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Suicide or Murder?
The destruction of young egos
by Wesley M. Fager (c) 2000

."Staff members directed me to physically batter and verbally assault other clients. They gave me this direction when I was a client and when I was a Staff Trainee. I carried them out. So did hundreds if not tens of thousands of other kids. . . As hard as it has been to live with the reality of being clinically abused for nearly two years, it cannot compare with the complete nightmare of living with the fact that I abused other people repeatedly in the name of a thought control cult. It cannot compare with the nightmare of knowing that some of the people I abused have ended up in jail, or dead, and that I contributed to the destruction of their lives."   James, a former student at Straight-Atlanta turned staff member

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When I was in straight I attempted suicide a lot and came too close to taking myself out and no one ever did anything except send me to a physiatrist and then that person told me I needed to be in the mental ward. Straight of course made me feel like that was worse than being in straight, and I never got the help I needed for many, many years.
Melissa 
 SOUND CONTROL If you're not getting sound click here.
"It is too easy for tyranny to eclipse therapy when teenagers have authority over other teenagers."
David Rosenker, Program Director, Louis House North, Blaine, Minn. The [Bergen] Record, 7-26-87, p. A17.
"First we had fiberglass ones [chairs], but they were too weak and they kept breaking and pieces of fiberglass would come off and rebellious people would cut themselves with pieces."
Kimberely, a former student in the Straight descendent program Kids of North Jersey
"Suicides: Scars, scars, scars... take your pick. The ones on the feet and hands from scratching myself raw? The one on my head from my skull being split open? The ones on my arms and wrists from slashing myself with broken objects?"
A posting to Kathy Moya's internet discussion forum on Straight by a former Straight student
"There is an epidemic of problems with adolescents, including suicide."
Pinellas County, Florida [where the virus started] psychiatrist Dr. Scott Permesly, in a public statement to Saint Petersburg Times, July 6, 1987
"Some prisoners may be brought by their severe anxiety and depression to the point of suicidal preoccupations and attempts. Dr. Vincent recounted: 'They scolded me in a nasty way . . .It was so utterly hopeless. For six weeks I did nothing but think how I might kill myself.' "
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, A Study of "Brainwashing" in China by Robert J. Lifton
"I have also interviewed children who made suicide attempts following their running from the Seed. Overwhelming feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, and despair were in evidence."
Jeffery J. Elenewski, Ph.D., clinical psychologist,  The Children's Psychiatric Center, Dade County, Florida commenting on students he has met who had fled The Seed--Straight's predecessor.  
"Suicides came in waves . . .The sight of people jumping out of windows became common place. The coffin makers were sold out weeks ahead. The funeral homes doubled up so that several funerals were held simultaneously in one room. The parks were patrolled to prevent people from hanging themselves from the trees."
Escape from Red China, 1962, by Robert Loh, p. 98
"Why make someone, who obviously already feels bad about himself, feel worse?"
Stanton Peele
"It's pretty obvious what he [Charles Mansion] was trying to do.  Break down their ego.  Break down their pride."  
Vincent Buglioso,  the man who prosecuted the Manson Family,  on The History Channel, July 30, 1996. 
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This electronic version of  A Clockwork Straight is a living document and is frequently updated as new data is uncovered. If you have an interesting story to tell about the Straights--a success story, a tragedy, whatever--we would like to hear from you. If you can refute or substantiate any story we would like to know that too. To report on a story about the Straights click here.   To report grammatical and spelling errors, or web page problems click here.

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In 1990 Bob Moss,  an administrator for KIDS, expressed concern that more than twenty county prosecutors and other officials had descended upon KIDS to ask the teenagers questions  "because some . . . are suicidal."
The [Bergen] Record,  8-15-90. p. B01. 

 

Logically, perhaps, this electronic version of my book could have started with the chapter on Straight’s advertised therapeutic program—the program as it is presented to prospective parents, health officials, law enforcement officials, the press and to the courts. But, because it is electronic and therefore cumbersome to read, I wanted to get to the heart of the problem as directly as soon as possible. The heart of this problem is the large number of former Straight clients who have taken their own lives. And that is what this current chapter is all about. I sincerely hope that before reading the current chapter, the reader has first read chapters one and two because these two chapters build right into chapter three. Chapter one discusses rampant and systematic child abuse so pervasive at Straight that one could only surmise that Straight is going to drive some kids to suicide ideations or attempts. Chapter two documents various cases where many Straight kids did, in fact, carve on their bodies and where many others tried to kill themselves. These kids, board from months or years of doing nothing but sitting in straight-back chairs, contemplated or attempted suicide to escape being spat upon, sexually abused, beaten, starved, ridiculed, denied sleep. So many kids attempted suicide that in 1983, defending Straight's position on accompanying kids into bathrooms, Straight's national executive director Bill Oliver acknowledged that:

