"Many of these students remember St. George's as a place where their abusers created a kind of private hell for them — a place where they suffered trauma and emotional wounds that for many, remain unhealed."

Systematic sexual abuse at the elite St. George's School created a "private hell" for at least 61 students and marked a "betrayal of trust" for those students and their parents, an independent investigator concluded in a much-anticipated report released Thursday morning.

The exhaustive report — 196 pages plus more than 120 pages of exhibits — from independent investigator Martin F. Murphy excoriates the private Episcopal boarding school in Middletown for allowing unchecked abuse in the past, primarily in the 1970s and 1980s.

The systemic abuse first came to light in December.

Though "some concrete steps" were taken to protect students, "in the 1970s and 1980s, St. George's leaders did little, and certainly not enough," Murphy's report states. "Fortunately, the school "is certainly a very different place now," one that promotes a culture of respect," and reports abuse to authorities.

"Many of these students remember St. George's as a place where their abusers created a kind of private hell for them — a place where they suffered trauma and emotional wounds that for many, remain unhealed," Murphy wrote.

"The abuse they experienced involved not only physical acts of sexual assault (as horrible as those were), but something that, for many, was even worse: betrayal at the hands of an adult entrusted with their care, at a school where they saw few, if any places to turn for help."

Murphy, partner at the law firm of Foley Hoag in Boston, was hired jointly in late January by St. George's and SGS for Healing, an alumni survivors group.

They hired him after SGS for Healing contested the independence of Will Hannum, whom the school hired to conduct its own investigation in 2015: Hannum was married to a lawyer who was simultaneously "advising the school about how to respond to demands relating to past sexual abuse."

Murphy noted that "under those circumstances, calling Hannum's investigation 'independent' without further explanation was seriously misleading."

Murphy and a team of lawyers interviewed more than 150 witnesses, including 128 former students, and reviewed "thousands of pages of documents." They covered a time frame from 1960 to the present.

It said most of the abuse took place under three administrators who served during the period 1961-1989: Archer Harman Jr., Anthony ("Tony") Zane and the Rev. George Andrews II.

The report credits outgoing headmaster Eric F. Peterson with trying to push an investigation in 2011 that met with push-back by board members and legal counsel.

It also exonerated Robert Weston, the school's director of external affairs, who was put on leave in January based on allegations of inappropriate conduct.

Murphy wrote: "We have found no evidence suggesting Weston engaged in any inappropriate physical conduct with students." He added, "We see no reason why Robert Weston should not be returned to St. George's as a faculty member in good standing," but noted that ultimately, the question of Weston's future "is a decision for the school."

The abusers

Based on multiple first-hand accounts and corroborated single-hand accounts, the report identifies six faculty or staff members who committed sexual abuse on students between 1970 and 1989. Investigators received "nine credible first-hand accounts of student-on-student sexual assault" during that time frame.

The six staff and faculty are: William Anthony Lydgate Jr. and Timothy H. Tefft, both former English teachers; the Rev. Howard "Howdy" White Jr., former associate chaplain, teacher, dorm parent and coach; former athletic trainer Alphonse "Al" Gibbs, now deceased; former choir director Franklin Coleman, and Susan Goddard, a part-time nurse. (Three were previously identified).

One in five female students who attended the school between 1972 and 1979 — 31 altogether — reported abuse by Gibbs alone.

It tells of the “bullying” of Anne Scott, co-founder of SGS for Healing, after Gibbs raped her in the 1970s, and she brought charges against the school.

It reveals that after former Headmaster Tony Zane discovered that Gibbs had been molesting girls and terminated him, Zane and the St. George’s Board gave Gibbs a favorable letter of recommendation and a distinguished service $1,200 annual award that continued until Gibbs’ death 16 years later.

Zane terminated White in 1974 after he said White admitted "sexually abusing a sophomore boy and attempting to sexually abuse at least two and likely three others." (White remains under criminal investigation in North Carolina based on allegations from two people against him).

Coleman, like Gibbs, "sexually abused at least one student in each year of his tenure at the school," between 1980-1988, Murphy's report states.

Goddard "engaged in sexual misconduct with a male St. George's student when the boy was a junior and a senior."

