'The Child Catcher' explores abuses in the troubled teen industry
Editor’s note: The following story deals with suicide. If you have suicidal thoughts, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 (En Español: 1-888-628-9454; Deaf and Hard of Hearing: 1-800-799-4889).
Children’s rights advocate and best-selling author Andrew Bridge talks to host Deepa Fernandes about his new book “The Child Catcher: A Fight for Justice and Truth,” which tells the story of an early case in his career: a lawsuit against the state of Alabama over the abusive treatment of children at the Eufaula Adolescent Center.
Book excerpt: ‘The Child Catcher: A Fight for Justice and Truth’
By Andrew Bridge
One night in early March 1992, the older boys were crowded in the TV room when a shoving match erupted in the ward. Nothing that couldn’t be handled right there, except for David. He was already in the seclusion room when the charge nurse called for more than the usual two men. It was shortly after nine o’clock, and Eufaula’s grounds were as dark and quiet as the thickets of piney woods outside its barbed-wire fences. The senior employees who wore suits and crisp dresses had left for the evening. Yet within minutes of the nurse’s call, the darkened lawns were covered with a knot of orderlies, security guards, and groundskeepers.
A wiry fifteen-year-old with the body of a child, David was considered a “problem” from the get-go. A lonely boy, he ached for fishing trips and his father’s pickup, his mother’s complaints that he slept in too late on Saturdays, the walk he took alone to school. He missed the things that hadn’t mattered before.
Jeff McCowell told the assembled group of men where they were headed. The facility’s night director, McCowell didn’t have to say much. Everyone there had done it before. A few of the men bickered, complaining it was close to the end of their shift or the start of a break, but work at the children’s mental institution was good, the wage enough to support a family in one of Alabama’s poorest counties. Those jobs weren’t easy to get, and when a man found one, he kept it. McCowell waited for the men to finish their grousing, then led them down the slick, glassy lawns.
Pacing ahead through the dark, McCowell tugged open the rusted metal door to the boys’ ward and headed up to the third floor. Teenagers gawked from their bedroom doors, stripped to their T-shirts and underwear for bed. McCowell cut to the front and peered through the observation slat of the seclusion room. Drunk with a fresh shot of Thorazine, David lay against the cinder-block wall. His bare flat chest slumped to his belly. His socked feet spread from the new pair of jeans his mother had packed the night he left. McCowell stepped to charge nurse’s station and held out his palm for the key. He stabbed the key into the lock and shouldered open the seclusion door.
David did nothing.
McCowell stepped closer and bent to the boy’s face.
Still nothing.
In the cold hum of the air-conditioning, three orderlies entered. They stared at the boy breathing slowly.
Perhaps it was the warm air rushing in from the open door, the scent of men cutting through the room’s cleaning fluid, or a whisper that warned David something was happening. In a moment of clarity, he raised his head and pushed against the wall to stand and gain a footing.
With a yank, David’s head cracked against the floor. The attendants in their white uniforms propped him upright. Half standing like a teenager after his first long night in a bar, David fell into the sober ones, who pushed him toward the door.
Laughter roared down the hall. Rows of adolescents hollered at the boy they’d known for only a few weeks.
“Come on, David, throw a punch! Kick the fat ass!” an older voice screamed.
A smaller boy shouted, “Bite ’em in the arm!”
Another boy stripped to his underwear danced into the path, mimicking David’s neck lopping from side to side.
The wrap of men navigated the narrow stairs and lowered the teenager cautiously, aware that a tumble would bring them all down. At the last of the three flights, the tangle loosened around the boy. Guards peeled away, hunched and sweating, grateful for the evening cool and the stars that burned the black heaven above.
