5/30/2023 0 Comments Missing passenger urban tale![]() Over a month after her disappearance, searchers found Jennifer’s body in a shallow grave on the desolate school grounds where the drifter was living. At the time, Rand was homeless and living in a makeshift campsite on the grounds of the abandoned school, not far from the ruinous Seaview Hospital that was so closely tied to the Cropsey legend. ![]() That same year, Andre Rand, former janitor of the school of horrors, was arrested in connection with the disappearance of Jennifer Schweiger, a 12-year-old girl with Down syndrome. The school was officially closed 15 years later, and the negative publicity contributed to the successful passage of federal civil rights legislation that protects the mentally disabled and other people who have been institutionalized. In 1972, a young Geraldo Rivera published an exposé that revealed the horrific conditions inside the Willowbrook State School and ignited a national scandal. The public wasn’t aware of the conditions inside the school, given that many of the children inside had sadly been abandoned by their parents and the foster care system, leading to little accountability. It was also home to what has been called one of the most unethical medical experiments on children in the United States: In the name of hepatitis research, medical staff intentionally injected healthy children with the virus, many of whom became severely ill as a result. The children there had been subjected to rampant sexual abuse and corporal punishment, and severe overcrowding led to unsanitary conditions. ![]() The institution, built as a respite for children with intellectual disabilities, was revealed to be a living hell in the 1970s–although authorities wouldn't close the school until 1987. Andre Rand worked as a janitor at the Willowbrook State School on Staten Island, a place whose name alone has the power to frighten adults and children alike.
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