that I couldn't back up, but but just bringing attention to some things that I was concerned about. I assumed that that letter had gone to the board, and shortly thereafter Dr Petter came down to Carriville and convened a meeting at the top leadership. Here, he said he had been appointed by the board to investigate my

my concerns and my claims. I don't remember the details, but I do remember that the other administrators all basically said now they hadn't heard nothing of any of this kind, and everything was wonderful as far as they knew, and that I had probably fallen for some stories that the boys were making up. So Dr Petter decided that my problem was that I was just naive and needed some

more training, and that I had shown good promise. But but he wanted me to work as his assistant and moved to Douglasville to work under him so that he trained me properly. I told him I wasn't interested in moving to Douglasville. He told me I didn't have a choice, and I told him I always have a choice, and my choice was to leave rather than to accept when he was offering. So that's when I left. That was

after four years here. After hearing about Ron's experience at an Awaki as a counselor in Carabelle, we went to visit some of the old sites to remember what they were and what they had now become. So we are, we're at the arena right now. Well, it looked a lot different when we first started. I mean, there was really nothing much here except for the docks, and in fact, at the time there were wood docks, not in this concrete nice stuff. You see now that's the hotel. The

boys built this building. The boys built building we're standing under. The boys built. We were under the impression at the time that we were building a facility that was going to be used for the program. As far as I know, it never was. Once it was finished, we didn't come back here anymore. We next went to see what had become of the inn Awaki South Campus formally referred to as Landside. Yeah, at the St. James bake Off Course formerly an Awaki. Walking around looking at some of the

old buildings and what they are now. But it looks like they took the whole building down and just built it on the same foundation. Okay, this was the yeah, the lodge. This was the administration area. Oh, this is the courtyards is that? Yeah? This is what we called the quad because of the four buildings I can see. I can't walk right past this. This looks just like the pictures of the quad with the courtyard and in the middle of the four buildings every year. See that

tree right there, the big one. Yeah, my group planted it when it was a sapling. That sas what kind of tree is? Well? This was administration here, these buildings where the social workers were housed. Mm hmm. And was this all grass? Was this center here too? This was here they laid these bricks, the boys laid these bricks. That was a fountain. Wow. Yeah, this looks just like it. I can't believe I walked past it. Didn't see this.

Over there what was formerly the Quad was still in practically the same setup at St. James, four small buildings built on what was once the four posts of the radar tower from Camp Gordon Johnston. I couldn't believe that. I had been walking around trying to find some remnants of the old an Awaki and it was right under my nose the whole time. The same buildings built by former patients of an Awaki are still in use by this now golf course and resort. One aspect of the

Caravel campus. I still had not been able to track down was the original motel, referred to as Bayside. Ron said he could take me down there to show me what was left of it today. We drove down to a small beach off the side of the highway, a light rain coming down and me frantically trying to protect my microphone and recorder. This is where by side was.

There were two strips here along here, about four units on east side, four rooms on east side, with our courtyard in the middle, like I said, had been a little kind of hotel, and and then the um. There was one group on one side and one group on the other side. They camped in the woods out that way just I guess, just to the right of that house, there was a trail that went back through the woods. You can tell how far it was to the campus

from here. So it was a he's a good twenty minute walk to get from here over to main campus. So these kids will wake up here, you know, six o'clock in the morning, get up and get ready walk that trail to get the breakfast. Two houses built again with the with the kid's labor. The first house here was Dr. Petter's house where he would stay when he was down here. And then the other house was the Carrabelle Campus director's house. Now they've been sold and there's

just yeah, family's living on. We're walking off the side of US Highway. Why you here cars going by and this just looks like this deserted beach here. Really, all that was left of the once motel was some broken up slabs of concrete scattered across the sandy beach. A hurricane had left it in ruins. A few years back. Across the street were two Mexican style built houses painted that all familiar and awaky beige as it was known. Now you can see the hurricane kind of messed up

to sea wall there. Ah, like that's what's the left of it. You can see far. The more you had the picture of the boys putting down sandbags along there, I went to see if Ron's wife and her friend hit any memories of this place. You know what happened here? Nothing relevant? An awaky bayside was now just concrete chunks

of the once motel and broken oyster shells. Much like the rest of my trip to Caravell, all I could find was pieces of what was the inn Awake South Campus, fragments of stories from those who experienced it or who knew family or others involved. The site of the original motel, which I had been looking for all week. I must have driven past a dozen times, a piece of Carabell's history sitting right in plain sight, yet still so hard

to find. An Awake would continue to expand past Florida, more Land was being acquired in Mexico and even Canada. The next step in Petter's master plan to build an all girls campus right in the state of Georgia. Next time on Camp Hill an Awake. The girls campus was set back along a very widdening gravel road. We would work from eight thirty or nine until eleven thirty. Girls were getting heat, exhaustion and heat stroke. We built an empire for a pedophile. That's a very difficult thing to

think about. She shared with us that she had a marriage ceremony out on the beach and that they were a couple. I don't know it changed her, but it didn't seem like in a good way. Campell Anawaki was created and hosted by Josh Thane, with producer Miranda Hawkins and executive producers Alex Williams and Matt Frederick. The soundtrack was written and performed by Josh Thane and Adrian Barry. Archival footage provide did by ws B and CBS News.

Find us on Instagram at camp hell pod. That's c A M p h E L L p O D. Educate yourself about the issue of child abuse and things that you should look for at the Darkness to Light website D two ll dot org. That's d the number two l dot org. Camp hell Anawaki is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.