GAYLE PALMER Part 6 of 7: Window of Loss

0:28You can't solve every case for your kids. and the famous actress who went to prison for her involvement, Alison 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 Alison 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. Allison after NXIVM from CBC's Uncover is available now wherever you get your podcasts.

1:02This podcast contains disturbing content. Please take care while listening. Kathy Sutton was no longer in shock from Michelle's death. Now she was angry. She had learned what really happened to her daughter at Summit Quest, that Michelle was sick for days before she died and she never received medical care, that she was denied electrolytes and water, even in the last hours of her life. She was thought to be a faker, a whiner, a manipulator. And I was like, you know, why did they, how could they treat my child this way? I mean, it's just the anger welled up inside of me. How dare they? How could they treat her this way?

1:42Directly after Michelle's death, Kathy was still in contact with Gail Palmer, until she wasn't. Kathy was talking to Gail on the phone one day, and she said she just had a realization. Gail didn't start Summit Quest to help struggling children. This was about money. I remember the day standing there in my kitchen in Pleasanton and I had written down a lot of things that Gail had said to me and I'd learned the truth. And I think there were 12 of them. And I said, Gail, what about this and this? And I just went down the whole list and then I hung up on her and never talked to her after that. That was the last time Kathy said she spoke directly to Gail Palmer.

2:26From then on, she didn't even want to be in the same room as Gail. In September of 1990, Kathy and Bob were asked to be on The Geraldo Show for an episode dedicated to wilderness therapy programs. Gail Palmer was also invited to participate. That's why we chose to do it via satellite, because at that time, I was so angry, I probably would have walked up and slapped her, and I didn't want that to come out in me. Gail was sitting on stage with a number of other guests. To the side, a TV displayed satellite footage of Kathy and Bob. Gail repeated the same claims that she had been peddling for the past few months, that the day Michelle died, she'd had plenty of water, that Summit Quest had not been negligent.

3:12These counselors are carefully selected by the program so that they can help and individually guide and support each child as they go along. Then what killed 15-year-old Michelle Sutton? We don't know. I have here a certified copy of the death certificate for Michelle Lynn Sutton, who died in the county of Mojave in the state of Arizona. Immediate cause of death, dehydration. Other significant conditions, exposure to elements. Are you saying that the medical examiner erred in his findings? You bet I am. Typically, Kathy was the one who did most of the talking and interviews. Michelle's father, Bob, dealt with his grief in a quieter way.

3:57I get the sense that even to this day, the whole thing is too tragic for him to revisit. Although there is an instance on that Geraldo show in which Bob spoke up. It was right after Gail claimed that the temperature was mild when Michelle died, comparing it to a shopping mall. Bob couldn't take it anymore. And this is what he said. You might want to mention that if the temperature was between 75 and 85, what was the humidity? That's the important factor in a mountainous area. She was at seven, she hiked over a mountain that was 7 ,000 feet. The humidity was about maybe 3%, which is not like a shopping mall.

4:34She was deprived of water. She complained that she didn't have any water. They weren't allowed to share water. She got so extreme to the point where she had a white chalkiness around her mouth while she was hiking. The counselor looked at her and she said, you look like you've been eating marshmallows and made a joke of it and forced her to hike even further. She got to the point where she was standing there with her knees were locked out in the sun. And she said, I can't see. Now you tell me if somebody can learn self-esteem by denying them the life-supporting thing of water. I can't understand how that, it just, it's beyond me.

5:19The Suttons sent Michelle to the program because they felt she needed help with her self-esteem. She needed to heal and receive some therapy. And Summit Quest claimed to be able to do just that. It's right there on the brochure that was sent to Kathy. It says, your child will come home self-confident, self-assured, and happy. It also claims that Summit Quest was a residential wilderness therapy facility with a staff psychologist, doctors, and nurses. Kathy felt like she'd been scammed. And now she wondered, would Summit Quest be shut down? Would Gail Palmer be held responsible for Michelle's death?

5:58The fight for justice would not be an easy one for Kathy. It would take a toll on her family emotionally and financially. But Kathy couldn't rest, knowing that Gail Palmer was still operating, recruiting more children into the desert. The thing that made me the most angry was her taking Michelle's name and trying to tarnish it, because that's all I had left. And she took Michelle's voice. When Michelle died, her voice was no longer here, but mine would take place for her. From Cast Media, this is The Opportunist. This is Season 7, Episode 6. Gail Palmer, Window of Loss. I'm Hannah Smith. Thank you.

