This

is Jerry Wheaton. He was court-ordered to Pennhurst at the age of three along with his older sister because his parents were fighting. He would be confined there until he turned 21. Jerry is a remarkable human being, one of those rare "good souls" who restore your faith in humanity and make you believe in angels just by being in their company.  His common sense, his moral intuition and his capacity to forgive far exceed my own. He did not belong at Pennhurst; if he'd had the same advantages as someone with loving parents he could have been spared all the horrors that he will have to live with for the rest of his life.

Pennhurst is not a place to be terrified of; it’s not a haunted insane asylum still full of the criminal element; it’s not a place to go urban exploring or searching for ghosts and entities; it’s a place where there but the grace of God go you or I. It’s a place where real people with real feelings and vibrant personalities lived out their entire lives with never a moment of freedom or privacy, just because they were different. It's a place where some were neglected and abused and even murdered because they were considered less than the rest of us. It’s a place where others like Jerry Wheaton and Roland Johnson managed to hold on to their dignity amid the most inhumane and degrading of circumstances. And it’s the only home some like 80-year-old Mike Koval would ever know. Sure he wants to go back there. Maybe it’s just morbid curiosity, but he still wants me to take him back just to see. Just to feel. Just to remember.