Emily Pike - 2025

What exactly happened after 14-year-old Emily Pike left the group home, she had been forced to live in on January 27 - 2025, remains unclear but the tragic fact is that she was found death on February 14 the same year. Some had claimed her life in a grusome manner. While he hope that the authorities can locate the individuals responsible for taking her life, we also hope that the authorities look into the conditions of such group homes. Why were there 30 cases of teenagers running from this specific group home? What are the qualifications of the employees? Which living conditions have been offered to the teenagers?

It is beyond imagination that such a young life should be lost. We can only think of the terrible impact, her death had on her family.

We hope that she can find peace, where she is now and we must all pray that something will be done seeking to stop this endless flow of teenagers on the run. Their lives can be put in danger!

Sources

• Emily Pike case: March scheduled to raise awareness of missing indigenous people (Fox 10 Phoenix)
• Emily Pike's family hoping for justice, group home employee responds (ABC 15 Arizona)
• Authorities investigate another murder where Emily Pike’s remains were found (Arizona's Family)

Clay Hensley - 2020

Clay Hensley became victim of a foster care system. He was placed at the Great Circle group home in St. James simply because they could offer to house him cheaper than some of their competitors. Now because they could provide better conditions for a boy in his medical and mental condition but simply because they could offer something cheap.

It is very simple to state that there was not the proper level of supervision. Maybe it also had some root in a budget somewhere but the result was a tragedy. He was killed by two other residents according to the police.

Some who met him while he was alive stated to the media that he had some potential. If true, he was robbed from the chance of pursuing them. The world might never know what he could have achieved and the reason was so simple that it was a question about money.

It is simply so sad for his family left behind and those who knew him.

May he find peace where he is now.

Sources:

• Current and former staffers call for reform at Great Circle (Phelps County Focus)
• Obituary (Simpson Funeral Home on Facebook)
• 2 charged with murder after escaping a Great Circle facility (KY3 News)

Chaim Weiss - 1986

15 year old Chaim Weiss was found dead in his bed at the Orthodox Jewis boarding school. None have been able to find out how the killer made it into his dormitory room. He was stabbed repeatedly.

There were several signs that the killer was aware of the victims religious belief. A window had been left open slightly in the victim's room, which, according to Orthodoxy, enables the spirit of the dead to depart. Beyond that, a lighted mourning candle was placed on Chaim's desk.

If anyone could come forward with information, his family would like to get some kind of closure.

15 years was a short time to be allowed to live. May he find peace where he is now.

Sources:

• Unsolved Crimes That Piqued Public Interest (The New York Times)
• NY - Chaim Weiss, 15 years old, murdered in his bed at Orthodox Jewish School, 1986 (websleuths.com)

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)

Jeremy Gaulin - 2002

When you let two teenagers share room at a treatment facility it is important that they match.

The murderer in this case did suffer from Asperger's syndrome. It calls for a very structured days if you want to avoid panic attacks which can develop into assault on staff and other patients.

Poor Mr. Gaulin did suffer from attention deficit disorder which results in a behavior which is unstructured, inability to focus and to keep to a routine.

Mr. Gaulin could unknowingly have provoked the attack by just being himself. It is a stern warning for those residential treatment facilities which are willing to take all kind of problems in. They must see to that patients who have illnesses where they cannot deal with other persons, can be offered a one person room, so they don't start fighting other patients.

It was by no mean any fault by Mr. Gaulin that he was placed in a room where he could risk an attack while dealing with his illness. It was a fault the facility made.

The murderer had a parole hearing in 2009. He was denied parole. Hopefully they continued his treatment in jail, so he knows what he is serving time for.

References:
Victims 2000- 2004 (Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora Wiki)
WINDOW TEEN FACES SLAY RAP (by William J. Gorta and Leah Haines, New York Post, October 10, 2002)
New York: Upper Nyack: Student Charged In Fatal Plunge (By Lisa W. Foderaro, New York Times, October 10, 2002)