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News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - January 30, 1993
Author: FROM STAFF, WIRE REPORTS
A March 25 trial date has been set in an interstate custody case involving a 15-year-old girl who formerly attended the fundamentalist Christian school, Hephzibah House , in Winona Lake.

Court papers filed this week in Orange County, N.Y., Family Court show the girl's mother, Mary, accused the father, a 60-year-old Teamsters union truck driver, Lucius, of immoral behavior and abandoning his children.

Judge Andrew P. Bivona yesterday set the March 25 trial date, and delayed making a decision on a request to have the case moved back to Tennessee, where the mother and daughter have lived most of the time since they moved from Orange County in 1987.

If Bivona rules he has jurisdiction over the case, he will decide which parent is better fit to raise the child.

The father has asked the court to grant him custody of Sarah and her 12- year-old brother since he learned the girl had been sexually abused by her stepfather and was placed in the school by her mother.

The stepfather has pleaded guilty and is serving a prison sentence.

The girl is a former student at Hephzibah House , which provides firm guidance and "correction" for rebellious girls with disciplinary problems. It has an enrollment of about 20 girls ages 12 to 16.

The mother removed the girl from the school late last month after her father won the right to visit her at school.

The father has compared the school to a concentration camp.

In court papers, the mother says her ex-husband knew about Hephzibah House 's practices early last year and agreed not to interfere.

In recently filed court papers, the mother argues that the father had no contact with the children from 1987 to 1992, and gave up summer visitation rights in exchange for not having to make child-support payments. The papers said he only became involved with his children's lives when his eldest daughter tracked him down through the Social Security Administration in February 1992. Last week, Sarah's father said he lost the energy to visit his children because his wife repeatedly resisted and because of the distance.

The mother's attorney is Melvyn Leffler of Newburgh, N.Y.

Lucius' attorney, Anthony "Toots" LaBella, said last night that the Tennessee judge who earlier this month denied emergency temporary custody to Lucius has refused to sign an order granting the New York court jurisdiction.

''I'm somewhat concerned," LaBella said, noting that a jurisdictional dispute between the courts could tie up the case for months.

''For Sarah's sake, this issue needs to be resolved." Because Sarah was a victim of abuse, The News-Sentinel is not using her last name.
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Post-Tribune (IN) - January 3, 1993
Author: The Associated Press
A hearing is planned this week in a child custody dispute that has uncovered prison-like conditions at a conservative Baptist school for girls in Winona Lake, an attorney said.

An Orange County, N.Y., father began fighting to gain custody of his 15- year-old daughter after she was placed in an unaccredited Northeast Indiana school by her mother, who lives in Tennessee.

The teen, whose name is Sarah, has told both her father and his attorney that girls at Hephzibah House are given only a protein drink for dinner if they fail to memorize their Bible verses.

The girls' letters and telephone calls are monitored. Trips to the restroom and showers are supervised, and there are alarms on the doors and windows to keep the students inside, the girl claims.

"I don't know what they're doing to these kids," said Anthony LaBella, a Middletown, N.Y., attorney representing the father. "They have no teachers. They're not allowed to talk in school. The school is not a school."

The school's founder, the Rev. Ron Williams, did not return a phone call Thursday from The Associated Press.

The school's attorney, Paul Refior of Warsaw, was out of town Thursday, his secretary said.

The last names of Sarah and her parents, Lucius and Mary, are not being used because the girl was sexually abused by a stepfather, who is in prison in Tennessee.

LaBella learned Wednesday night that Sarah had been removed from the school, apparently after returning from a court-ordered six-hour visit with her father on Tuesday. She was sighted in Tennessee on Wednesday morning, LaBella said.

"They drove this kid all night long from Indiana back down to Tennessee," he said. "I'm really concerned as to what kind of shape this kid is in."

Sarah's mother brought her to Hephzibah House in February after the teen- ager was expelled from a Christian school in Tennessee, the attorney said.

Lucius, a 60-year-old Teamster who describes himself as a born-again Baptist, is seeking custody of Sarah and her younger brother. An older sister is a married adult.

In a visit with Sarah on Tuesday, LaBella said he learned some "pretty scary stuff" about Hephzibah House , which was founded in Kosciusko County 20 years ago and is funded by independent Baptist churches.

"The kid was a 'zombiac,' " he said. "There's parts of her that reminded me of my 8-year-old daughter, and she's a 15-year-old, not an 8-year- old."

Sarah's education at Hephzibah House involved no interaction with teachers or use of scientific equipment, the attorney said. Alarms are in place "not to keep people from coming in; it's to keep them from going out," LaBella said.

The powdered protein drink mix is served not only to girls who don't memorize their weekly Scripture verses, but also to teens who are sick, to deter them from faking illness, he said.

