Speaker 1: We imagine summer camps as a sunny escape of swimming
in the lake, troop chants, and freedom from parents. The
reality is that these isolated campgrounds have often served as
a front for something much darker. From NDA's and employee
recycling to Project Monarch. Follow Me down the rabbit Hole
on Cannon Cook. Hello, friends, and welcome back to the
rabbit Hole. I'm your host, Danny, and today we are
talking about Cannon Cook, the camps associated with it, all
of the ministering that they do all around the world,
and how shady it is. So I think we need
to give a special thanks to the Facts about Cannonook
Advocacy Group for compiling a detailed, vetted resource of Cannicook
camps and like all the crazy things that have gone
on there. We use them as a heavy resource for this,
but they actually just have most the information when it
comes to the sexual abuse scandals that the camp has
had going on before we get into it. Of course,
I'd love to thank our sponsors, so thank you Wise
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I will link that in the show notes. Around thirty
million children attend at least one structured summer camp program
each year, which is about half all kindergarten through twelfth
grade students in the United States. It's the ultimate American
youth tradition, consisting of fresh air, swimming, and most of all,
the total freedom of being miles away from parents. From
character building to social skills, summer camps serve as a
rite of passage for most youth who attend each year.
The first organized summer camp recorded by the American Camp
Association or ACA, was founded by Frederick W. Gunn and
his wife Abigail in eighteen sixty one. The youth camp
concept in the United States started in Washington, Connecticut, when Gunn,
the headmastery of the Gunnery School which is now called
the Frederick Gunn School, took his entire student body on
a two week hiking and camping trip to Welch's Point
on the Long Island Sound. The timing was no coincidence,
so weeks after the start of the American Civil War,
guns students were reportedly eager to experience soldier life, so
the students, thirty boys and twelve girls, marched forty miles
from Washington, Connecticut to Welch's Point. They lived in platoons,
slept in large tents, and performed daily military drills to
feel what the soldiers felt and prepare for eventual service
in the Union Army. So it was in doctrination from
the get go. The success of the eighteen sixty one
trip led to a t twelve year tradition of gypsying,
as the students called it, eventually moving the site two
point Beautiful on Lake Warmog in the eighteen seventies. That
was the first camp on record, and it was another
twenty years before another camp was actually established. In eighteen
eighty one, Camp Chakorra in New Hampshire established the modern
sleepway model of camping. In eighteen eighty five, Camp Dudley opened,
now known as the YMCA. It is the oldest continuously
operating camp in the US between nineteen ten and nineteen twelve,
the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and Campfire Girls were founded.
In nineteen twenty one, Camp at Water in Massachusetts opened
as the first summer camp for black children. Then we
get to nineteen twenty six. This is the year we
saw a massive surge in the Golden age of American
private camps, many of which were focused on Christian values
and building character. It was in this year that the
American Camp Association began standardizing camp best press practices, specifically
the Summer Camp Handbook, written by Porter Sergeant, who was
a former student and camper at the Gunnery School, which
this book was actually distributed to all the camps. And
at the same time, almost simultaneously, actually, the Nazi Party
began formalizing its youth wing in Germany. In July nineteen
twenty six, the Nazi Party's young wing was formally renamed
the Hitler UGent or HJ for Hitler's Youth slash Bund.
While many American camps of this era used what they
called tribal imagery and military style drills to build character,
that HJ used the camp structure for state indoctrination, radical ideology,
and pre military training. The Nazi camp implemented Feurer Prince Deep,
demanding that authority flow from the top down and followed
without question, which sounds a lot like Project Monarch. But
we'll get there. We're going to tie it to Project Monarch,
I promise. The Nazi model also heavily emphasized the term
geist to refer to a collective national spirit that superseded
the individual. The American Character Camps and the Hitler Youth
Bund were eerily similar. The daily ritual of the American
camps began with a bugle call, then the flag raising,
and the morning Watch, which was a daily devotional. They
had squads or tribes that were led by senior counselors,
and then at nights they told campfire stories, and their
uniforms were often like military surplus to promote the equality
and unity of the camp members. The daily ritual for
the Hitler Youth Bund began with a bugle call, the
raising of the swastika, and a daily religious service. The
units of troops were led by a squad leader, and
nights were spent having ceremonial hours of ideological yarns, which
in German means to tell stories. Their uniforms were paramilitary
brown shirts to promote uniformity. All this, like I said,
will be important later, so just hang on to that thought. Meanwhile,
in America, Cugahoe Camp now Cannacook Camp, located in Missouri,
was founded by LC Ford. The story goes that it
began with a group of Texas boys traveling to the
Ozarks and it has grown into one of the largest
Christian sport camps in the world. The founder and its
successors implemented the I'm third philosophy, so God first, other second,
yourself third. This was a move toward what is called
self abnegation, the idea that the individual must disappear for
the sake of the higher cause. The same year, in Hunt, Texas,
Camp Mystic and Camp Waldemar were established. Both were all
girls Christian camps. Camp Mystic emphasized the mystic spirit to
build individual character. That is actually the camp that got
washed away in Texas not too long ago. These camps
laid the foundation for summer camps through nineteen twenty six,
normalizing them as a rite of passage. The Handbook of
Summer Camps, written by Star started in nineteen twenty four
and was published annually. This handbook was the roadmap for
camp directors and staff and an all informational guide for
parents to follow, ensuring that each child in America would
attend summer camp. Sergeant encouraged parents to interview camps to
ensure it was the right fit for their child's specific interests,
and for camps to interview youth before accepting them into
their camp. This made sure that it was like a
mutually beneficial relationship. The handbook was distributed across the US
to every camp. Sergeant claimed that camps would allow kids
to return to the primitive, re establish contact with nature,
and to regain primitive vigor. He promoted the idea that
the summer camp was a laboratory of character that involved
hardening the body through cold water, long marches, and manual labor.
In the beginning, it definitely seemed a lot more militaristic,
whereas like now, summer camp is like this fun thing
that kids go to to have fun. Sergeant highlighted camps
that modeled themselves after military life, praising them for their
orderly discipline, habits of obedience, and the camp community. He
notes that many successful camp directors were former military men
who brought systemized life to the woods. He emphasized that
the individual must be subordinate to the group for the
sake of the camp spirit. Sounds an awful lot like
occult to me, but we're gonna go with it. Sergeant
specifically suggested that camps were essential for preserving the vitality
of the American stock against the strains of immigration and urbanization.
It was around this time, like nineteen twenty six timeframe.
The reason that there was a boom in camps is
because that's when kids were no longer allowed to work.
So up until the early nineteen hundreds, kids were working
in factories, and then all of a sudden they were like, oh, whoa,
We're gonna put in some child labor laws. So with
the child labor laws, parents still needed to work, so
they needed to send their kids off somewhere the entire
summer while they were out of school, So summer camps
became very popular. Between the thirties and the sixties, there
was another massive movement in summer camps. The National Park
Service built infrastructure for public camps through the New Deal,
and Camp Mystic, along with many other camps across the country,
began leasing its property to the federal government to serve
as rehabilitation centers for veterans, which sounds great in theory.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the New Deal. It used
the Civilian Conservation Corps or Triple C to create camps
in national parks and forests. The program employed young men
ages eighteen to twenty five to enlist in work programs
that performed vital conservation work such as building roads, trains, dams,
and park structures, developing the park system while providing jobs
and income. During the Great Depression, the parks were managed
by the Army and supervised by the National Park Service.
These parks, although considered national treasures today, were not exactly
wanted by the citizens who lived in the area the
parks were to be placed. One park was even deemed
a social engineering park in nineteen thirty three. The Gateway
arch Project, then the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial was the exception.
