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Troubled teen school survivors say students ‘driven to suicide attempts’ by sick abuse & were forced into slave labor
Allegations of abuse and torture at The Bethel Boys Academy dated back to 1980
SURVIVORS of a military-style trouble teen academy subject to decades of abuse allegations say conditions inside the school were so horrific kids were allegedly driven to suicide and treated like slaves.
The Bethel Boys Academy was founded in 1978 by Reverend Herman Fountain in Lucedale, Mississippi, and operated for 30 years before it was ordered to shut down following years of scandal.
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In various lawsuits spanning three decades, Bethel Academy staff were accused of administering extreme physical punishments, including whipping, waterboarding, imprisonment, drownings, dog attacks, and brutal beatings – all while allegedly denying students access to necessary medical care.
For years, the school – which charged $2,800 per month for tuition – was also accused of forcing children into slave labor on the school's grounds and in the surrounding community.
In a class action lawsuit filed in 2003, former student Morgan Stuble claimed he didn't attend classes at the academy and instead was forced to work cleaning the school grounds, maintaining lawns, and doing construction work in private homes and a nearby farm.
Former Bethel cadets Allen Knoll and Dave Bowsher both told The U.S. Sun they, too, were subject to forced labor in the late-to-mid 1990s.
"I paved streets, I sanded a rusty dump truck for them, all while my parents were paying them thousands of dollars a month," said Bowsher, who claimed the labor was unpaid.
"They would put us on roofs and contract us out to farmers, picking pecans, building houses, paving roads and driveways, and charge those people while turning a profit."
In lawsuits, other students complained of being forced to work as overnight security for the school, catching any would-be runaways, among assuming other job roles without pay.
Life inside Bethel was brutal and at times terrifying, Bowsher and Knoll both said.
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Daniel Edwards, who enrolled in Bethel in 1997 as a 14-year-old, agreed.
When cadets weren't forced to carry out exhausting physical exercises, or instructed to work without pay, they were allegedly being terrorized by staff and encouraged to physically assault one another.
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For some, the burden was too much to carry.
Recounting what he called the worst thing he witnessed during his two years at Bethel, Edwards claimed one of his friends tried to kill himself by "swan-diving" off a second-floor stairwell.
"He went headfirst," alleged Edwards.
"He shattered his shoulder, his arm, and his collarbone, but luckily he survived.
I just remember crying, and crying, and crying every night that I wanted to get out, but I had to get up every day and deal with it.
Allen Knoll
"There were two kids who drank rubbing alcohol and one of them didn't make it," he further claimed.
"There was also a kid in there who was gay and was beaten within an inch of his life after he was found to have been doing something inappropriate in the eyes of instructors.
"There are so many things that stick out to me that were so horrible.
"We were just powerless to do anything about it."
DARK HISTORY
The controversy enveloping Bethel Boys Academy first began just two years after opening its front doors.
Thirty-eight children were removed from the facility in 1980 after a 15-year-old cadet fled Bethel's campus and filed assault charges against Fountain and a handful of other staff members.
The boy, who was found to be suffering from scabies, claimed he was mentally abused and viciously beaten.
The state investigated and the school was permitted to stay open but trouble struck again in 1988.
This time, the state removed 72 children from the facility following yet more claims of mental and physical abuse.
Complaints ranged from severe beatings to forced manual labor, with some children complaining of excessive corporal punishment and no access to medical care to treat their injuries.
In hearings before a judge, some children said they were slapped, beaten, awakened at 4 am to run laps around an outdoor track, strip-searched, and forced to stay in a small windowless room – sometimes for days or weeks on end – listening constantly to taped sermons.
Others talked of long hours on work crews and said their mail and telephone calls, even to parents, were censored by staff.
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Herman Fountain was arrested for assaulting a police officer during a welfare visit to Bethel.
He served a year in jail for the assault but faced no charges from the child abuse allegations, according to court records.
Bethel was ordered to cease operations by a judge in 1990. However, Herman exploited a legal loophole and reopened Bethel under a slightly different name four years later.
And little had changed in the school's brutal and allegedly abusive curriculum, according to Bowsher, Knoll, and Edwards.
Knoll was just 10 years old when he arrived at Bethel in 1996.
He was sent to the Marine-run, independent Christian boarding school by his parents after he was sexually abused by a family friend.
Being one of the youngest on campus, Knoll told The U.S. Sun he awoke every day with a genuine fear he could be killed.
Enrolees at Bethel ranged from arsonists, gang members, and violent offenders, to runaways, kids who stayed out too late, and those deemed to be underachieving in mainstream school.
