I would say stealing, failing school, running away, hating the parents are all within the spectrum of "more or less normal" depending on the severity. Threatening to kill oneself should be taken seriously, but taking an allegedly suicidal kid and placing him somewhere where he's largely unsupervised and completely untreated with a bunch of other "troubled" kids is a bad mistake.
Anyway, Aspen Ranch is well known to be an abusive, prison-like detention facility using the "level system" so no matter what was "wrong" with your kid, sending him to Aspen Ranch could not possibly have helped. He's going to resent you for it for a loooong time. Don't be surprised that as soon as he doesn't need you anymore for hot meals and roof over his head that he just cuts you off forever. If you can't trust you own dad, there's not much of a relationship to be had there.