Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

The Game: A Return to the Elan School, is the fifth book of my memoir series, and the story of the first book in this series, A Life Gone Awry: My Story of the Elan School. This book tells the history of the tough love industry from Synanon, to the Seed, to Elan and Straight Inc.as it is revealed to me by survivors in the aftermath of the closing of the Elan School.

When I found Danny Bennison trolling an Elan survivor group pretending to be a survivor, the first thing I felt was fear. When the fear was resolved I confronted him and said he was one of Elan’s worst abusers, and that I had written a book about it. Danny and his friends laughed and said I would never find a publisher who would go up against Elan’s lawyers, and I agreed, so I self-published on Facebook and posted chapters as I wrote or edited them.

From Synanon, to the Seed, to Elan and Straight Inc. a cult became a state sponsored industry. The Game asks and answers the question, “Who gave them permission to use this therapy on mentally ill and autistic kids?” and digs for the stories of the people behind the scenes. Joe Ricci, Miller Newton and Mel Sembler are assured a public legacy as criminals and child abusers, but there were men in the background, never spoken about. Nobody can find information better than program survivors, so The Game is an indictment of the men in the shadows who masterminded this crime, and made billions of dollars.

This is my story. This is our story. This is their story. This is an important part of our nation’s history.

Thank you for your attention.

"Bob W. Ryder’s Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor led police to a decomposing female body hidden under wood in a basement beneath the first floor of a building where the man charged with causing the woman’s death lived. The murder weapon reportedly was a large wooden clock; the victim allegedly a prostitute. Ryder, 21, of Lewiston is scheduled to be tried in May in Androscoggin County Superior Court in Auburn for the murder of Danita Brown, 38, of New Gloucester on June 16, 2011."

Bob Ryder, according to newspaper reports at the time lived in Lewiston Maine in Androscoggin County (same county as Elan) and was recently discharged from the Becket House which is an assisted-living facility for troubled youth that at the time was being investigated for allegations of abuse.

Wolter, John J.

John J. Wolter, 67, of East Haverhill and Etna, NH, died Monday, (June 1, 2004) at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. He was born January 22, 1937 in Brooklyn, NY, the son of the late John and Loretta Wolter. He earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Dayton, his master's degree at Fordham University and his Ed.D. at the University of Massachusetts. He was a veteran of the United States Marine Corps rising to the rank of sergeant in the Reconnaissance Company of the Third Battalion, Third Marine Division. He was previously a resident of East Haddam, where in 1964 he founded the former Becket Academy and Founders School.

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Non-profit affiliations: Not related to the Stephen R. Kinney, director of Founders School in E. Haddam, CT