His overwhelming sense of impending peril began as soon as he arrived at the school and witnessed firsthand the "absolute insanity" unfolding behind closed doors, he said.
"I just remember crying, and crying, and crying every night that I wanted to get out, but I had to get up every day and deal with it," said Knoll.
FEARS OF DEATH
He recalled an incident in his dorm when an instructor accused someone in his troop of drinking rubbing alcohol.
The instructor punished Knoll and his bunkmates with extreme physical exercises, to snuff out the culprit.
When one of the boys suddenly fell ill, an instructor reportedly presumed the sick child was the culprit.
Knoll says the child passed out and started to seize on the floor.
Because he was no longer complying with the drill sergeant's instructions, staff members allegedly began beating and kicking the boy.
"They would never call an ambulance [usually] but this kid they couldn't revive, so they took him to the doctors and he never came back," said Knoll.
"[I was later told] the kid had developed diabetes and he was in diabetic shock when he collapsed, he wasn't drinking alcohol.
"That was the moment that I told myself I could die there; I could be sick and they could just beat me for it."
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Within days, Knoll alleges he was struck in the face by a drill sergeant for telling him to "shut up" after the staff member had been teasing him he was never getting out and that his parents didn't love him.
Knoll bolted to a nearby office and called 911, but when police arrived he was scolded by an officer for "acting up" and no further action was ever taken.
Edwards received a similar rude awakening when he arrived at Bethel the following summer.
Two days into his stay, Edwards was allegedly forced to participate in a boxing match with a much older child after he attempted to run away.
His opponent, who was much larger, knocked him out cold within seconds, he claims.
From that point on, Edwards tried to keep a low profile and stay out of trouble.
However, the school operated on a system of punishing all for the infraction of one, making Edwards' attempts at anonymity all the more challenging.
CYCLE OF PUNISHMENT
According to the three Bethel alumni interviewed for this story, one of the most common punishments administered by instructors was "switching," where students were whipped with canes.
Staff would often allegedly strike, hit, body-slam, and restrain students, while encouraging other trusted cadets to do the same on detractors and newcomers to keep them in line.
Other punishments were even more sinister.
Edwards claimed there was one form of punishment, known as "riding the lightning," where students were forced to hold onto an electric fence while staff soaked them with a hose.
Other times, students were waterboarded and forced to tread water in a pool for hours on end.
"If we tried to reach the side of the pool or pull ourselves out, they'd hit us with a switch," claimed Edwards.
Edwards alleged that he witnessed "a bunch" of children drown during the punishments.
He claims staff later had to resuscitate them.
Knoll recalled he was also once waterboarded by staff and left gasping for air after nearly passing out.
Another common punishment, according to Edwards and Knoll, was forcing children into an underground fight club of sorts, which locals from the town would allegedly come in and place bets on.
There are so many things that stick out to me that were so horrible. We were just powerless to do anything about it.
Daniel Edwards
Edwards says he still has so scars all over his body from the alleged beatings, whippings, and abuse he suffered at Bethel.
Oftentimes he'd go to sleep with the blood on his back causing his shirt to cling to his skin, he claimed.
The very worst of the punishments, Edwards said, was administered by one drill sergeant who allegedly used pit bulls to scare and attack children.
Knoll and another student, Dave Bowsher, independently corroborated the claim, as have numerous allegations made in subsequent lawsuits.
Edwards said one of his close friends was once so savagely mauled by one of the dogs that his testicle sack was torn open.
The boy wasn't taken to the hospital and instead, one of the staff members stitched him up, he claimed.
CHILD ABUSER JAILED
Knoll and Bowsher named the drill sergeant in question as William Knott.
Knott worked at the academy from the late '90s until the mid-2000s, later opening up his reform school for troubled teens in the neighboring state of Alabama.
In one class-action lawsuit filed by ex-Bethel cadets, Knott was accused of having "planned, orchestrated, and directed" abuse at that camp including allegations of torture involving the forced holding of electric fences and water submersion.
He also lost a default judgment in another case in which a former Bethel cadet alleged Knott had sicced a pit bull on him.
Later, in 2017, Knott and two other founders of the Saving Youth Foundation in Mobile were sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted on multiple counts of aggravated child abuse.
Knoll described Knott as "insane," claiming the now-convicted child abuser saw terrorizing kids as a game, one he allegedly derived a great deal of pleasure from.
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Dave Bowsher, who was at the school at the same time as Knoll and Edwards, supported Knoll's assessment and recounted how Knott would allegedly regularly terrorize children to provoke a reaction that he could meet with violence.
Such provocatory acts could include smashing picture frames of their loved ones or throwing away their belongings.