On the concrete landing, David stood separate from all he knew, all he trusted. He could take the chance to bolt. He’d run for the fences and hide in the woods. He’d think which way to his parents’ house, 225 miles southwest in Foley. But by the time David took his best guess, the dogs from the Ventress men’s prison in Clayton would’ve been set loose. The pack would circle, leap, then snap until it tore him to the ground. A trooper would drag him by the head and shove him into an Alabama state car. Running would only give him a few hours. He’d be back.
McCowell nodded to the others. The men recircled, dragging David across the gravel road that divided the institution until they reached a warehouse against the barbed-wire perimeter fencing. McCowell broke off, jerked open a door that read Vocational Rehabilitation. Under the glare of industrial lights, worktables and stools were scattered where children at the facility ripped apart strings of rubber fishing lures, stuffing them in plastic baggies for the tourists and tackle shops in town. Past the workspace was an office door that was always shut. McCowell pulled a key from his belt. At the sight of the darkened, unfamiliar room, David flailed against the men. The Thorazine was clearing his system. “Mom? Dad? Where are you?” he howled at the corrugated roof.
McCowell moved to the nearest of three black metal doors. Fumbling to free the wooden crossbar from its brackets, he threw it to the ground and glanced over his shoulder in the dim light. McCowell pressed the pit of his palm against the latch pin until the metal door gave way. Inside, the cell was smeared with red mud as high as a child could reach. A mesh of steel was bolted overhead. Over that, a single bulb burned. The stench of urine and feces wafted from the corners.
A guard lifted David from the muddy floor, while others pushed from behind. The boy hit the ground in a lurching heave as the men rushed for the exit. McCowell snapped the lock shut. No one acknowledged the screams.
David Dolihite had been admitted to the Eufaula Adolescent Center only a few weeks earlier on January 13, 1992. He came from Foley, not far from Mobile Bay. His family lived in a neighborhood of single-story brick homes, double-wide trailers, and gravelly front yards. People kept to themselves and to their own. David’s middle-aged parents worked hard for everything they had. His father was the custodian at the local high school. His mother managed the deli counter at the Winn-Dixie.
David never won a science award or came home with a glowing report card. He wasn’t much for sports. Family, not friends, came to his birthday parties. He liked heroes and rebels. He spoke up for the weaker kids, sometimes defending them with his fists. With teachers, he went from quiet to rude. He got a reputation. The smallest mistake—a forgotten piece of homework, a moment of talking in class—was labeled unacceptable, insolent, or rude. He was tagged as a kid who didn’t matter; certainly, not one to be forgiven. Suspended for cursing at a teacher and confined to home by the school’s order, he snuck out for the afternoon. That was when the principal grabbed his chance to force David and his parents into juvenile court. The Baldwin County judge said that a stint at the state institution would do David good.
Eufaula was Alabama’s largest mental institution for children, with psychiatric treatment designed for kids who had a problem with rules. Mom and Dad resisted for nearly a year, until a state official from Eufaula called the house. She promised a mental health summer camp with horses, bikes, and a pool—everything a teenager would love. The best and highest treatment was available, she claimed. When David’s parents wouldn’t buy it, the woman turned on them. The boy was going with or without their approval. The only question was whether they gave their consent and allowed his admission to be labeled “voluntary.” They would learn that voluntary didn’t count for much—a fact they would learn too late.
The Dolihites loved their son. They found therapists, and together they drove David down to Mobile, where he sat in sessions with and without them. Then the insurance money ran out. They attended meetings with high school advisors, patiently listening to the need for stricter discipline and how they, as parents, could be better. They went to church and asked for the minister’s advice. With no choice and nothing else to do, Mom and Dad said, Yes, okay. They loved David desperately. They surrendered him to Eufaula.
As much as they hadn’t liked the woman who called, she worked with the state mental health department, so she must’ve known what she was doing. As David’s father put it to his wife, “She was an expert.” Neither he nor his wife imagined that the woman was a barefaced liar.
Excerpted from The Child Catcher: A Fight for Justice and Truth by Andrew Bridge ©2024. Reprinted with permission of Regalo Press.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