Most national parks were created to preserve existing wilderness. This
one was created to destroy the city center it saved,
quote unquote. This would be the first time the federal
government used its power to clear a massive urban site
spanning forty city blocks to create a commemorative park while
people were starving. The government capitalized on the claim that
this was a job creation project. However, the city proposed
spending millions of federal dollars before the design for the
memorial had even been created. That money would go toward
clearing the land. Forty city blocks needed to be cleared,
and that's what they started. It was another twelve years
in nineteen forty seven before a nationwide design competition began
to decide the memorial's design. The area that was cleared
was one of the oldest and most significant black commercial
areas in the country. The clearing destroyed nearly three hundred
black owned businesses and resulted in the loss of around
five thousand jobs. So don't tell me this was about
creating jobs. They just wanted to get rid of a
black community because they only like the only few jobs
they had. They got rid of them all in the
name of what a national park. Is that more important
than the black community and the jobs that they had
created for themselves. By the way, because most of these
jobs in this area were small businesses, but you know,
the Gateway arch was more important. The Saint Louis Post
Dispatch won a Politzer Prize in nineteen thirty seven for
proving that the pro park side of this argument actually
stuffed ballot boxes with tens of thousands of fake yes
votes to approve the park, so the people in the
area that voted for it didn't actually vote for it,
and they didn't actually want it. It was fine decided
in the late forties to use a design by the
architect EO Saranen. However, many people claim it closely resembled
the work of Albert Speer, Hitler's architect, who favored massive,
clean geometric lines like the arch, although Nazi ties are
largely disputed. Eo Saranen was a Finnish American who actually
worked for the OSS, which was the CIA before the
CIA during World War Two, so he may or may
not have dealt with the Nazis. Construction for the arch
began in nineteen sixty three and was completed in nineteen
sixty five. The arch symbolized Saint Louis as the gateway
to the West, although it was commonly called the Gateway
Arch for many years prior. In twenty nineteen, President Trump
officially signed legislation changing the name from Jefferson National Expansion
Memorial to Gateway Arch National Park. The most significant controversy
about the Arch is that the federal government was funding
a major overhaul of Saint Louis, destroying primarily black owned businesses,
and displacing many culturally diverse communities, particularly black neighborhoods. Meanwhile,
only twenty miles away, the German American Bund, a pro
Nazi organization, established a summer camp called doist Host, meaning
German Nest, on the banks of the Merrimeck River. The
camp was a direct local version of the Hitler youth
camps that began in nineteen twenty six. They wore uniforms
modeled after the Hitler youth, practiced military drills, saying Nazi songs,
and gave the Sieghile salute, all while camping in the
Missouri Ozarks. While the Arch project was being sold to
the public in nineteen thirty three as a symbol of
American expansion and democratic progress, the Bund was secretly taking
route in Saint Louis. They tried to brand themselves as
one hundred percent American Right, claiming that Nazism was the
true version of George Washington's vision for the country. Now,
let's rewind a little when the military least youth camps
for veteran rehabilitation, they were also taking over the camps
and what we now know is Operation paper Clip. So
this operation was carried out by the government when they
brought over sixteen hundred German scientists to the United States,
many with deep Nazi ties. The government had to keep
them in temporary limited military custody while their backgrounds were
being whitewashed, and then they would get like the paper
Clip being like this guy was he was a Nazi.
But he's fine now right, like we're just his background
has completely been cleared. He's good to go. The official
narrative places the rocket team with a well known German scientist,
Werner von Braun, in El Paso, Texas. However, this is
not the only location scientists were sent to. McDonell Aircraft
in Saint Louis, Missouri became a hub for aeronautical engineers
and experts in jet propulsion, aerodynamics, and glider technology. Kurt Hohenimzer,
a pioneer helicopter rotor physics, was among them. Arriving in
early nineteen forty seven. Hollen Emser worked on the Flettner
FL two eighty two Calibri in Germany, he became the
chief aerodynamic engineer for the helicopter division at McDonald. His
work led to the development of early helicopters like Little
Henry and Big Henry. So how exactly did they get
away with keeping these scientists and promoting them when President
Truman had an anti Nazi policy that officially prohibited anyone
who had been an active supporter of militarism or Nazism
from participating in American government programs. This is where the
whitewashing or bleaching comes in. So the Joint Intelligent Objectives
Agency or the JIOA cleaned up the security dossiers for
these German scientists so they could obtain the security clearances
needed to work with the government. Hollenimser officially joined McDonald
Aircraft in Saint Louis. However, or his living situation is
described as secluded during the vetting process. In nineteen fifty one,
he officially became the chief of Aerodynamics at McDonald, overseeing
the XV one convert a plane project. He spent over
eighteen years at McDonalds Aircraft before moving into academia at
Washington University in Saint Louis. Ultimately, he became one of
the world's leading experts on helicopter rohto dynamics, a field
that directly benefited from his wartime research on the Flettner helicopters.
And he's just one of so many scientists that we've
talked about in so many different episodes that they brought
over to America and then used all the German technology
to create our own programs. But there is this short
period when these scientists are unaccounted for. However, although we
know where they were sent, we also know that they
could not have been roaming around military and government contracted
spaces without a security clearance. Remember, not everyone in the
government knew about Operation paper Clip, certainly not the president,
or so he said. So the question is where were
these secluded living spaces. We already know that during this
time the government was taking control of summer camps to
aid soldiers. The reason is that these camps already had
the facilities and land to provide all the resources needed
to house large groups of people in a single controlled place.
The theory for the German Nazi scientists in Saint Louis
is that they were actually moved to the Ozarks, specifically
around Lake Tannycomo. The reason for this is that the
already well known Nazi bun camp had been shut down
close to Saint Louis. The city and neighboring land were
hotspots where people were already like very alert to Nazi sympathizers,
and the OSS just could not risk their scientists getting
caught up in the mix and then sent off. So
they were like, we need to send them far enough
away that they have like plausible deniability they won't get
wrapped up in like the Saint Louis scandals. But also
they need to be close enough where they can still
work for the companies that they're working for. Right Lake
Tanna Coomo is only four hours away from Saint Louis.
The late Tanicomo area in the nineteen forties and fifties
was significantly more isolated than it is today. This lake
runs right through Branson, Missouri, but Branson was not as
big of a tourist town as it is today. It
was kind of just getting started, and so this was
the best place for them to go. For the JIOA,
moving high interest individuals to private rural properties was a
way to keep them out of the press and out
of reach of Soviet intelligence at the same time their
sanitized identities were being finalized, so it's like a win win.
There is some evidence in a long history of speculation
that the OSS used summer camps in private resorts in
the Ozarks as safe houses. Cannicook Camp was considered a
private enterprise and it catered specifically to the well to
do an influential people of Saint Louis, like they were
already going there, and it has also been established that
the owner at the time, Bill Lance, was a highly
influential figure within the athletic and educational elite during the
thirties and forties, and his social circles would have directly
overlapped with the OSS. So Bill Lance worked with the
OSS as an expert in hand to hand combat, survival
and physical conditioning. The Ozarks provided a perfect off the
grid retreat for consultants or foreign nationals who needed to
be kept out of the public eye temporarily. Canacook, which
Bill Lance owned and already had ties to OSS, so
it made sense he would offer his camp to these
foreign nationals, provided the perfect space for isolation without any questions.
Because it was a private enterprise. It did not have
to answer to public oversight. He didn't have to tell
anybody who was staying as his camp. He owned it.
Anybody could stay there. It's like somebody coming to your house,
be like, who lives here? You don't how to tell them. Yeah,
they know who owns it because it's on the county assessor.
You don't have to actually tell anybody who lives in
your house. For additional context, McDonald Aircraft frequently used Ozark
properties for executive retreats and confidential housing anyway. So going
through the archives of the White River Leader, the local
brands and paper at the time, there were many mentions
of foreign born engineers or government consultants visiting the lakes
for recreation and study. While they were not named, these
visitors really stood out because of everything we already know
was happening at the time. James McDonald, often called mister Mack,
was the founder and president of McDonald Aircraft Corporation in
nineteen thirty nine. From nineteen thirty nine through nineteen sixty two,
he led the shift from propeller planes to jet technology.
As a visionary in the nineteen fifties and sixties, McDonald
pushed the company into space exploration before NASA was even formed.
