Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - BOY, 12, DEAD AFTER 24 HOURS AT CAMP, FOUND WITHOUT PANTS: RULED HOMICIDE

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

The death of a boy, who dies in his first night at Trails Carolina, has been ruled a homicide.  The autopsy report of the 12-year-old says the cause of death is asphyxia due to smothering. Trails Carolina has the troubled youths sleeping in bivies that are placed on top of a thick plastic sheet that is folded up the sides in the form of a canoe. The mesh in the bivy being torn and replaced with the weather-resistant door secured with an alarm that would alert if someone tries getting out of the bivy. Counselors check on the boy during the night, but can't actually see him because of the door that is being used.  The autopsy notes that instructions for the bivy sack readily available online warn against zipping the solid outer layer completely shut.  When counselors try to wake the boy in the morning, they find he is cold and stiff. His body is turned 180 degrees from the entrance and his feet are near the opening, which the autopsy report says would have allowed the waterproof material to fall onto his face and head. The report also says the boy was placed in this compromised sleeping area by others and did not have the ability to remove himself from the situation with the alarm securing the opening. Standard protocol was deviated from due to using a damaged bivy and securing the outer weather resistant door instead of the inner mesh panel."  Joining Nancy Grace Today: Leanne Roberts - Attended Trails Carolina camp at age 12   Meg Appelgate - Co-founder and CEO of Unsilenced, Victim of troubled teen industry and advocate for survivors, Author: "Becoming UNSILENCED: Surviving and Fighting the Troubled Teen Industry';" TikTok and IG: @megappelgate/TikTok and IG: Unsilenced_now  Caryn L. Stark – Psychologist, Renowned TV and Radio Trauma Expert and Consultant; Instagram: carynpsych/FB: Caryn Stark Private Practice Dr. Eric Eason – Board-certified Forensic Pathologist, Consultant; Instagram: @eric_a_eason, Facebook: Eric August Eason, LinkedIn: Eric Eason, MD Nick Ochsner –  Executive Producer & Chief Investigative Reporter, WBTV See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A little boy, just 12 years old, what is that, fifth grade, is dead after just 24 hours at summer camp, found dead without his pants. In the last hours, ruled a homicide. Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. A 12-year-old boy dies just 24 hours after arriving at a wilderness therapy camp. His death now ruled a homicide. Good Lord in heaven. You send your child away to a wellness camp for his own good on beautiful trails and forested areas in Carolina, and in less than 24 hours at camp, he's dead. In the last hours, this little boy's death has been ruled a homicide.

With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now, including an investigative reporter, a renowned medical examiner, a therapist, and importantly, the co-founder, CEO of Unsilenced, a victim of the troubled teen industry and a beautiful young woman who attended the camp at just age 12. Like this little boy, as I like to do with juries when I can. Let's go back to when this happened and hear the 911 call. Okay, when we looked up their codes, 8 and 11, we learned that means carbon monoxide inhalation or choking. So that tells 911 immediately that there's some type of respiratory failure. Let's listen to more. I mean, my stars, you've got a little boy dying or dead on your watch. It's just been ruled homicide. This camp is full of counselors and kids, and they don't have anybody out there to direct the ambulance to the right location in a giant wilderness camp. I mean, before I go to Nick

Ochsner, investigative producer and chief investigative reporter, WBTV, to Dr. Eric Eason, renowned forensic pathologist. Dr. Eason, for lack of a better term, that's BS. I mean, look, my dad had one cardiac event, as doctors like to say, after the next. One of us, my mom, will be performing CPR. Another one of us will be out in the driveway waving, trying to flag down the ambulance. I mean, every second counts. And guess what? They saved his life more than once. So here we got the ambulance just driving around the camp, which is just for starters, trying to find the little boy. I mean, have you ever heard anything like it? A camp full of counselors. They're supposed to be trained in CPR and doing the right thing. I've never heard anything like that before myself.

It wasn't a remote area, so maybe that had something to do with it. But, yeah, sounds like it was pretty disorganized. Okay, and that's just exactly what you don't need. Hey, you know, remote area, parents paying thousands of dollars to send their children. This isn't even a teen. He's 12 years old from New York, thousands of miles away in the middle of the wilderness, and nobody can even get the ambulance to the boy to try to save his life. Okay. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Listen. and cabin and up the hill. This is a hike. Copy that. A1, I'm showing you on scene. I'm almost here.