In an interview recently with The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne, Sarah said that once she had lived on the drink mix two or three days.

"It's gross. I gagged on it once and threw up," she said.

Lucius has asked a judge in Goshen, N.Y., to grant him permanent custody of Sarah and her brother.

Next Thursday, school officials and Sarah's mother have been summoned to Kosciusko Superior Court for a hearing on the father's request for temporary custody.

LaBella said he hopes to learn more about why Sarah was placed in Hephzibah House , and whether it was in her best interests.

"I need certain information for the long-term benefit of that child. I'm very interested to know what happened at Hephzibah House and how it might impact long term on that youngster," LaBella said.
Memo: THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED VERSION.

COURTS
 
News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - January 1, 1993
Author: TANYA ISCH CAYLOR OF THE NEWS-SENTINEL
A girls boarding school in Kosciusko County may be investigated by state welfare officials, based on information turned up this week in a News-Sentinel interview with a student at the school.

On Tuesday, during a court-ordered visit with her father, a 15-year-old Hephzibah House resident said school officials yank the solid-food privileges of students who fail to memorize their weekly allotment of Bible verses.

The girl, Sarah, also said she had missed six months' worth of menstrual periods during her 10-month stay at Hephzibah House - a common complaint of women who have spent time at the home.

A state welfare official, informed yesterday of the girl's comments, said he planned to check with a physician to determine whether the situation warranted investigation.

''For us to become involved, we would have to have cause to believe that a child was in a situation that could seriously endanger his or her well- being," Tim Elliott, supervisor of the state's Child Protective Services Section, a branch of the Division of Family and Children, said yesterday.

Elliott is not permitted to reveal what information he may have collected on Hephzibah House in the past. But he was obviously familiar with the home.

If his discussion with a physician leads him to believe an investigation is in order, Elliott said, "we could have somebody up there within 48 hours."

Hephzibah House , on the outskirts of Winona Lake near Warsaw, was founded in 1971 by the Rev. Ron Williams.

Williams has referred all questions about Hephzibah House to Warsaw attorney Paul Refior, who was out of town yesterday.

In its literature, Hephzibah House is described as a boarding school for "troubled" teen-age girls.

House rules prohibit phone calls and visitors unless a staff member is on the line or in the room.

Mail is screened. Staff members accompany the girls at all times, even to the bathroom. Doors and windows are equipped with alarms to prevent escape attempts.

The "troubled" teens - many of whom come from independent Baptist churches as far away as Alaska - are typically enrolled for 15-month periods. They are told not to contact each other after they leave.

During Tuesday's court-ordered visitation, Sarah - whose father, Lucius, is trying to win custody of her - said Hephzibah House discourages alumni reunions because "two can get into more trouble than one."

Nonetheless, an alumni network of sorts has developed during the past few years. Its most-active members don't exactly have fond memories of their alma mater.

The most vocal of these women, a Cleveland resident named Karen Glover, in a 1991 letter to Kosciusko County authorities, complained of brutal paddlings, isolation from other residents and menstrual problems.

Now in her late 20s, Glover says she is sexually dysfunctional - a problem she attributes to psychological abuse suffered during the two years she spent at Hephzibah House in the early '80s.

''I was completely brainwashed," she told The News-Sentinel in an interview last year.

In 1985, after the Times-Union of Warsaw published an article critical of Hephzibah House , Glover wrote in to defend the home. As the years passed, though, her loyalty turned to scorn.

''I want to take Ron Williams down," she told The News-Sentinel last year. "I want to sit across from him in a courtroom and tell the world what a scum he is."
 
The Journal-Gazette back Journal Gazette, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - September 23, 1992