Then from nineteen sixty two through nineteen eighty he oversaw
the merger that created the second largest aerospace firm in
the US. McDonald was known for being deeply spiritual, being
into the occult in parapsychology, and he was notably highly
secretive about his company's intellectual assets because they were Nazis.
He famously named his planes Phantom, Banshee, Voodoo, and Demon.
His personal philosophy was deeply influenced by the idea of
mental seclusion. He believed that for his best minds to
solve the impossible, they needed to be removed from industrial
noise of Saint Louis, making the rural lakeside a perfect place. Also,
it's a note that Nazis really studied the occult and
really were into parapsychology and all of that. So for
McDonald to also be into that, I don't like. Did
he learn it from the Nazis? Was he a Nazi sympathizer?
Were they even were there even Nazis working for him?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's for you to decide. If we look into Kurt
Holmeinzer's US patent. We see that it was filed on
November twenty second, nineteen forty nine, and granted on February
twenty third, nineteen fifty four. The timeline of this patent
from start to finish begins in nineteen forty seven, when
Hohenimser adapted his German research on cyclic pitch control to
fit McDonald's new jet powered rotor projects. In nineteen forty eight,
extensive data was documented on blade tip speeds and flapping instability.
By early nineteen forty nine, physical models of the rotor
head were constructed. The engineering logs showing how the mechanical
linkage responded to simulated flight loads served as evidence for
the patent filing. From nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty three,
Honimser's team had to submit supplemental data such as performance charts,
demonstrating that their pitch control was unique to support their
claim for the patent. While the patent was penned, they
continued gathering data on the XV one convert a plane
and the rotor system in the patent, which was the
core of that aircraft. When the patent was officially granted
in nineteen fifty four, it was titled Aircraft Lifting Rotor
and Pitch Control Mechanism and was assigned to McDonald Aircraft Corporation,
Saint Louis, Missouri. This patent was under military security review
and was held under secrecy orders before being officially published,
meaning they didn't want anybody to know who was working
on this pattern, specifically who had filed the patent. The
gap from nineteen forty seven to nineteen fifty, which is
the testing period for the patent, is the exact timeline
for Hohenimser's shadow years, when the scientists had their identities sanitized. Coincidence,
I don't think so. But let's talk about Cannoncook, because
that's what we're here to talk about, right. We have
all these links to say that maybe these scientists were there,
but what else is happening at Cannicook Because it's it's
deeper than just Nazi scientists. As I mentioned before, the
camp was established by C. L. Ford in nineteen twenty six,
so this year actually marks the one hundredth anniversary. The
camp was initially called Cougaho Camp on a property in
southwest Missouri near Branson. They now own most of the
property along the shore of Lake Tannacomo across from the
Branson Landing, which is like prime real estate. But they
also are running their summer camps in Lampy, Missouri, about
forty five minutes away from Branson, along the shores of
Table Rock. Lake Ford was a businessman from Dallas, Texas
who had already established an all girls camp, Kickapoo Camp
in nineteen twenty four. His camps leaned heavily on Indian
lore and were rooted in the back to nature movement
of the nineteen twenties. The name Cugaho was intended to
evoke Native American imagery. However, the word doesn't actually.
Speaker 3: Mean any thing in any Native American language, and after
doing a lot a lot of digging, I found that
it's actually not a word in any language, like this
doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 1: It's just like a fun word to say, Cugaho. The
camp focus on outdoor skills, lake activities, and traditional summer recreation.
Ford provided the land and the initial infrastructure, remaining relatively
modest until Bill Lance became involved. Coach William C. Lance
was an athletic director and track coach at Tulsa Central
High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. During World War Two, The
OSS recruited Lance primarily for his expertise as an athletic
director and physical conditioning specialists. The OSS training philosophy leaned
heavily on high level athletics to build the mental and
physical toughness required for espionage and sabotage, which is their specialties.
He served in the Schools and Training branch, responsible for
taking recruits ranging from Ivy League professors to professional wrestlers
and them into field operatives. He also helped implement and
lead rigorous physical training programs at secluded sites such as
Area B in Cadocton Mountain Park, Maryland. The courses were
designed to weed out those who couldn't handle the extreme
stress of the behind the lines work which they would
be doing in World War Two. In nineteen thirty two,
he was hired as the director of Cugaho. Lance introduced
the I'm third doctrine along with an emphasis on athletics.
He notably integrated the OSS way into the camp, which
is still visible in the camp's culture today. The I'm
third doctrine was a parallel philosophy he learned in the OSS.
This doctrine is a belief in order and submission to
a high mission, which he could relate to religion and
to Christian's duty to God. So God first, others second,
I'm third. After just two years, Lance bought the camp
from Ford in nineteen thirty four. Lance believed that the
boy's spiritual growth was often unlocked through physical challenge. Because
of this, he introduced more sophisticated obstacle and confidence courses
at the camp, which he modeled directly after those he
had run for OSS recruits. Lance was known for his
elite staffing standards as well. He began recruiting a very
specific type of counselor, which he called coaches, and he
targeted college athletes and militarymen who could model high level
performance and leadership, treating the camp staff like an elite
rather than just like seasonal employees. He wanted the best
of the best for his camp. Lance began working closely
with his protege, a counselor who was hired in nineteen
thirty one, just a year before Lance joined the team.
The protege was Spike White. When Lance had taken over
in nineteen thirty two. He recognized Spike's leadership potential and
began involving him in the administration and philosophical restructuring of
the camp. Spike was one of the first staff members
to help plants implement the four Square Life and the
I'm Third doctrines. Now I've already gone over the I'm
Third doctrine, so let's talk about the four Square Life.
It is very important to note that there is a
distinct difference between the Four Square Life doctrine at Cannoncook
and the Four Square Church, which is a Pentecostal denomination
founded by Amy Sample McPherson. The four Square Life is
an educational and development model used specifically in the Cannonicook organization,
not based on the identity of a denomination. Although it
does not come from the Four Square denomination, it does
come directly from the Bible verse Luke two fifty two
quote and Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and
in favor with God and Man end quote. They believe
that for a person to grow complete, they should work
on four specific areas of life. Wisdom, developing the mind,
academic learning and common sense, stature, taking care of the
body through athletics, health and physical discipline, favor with God,
cultivating a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and understanding the
biblical truth and favor with man, learning leadership, kindness, and
how to build healthy relationships with others. Under Spike and
his wife Darnell, the camp was expanded during their ownership
from nineteen fifty five to nineteen seventy six. In nineteen
fifty eight, they founded Canacumo Camp, the first expansion dedicated
specifically to girls. The expansion began what the White family
has called a family of ministries. He continued recruiting high
level collegiate athletes and coaches to serve as counselors at
the camp. However, he turned the camp's doctrines into a
formal curriculum that could be replicated across multiple camp sites
in the organization. That way, everybody's learning the same things
and they continue to grow their empire, so to speak.
Spike also began developing the camp's infrastructure, which would eventually
lead to specialized programs for teenagers. In nineteen seventy two,
Spike's son Joe and his wife, Debbie Joe White began
the process of purchasing the camp. In nineteen seventy six,
Spike officially transferred ownership to Joe and Debbie Joe White.
Although Spike's time at Cannicook sounds productive with evidence of
camper growth and staff loyalty, it was far from perfect.
There have been numerous investigative reports in civil lawsuits that
have raised significant allegations regarding the environment established during Spike's
tenure to start The Springfield News Leader, and multiple lawsuits
have alleged that the culture of nudity was normalized under
Spike's leadership dating back to the nineteen fifties. This included
communal showers and physical inspections of naked campers, practices that
survivors claim quote created an environment vulnerable to predators end quote.
Documentation has indicated that Cannonicook did not release its first
formal written policy on preventing sexual abuse until decades after
Spike's ownership ended. Decades after Spike's ownership ended, which ended
in nineteen seventy six, despite industry guides being available much
earlier than that. Survivors and advocacy groups like Facts About
Kennicook have alleged that leadership throughout the entire White family's tenure,
including the era of Spikes leadership, failed to implement background
checks or an adequate reporting mechanism for red flag behaviors.