So the counselors get told there's something wrong and now they say they had to go to the office to make the call. So how many more minutes did they lose? But listen, their incompetence is really just the tip of the iceberg. For those of you just joining us, parents send a 12-year-old boy to a wilderness camp, a wellness camp, as they call it. It's anything but well. And let me tell you something. This little boy is not the first time that someone has ended up dead at Carolina Trails. And then we find out the counselors and staff won't cooperate with the investigation. Listen, the Transylvania County Sheriff's Office said when they arrived at Trails Carolina for an unresponsive participant,

medics found evidence that CPR had been performed, but the child appeared deceased for some time. But now, in an odd twist of trust, the wilderness therapy camp in North Carolina is refusing to allow investigators to talk to staff or juveniles present when the 12-year-old died. According to a search warrant, the boy suffered a panic attack the night he arrived at the camp, and the next morning he was found cold, stiff, and frothing at the mouth. Not being able to talk to staff or campers, it is unclear what caused the boy to present with frothing from the mouth. According to an affidavit from the detective that got the search warrant, froth about the mouth could indicate he ingested some sort of poison. First of all, I gave up cursing when the twins were born, but every way,

every term I can think of to describe this would break that vow. For those of you just joining us, a shock coroner's report reveals that a 12-year-old little boy is dead at Trails Carolina Wellness Camp due to homicide. First of all, I want to go to Nick Oxner joining us, executive producer, chief investigative reporter at WBTV. And he has been investigating Tra, Carolina since May 2021. Okay, Nick Ochsner, thank you for being with us. It raises a huge red flag when witnesses and employees will not cooperate with LA law enforcement. That's a concern. I think it was a concern to the sheriff. He highlighted that lack of cooperation in the public and statements that he's made, that his deputies couldn't get information about what happened on the scene. And they've

continued investigating. You have been investigating this camp, the so-called therapeutic camp, therapeutic, $4,900 the last time I looked to enroll, up to $700 plus a day for a 12-year-old to do what? Walk around the trails and have three hots and a cot? I mean, nearly eight hundred dollars a day, five grand enrollment fee. Why did you, Nick Ochsner, begin investigating Trails Carolina? Yeah, we got a phone call from a concerned parent whose child almost went there. And essentially that phone call said, I've looked into this place and done my own homework, and maybe you ought to look into it as well. And actually, Nancy, what we found is that the children attending Trails Carolina most of the time don't even get a cot. They're actually sleeping in a sleeping bag or a sleeping mat, either in a cabin or out in the wilderness.

And that's just emblematic. I say that because emblematic of the kind of experience they're getting at this at this or got at this facility. How did the whole thing start? Listen. The parents of a 12-year-old boy think Trails Carolina might be just the place to help their son. Trails Carolina claims to be a leader in wilderness therapy, offering an adventure wilderness program for children who have behavioral and or emotional difficulties. The parents say their boy is transported by two men from New York to Trails Carolina camp at Lake Toxaway, North Carolina. Their son arrives at the camp in an agitated state. The 12-year-old is loud and disruptive, but he is assigned to a cabin with other children as well

as four adults. In less than 24 hours, the 12-year-old is dead. Sheriff Chuck Owenby says an autopsy is being conducted because the death appeared suspicious since the boy died at the camp less than 24 hours after he arrived. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A boy dead just 12 years old, 24 hours after getting to camp, having panic attacks, upset. I wonder why. Found dead without his pants on. Joining me in addition to Nick Oxner from WBTV, Leanne Roberts is joining us. a beautiful young woman who attended Trails Carolina age 12, just like this little boy. Leanne, thank you for being with us.

Tell me about your experience at Trails Carolina. Yeah, so from the very first minute that you're there, it's pretty traumatizing. The first thing that they have you do is, you know, conduct a strip search and everything you have is taken from you. And that kind of set the tone for the rest of my stay there. I experienced, you know, and witnessed things that no 12 year old ever should,

no child ever should, no person ever really should, all in the name of therapy, which we actually weren't even really receiving. We saw a therapist once to maybe two times a week. So I mean, yeah, just horrible. We weren't getting enough food at 12 years old. I enrolled at 90 pounds and I left at 80. So that's 10 pounds over a three month span. I spent Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's there. We weren't given enough adequate gear for the weather, the temperature. So we got to like negative 20 degrees and we had two, three layers max of really thin clothing. Just some horrific, horrific stuff. You know, I'm trying to take in everything that you're saying, but you gave me so much information. I've got to dissect it. You said that you as a 12 year old little girl saw things that no child nor anyone should ever see such as what um you know on many occasion i saw my friend's faces being pushed in the ground when being put on a restrictive hold um i you know experienced and watched my friends be so emotionally manipulated.

