Cody Seth Crawford at Dundee Ranch

This testimony covering abuse at Narvin Litchfield’s Academy at Dundee Ranch in Costa Rica was sent to us from the author Cody Seth Crawford who maintains the all the credits. Here is his testimony:

My life began as an uneventful birth at a local hospital in Portland Oregon, on September 26 – 1986. I was a good baby as my mother puts it. I was not a crier and would sit where I was put. I was the second male child of two proud parents, Ted and Robin Crawford. My dad worked at Boeing as a machinist and my mom was still working real estate selling mobile homes.

I was the first Newberg school district kid to be put into early intervention (Special Education) in 1991 for unspecified central auditory processing disorders. School was tough for me as I was always the butt of jokes and it seemed like people would just choose me as an easy target for their frustrations. Fast forward to when I was eight and lucked out by getting big role in a movie! I was cast as Michael Cunningham in the Hit NBC miniseries “DEAD BY SUNSET” (1995). I also did a lot of radio and television commercials, and was a cast member of the Portland Opera for 2 years.

I did not start drinking until a neighbor that owns a vineyard and was trusted by my family would give me wine mixed with cool aid when she would volunteer to watch me and my brother. We ate cheese pizza and got smashed and I was only nine. I subsequently was abused and did not report it at the time. My father took my movie money and split the day before my tenth birthday. All the abuse was kept hidden from my mom, who does not drink. This went on until I was 11.

I was 13 when I started using Cannabis to calm my anxiety and fears. At the time I thought of it as a medicine that kept me stable as I had a new diagnosis of NON VERBAL LEARNING Disability,, My friend Channing Hammonds introduced me to the drug. I was in 8’Th grade and the only student that was in Special Ed and the Nova program (talented and gifted) at my school. I was doing a special project on medical marijuana for the Nova class and got in too deep into the druggie culture at the school.

I was arrested for distributing! My name was associated with cannabis so I was to blame. I was no longer able to self medicate away my life problems with cannabis (pre-trial drug testing), so I switched back to alcohol. This was a horrible mistake. My friend Channing lived a rougher life and came from a broken home. It was not a great leap for us to steal the first couple of cases of wine from the Red Barn tasting room on the Maresh Winery in Dundee Oregon. We each had a motive, mine was to suppress pain and take back from my abusers, Channings was money (he sold his part he did not drink). We stole wine from the same place three times. This was all one summer in 2001.

My drinking increased and four more teen boys were subsequently involved in stealing alcohol with me. I finally got to trial and all the charges were stacked so high I saw no exit. I had been in and out of the Yamhill county detention lock-up more times than I could count by then. But my mother’s sister Jamie Baxter offered hope! Jamie and Jeff(her husband) told a wonderful story of therapeutic youth reform through the wonderful WWASP program(World Wide Association of specialty Schools and Programs). I was rooting for it too, since Judge Collins gave me an option of graduating the WWASP program before my 18’Th birthday or be award of the state till I was 21. Jeff Baxter testified in Collin’s courtroom about how the WWASP program had saved his own son Steven (my cousin) and how I would not receive corporal punishment. And how all my special needs would be met! The program had a representative testify over the phone as the Judge looked through the glossy pamphlet about the Academy at Dundee Ranch. I was so hopeful that I would finally get the therapy that I so desperately needed! Reality check, my mom was court ordered to pay 2,000 a month in tuition when she had lost her job. I was released from juvenile hall and my mom and sister drove me to San Francisco where I got a passport in only two days. Then I was on a plane to Sanjose Costa Ricca. I was positive and so hopeful.

My first day at Dundee, after driving for what seemed like hours in the middle of a huge jungle and past smoke spewing volcanoes and crossing a mountain range the climate was like someone left the shower on highest heat and shut the door. I was sweating, and had on shorts. My mother and sister were not allowed to examine the School; they only got to see the preplanned show they put on for all parents and officials. I said good bye and that I loved them.