One specific allegation involves a survivor who first shared his
story at age seventy, detailing abuse he experienced while serving
as a young counselor at the camp during the mid
twentieth century. During Spike's ownership, especially during the fifties and sixties,
the standard response to inappropriate behavior was private termination. They
didn't really talk about it outside of the office. Perpetrators
were often disciplined or fired, but they weren't reported to
law enforcement, allowing perpetrators to just move on to other
youth ministries or schools and then continue doing what they're doing.
For example, investigative reports have traced the careers of several
counselors who were dismissed from Cannonicook for misconduct, only to
be convicted of abusing children at other institutions years later.
The most notable case was that of William Frinch Anderson.
He attended the camp as a child and later served
as a counselor in the nineteen fifties. He eventually became
a world renowned scientist, often referred to as the father
of gene therapy, and returned to the camp for decades,
volunteering as the camp doctor and self defense instructor. In
two thousand and six, he was convicted of sexually abusing
a young girl in California. His presence at the camp
for over forty years as a mentor and authority figure
has been a cause of major concern that abused as
part of the camp's long term culture. Now, he was
never act actually convicted of anything at Cannonicook, but the
fact that he was convicted in two thousand and six
kind of makes us assume that he was probably doing
this well before then. Another notable case is that of
the Harmon family, who had been close to the White
family since nineteen seventy one. Frank Harmon served as the
camp's trip director for forty years. Although he was not
charged with the nineteen fifties abuse cases, his son, Matt Harmon,
who began working at the camp in nineteen ninety five,
was arrested and charged with child sex crimes in twenty
twenty four. Survivors have cited longstanding family dynasties within the camp,
and the children were taught to trust the pillars of
the community per the Four Square Life and the I'm
Third doctrines, so they trusted anybody that was brought into
the camp. And as children, you would like, you're going
to a summer camp that your parents are sending you to.
You trust your parents. You're going to this fancy summer camp,
and you get there, You're gonna trust all these people
because they also claim to be Christians and you claim
to believe in God, and you're all there to study
the Word of God and grow closer with nature and
do all these fun activities, and then they're sexually abusing you.
These are things that kids don't expect are gonna happen
when they go away to summer camp, and then they
trust and they trust the adults when they're there. As
you can probably guess, the allegations were not just centered
around Spike's tenure. This is where things get really heavy.
So hold on and bear with me as we kind
of like catch up from nineteen seventy six and then
now like under Joe White's tenure, who still owns Kennicook
Camps today, the Cannonicook Organization transitioned from a summer camp
into a year round global and eventually church status entity.
The church status entity would give them tax benefits. We'll
talk about that when we get there. Once Joe White
took over in nineteen seventy six, he moved beyond the
summer camp and began creating year round influence through parachurch models.
A parachurch is typically a Christian faith based entity that
operates outside of traditional church oversight or denominational structures. The
biggest difference is the power of governance. They have their
own boards of directors and financial structures, meaning that they
aren't accountable to a bishop, elder board or denominational headquarters.
The camp served as a bridge for wealthy families in
Texas and Oklahoma who wanted to send their kids to
have like this mountaintop experience that their local church might
not have the budget for or really the facility to provide.
Joe leveraged this model to create several distinct but interconnected
nonprofits that are legally separate but share the same leadership
and philosophy. Many critics have deemed Cannoncook a parachurch empire.
So what are all these different organizations? Overall? Cannonicook leadership
under Joe White oversees thirty plus separate entities. Now, I
can't go over all thirty plus organizations under White there's
just way too many of them. We will get into
a lot of them, but not all of them. So
if you are considering sending your chile to a Christian
summer camp, please do the research to make sure that
they are not associated with Kennaicook and you'll understand why
by the end of this episode. In nineteen seventy eight,
K two opened for high school age campers. In nineteen
seventy nine, K Life Ministries was founded in Saint Louis
and designed to keep the camp high alive through weekly clubs.
Clubs spelled with a K of course, during the school year,
so think about like the Boys and Girls Club or
any childcare type after school program for kids while their
parents are still working. So this happens all year long
during the school year. In nineteen eighty three, K West
opened in Missouri, expanding its capacity for teenage campers. In
nineteen eighty eight, K Country opened, targeting the youngest demographic
ages six to eleven. In nineteen eighty nine, K Life
Ministries Incorporated was officially incorporated as a parent organization to
manage the growing number of city chapters. The widest Cannoncook
expansion began in nineteen ninety one with the establishment of
Kids Across America KAA. This camp was marketed as a
subsidized camp for urban youth made up of about ninety
five percent Black children who were given scholarships paid for
by sponsors and by tuition paying Kennicook families. Around the
same time, in nineteen ninety one, Kennicook International also called
Global Connection, began with the formation of Kennicook Haiti. In
nineteen ninety three, K seven opened, offering one week and
two week terms for ages twelve to eighteen. In two
thousand and two, Cannicook Institute or KI was incorporated. This
is a post college discipleship program where students live on
the KI Kawaii campus, which would later open in two
thousand and six as a tropical themed family camp. In
twenty eleven, Link Years was founded by Adam Donie. It
serves as a spiritual gap year program for high school
graduates that aren't going directly to university. The same year,
Cannonicook Adventure Series launched, focusing on high adventure activities such
as scuba diving and flying. In twenty fifteen, Cannoncook was
granted church status by the IRS. This was a massive
shift for Cannoncook because that meant they were exempt from
filing public Form nine to ninety tax returns, allowing them
to hide all their executive salaries and internal spending from
the public. This made it really hard for us to
track their spending because they always say follow the money,
but churches don't have to. You don't. You can't follow
the money with churches. The leader of whatever church could
take all of the money, leaving nothing for anybody else,
and they don't have to report that. Granted, most churches
have like a system in place, like a board or
the denominational headquarters that would tell them how to spend
their money, but not in this case when they're a
parent church. In twenty twenty one, Link Academy was established
as a basketball powerhouse prep school. It operates as a
DBA or like doing business as within Cannonicook Ministries. This
same year, Facts About Cannonicook was launched by survivors. This
brought the organization's legal history into the public eye, leading
several churches to cut ties with the camps. In twenty
twenty four, Cannicook Expeditions launched. This moved the Cannonicook International
or global connection model into high end adult slash family
travel in pilgrimages. In twenty twenty five, Cannoncook celebrated its
centennial summer, heavily marketing its one hundred year legacy, all
while actually going through litigation regarding the use of non
disclosure agreements or NDAs in sexual abuse settlements. The lawsuits
against Cannonicook have been piling up for decades. Public records
and survivor advocacy sites like Facts about Cannonicook estimate that
at least two hundred and twenty one alleged victims have
actually come forward, although the scale of those adversely affected
is in the thousands, and at least sixty eight different
perpetrators have been identified since nineteen fifty eight. The exact
number of active and pass lawsuits is difficult to pinpoint
because many cases were resolved through private, out of court
settlements involving extreme NDAs. The Facts about Kennicook website lists
a long timeline of known abusers that we are going
to get into. But bear with me and remember that
we're gonna mention child abuse and suicide. So please take
care because this gets It's awful anytime it has to
do with children. It's awful. As we talked about earlier,
the first known abuser was doctor William Frinch Anderson in
the nineteen fifties, who worked with Cannonicook for decades, but
was convicted much later in twentousand and six in California
for abusing a young girl. In nineteen seventy eight, there
was Corby Dale Grimes, who was hired as a counselor
but was eventually fired due to his touching a boy
camper's genitals. Later, in two thousand and two, he was
sentenced to life in prison for sexually abusing a boy
in Texas. So had they done something in nineteen seventy eight,
the boy in Texas might not have been a victim,
but I digress. In nineteen eighty five, Chuck Price was
hired as a counselor two female campers alleged sexual assault
in the eighties, but he was not fired until nineteen
ninety when leadership supposedly got involved. However, Price just like
moved on to urban k Life in Saint Louis, where
he volunteered until February twenty twenty one. He was never
charged criminally, never has been charged criminally, So they fired
him as a counselor, but then he just moved up
to Saint Louis and joined k Life, which is like
the after school activity. They just relocated him. They don't
care that he was accused of sexual abuse or sexual assault.
