Runaway's story of abuse triggered court action

Adam Nossiter

The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution

LUCEDALE, Miss. - On May 8, a 14-year-old boy from Florida with the initials S.D.L. ran away from the Bethel Home for Children. Three weeks later, hearings began in George County Youth Court to decide what was to become of him. Chancery Judge Robert Oswald found that, during his 19-month stay at Bethel, the boy had been subjected to various forms of humiliation. The school and its founder, the Rev. Herman Fountain, defend its operation and adamantly insist the dispute is simply a matter of separation of church and state.

LUCEDALE, Miss. - On May 8, a 14-year-old boy from Florida with the initials S.D.L. ran away from the Bethel Home for Children. Three weeks later, hearings began in George County Youth Court to decide what was to become of him. Chancery Judge Robert Oswald found that, during his 19-month stay at Bethel, the boy had been subjected to various forms of humiliation.

Since Oswald's ruling in S.D.L.'s case, the judge has been hearing testimony from more than 60 children to determine whether they should be sent back to their parents or kept in the custody of the state. The school and its founder, the Rev. Herman Fountain, defend its operation and adamantly insist the dispute is simply a matter of separation of church and state.

S.D.L. had a chronic bed-wetting problem, but instead of being taken to a doctor, he was "awakened every hour during the night, compelled to go to the bathroom to see if he would urinate," the judge wrote in the order to place Bethel's children in state custody. "If he did not promptly respond when he was awakened, he would be dragged out of bed physically to the bathroom." If he still wet his bed, he would be beaten with a switch or made to run laps at 4 a.m., the judge wrote.

The judge said S.D.L. also was "subjected to the whim and caprice of a leader" age 15 to 17, who would penalize the boy by calling for a punishment in which "large numbers of other children would pile upon the designated child."

According to the judge, S.D.L. had an eye condition that required him to wear glasses or risk blindness, but he was never given glasses or taken to a doctor.

He was forced to participate in a work gang, the judge wrote, to "dig a ditch or a pit of some type." When he was the last person to come out of the ditch, "a teenage leader directed the other members of the work gang who were already out of the ditch to pick up and throw hardened clods of dirt at S.D.L., and that when he attempted to get himself out of the hole in the ground or ditch, that he was prevented from doing so" and was forced by "a leader to place and hold his face in a hole, a small depression in the wall of this ditch or pit."

"And, of course, the evidence is replete with countless other children who received part of the types of physical abuse which this minor received," the judge concluded.

S.D.L. was found to have been abused and neglected and was placed in the custody of the state.

"Even in the name of religion," Oswald said Monday, "no one has the right to abuse or neglect a child."

In his June 10 court order, the judge wrote that Fountain was "utterly mistaken" in believing that allegations of abuse at the home were protected from scrutiny by the First Amendment right of freedom of religion.

Oswald noted that Fountain also invoked his Fifth Amendment right against sel f-incrimination during testimony, especially when asked about punishment, medical care and other sensitive issues.