We had a problem when I was there with understaffing, and they wouldn't have enough staff sometimes to facilitate bathroom breaks, and so that meant that instead of letting us use the restroom, they would rather us like pee our pants. And so in a solution to that, because we weren't doing laundry, we weren't getting showers, everyone's smell of urine, and they threatened and for some girls distributed adult diapers instead of letting us use the restroom. And that's truthfully only like the tip of the iceberg, which is deeply saddening. But those are, you know, just a few things that come to mind. Leanne went to this camp at just 12 years old. Praise the Lord. She's alive.

The damage and the trauma and the emotional problems that's caused her, that's a whole nother can of worms. But she's alive. So she lives to fight another day. She lives to deal with what happened at Trails Carolina. This little boy didn't live. 12 years old, pale, frail, upset, having panic attacks. And he dies within 24 hours of going to this camp. This is camp season, parents. Wake up. Be alert. Lee Ann Roberts. You stated that when you got there, you had to be strip searched, that you were not given bathroom breaks, that the campers were told to wear adult diapers so they could urinate and defecate in their pants. Why? I mean, they would have all these kind of like safety reasons. They didn't really have an excuse for, for the diapers other than it was our fault for drinking so much water and not managing

it. Um, which is ridiculous because if you got to go, you got to go. But the strip searching, um, you know, they say it's to make sure you don't have anything dangerous on you, but they take away everything you come in with. And I genuinely do believe that it's, you know, a way to strip you of your individuality and maybe any comfort you have going in. You're dressed all the same as the other children. You don't have anything that, you know, like I said, is comforting or makes you feel safe or, you know, you're just kind of stripped down to the bone. You mentioned the strip search. You're describing that. Guys, I doubt all of you parents experienced this. If and when you got to go to camp, we got to go to camp at 4-H camp. And I remember my parents trying to get together the money to go to 4-H camp.

It was $37 for each child to go to 4-H camp. And we got to go, but it was a wonderful, fun experience. The only time each year that I would be away from home overnight. What you were hearing happened. This happened. There's no doubt about it. A little boy is dead tonight after just 24 hours at this camp. It's not just at Trails Carolina that this is happening.

As a matter of fact, take a listen to a victim that managed to survive the Provo Canyon school. The first thing that they said to me was, you're going to need to be strip searched. And so they took me to this room filled with five or six staff in there. Yeah, I had to remove all my clothes. They had to thoroughly examine my body. They asked me to, sorry, to do very strange things. While I was naked, they asked me to bend over, touch my toes. I had to spread everything apart. I was told to

squat and to cough and they had me do that repeatedly for a few minutes while the staff members laughed and made jokes. Parents send a 12-year-old boy for treatment at a wilderness therapy camp. He never comes home, dying just 24 hours later. Found dead 24 hours after going to Trails Carolina camp, a therapeutic wellness camp for children and teens. Did his parents have any idea what really went on at that camp before they sent him? I've heard many, many true life traumatic stories about how children are basically kidnapped. The parents know what's happening, but the child doesn't know it's about to go to a camp and they are just taken away and they end up at a camp, a wellness camp or a boot camp for children and teens. Joining me, Meg Applegate, co-founder, CEO, Unsilenced, victim of troubled teen industry,

author of Becoming Unsilenced, Surviving and Fighting the Troubled Teen Industry. And you can find her at unsilenced.org. Meg, thank you for being with us. A death, as if a strip search and malnourishment, beatings, hazings, adult diapers, as if that's not enough. Now, Meg, a death of a 12-year-old boy at camp. Right. And it's very, very sad. And unfortunately, we're not all that surprised. We understand that this little boy was not delivered to the camp by his parents. That two strangers took him. How does that work? Yeah, so we call that an escort service or a lot of people call that booning. It's basically when you're woken up, usually in the