In the early nineteen nineties, ed Ringheim was hired as
a counselor. He was later reassigned to maintenance after reports
of being sexually inappropriate with boys. He moved on to
volunteer at KLi Orlando. However, in twenty twelve, he was
convicted of seven felonies involving underage boys because again they
didn't say anything and he continued doing what he was doing.
In the summers of nineteen ninety three and nineteen ninety four,
Robert Shiflett was a summer employee at Cannicook Camps, and
he was then awarded a contract through Tailfish to do
web design for Cannicook Institute from twenty ten through at
least twenty seventeen. He was later convicted in twenty twenty
one for child sex trafficking and incidents that happened during
his time as a youth pastor at Denton Bible Church
between nineteen ninety six and two thousand and three, Paul
Green worked as a counselor and abused a boy while
visiting him in Dallas, which is something that was encouraged
by Cannonicook. Green died in a car crash just as
police were getting ready to arrest him after getting a
taped confession. In nineteen ninety five, Pete Newman was hired
and retained as a camp counselor beginning in the summer
of nineteen ninety six. Newman was a student at Auburn
University and his application to Kennicook was allegedly incomplete. But
remember that name because we will come back to him.
Also in nineteen ninety five, Matthew Harmon was hired as
a k Wild trip leader. Harmon's parents, Hank and Diane,
were close friends with the Whites and had held multiple
positions at Cannicook since nineteen seventy one. We mentioned the
Harmon family a little bit, just a little while ago.
Harmon was dismissed in two thousand for allegedly kissing a camper. However,
in two thousand and one through at least two thousand
and nine he served as a ropes course instructor and
often attended K Life events in Dallas, Texas. He had
access to Kennicook Campgrounds through at least twenty twenty two,
visiting his parents at their Harmon cabin, which is adjacent
to the K two campgrounds. Harmon was arrested in twenty
twenty four for sexual assault of a child from two
thousand and seven while he was employed at Providence Christian
School in Dallas, Texas and was volunteering at Trinity Christian Academy.
Paul James Kerr was hired nineteen ninety seven as a
Cannonicook counselor and was employed until two thousand and five.
In twenty twelve, he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a
nine year old girl at a Colorado daycare. A Cannonicook
victim has come forward with additional allegations against him. In
nineteen ninety nine, Pete Newman was promoted to a full
time staff member and served as the director of the
Father Son Retreats. Later that year, a parent notified Cannonicook
that Newman was leading nude activities with multiple young boys
on the campgrounds, including nude four willing and swimming, which
is so wrong on so many levels. Who thinks nude
four willing is like a good idea? Ever? Let alone
as a grown man around underage boys, Like, at what
point were you're like, you know what? This is like
a fun little four willing trip? You know what would
make it better? Let's get naked? Are you kidding me?
People are so dumb. The next year, in two thousand,
Newman was promoted to summer staff leadership and Men's director
for k Country. Also in two thousand, Joe White, the
owner of Cannonicook, invited the pilot of his private jet,
Robert John Morgan, to live on Cannonicook property while he
awaited trial for charges of sodomizing a child. So Joe
knows his private jet pilot is awaiting trial for sodomizing
a child, and instead of being like, we got to
keep you far away from this summer camp for children,
We're actually going to bring you closer so you have
all the opportunity in the world to do it again.
White actually testified in Morgan's defense as a character witness.
Morgan was convicted of statutory sodomy and was sentenced to
ten years in prison, Thank god, but still ten years
not enough time. Two thousand and three, more parents reported
again that Newman was engaging in newde activities with boys.
His direct supervisor, Will Cunningham, recommended that Newman be terminated. However,
Joe White overruled the recommendation and allowed Newman to retain
all leadership roles. Yeah, you're getting naked with the boys,
but you're good. You're fine. Around two thousand and four
two thousand and five, Matthew Overstreet was hired as a
counselor for K two But you guessed it. In twenty ten,
he pled guilty to sexually assaulting a child he met
in two thousand and seven while working as a youth
group intern at a church in Texas. In two thousand
and five, Newman was promoted to camp director of K
Country when his former supervisor, Will Cunningham, who had recommended
him for a termination, left his role, probably because he
realized that everybody there was messing with little kids, but
he didn't do anything about it either. He wasn't reporting
these people anyway. Newman assumed the official role in the
summer of two thousand and six, and Cannonicook continued to
endorse Newman as a safe mentor for boys along with
his method of hot to Bible studies because that's appropriate.
In two thousand and six, more reports were made that
Newman was inappropriately touching boys and having late night phone
activity with boys. However, yes, he maintained all leadership roles
and was promoted again to be the face of Cannonicook
and promoted as a safe mentor for youth, which he
was absolutely not. What's crazy to me is that it
seems like every time he's reported for doing something inappropriate
with children, he gets a promotion. Instead of getting fired,
instead of getting reported to law enforcement, he gets a promotion.
He was widely recognized within Cannonicook as a purity expert
and purity leader. Boys went to him and got purity training,
and he was like teaching them how to navigate their sexuality.
And then he would like travel all over the world
giving seminars on purity. He was like talking to churches,
talking to schools. He became the public faith of Cannonicook's
moral standards, all the while abusing the children he was
supposed to be mentoring. What a fantastic person. In two
thousand and nine and twenty ten, Newman was finally threatened
with legal action. Finally, only fifteen years after he started
at Kennicook, He eventually confessed to white and revealed the
names of some victims. He allegedly created two short lists,
boys he physically harmed and boys he didn't physically harm.
He was finally terminated, arrested, and sentenced to two life
terms plus thirty years for his crimes against at least
fifty seven victims. The total of all campers abused by
him remains unknown. This situation uncovered that Cannoncook began pushing
for settlements and silencing victims with NDAs. They also created
and promoted the Cannonicook Child Protection Plan to rebrand their
camp as a safe, gold standard camping destination. Oh my
godsh Lacy Joe Cunningham served as a counselor at K
two from twenty ten to twenty twelve and held leadership
positions as unit coordinator and basketball clinic lead. She had
graduated from Kennicook Institute in twenty twelve. Cunningham was indicted
twice and sentenced of three years in a Texas jail
for an improper relationship between an educator and a student
while serving as a teacher and basketball coach at Woodlands
Christian Academy in Houston, Texas. She was released from jail
in twenty twenty five. Lee Bradbury, who had been hired
as a counselor after the protection plan was implemented, was
accused of abusing at least four boys in twenty eleven.
In twenty thirteen, Bradbury pleaded guilty to sexually abusing minors
under the age of fourteen and was sentenced to seven
years for statutory a sodomy and two ten year sentences
for child molestation. Although it sounds good that they gave
him around twenty seven years for his crime, he has
already been released. In twenty sixteen, allegedly at least four
thirteen year old female campers were sexually assaulted by another
male camper at a K seven social event. Even though
they reported the assault, K seven director Kurth Chancey forced
the girls to meet their perpetrator to apologize for making
the accusation and forgive him, since Jesus forgives. One victim,
who reportedly wanted to leave, was denied a request to
call her parents, which goes directly against the camp's policy. Also,
this girl is a minor, so she should be allowed
to call her mom and leave if she wants to.