A fair number of [Straight] kids have attempted suicide or contemplated suicide. We cannot leave them alone . . . We had one instance where a young lady tried to hang herself with a towel in the bathroom.(32)  

Straight goes to great lengths to make kids feel unwanted, worthless, miserable, desperate.  So it is not surprising that  Straight has to watch these kids wipe themselves on the toilet to make sure they will not try to kill themselves. But what is  the plan once these kids leave?   Suppose a suicidal kid escaped before his sentence was up?  Or what if a parent who had been led to believe that her child should reasonably graduate the program within three months  caught on two years later that her child was still just on 3rd phase  and she was still paying money.  Suppose she withdrew her child before he was Straight certified?  Suppose this kid commits suicide?  Or how about a kid who entered Straight at age 17 and withdrew himself when he became a legal adult at age 18.  What about him.  And don’t forget program graduates.  Straight has certified that he will not use drugs or alcohol, or listen to druggie music.  Suppose this kid had become suicidal at some point in the program.  What was Straight’s plan for releasing these kids who had been driven to the limit by Straight itself.  At a minimum,  if that child has attempted suicide in the program,  should not Straight  at least inform the parent that their child has been suicidal.

This chapter discusses the dismal record of deaths that have plagued the Straights.  First we will look at mental  illnesses and the Straights to see if there is a relationship or pattern between humiliating a child and  frightening a child to the point the child develops mental illness.  And then we will look at Straight and mental illness of clients at a typical  Straight --Straight-Springfield, Virginia.  Then we will look at suicide attempts and body carvings at a typical Straight,  Straight-Springfield.  After that we will discuss the staggering number of suicides and deaths associated with Straight-Springfield.  In the previous chapter we discussed body carvings and suicide attempts by kids at Straights other than Straight-Springfield.  We will conclude this tragic chapter of Straight history by discussing suicides and killings by former clients at the other Straights. 

  
Straight and mental illness.
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In 1992 Pam Garver tells a Channel 13, Eye Witness News, Tampa reporter that her son (bottom photo) suffers from obsessive compulsive thoughts to harm himself after his experience at Straight.
 
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In 1988, after 6 months of treatment, Staight-Dallas called Lynne Armstrong to take her son, Rob Seagll, home because he was acting depressed. She says he could not complete a sentence when she got him back. [Photo: Texas Monthly, 6/90, p. 160]

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I never thought people who had really serious problems like that should have let in Straight    anyway. The last  thing those kids needed was to have other kids telling
them how to deal with their problems. They needed professionals. I had to watch this one girl one time at a hospital who had bitten another girl in group.  She went into the bathroom, came out with a wire hanger. She ran towards me, put the hanger around my
neck and then grabbed hold of my hair. It took 6
doctors and nurses to pull her off of me. All I had
done was tell her that she couldn't go walking around the hospital because she was a newcomer. I was on
fifth phase. Afterwards, I remember sitting in the
emergency room by myself pulling clumps of hair from my head that she had pulled out. I was so terrified. An executive finally showed up and said she was being kicked out. That was that. I went back to my host home and called my sponsor in AA. But she got mad because I
couldn't even tell her what happened- no talking
behind backs, remember? So she said she couldn't be my sponsor anymore because I wouldn't be honest with her.
J. Stenhouse

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"There was one girl brought in whom I’ll never forget.  Caroline was a young girl who heard voices.  Even then I knew she was mentally ill.  She was initially shy and sad, and cooperative, but after the constant confrontation, she suffered a breakdown and was quickly sat on and marathoned.  It was so sick that nobody there could tell she needed a psychiatrist, but the staff had very little education.  Many of them were working on their GED, so I had more education at that point than most of them.  It was awful to watch this and be completely unable to help her, as I was still on first phase, and then desperately trying to work my way up the phases to get out of there."
Victoria H., M.D., who spent 20 months in Straight being treated for a drug problem she did not have.  After graduating Straight she went to college, saw a psychiatrist to help her overcome Straight-induced stress, and eventually became  a doctor of medicine.
"Mike [was] a short young kid, clearly mentally unstable. He tried to commit suicide  and also had attacked his "foster brothers" with shards from a broken vase or lamp or something.  When Nancy Reagan's visit was scheduled and Secret Service guys were checking things out, he jumped up and screamed his intentions to kill Mrs. Reagan . . .  and was quickly removed. I never saw him again. I heard rumors he ended up in a mental institution. . .
A poster to Kathy's web forum discussing the scene at Straight - Petersburg between 10/81 and 4/83.
Also at some time during this individual's stay at Straight, staff had the profound idea to "freeze" this individual on her  "phases" [meaning she could not progress in the program], so now that individual would stand up with her arms and legs perfectly stiff yelling "I'M FROZEN!!, I'M FROZEN!!", so the people around her, gently as they could, sat her down.
Ken, Straight-Cincinnati referring to one of the four special kids who would be confronted for urinating on themselves
"Others [those not preoccupied with thoughts of suicide] experience delusions and hallucinations usually associated with psychosis. . . At this point, the prisoner's immediate prospects appear to be physical illness, psychosis, or death."
Robert J. Lifton, Thought Reform, p. 71