Some former residents of a Winona Lake church-operated boarding school
for troubled teens say its strict discipline included spankings they
describe as frequent and violent. But at least two more-recent
residents praised Hephzibah House for turning their lives around, and
area pastors say the school has done wonders for young girls in their
congregations who had turned to alcohol and drugs. Five women who lived
at Hephzibah House in the early 1980s described their stay as lonely,
frightening and emotionally and physically painful. ``We got paddled at
night,'' said Christine, a woman who arrived at Hephzibah House in late
1980 and asked that her last name not be used. ``We had our robes and
nightgowns on. Someone would hold your legs, and somebody else would
hold your head. It hurt something awful, and it left bruises. Some girls
got paddled every night, and they had really bad bruises.'' The Rev.
Ronald E. Williams, founder and president of the Hephzibah House ,
acknowledged that girls are spanked, but said the spankings do not cause
injury and that other forms of ``correction'' are used first. ``For
severe things, such as violence or outright disobedience, yes, we use
the rod,'' Williams said. ``We correct because we want this child back
in the right. We correct for positive goals, not for vengeance. ``The
rod of correction isn't our only form of correction,'' he said.
``They're corrected verbally. The rod is reserved for really big
problems. If you don't step in, there's going to be anarchy.'' Williams
said there have been no substantial changes in the discipline
administered at the house since the early 1980s. Recent residents of
the house could not be identified and, therefore, could not be
contacted. But one recent resident _ interviewed after her father, a
friend of Williams, learned an article was being prepared and called a
reporter _ spoke highly of the care provided. ``I didn't like it at the
beginning, but after I got my life right with the Lord, I was determined
to get my world right,'' said LaDawn Davis, 19, of Middletown, Ill. ``I
was in a big snowball heading downhill, going as fast as I could. And I
really believe I would have been dead by now if it weren't for that
place.'' The school was incorporated in 1972 and granted not-for-profit
status by the state. The school is associated with the Believer's
Baptist Church, of which Williams is president. According to the
articles of incorporation filed with the Indiana secretary of state's
office, the school's purpose is: ``To lead souls to a saving knowledge
of Jesus Christ and to defeat the power of Satin (sic) in the lives of
those he has oppressed. ``To provide shelter and necessities of living
as may be required in the process of rehabilitation and evangelism of
those persons seeking the aid and assistance of the corporation.''
Hephzibah houses 20 to 22 girls ages 12 to 16 at any one time, Williams
said. Girls are referred to the house by parents. They pay $1,000 in
advance and $9 per day, Williams said. In the fiscal year ending June
30, 1991, the school received $302,383 in donations, an increase from
the $154,409 received in 1990, according to documents on file with the
Indiana secretary of state's office. More than 90 percent of Hephzibah's
income is from donations, with the remainder from interest on
investments, the documents show. The property and equipment is valued at
$335,000. A brochure describing the house lists its strict rules. In
addition to some that might be expected _ no smoking, drinking or
cursing, requirements to participate in work duties, a strict dress code
_ the rules also state: All incoming and outgoing mail is censored.
Only one telephone call is permitted per month, with a 10-minute
limit. Staff members monitor all calls. Trips to the bathroom are
banned between 9:15 p.m. and midnight. In addition, the brochure
discusses the church's doctrine and states that girls will be taught
``in a militant fundamentalist position.'' Williams makes no apologizes
for the strict limits. ``We try to limit the scope of our ministry to
families who have similar fundamental philosophies . . . so that we're
all headed in the same direction,'' he said. He said the girls that
come to the home have severe problems _ such as drug abuse, abortion,
promiscuity or involvement in the occult _ making structure necessary.
That structure can be hard on the teens because many come from
undisciplined backgrounds, he said. ``We have had complaints in the
past from the more slothful girls about picking green beans. Some of the
girls are allergic to work. They think manual labor is a Hispanic man. .
. . (The work) is nothing I wouldn't have my own children do.'' The
limited calls is part of the structure, Williams said. ``We're not
trying to keep children from their parents, but that's the reality of
our schedule.'' On Aug. 25, 1980, five days before her 16th birthday,
Karen Glover's parents woke her in the middle of the night and drove her
from a Cleveland suburb to Winona Lake. Glover said her parents found
out about Hephzibah House from the pastor of the fundamentalist church
they attended. ``The way my parents raised me, I wasn't allowed to cry
when I was hit,'' she said. ``So when they paddled me at Hephzibah
House , I stood very still and didn't cry. They took this as a sign of
rebellion. They finally told me that. They said: `Why don't you cry?
It's very rebellious that you don't cry.' And from then on, I cried.''
But the school had an effect, Glover said. ``When one other girl ran
away, I ran after her and caught her I was so brainwashed.'' she said.
``They turned me into something exactly like them, and it took me years
to get over it.'' Though they were given healthy food to eat, Glover
said she lost 78 pounds during the first eight months she lived at
Hephzibah House , which she attributed to stress and hard physical work.
And she said she never had a menstrual period during her stay. She
graduated in July 1982 and returned to her parents' home in Cleveland.
``My parents took me home and told me I needed to loosen up,'' she
recalled. ``They didn't like me the way I was. I was too straight and
narrow. I wouldn't watch TV or wear makeup. I thought my parents were