Narvin Lichfield, Mr Bailey and Locksley and Conrad had the control now. I was always trained to make eye contact with the people around me (special education) this was the first thing I was in trouble for since it was against the rules at Dundee. We ate nothing but rice and beans and water (I had not earned the privilege of meats and juice). I was in shock at the conditions. I was new and lowest level so I had a bunk in the hall, no air-conditioning, no mosquito nets, and we slept under a tin roof. There were bats and birds and all manner of insect that lived with us. As I recall the (dorms I was in housed over 100 boys). It was about 70 feet by 25 or so. The upper level students had rooms that slept from five to 8 students and they had fans or air-conditioners mounted in the windows - the windows with bars on them. We shared a toilet that was regularly clogged. There was no soap to wash my hands, and no toilet paper most of the time and we would use old magazines or worksheets that you would have to do when violating one of the many rules. We did line count first thing in the morning and before lights out. All students were required to walk in line formation to the front parking lot and Hollar our number in order. We had forty five seconds to a minute to jump out of our bunks and get our shoes on and be at that count - twice a day.

The upper level students were allowed to give us punishments; there were many cases of intimidation and black mail of first level students. Our education was a complete scam! The textbooks were nothing more than very badly photocopied textbooks with many of the pages unreadable and any color chart in theme made absolutely no sense! I was promised I would be allowed to use my special education laptop for my diagnosis of AUTISM. This was stopped by upper level students complaining to Daniel (family representative) that it was unfair that I was allowed to type assignments on the computer.

I was accused of smuggling in Marijuana! Mr. Locksley claimed to have found three cannabis seeds in my belongings. Instead of fighting them I had learned to go along with the program. So I wrote a 15,000 page S.A. in pen about how I had smuggled it in and what were my intentions. I consider it the greatest work of fiction I could ever write. I was not allowed a meal or restroom breaks until I completed the S.A. This was more than one day, but Mr. Locksley helped me with the content and told me specifically what to write.

Then I was put into Observation placement for one day. it is a little shed with two bare rooms about 7x7 and my face was pushed into human excrement by one of the staff. I was not allowed to look to see who. I was then made to kneel on my knees with my nose on the wall for the rest of the day. I was not allowed water and there were little stones that hurt to kneel on so much. I remember crying and being told that was punishable too. I also have a knee disorder that is genetic and is called Osgood-Schlatter Disease that made this worst.

I survived the punishment and was allowed to attend my first and only “SEMINAR”. The seminar was led by a red haired woman that appeared to be late forties /mid fifties. I had trouble telling if she was a she even. I remember beating the floor with a towel and cussing about how much I hate my parents (this was required of all Dundee students) we were screaming, crying, and forced to do this if you wanted to graduate. The girls we never saw were at the same seminar( in the computer lab) and were made to get up on the little “stage” and admit to being sluts and prostitutes , to call themselves bitches and whores! The audience was encouraged to join in and did cheerfully. I had never read the lord of the flies but this was it!

I was partnered up with a young woman. (About 14) that whispered to me she was raped at the school by staff. I was so concentrated on my own program that I did not do anything about this and knew to keep silent, don’t look people in the eyes and just stare at the ground. I was sick the whole time at the place, with some form of dysentery. I received no medicine for this and sometimes was not given my allergy medicine( I was allergic to rice) I had an asthma attack every day during forced exercise in front of the calm looking swimming pool. I remember MR. Baily say “look children, the nice cool water. You will never get to touch it”.

We did one to three hour workouts depending on the mood of the staff and if it was to unbearable for the staff to even sitting drinking ice water watching us. I would hear other kids screaming and begging for help from the observation placement, when they would return they would be silent and sometimes have many bruises on their body and face. We were not allowed access to a phone, my grandma was dying and I got one phone call of about 3 minutes, and they hung it up once I told her that it was bad there. The school was shut down and raided by the Costa Rican’s shortly thereafter and I was told I could leave. So I first left on my own through the jungle. I was caught by Mr. Locksley and Conrad (Jamaican staff/enforcers) they caught up to me in a mango grove. I picked up a tree branch then dropped it. Conrad and Locksley were on me and slapping me in my face. They got a call on their warlike talkie and I was put on the back of a motorcycle and driven to the school again. This time I got right off at the gate and ran to the Costa Rican police and he looked just as shocked at the situation. There were kids running loose, staff chasing kids, upper levels chasing lower levels with sticks.

