national
Battalion/Page 5
February 19, 1982
Lawsuit charges girls enslaved in homes
United Press International
HATTIESBURG, Miss. — A
Ihaven for world-weary teena-
igers or a horror chamber of reli-
Igious fanaticism?
The Bethesda Home for
|Girls in rural Forrest County
Imay become the federal court
itest for drawing the line between
■coercion and conversion, brain-
|washing and true belief.
The home is owned by Rede
mption Ranch Inc., and it
ladheres to the doctrines of the
iRev. Lester Roloff, from whom
Ithe home was bought, and other
fundamentalist preachers.
Roloff has been the target of a
Texas investigation into liis fun
damentalist Baptist children’s
home in Corpus Christi.
The 60-plus girls who live at
the isolated home appear scrub
bed and healthy. Pregnancy has
prematurely bloated the school
girl shapes of some, but all their
faces are young and earnest.
Their dresses — culottes
sometimes, but never pants —
are long and loose-fitting. Their
eyes are without makeup, their
hair without spray or style.
“They weren’t like this when
they were brought here,” says
Bob Wills, who owns and runs
the home with his wife. “We’re
criticized for locking the doors,
and people say to turn them
loose.
“Turn them loose to what?
Where are they going? Back to
the dope hives and to living with
four boys?”
Wills is a defendant in a Mont
gomery, Ala., federal court suit
that charges the school holds its
girls in involuntary servitude
and peonage.
But Wills claims parents and
pastors from all over the country
beg him to take wayward girls
and turn them toward the fun
damentalists’ path of righteous
ness.
Wills says it makes the girls so
mad “they can spit nails” when
they hear criticisms of the
school. And when questioned, at
least in the presence of Wills, the
girls concur.
“Before I came here, my pa
rents sent me to psychologists
and psychiatrists, and nothing
did any good,” Cindy, a 15-year-
old from Quitman, said. “Now I
don’t live for weekends any
more, I live for Jesus.”
Tammy, 18, says she had
hepatitis before coming to the
home 10 months ago, but: “I’ve
gained 22 pounds since I’ve
been here. I don’t need drugs
anymore because I’ve found
Jesus.”
Another girl has dropped 67
pounds since coming to the
school, weight the Wills decided
she needed to lose. “She gets a
whipping twice a day and a head
of lettuce a w'eek,” quips Wills,
alluding to charges in the lawsuit
that the girls are routinely
beaten and fed meager diets
even while pregnant.
The school has in the past
admitted to using corporal pun
ishment to enforce its strict
rules, but Wills has denied
charges of severe beatings.
Forrest County District Attor
ney Bud Holmes says he has in
vestigated complaints stemming
from Bethesda and the boys’
home run by the Wills called Re
demption Ranch. It, too, is near
Hattiesburg.
“If they are doing something
that breaks the law, I want some
body to bring it to my attention,”
Holmes said. “I’m not freaked
out on religion; fanaticism is dis
tasteful to me.
“But when you look and see
the other side of the coin, where
these kids would be, it’s the les
ser of the two evils.”
Holmes says every grand jury
that meets in his county is in
structed to inspect the home.
“They come back every time
without anything,” he said.
Wills says a strict routine of
work and religion is the rule for
occupants of his home. He says
incoming and outgoing mail is
censored to prevent drugs or
runaway plans from being ex
changed. The doors are locked
to keep newcomers from run
ning away, he says.
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