In twenty seventeen, Chuck Price, who was terminated in nineteen
ninety for allegations of sexual abuse that was reported to
leadership but not to the police, by the way, was
pictured with an Urban k Live Saint Louis director and
Joe White wearing a Cannonicook visitor's badge. So they just
allowed of users to be back around the campers as
much as they wanted. In twenty nineteen, a victim of
Pete Newman died by suicide after settling his case. He
had been silenced by an NDA that was so strict
he was afraid to even talk to his therapist about
what happened to him. His family named him a Cannonook
camp abuse survivor in his obituary. Later, the Springfield Newsleader
published an article about quote reports of eight cannon Cook
victims whose deaths are suspected to be related to their
abuse end quote. Between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty four,
Cannonicook abuse survivors and their families began connecting for the
first time. Facts about Cannicook dot Com launched in March
of twenty twenty one, and the abuse at Cannicook finally
received national mainstream media attention. Survivors of Canticook abuse created
a petition to release the NDAs on victims, which has
gained more than twenty seven thousand signatures. If you would
like to sign that petition, I have included that in
the show notes. Britt Hudson Ham was hired in nineteen
ninety three. He was a Cannicook staff member and k
Life affiliate. He was known by his nickname Hamburger while
employed at Kennicook and was reportedly close friends with Joe
White and his family just this year in January of
twenty twenty six, so very recently, Christian singer Stacy Orco
sued brit Hudson Ham for sexually abusing her as a
child from two thousand to two thousand and four. She
won a music talent competition in nineteen ninety eight which
Ham had judged, and then he became her manager. In
nineteen ninety nine, Ham was an employee at Rocket Management LLC,
founded by Michael W. Smith at the time. Ham later
became the COO of Business Jet Services based in Dallas, Texas,
and would employ Joe White's grandson as a pilot. Additionally,
Derek Duke Hampsh, the brother of current Cannonicook executive Chad Hampsh,
is currently serving a twenty year prison sentence after being
convicted on child sexual abuse against minor girls. At the
same time, he was a youth pastor at a South
Baptist convention church. After all this, it is actually shocking
that this camp is still very active and under the
exact same leadership. I have so many questions, like what
was it about Pete Newman that, instead of being fired
and reported to the police back in nineteen ninety nine
when he was first reported, he kept getting promoted for
the next ten years. Pete was married during his fourteen
years at Cannonicook, and there is no mention of them
having children. His wife was named in reports against Newman,
but I could not find anything mentioning that she has
been charged or that she even knew what he was doing,
although some accounts say she was in the other room
when abuse was taking place. Canticook leaders made statements that
his family, friends and neighbors were all in the dark
and had no idea what he had been doing, which
is ridiculous. Because it had been reported to Cannonicook many times.
What we really know about Newman is that he grew
up in Alabama and later attended Auburn University. Joe White
is quoted as claiming that his family and Pete Newman
basically adopted one another, and he became a father figure
to Pete. Pete would often use his status in the
Brandson community as a way to keep the kids quiet,
especially because the Brandson communities got like small town vibes
where everyone it's like a good old boys club. So
Pete was in the good old boys club obviously, so
that's how he would keep the kids quiet. I'm sure
Canna Cooker, one of its many contacts, spent a lot
of time and money keeping Newman's history wiped off the Internet.
But the fact that there is nothing, literally nothing about him,
not the town he grew up in, not the high
school he went to, if he had siblings, nothing. We
don't know anything about this guy. The fact that his
life before being recruited from Auburn has been kept such
a big secret is suspicious, like was he a plant?
But that's not the only thing that's super unsuspicious. Celebrity
Bill Crosby. Yeah, the same convicted sex offender everyone knows
and loves endorsed the Cannon Cook camps, So that makes
us feel real good about it. Christian music artists Chris
Rice and Michael Tate, both reported to have sexually abused children,
have all had access to kids across America KAA and
Canna Cook children in the past decades. Other big name
endorsers of Cannon Cook have been Amy Grant, Tony Romo,
Peyton Manning, Jenny Allen, Stephen Curtis Chapman, and doctor James
Dobson from Focus on the Family, who is quoted as saying, quote,
Joe White knows more about teenagers than anyone in North
America end quote even more interesting. Pastor Rob McCoy, famously
known for his role in turning Point USA Faith, is
a long standing partner and speaker for Cannon Cook Camp.
He has been frequently featured at Cannoncook's conferences and retreats,
particularly those focused on Christian leadership and Biblical citizenship. McCoy
has also served as a guest lecturer and mentor at
Cannonicook Institute, which has hosted many TPUSA faith leaders as
speakers for students. I also want to get into Link
Academy because it's often overlooked when talking about the abuse
that has happened at Cannoncook, and we need to talk
about it. Link Academy is the elite boarding school for
grades nine through twelve located on the campus of Cannonicook
Ministries in Branson, Missouri. The academy was founded by Adam
Donie in twenty twenty one as an extension of the
Link Year program, which is like the Gap Year program
that we talked about a little bit earlier. It is
legally registered as a DBA entity of Cannoncook Ministries. The
school is specifically designed as a basketball powerhouse, recruiting top
tier national talent to compete in the NIKE eybl Schoolastic Conference.
Despite being a relatively new high school with its first
high school season starting in the twenty twenty one twenty
two school year, Link Academy and Link Year have already
produced several professional basketball players. NBA players include Jordan Walsh
class of twenty two, who was drafted by the Sacramento
Kings and is currently playing for the Boston Celtics. Julian
Phillips class of twenty two was drafted by the Boston
Celtics and is currently with the Chicago Bulls. Jacoby Walter
class of twenty three was drafted nineteenth overall in the
twenty four NBA Draft by the Toronto Raptors. Others that
have become professional basketball players include Jamichael Morgan, who played
professionally in Kosovo, Bryce and Warren, who played for the
Westchester Kicks in NBA G League. Terras Reed Junior, who
was a highly ranked recruit from class of twenty two
and is currently playing for University of Connecticut, and Elliott
Cadou class of twenty three, who is currently the star
guard for the North Carolina tar Heels. Link Academy also
attracts the children of high profile professional athletes and families,
probably because it's a basketball powerhouse. This includes Andre Iguidala,
a former NBA Finals MVP and his son Andre Iguidala
the second class of twenty five. Richard Johnson Junior, a
former collegiate basketball player at Baylor and Midwestern State and
a former basketball coach since his son Trey Johnson. Trey
was recently drafted sixth overall by the Washington Wizards in
twenty five. Beckham Black, Orlando Magic star Anthony Black's brother
was transferred to Link Academy, so they're attracting basketball players
from all over the country to go to Branson, Missouri.
Adam Donie has stated that revenue from Canacook camps helps
provide full ride scholarships for the basketball players. However, non
scholarship students paid forty thousandition each which makes me wonder, like,
You've got these NBA stars that are bringing their children
to Link Academy for the basketball powerhouse that it is,
and you're not charging their like on full ride scholarships
to this high school while these other students are paying
forty thousand dollars intuition each year. You think that the
that the NBA star could afford the forty thousand dollars,
use some of that money to give a scholarship to
a kid that can't afford it that could be an
NBA star. Since Link Academy is a DBA of Cannoncook,
it is also tax exem and classified as a church.
Don Ye is also the director of the Worldview Camp,
which is a one week add on camp for ages
sixteen to eighteen, costing a whopping one eight hundred and
twenty one dollars. It offers further development of athletics or
faith with specific lessons and training designed for kids of
different ages and backgrounds, with a narrowed in focus, acting
as a supplemental material to the overnight camps. Another entity
of cannon Coook that is less talked about but should
be is the kids across America. This camp says it
is transforming urban youth for Christ. This camp is different
than Cannonicook Camps, but in a subtle, nuanced way. Its
core values featured on the about page really focus on
targeting a different demographic, different meaning not white. Their values
are quote Christ centered. We aspire to reflect the love
of Christ and lift Him up in all we do
education and training. We actively engage people in life changing
learning experiences that provide growth and enrichment. Stewardship. We will
honor God with all our resources and celebrate those who
provide them integrity. We commit to open communication, honesty, and
personal and organizational accountability, which is not true at all.
Culturally relevant, we will engage our communities in ways that
are compelling and relevant to them and unity. We embrace
cultural differences, build bridges, resolve conflict peacefully, and seek to
be an example of unified diversity. Cannoncook Camps do not
explicitly state core values, but instead promote the I'm Third
philosophy and the mission statement equipping next generation leaders. It
also talks about the four Square life mentioned earlier, about
growing physically through the seventy sports and activities, mentally through
leadership training and skill building, socially through cabin life and
healthy relationships, and spiritually through daily K life discipleship and
biblical training. Investigative reports from Facts about Cannonook and Wikipedia
have estimated that Cannoncook Camps has more than ninety percent
youth who pay full twition and are white. In comparison,
kids across America are more than ninety percent of its
youth being Black or African American, and they are provided
scholarships mostly donated by tuition paying parents at Cannonicook. This
has been a significant point of criticism from survivor advocates
who say that the camps are super segregated. It has
been pointed out that KAA is labeled Urban K Life,
while the affluent areas of the camp are labeled just
K Life. One abuse survivor talked about a basketball competition
between Cannonook Camp and KAA. He said it felt strange
that KA campers were never allowed on the Cannicook campus.
