[longsuffering]

Additional details are coming out.

The school is now under investigation by the RCMP after a former student came forward claiming she and dozens of other children were abused by staff as far back as the 1950s, and as recently as five years ago.

Linda Fossen, 53, filed a complaint with RCMP this week alleging years of sexual abuse at the hands of her father, a student and part-time employee at the school at the time. A second victim has since come forward to the school principal, Mark Maxwell.

She says administrators at the time — eager to keep the institute’s polished image clean — covered up years of sadistic abuse, dismissed allegations of sexual assault and kept a known pedophile on staff.

And, she claims, deference to the school’s succession of admired, authoritarian leaders allowed it to happen.

Fossen believed herself to be the only person to suffer such abuse at the school. She kept her father’s secret until 2001, when she began to deal with her childhood abuse. She confronted her father, who she said confessed to the abuse.

Then, in 2006, she said her PBI high school class contacted her about a reunion.

“I revealed to them that I had been abused and, one by one, kids in my class contacted me and said: ‘I was, too.’ I was just stunned,” she said. “I had no idea that any other child had suffered like this.”

Two years later, her book on the abuse she suffered was published. Since then, she said she’s heard from more than 80 classmates.

“You cannot believe the pain that I have heard. Girls that have been going through shock treatments, locked down in psych wards, coat hanger abortions because she was carrying her father’s child. One girl, whose dad was a Bible teacher, beat his kids and wife with rebar. Almost every single day, she got beat with rebar. I could never understand why that girl wore long sleeves and high collars.”

In 2009, she sent a letter to Ted Rendall, chancellor emeritus of the school, along with letters detailing individual stories.


“I must say immediately that I was disappointed in the extreme language used by you,” he wrote. “First you should make a careful study of what the Scriptures teach concerning dealing with matters such as you have raised.”

One of the verses, advising God’s children on how to handle sin in the church reads: “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

More sordid details