GAYLE PALMER Part 1 of 7: The Deadly Mirage

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1:13Please take care while listening.

1:18On a rainy winter day this past January, I drove to Calusa, California in the midst of a flood watch. Calusa is a small town just north of Sacramento. I almost canceled my trip due to the weather, but I didn't, because I really wanted to talk to Kathy Sutton about her daughter Michelle. She was a beautiful girl. She was just beautiful inside and out. In 1990, Michelle was 15 years old. She had braces and bright blonde hair with feathered bangs. She loved to draw and play the piano. Her thoughts were occupied with things like getting her driver's license and buying cool new clothes. I know this because she wrote about it in her journal.

2:00Here's her mother Kathy reading some of it. When I get out of here, I'm going to get a job and earn my car and buy a new wardrobe. I hope I sleep good tonight. Michelle wasn't at home when she wrote this. She was in the desert, somewhere close to the Arizona-Utah border. She was with four other teenagers and two counselors at a wilderness therapy program called Summit Quest. It was advertised as an outdoors camp that would reform troubled teens by exposing them to nature. Michelle wrote a lot in her journal about all the things she planned to do when she got out of Summit Quest, but she would never get out.

2:42Instead, her life was cut short at the age of 15. Michelle left for Summit Quest on May 1st, 1990. And she went into the camp, and then Michelle died May 9th. Michelle seemed healthy when she went into Summit Quest. But after only one week in this program, a program that was supposed to help her, Michelle was dead. How is that possible? What happened to her? This is what her mother, Kathy, wanted, needed to know. But the explanation that Summit Quest gave Kathy for how her daughter died did not make sense. We were waiting for an autopsy results. We were waiting for the detectives' report. The Bureau of Land Management did their own investigation.

3:27At the same time, we're talking to Gail Palmer and hearing her version of everything. And in her eyes, Michelle wanted to die. Gail Palmer, the woman who started and ran the program Summit Quest, told Michelle's parents that Michelle had a death wish, that she had wanted to die. Now, Kathy would be put in the position of wondering what and who to believe. State officials, law enforcement, Gail Palmer. She had a death wish, that she was doing drugs, that she probably had some serious ailment. There's something really wrong here. Death wish, heart problems, what is going on? The director of Summit Quest, Gail Palmer, is still putting out the fires.

4:16The death certificate says Michelle died from dehydration, from exposure to the elements. I have talked to a number of experts who have said that, yes, that can be dehydration, but it can also be symptoms associated with drug usage. Michelle died almost 100 miles from civilization, with very few people present to witness what happened. Her official cause of death was listed as dehydration, but even that would be called into question. What really happened at Summit Quest? You know, I wish I was more of a writer, because I do have a very good story to tell, and I would probably name it The Deadly Mirage, because in my mind and in my heart, the program that we sent Michelle to turned out to be a deadly mirage.

5:06For those who knew Michelle, her death would have a lasting impact. I just know after she passed, my whole life changed. Nothing was the same. So it's just hard. Everybody changed. I've thought about Michelle all of my grown-up days. I've wished for my sister. I've wished for the relationship that we could have had. What would Michelle's death reveal about Summit Quest? How did she die after only being there for nine days? Was it a tragic accident or part of a more sinister pattern emerging in the rapidly growing wilderness therapy industry? From Cast Media, this is The Opportunist. This is Season 7, Episode 1.

5:59Gail Palmer The Deadly Mirage I'm Hannah Smith

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7:35You may have heard of the sex cult NXIVM and the famous actress who went to prison for her involvement, Allison Mack. But she's never told her side of the story, until now. People assume that I'm like this pervert. My name is Natalie Robamed, and in my new podcast, I talk to Allison to try to understand how she went from TV actor to cult member, and what she thinks of it all now. How do you feel about having been involved in bringing sexual trauma to other people? I mean, I don't even know how to answer that question. Alison, after NXIVM, from CBC's Uncover is available now, wherever you get your podcasts.

8:18Michelle Sutton was born on October 29th, 1974. She was the third child of Kathy and Bob Sutton. Before Michelle went to the program, we were just the average everyday family. And the boys were in baseball and Cub Scouts or Boy Scouts. And the girls were involved in piano lessons and just very busy mom I was. Kathy and Bob raised their family in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or the Mormon Church. I should note that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints no longer recognizes the term Mormon, but I am going to use it in this podcast for the sake of clarity. One message that Kathy and Bob received from their church was to have as many children as they could afford.

9:05Now be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth is one of the things that they, you know, counsel people in the church. And so my parents took that to heart, and that's how we got the eight children. This is Christina, the second oldest of the eight children, right above Michelle. The Suttons lived in Pleasanton, California back then, a small, safe suburb of San Francisco, the kind of place where the kids could just take off on their bikes and ride all over town. The Suttons were this big, happy family, and Michelle was kind of the star. Michelle, as a young child, was just a delight. She snagged everybody's hearts.