When the affected child would get upset, Knoll and Bowsher claim Knott would lift them up, throw them to the ground, and wail on them.
Other times, he'd allegedly order other students to jump children who had caught his ire, incentivizing them with additional privileges, such as calls home and more food, for carrying out the beatings.
Bowsher was one of the ";senior cadets" often tasked with punishing, physically disciplining, and physically abusing other kids.
For eight months he tried to resist Bethel's strict and violent ways of life but eventually caved and cozied up to the instructors to improve his day-to-day existence.
"I'm not proud of it, but lots of the abuse was done by other kids in there, kids who were manipulated to do it, and lots of times they made me beat kids up and all these other things," shared Bowsher.
"I got there and I tried to fight it. I'd been in fights before and I had a real f-you attitude, but they'd break a person down very quickly in there physically, emotionally, and make them feel like they're nothing so they lose all hope.
"It's like breaking in an animal [...] and eventually I broke, I said, 'I'm not going to do it anymore', and they eventually sent me home because they had no use for me."
MOUNTING LEGAL WOES
Knott continued working at Bethel long after Bowsher, Knoll, and Edwards had left.
The drill sergeant departed sometime in the early-to-mid 2000s, around the time the school found itself back in the headlines for disturbing claims of abuse.
In 2003, the Mississippi Department of Human Services ordered the removal of 13 youths from the school, saying the children in question had been abused or neglected.
Shortly after, the state Attorney General's Office filed a motion to close Bethel.
The AG's office alleged that boys were struck, forced to fight, denied proper medical treatment, shocked with electrical instruments, and forced to exercise in the sun without water.
No criminal charges were filed, and eventually, the state agreed to allow Bethel to stay open, providing it adhered to several court-mandated changes.
As part of the consent decree, Herman Fountain was prohibited from actively managing the academy.
Other mandated changes included firing certain staff members and easing its strict disciplinary measures. It's unclear if Knott was among those ordered to be fired.
The following year, a group of parents in federal court, sharing horrifying allegations of abuse.
The litany of allegations included beatings, locking kids nearly naked in isolation rooms, depriving them of food, sleep, water, and bathroom privileges, and training dogs to bite them in the crotch.
The ex-students also claimed to have been subjected to slave labor and forced to beat other students at the direction of their instructors.
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One student claimed he was forced to put his hand into a bag that contained a poisonous snake.
When he refused, the boy was allegedly "taken out back and sand was dumped in his face, in his shirt, and down his pants. He was made to crawl through rocks on his hands and knees," per the suit.
The same student claimed to have witnessed another incident where a fellow cadet had his mouth filled with toothpaste while an instructor poured water into his nostrils.
Another cadet claimed an instructor drowned him and then beat him after being resuscitated because he passed out and therefore failed to follow instructions.
I don't have a time machine, so I can't change what we went through, I have to deal with it.
Allen Knoll
He was then allegedly taken to an electric fence and forced to hold on with his bare hands for approximately 20 seconds, the suit reads.
At the time the suit was filed, Herman Fountain's son, John Fountain, was the director of the academy.
He laughed at the allegations when approached for comment by the , telling the outlet, "These are low-income families who want something for nothing."
He also told the allegations laid out in the suit were "hogwash."
"Some of them are so far-fetched, it's almost funny," he said.
LINGERING NIGHTMARES
The class-action lawsuit, which was settled out of court, was followed by another suit from an ex-cadet named Joseph Gabriel Paolillo, who had been at the camp during the late 1990s.
In the suit, the boy's father said his son was chased and bitten by a dog and beaten.
“He had nightmares, he would push the blanket away like he was trying to get away from a wild animal," reads the suit.
It was further claimed that Paolillo broke his arm after a fall but wasn't taken to the hospital for two weeks.
A federal judge in Mississippi’s Southern District ordered Bethel and Knott to pay Paolillo $900,000 and his father $59,709.
Bethel rebranded as the Eagle Point Christian Academy in 2005, with John Fountain sharing that the decision was made to usher in a new era at the school and improve relations with community and state officials.
Within two months, Fountain's facility would be in the headlines again after a riot broke out inside the school in protest against Bethel's harsh conditions and teachers restraining students with excessive force.
The U.S. Sun also spoke with two other former students of Bethel, Steven Caccamo and Colin Buckley, who were both at the school in the mid-2000s.
The pair said while the more extreme punishments had been abandoned as state officials kept a closer eye by that time, extreme physical punishment to the point of exhaustion remained a key philosophy of the facility's curriculum.
Buckley claimed students were still regularly dragged into side rooms or bathrooms by instructors and beaten to a pulp where cameras weren't watching on.