wicked. Two months later, they shipped me off to college.'' After a
semester at a Christian College in Florida, she enrolled at Bob Jones
University in Greenville, S.C., but dropped out after three semesters.
She said she then began to re-evaluate her experience at Hephzibah
House . After a stint in the U.S. Navy, Glover worked in several bars
and ended up with a serious drug problem. She said she has overcome the
drug problem, is working, and beginning to repair her troubled
relationship with her family. ``If Hephzibah House taught me anything,
it taught me that you can't impose your way of living on somebody
else,'' she said. ``The pain that's inflicted can't ever be made up.''
During their stays at Hephzibah House during the early and mid-1980s,
four women interviewed say, they were held down by staff members and hit
on the buttocks with wooden paddles for ``bad attitudes'' or for minor
infractions of the school's strict rules, such as not having their hair
curled properly. The four say they suffered painful bruises from the
paddlings. At least five women said their regular menstrual periods
mysteriously ceased when they arrived at Hephzibah, and resumed only
when they left. And one, Glover, said she tried repeatedly to persuade
Kosciusko County officials to investigate allegations. Williams said
paddling prompted an investigation in the early 1980s, and that the case
was turned over to the prosecutor's office. No action was taken, he
said. Kosciusko County Sheriff Alan Rovenstine said his department
looked into Hephzibah House along with officials from the Indiana
Department of Public Welfare in the early 1980s, but there was not
sufficient evidence to file any charges. He said his department has
received no complaints about the house in the last few years. Peggy
Shively, director of the Kosciusko County Welfare Department, declined
to say whether complaints have been lodged against Hephzibah House
because such complaints are confidential by law. In the early 1980s,
state welfare officials visited the school after a former student
complained to police about the paddling, Williams said. But when the
officials arrived to interview Williams and current students, the only
questions asked centered on menstruation. ``The man asked us, `Do you
think a woman's menstrual period is sinful?' '' Williams recalled. ``It
was ridiculous.'' The man also asked whether the girls were given green
pills to stop their cycles, Williams said. ``It was ludicrous. Of
course, we don't.'' ``The state seized upon this and said it
constituted neglect. It was turned over to the county prosecutor, but
nothing ever happened,'' he said. Hephzibah House attorney Paul Refior
said he knows of no injuries suffered by any girls. ``I do know Pastor
Williams and the staff love the girls and want the very best,'' he said.
``Even when they're engaged in any kind of discipline, they're doing it
with the purpose of having the child benefit from the discipline.''
Williams said: ``We have a policy of not going beyond certain limits in
our correction to prevent any abuse. We will only give a child seven
swats maximum to prevent any kind of damage. There could well be some
discoloration of the skin. One of my own children has very sensitive
skin, and you might see a discoloration as a result, but none of the
girls have been abused.'' Some area ministers praise the work of
Hephzibah House . The Rev. Jim McKinnies, pastor of the Willis Baptist
Church in Willis, Mich., said Hephzibah House may have saved the lives
of two teen-agers in his congregation. He said he heard about Hephzibah
House from a pastor friend, and invited Williams to talk to his
congregation. Now he is a member of the school's advisory board. ``If
it hadn't been for that ministry, I don't know what would have
happened,'' he said. ``They were having rebellious problems against
their parents and school. They were involved in immorality. One of them
said to me a short while ago that she might have been dead if she hadn't
gone to Hephzibah House .'' He said one girl is still there, and another
is attending college. ``I am aware that paddling is used,'' McKinnies
said. ``But, it is done, I know for a fact, in a very loving and caring
manner. None of my girls came back with any information about anyone
being beaten until they bleed. There's never been any abuse involved.
There always are two staff members there and they're hit on the
buttocks.'' The Rev. Herb Hutchinson, pastor of the Temple Baptist
Church in Kalamazoo, Mich., said he also referred a troubled girl to
Hephzibah House in the early 1980s. ``We had a girl a number of years
ago from our church who went down to Hephzibah House ,'' he said. ``She
didn't complete the course, but she's in my church now. She's married.
She's doing great now.'' Tracee Peterson Sloan, 23, of Lake Station,
Ind., wouldn't trade the 2 {1/2} years she spent at Hephzibah for
anything. ``I think my life is better for going there,'' she said. ``I
went there intending not to change, but I was loved there. They worked
with me. Of course, I got disciplined, but if I hadn't gone there, I
never would have amounted to anything. I probably would have become a
*advertiser censored*.'' An expert on child abuse argues that programs like the one at
Hephzibah may create tremendous problems for their graduates. Richmond
Calvin, a professor in the division of education at Indiana
University-South Bend, said some of the alleged practices at Hephzibah
may create tremendous problems for students years from now. Forbidding
contact with families for as long as 90 days is dangerous because it
cuts children off from their families, which can scar a child for years
afterward, he said. ``There's no empirical evidence to substantiate
that paddling changes a person's behavior,'' he said. ``What it can do
in most cases is make the child smarter about avoiding certain behavior.
But that's only temporary. Those kids are probably worse off years
later.'' ``Structure itself does not constitute abuse, but when you
take away a person's individualism and self-esteem it can create
problems later in life,'' he said. ``And religion shouldn't be
antagonistic. Your religious freedom doesn't allow you to abuse k
 