9:46There was no doubt in anybody's minds, including all of us kids, that she was my parents' favorite. We all knew that our parents loved us. They did a wonderful job. But there's just no hiding the fact that Michelle was just the favorite. They were a close-knit family. They had regular game nights. And every summer, the kids looked forward to their annual family camping trip. Bob worked for an elevator company. and Kathy was a stay-at-home mom, raising their growing family. Christina describes Michelle as social, fun, charismatic. She liked to goof off and tell jokes. Everyone liked Michelle. Sometimes I was jealous of that, you know.

10:30She got along a little easier with even some of my friends than I did, and that would make me so mad because they were my friends. They were here to visit with me. That was just that sibling rivalry. When all you have left of someone are memories, often you cling to the good ones. But there are also memories that maybe haunt you a little bit, like this one.

11:00We were very sheltered as kids. You know, we didn't get a lot of outside influences. These girls had a little more experience. they came over and they introduced us to this game called Press on Your Chest Until You Pass Out. And we tested it out on Michelle. Let's see, if I was 14, she was probably about 10, maybe 11. Even at 14 years old, Christina had the innocence of a child. She inherently trusted others, like these girls from the neighborhood. And she watched as they told Michelle to hold her breath and they pressed on her chest. and she passed out and it freaked, freaked me out so bad. I was so scared.

11:43Oh my gosh, my sister. Anyways, we shook her and shook her and she woke up, of course, you know, but it was, I was so mad at them and I was mad at myself for letting them, you know, I didn't, I was, it was just one of those stupid moments as a kid, you know. Christina brought this memory up to me unprompted when we were talking and it was very emotional for her. I wondered why she was telling me about this particular memory. But it kind of makes sense, because it was a moment in time when the safe cocoon of her childhood was broken open by the cruelty of strangers. And as a result, her sister Michelle got hurt.

12:24And that time, Michelle was fine. Later, she would not be. Christina and Michelle lived a very wholesome, sheltered life, a good life. but one that perhaps didn't prepare them for how mean the world can sometimes be. Around high school, Michelle started to struggle. She went from that very insulated, conservative home life to a public high school. It was a big transition, and suddenly she wasn't the cheery, agreeable Michelle that she'd always been. Here's her mother Kathy again. There was drugs being distributed there, and, you know, So some kids fell into it and others didn't. Michelle was one who minutely was experimenting with the drugs and alcohol and just being a typical teenager at that time.

13:14Michelle was lightly experimenting with substances, drinking with some of her new high school friends and smoking weed occasionally. At least once, she snuck out of the house without telling her parents. I think she ran away twice, and we were trying to figure out what's going on. And, you know, the second time she ran away, we found her down the street from where her high school was in the backyard of someone's home. And I don't remember who, but she was sitting on top of a picnic bench. That night, they brought Michelle back home, and she opened up to her parents about something terrible that had happened to her.

13:50She told them that one night she was hanging out with friends, having a couple drinks. She was sitting in the back of a truck with a boy from school, and he raped her. She said no, and he didn't stop. So she had told us what had happened in great detail. So we took her to the hospital, and they did a date rape kit on her and checked her out. But it was the days following that felt like we just really needed to do something to help her. The Suttons took Michelle to the hospital to get checked out. She had bruises on her legs. The police were called, but no charges were officially brought against the boy.

14:28And so Michelle still had to see him at school. Kathy knew her daughter was struggling. At one point, she took Michelle to talk with someone at their church, hoping that would help. Kathy had been used to handling things within her family and within their church, but nothing that she did seemed to ease Michelle's pain. So she started to look for other options. Her oldest daughter, Christina, was engaged to be married, and her soon-to-be in-laws told the Suttons about an outdoor program that might help Michelle. It was a wilderness therapy program called Summit Quest, run by a woman named Gail Palmer.

15:07They said that Gail started Summit Quest to help struggling teens, teens just like Michelle. Well, at first, you know, I was kind of reluctant. I was like, I don't know, I don't think, you know, I can handle this. Michelle doesn't, you know, we don't need to ever go into a program. But as time progressed and I was kind of, I was very close to Michelle, so here, see, I'm going to cry. I could feel her pain.

15:35And I knew that she needed something that I couldn't give her. Things were getting worse as time went on. At some point, Kathy even started to suspect that Michelle might be having suicidal thoughts, although they didn't speak directly about it. There was one time we were driving in the car. I believe we were on the way to the doctor. And I kind of got this feeling. I mean, I sensed that she was reaching for the door handle. I didn't know if she was or wasn't. I just kind of had this feeling. And I just felt that at that time that there was some desperation in her that I needed to address. And so that's when I became that weak and desperate parent that thought, I need to seek out something outside of our own resources.

16:27Kathy often uses this term, weak and desperate parent, to describe the state of mind she was in, the feeling of total helplessness. What she wanted at that time, more than anything in the world, was to help Michelle. But she had no idea how to do it. she started to wonder, maybe Summit Quest could be the answer to her prayers. And I reached out to a woman by the name of Gail Palmer.

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18:55Before I met Kathy Sutton in person, we talked on the phone multiple times. And the more I heard about her story, the more I felt like I needed to go meet her in person. Her story is, of course, the story of a grieving mother, but it's also the story of someone who was betrayed. Something that still clearly bothers Kathy is how she believes Gail Palmer lied to her. Kathy Sutton is a particularly honest person. She told me when we were talking on the phone that she once returned an item to a store after buying it because they undercharged her. She wanted to pay the remainder of what she owed.

