The Lost Kids

To my delight I discovered this illuminating podcast (the 1996 Oklahoma bombing) narrated by The New Yorker writer, Jeffery Toobin. He dives deep into what incited Timothy McVeigh to mass murder and maim innocents...and connects the decades-long (and tolerated) violent history of America’s White Supremacy movement and its alarming growth. Anticipating the ongoing series!

This is a compelling true crime story of lives altered by an industry that purports to “save” children, but obviously does not. In addition to the young people forced into these communities, their parents are victims, too. Not only by CEDA, but also by, in this case, the private investigator that took many thousands of dollars in exchange for empty promises. And we should not forget the siblings who not only lost a brother or sister for weeks, months, years, or forever, but lost the attentive parents they deserved.

I attended Rocky Mountain Academy 94-97, Ascent in 94, Explorations in Montana, Amity in Arezzo, Italy and SUWS in South Idaho. These programs used highly abusive psychological tactics to exploit families and take their money. I was in these programs from the age of 13-17. These programs acted as safe and isolated places for adult abusers to prey on children and act out on verbal, physical and sexual abuse of children. It took years for me to recover from the damage these programs caused. Unfortunately for many, they would not recover. The rates of suicide and drug overdoses of people who were forced into these programs is unbelievable.

The content of this story is both interesting and disturbing but Josh does a wonderful job of being empathetic yet objective while interviewing the victims and laying out the information he has.

The story is heartbreaking and the solution was a relief. The best parts were the interviews with family and witnesses who were genuine and real. The self-congratulatory tone of the presenters was off-putting, especially in the final episode (omg - the cops had to drive out of town to get a DNA sample - how dedicated they are!). The presentation itself bordered on terrible, especially the swallowing and mouth noises - yuck.