7:18What does it mean to return to normal after a child dies? For Kathy, there was no such thing. Instead, her days were filled with consistent, gnawing thoughts about Michelle. She kept thinking about how easily her daughter could have been saved. Ruth Young was Michelle's counselor. And if you look in Michelle's journal, you will see where Michelle's complaining of being sick and throwing up, and I think I caught the flu, she says. Well, she's berated for that. I mean, a simple bullion cue probably could have helped her, but she was not allowed to have one. The kids with Michelle, though, were trying to slip her capfuls of water, trying to save her life, and yet they were berated as well and told, if you share your water, yours is going to get thrown out.

8:05Even Michelle, in the beginning days, before she got really so bad, is that she said in her journal, she said, this program is not what my mother and I thought it was. And she wanted to call home, but they would not allow her to. Kathy came to believe that the most dangerous thing, the thing that contributed to her daughter's death, was actually a mindset. Michelle had been seen as a bad kid by the people at Summit Quest, and so she wasn't listened to. She wasn't believed. They were treating her like she was some criminal. And so that's when it all started, and that's when I decided to fight back and do what I could to improve the level of expectation and also the quality of care.

8:50Before Michelle died, Kathy's life had been solely focused on family and church. She is mild-mannered and soft-spoken by nature. She'd never appeared on national talk shows. She'd never been an activist or called state officials. But Michelle's death changed Kathy's entire life. And now she was determined to act, to do something. I'd be sitting at my kitchen table with paperwork in front. And to me, it was like a big piece of a pie. That's the only way I can describe it, because I would take on licensing. I might be making phone calls to them, to the Bureau of Land Management. And maybe I'd take on the detectives, be calling to check on the outcome.

9:34Kathy would sit down and make a list of names, and then she would call every name on that list. Government officials, law enforcement agents, parents who had sent their kids to similar programs. That's what I would be doing all day long, pretty much, making packets. Kinko's, I spent a lot of time at Kinko's. Kathy put together informational packets with warnings about wilderness therapy programs for other parents. She calls them her My Michelle packets. She started learning about other wilderness therapy programs in Utah and the surrounding states. She realized this was bigger than just Gail Palmer.

10:14And she determined that there was an advertising problem. Wilderness therapy programs could advertise themselves as fun and challenging programs, with no mention of potential safety risks. It was sold to us, and I have to use the word sold, because I won't say it was something that we just picked out of a magazine and bought. I mean, it was something that was actually sold to us. It was a full-time, residential, inpatient, wilderness therapy facility. That gave us, you know, the vision or the idea that this was going to be a place, an encampment where the children go. And they also sold to us that there was doctors, nurses, and a psychologist on site, on call.

11:04Technically, Summit Quest had a provisional license as a health care facility. But that's because no licensing category existed for wilderness therapy programs in early 1990. And so they automatically fell into the health care category. But being sold as a health care facility was misleading because there were no health care services offered at Summit Quest. And that's why I came up with the buyer beware and wanted to warn other parents and say, before looking into a program like this, call me. I'd like to forewarn you of the things to look for and the things to look out for. She also went after the youth transport companies, the ones parents can hire to surprise their children and forcefully take them away to check into a program, like what happened to Tamira and to Amanda.

11:57I would call it in my crusade legal kidnapping. I had people in the industry call me and say, Kathy, we'd prefer you not use the word kidnapping. I'm sorry, that's the way it felt to me. It's legal kidnapping. If you're coming in in the middle of the night into a child's room and taking them against their will into a program. Kathy's crusading did not go over well with everyone. Obviously, the youth transport companies didn't like being called kidnappers. And the growing number of wilderness therapy programs didn't appreciate Kathy calling negative attention to the industry. And there were outspoken parents who believed in these programs.

12:40Like this mother. She claimed a wilderness therapy program saved her daughter from a satanic cult. My daughter, there was no hope for her. She would have been dead. We're talking not just little marijuana, not just little things. We're talking about a beautiful girl who played soccer at top levels, who was on the academic decathlon team, who was taken from that level by friends and drugs and a very hard life to satanic cult. Later in the program, the mother asks, do we shut down Disneyland because a child falls off a ride? The sentiment seemed to be that it was unfortunate that a few people were dying, but that as a whole, these programs were saving lives.

13:26There were also those who blamed Kathy for Michelle's death. She received letters and harassing phone calls. And when she was on Geraldo, this was a question from an audience member that got a big applause. I'd like to ask the Suttons. I'd like to know how well you checked out this camp, how many camps you checked out, and what made you so sure that this was the right idea. And one more thing, don't you feel that it was a cop-out on your part? You talk about self-esteem. Couldn't you give her the self-esteem that she needed? Hold it, hold it, hold it. But Kathy didn't let this pushback stop her.

