The Prelude to Being Buried Alive
After my step father, Bill Knapp, left, I felt crushed. I had finally found a male father figure that I trusted, only to feel like he abandoned me. Now, I was not only faced with a mother that was all alone again without a husband, but I was alone again without a man in the house to mold me and teach me how a boy is supposed to become a man, father and husband.
I began acting out and became disruptive. I got into trouble at school and at home. Now, I realize that it was after he left us, that I began getting into so many fights.
First Fight
The very first fight I can remember, took place in Goshen, Indiana. This was about the same time my brother and I tried going to a “Big Brothers” facility, in order to find some male mentors to spend time with us, but apparently they didn’t have anyone available. I must have been around12 years old at the time and on the way home from the Big Brothers meeting place, I was walking through a basketball court outside the school, when I got into a scuffle with four or five kids that started picking on me. While I was busy trying to defend myself against these kids, my brother, who was two years older then I was, came to my rescue and helped me. I really appreciated that and told him so, as we walked the rest of the way home together. Now that I look back on my earlier life, I regret that my brother and I drifted apart as time and other events within our lives took our lives over.
The next fight I got into was when I was in the 6th grade and living in Elkhart. Like so many of the fights I ended up getting into, I don’t remember what started it. All I remember is meeting up with some kid after school was over. We met on the corner of the playground of Roosevelt school and we got into this knock down drag out fight. Then when we were done, we got up and went to our homes. To the best of my knowledge, no bones were broken and I know there were no knives or guns used. It was just two young boys settling their differences.
Foster Family
After becoming so angry and unruly, I was eventually sent to Goshen, Indiana, to live with a foster family. That meant I would be attending another new school. My foster parents were Phyllis and Russ Owens. Phyllis was a blonde headed, blue eyed attractive telephone operator in her mid to late 30s with fair skin and stood about an inch shorter than I was. I would not attempt to guess or reveal her true weight, but can say that she was not overweight nor was she too skinny. I guess I could say she was just right for a woman her age. Her husband, Russ, was a police officer that stood around 5’11” with short dark hair and was dark complected, muscular and weighed around 180 pounds. They also had another foster son that was the same age I was. His name was Rick Neumann and we got along real good. While staying with them, I was able to get or share a paper route so that I could earn some money and everything seemed great, until they separated. I was told they were getting divorced. Now I was beginning to wonder if I was a jinx on marriages. I also heard a rumor that it was my fault they were getting divorced, because Russ thought his wife and I were having a thing, were involved in an affair or something along those lines. What ever the rumor was, it was not true, but that still made me feel at least partially responsible. The only bright spot was that 50+ years later, while researching some dates and other information for this book, I discovered they had either remarried or never fully got divorced and ended up raising a total of eight other children and/or foster children, but unfortunately by the time I uncovered that information, Russ has already passed away.
Grand Parents
After my foster parents went through their problems, I was sent to South Bend, to live with my mother’s parents, Warren and Marion Hostetter. They were in their 60s at the time and Warren still worked. My grandfather had a steel plate in his head, because he had been kicked in the head by a horse as a young boy when he took the horse to a creek to get a drink of water. But in spite of his injuries, he ended up working hard his entire life. He was an over the road truck driver until the Great Depression hit, then he went out west looking for work. After he arrived in South Bend, he got a job working at the Studebaker plant in South Bend, then after they closed he want to work for the New York Central Railroad in Elkhart. Marion worked at a demonstrator for Stanley Home Products and their entire basement was stocked with Stanley Products that she would sell at “ladies house parties.” Some person would have a party in their home and invite all her friends, then my grandmother would “demonstrate” all of these household soaps, lotions, kitchen aids, and other products.
At least my grandparents were not total strangers to me. In my younger years, when I still lived in Pennsylvania, my brother and I would be put on a train in Pennsylvania and sent to spend the summers in Indiana with my grandparents. My grandmother would pick us up at the train station and take us to their house in South Bend. They also owned a small 10 acre farm in Osceola and while we were with them over the summers, we would help out on the farm, pickin’ Blueberries and weeding the truck patch, which was a small garden area where they grew all of their vegetables and some fruit. They always kept two steers they would fatten and then butcher, so we always had plenty of meat, grain fed meat, and they grew their own field corn, to feed the steers.
We would also go door to door selling their blueberries for 50 cents a quart. My grandmother would drive her car, containing the blueberries and cash, while my brother and I would go up to each house and show a sample quart of blueberries. If the customer wanted more then one quart, we would go to the car and get them as many as they wanted, until we ran out of stock. Then we would go out to the farm and pick more, until the season ran out.