Brainwashing in Communist China is an attempt to change the thoughts of the masses of people.  The harshest measures were taken against older Chinese,  set in their ways,  those who were more apt to remember the ways of westerners.  Thus it was so that masses of older Chinese citizens were summarily executed while other large masses were simply sent off to work in labor camps.  But the Chinese also attempted to rehabilitate a third  large mass of its older citizens.  These were sent to political prisons called Seventh of May Academies where the attempt is made to wash old ideas and attitudes from their minds. It is in these political prisons that thought reform is practiced.  As for the young people, they had not been exposed to western ideas as much as their elders, and being young it was felt that less severe methods  could be employed.  So children and teenagers are  controlled and conditioned by attending young Communist clubs where they would denounce their elders the same way DARE kids in America are thought to rat on their own parents.  The young also  participated in peer group confrontations at school.  One particularly successful way to devastate a Communist teenager is to take a kid who has become a leader in getting the group to attack a fellow teenager,  and have the group turn on the leader.  Straight did this all the time.  Let a kid make Fifth phase  only to set him back to First phase for some real or exaggerated rule infraction.  Listen to this account of young Comrade Sun, a student leader from The Thought Revolution by Tung Chi-ping,  (1967), page 108:

"He [comrade Sun] was struggled against for six hours before he broke down. He had participated frequently in these hate orgies, but he had always believed that the victims deserved what they got. This was the first time he had endured the torment, and he knew that it was unjust. He refused to accept criticism; he pleaded with us to stop lying and to tell the truth of what originally had been told to him concerning Ss-li. Finally, we were encouraged to hit him with our fists and to spit on him. When we left him, he was sprawled on the floor, face down, and sobbing. That night, in the dormitory, he suddenly began screaming. . . He was taken to the infirmary where the nurse managed to quiet him. The next day, however, he had another outburst in the classroom and had to be carried out struggling and shouting. Thereafter, he did not come to class at all, but we would see him wandering about the campus muttering to himself. Finally he was taken to a mental hospital."

Tung's account clearly warns that using extreme psychological means to humiliate a young person may lead to a break with reality.  His account is buttressed by expert opinion of some psychiatrists.  Psychiatrist Peter Breggin runs the Center for the Study of Psychiatry in Washington, DC.  In his book Toxic Psychiatry in writes that people who have done something that they feel bad about turn out to be people who blame themselves.  At the far end these people are obsessive compulsive persons.  And he writes that at the other end are people who have been abused.  These people, he writes, are blamers.  They have a need to put the blame on others for everything thing that happens.  At the far end of this end of the spectrum are the people who lose touch with reality--the schizophrenics,  writes Dr. Breggin.   

Can concentration camp treatment, like Dachau or Straight Springfield, cause schizophrenic-like symptoms in children? Yes says Bruno Bettelheim, Phd Psychology who for several years headed a program for psychologically disturbed children at the University of Chicago. Bruno himself was a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp. He says schizophrenic children and concentration camp inmates, both felt similarly about their lives, "deprived of hope, and totally at the mercy of destructive irrational forces bent on using [them] for their goals." The symptomatic reactions to life in the camps bore a striking resemblance to clinical schizophrenia and included suicidal tendencies, catatonia, or responding to any demand of the SS with no will of one’s own; melancholic depression, infantile behavior, delusions; projections; general loss of memory; shallow, inappropriate emotions; and inability to correctly assess reality.  [Bettelheim, Bruno, Surviving and Other Essays, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, p. 116.]   According anthropologist Willa Appel the same symptoms are found among the victims who have been brainwashed. The common feature among schizophrenic children, concentration camp victims, and people subjected to brainwashing, she writes, is the feeling of being totally overwhelmed. [Appel, Willa, Cults in America, Holt, Rinehart and Winston/New York, © 1983, p. 100.]

