GAYLE PALMER Part 7 of 7: Criminally Minded

0:00You may have heard of the sex cult NXIVM 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. Alison, after NXIVM from CBC's Uncover, is available now, wherever you get your podcasts.

0:33This podcast contains disturbing content. Please take care while listening. Michelle Sutton and Kristen Chase died within weeks of each other in the summer of 1990 in wilderness therapy programs in Utah. In response, Utah passed new safety regulations for wilderness therapy programs. And both Summit Quest and Challenger were refused licensing and had to cease operations in Utah. And then there were the criminal investigations. Steve Cartesano, the founder and director of Challenger, was charged with negligent homicide for the death of Kristen Chase, along with nine counts of child abuse. But the investigation into Michelle Sutton's death led nowhere.

1:20The case was closed, and neither Gail nor any of the counselors at Summit Quest were criminally charged. For Kathy and Bob Sutton, this was a difficult reality to face. As far as criminal charges, I just felt like they were criminally, you know, they should have been criminally charged with something, negligent homicide, how about just manslaughter? We called every day to the sheriff's department trying to find out what was going on. And what they told us is that it's a small county and they can't afford a trial. Michelle's group had wandered across the border into Arizona, and that is where she died.

1:57Therefore, the criminal investigation fell under the jurisdiction of the Mojave County Sheriff's Office in Kingman, Arizona. She was from California and died in Arizona in a program that was operated out of Utah. So there was all these different areas that they just wouldn't do anything. The Suttons never got a satisfactory answer as to why Gail Palmer was never charged with the crime. But Kathy said over the years, she's had to let it go. I don't think it ever would have been criminally charged to any one person. So I kind of let go of that. Did you not hold Gail responsible? I hold her responsible for selling the program, yes.

2:43I hold her responsible for her lies, yes. I feel the program was a complete fraud. I hold her responsible for that. But that's where the civil lawsuit came in. Kathy and Bob Sutton filed a$5 million civil lawsuit against Gail Palmer and Summit Quest in late 1990. Thomas Burton attended the same church as Kathy and Bob and ended up representing them in the civil lawsuit. I knew this family and I knew this young woman. and to have her basically tortured to death and her family tormented with this, that's really serious. Thomas told me they had a strong case. There were ample examples of neglect on behalf of Summit Quest.

3:29And yet, things did not go as Thomas expected. I was stunned by the opposition to our coming into the case. and what I thought was a reasonable request seeking some compensation for the loss of this child. And I was surprised that there was every possible type of objection to it. Would Kathy and Bob get justice for Michelle? And would Gail Palmer be held accountable? From Cast Media, this is The Opportunist. This is Season 7, Episode 7. Gail Palmer, Criminally Minded. I'm Hannah Smith.

4:36The Opportunist on Apple Podcasts. You can also listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

4:52Many things came to light during the civil lawsuit the Suttons brought against Gail. And one of those things is that Gail had been contacting their insurance company after Michelle died. We learned through our discovery that she was contacting Travelers Insurance, our insurance company, and this is after this child died that she still wanted the money. It was also discovered that Summit Quest fabricated itemized bills with services that they didn't provide and submitted those bills to insurance companies. Thomas Burton was able to get a copy of Summit Quest's original application for licensing from the state of Utah, and they were licensed as a health care facility at the time.

5:35It was a full-time, this is how it sold to us, a full-time residential inpatient wilderness therapy facility. facility. They were just liars and had duped us and duped the insurance company even into believing that it was a full-time residential inpatient wilderness therapy facility. I mean, those are words that I'll live with for the rest of my life. One of Thomas Burton's arguments in the civil case was that Summit Quest intentionally misled the Suttons and other parents about the safety precautions that Summit Quest had in place, or lack thereof. They claim to have 24-7 access to medical professionals.

6:17While it is true that Summit Quest officially had doctors sign on to work with the program, those doctors were never informed that Summit Quest had kids out in the field, and they never had any contact with the kids. But even if those doctors had been made aware that Summit Quest had kids out in the desert, they still would have been impossible to reach in case of an emergency. The counselors were given CB radios, which have a max range of 20 miles. Michelle's group was 90 miles away from the closest town, St. George, when she died. And her body lay in the desert for almost 20 hours before any help was able to arrive.

6:57And yet this is not something that Gail Palmer ever took responsibility for, even when she was asked about it on The Geraldo Show. Where were your doctors in the death of Michelle Sutton? Why did it take 18 hours for them to even get to her then cold body? We have a doctor on our staff. Was he with them in the field? No, but they never are. The doctor is not out there, but it isn't necessary. This is the thing that's... What if a leg is broken? What if a child is dying of dehydration? You have the capacity to call in a helicopter and go get the child. But the helicopter was called in, did not arrive for 20 hours.

