Aaron Wright Bacon - 1994

This is the standard story about a standard wilderness program as they were running in the 1990's.

The original adventure based wilderness programs where teenagers are offered a voluntary adventure experience were long gone by the 1990s.

Why? Because the entire industry was transformed into a business! Profit was prioritized while selling out on the safety of the teenagers who were sent to them.

It started in the 1980's. It was also around that time teenagers started to die in the wilderness programs. It never stopped despite the best efforts of the politicians trying to regulate the wilderness therapy industry. Teenagers return home from wilderness programs in body bags every year.

What made the death of Aaron Bacon different from many others were the days of pain and neglect he had to endure ill out in the wilderness before he died.

A movie was even made because his story just was so cruel that you cannot understand how the employees could let this happen.

It is hard to understand that the laws was constructed in a way which led the wilderness program off with little punishment and almost the entire staff free to work in other wilderness programs.

Did we learn from his death? Every day teenagers are transported to wilderness programs, so the lesson was sadly not learned.



Sources:

• Aaron Bacon remembered
• Victims - 1990s (Fornits Wiki)
• The Myth Of Tough Love (The Sun Magazine)

Dyskeha Streeter - 2011

Dyskeha Streeter did not have an easy life. According to our sources she battled a mental condition. Destiny took her a new group home and when she complained of chest pain she could have used divine intervention.

However she got none. Instead she got the very best Divine Guidance Integrative Services could offer her which was nothing.

As result of their negligence she died from blood clots in her lungs.

16 years were all she got in this world. It is just too short a life to offer anyone.

May she rest in peace.


Sources:

• eighbors Report Weekly Yelling From Suspended Group Home (Eyewitness 9 news, WNCT)
• State Fines Group Home Where Girl Died (WITN)
• Victims after 2010 (Fornits Wiki)

Corey Baines - 2003

A simple tree killed 16 year old Corey Baines while he was placed at a wilderness program named Catherine Freer. He is just one out of three teenagers who have died at this particular program which makes it one of the most deadly wilderness programs still in operation.

There are many parents out there. Some seem determined to fix problems within their families at home. It was sadly not the case with Corey Baines. For some reason he was shunned by his family when he fell into problems and they let so-called professionals do a kind of dirty work.

We don't know what kind of problems he had and it doesn't matter because the cure became his death which sadly is the case so many times.

16 years was all he got and it is a waste of so much potential.

May he rest in peace.

Sources:

• Victims 2000-4 (Fornits WIki)
• Catherine Freer Wilderness Program (Fornits WIki)
• Utah wilderness therapy deaths (The Salt Lake Tribune, OCTOBER 11, 2007)

Will Futrelle - 1996

Mountain Park Baptist Church and Boarding Academy had its own special atmosphere. An atmosphere consisting of fear and suppression.

Every single of the students lived in constant fear of being told on and the corporal punishment the employees of the boarding school loved to deliver.

In this toxic environment 16 year old Will Futrelle suddenly entered in 1996. Maybe he didn't know what to stay out off. Maybe he learned the system fast and saw his opportunity to advance by telling the management of the other students.

We don't know. We do know that in the eyes of some of the boys became a threat. He was murdered by some of the other students who feared that he would tell the employees of their escape plan. It is very difficult to understand how the prison life surroundings combined with what was basically illegal medication of the confined teenagers influenced their mind.

Two of the teenagers involved in the killing received life in prison.

In recent years a petition for a re-trial has been made. Whether their legal rights were rightfully served is not a question to deal with in this blog.

Will Futrelle lost his life first and foremost due to a hostile and paranoid environment at this so-called boarding school. It was rightfully closed down later. However the persons running the school are still to be finding in the boarding school business and they should be banned from working with children forever if Will Futrelle loss of life should matter.

His life mattered for his family. They deserve to know that parents should not be victimized by such person when they reach out for help.

May he rest in peace.


Sources:

• Dad's Death Crushed Granada Hills Youth (Los Angeles Times)
• Victims - 1990s (Fornits Wiki)
• Schools for Troubled Spring Up Around U.S. (By Susan C. Thomson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 1, 1996)

Dawn Marie Birnbaum - 1993

Dawn Marie Birnbaum was labeled as a troubled girl. She had entered the system and was a ward of the state. Whenever the social services become a part of a story it will of course to some degree become a tragedy. It is not only something you see in the United States. It is the same in every country.

She was sent to Elan School. It was not a place for minors. Many teenagers took terrible beatings in the so-called therapeutic boxing ring.

Of course some tried to escape and with a history of many escapes the employees should have taken into consideration that she would try to escape yet another time and she did when she had the chance.

Unfortunately she met a murderer while she was trying to travel back home and it became her death.

17 years and brutally removed from this world.

It is not to believe but sadly it is the fact.

Elan School closed years later but not a minute too soon.

Sources:

• Dawn Marie Birnbaum memorial
• Victims - 1990s (Fornits Wiki)
• A Stranger in Town - The FBI files (Internet Movice Database)

Orlena Parker - 2003

The death of 15 year old Orlena Parker was just one of the many cases where restraints led to death of the teenagers who were victimized by this act of powerplay by the staffmembers.

Orlena Parker was 15 years old with black hair more than 2 feet long. Her middle name was Leatrice. She was a member of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community of Arizona.

At some point she got a depression and for her to be cured she was sent to the Devereux Cleo Wallace residential treatment facility. She wasn't cured. She died there instead while being restrained by no less than 7 people.

