Three former employees of Thayer Learning Center in Kidder, Mo., told The Kansas City Star this week that government investigators told them Thayer was a key focus of that investigation.
Greg Spies, a Kansas City attorney for Thayer, said Thayer officials have “fully cooperated” with investigators for the U.S. Government Accountability Office who recently visited the facility and interviewed students.
The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, is conducting the nationwide investigation into residential treatment programs for children at the behest of U.S. Rep. George Miller, a California Democrat. A hearing is scheduled for Oct. 10 in Washington, D.C., before the House Education and Labor Committee, of which Miller is the chairman.
Ultimately, Miller’s office hopes to convince Congress that boot camp-type facilities should be more stringently regulated.
Thayer — which is exempt from state oversight under Missouri law — houses more than 100 troubled teens about 50 miles north of Kansas City. It has been the subject of numerous child abuse allegations, most of which came to light after the November 2004 death of student Roberto Reyes.
Roberto, 15, died after spending less than two weeks at Thayer. His death was attributed to a spider bite. Thayer owners John and Willa Bundy denied any wrongdoing in connection with the fatality. They also have denied any abuse allegations.
In February 2005, Roberto’s parents alleged in a wrongful-death lawsuit that Roberto was subjected to physical exertion and abuse that caused or contributed to his death. They alleged that he would have lived had he received competent medical care in a timely manner and that he was dragged, hit, placed into solitary confinement and “forced to lay in his own excrement for extended periods of time.”
In court filings, Thayer officials denied those and other allegations. The two sides settled the case in March 2006 for slightly more than $1 million.
A 2005 investigation by The Star showed that, between April 2003 and October 2005, at least seven persons had reported more than a dozen allegations of child abuse at Thayer to the Caldwell County sheriff’s office. A state investigative report said “it appears that those responsible for the safety and well-being of Roberto Reyes failed to recognize his medical distress and to provide access to appropriate medical evaluation and/or treatment.”
Thayer officials are challenging in court the Department of Social Services’ findings of “probable cause” that employees at Thayer medically neglected Roberto.
No Thayer official was charged in connection with Roberto’s death or any other child-abuse allegations.
Tom Kiley, communications director in Miller’s office, said the GAO began a review of boot camp-type facilities in 2006 and expanded it in 2007.
Kiley wouldn’t confirm the specific subjects of the investigation, but former Thayer employee Sarah Mackey of Polo, Mo., told The Star she was interviewed in September and that one of the GAO investigators told her Thayer was a key subject.
Former employee Kris Trimble of Gallatin, Mo., said the same thing, adding, “They said they wanted to open the public’s eye about things that are going on.”
Miller first asked the GAO in December 2005 to conduct a nationwide investigation, noting in a letter to the agency, “This study is urgently needed because of allegations of child abuse, human rights violations, fraud and other violations” at facilities throughout the country.
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