middle of the night, you're told that you're coming with them. A lot of times you're asked to undress in front of them, asked to go to the bathroom in front of them, and then you're escorted from your home to wherever you're going to be going. Now, what did you say the phrase to describe it is? Maybe we'll call it gooning. Gooning, G as in gregarious, O-O-N, gooning, correct? That's correct. Gooning. Okay. That evokes nothing but a semblance of fear. Yeah. Of terror to get gooned. I mean, what do you mean gooned? I mean, it's pretty much how

it feels myself. I was gooned as well. And it's so incredibly traumatic that it sticks with you for the rest of your life. It's truly like you're being kidnapped. What happened to you exactly? So I was woken up around 2am by these two strangers. They said, you're coming with us. And we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. And they indicated that the hard way was going to be in handcuffs. So I listened. And they basically made me undress in front of them, go to the bathroom, threw me into the back of an SUV, and we were off to LAX and off to my first program. To Nick Ochsner joining us, chief investigative reporter, WBTV. He has been investigating Trails Carolina since 2021. And there's a reason for that.

This guy, Nick Ochsner, doesn't just get up your tailpipe for no reason. Nick, again, thank you for being with us. How do the children, the teens, get to Trails, Carolina? Because I noticed immediately this little boy, and we are withholding his name, the little boy that ends up dead without his pants on in the middle of the night, he did not get escorted there by his parents. They didn't take him to camp and drop him off like in, what is it? The parent trap. Remember that? Lindsay

Lohan is taken by the butler, I think it is, and by the dad. And it's wonderful. It's not like that. What is gooning? Are you familiar with that, Nick? Yeah, just about every former participant at Trails Carolina that I've spoken with, and I've talked to more than a half dozen of them, just about everybody was gooned or transported to the camp. And I'll tell you, the very few that I've talked to who weren't had a slightly less traumatic start to their camping experience. But it's exactly, as I've heard it, luckily, I never had to experience this. But as I understand it, it's exactly like what we just heard Meg describe. These strangers come to your house, you're woken up in the middle of the night and taken whisked away unexpectedly by these strangers, you know, far away.

Think about this boy came from New York City to the wilderness of North Carolina. I've been out to the site of the Trails Carolina camp. And let me tell you, it's nothing like New York City to the wilderness of North Carolina. I've been out to the site of the Trails Carolina camp. And let me tell you, it's nothing like New York City. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Karen Stark joining me. Renowned psychologist, TV, radio, trauma expert, consultant. And you can find her at KarenStark.com.

And that's Karen with a C in case you're looking for her. Karen Stark, you need to write the book on panic attacks because you've done so many case studies on that. But this little boy gets gooned as Meg Applegate is describing it. And Karen, I spoke to you about this when it occurred. Friends of our children got gooned and were taken to a camp across the country and the girl got to take one pair of underwear and one toothbrush. She had no idea that was going to happen. And just, I mean, Karen, that right there, this little 12-year-old boy was having panic attacks. I guess he was at 12 years old. That's just a baby for Pete's sake. What is a panic attack? And I'm getting to something probative, Karen Stark. I ask you all of these psychological questions because I want to prove something. I want to prove something that I can take in front of a jury. This boy, by all accounts,

was having panic attacks. Okay. He should have been watched even more closely that night, but instead, he ends up dead. So what is a panic attack, and what would the symptoms be, Karen Stark? When you have a panic attack, Nancy, you are feeling like you're having a heart attack, Nancy, you are feeling like you're having a heart attack. And many of my patients describe that because your heart is racing, your breathing isn't regular. It's very, very frightening. And people don't understand that it's something that will pass, that your body is reacting to trauma. And when you think about, and you've made some good points, this little boy, he's being taken off. All of these children, they're taken away.

They are not able to know ahead of time. And the parents believe this is a good thing. They're told that. So they don't even know what is happening to them. They're humiliated. They're frightened. And you take a child like this who already has anxiety and panic attacks and put him in a situation that is overwhelming where he has absolutely no idea what's happening.

And it's not the way that you're supposed to be helping somebody. You're supposed to be helping a child. That's why they're going there. This is a camp that's supposed to be providing good services. And instead, they scare them. And that is the worst tactic you could use. Karen Stark, on many occasions, these counselors did nothing. Nancy, they can't do anything. They don't have the right training. They really don't understand what they're doing. And that's one of the problems these camps are unregulated they can hire anyone and they are not equipped to deal with real mental health issues or anything that is out of the ordinary all they're taught is punishment nothing that has to do with good therapeutic help survivors fighting trauma from therapy camps speak out after a 12-year-old boy dies.