An investigation was launced and the treatment center was cited but it didn't change the fact that she died and never saw her family again.

It is just one of these unheard tragedies no families with children suffering from depression want to to hear about but these tragedies do happen and apperently nothing is done to stop them.

Orlena Parker did only live 15 years of her life which should have been so much longer.

May she rest in peace.

Sources:

• Pinned Down (by Kathryn Eastburn, Colorado Springs Independent, July 24, 2003)
• Victims 2000-4 (Fornits Wiki)
• Corporal Punishment, child welfare and restraints (By Carrie Ann Lucas , Disability Pride)

Christy Scheck - 1992

13 year old Christy Scheck was found hanging at the Southwood Psychiatric Hospital it was the expected outcome everybody within the treatment system should have seen coming. When you put the life of severely depressed girl into the hands of totally untrained and underpaid employees what is to expect?

Using for profit-hospitals includes risk of poor treatment when it fits the shareholders.

Of course the lawyers representing hospitals and the responsible authorities which should guard the population against the greed in the system would imply that the family did hold some degree of responsibility when they took a quiet alternative approach dealing with this girls transition from a girl to a women, but frankly it has nothing to do with the quality of the treatment once the family has sought help. Every family makes mistakes. The good parents are those who ask for help when they realize that they are in over their heads - even paying for it when it is necessary.

Such parents should not be victims for what it basically a scam. They should be given real help. Parents cannot run their own accreditation agency. The state should see to that the quality is at a standard which would ensure treatment for these vulnerable children.

It was not the case here.

Christy Scheck died at age 13.

May she rest in peace.


Sources:

• Mental hell How the American Health-care system killed a 13-year old girl (TeenAdvocate USA)
• Victims - 1990s (Fornits Wiki)
• Book: A Wrongful Death: One Child's Fatal Encounter with Public Health and Private Greed (By Leon Bing, Amazon Book store, ISBN-10 0679448411)

Tom Malkowski - 2004

According to a press release a student at Family Foundation School fell from a second story balcony to his death. His name was later identified to be Tom Malkowski.

A quick search on the nature of the Family Foundation School reveals that it is a prison for youth. It is a place where parents can avoid responsibility for their children by shipping them off for whatever reason.

It is not hard to understand that the children sent to this boarding school must feel alone and neglected by their family. Numerous testimonies from former "students" confirm this fact.

We don't know whether this fall was an accident or the young male teenager did choose to end his life on March 4, 2004.

However many things speak in favor that it was a decision on his behalf to commit this act of desperation.

We can only pray wish that he will rest in peace.



The school closed in 2014 after they tried to provide it with a new name in order to cover up the past.

Sources:

• The Family Foundation School (Fornits Wiki)
• Victims 2000-4 (Fornits Wiki)
• Recent Sad Events at the Family School Press Release published on an industry marketing firms webpage

Angela Miller (2001) and Ashley Shaddox (1998)

March 1 is not the best day to be resident at Echo Glen Children's Center. On the exact same date in 1998 and 2001 two different girls hanged themselves.

1998

14 year Ashley Shaddox had a troubled life. Being raped at age 11 and even being pregnant at that age is an ordeal no child should endure. In some communities it is shameful to be the victim and slowly she was marginalized into a subculture where she hung out with the wrong kind of people.

When some of the youth in this group committed an armed robbery she was left with poor legal support and in a justice system where you have to buy legal protection she had no chance and was sentenced to serve her time at Echo Glen Children's Center. While she was serving her sentence it became clear that she was depressed.

Unfortunately none seem to bother and on March 1 1998 she committed suicide by hanging.

2001

17 year old Angela Miller took her own life rather suddenly to the surprise of her relatives. The family believed that she was safe at the facility.

She was suffering from depression and as a cry for help she had acted out. Instead of recognizing an illness the court system sentenced her for residential-burglary. It did carry a 9 month punishment. She was first send to Naselle Youth Camp where they were not trained to handled sucidial and depressed youth. She tried to kill herself and was transferred to Echo Glen Children's Center. As it turned out they were not trained to deal with this type of clients also.

As result of the state's neglect this young girl died.

Is there a lesson somewhere

Yes. Someone should have learned that depression carries a risk of suicide. Unfortunately these two deaths are not the only one who have taken place at Echo Glen Children's Center. You may search this blog later and a text of the third death we have learned off.

May both girls rest in peace.


Sources:

• An eerie echo (Seattke Weekly)
• Family Files Tort Claim Over Girl's SuicideEugene Register-Guard - March 8, 1998
• Victims in 1990s (Fornits Wiki)
• Victims 2000-2004 (Fornits Wiki)

Autumn Sun Bear - 2003

March 1, 2003 the authorities was called to a treatment center in St. George, Utah because the school told them that they had a girl who was ill and should be tranported to the hospital. When they arrived at the Red Rock Canyon School they discovered that the employees were conducting CPR on the girl who had been ill for some time.

The girl had only seen the nurse employed at the treatment center. Mostly it is a secure facility for privately paid children sent there by parents who don't want to take responsibility for their own children. They don't want to take the children outside the treatment center unless they believe that the reason is seriously. However, this girl was sent there by the reservation where she used to live.

This time the illness was serious for the poor girl and the decision to handle the illness inhouse ended in the death of the girl.

May she rest in peace.

Sources

• Victims 2000-4 (Fornits Wiki)
• Red Rock Canyon School (Fornits Wiki)
• Police investigate schoolgirl's death (Deseret News, March 7 - 2003)