The Cannicook campers were always busted to KAA to attend
these basketball games, never the other way around, which talk
about segregation, right. And then he also noted that aren't
police officers would be walking around to monitor the camp
and the facilities as a whole were not even comparable
to those at Cannonicook. They were in such worse condition.
They are treating the KA campers as like second rate citizens.
Why because they're not white and they need scholarships to attend.
These camps are super ex I mean eighteen hundred dollars
for one week A lot of kids parents can't afford that.
Kids across America have not been without its fair share
of abuse allegations, although so far it has mostly been
former staff who have spoken up, but that's not to
say that campers have not also been affected. Former staff
have told facts about Canna Cook that KAA quote executive
leadership refused to allow one of their young female staff
members to leave the camp early in order to be
with her family after her father passed away end quote,
which is awful. Another one says quote leadership regularly berate
their staff members until they cry in front of the
entire team of staff. In quote quote during a car trip,
KA executive leadership stopped their car and forced a young
KA female staff member to exit their vehicle mid journey
due to their crying. End quote. Another said quote, KAA
executive leadership regularly make statements of about female staff bodies,
including stop looking at me with those eyes end quotes.
And the last one that we have is KAA executive
leadership regularly call some of their black female staff members
camp gangsta. End quote. There have been multiple allegations of
child sexual abuse at an affiliate of KA Memphis Athletic Ministries,
according to Facts about Cannon Cook. These quote allegations of
sexual abuse and failures in mandatory reporting are from MAAM
coaches who were recruited from KAA end quote. These survivors
asked for their voices to be heard as KAA survivors.
Here are two statements from survivors.
Speaker 4: Quote.
Speaker 1: An adult MAM coach, a former KAA staff member groomed
miners participating in MAM by convincing them to sleep half
naked in a bed with them. The coach was later
let go for being homosexual, but no action was taken
regarding the abuse. End quote which how many times are
these campers sleeping with their coaches or the counselors? Why
is this a thing at all? They should all have
their own beds where they are sleeping completely by themselves,
not with any not ever with a counselor ever. The
other statement we have is quote when an ADULTMAM coach,
a former KA staff member, was reported to MAM leadership
for sexually abusing a sixteen year old student in their
care MAM leadership dismissed the report after conducting an internal
investigation that did not include or involve the reporting survivor.
Following the report and investigation, the abusive coach was promoted.
The MAM leadership who received and dismissed the report currently
serve as kaa management end quote. We already know what
was happening at Cannonicok campgrounds in Missouri, but this happened
in Memphis and it seems to track exactly along with
what Cannonicook's doing. Some employees were dismissed after allegations and
just moved to another Cannonicook location, while others are promoted
every time there's an allegation, like Pete Newman on the
facts about America's site. There are multiple video clips of
deposition testimonies from Joe White, the CEO, Chris Cooper, the
former executive director, Doug Goodwin, the president, and Rick Brashler,
the executive director of Safety and Risk Management. Joe White
was asked if he could trust Pete Newman.
Speaker 2: That we can't trust what Pete Newman says or has
said about a number of victims or the extent of
the contact with individual victims.
Speaker 5: It's hard to know what to trust and why not
to trust. Well, do you trust him at all? God?
Trust him at all?
Speaker 6: When he sent us a list, I believe that there
was a list of approximately approximately eighteen or nineteen.
Speaker 5: Names, twenty two I think, yeah, okay, that list, And
I forget the exact date of that list. It was.
Speaker 2: The first list, the first list that Newman said you
sent to Well, there was a I'm referring to a
list that he sent to Chris Cooper.
Speaker 5: Right, And I can't could tell you the date, but
I talked to.
Speaker 6: A number of those parents of those victims and have
subsequently had conversations with a number of the children of
those and it was consistent with the list that there
were two or three boys that he said he had
touched on the list that was consistent.
Speaker 5: There was.
Speaker 7: Sixteenish boys that he said the list that he hadn't touched,
and that has been consistent. So there's a degree of
trust there that in investigating that particular list.
Speaker 1: So looks like Joe's gonna continue to trust Pete because
his story is consistent. Is it consistent because it seems
like a lot more people are coming out anyway. Chris
Cooper also had some interesting things to say about Pete
Newman that pedophiles.
Speaker 2: Like to sleep with children one on one, don't you.
And that's something that you've learned by now.
Speaker 4: Every person that sleeps with the child is not a pedophile.
And in Pete's case, Pete's ministry was tremendous.
Speaker 1: So as long as they're ministering well, sleeping with children
like just doesn't matter. So anybody can sleep with children
as long as they're teaching the word of God. That's
not somebody I want to learn from. Ever, Ever, you're
not following the word of God if you're sleeping with children.
There are multiple other videos of their depositions. If you'd
like to watch the rest yourself, it's linked in the
show notes and the sources, so go check that out.
Joe White continues to travel round the country to speak.
He has a prominent role in organizations such as Promise
Keepers and has spoken at large universities, including Liberty University,
which makes sense because that's also the university where TPUSA
Faith started and we have already made the connection to
TPUSA earlier. He has been a keynote speaker at Promise
Keeper events across the US, including locations like Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Baltimore,
and Nashville. He performs this same act at Cannonicook camps
and kids across America, but also includes campers. So he
calls this performance cross Talk, which involves building and hoisting
up a large wooden cross on stage to recreate the crucifixion.
White typically plays a Roman cross builder or a soldier,
and he uses an axe, logs in a hammer to
physically build a full sized wooden cross on stage, and
then speaks about the perspective of the soldier, reflecting on
the painful and shirt death of crucifixion. For Jesus. In
many versions, he includes a graphic reenactment of the crucifixion itself,
with counselors playing Roman soldiers and Jesus. The performance includes
simulated beatings and the sound of nails being driven into wood.
At kaa where campers are predominantly black, there have been
reports of racism where a black councilor plays the role
of Jesus and the Roman soldiers are played by all
white councilors. One instance was reported by a former KA
staff member that while he was playing the role of
Jesus during the simulated beating, he was actually quote beaten
to the point of a concussion end quote. These reenactments
run weekly for six weeks, and the councilor was allegedly
not allowed to take a break after the incidents. He
was literally forced to continue to play the role with
a concussion. Many alumni have described the reenactment as traumatizing,
and we have to keep in mind that there are
kids out there as young as seven years old that
this is being played out in front of. Also, many
survivors and alumni from both Cannoncook camps and kids across
America have described the crosstalk reenactment as not just a
religious performance, but also a calculated psychological tool to create
the exact conditions necessary for grooming fear, total emotional breakdown,
and a desperate need for a rescuer. They've pointed out
that the intentional design to be horror like features high
volume screams and the sound of physical beatings and graphic
visuals of pain and suffering. They say this induced a
state of hyperventilation and uncontrollable crying. The organization essentially broke
down the kid's defenses, and in a state of distress,
the kid naturally seeks out comfort wherever they can find
it following cross talk. Interestingly enough, campers were often led
away for one on one time with their counselors to
process what they have seen. Then, predators like Pete Newman
and reportedly used these moments of peak emotional vulnerability to
position themselves as the only person who truly understands the
child's pain. Survivors have stated that the alter Call environment,
where they are encouraged to confess their deepest sins and shame,
gave predators a roadmap to the child's vulnerabilities, which they
used to deepen the grooming relationship. One survivor provided testimony
that Newman used his shame of masturbating and groomed him
by saying it was okay to do it as long
as he did not lust while doing it, so then
he continued to normalize the act until he told the
child that it was okay to do it with other
males so that he wouldn't lust after women. This led
to Newman getting the child to act this out with him,
and that eventually led to a sexual assault. Crosstalk wasn't
the only way Newman and other predators used vulnerable children.
