November 17 – A fire that broke out early Sunday morning destroyed a building on the former site of the Élan School in Poland, a controversial boarding school for troubled youth.
The Poland Fire Department responded to the scene around 5 a.m. Sunday, Lt. Patrick Summers said.
The fire affected a building and some of the woods on the property, Summers said. The fire brigade extinguished the fire and cleared the site.
The fire brigade is investigating the cause of the fire.
Psychiatrist Gerald Davidson and Joseph Ricci, a former heroin addict, opened the Élan School, a private, for-profit boarding school, in 1970. This was closed in 2011 due to a lack of registrations and financial problems.
Former students have alleged that staff subjected them to physical and emotional abuse at school, including shouting confrontations, physical punishment and forced fights.
Maine State Police opened an investigation in 2016 into the 1982 death of 15-year-old Élan student Phil Williams Jr., who witnesses said died after being forced to participate in a boxing match with other students. No charges were filed as a result of the investigation.
The Élan School rose to prominence during the 2002 murder trial and conviction of Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel, who attended the school as a teenager. Skakel’s classmates testified at the trial that he had confessed to killing his neighbor Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Connecticut.
The Connecticut Supreme Court overturned Skakel’s conviction in 2018, saying his defense had failed to present his alibi. He had been in prison for more than eleven years.
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