19:50Of course, no one likes being lied to, but not all lies result in someone dying. So I sat down with Kathy, and I asked her exactly what it was that Gail Palmer told her about Summit Quest. It's been 33 years, but Kathy still has the original Summit Quest brochure from 1990. She's kept it all this time. It's printed on light blue paper, faded at this point, but legible. This is the brochure that was sent to you. Okay. The program is strenuous and rigorous, but designed to serve the needs of each individual. But that too was a pack of lies. And yeah, in this information, you can see that they also had...

20:35At the top of the first page is written a series of questions. When was the last time you had a hug from your teenager? When was the last time you had a conversation with him without yelling? When was the last time she looked you in the eye? It mentions a series of issues that might be plaguing your teenager. Peer pressure, drugs, alcohol, performing poorly in school, suicide attempts. Then the flyer makes this promise.

21:06I can see how this brochure would be appealing to a parent who had witnessed their child grow into a teenager who was having issues or feeling distant. This promise, we can give you back your child. It's really saying, we can give you back the child you had before, before all the problems, before all the pain. But the brochure that they sent us, and I have the words embedded in my brain forever, it was a full-time, this is how it sold to us, a full-time residential inpatient wilderness therapy facility. Qualified staff members are always, always as underlined, present. Summit Quest was a nine-week program based in St.

21:53George, Utah, promoted as a way to help troubled teens by bringing them out into the wilderness and teaching them just how to survive. The brochure explains that the teens will be taught by trained survival experts and Mother Nature how to survive in the wilderness. They will learn how to build a fire, trap animals, tan leather, make pottery, build a shelter. It mentions ropes courses, teens working together, a staff psychologist. There are testimonials from elated parents who claim this program saved their children's lives. Kathy called the founder and director of Summit Quest, a woman named Gail Palmer.

22:33I was talking to her mother to mother. I felt that she was sensitive to the things that I was telling her. I felt comfortable talking to her. The fact that Gail's program was recommended to the Suttons by people they knew made Kathy more comfortable in considering the program. On the last page of the Summit Quest brochure, there are two pictures of Gail hugging her teen daughter Krista after being reunited with her when she completed the program. 21 phone calls to Gail alone is how many phone calls we had asking questions. She would bring up her daughter and how wonderfully she did through the program and how it was so great for her.

23:14That was one of the things we wanted, was we wanted to know of other children that had gone through the program and even talked to them. But she even offered for us to talk to Krista. So, like I say, no matter what question we asked, it was answered to us in such a way that it was very comforting. And I believed her. Michelle even spoke with Krista on the phone, and Krista made the program sound fun. She told Michelle, Well, it was outdoorsy, but you only had to hike every other day and you could still take showers. This belief in Gail and Gail's program, Summit Quest, came only after Kathy asked Gail lots of questions, particularly about safety.

23:54The Summit Quest brochure states that in the first few days of the program, the children will experience mental and physical exhaustion with limited food and water. This worried Kathy, and she asked Gail about it. But Gail reassured her that was meant to challenge the children, but would never be unsafe. I questioned the food, because they were rationing their food. Oh, they're not allowed to not eat. In other words, they were going to be monitoring the food that the children do eat. And just every question we asked, we were reassured in such a way that we thought, oh, there's nothing really to worry about.

24:30They got this covered. We were reassured that she would receive a physical within three days into the program. Gail told Kathy that Summit Quest was not a harsh program, that their goal was to save lives, repair relationships, and for kids to have a fun and challenging time in nature. In fact, she said Michelle would even receive school credit for it. This was all a relief to Kathy. She told me she didn't want Michelle punished. She wanted to help her. But remember, this was 1990. There were no internet searches, no online reviews. Kathy talked to Gail Palmer on the phone 21 times over the course of weeks, questioning every aspect of the program.

25:17She got to know Gail. She began to trust her. Kathy knew that Michelle needed help dealing with the trauma of being raped. And Gail told her they had professionals at Summit Quest, professionals who could help Michelle. And they also sold to us that there was doctors, nurses, and a psychologist on site, on call. And we thought that would be great for Michelle as well because I knew that it wasn't just a hands-on experience that our daughter needed. She also needed, you know, some help with what had happened to her, which was the date rape. At the end of the nine weeks, after the teens have completed the program, they are reunited with their parents in a ceremony called the run-in.

25:59The teens run out of the wilderness and into an area where their parents are waiting. They literally run into their parents' arms. There are tears and hugs. I've seen recordings of run-ins from other wilderness therapy programs. They are emotional. I've also seen parents go on television and claim that this type of program did exactly what the Summit Quest brochure promised. It gave them their child back. This home video, taken when Matt's dad surprised him on his five-day solo expedition, shows what can go right. I love you. You know, I just wanted to hold him. I never wanted to let him go. John and Ann Stacey have their son home, and if the whole family works to keep it that way, Matt may be one of the best examples why a good wilderness experience can be good therapy.