When we originally moved to Indiana, my mother, my step-father Bill, my brother and I all stayed at my grand parents house for a short time, until my mother and Bill got jobs and could find our own place. While we were staying with them, my brother and I stayed in one room in the “attic” upstairs, which was right above the kitchen. Being up there at the end of summer was wonderful, because my grandmother made all of her food from scratch and since they had a farm and grew all their own vegetables, she did a ton of canning and preparing food for long term storage.
My favorite memory was of the corn she would dry. They had a contraption that was the same size as the entire top of a kitchen stove and would sit on top of all four burners. I never learned exactly how it worked, but my grandmother would take a big kitchen knife and slice all the corn off the ears and spread them out over this large pan. One corner of the pan had a funnel built into it so that she could fill it with water. Apparently she would put water inside the reservoir then turn the stove on, which would somehow dry out the kernels of corn. She would then take the dehydrated kernels and place them into canning jars, so that during the winter, all she had to do was add water or milk to cook them and she would end up having fresh corn all year long. To me, the best part of this entire operation was laying above the kitchen at night and go to sleep smelling the wonderful aroma of corn drying on the stove all night long. After my grandmother passed away, my mother acquired that corn dryer and eventually I got it after my mother passed away and keep in on display in my home as one of the few fond memories of my youth.
Cookie Thief
There was another memory from the time we were all staying at my grandmother’s house that was not so pleasant. I woke up on morning to discover that my grandmother and my mother were upset because the lid was missing off of a cookie jar. Apparently someone got hungry and took some Oreo cookies without permission and for some unknown reason, kept the lid also. After searching the house the lid was discovered under the mattress, where my brother and I had been sleeping. It was right in the middle, between his side of the bed and my side, so the inquisition began in order to find out who stole the cookies. My brother denied it and so did I. Eventually, someone decided that I must be the culprit and they kept telling me that I took the cookies and should admit to it. I don’t remember if I ever admitted it, but I do remember that I was thinking since they kept telling me that I was the thief, I must have done it, even if I don’t remember doing it. It was not until later my brother privately admitted taking the cookies. But by that time, the damage had already been done.
As a result of the Oreo Cookie event, I questioned the ability to trust my own mind, until I found he admitted taking them. That proved that others had the ability to partially convince me I did something when I could not remember doing it. So as I grew older, I became determined to NEVER allow someone else to brainwash me into admitting guilt for something, when I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was not guilty. I became very strong in my will of self preservation and protecting my mind from being swayed by the opinion of others.
Unfortunately, while I was in the 9th grade, after leaving the foster family and living with my grandparents, I ended up going to yet another new school, the third one in a year. I was the outsider again, at this school but I managed to survive the end of that school year and even started a new year, before I got into trouble again. This time I was sent back to live with my mother, but she ended up telling a judge that she couldn’t handle me, so I was declared incorrigible and sent to the Indiana Boys School, which was basically a reform school.
Elkhart County Jail
Before going to reform school I had to spend time in the Elkhart County Jail. That is where I spent a lot of time learning how to defend myself. When I first arrived at the county jail, I was initially put into the juvenile section of the jail. While I call this the “juvenile” section, it was built the same as the rest of the jail, with a steel ceiling, three steel walls, one wall that was all steel bars, including the door and solid concrete floor.
There was absolutely no difference between the juvenile section and the adult section of the jail. It was just that we were not housed in the same cells together with adults. It was a small cell, with around 10 beds in it. They were all bunk beds that were made out of solid steel and were bolted to the floor and walls. When I was initially placed in the jail cell, I was given a thin mattress about three inches thick. As I went to place it on an empty bunk, I noticed even the part of the bed where I started to lay the mattress, was solid steel. I was also given a gray wool blanket and a towel, but there was no pillow or washcloth.
Forest Edwards
Within 24 hours of me getting placed in the county jail, I ended up in a fight with another inmate named Forest Edwards Jr. or “Junior” for short. He was the biggest and oldest kid in the cell block when I arrived. He and I were about the same height and weight. He had dark hair and brown eyes. I don’t remember what that fight was about, but again, it may have been about control and me resisting someone else trying to control me. I also don’t remember if either one of us actually won the fight, or if we simply fought for so long, we eventually just got tired and quit.
What I do remember about that fight is that once it was over, Junior and I became the best of friends and that friendship lasted for many decades. As a matter of fact, our friendship was so close, that one day while a deputy was walking us from the county jail, to the courthouse across the street, we took off running and “escaped.” Junior stole a car and drove us to Ohio, were he wanted to see some girl from his past. We were eventually captured and returned to the jail and as a result of the escape, the county decided to build a tunnel that would go under the street, from the County Jail to the court house, they could use to transport prisoners.
Many years later in life, after Junior would get out of reform school and then prison, there were still times when he would call me in the middle of the night, whenever he needed help of some type and I would always go and do whatever I could for him. The help usually involved picking him up when he was stranded because of his car breaking down or to back him up in a fight against multiple people. But it didn’t matter what type of help he needed, I would always get out of bed and go help him, because that’s what friends do. At least, that is what I do for my friends. I have always been the type of person that I can either be someone’s best friend or their worst enemy, depending on how they treat me.
