Trial date could be set soon for abuse claims at ‘infamous’ island boys home
About 40 people populate the small island north of Anacortes called Cypress, the former home of Secret Harbor School. A place where 52 residents over the course of three years stole these islanders’ boats and took off in the dead of the night, hoping they could cross the strait before the current swept them, where every passing shiplight could mean the end of a short-lived freedom.
The escape attempts may have been driven by abusive behavior on the part of staff and some of the youth boarding there, according to a spate of lawsuits. The PVCA Law office of Tacoma has 24 pending cases surrounding the school, known colloquially as “Little Alcatraz,” which officially shut down in 2008. Now, following a federal judge’s recent denial of a stay petition filed by Secret Harbor School to delay a trial, PVCA attorney Darrel Cochran has urged the courts to set a trial date before 2027.
Only accessible by personal boat, Secret Harbor School opened in 1949 as a state-licensed group home for young boys, most of whom were wards of the state.
The group home provided recreation, housing, transportation to and from the island, counseling and therapy to the children residing at the facility. The program intended to provide residence-based mental health treatment and education to youth in a therapeutic environment.
But controversy started early. A 1974 Spokane Daily Chronicle article reported a Michigan youth suing Secret Harbor over alleged abuse, denial of medical care and being forced to shovel raw sewage. In 1978, a judge warned the school to curb escape attempts after 52 escapes over three years. With the decades following came countless escape attempts and allegations of abuse.
Cochran started representing group home cases in 1993, and in 2020 was contacted by a former resident of Secret Harbor.
“I know of all of the really horrific group homes that have existed around the state over the years, and this one was on my radar,” Cochran said. “Interestingly, it’s called Secret Harbor, right? And it was little known outside of the Anacortes area, but it was infamous in Anacortes for having residents who would try to escape the island.”
According to a pretrial statement filed April 4, 2025, the isolated group home had a longstanding track record of staff sexually and physically abusing residents as well as residents doing the same to each other.
“It was largely understaffed, horrifically staffed and prone to substance abuse in ways that made the environment failing in institutional controls and tending toward a sexually abusive environment for kids who were placed there,” Cochran said.
When abuse was reported by residents, staff would dismiss the reports as fabricated, decline to report the incidents to child protective services, blame the victims and fail to take steps necessary to prevent future incidents of abuse, the statement claims.
Tyson & Mendes attorney Christopher Hall, who represents Secret Harbor School, did not respond to a request for comment.
The original Cypress Island residential school is closed, as the island facility was permanently shut down and relocated around 2008. It later became a Burlington-based nonprofit providing foster care, behavioral health support and community-based services in Washington, which is also now closed.
Residents with histories of being sexually and physically abused were roomed together on Cypress Island with residents with histories of committing sexual offenses, and supervision was poor even if they were not roomed together, according to the statement.
“You might ask, why would they take some of the most sexually predatory foster care kids? The answer is because that would yield the most money to the group home,” Cochran said. “(Washington State Department of Social and Health Services) pays the most for the most damaged kids, and that includes foster children who’d exhibited sexually predatory behavior. So Secret Harbor would take those in, they would pay the most money for those and then they would mix them with just other kids. You might have a 17-year-old with a sexually predatory history who was roomed with an 11-year-old whose parents were just dysfunctional, alcoholic or whatever it is that led them to be in the foster care system. And then the 11-year-olds would be sexually abused.”
Secret Harbor typically staffed one person to monitor the dormitory structure at night, the statement claims, which made it impossible to properly monitor all the residents. As a result, many incidents of resident-on-resident abuse occurred at night in the main dormitory building.
Secret Harbor was understaffed, and that staff endorsed and promoted a culture of sexual abuse, physical violence, fear and cover-ups, the statement claims.
More from the statement: In the late ‘70s, Secret Harbor hired longtime staff member Gary Gaggens as a child care worker. Gaggens’ experience included fishing, working in a cannery and refineries and a boat fueling dock. He suffered from substance abuse issues during his time at Secret Harbor, which was known by staff. Residents nicknamed him “the strangler” because he would choke them during restraints. He was not disciplined or fired, the lawsuit alleges, but instead promoted to a supervisory role and kept on staff for decades.
