The American Gulag

That’s just the media name, of course. Something to call it on the front page of the State paper in South Carolina.

As residents, we had to call it New Bethany Boy’s Home.

As escapees, we named it pure hell.

From the Survivors of New Bethany website:

“On May 27, 1984, two boys escaped from the facility and gave statements to police. Search warrants were obtained and the compound was raided. Arrest warrants were also issued for Olin King and two other staff members. Upon searching the grounds the SLED agents discovered PVC pipe used to beat the children. They also found a young boy confined in a small room with a large padlocked door. The room had no light, bed, window or toilet. An interview with the two runaways yielded more details of abuse. Olin King, Richard Davis and Robert King were charged with Unlawful Neglect of a child as well as other violations. “Children Beaten, Bound at School, Officials say” was the headline in the Charleston paper. The story was also covered by the Walterboro Press and Standard. In a plea bargain agreement, Olin King and Robert King pled No Contest to charges of False imprisonment and received suspended sentences of five years probation for each man.”

There were actually 3 boys who escaped, but one of them ran like hell in the wrong direction through the woods for most of the night, leading the search party away from the other two so they would have a good headstart, a fighting chance to escape (one of the boys had been severely beaten that day & could barely walk…We knew if the police saw his body, he would get out and they would HAVE to do something)

The boy who ran through the woods was eventually caught after they got the dogs after him, but it took several hours. When he was finally apprehended, his body had been ripped and punctured by brambles, thorns, blackberry bushes, thickets and running headlong into trees in the pitch black forest with dogs close behind. The “search party” was none too kind during the long hike back. But the kid had a smile on his face as they returned to the compound, seeing that his friends hadn’t been caught…The guards at New Bethany had swallowed the bait. They still thought the other kids were in the forest, not at the police station giving a detailed report as officers geared up for a raid on the compound that very morning.

The boy would be found that morning by the police, as quoted in the statement above, “confined in a small room with a large padlocked door. The room had no light, bed, window or toilet”, awaiting the beating he knew was coming. The purpose of the room was psychological; children were left there for a couple of days without food, water, clothing or contact of any kind. By the time the beating came around, you welcomed it, embraced it, you would do anything for human contact. And food.

To this day, I still remember how it felt when a police officer opened the cell door, and a flashlight shone in my face. I guess I must have looked pretty frightful, all scratched an bloody from the night before, because the officer drew a sharp breath and said “Lord, look at ‘im.”

The cell was far too small for the police to enter (it had been constructed to make a prepubescent child have to sleep with his knees in his chest…A teenager was perfectly claustrophobic after 5 minutes in there with no light) They had to reach in and tell me to take their hands. I had only been inside the cell a few hours, and I wasn’t cold yet, but I was naked. They draped a blanket around me, and someone brought me an adult’s coat to wear until they found some clothes for me.

But I knew it was over when an officer said to me, “Son, we’re taking you boys out of here.” Seven hours later, about 75 of us were in sleeping bags on the floor of the South Carolina armory in Columbia. The Department of Social Services couldn't handle the flood of children suddenly deposited in it's lap.

I have never really spoken of this before. It seemed unnecessary, since it happened during the troubled years of my childhood, and I have moved on from it long ago. The psychological scarring has regressed as I have aged, and since I’m not abusing children, drowning cats or masturbating in my own feces, I guess I still have an above-marginal hold on my sanity. Also, it’s not my story alone. There is already a website, several online articles and all kinds of resources about the camp, for those who have the stomach for it. Few truly do.

For some odd reason, I just started writing the story of my time in New Bethany last week. It just came out, no thought or anything. Don’t ask me why, I couldn’t tell you. I started out by creating a fictional account of things, but I had so much information, I couldn’t find any reason to make up stories when I had a head full of memories. And that’s just what started coming through my fingers.

Every night for several hours, I’ve suddenly become engrossed with telling this story, putting it into words for everybody to read. I have no idea when this will be finished.

But it’s started.

Maybe it’s just time.