The death of a 12-year-old boy at a wilderness camp for troubled youth in North Carolina has been ruled a homicide, according to an autopsy report released Monday.
The boy died in February, less than 24 hours after arriving at Trails Carolina, a for-profit program that has since lost its operating license. Trails Carolina has said the death appeared to be accidental and that staff members performed CPR after finding the boy unresponsive the morning after arrival. He was in a bivy, a one-man tent secured with an alarm.
The camp did not immediately comment on the medical examiner’s findings, which listed the boy’s cause of death as “asphyxia due to asphyxiation” or the inability to get oxygen – “in this case due to covering the nose and mouth ” with material that was not breathable.
The camp says it routinely placed children in bivvies for their safety upon arrival. According to the autopsy report, the inner mesh panel of the boy’s bivy was torn, so the counselors sealed the outer, weather-resistant door panel instead, which was not camp protocol.
The autopsy report, issued by the state’s chief medical examiner, says bivvies typically include warnings against completely enclosing the weatherproof outer layer “as this may lead to condensation and respiratory restriction.”
Officials identified the boy only by his initials, CJH. A spokesman for his family said the family had no comment.
No charges have been announced. The Transylvania County Sheriff’s Office, which conducted a criminal investigation into the boy’s death, said it is reviewing the autopsy report and will discuss it with the local district attorney.
According to the autopsy report, there were no signs of trauma or sexual assault. The boy was found without pants, but his father told investigators that his son often slept like that.
There was also no evidence of a drug overdose or any natural causes that could have led to his death, the autopsy report said.
The finding of asphyxia was a “diagnosis of exclusion, meaning that all other reasonable causes of death” had been ruled out, the report said. The boy was “placed in this compromised sleeping position by others and did not have the ability to reasonably remove himself,” the report said.
Meanwhile, the advisors supervising him were unable to check on him due to the opaque outer panel of the bivy, potentially preventing them from spotting a problem and helping him before it was too late.
“With this combination of factors, the death is best classified as a homicide,” the report said.
Before its license was revoked, Trails Carolina, in Lake Toxaway, served children with behavioral issues and diagnoses such as ADHD, autism and post-traumatic stress disorder. A medical examiner’s report, released with the autopsy findings, said the deceased boy had ADHD, anxiety, migraines and social problems, including “it was very difficult to make friends.”
His parents paid for two strangers to escort him from his home in New York to Trails Carolina, the medical examiner’s report said, citing a common practice the troubled youth industry uses to transport children to its programs.
That night, the boy was “restless and mumbling in his sleep,” the medical examiner’s report said. At one point, advisers took him out of his bivouac and he fell asleep, it added. They then woke him up to put him back inside. According to the report, they found him cold to the touch in the morning, with his head at the foot of the bivy.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