These people say what you and I already know.  If you put a kid in a box and severely abuse him.  If you make him feel  different and not part of mainstream,  then there is no telling who might emerge out of that box or what that person might do.  It is simply the calculated destruction of self worth.  But it is in this field that the Straights have an ally in psychiatry.  The Straights can find a majority of psychiatrists to state that regardless of what Straight or anybody else has done to a child,  life events can not drive a person insane.  There is a rationale for that too for if there is  no medical basis for psychosis then  psychiatry would be a profession looking for a reason to be practiced.  There would be nothing a psychiatrist, MD,  could do that a psychologist  could not also do with just a BS degree.  Modern-day psychiatry in the main claims that all psychosis is either hereditary-based or a chemical imbalance, and hence can be treatable by medication.  Psychologists and LCSW can not prescribe drugs. And the Straights have  another powerful argument at their disposal.  Schizophrenia usually first manifests itself in a person's teen years.  

Commenting specifically about Straight, Inc. after a visit to Straight-Springfield,  Professor Barry L. Beyerstein in  "Thought Reform Tactics: The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions" wrote this:

". . .  All such practices begin with a concerted assault upon the individual's personal identity,  i.e.,  an attempt to destroy his or her sense of self and its relation to the pre-existing social matrix.5  By systematically undermining their sense of individual autonomy,   target  persons can be driven to a state of child-like vulnerability to outside influences,  dramatic alterations in beliefs,  and in extreme cases,  psychotic-like behavior and suicidal tendencies."

Can Straight cause a kid to be mentally ill?  And if it does not cause mental illness,  can Straight abuse and humiliation setoff episodes of psychotic breaks with reality sooner than they would have happened if a teenage was destined to be schizophrenic anyway?   In a 1991 statement to personnel at Community Improvement, Straight escapee Keith Henson described the plight of a 12 year-old boy who was still in Straight-St Pete whom he described as having mental problems--the kid would crawl around the floor like a puppy dog, he said, and a Straight old comer would spit on him.  In a 1992 notarized statement to Florida's licensing body Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS), former client Ryan McCormack described his concerns for this child. There were allegations that this kid had sex with his sister. When the child refused to discuss the matter in front of Group  they called him names like faggot, gayfer, Howdy Duddey, 'shit for brains'. One day the child spoke out of turn in Group so they threw him on the floor and rubbed his face in the carpet until he had carpet burns. They slapped him on the head and flicked his ears with their fingers.(21)

One former client who had been in both Straight-Saint Petersburg and Straight-Sarasota recalls a student who defecated in her pants at her host home and smeared the wall with her feces. She tells of another student who masturbated in front of Group.

In 1982 Keith G. received injury to his chin and teeth while at Straight-St Pete. Fred Collins recalls a time when Keith was taken into the boys bathroom where clients sat on him. Fred heard a loud crack and Keith screamed, "You've broken my ribs." A staff member shouted, "Get back on his chest." Some of the phasors did so. Keith bit one of his captors who tried to stuff a sock down his mouth. Keith suffered 7 broken ribs and injury to his arm, and Straight later released him. Keith apparently suffered from psychosis prior to entering Straight, and has apparently been diagnosed as schizophrenic upon leaving--a condition probably aggravated by Straight.(20)

In 1988 Ms. Dorothy Daniels Hobby sued Straight-St Pete for driving her son Michael Daniels insane (he is diagnosed as schizophrenic). His psychiatrist testified that Straight had made him "10 times worse."(22) A professional with Fairfax County Mental Health Services (the county in which Straight-DC formerly operated) has told this writer that the county has treated several former Straight clients. In 2000 Father Doctor V. Miller Newton and his program affiliated psychiatrists settled for $4.5 million with a former client named Rebecca Ehrlich who had claimed she had received psychological damage from treatment at his KIDS' program. (23)
 
Columbia University's 9/11 report

 

On December 5, 2001 the National Center of Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University published a study which had been initiated because of the 9/11 attack. A finding of this study concluded that, 

"Exposure to trauma puts a person at four to five times greater risk of substance abuse, and stress is considered the leading cause of relapse to alcohol and drug abuse, and addiction and smoking." 