-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - January 23, 1993
Author: CHRIS LEDBETTER FEATURE EDITOR OF THE NEWS-SENTINEL
"A woman must never be free of subjugation." - The Hindu Code of Manu, V

"Here is my daughter; she is a virgin; I will give her to you. Possess her, do what you please with her, but do not commit such an infamy against this man." - Judges 19:24
''It is our purpose to receive troubled girls . . . in order to teach them character, obedience, and a right response to authority in order that they might receive Christ . . . and return to their home and family as a responsive and obedient daughter."

- Hephzibah House rules
The world's religions have not always been kind to women. Though much has changed, some religious rituals persist in keeping a system of oppression in place. Consider the twin terrors of physical circumcision that occurs in parts of Africa and psychological circumcision practiced in Winona Lake, Ind.

With her latest novel, Alice Walker writes about the African ritual. In "Possessing the Secret of Joy," she describes the brutal rite of female circumcision. This ancient religious practice originates from parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In the procedure, girls' clitorises are cut and their vulvas mutilated and sewn shut, leaving only a tiny hole for blood and urine to flow through.

Girls' genitals are mangled so they will be pure and feel no sexual desires. Tribal cultures believe that if a girl is not circumcised between birth and 11 years, she will be promiscuous.

It would be easy to classify this as a barbaric foreign ritual were it not for the fact that refugees are bringing the tradition to the United States and Europe.

And is this ritual so different from other misogynic acts done in the name of religion? Historically, girls and women have been defined as evil, and persecuted. They have been tortured, burned and raped. Their feet have been bound; their faces scarred. They have been labeled mad and institutionalized. They have been imprisoned.

It happens yet. In today's Summit, you'll read "Sarah's story," the tale of how a Tennessee teen came to live at a Winona Lake school for girls.

At this independent Bible boarding school, girls' rights are abolished. They are not allowed to go to the bathroom alone. Someone listens in on their phone conversations and reads the mail they receive and send. They aren't allowed to watch TV, listen to secular music, or go to movies.

An alarm system is rigged so that girls can't get out. Those who don't memorize their Bible verses are punished by getting a protein drink instead of solid food for dinner. Some are paddled. Many complain their menstrual periods stop while they live at Hephzibah House .

How is it that girls attend such a school? Families send their "troubled" or "incorrigible" girls to the boarding school.

Sarah, who was sexually abused by her stepfather, was sent to Hephzibah House because she thought she might be pregnant by her boyfriend.

She and the other girls who live at this enclave are hostages, their physical and mental freedoms taken away. They are relentlessly hammered to be meek and docile, and to seek repentance.

Of course, there are long-lasting repercussions for them. At least one Hephzibah House alumna reported to authorities that she is sexually dysfunctional as a result of the psychological abuse she suffered during her two years there in the '80s.

She suffers from psychological circumcision.

In both cultural contexts, in the Africa of Walker's story and the Winona Lake of ours, a girl's sexuality and independence are so feared that her body or her spirit are mutilated to curtail her freedom.

In "Possessing the Secret of Joy," Walker wonders: "Was woman herself not the tree of life? And was she not crucified? Not in some age no one even remembers, but right now, daily, in many lands on earth."
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DSCN8622.jpg
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.541176)]By Jasmine Kick [COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.541176)]October 06, 2008[/COLOR]

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News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN) - December 30, 1992
Author: TANYA ISCH CAYLOR AND BOB CAYLOR OF THE NEWS-SENTINEL
If 15-year-old Sarah doesn't memorize her Bible verses, she loses her solid-food privileges and lives on a protein drink. The people who run her life read all her letters before she sends them out and screen all her mail before she gets to read it. She's allowed one 10-minute phone call a month. Her doors and windows are rigged to an alarm that will sound if she tries to get out.

She's not in prison. She goes to school in Winona Lake.

Her father wants to take her away. She's not interested in leaving. She says she likes living at Hephzibah House.

Two weeks ago, a 60-year-old Teamster named Lucius hired an attorney in Middletown, N.Y., to free his daughter from a Northeast Indiana religious school so strict it sounded like a jail.

From what Lucius had heard, some women who were once students at Hephzibah House have complained about fierce, ritualized beatings delivered in a special "paddling room."

They say their menstrual periods ceased at the school. Girls who ran away were returned by local police officers.

Unusual as this school is, it's not widely known - even in Kosciusko County, where it has existed for 20 years.

Hephzibah House isn't accredited. It doesn't have to be. In Indiana, private schools are regulated only if they request it.

Hephzibah House , named for a modest biblical woman, draws its students - and its funding - from independent Baptist churches as far away as Alaska.

Some girls are troubled. Some are merely troublesome.

Lucius' daughter Sarah was both.

Lucius got a divorce from Sarah's mother, Mary, in Middletown, N.Y., in 1983.

