Report criticizes boot camp death

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A state report on the death last year of a California teenager at a northwest Missouri boot camp found fault with access to medical care there and said records may have been falsified. Officials had asked the Missouri Department of Social Services to investigate the November death of Roberto Reyes, 15, of Santa Rosa, Calif. The youth died at the Thayer Learning Center in Kidder, less than two weeks after arriving there.

An autopsy cited complications from rhabdomyolysis, a breakdown of muscle fibers, and said the condition was probably due to a spider or insect bite.

In a wrongful death lawsuit filed in February in Buchanan County Circuit Court, the boy's parents alleged that he was subjected to physical exertion and abuse that caused or contributed to his death. Reyes' parents also claim their son would have lived had he received competent and timely medical care.

The state report was given last week to Jason Canoy, the Caldwell County prosecutor, who released it to The Kansas City Star. Canoy said he hadn't decided whether he would take any action.

"There are some alarming parts about it," he said of the 275-page report. "But I have not made a decision as to who I would file charges on or if I would file charges at all."

The state team that investigated said the boot camp apparently "failed ... to provide access to appropriate medical evaluation and/or treatment." Further, it said, "interviews and evidence also suggest significant contradictions and possible deliberate falsification of written records."

Ed Proctor, an attorney for Thayer, was unavailable for comment Thursday, but has told The Star that "every child at Thayer has immediate access to medical care at any time."

In interviews excerpted in the state report, owners John and Willa Bundy, along with other people connected with the camp, said they didn't know or think the boy was sick before he died. Willa Bundy also said she hadn't read the records in question until she was interviewed by a state investigator in late February.

At least 10 people identified as Thayer employees gave the state investigators descriptions of the boy, one saying he appeared lazy, another saying his attitude was bad. Some said he struggled to keep up with the rigorous exercise, that he complained of sore muscles, needed assistance walking and at times used others as "a crutch."

At least four said they never saw or were told anything to suggest Roberto was sick. But one drill sergeant said she eventually came to think he might be sick, and at some point relayed her opinion to Dorothy Steele, identified in the report as the facility's medical officer. The report said Steele, also the general manager of the kitchen facilities, is not a registered nurse and that an EMT license that she had expired in 2003.

Steele told investigators she treated Reyes on Nov. 1 for blisters on his feet. Besides sore arm and leg muscles, had no other medical complaints, she said.

Former employee Sarah Mackey, who resigned in December, told investigators her duties included filing daily "shift notes" about students and activities. The report said that after Roberto died, she read notes from the days leading up to his death and "stated that every day the log sheets indicated that Roberto was getting worse and worse and worse."

Mackey told the investigators that Willa Bundy later took files of the shift notes, asked for 10 blank forms and went into her office. When Mackey later reviewed faxed copies of shift notes sent to the state by an attorney for the boot camp, she "stated they were inaccurate and incomplete, compared to the shift notes she had seen and read in the office."

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Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com