7:37The point that has to be made here. Why didn't the helicopter come sooner? It wouldn't have mattered, Geraldo. The thing, no. The thing is, the thing you've got to understand is that this child died the second she went down. There was CPR done on her for three and a half hours. Technically, a helicopter wasn't called until the morning after Michelle died. when a small plane spotted Amanda D. Rose's signal fires. But the point stands that there was not medical help accessible to the Summit Quest group. Thomas told me that even with all the evidence they had that Michelle died because of negligence on behalf of Summit Quest, Gil continued to blame Michelle for her own death, and her attorneys attempted to get the Suttons to drop the lawsuit.

8:24The demand was to dismiss this case before you got in over your head and before we make you look foolish for even attempting to challenge what we're telling you. And they mounted every type of defense possible. That she had a death wish. That she was doing drugs. That it was her fault for not following directions. It angered me. And that's why we decided to go to the mat. The Suttons would not back down with the lawsuit, but it would be a hard battle to fight. Thomas Burton prepared for a trial. I wanted to know more about why Gail Palmer was never charged with a crime, but the lead detective who investigated Michelle's death, Dale Lent, passed away in 2019.

9:13I did speak with Ken Stetler from the Department of Health and Human Services, Utah, about the investigation. I'm curious to have any insight as to why Gail Palmer was never criminally charged with anything after Michelle died. I had fully expected there would be some charges come. Perhaps Arizona didn't feel like it was worth their trouble to do it, considering that we were taking administrative action. Right, because she died in Arizona. So it was the folks in Kingman that were in charge, and we were in touch with them a lot. But they just took their time. I mean, it was some months, if I recall, before we got a definitive response.

9:59At any rate, by then, Gail had packed up and went into Nevada. Ken's best guess is that the county in Arizona where Michelle died knew that a trial would be costly, and they felt that the situation had been dealt with since Gail had her license taken away in Utah. But the fact was, Gail was still running Summit Quest. The program had been banned from operating in Utah by September of 1990. But that same month, Sandra Noxon, Gail's sister, who was working with her at the time, told the Deseret News that, quote, Summit Quest is operating in other states and has students out in the field. But had Gail moved her operation?

10:46Less than a year after Michelle died and four to five months after Summit Quest was ordered to cease and desist operations, Mark Wiley was sent to Summit Quest in Utah. It was January or February of 1991. He was 11 years old. Early childhood. I mean, I had great parents. You know, mom and dad worked, but they, you know, they divorced. And then my dad was a real bad alcoholic. But my mom, single mom, tried her best, but she couldn't control me when I was a kid. That's why I ended up in the Summit Quest. Mark grew up partly in Las Vegas, partly in Sacramento. He started shoplifting as a young kid.

11:24And by 11, he already had a criminal record. He was taken to Summit Quest by a youth transport service, blindfolded, driven out into the desert. By talking with Mark, it seems that by 1991, some things had changed at Summit Quest. While the weather was still cold, the kids were provided tents to sleep in at night. The staff now had working radios, and there was plenty of water for Mark during his time there. But other things were the same, like the food rations. They give me a weighed amount of flour, germade, oatmeal, dried peas and rice. Did it seem like enough food for a week? I looked at it, I thought it was a joke.

12:06A few weeks into the program, Mark hatched an escape plan. He had made friends with an older kid, who he only remembers as Joseph. And they decided one morning that when they were supposed to be out collecting firewood, they were going to run for it. That was a perfect time, though, because the counselors weren't paying attention, and we could walk far away from camp to get wood. So I remember we just started running. We were probably running for like a good 45 minutes to the mountains, just trying to get as far away as we could. Mark was 11 years old, running through the mountainous terrain of southwest Utah in the late winter, early spring, when it still gets very cold at night.

12:44He thinks that they were on the run for four days. We ran with nothing, just our clothes. We made sure we wore warm clothes, and that was it. So we started breaking in cabins to get food. We were eating peanut butter and smoking, like, half cigarettes that people were leaving behind, you know. Mark and Joseph hiked 30 miles through the desert until they arrived in St. George, Utah. All of a sudden, we hear cars going by. We ain't seen a car or anything in, you know, almost two months. So we made it to this road, and it was a mining road. You could see mining trucks going down the road, just traveling down a gravel road.

