This story was originally written on a webpage created to provide statements for a GAO hearing in 2007. The address is cafety.youthrights.org and it waits for your statement if you believe that your stay at a boarding school included unfair treatment or even abuse. All rights and credits goes to the author James Clark Word, who posted the original story on cafety.youthrights.org
My freshman year of high school I skipped class, smoked a lot of pot, drank, and snuck out of the house in the middle of the night. I actually managed to skip almost an entire semester of school, turned myself in and still passed. Don't ask, it's a story for another day. During the summer I guess my mom started worrying about what to do with me before the school year began. Well she found it in New Bethany Boys Home in Longstreet, LA.
My mom thought she was doing what was best and was led to believe that by the people she entrusted me with, namely the Rapiers & Ms. Savoy.
Thus "Nightmare on Longstreet" begins!
I got there on a Saturday. I really don't remember what really happened that day or night but the next day was an eye opener. We started out with waking up and breakfast. Then we got ready for church. We loaded up on the bus and went to the girl's home for some hell fire & brimstone preaching by Mac Ford. On the way there a 10 yr. old boy, dusty blonde hair, had to use the restroom. L.D. wasn't having any of that and we weren't stopping the bus. The boy goes in his pants when he can't hold it any longer. For that he got a full fist in the mouth and a tooth knocked out of his head. All this happened 5 ft away from me. Being the new inductee to the hall of horrors I was placed near the front of the bus right behind the Rapiers and Ms. Savoy so they could keep an eye on me and let me know who was in charge. Welcome to New Bethany!
The 1st corporal punishment I received was for fighting with Jeff. Jeff was a boy the Rapiers were trying to adopt. When the Rapier boys Mike and Terry were around Jeff wasn't allowed to mete out punishment. But let that little weasel catch ya by yourself and the power trip was on. Well one day I was out either fixing the puppy pen (more on that later) or working on the rabbit cages. Both were right below a window to a small office in the gym building. Anyway Dee Rapier was on the other side of that window and heard Jeff and I fighting. Next thing I know I'm being dragged by my hair into the gym and that room and sat in a chair along with a slap to the face when I denied saying anything smart to Jeff to start the fight. Jeff really did start the fight and played Dee like a fiddle. Well once Dee calmed down she talked to me like one of the most loving mothers in the world would talk to her own child.
Does this sound like bipolar to anyone? Not that it would excuse it, just trying to make sense of it all.
Now to the puppy pen. When I got to NB there was a puppy pen and of course puppies. One puppy was a gray little female "Benji" type of dog named "Fluffy" she would fly on the plane with me to a new home in Birmingham with my family 7 months later. She lived a long good life and was 14 when she left us.
Well I got put in charge of the puppies. I was to feed them, let them out of their pen to play, and of course maintain the pen. Fluffy was an escape artist, kind of ironic, but anyway it didn't matter what I did to that pen she always found a way out. Every time she did and was caught I got paddled severely for it.
I managed to stay out of trouble most of the time. I worked a lot. Not because I had too but because I figured out that if I volunteered for as many projects possible it got me away from the buildings and the hell inside of them. I helped with raising calves. 2am in the morning if a calf was sick I was in the barn, 6am feeding the horses. I also helped Ms. Savoy and Dee Rapier in the kitchen and was trusted with the keys to where all the food was locked up. I built a split wood fence the old fashioned way with an axe, wedges, and sledge hammer. We walked into the woods and L.D. showed us what trees to chop down and how to do it. I've built barbed wire fences for the horses as well as their pens. I'm not complaining about the work. I learned a lot. It kept me busy and my mind on things like escape and going home.
Even though I did do a lot of work the paddle still found my rear a few times. There was two prices for working.
- Mess up, waste some materials, whatever, a paddling was coming. I hate the word paddling because paddling makes you think of something like the principles office at school. It was a mild beating at best. I also want to state that it was L.D., Terry, or Mike who did the paddling out on the farm. Dee and Ms. Savoy were in the building working, teaching school, torturing someone, etc... I don't think Terry liked paddling, L.D. told him to paddle me harder one time. He was being a wimp about it, but Mike was into it.
Another time I was feeding the calves one morning and a horse leaned over the fence and grabbed an empty bottle. He pulled the giant rubber nipple of the plastic milk bottle. He swallowed it whole when I tried to get it from him. I slept on my stomach that night after L.D. served up punishment. We found the nipple several days later, whole, in a pile of horse shit. I had to get it out, carry it to kitchen porch, and sterilize it in a pan of boiling water.
- The second price I paid for working so much was when I tried enrolling back in a normal school. I was missing credits or whatever stuff was called back in high school. The first few months I was in school but as I took on more responsibilities I was excused from school like it was a privilege to go work and miss an education. Well in a way it was a privilege, it got me away from Dee Rapier. School was fine as long as you said the right things, gave the right answers. If you didn't you would pay, fall behind on homework, you would pay. I saw my share of faces slapped, hair pulling, and heard my share of yelling in that classroom and I probably only spent 3 months of my 7 in that room.