How can a 12-year-old boy who had been suffering panic attacks after being taken to Trails Carolina Therapeutic Camp, how can he end up dead? In the last hours, we learn the medical examiner has ruled it a homicide by asphyxiation. It sounds like the camp counselors just stood by while the little boy was having a panic attack. So what do we know about Trails, Carolina? And let me remind you, this is not just happening at Trails, Carolina. As a matter of fact, listen to this. Constantly reported that he was left in a room for days with basically they just would leave him, feed him, let him out, made him pee in the jug, tackled by staff constantly, which was always denied. I asked them to view cameras. Every time it happened, it was somewhere where there wasn't cameras. He got into a little bit of trouble when he got home. Nothing major, but a week later,

he took his life. I think he thought he was going to end up back there. That dad is talking about Provo Canyon, where children and teens were gooned, forced to go there. And when things went sideways, they were not allowed to contact their parents. When they did call home, they weren't monitored as to what they were saying, forced to be in a form of solitary confinement, only given sporadic meals and forced to urinate in a jug. So the boy comes back home after a stint at Provo and gets into minor trouble. He was not threatened with being sent back to Provo, but he was afraid he was going back and committed suicide. That was the father of Trevor Hooker speaking out. And it's not just these two camps. It's happening industry-wide across our country.

Meg Applegate joining us, CEO of Unsilenced, who endured similar conditions herself and is now fighting to change it. I don't think parents understand what's happening. I mean, parents send their children to camp just like I was sent to 4-H camp with no idea what's going to happen once the child gets there, Meg. It's true. It's true. And I don't think parents understand or the general public in general that we're talking about 120,000 to 200,000 kids a year are ending up in these kind of programs. What more do we know about what happened tonight? This 12-year-old child dies. After the 12-year-old has a panic attack around midnight, a counselor told investigators that the

boy was checked on throughout the night, starting at 12 a.m., with additional checks on his well-being at 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. At 7.45 a.m., the boy is found dead. According to the search warrant, when investigators arrived on scene, C.J.H. was stiff and cold to the touch. He was lying on his back, his arms were on his chest, and his knees bent upward towards the sky. Also in the search warrant, investigators noted spots of bleeding under the skin, possible petechia on the boy's lips and eyes. CPR mask was covering the boy's face, and he was not wearing pants or underwear. His pants and underwear were lying next to his shoulder. To Dr. Eric Eason, a board certified forensic pathologist and consultant. Dr. Eason, thank you for being with us. You've just heard the

description given as to how the 12-year-old boy was found dead. What do you make of it, particularly the petechia, the burst blood vessels? Well, petechiae are typically found in individuals who can die from asphyxia. That's usually asphyxia from like a hanging or a strangulation when there's some type of pressure on the neck and it causes a pressure buildup of blood and the blood vessels in the eye, and then they will rupture and cause these small dots known as petechiae. So you typically see them in asphyxia, but there's other causes of petechiae. So you don't just want to say, hey, if you see petechiae, this is definitely an asphyxial death. They can happen from CPR. They can actually happen from a heart attack.

You can actually sneeze really hard and cause petechiae in your face. Hold on just a moment. I'm hearing a subtle but important distinction. Dr. Eric Eason, when the petechiae, the very tiny blood vessels in your eyes, I guess your lips and elsewhere, possibly your nasal passages, when they burst, if you simply run out of air, will they burst? Or does there need to be some sort of pressure such as a pillow over the face?

Um, some sort of mechanical pressure. When I say mechanical, I mean, uh, hands, ligature, pillow.

Right. There needs to be pressure. Would they burst simply from running out of air? No, that's not the typical explanation for IAPTKI form. There's going to be some type of physical trauma to a blood vessel to cause that to happen. And that is the crux here. Dr. Eason, go with me on this. I'm trying to explain this in regular people talk, but I think you'll understand what I'm trying to say. This boy, if his petechia were burst in his lips, did not die of just running out of air in his sleeping bag. First of all, the sleeping bag, a bivvy, everybody that camps knows not to do what they did. The boy was sleeping in a sleeping bag in a bivvy which comes up around you kind of like a canoe and there was a covering

over it very often used. My son's got one and he will camp out just out in the middle of nowhere. It looks like a sleeping bag with a top over it to keep mosquitoes out. He had, this child had the outer weatherproof covering over him, which you're not supposed to do because it can seal out the air. Unlike the mesh one, it's breathable. But uh-uh, no. If there were burst petechia in his lips, then there had to be some type of mechanical force on him. Am I making any sense? It makes sense to me, yes.