13:21Mark and Joseph flagged down a guy in a truck who said he would give them a ride to the bus station. First, he just had to stop at the post office. So he pulled up into the post office, and I knew something was about to happen, but I didn't care because I was so tired. And then all of a sudden, you could see these cars pull up, you know, around us. And these cops come up to the car, and they're like, we've been looking for you kids for a while. But they were worried about us because we were in the mountains, and they couldn't find us. They're like, they couldn't believe that we made it this far.

13:48The boys told the sheriff that they were being abused at Summit Quest, and they asked to call their parents. Instead, they were driven back out into the desert and dropped off with the Summit Quest counselors. This was early 1991, long after Summit Quest had been banned from operating in Utah.

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16:13Mark and Joseph had escaped Summit Quest and found themselves at the sheriff's office in St. George, Utah, at which point they were driven right back out to Summit Quest. Mark said as punishment, he and Joseph were made to sit in a tent for days on end in only their underwear. And the first thing the counselor said was strip all your clothes down, down to your boxers and your shoes and everything and get in the tent. You're going to sit in there 45 days for running. And I was like, I was refusing. I was like, I'm not taking my clothes off. And they said, OK, we'll just tie you up to a tree and cut them off.

16:47So I took my clothes off. Was this after the officers left? Yeah, of course. After the officers left. As soon as they rolled down the dirt road, take your clothes off, strip down to your boxers, get in the tent. They could leave the tent to cook their food or use the bathroom, in which case they would be given shoes with no laces and a jacket but no pants. This was to prevent them from running away again. In total, Mark spent 38 days in that tent. He said it was torturous. What did you do in the tent all day? Nothing. Sitting right, go crazy, talk to each other about how we're going to escape again.

17:23It was good punishment, actually. You didn't want to be sitting in the tent very long. It sucked. It was not like you had a TV or anything. I mean, you're just sitting there staring at the nylon in the tin. It was like, God, I can picture it right now. It was worse than Juvenile Hall. Shortly after Mark's escape and then return to Summit Quest, their camp was flooded by a rainstorm. And so they packed up and moved locations. We now know they moved their camp from Utah across the border to Nevada. Shortly after they moved into Nevada, there were more runaways. three girls went missing from the Summit Quest campsite.

18:00So the counselors were all frantic on the radio, calling, you know, for people to come look like they did for us, you know, I guess. But those girls never came back to the campsite. One day we were out there doing our chores or our activities, and all of a sudden these Suburbans come rolling up at the campsite, and these guys jump out with camcorders and told the counselors that we're taking over now, step aside. The three girls that escaped from the camp ran into some ranchers in Nevada and told them they were being abused. And the ranchers informed law enforcement. The Summit Quest campsite was almost 150 miles north of Las Vegas.

18:40It was raided by Nevada state officials in March of 1991. All eight kids were taken into the custody of the Nevada State Welfare Department, and their parents were called to pick them up. In order for the children to be released into the custody of their parents, their parents had to agree that they would never re-enroll them in Summit Quest, and they had to agree to make the children available for a future hearing that would determine whether or not Summit Quest would be able to operate in Nevada. Ken Stetler and Kathy Sutton had both been making phone calls informing Nevada officials of Gail's presence there.

19:18In July of 1991, there was a hearing to review Summit Quest's operation in Nevada. Kathy Sutton was asked to come to the hearing and testify. We were not going to stop until they shut it down. There was a court adjunction actually served against Gail Palmer. Gail Palmer had to testify during that hearing, and on direct examination, she said she started Summit Quest to help kids get off the streets and to protect kids from drug-related killings. The judge noted during the hearing that, quote, Children who are most often involved in drug-related killings and who get trapped into a life on the streets are those very same children who cannot afford$14 ,000 to take a protective and rehabilitative program.

20:07Summit Quest was denied a license to operate in Nevada. After I got out of Summit Quest, I got arrested for some more crimes and stripped from my family period, and they put me in the ward of the state of California. Mark spent a few years in juvenile hall, and then after that, a group home. He now lives in Las Vegas with his daughter. Reflecting on his experience at Summit Quest, he says that he understands why his parents sent him there. They were desperate. But he doesn't think that Summit Quest worked. It did not give him tools to better his life or to set him on a path to success. Gail Palmer shut down Summit Quest for good in 1991.

