N. Carolina Has "no timeline" For Final Ruling After Two Kids Died At Youth Program

The State Pulled All Children From Trails Carolina, Fined It $18k, Suspended Its Admissions & Moved To Revoke Its License… At Some Point.

Apr 24, 2024

A smiling boy facing the camera with his hand on his head — Clark J████h H████n, 12, is the second child to die at the Trails Carolina wilderness program following a long list of state citations for substandard care (fair use).

NORTH CAROLINA–State licensors tell MartyG Reports that they have “no timeline” to decide the fate of Trails Carolina, a controversial, private wilderness therapy program where two children have died and others have claimed sexual abuses.

Most recently, emergency responders answered a 9-1-1 call from Trails Carolina on February 3, according to the Transylvania County Sheriff’s Department. A 12-year-old boy was not breathing.

“Upon arrival, rescue efforts were initiated then stopped,” wrote the department, “as the child appeared to be deceased for some time.”

MartyG Reports has confirmed the boy was Clark J████h H████n of New York City.

H████n “was not wearing any pants or underwear,” Detective Andrew Patterson wrote three days later in an application for a warrant to search Trails Carolina for evidence of involuntary manslaughter. His “pants and underwear were laying next to his right shoulder.”

“During interviews,” Patterson averred, “camp counselors were asked how his pants got into this position,” but “they did not know.” (The sheriff’s office has written that Trails Carolina “has not completely cooperated with the investigation.” Trails Carolina disputes that assessment, writing, “our staff have fully cooperated with the local law enforcement’s investigation.”)

H████n had been at the program fewer than 24 hours, according to the interviews Patterson cited. His was the second death at Trails Carolina.

A little less than a decade earlier, Alec Lansing, 17, ran away from Trails Carolina. His disappearance triggered “a massive search effort.”

A boy with brown hair and eyes facing the camera against a blue background — Alec Lansing (fair use)

Five days later Lansing was found. He had broken his hip, fallen into a stream and died of hypothermia.

Lansing’s and H████n’s deaths are not Trails Carolina’s only issues. The program is also facing two lawsuits.

One plaintiff claims she repeatedly asked Trails Carolina’s staffers to separate her from an older child who had “put her hands in Plaintiff[’]s underwear and sexually assaulted the Plaintiff while she was unconscious.” Instead of separate her, the suit alleges, Trails Carolina forced her “to spend nights alongside her assailant.”

The suit also claims that Trails Carolina’s staffers “deceptively withheld the abuse from public authorities, failing at all times thereafter to report the crime despite their legal obligation to do so.”

The other plaintiff, a 12-year-old girl in 2016, allegedly reported a similar sexual assault to her Trails Carolina therapist. Trails Carolina made her promise “not to tell anyone else,” the suit claims, and told her she shared in the blame for the incident.

She, too, alleges that Trails Carolina prevents “appropriate regulatory and law enforcement oversight” by violating the state’s mandatory child-abuse reporting law, and “fails to disclose to parents how little counseling children in [its] care receive with a licensed therapist, which is[,] upon information and belief, an hour or less per week.”

MartyG Reports interviewed Christina Barnett, who attended Trails Carolina in 2009. Barnett told MartyG Reports, “We met with our therapists once a week,” but, “We weren’t allowed to know what the time was at any point from the moment we got there until we left.”

Despite that caveat, Barnett is sure the appointments were under an hour; just long enough “to tell us what [the therapists felt] we were doing wrong.”

MartyG Reports will publish Barnett’s full interview tomorrow. Subscribe, below, to receive it by email or on the Substack App.

As a youth residential program, Trails Carolina is licensed by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (D.H.H.S.).

After H████n’s death, the D.H.H.S. suspended new admissions to Trails Carolina, fined it $18,000 and began procedures to revoke its license. Local child-protective services removed every child from Trails Carolina’s care.

Trails Carolina called the children’s removals “negligent and reckless,” insisting that “100% of parents did not want their children to leave the program.” It has appealed the D.H.H.S.’s decision to revoke its license.

The program further warns: “Those spreading information that is not true or misleading will be publicly identified and held accountable.” It has strong words, both for the D.H.H.S., which it accuses of threatening and intimidating parents, and the sheriff’s office, which it accuses of issuing “false and misleading information.”

A "TRAILS CAROLINA MEDIA STATEMENT" dated Feb. 6, 2024 (full text available in the attachments) — Trails Carolina has strong words for the state authorities that oversee its program.

The D.H.H.S. repeatedly referred MartyG Reports to particular state laws, which it insists will govern its proceedings. As for a final determination on Trails Carolina’s license, a D.H.H.S. representative told MartyG Reports, “There is no timeline for how long that could take.”

Some feel the D.H.H.S. has already waited too long. The department had cited Trails Carolina five times for deficiencies between 2019 and H████n’s death without revoking its license.

Wilderness-program survivor and advocate Max Rosenberg, for example, has started a Change.org petition calling for North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and the D.H.H.S. to close Trails Carolina: “For the victims of these abuses there are no second chances of the type Trails Carolina now demands for itself. Nothing will bring back those kids. They deserve justice. In this case, justice means holding to account those responsible for their deaths. They should be charged criminally, not allowed simply to reopen their program and endanger more lives.”

As of publication, 789 persons have signed that petition, which may be found here.

MartyG Reports asked Trails Carolina when it expects a decision on its license, if it had a response to the petition and for a statement about Lansing’s and H████n’s deaths. Trails Carolina issued a general statement:

We are still waiting for the medical examiner’s report on what may have caused the unexpected death of a 12[-]year[-]old boy on Feb. 3. Our hearts and prayers are with his family for this unfathomable loss. We have always had a good working relationship with DHHS and we will continue cooperating with them[sic] to satisfy their concerns so that we may continue providing compassionate, quality care to children and families.

Some information is redacted at the request of Clark H████n’s family. The family, through its representative Robert J. Higdon Jr., declined to comment.

MartyG Reports tried to contact Alec Lansing’s mother but was unsuccessful.