Mary won custody of Sarah and the couple's two other children. She later remarried, and five years ago, after years of court-refereed hassles over visitation rights, she and her new husband moved the children to Tennessee.

Lucius lost track of the kids after that.

Then last February, he got a letter from his oldest daughter, Heather. She told him their stepfather was now in prison for sexually abusing her and Sarah. She told him their mother had sent Sarah to Hephzibah House .

Because Sarah is a victim of sexual abuse, The News-Sentinel is not printing the family's last names.

Lucius is a Christian. He's a Baptist, in fact. But nothing from the day he was born again in 1954 to the times he helped out with the Billy Graham crusades in the '60s prepared him for these Hephzibah House Baptists.

The staff at Hephzibah House wouldn't let him talk to Sarah on the phone unless one of them monitored the call.

Nor would they send him information on the house.

When he read about the paddlings - in an article published in a Warsaw newspaper in the mid-'80s - Lucius decided it was time to act. He wanted Sarah out.

Lucius hired Anthony "Toots" LaBella, a slick-talking, ponytailed child- custody lawyer, on Dec. 18.

After days of researching custody laws in three states - New York, Indiana and Tennessee - LaBella came to Indiana this weekend.

On Monday he got a court order allowing six hours of unsupervised visitation for Lucius and Sarah, beginning at 2 p.m. yesterday.

Next week, Sarah's mother and the Rev. Ron Williams, founder of Hephzibah House , have been summoned to Kosciusko Superior Court for a hearing that could give Lucius temporary custody. Mary reportedly was to arrive in Winona Lake today.

By the end of the month, when the arena shifts to a courtroom in Goshen, N.Y., Lucius hopes Sarah and her younger brother will be moving in with him and his second wife in New York. Heather has married.

LaBella was encouraged by what appeared to be initial success. But he and his private investigator, Larry Chambers, weren't counting on Hephzibah House to comply with the court order.

Yesterday, after discussing every possible contingency for hours, those two and Lucius waited out the final few minutes before the 2 p.m. showdown in a parking lot a mile or two from Hephzibah House .

Lucius had arrived at Fort Wayne International Airport a little before noon, and had been in Warsaw less than an hour.

He'd downed 25 cups of coffee since he woke at 3:30 a.m. He clutched the umbrella on his lap as he wondered whether, after more than five years, he would finally get to see Sarah.

On the plane, he'd read a book on cult deprogramming.

''Man, that's enough to scare the sugar out of anybody," he said. "But at least I know what to expect if she starts acting screwy on me."

LaBella checked his watch. Ten minutes 'til 2.

''All right," he said. "Let's do it."

Chambers gunned their rental car. Barely two minutes passed before they entered the long, gravel lane to Hephzibah House , an expanded version of a 1960s-looking suburban tract house.

They didn't have to ring the bell. By the time they got to the sidewalk, one of Williams' sons opened the door and came out holding a piece of paper.

''Sarah's over at Paul Refior's office, that attorney we told you about," he said. He handed LaBella the address and directions.

LaBella and Chambers pondered this development on their way through town.

''Now, why is this child at the attorney's office?" LaBella asked.

''Could be the runaround," muttered Chambers.

In the back seat, Lucius tried to reassure himself.

''(Toots) knows what he's doing," Lucius whispered. "He's got everything under control."

At Refior's office, the receptionist greeted them with a smile.

LaBella didn't smile back. He glared out the picture window toward the lake at the end of the street.

''These people are a little too happy for my taste," he muttered.

A couple of minutes later, a door opened and a pale blond girl in a skirt and plain black shoes joined them in the lobby.

''Hello," she said politely.

Lucius gave her a hug.

''I just had to come get you, Honey," he said.

LaBella and Chambers hustled them out the door. Through the open door of an inner office, Williams watched them go, arms folded across his chest.

Back at the hotel, Lucius took his daughter up to his hotel room so they could be alone for a while. LaBella shook his head.

''She's like a blank slate," he said. "It's like she's 9 years old."

He and Chambers killed time in their room, chatting and snacking on bananas, doughnuts, corn chips and Diet Rite.

Lucius and Sarah emerged a little after 4, and invited LaBella and Chambers to a local restaurant.

Labella fired his opening round of questions before the waitress had finished pouring the coffee.

''Is there a calendar in that place? What day is today?"

Sarah answered slowly but correctly, tacking a "sir" on the end of each sentence.

''Why are you 'sirrin' ' me?" LaBella asked, as if offended. "I haven't been 'sirred' since I was in uniform. Call me Toots. Everybody calls me Toots. Even my kids call me Toots."

She smiled. But she couldn't stop herself from responding with another "Yes, sir."

Sarah ordered a scoop of orange sherbet, which she stirred around her dish as she pondered each question.