Similarly, in 1984, Secret Harbor hired staff member Barry Snook for a position working with children despite his prior work experience consisting of only work as a pipe layer, a lumber mill worker and a ranch hand, according to the statement. Secret Harbor did not ask Snook to provide any references before hiring him and hired him immediately after he sat for an interview with the then director of Secret Harbor Bill Monahan. References would have revealed that Snook was an active abuser of substances, as one of Snook’s prior employers knew about his substance abuse history. Secret Harbor did not provide any training to Snook prior to having him start working with the young residents.
“It had multiple directors who were alcoholics,” Cochran said. “They had staff members who were admitted cocaine abusers, people who were hired to work on the island for this group home corporation were pitifully trained, pitifully equipped, emotionally and professionally to run and administer a group home for boys from the foster care system, and the results were predictably horrific.”
Secret Harbor incident reports show that staff regularly “slammed” residents to the ground, “bloodied” them, grabbed them by the throat and forced residents to do manual labor as punishment for misbehavior. Several incident reports submitted by Secret Harbor staff in the 1980s admit to using excessive force with residents.
Pending cases
One case filed in March 2023 alleges plaintiff “ER,” who attended Secret Harbor from 1992-1994, and “JMS,” who attended from 1987-1988, suffered abuse when they were children. The case alleges group home employees regularly used drugs and alcohol while supervising the children.
During the discovery process, Secret Harbor’s former director Brian Carroll testified that Bill Monohan, director of Secret Harbor prior to Carroll and at the time when ER and JMS were residents, endangered the safety of children due to his drunkenness. Other residents have testified that in addition to Monahan, staff supervisor Gary Gaggens, night watchman Jeff Walton and recreation staff Barry Snook also partook in drugs and alcohol.
JMS testified to being sodomized by his roommate and was involved in inappropriate sexual activity on a weekly basis. He reported this regularly and the only response was moving him to a new room. Eventually, he stopped reporting.
JMS also claimed to be abused by staff, and ER described being grabbed by the hair and struck in the face by staff member John Malone and also being sexually abused by other residents and staff members.
Plaintiff OH was placed at Secret Harbor on Aug. 26, 1987, at age 15, where a lawsuit claims he was subjected to numerous repeated incidents of sexual abuse by both residents and staff.
Plaintiff CD — admitted to Secret Harbor on Oct. 28, 1987, at age 15 — claimed to be sexually abused by other residents of Secret Harbor and was sexually propositioned by a staff member.
Secret Harbor staff documented their knowledge that OH was engaged in sexual acts, including suspected intercourse, with other residents in the program as early as his first year within the program. They noted, “you know what this looked like.” Staff wrote that OH was being tormented by the other residents regarding his “potential homosexuality” and that staff were concerned because the other residents “often (ganged) up on him.”
During this time, staff violated mandatory reporting laws, the lawsuit claims.
Next steps
In April 2025, PCVA Law was on the cusp of a federal court trial involving two of the plaintiffs. Six days before opening statements, Cochran said the attorneys for Secret Harbor filed a receivership with Skagit County, essentially declaring bankruptcy and asking the court to appoint a neutral third party to take control of assets. This was approved, and the trial was put on hold.
Now, the trials are being rescheduled, and Cochran urged the courts to set a date before the end of the year.
Around 2020, Cochran was contacted by a former resident of Secret Harbor and started filing lawsuits. COVID-19 also delayed the lawsuits coming to trial.
“My number one priority is bringing light to horrific abuses that have happened in the past in the hopes that we won’t repeat them in the future. It’s also a part of the process of healing, because you have families with husbands and fathers of these former residents who don’t understand the horrors these guys have been through,” Cochran said. “All the plaintiffs are looking forward to a resolution of these claims that have been out there for a very long time. The insurance companies have done everything in their power to prevent resolution and profit off of the misery of these foster care children.”
—By Sam Fletcher