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)