LaBella and Chambers ordered burgers.

Lucius didn't order anything. He'd left his emphysema medication back at the hotel, and his lungs were hurting him so much he could hardly talk, much less eat.

He listened as his daughter described a "school" where staff members escort girls to the bathroom, ban Christmas celebrations and prohibit talk about their lives before Hephzibah House .

At this school, Sarah said, alarms on doors and windows are designed to keep people in, not out.

Paddlings occur, she said, although not often. It had never happened to her, and only once to someone else in the 10 months she's been there. As far as she knows, anyway. The girls don't really question each other about that, she explained.

''It would probably hurt their feelings."

''What's the best part about being at Hephzibah House ?" Chambers asked.

''That we get to learn about God."

And the worst?

Sarah looked at her sherbet dish. Her dessert had melted.

''I don't know, really."

Sarah had been drying dishes Monday afternoon when Pastor Williams summoned her upstairs to talk to the deputy sheriff who had brought over the court papers. Williams had showed her the papers, but she only glanced at them. She figured Williams would take care of it, she told LaBella.

Sarah had been clinging to her father all afternoon, planting little kisses on his cheek and holding his hand when they walked. Yet she seemed ambivalent about leaving Hephzibah House to go live with Lucius.

If he'd showed up 10 months ago, she probably wouldn't have hesitated. It wasn't her idea to come to Indiana last February. She hadn't even known that was their destination. Her mother told her they were going out to dinner. Ten hours later, she was at Hephzibah House .

She hadn't been going to school at the time. The Christian school she'd been attending had kicked her out a month or two earlier, after they found out she thought she was pregnant.

She wasn't. But the fact that she was messing around with boys obviously troubled her mother.

Sarah didn't like Hephzibah House at first. She got used to it, though. After all, Pastor Williams' religious beliefs weren't that much different from what she'd been used to in Tennessee.

Sarah hadn't seen a movie or watched television since her parents' divorce almost 10 years ago, so that was nothing new. She can watch educational and Christian videos, though. Like the one about the martyr who was burned at the stake.

''He died singing," Sarah said.

She said she wasn't particularly troubled by staff members' assertions that true Bible-believing Christians ought to marry whomever their parents recommend.

''It's not like you don't have a say in it," she said.

Sarah told LaBella she now believes that if it weren't for Hephzibah House , she would be dead, pregnant or in jail.

He decided it was time to try a different approach.

''Am I the devil because I have long hair?" he asked.

''No. But you know what the Bible says about that? It's a shame for men to have long hair."

She was loosening up a bit. LaBella told her about his kids and how he got his nickname, from a monk at his high school who warned that he'd turn out like a local tavern owner named Toots.

She admitted that she missed her family. And she tweaked her Italian- American inquisitors with a joke about how the name Tony came from the days when Italian immigrants stamped TONY - short for "to New York" - on their children's foreheads.

It had been half an hour or so since she'd called anybody "sir." As the restaurant began to fill up with dinner customers, Sarah found herself telling the men about the one thing at Hephzibah House she could find nothing good to say about: the "protein drink."

She described a powdered drink mix that was stirred into a glass and drunk in place of a meal. Those girls who didn't memorize their weekly Scripture verses, she said, were punished with a supper of protein drink, which they were served at each meal until they passed the Scripture recital.

It was also served to girls who were sick, as a deterrent to those tempted to fake an illness. Sarah said she had once spent two to three days on a protein drink diet.

''It's supposed to be vanilla, but it doesn't taste like that," she said. "It's gross. I gagged on it once and threw up."

LaBella changed the subject.

''Speaking of 'monthlies,' " he said, referring to their monthly (as well as weekly) Scripture-memorization requirements, "what about your other 'monthlies'? I'm not trying to embarrass you here. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

During telephone interviews with former Hephzibah residents, Chambers had discovered an apparent pattern in the women's menstrual cycles. Many women had a period the first week they were at Hephzibah House , followed by months of no periods at all.

Both men listened carefully to Sarah's response. "I got my period when I first came to Hephzibah House ," she said. "Then I didn't have one for about six months."

She excused herself to go to the restroom before they could question her further. LaBella was eager to hear more. But Lucius needed his medicine, so they decided to return to the hotel instead.

It was 6 p.m., two hours until they had to take Sarah back. Lucius took Sarah back to his room so they could have more time alone. In their room next door, LaBella and Chambers analyzed what they'd just heard.

''I believe her," Chambers said. "I don't think she's lying. I think she's omitting."

LaBella ticked off the things that troubled him most.

''Food deprivation," he said, referring to those liquid-protein dinners. "Now that really rocks my socks."

That menstrual cycle problem, that might be serious. They'd need to consult a gynecologist.