While at the county jail, during the time that followed our escape and prior to going to the Indiana Boys School, Junior and I both learned quite a bit from each other about how to defend ourselves. It turned out that he used to “slap box” with his brother. That is a form of practice fighting or sparing, but just using an open hand instead of a fist. His technique was to use speed and he was real quick with his hands, while I was more calculated and used a defensive position to concentrate on blocking incoming swings or punches in order to save my outgoing punches until I could find a target that would cause more damage.
While we were sitting in the county jail, waiting to be shipped to the Indiana State Boys School, we spent many hours every day, practicing our fighting techniques, which literally became a life saver multiple times in both of our lives, including a very important one I would eventually get involved in, while in reform school.
Indiana Boys School in Plainfield, Indiana
Junior and I were the only two juveniles that were being transported to the reform school from Elkhart County, at this time. It was about a three hour drive and the only memorable event about the trip heading to Plainfield, was our driver placing “thumb cuffs” on us. They were basically like a regular set of handcuffs, except they were placed around our thumbs instead of our wrists. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful but very unnerving. We heard a variety of scary stories about the Indiana Boys School, starting with the nickname of being in “Painville” instead of Plainfield. Other stories involved many of the boys getting raped by the guards and older inmates, as well as them giving us all types of shots, including using a square needle inserted inside the tip of your penis and having their own cemetery for the boys they killed. We didn’t know how many of the stories we heard were true or fiction, but while we were being transported down there, we were preparing ourselves mentally for the worst to happen.
Charles Manson
We would soon discover some of the stories we heard would turn out to be either partially or completely true, including the one about housing inmates like some guy named Charles Manson that set his school on fire at the age of 9.
He also escaped from a correctional facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, before he joined up with a boy named Blackie Nielson to get a gun and steal a car to escape from Father Flanagan’s famous Boys Town in Omaha, Nebraska. and was finally sent to a “horror movie correction school” called The Indiana Boys School where he was raped and beaten many times.
He finally escaped from there after 18 failed attempts, and caused havoc all across the country before getting caught again and getting sent to Washington DC’s National Facility for Boys.
We heard that he was born without a name and his mother “sold” him for a pitcher of beer. He would eventually become a famous cult leader of a hippie group that committed at least nine high profile murders in California during the 60s, including a movie actress named Sharon Tate, the wife of a famous Movie Producer by the name of Roman Polanski and a big supermarket executive Leno LaBianca. They would also try to assassinate President Gerald Ford.
Manson later wrote a book admitting staff members of the Indiana Boys School beat him and older boys sexually assaulted him while he was incarcerated there. He also made a statement about the Indiana Boys School stating, “I know the school is still in operation, but I hope all the warped, sadistic bastards I met there are now dead.”
My thoughts as I heard about inmates like Manson and some of the others, were that if someone like these guys that had been in multiple institutions before being sent to the Indiana Boys School, ended up getting raped and beaten, what chance would someone like me and Junior have, since neither one of us had ever been locked up in an institution before.
Orientation and Corporal Pushishment
As soon as Junior and I turned onto the school property, I could tell it was a very large facility. It wasn’t until after I was there for a time that I learned it covered over 1,000 acres of land and that after spending over a year and a half locked up, I still would only know a small fraction of what took place here or even what all of the buildings were for.
We eventually arrived at the main building where we would go through an orientation that was located in their most secure building. It was during that time when I was examined by a doctor and dentist. This was the first time in my life that I ever saw a dentist, because we were so poor. I ended up getting multiple fillings in my teeth and more shots then I could count, but none of the needles were square or were injected anywhere near my private parts.
The main orientation room is where we were introduced to the school rules and expectations. They also showed us what would happen if we broke the rules. The brought a boy out from one of the isolation cells that had broken some type of rule. As we sat there and watched, they approached him while carrying a large paddle. It was about one inch thick, five to six inches wide, with holes in it for air flow, so it could be swung faster and about the length of a baseball bat. They made the boy drop his pants and underwear, then bend over a table with his bare butt cheeks facing one of the guards. The boy then received 10 whacks across his behind. That was apparently the punishment for whatever infraction he broke. Those wacks left red marks and welts on his body, but no blood. That entire show was put on just to scare us, and it served it’s purpose, at least for most of the boys.
A couple of years after I left Indiana Boys School, their “Corporal Punishment” was halted as a result of a trial for a lawsuit that was filed by two former inmates. One said he “was paddled until he bled” and another claimed he was held in solitary confinement for 70 days.
I also found out the stories about them having their own cemetery was true and at one time during my stay there, when I was buried alive, I was afraid that I was going to end up in their cemetery.