Cropsey (2009)

Geraldo Rivera: Self - Reporter

Quotes 

• Geraldo Rivera - Reporter : [archive footage]  I first heard of this big place with a pretty sounding name because of a call I received from a member of the Willowbrook staff, a Dr. Michael Wilkins. The doctor invited me to see the conditions he was talking about, so unannounced and unexpected by the school administration, we toured Building #6. The doctor had warned me it would be bad, it was horrible. There was one attendant for perhaps 50 severely and profoundly retarded children, lying on the floor naked and smeared with their own feces, they were making a pitiful sound, a kind of mournful wail that's impossible for me to forget. This is what it looked like, this is what it sounded like, but how can I tell you about the way it smelled? It smelled of filth, it smelled of disease and it smelled of death.

  Joshua Zeman : Despite Geraldo's report, it still took more than 10 years before authorities began shutting down Willowbrook. Many patients were transferred to group homes, but others were left to fend for themselves. There are those who believe that some patients out of confusion and habit returned to the 365 acres of Willowbrook, to roam the abandoned buildings, and live in the tunnel system that lay underneath. Out of this, our own version of the Cropsey legend was born.