Sarah had been unclear on the frequency or severity of the paddlings. But LaBella didn't think anybody ought to be whacking teen-age girls' rear ends.

He wasn't satisfied with the schoolwork Sarah had described, either. "Who ever heard of biology without a microscope?"

The thing that troubled both men most, though, was the way Sarah seemed to shift back and forth from a shy, naive schoolgirl to a mischievous, calculating teen-ager during the interview.

The school social worker they'd asked to evaluate Sarah's letters to Lucius from Hephzibah House had noted similar shifts in her penmanship - a sign she might be under severe stress.

Looking for an easier question to resolve, LaBella picked up the hotel Bible and looked up the verse Sarah had cited when he'd asked her about his ponytail. It took him a while to locate 2 Corinthians 11:8.

''For the man is not of the woman," he read. "The woman is of the man."

Chambers offered his interpretion: "That means Adam didn't come from Eve," he said soberly. "Eve came from Adam."

LaBella snorted.

''Thank you, Pastor Larry."

It was getting late. LaBella knocked on Lucius' door.

Inside, Sarah was sitting on the bed, a black Teamsters cap on her head. She was reading some Hephzibah House material Lucius had given her. Newspaper articles quoting Hephzibah alumni, whose complaints ranged from paddlings for leaving unpicked green beans in the garden to sexual dysfunction that persisted nearly a decade after the time at the facility.

''I don't agree with some of this," she said. Missed beans warranted sentence-writing penalties, not paddlings. "And as for my period . . . every time I've had it, it's been the same as any other time."

She told Hephzibah staff about the missed periods, and was told it was probably due to stress.

''Teen-agers have irregular periods anyway," she said.

They walked out to the car. It had been a grueling six hours for Lucius. But he wasn't ready to give Sarah back.

Fifteen minutes later, Chambers pulled into the Hephzibah driveway. Williams was waiting outside the house. He didn't want to comment on the day's events when contacted by phone a few hours earlier.

Williams had referred questions to his attorney, Refior, who was out all last evening. He introduced himself to Lucius, but they didn't have much to say to each other.

Sarah hugged her dad goodbye.

''I love you," she said, kissing him on the cheek.

She hadn't kept the Teamsters cap or the gold necklace with the initial "S" he'd given her. There was no use, she said. They wouldn't let her keep it.

Next week Lucius appears in Kosciusko Superior Court to try to win temporary custody of his daughter.

Back at the hotel, he tried to make sense out what had been a frustrating yet rewarding visit.

Her answers had come too easily, he thought.

''I think she's been coached," he said. "I think she wants to be with me, but she doesn't know how to say that. She wanted to see me, though. She really did want to see me.

''I think the kid loves me. She really does."
RULES OF THE HOUSE

A brochure produced by Hephzibah House may describe the life there best: " Hephzibah House is not a prison or a detention center, though its rigid policies procedures may lead one to that conclusion. Strict rules are necessary when young women capable of foolish and possibly dangerous actions are being helped to restructure their lives."

Some of the more than 100 rules, regulations and requirements:
* Any food left on a girl's plate will be saved and fed to her at the next meal until she has finished it.

* Women visitors who show up NOT wearing skirts or dresses are asked "politely" to leave the premises. "Dresses and skirts of modest length encourage the Hephzibah student, so please wear them when visiting," the brochure states. * In order to better assist parents in purchasing clothing, Hephzibah recommends clothes from "Modest Appeal," a catalog that can be ordered from Kentucky. If parents are uncertain about whether shoes are modest enough, they're encouraged to circle a potential purchase in a catalog and send to Hephzibah House for approval.

* The only jewelry allowed are small "post" earrings and watches - "provided it was not given by a boyfriend, etc."

* Worldly practices such as TV viewing, attendance at commercial movie theaters, dancing, mixed swimming, gambling and other games of chance, and listening to unbiblical music such as rock, country-western, blues, jazz, or so-called gospel-rock would be taught as wrong for a Christian."
Caption: MAP; PHOTO (4)
Map shows the location of Winona Lake in Kosciusko County.
Anthony "Toots" LaBella, left, and investigator Larry Chambers are working to help a father win custody of his daughter. Color Photos By Argil Shock Of The News-Sentinel
An unidentified staff member, in blue jacket, from Hephzibah House appeared outside the house to speak to Sarah's father. He informed LaBella and Chambers that the girl was to be picked up at the house's laywer's office. Color Photo
After picking up his daughter, Lucius escorts her into a motel for a private meeting. He had not seen Sarah in more than five years. His lawyer also attended the meeting, which involved asking questions about how Sarah is doing. Photos By Argil Shock Of The News-Sentinel
At Hephzibah House , where alarm systems are meant to keep girls in, not intruders out, the staff monitors mail and telephone calls closely.


Memo: See microfilm for map explained in caption
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