Bethel Academy Changes Name: 2005
The following story was published in 2005 via AP, documenting Bethel Academy's decision to change its name amid a torrent of controversy:
The Bethel Boys Academy in Lucedale has changed its name; in part, says its organizer, to dissociate itself with past allegations of mistreatment of youths left in its care.
The Bethel home is now called Eagle Point Christian Academy, a reform school for troubled youths.
The school offered the same services as the Bethel, a facility that has been sued by families alleging child abuse. Complaints surfaced that students had been beaten, denied proper medical treatment and shocked with a cattle prod, and authorities had been investigating the boot-camp program, according to the lawsuits.
Academy director John Fountain said the recent name change also represents a new chapter in the school's effort to help struggling teenagers. It is part of a move to improve relations with the community and state officials.
"I'm just trying to put a new face on our school," he said.
Fountain said he does not tolerate abuse at the school, and is instituting changes to steer away from a rigid "boot-camp" approach. He wants to offer opportunities for vocational and technical training, and enter in sports competitions with other schools.
"We're just trying to do something positive. Along the way we might fail, we might not do everything exactly by the book, but we'll sure try," he said.
The name change is not unprecedented with the academy, which was founded by Fountain's father, Herman.
It was called the Bethel Home for Children in 1988 when it was raided by state welfare officials who removed 72 abused and neglected children. A judge shut it down in 1990 and Herman Fountain reopened it as the Bethel Boys Academy four years later.
"Life's a learning experience, I've learned a lot from the mistakes my father has made and still learning everyday and wanting to make a change," said John Fountain, who said he was not aware of the first name change.
Fountain called the abuse allegations "hog wash."
"Some of them are so far fetched, it's almost funny," he said.
George County authorities cleared the academy of abuse allegations last year, but parents continued to complain of visible signs of injury to their children.
Fort Smith, Ark. attorney Oscar Stilley, who is representing parents of former cadets suing the academy in federal court, said the case is heading to trial and at least two similar lawsuits are to come.
Fountain's attorney Trey Bobinger said even though the abuse allegations, which are two years old, are still the subject of a lawsuit, there are no pending legal issues with the state.
The school admits about 100 students, ages 11 to 17, whose stays range from eight to 12 months, Fountain said.
Buckley and Caccamo both suffer from complex PTSD today, following the time they spent at Bethel and another infamous troubled teen facility, New York's defunct Academy at Ivy Ridge.
Knoll and Bowsher have both spent years working through their trauma.
That journey began when the two men connected after 20 years in 2016 and began discussing their memories from Bethel.
Neither had really confided in anyone else about what they witnessed and endured through fear of not being believed.
Bowsher's reluctance to talk was further compounded by the shame he felt for being complicit in some of the abuse.
The two men later launched a Facebook page for survivors of Bethel and other troubled teen schools to share their stories.
They also founded a non-profit called the to provide counseling and financial assistance to former members of abusive troubled youth programs.
CLEARING THE AIR
In 2018, the pair began crowdfunding for a documentary about Bethel, which was eventually picked up by HBO.
The three-part documentary, Teen Torture Inc., aired on the streaming platform earlier this month, chronicling dozens of accounts of abuse at Bethel Boys Academy and other troubled teen facilities like it nationwide.
It follows on from Paris Hilton's 2020 documentary, This is Paris, in which she detailed allegations of abuse during her time at Provo Canyon, a Utah-based troubled teen boarding school.
In March of this year, Netflix also released its immensely popular docuseries, The Program: Cons, Cults and Kidnapping, chronicling allegations of abuse at New York's since-shuttered troubled teen school, Academy at Ivy Ridge.
Knoll and Bowsher said they hope their series helps to bring sweeping reform to the troubled teen industry to help protect future generations of children from being exposed to the same horrors they witnessed and endured.
"I don't have a time machine, so I can't change what we went through, I have to deal with it," said Knoll.
"But what we can do is make a difference with political change."
The two men say they also hope the docuseries brings peace and relief to others like them who suffered for years in silence.
Bowsher shared, "The biggest validating thing we've had in this whole process is to see these people that haven't been believed for so long and have had so much trauma in their lives finally get love and validation from the people they love and from those that once didn't believe them.
"It's great to have the truth come out and come together as a large voice to be heard and to be validated as a whole, that what we went through was real and we're not liars.
"Because often that's the narrative that gets spun, that when these kids get out and try to share what happened to them, they are called liars because they're 'bad kids' and 'troublemakers'.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
"Well, they're being heard now."
Teen Torture Inc. is now streaming on MAX.
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