The international ministry run by Cannonicook allowed Newman to travel
with children on a mission trip to China and spend
nights with them alone. And the parents trusted Newman because
he was a part of this ministry. They're going on
a mission trip. They're not going to do anything to
their children, except they did because, according to court documents,
this trip allowed Newman the opportunity to sodomize the child,
who said he was in pain for the entire trip.
After these acts, there were further evidence of exploitation from
witnesses who claimed Newman was also filming boys during these
international trips, specifically during massages he hosted. You may be
wondering how leadership didn't see any of this. Oh, they
did along the way through promotions and endless opportunities for
overnight sleepovers with young boys. Pete Newman received at least
two formal disciplinary letters and one significant corrective action between
nineteen ninety nine and two thousand and six. In the letters,
Newman was explicitly warned to avoid sleeping one on one
with boys, which why are you doing that? Ever, at
the time this letter was written, Newman was promoted to
assistant director of k Country, so they're like, hmm, don't
do that again, but also do whatever you want. Later,
after more reports were made about Newman's nude activities with children,
he was given a probationary agreement titled Boundaries for Ministry.
The objective stated the goal was to help Pete understand
what healthy ministry is and ensure he never placed himself
in a compromising position. They didn't really care about the kids.
They were so worried about what their reputation would look
like and that Pete Newman might be caught that they
gave him this disciplinary action. The stipulations included prohibiting Newman
from spending the night alone with children, banning involvement with
sexual humor and any sexual or nude behavior, prohibiting any
physical contact that should be perceived as sexual in nature,
and restricting all private contact with children. Despite these strict
written rules, Newman maintained his leadership rules was allowed to
take children out of the country on mission trips on
several different occasions. Later in two thousand and six, after
more reports were made about Newman, he was given another
corrective action that asked him to spend more time with
his family and his wife and limit his kid time.
After more allegations and lawsuits started pulling in, Joe Ye
misled victims and their parents into signing NDAs by claiming
that Pete Newman's actions were isolated incidents, which we know
they were not, and that the camp had no prior
knowledge of his misconduct, which we know they did. Advocacy
groups stated that victims fell ordered and silenced in designing NDAs.
Joe White harassed families that initially chose not to sign
an NDA to the point of having to file restraining
orders against him because he would not stop. He would
send victims things like iPads and free trips, exotic hunting
opportunities on his land, and even fruit baskets, which is
just like so ridiculous. The parents would send the gifts
back because they're not trying to be bribed and asked
him to stop, but it would continue until Joe White
eventually countersuit. Once a counterclaim was filed, some families were
bankrupted by legal fees, leaving them with no choice but
to sign the NDA and settle. Parents essentially had to
choose between spending all their money fighting or using that
money to help their kid recover from the abuse that
they just experienced at the hands of this man who's
suing them. Cannon Cook even blamed the insurance companies suing
them and alleging that they required the NDA to be
signed for each settlement or they would lose their insurance,
and then the insurance company was like, that's not true
at all. They we don't require NDAs, and then the
insurance company countersued cannon Cook because of that, also stating
that they were never made aware of the true nature
of Pete Newman's activities and that they never threatened to
deny insurance for disclosure the victim. We talked about earlier,
who ultimately was so affected by the rules of his
NDA that he ended his life. Is Trey Carlock. Now
his sister, Elizabeth Carlock Phillips, speaks about what he and
his family have experienced because of the actions of Pete
Newman and Cannicook Camps. Elizabeth, along with survivor advocacy groups,
petitioned the states of Missouri and Texas to pass Trey's Law.
This law voids non disclosure agreements in civil settlements for
sexual abuse, allowing survivors to speak about their experiences. In Texas,
the law passed unanimously in May of twenty twenty five
and allows children and adults of any age without a
time limit to talk about their experiences. Elizabeth Phillips and
advocacy groups are trying to build a national movement to
pass Trey's Law in all fifty states and at the
federal level, with interest in Canada and various other jurisdictions.
One survivor wrote about Trade's Law quote, it helped my
healings so much to be able to meet and talk
with other survivors, to hear their struggles and know I
wasn't crazy or alone through that let process. I found
my voice and getting confidence in sharing my story. End quote.
Elizabeth Carlock Phillips says Trey's law is important to her
because of what her brother had to go through. She
said quote, I used to refer to him as a survivor,
but he didn't survive. Now I refer to him as
a victim, and I'm trying to do my best to
beat his voice. Everything that started Cannoncook, the history with
the oss, the abuse allegations that have occurred more than
seventy five percent of its existence, all seemed to be connected.
The White family has been a part of Cannicook since
the beginning and still thrives today. This honestly reminds me
of Project Monarch. The theory claims that this was a clandestine,
unethical continuation of the CIA's MK ultra mind control experiments
from the nineteen fifties and sixties, which tracks with Cannon
Cook and their first allegations starting in at least nineteen
fifty eight. Although Monarch is not officially confirmed, it is
alleged that the goal was to create Monarch slaves or
program individuals by using extreme abuse to create trauma based
dissociative states. And split personalities of the victims. Kathy O'Brien,
popular for her books Transformation of America and Access Denied
for reasons of National security, claims she was sexually abused
by her father in a network of child pornographers. She
says the CIA forced her to participate in Project Monarch,
which was a subsection of Project Incultra and Project Artichoke.
She says under hypnosis she recalled memories of sexual abuse
by international pedophile rings, drug barons, and Satanists who allegedly
used a form of trauma based mind control programming to
make her a sex slave. With Cannon Cook's reach around
the world, specifically through the Cross International organization and with
private jets, because we know Joe White's personal pilot was
also convicted of these crimes, so it seems they're up
to more than just ministry. They talk about being active
than fifteen countries. They promote staff that are reported to
have victimized children, and they have so many different organizations
under the Kennicook parent company that they can just recycle
employees and none of them are monitored because they're considered
a church. Monarch specifically listed charismatic Christians as great subjects
of their programming because they obey without much pushback. They're
already used to the structure someone else being in charge.
They don't really ask too many questions, honestly. But also
in my research for Project Monarch, I found that Lampy,
Missouri was a location outside of the military basis that
they were programming or they are programming subjects for this project.
And at the time when I looked it up, I
was like, I don't understand. There's nothing in Lampy, Missouri.
I looked everywhere, We looked through Google Maps, we looked
through everything to try to figure out what is in Lampy, Missouri.
Where are they programming these kids? Thinking that maybe I
would find like a like some sort of research facility
or something. What we came across was Cannonicook Camps. So
here's the episode for that. There are a lot of
summer camps in Lampey, specifically Christian summer camps, especially because
the Brands and Lampy area are in the Bible Belt.
So it makes you wonder, is Project Monarch using this
as a cover When we zoom out and look at
the bigger picture from historical ties to the OSS, potentially
making secret arrangements to house Nazi scientists, to the long
history of alleged and confirmed sexual child sexual abuse, neglect,
and legally silencing countless victims. What are we looking at here?
Could it be a case of bad luck and Cannonicook
just accidentally hired a lot of pedophiles. I doubt it,
especially because they were ignoring the fact that they are pedophiles.
Is it a case of generational bad business leadership? Possibly,
but it seems weirder than that. Or could this be
another Jeffrey Epstein operation in an American Christian camp leader
carrying out the modern version of Project I'd love to
know what you guys think in the comments. Please don't
send your kids to Cannoncook camps or KLi for any
of those things. If you're in the Brandson area. Even
if you're not in the Brandson area and you're sending
your kids to Branson for these summer camps, don't do it.
If you want to sign the petition to hold Cannonicook accountable,
that's in the show notes. Until next time, my friends,
stay skeptical and I will see you all then. Hey, friends.
The rabbit Hole is an independent podcast written hosted and
produced by me Danny Mercy. Special thanks to Lindsay for
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