I saw a Costa Rican woman and asked her to save me. I walked out the front gate past the armed guard with for other kids. We all jumped in the back of the PANNI truck which was driven by the woman. Me and CJ jumped out at the first town and flagged a taxi, the Taxi driver knew we had no money and only drove us to a little bar. We asked them for Water. We got real ice water! The police and the woman pulled up and we got back in the truck. I remember throwing my Dundee Ranch shirt out on the dirt road - A Farwell to that chapter of my life.

Me and the others were sent to a police substation were we all tried to call home. I do not believe any of us got through. It was nighttime now and we were loaded into a range rover that was set up for search and rescue. The one girl with us was intimately involved with one of the other boys now so they had a nice drive it would seem. We were taken to a children’s shelter, given a happy meal each and me and CJ went to the park right up the block to find a payphone, I remember a Costariccan man trying to talk Spanish to us that had followed us from the shelter. At the park CJ met a drug dealer and bought a joint for a handful of skittles the police had given him. We stood there smoked it right in front of the PANNI worker. I was calmed down then and wanted to get more happy-meals.

Me and CJ were transferred to a Bars on everything child orphanage in San Pedro. To me I thought it was a prison and a little boy from Jamaica that was there who the only English speaker was told me about how he was there for two years and had not seen his parents the whole time. I asked if he wanted to come, He said he was afraid. He was a big help and held my belt while I twisted it around the bars to the laundry room, I used a wooden leg I tore off the bunk beds as a leverage device. I had to strip nude to slip through. I then found myself locked in another room with no windows to get through. There was a metal roof however and I piled washing machines on washing machines and kicked with everything I had. It was noisier than a storm! I got through and jumped from the edge of the roof over a razor wire fence which was a 12 – 14 foot drop.

I was out to find the United States embassy, and was praying to be reunited with my family. I was not reported missing by WWASP or the Costariccans for ten days. I met my mom at the airport along with some journalist I had contacted through a Good Samaritan Named Isaac Wabe that was my street guide for the week.

This is a very simple condensed history of my time at the Academy at Dundee Ranch.

The Academy at Dundee Ranch was shut down by the authorities in 2003. However due to escape of the employees the legal proceedings against the owner was not successfully.

Source:
Factsheet of the facility (Fornits Wiki)

Testimony about Turn-about Ranch (From Reddit.com)

The user on Reddit known made this comment on the webpage Reddit. All rights belong to the original author.

It sounds like the program has changed since I was there.

Similar thing happened to me when I was 17.

During high school, I was kind of a punk...or rather....kind of an obnoxious little brat, much like most 17 year olds of my generation. After a particularly loud argument with my father, we got into a fist fight which caused my mom to call the police.

When they arrived, My father's face was a mostly bruised and bloodied, where as I didn't have a scratch on me (my father was really only trying to hold me down while I thrashed at him). As the cops were beginning to cart me away I made just about the dumbest decision of my life. I turned to glare at my father and said "I'll kill you."

Needless to say, 30 minutes later, I was being escorted by 3 officers into the juvenile ward of a mental hospital. I spent a week imprisoned there with all sorts of drug addicted/bipolar/schizophrenic kids, not once hearing from my parents. During the course of my stay, I was stabbed with a dirty syringe, peed on, bitten, had feces thrown at me, and worst of all, woke up to my "roommate" lying dead in his bed, bedsheets tied around his neck. Now you must realize....I was a pretty well adjusted teenager.

I had nice friends, played music and sports, and did pretty well in school. I had never even been in the same room as any kind of drug. At worst, I was a brat with an additude problem and slight video game addiction. So going through all this scared me absolutely shit-less.

Finally my parents came to visit me, though rather than riding to my rescue like I thought they would, they only came to explain that they were sending me off to "somewhere that could help me". I was handed off the the two largest men I've ever seen, handcuffed and shoved into a car, and driven 18 hours to Middleoffuckingnowhere, Utah (aka Escalante, Utah).

I arrived at a place called Turnabout Ranch. From what I could see, it was basically a very small cabin, a barn, and a couple cows. I was greeted by a pair of haggard old rednecks, 1 man 1 woman. I was told not to speak a word to anyone except them, and only when directly spoken to. They brought me to a lean-to in front of the cabin, and a circle made from rocks, no bigger than 2 feet in diameter. I was told not to leave the circle, unless it was raining in which case i could go under the lean-to. I spent 3 days there, only leaving to go to the bathroom and sleep on the wood floor of the cabin.