What do you think, Eason? Yeah, I agree. I think there had to be some type of pressure on the neck or on the blood vessels of the face to cause the petechiae if they were definitely found at autopsy. And I don't recall if they were. Well, I mean, we just heard the reporter state that there was damage to the petechiae at the time. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Nick Ochsner joining me from WBTV. Weigh in because the medical examiner there at Wake Forest Baptist Medical has ruled this a homicide. And I also noticed that in the autopsy, there was bruising on the thighs and there was bruising, I believe on page four,

as I was analyzing it, another bruise on the hip, the hip and the thigh that's disturbing why does this frail pale little boy have bruising he had no health complaints prior to this he didn't hyperventilate he had never had respiratory problems Nick nothing like that so his hyoid was intact, which rules out, well, not necessarily a strangulation, but I'm concerned that is no signs of of real trauma. It also says that investigators did a sexual assault examination kit postmortem, obviously. And that was negative. Nick, my dear sweet boy, my naive investigative reporter. You think just because there's no tearing, bruising or blood in his anus, that there's not a sex assault.

Just talking about what's in the papers, Nancy. True. You're right. You're right again. And as you know, I think it's instructive. And as you're doing as well, I sit down, I read the autopsy report and I read what's in there and what's not in there. And I look at what is written versus what else we know or other questions we have. But I think it's helpful to follow along what's in this autopsy, just like you're doing right now,

and continue to raise questions. The 12-year-old is not the first youth death the camp has dealt with. Alec was able to walk away from the camp in November of 2014, only to be found in a stream, dead. Investigators believe he fell while climbing a tree, breaking his hip as he landed in the stream below. Unable to move, the teen died from hypothermia.

Before the death of the 12-year-old, Trails Carolina has been dealing with other issues in court. Most recently, a federal lawsuit was filed on February 9 by a former camper who says when she was 12, she told staffers that another child was sexually assaulting fellow campers. According to the lawsuit, counselors at Trails Carolina did nothing to stop the alleged assaults. The former camper is now 20 years old and tells the Charlotte Observer the most upsetting part for her is the trauma she experienced was preventable. Her suit follows a similar suit filed last year in federal court, claiming a former camper alleges that camp counselors

didn't do enough to prevent an older camper from sexually assaulting her in 2019, even though she asked for help multiple times. An investigation underway after a shocking autopsy rules a 12-year-old boy's cause of death a homicide at a wilderness therapy camp. This is what I know. The sheriffs who went to the scene and see the body state there was bleeding under the skin of the boy's lips and eyes. Possible petechiae. And it's totally not even really mentioned in the autopsy report. Why? That doesn't sound like he just ran out of air in his bivy.

Also that night, Nick Ochsner, we hear that the counselors kept coming to his bivy because he was thrashing about, but they didn't do anything. Yeah. In fact, one of the counselors in that room told state investigators with the Department of Health and Human Services that he felt like he failed the boy or could have done more to prevent his death. It is pretty clear now from what we know from investigators that those counselors at one point were all asleep inside that cabin and that the boy was found. If you read the autopsy, he was found 180 degrees turned from from inside the bivy sack where he was zipped inside. That's all that we've been able to glean from these public reports so far. In other words, he was upside down. For instance, if you were on a bed, your feet would be on the pillow and your head would be at the baseboard. That's not right. And we know the boy was thrashing around more than once in the night and they did nothing. I mean,

I'm not convinced he died from just running out of air with a petechiae, the sheriff noted. That said, back to Leanne Roberts, who attended Trails Carolina, age 12. What was it like being there, Leanne? It was like very traumatic to say the least. It's, you know, I carry still to this day, a lot of the memories and the trauma that I'm working through. It was a very emotionally hostile environment. You're being monitored 24 seven. And so it doesn't really feel like there's room to breathe room to do something wrong room to have feelings, emotional outbursts, room to have feelings. Emotional outbursts or even crying were really kind of punished, heavily punished. And I mean, the punishments

were cruel. When you don't have anything left to take away, they have to get kind of creative. And so every day you could earn, you know, time to talk if you did something within the timeframe that they allotted you, or you could earn what was called a negative consequence. And so everything you did, every breath you took had some sort of, you know, negative or positive consequence. There wasn't any time to just like breathe freely. And the negative consequences were pretty disturbing, to say the least. There was one that sticks out to me in particular always, which is what staff would call pee party.