Tefft was dismissed after only four months in 1971, "evidently for supplying alcohol to the hockey team over winter break," and sexually abusing a sophomore boy. He is in prison in New Jersey on child pornography charges.

Lydgate "sexually assaulted and orally raped at least one student and likely at least one other."

'Private hell'

The report details each victim's experience with their abusers. Some victims were identified by name, others by their "Witness" number. Student perpetrators were unnamed.

Many reported "victim-shaming" by school authorities.

Some of Gibbs' victims recounted times where the athletic trainer, dressed in a lab coat with the embroidery “Doc Gibbs,” taught them how to “properly dry their breasts” and performed exams, sometimes sticking fingers in their vaginas.

Others reported that White forced students to share a bed with him and warned that he would "make ... life here miserable" if they told; that Coleman took a student out of state on college visits and rubbed the child's genitals while he slept in the car's passenger seat.

Around 2004, multiple students reported that Charles Thompson, an English teacher, displayed a fetish for boys' knees. Thompson often stroked and commented on what he referred to as the boys' "sailor's knees."

(The report suggests that "it would have been more prudent" for then-headmaster Peterson to fire Thompson instead of putting him on suspension because his conduct "was sufficiently far enough outside the bounds of acceptable conduct as to call into question his fitness to serve as a teacher or staff member at a school where he would regularly interact with adolescent boys").

Peterson also neglected to look at Thompson’s personnel file, which revealed he’d been reprimanded previously for wrestling with boys at the school, Murphy’s report found. Nor did he ask to see Thompson’s computer to see whether it “contained images, taken from a webcam, of the Wheeler dorm boys."

Student-on-student hazing assaults included the experience of "Witness 78, Class of 1976."

Witness 78 described how she was walking through the boy's dormitory on her way home, when a boy shouted "Hey there, Little Red Riding Hood. I'm the Big Bad Wolf, and I'm going to eat you up." She ignored him, then later that night, he climbed through her window, smelling of alcohol, pulled off her pajamas and then raped her. He then bragged about it to girls in her dorm, her boyfriend and best friends.

Another student-on-student victim, one of a small group of female students of color, was attacked twice by other girls as she came out of the shower, including once when they wrote profanities on her body in permanent marker.

The following year, "she was attacked by a group of approximately six girls, who pulled off her towel and attempted to insert the hose of a vacuum cleaner between her legs."

The report notes that one of the perpetrators "took a photograph of the incident" that she shared with the student, who in turn shared it with investigators. "It contains a graphic depiction of [her] humiliation."

Reaction

“When one considers the ripple effects of sexual abuse — the corollary damage to parents, siblings, friends and other family members close to the victim — the amount of trauma inflicted on human beings is measured in the hundreds of years,” Scott said.

Eric MacLeish, co-counsel with Carmen L. Durso for the victims, called the report "the most comprehensive account of sexual abuse in an American boarding school to date. It describes a trail of human carnage perpetrated by monsters posing as teachers and staff and, in some cases, by upper level students."

MacLeish, who is a St. George's alumnus, said the school "is a very different place than the way that it was in the 1970s and '80s, or even the way that it was in December before the [Boston] Globe's first story."

He noted that trustees "could have buried their heads in the sand," but instead came together, listened to survivors, offered them therapy "and included them in critical discussions about the school's future."

Board of Trustees Chair Leslie B. Heaney said Murphy's report was a “vital step for the community” but acknowledged there is still much work and reflecting to do in the coming months and years.

Zane, and his wife, Eusie, requested their names be removed from the girl’s dormitory.

“My wife, Eusie, and I are deeply sorry to have learned that so many of our former students were put in harm’s way on my watch, and I personally apologize for the harms inflicted during my tenure as Headmaster at St. George’s," Zane wrote in a statement he issued Thursday.

Murphy's report followed an undisclosed financial settlement, announced Aug. 3, that St. George's reached with at least 30 alumni whose abuse claims reach back to the 1970s.

And in June, Rhode Island State Police announced that their criminal investigation found "no prosecutable criminal misconduct," largely owing to statutes of limitations.

Shortly thereafter, Peterson announced he would not renew his contract next year.

To read the full report, go to: sgsinvestigation.com.

—kziner@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7375

On Twitter: @karenleez

—jtempera@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7121

On Twitter: @jacktemp