Back to work and responsibilities. I was finally given the job I never asked for and that was to watch over a boy named Ben. He was 11, reddish brown hair, freckles, and completely ruined before he got to NB. I don't think it mattered where you put him he never had a chance. I don't remember his story other than I believe he was a ward of the state and was dropped off. He was practically unmanageable. No matter what I did or said he wouldn't listen. I tried to tell him, teach him, show him how to stay under the radar and survive. He clawed me, bit me, all kinds of crazy stuff. He was paddled, slapped, and slung around by his hair practically on a daily basis by Dee Rapier. She would yell at me to do it, I'd hesitate, and wham she’s strike like a snake.
L.D. gave 3 of us charge over Ben and paddles to use and we were not given a choice. If Ben ever sees this I hope he can forgive me. I took some beatings myself because of him and my lack of ability to make him conform. It was a bad situation all the way around. I also caught my last tennis ball with pride because of Ben. Ben escaped, got sent back to a state facility. I don't remember it all clearly, things got really hectic, and a lot of stuff happened in the weeks leading up to the closing. There was a rash of escapes and attempts to escape in the last months.
It wasn't long after that the law started putting on the heat. We were in the auditorium and L.D. started a sermon about beating people and how it was wrong. He told us how Ben's butt had been beat to a bloody pulp and the police had seen it. He singled me out, said it was my fault, and started humming them damn tennis balls at me. He should have been a major league pitcher. I had whelps on face, my chest, arms. Them damn things stung like hell. I just stood there and took it. He lost control, some of the balls actually started to miss. The great L.D. Rapier had actually lost control. I had only seen that once before when a boy said he wanted to have sex with Dee Rapier. L.D. was very calculated and beat you with precision and cold calculation. No L.D. had lost control. He knew the law was coming down on him and that there was a jail cell in his future. Ben's butt was the final straw and the dominoes were falling.
I could go into more stuff, the beating Guy took with golf clubs, where did he really go? Seeing L.D. Rapier clock a horse in the head with a 2 x 4 trying to make it conform. Or seeing Ms. Savoy go off, it was a rarity, but it happened from time to time and it wasn't pretty either. She preferred other methods of punishment like a mouth full of alum. If you've never tried it, go get some, be sure to have water near by. It will completely dry your mouth out and make you think you are about to choke to death. And then there's the hunting down the escapees. I was only required to go out on the hunt a couple of times. It was actually better than being in the dorms and hearing the screams from the laundry room when someone got caught. Since I was already outside in the middle of the night I just went and checked on the horses and calves. You could hear the screams out there too, just no where near as loud as being in the building. I hated those nights the worst.
My last week there L.D. was in jail. Dee was loading up the van everyday with some boys and meeting Mac Ford with some girls in Mansfield and singing hymns and stuff in front of the courthouse or something. I was left behind because when they took L.D. away I got sick and stayed sick for days. I think it was because my body and my nerves couldn't handle the relief my body was feeling knowing there was a chance it was all over. I couldn't keep any food down. I also think I was scared because I knew if L.D. got out of this I was going to really pay for Ben's escaping and the police seeing his bruised, battered, and bloodied butt.
During this time Dee called my mom almost everyday to tell her how well I was doing and how the law was persecuting a religious and godly man. Then one day she walks in and pulls me aside, I was still pretty sick for whatever reason. She calls my mom and asked her how quick could she get me a plane ticket? They moved us to the gym at the girls’ home in Arcadia to keep the police from finding us and interviewing us. A few days later I was in Shreveport getting on a plane with Fluffy and headed home. I was no longer sick to my stomach.
Would my NB experience end here? Nope, I get home and Dee Rapier and Ms. Savoy would call to check on me, talk to me, get a pulse check, and give us updates on L.D. and his court case.
I was petrified. I refused to say anything bad about them. What if NB opened back up? What about Ben? If I say anything bad about them and end up back there I won't have to worry about Ben's butt mine will be toast. So I remained silent.
The next year or so my brother was having problems so my mom sent him to Walterboro, S.C. where New Bethany Boys Home had been reopened. Of course Walterboro was raided by law enforcement and shut down. My brother came home and he did tell my mom about the abuse and it was all in the papers too. My mom wanted to know why I didn't speak up. She didn't know any better again. I didn't say anything to prevent his going and I have had to live with that fact. Tonight I learned that my brother was the child that the police found shackled and chained in his underwear in the cell at Walterboro that was in the news. He helped build that cell, he was the first to use it, and the last.
The harm that the Rapiers and Fords have caused others is immeasurable. Yes there are a few whose lives were worse before going to one of the homes and grateful for them but they are definitely the minority. I'm happy that NB hasn't left scars on your life, count your blessings.
NB dramatically changed my life and the lives of my family. It has affected us in ways we may never know about. It's a snowball that hasn't stopped yet. For some it's over, for others it's not, the affect NB has had will last for years to come.
References:
This testimony was given on the webpage Safe Teen School by the student Hannah. All rights goes to the original author.