14:04She spent most days sitting at her kitchen table, pouring over paperwork, making phone calls. At one point, she even scored a phone call with the Utah governor at the time, Mike Levitt. According to Kathy, that phone call did not go well. I had gone all the way up to the governor's office in Utah and was patted on the head like I was this little girl. And be on your way, because his words were when I mentioned Michelle, and then by then it was Kristen. well, Kathy, you know, we're going to lose a few, but we're saving many. He was so for the programs, I thought, oh my gosh, this is bigger than I thought it was.

14:47What am I going to do if I can't even contact and touch the heart of the governing body? I emailed Mike Levitt about this encounter, and he said, quote, I have no memory of a conversation with a Kathy Sutton. Furthermore, the comments she attributes to me do not reflect my point of view, now or ever. Kathy had stumbled upon a concept that made her blood run cold. It's the idea of a window of loss. Explain to me the concept of the window of loss. What does that mean? It means that the children are expendable. When Kathy started her crusade, she expected there to be challenges. Surely it wouldn't be easy to do things like get new regulations passed in the state of Utah, or even to get Gail Palmer shut down.

15:38But she didn't expect to encounter this. What would you call it? Ambivalence? She didn't expect to be told that some kids will just die, and that's how it is. And she started to worry that maybe Gail Palmer would not be held accountable for Michelle's death.

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17:49The window of loss is an idea that originates with none other than Steve Cartesano. He's known to have said this when running Challenger, which, as a reminder, is the same program where Gail Palmer worked before starting Summit Quest. Here's a counselor from Challenger explaining this concept in an interview from the 90s. A window of loss is, it was a reference to, gee, sometime, you know, we're going to lose a kid and just accept it. And it's going to be hard and media will get involved in all those things. And you just need to know that it's going to happen and go on. We're going to help so many kids that it's worth the loss.

18:25Kathy isn't the only one who talked to me about this concept of a window of loss. I spoke with Christine Burton, an expert on childhood trauma. She and her husband, attorney Thomas Burton, attended the same church as the Suttons before Michelle died. Christine went to a meeting about Michelle's death in the summer of 1990. I think about a week or two later, I kind of snuck into a meeting of the Health and Human Services where Gail Palmer was, and they were talking about this case. and, you know, they were talking about the death. And actually she said, you know what? In all these kind of wilderness cases, there's always going to be collateral damage.

19:10Sorry, to clarify, Gail Palmer said that? I believe it was she. I think she was saying it, you know, it was a while back, but she was there and they were talking about it. And so I can't say unequivocally it was she. But anyway, that was the comment. The person was standing up and saying, well, we lost somebody. Well, we just have to realize that there's always going to be collateral damage in programs like this. Seeing teens as collateral damage speaks to the idea that troubled teens are a risk to society and to themselves. It's like the programs are saying, we are doing our best, but these kids are so troubled they might die anyway.

19:56But it's not like Michelle or Kristen died from being reckless. No drugs or alcohol were found in their systems. But it was easy for Gail to spin the story and blame the teenagers. Kathy was horrified to discover that just because a teenager is struggling, that their life doesn't matter as much. It's the philosophy and the mindset mentality about these kids. and unbeknownst to us, the window of loss. If someone had told us there's a possibility that your child will die, I would not have sent Michelle. If they would have said that we're going to be treating Michelle like a criminal, I would not have sent Michelle.

20:39I look for truth because I believe in truth. I believe in full disclosure, and that wasn't there for us, and so I want it there for other people. Kathy was up against a lot in her crusade. Meanwhile, she had seven other children. She did involve them in her activism over the years. Here's Christina. She took me to one of the national conferences on crimes against children in Washington, D.C. And that was an amazing experience for me. I know she took some of the other kids on some of the other trips. So she tried to include us all in it. Christina was already an adult in 1990, living in Oregon with her husband.

21:23I was so proud of her for a lot of it. Speaking from a sibling point of view, I know that it was really hard for the other kids, though. They felt neglected. They felt ignored. They felt like, hey, you know, you still have other kids here. What about us? Christina's younger sister Lisa was only 12 years old when Michelle died and she said it changed her entire adolescence You know if you needed my mom you would have to call Kinkos because that's where she would be making her videos and her packets and you know getting those things done I just think my whole life changed after she passed because then just everything else changed after that too It's like you lost your sister you lost your mom you're taking care of like your younger siblings Lisa was very emotional when I spoke with her.