20:51And yet in 1994, there was a report in the St. George newspaper The Spectrum that stated a girl ran away from a wilderness therapy program and stumbled upon an archaeological dig site. The article states that the program was being run by Gail Palmer. But there is no other information after that on whether Gail was shut down or continue to operate in Utah without a license. Ken Stetler is referenced in the article, and I asked him about it. You know, I can't find any other articles about this. This is the only one. So the article seems to be saying that Gail was back in Utah in 1994 operating a wilderness therapy program illegally.

21:33Do you recall that at all? I do. I do. We were never able to prove it. But I know in my gut that it was her. Steve Cartesana was charged with negligent homicide and nine counts of child abuse. His trial started on September 16, 1991. And my understanding was that during the trial, it was not going very well for him. He was getting clobbered. But then on September 23, the judge declared a mistrial over a technicality. the judge had failed to formally read the charges against Steve Cartesano. There would be a new trial. Steve promptly fired his lawyers and called Charlie Brofman. He said, Charlie, they're going to try this case again.

22:21It's being transferred to Salt Lake City County. And I'd like you to represent me. Charlie Brofman is a very good lawyer. And it was smart of Steve to hire him. Charlie found the leading expert in the country on exertional heat stroke and brought him on as an expert witness. That guy testified that Kristen Chase's symptoms did not line up with his understanding of exertional heat stroke. That basically negated the entire prosecution's argument. And Steve Cartesano was acquitted on all charges. The case really turned on did Kristen die from exertional heat stroke. If that's their theory, and I disprove the theory, you have to find the defendant not guilty.

23:07Have to. Kathy Sutton attended Steve Cartesano's trial. I could see him over my shoulder in the back of the courtroom rolling up his sleeves and showing his temple garments, if I may say that. But just, and just, he was very charismatic and very much liked by a lot of people that just looked up to him and thought he was just this wonderful person. And I just thought that was really kind of uncanny when I look back and seeing him roll up his sleeve to show his temple garments to say, I'm a Mormon and look at me, I'm this great guy. No, you're not. I mean, we're of the same faith, the same affiliation, but that's not the way I was brought up, and that's not the way my church teaches.

23:57Kathy told me that in her view, Steve Cartesano was a criminally-minded person and a liar, and she watched as he walked away a free man. As someone who was on her own journey seeking justice, this was a blow. It's generally acknowledged that if Steve's first trial had not ended in a mistrial, he would have been convicted Charlie Brofman saved him from potential years in prison And how did Steve Cartesano thank Charlie Brofman? The next thing I knew, my bill was up to like$110 ,000 And he disappeared on me And I never heard from him again He stiffed me Steve went on to start programs all around the world, including in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, the U.S.

24:48Virgin Islands, and Samoa. It was the same pattern everywhere. He started a camp without obtaining a license. He charged parents between$15 ,000 and$20 ,000 a kid, and then eventually he got shut down by authorities. There are countless stories from kids involved in these camps, stories of being abused by camp personnel and of being denied medical treatment. Steve Cardesano used multiple names as well, including Steve Anthony, Scott Richards, and Steve Michaels, and he got caught writing bad checks on multiple occasions. He died on May 4, 2019, at the age of 63.

25:47In February of 1992, the Suttons agreed to settle their lawsuit against Summit Quest. It wrapped up basically just before the trial started, when they paid an amount of money that we thought, after several prior proposals, was reasonable under the circumstances for the death of this child. And it was on the day before trial was to start. The Suttons decided to settle instead of going through the emotional turmoil of a trial. The amount agreed upon was$345 ,000. It would be taken from a$500 ,000 insurance policy that Summit Quest had. Kathy felt that this was some sense of justice for Michelle, but she didn't care about the money.

26:41With the lawsuit, I hated that money. I got the shakes every time I walked in the bank. We donated a lot. We did a lot of good with it, which was one of my goals was when God said something good will come from this, It became my crusade and my desire to bring all the good I could from something horrible that happened to my child. So, okay, what good can I do today? How can I help? Of course, we scholarshiped a girl. Michelle didn't get to graduate, but another girl did in her honor. Just trying to make good come from it. Overall, what Kathy wanted, what she had been working for, was change. She wanted the industry to be safer.

27:25What I wanted was for the whole industry as a whole to become what their telling parents they are and weed out the ones who were neglectful and punitive. Some people will say that things improved after the summer of 1990 when Michelle Sutton and Kristen Chase died. And yet in 1994, there was another death. It closely echoed the deaths of Michelle Sutton and Kristen Chase. It was April 1st, I received a call from one of my sons saying, Mom, there's been another death. And at first, you know, mine kind of plays tricks on you. I thought, well, that's cruel April Fool's joke. And then he said, no, Mom, it really, really happened.