Youth escapes Thayer custody
By D'Anna Balliett
Citizen Observer
October 11, 2007
Photo by D'Anna Balliett
A Thayer Learning Center student escaped custody during a medical visit to a local doctor's office on Thursday.
Last week Cameron police were called out in response to a Thayer Learning Center youth who had escaped custody during a medical visit at a local doctor's office.
The police were prepared to search for the youth but called off their efforts after determining that the youth was accepted into the center on a voluntary basis and was 17 years of age making him a legal adult in the state of Missouri.
The youth was originally from Texas. After fleeing custody of the Thayer representative escorting him to the medical appointment in Cameron, his parents were notified and filed a missing persons report.
The Thayer Learning Center located in Kidder, Mo. markets itself as a military based Christian boarding school and targets children ages 13 to 17 and is owned and run by husband and wife, John and Willa Bundy.
However, reports of questionable conduct, including documented stories of abuse by former students and employees, controversial practices in addition to an alleged lack of licensing have been associated with the center.
In 2004, several parents pulled their students from the boot camp and boarding school after a student died a week after enrolling. The parents of Roberto Reyes, who was 15 at the time of his death, sued the center in a wrongful death lawsuit.
According to reports, a Missouri child fatality review panel, made up of state and county officials, reviewed the circumstances of Reyes' death and in December of 2004 concluded that, "earlier medical treatment at the Thayer Learning Center may have prevented this fatality."
And, symptoms of Reyes' failing health "would have been present for a significant period of time prior to his death," according to the lawsuit.
In March 2006, the case was settled out of court when Thayer agreed to pay just over $1 million in damages