The report clearly finds that if you expose a person to trauma,  then that person is 4 to 5 times more likely to abuse mind altering substances than a person who is not traumatized.  And the report further finds that if you place a person who is in recovery from substance abuse or alcohol abuse in a stressful situation,  then that stress will be the "leading" cause to make that  person return to a life of substance abuse.  People like Leighton:

"I spent 24 months in the Atlanta program, then I was shipped to the Orlando program for a month. I checked myself out because I was 18--frankly, I was sick and tired of being there and I did not see the point of "graduating". . .  At the time I was admitted, I had only been experimenting with alcohol and drugs--I really didn't fit in because I had not done the hard drugs like the others. There is no doubt that some kids were more than just abusing drugs before they came in and needed help. When I left Straight  I was very confused and went through what some call " post-traumatic stress disorder". After Straight, I did become a full-blown drunk and junkie. For years I was totally lost and disconnected from society. I was definitely "brainwashed" and not "normal" compared to other young people.
Leighton, Straight-Atlanta

A little girl who was named Kay.  

"When a person is subjected to coercive persuasion without his knowledge or consent . . . [he may] develop serious and sometimes irreversible physical and psychiatric disorders,  up to and including schizophrenia, self-mutilation,  and suicide."
California Supreme Court,  United States v. Lee [455 U.S. 252, 257, 258 (1982)
"I had not really done any drugs when I was put in Straight, and they never believed me so I would have to lie about things I did just to phase so I could at least see my parents.  I was only 11.  One time one of the 5th phasers went through my room and found an old yearbook from the sixth grade.  Inside it  someone had written,  "I am the first one to sign your crack,"--just a funny joke in middle school. Well this B----- took it to the staff at Straight and accused me of Smoking Krack! What is up with that. They told my parents and everything. I have never even seen Krack,  let alone use it. They stood me up in "Rip Wrap" and yelled [at me] and spat in my face for half an hour.  I was only 11 and so scared I wanted to die. That was one of the first times I ever thought about killing myself.  Then they made me write the 12 steps 100 times each. God I still cry thinking about it!"
Jennifer, Straight-Atlanta

In 1988 Mrs. H. suspected that her 15 year old daughter was abusing drugs.  She is a woman of modest means but she was determined to get her daughter treatment help.  So she approached Straight-Atlanta and had her girl inducted into Straight.  A few weeks later Mrs. H. was stunned when she was told by program officials the now all-too-familiar tale that her 12 year old, B student daughter Kay was also a drug addict and that unless she consented to sign her in as well she would have to take her older daughter out of the program!  Not knowing how to maintain even one daughter in Straight’s expensive program, Mrs. H. was humbled to learn that an anonymous donor had agreed to pay for both her girls as long as the H. family remained loyal Straight supporters.  And they did.  They went out and solicited money for Straight.  Two years later the older daughter finally graduated from Straight and true to her benefactor’s word, the anonymous donor had paid her full tuition and continued to pay for Kay’s.  Nevertheless,  the H’s actually went financially bankrupt trying to keep up with other Straight expenses.  Six months later Kay had been in Straight for two and a half years, every day and every night, since the age 12 being treated by kids in one of the toughest and most destructive drug rehab programs in the world.  And one might question just how deeply rooted could a 12 year old, B student have gotten into the drug scene without her parents ever even suspecting that she was a drug addict!     

In 1992, after 2 and a half years Kay had finally made it to Phase 5 and the H’s came to realize that Kay was just filling a paid-up billet so they  withdrew her.  By then Kay had become convinced that she was a drug addict.  One day Kay  got a call from a former staff member who invited her to go to a sporting event.  She accepted the offer and at that outing she was crushed when the staff member made amends to her by apologizing for keeping her in Straight for so long, "because,"  she told Kay,  "she [Kay] did not have a drug problem.  It was a financial thing.”   

Kay had missed over two years of school because of Straight and when she tried going back for her education she was embarrassed being amongst kids so much younger than herself.  So she dropped out of school.  And then she did start using drugs.   Kay was diagnosed by one doctor as a borderline schizophrenic.  Another diagnosed her as being depressed with psychotic manifestations—she had started hearing voices and seeing things that were not there.   Then around 10:30 PM on the evening of 

On July 6, 1996, four years after leaving Straight,  around 10:30  in the evening Kay left her mother’s home to take a walk.  She was only two blocks from her house.  The police report says that Kay walked right into an automobile and was killed instantly.  Mrs. H. doubts that, but had no money to do a proper challenge to the police report.  

Kay had not used drugs prior to Straight but the Columbia 9/11 report is a good predictor that Straight itself would cause her to turn to drugs after Straight which is exactly what she did.  People like Tung Chi-ping, Peter Briggin and  Barry Beyerstein say that if you severally abuse a child,  you may drive him insane.  Did Straight take this little girl who was a good student and drive her to drugs and to insanity.  Is she dead because of Straight?