GAYLE PALMER Part 2 of 7: The Price of Admission
The Opportunist
PodcastOne
4.7 • 10.7K Ratings
🗓️ 25 April 2023
⏱️ 42 minutes
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Summary
Before Summit Quest, Gayle Palmer worked at another wilderness therapy program called Challenger. Challenger was founded by Steve Cartisano, who is generally viewed now as a con artist.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode contains disturbing content, including discussions of child abuse. |
| 0:05.0 | Please take care while listening. |
| 0:15.0 | Michelle Sutton was 15 years old when she enrolled at Summit Quest, |
| 0:19.0 | a wilderness therapy program in St. George, Utah. |
| 0:22.0 | Michelle was looking forward to the program. |
| 0:25.0 | She thought she would spend a few months in nature, healing. |
| 0:28.0 | That she would come home physically fit and with a newfound confidence. |
| 0:33.0 | But in just over one week at Summit Quest, Michelle was dead. |
| 0:37.0 | You may have seen their ads and magazines, |
| 0:39.0 | well in this program that say they could help trouble teenagers. |
| 0:42.0 | A girl from Pleasanton, named Michelle Sutton, was one of those kids. |
| 0:46.0 | Her parents thought a survival program would improve her self-esteem. |
| 0:49.0 | But something went wrong out on that trail, deadly wrong. |
| 0:53.0 | And now her parents are looking for answers. |
| 0:56.0 | Gail Palmer told the Sutton that Summit Quest was a place for teens to come get help, |
| 1:01.0 | guidance, healing. |
| 1:03.0 | So what happened? |
| 1:05.0 | What was really going on in that program? |
| 1:08.0 | Finding answers to that would be difficult. |
| 1:11.0 | So much of what Gail said about Summit Quest wasn't true. |
| 1:15.0 | For instance, Summit Quest had not been operating for two years as Gail told Kathy. |
| 1:21.0 | It was reported that this was actually a brand new program. |
... |
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