22:16It's a hard time of life to revisit. The death of a sibling is traumatic enough. But then those years of mourning, of grief, not just hers, but her parents too, took over the household. You know, you'd come home and you'd have five TVs and five VCRs, one's recording off of the other. And she had her dining room set up as a, you know, office. and she just went to town and she did good at what she did. And I think she accomplished a lot, but she was very busy in that. Lisa told me that she had to grow up really fast. She ended up helping out a lot with her younger siblings, the youngest of whom was still a toddler.

23:02So I pretty much, you know, started taking care of her. Sometimes she would call me mom because I was the one, like, changing her diapers, you know, helping take care of her. So like, I just had to grow up really fast too. And how did your dad react?

23:22My dad back then, he was very quiet. He was hurting. I know my mom was hurting too, but you didn't see my dad much. My dad worked all the time. That's all my dad did was work, work, work. And now that I'm older, I understand, like, I didn't understand what the heck was going on. You didn't understand, like, the depth of your parents' grief at the time, I imagine. Right. And I forgive them. I mean, I know they didn't know any different either. And, you know, I don't hold anything against them. I think I did for a long time. Kathy told me that at one point, her mother approached her because she was concerned about Kathy's other children.

24:06I remember her saying to me, you know, don't forget you have seven others. I never yell at my mother. I yelled at her, this baby came from my womb, not yours.

24:20I later had to apologize. But I knew I had seven others. And I still have seven others today. But it doesn't take away the loss of the one. Kathy now acknowledges what she put her family through. But at the time, all she could think about was how to save other kids from having the same fate as Michelle. This was the early 90s. It wasn't easy to spread the word about something like Summit Quest. Kathy couldn't log onto Facebook and make a post warning other parents. Everything was harder, took more time, and was more expensive. Kathy obsessively recorded any and all television programs about the troubled teen industry, which meant she needed multiple VCRs.

25:12She spent money on printing and shipping for her packets and on astronomical phone bills from hours of making calls, most of them out of state. Remember, she was living in California at the time, but was mostly calling people in Utah. But she couldn't think about the cost. she only thought about justice for Michelle. You mentioned before in our phone call, too, that you lost a house and a car. Can you tell me about that? What happened there? Well, I spent a lot of time sending packets and videos out to anyone that would listen, anyone that wanted to hear Michelle's story, Kristen's story. I just wanted to get the word out to the people.

25:53And so I would spend a lot of time at Kinko's and made a lot of copies. and eventually my husband bought me an old copy machine and so I could stay home and do more of that work. But yeah, just eventually the money ran out and I lost my house and lost our car. When the repo guy arrived to take Kathy's car, she handed him a My Michelle packet. All she could think about at that moment was, what if this guy has a child and he's thinking about sending his child to a wilderness therapy program? I've got to warn him. You know, if you hear of anybody that's looking at these programs, read this material that might open their eyes to the truth.

26:37And I couldn't stop. I just felt compelled to do whatever I could. The Suttons ended up moving into another house. But Kathy's crusade was all-consuming. It felt ludicrous that her daughter, who had done nothing wrong, attended a program that was advertised as a health care facility and was treated so poorly that she died of dehydration. It was even more unbelievable to Kathy that seemingly nothing was being done about it. Gail Palmer was still walking around, a free person, still operating Summit Quest, still bringing in tens of thousands of dollars for every kid who joined. That is, until September of 1990.

27:22A new law went into effect that July, requiring all wilderness therapy programs in Utah to be licensed by the Department of Health and Human Services. Summit Quest's provisional license expired in June, and they were denied a new license, but they continued to operate in Utah anyway. So by September, Ken Stetler was granted a court order to issue Summit Quest a cease and desist. And I recall hand-delivering the revocation notice myself. Cease and desist and revocation. And I think probably within a month, maybe two at the most, after giving them their cease and desist and revocation notice, they moved the program into Nevada and basically hid out.

28:13At first, this seemed like a victory to Kathy. But then Gail moved her operation out of state, just across the border to Nevada. There wasn't any federal regulation for wilderness therapy programs, so Gail was able to move across state lines and keep operating. Did you follow Gail's career path after Michelle's death? Yes, she moved her operation over into Nevada. There's something I really want to know about these programs. And it's been said by others, but I kind of took that and used that in my crusade. They're basically the same animal, but with different spots. Because if they get shut down, say like Gail did in Utah, they just pick up their folding chairs and tables and whatnot, and they move to a different place.