And pee party is as disgusting and disturbing as it may sound. It meant that if somebody had to use the restroom in the middle of the night, you know, you have to wake up a staff to say that, you know, you have to go to the restroom because you have to be monitored, you have to be listened to and watched. And if you woke up a staff in the middle of the night, it doesn't matter the hour to use the restroom, they woke everybody up and everyone had to stand around until said person was finished using the restroom. Kind of as like a, you know, it was more so a reward to the staff that they wouldn't have to wake up in the middle of the night to facilitate a bathroom break because it was like such

a shame filled negative consequence. And that was, you know, kind of the theme of my whole stay there was a lot of shame. Guys, you're hearing Leanne Roberts speak out and Meg Applegate as well. Nick Oxner, who has been investigating this particular camp for now three years. This is so pervasive in the camping industry. One victim, a name you'll know, Paris Hilton. Listen. A 17-year-old Paris Hilton is sent by her family to the Provo Canyon School in Utah.

In a documentary, This is Paris, she describes the place as a prison camp with solitary confinement and physical abuse. She details being forced to submit to a pelvic exam, then being forced to wear a pair of faded sweats labeled with the number 127. That number became her identity and her name. Hilton says the staff would choke and beat campers. Speaking before lawmakers, Hilton described how children were restrained, hit, thrown into walls, strangled, and sexually abused regularly at Provo. A 12-year-old boy dead at summer camp after just 24 hours. What happened? Joining me, Leanne Roberts, who attended the same camp, age 12, and Meg Applegate, author of Becoming Unsilenced, Surviving and Fighting the Troubled Teen Industry. Meg Applegate, you've been listening

to the facts presented in this case, along with Karen Stark, psychologist, and I'm sure that you have an opinion on what has happened to this 12-year-old boy. And what do you make of Leanne Roberts' description? I've likely talked to over 100 survivors from Trails Carolina. And you take Leanne's experience and you copy and paste it to all the others. And it doesn't matter what year they went, they're really experiencing all the same things. What sort of things are you describing, Meg? Everything that you've heard as far as being denied bathroom breaks, enough food, honestly adequate water, and clean water for that. I've talked to many survivors who have gotten parasites and giardia and all of these things from not or being not allowed to have clean

water sources or having broken filters. It's absolutely horrendous. Leanne, were you ever given a chance to tell your parents what was happening to come get you out of there? Yeah, my first or second day, I wrote a letter to my dad. And I have those letters now in verbatim, I say this is traumatizing. I'm not safe here. These kids are not well. And when that letter was sent out, I think it is pretty protocol for my therapist at the time or just their program in general. They prep parents for that. So they literally had told my dad word for word what I was going to say and that I was a liar before it reinstalled his trust in the program because he thought if they're able to predict these patterns and behaviors and literally what my daughter is going to do, then they must know what they're talking about. When really he was being lied to and deceived and becoming a victim of this industry as well. The warning is out, parents.

This is camping season. You have the chance to protect your children from camps just like Trails Carolina. Nick Ochster, what's going to happen to Trails Carolina? Well, their license has been revoked by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. So effectively, it's shut down. They have an opportunity to appeal that. So that could be reversed, but it's basically been shut down most of this year since this boy died. And it looks like it will continue to remain closed. It's amazing, Meg Applegate, that it took another death at another camp before the camp was reprimanded. After all of the complaints that have been lodged.

All the children that have suffered there, this boy had to die. I know. And honestly, that's a lot of time. What it takes, unfortunately, is a child dying in one of these facilities for people to finally pay attention. And in this case, though, we have Alec Lansing, who died many years before that at Trails Carolina. And still, it took us a lot of time. Thank you to our guests for being with us and speaking out, but especially to you for joining us here on Crime Stories. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.