After those three days, I was allowed to move "freely" around the ranch and talk to others. It took me about 2 days to attempt my first escape, 3 days for my first suicide attempt, and 1 week to finally get shipped off to another program for being to "unstable".

I was then shipped to Loa, Utah, and another program that I can't recall the name of. I was given my first meal since I arrived in utah that didnt consist of trail mix or ramen. I believe it was rice and beans. I spent a night in a small empty warehouse, sleeping on the floor with a few other kids, surrounded by adults armed with tazers.

In the morning, I was given a sleeping bag, a bedroll, a water bottle, a small sack of rations, placed in a car, and driven to what can only be described as the middle of the Mojave Desert. I was again greeted with more large men with tazers. There were 5 other kids in my "group", all of whom were completely amazing and supportive of each other, unlike our staff who mostly only spoke the threaten us in some way.

We hiked no less than 10 miles a day to resupply points where we could re-fill our clean water and rations. I spent 6 months in that desert, hiking day in and day out, until my 18th birthday when I was required by law to be released. During my time there, I wore only 2 separate changes of clothes, never brushed my teeth, took 5 or 6 "showers" via a bucket with holes in the bottom, was bitten by 2 snakes (and countless bugs), and broke my right ankle twice (i was still required to hike).

When I returned to my hometown, I explained to my parents all that had happened, and when I was done I didn't speak to them for over a year. It was only through a lot of counselling and a very large "We're sorry" monetary gift that I decided to let them back into my life.

Today, we're pretty close. I understand why they sent me away, and they regret not researching these programs more. There are still times where old feeling will emerge and I'll refuse to speak to them for a few days, but it's mostly all passed.

TL;DR My parents sent me to a mental hospital, and 2 separate and abusive "rehab programs" for 6 months.

Sources:

• Comment to: I was kidnapped in the middle of the night, flown to a wilderness therapy program, and imprisoned there for 3 months, all on orders from my parents. AMA.
• Turn-about Ranch on Fornits Wiki

Deirdre Sugiuchi at Escuela Caribe

This testimony was given by Deirdre Sugiuchi in another Blogspot blog. All rights belongs to the author.

On January 4, 1990, I boarded a plane in New Orleans for the Dominican Republic. I was headed to Escuela Caribe, an evangelical Christian reform school (also the setting of Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres). The school had been referred to my parents by the influential religious organization, Focus on the Family.

My life would never be the same.

I thought I was going to a Christian boarding school. Instead I entered a two year long nightmare where I lost all basic human rights. I quickly learned to ask permission from my “housefather” to stand, to sit, to use the bathroom, and to enter each and every room. If I didn’t I was punished with hours of forced exercise, sometimes holding stress positions (push-up position, or holding my arms out to the side weighted with books) for long periods of time. Staff and fellow students watched my every gesture, keeping track of my “progress” on a daily point sheet.

One of these days, staff said, I would move up the school’s level system, confronting those with lower rank than me. I promised myself I would never do that.

I lied.

Awful things happened. Kids being beaten, molested, put into solitary confinement. Being manipulated in God’s name intensified the pressure. When the first Gulf War began, we were told it was “the beginning of the end of the world.” Girls who had undergone abortions were denounced as “baby-killers.” One housefather refused to allow my friend to see a counselor on the anniversary of her dad’s death because she refused to recognize Jesus as her Lord and Savior.

All letters to and from home were censored. All phone calls were supervised and taped. There was no way to tell anyone on the outside about the abuse.

Over time, I changed. I became a high-ranker, confronting lower ranking students in ways I had previously vowed never to engage. I sucked up to staff members by debating Scripture.

Eventually I graduated and made my escape. I was so spun out from the trauma that I couldn’t even write, but gradually, I achieved stability. Lots of my friends weren’t so lucky.

Unreformed seeks to open the eyes of America to the consequences of imprisoning our youth in residential treatment facilities, putting a human face to the statistics, a cultural context to the numbers and psychological insight into the practice, propelled by the memories of what happened to my friends and myself.

Some died. Most survived. We all changed.

This is our story.

The facility seems to have been closed early 2012 properly due to the negative attention of the public.

Reference:

• About UnReformed The original testimony
• NHYM alumni webpage for teenagers who have lived at these schools
• Datasheet of the facility (Fornits Wiki)