63 Days - Alli's Story

April 11, 2005 10:54 AM

63 Days - Alli's Story In the 80’s, "boot camps" for troubled teens became the new treatment dejour for parents at their wits end. However, after numerous allegations of severe abuse, untrained staff and several deaths, these camps came under much scrutiny. Steve Cartisano ran the most notorious of these camps, called Challenger Foundation. He disappeared into the waters of Samoa to continue his torture on young children and many died there as well. Its been 15 years since the most notorious groups of children went through the Challenger program, and one woman who now has 4 children and who is struggling to retain her sanity has begun to tell her story.
posted by AbbyRoad (7 comments total)

A good friend of mine went through something like this when she was a kid. This is really, really disturbing.
posted by gurple at 11:20 AM on April 11, 2005

It's still happening all over the place.
posted by bkdelong at 11:24 AM on April 11, 2005 [1 favorite]

Fabulous post. Thank you.
posted by Quartermass at 11:31 AM on April 11, 2005

Sh*t. This lady Alli, she was the only person to escape and I guess her parents sent her back for 3 total tours. She was part of the trial that shut these people down for a while. Talk about survivor. She was on Oprah and 60 Minutes and stuff in the 80's. She has a forum over there where she answers ?'s and it's crazy how normal she is. I had 2 friends who went to a place half as bad as Challenger and they're still f*d up today.
posted by AbbyRoad at 11:32 AM on April 11, 2005

Hey, bkdelong, that first link of yours to the ISAC -- it's nice to know that there's an organization of people trying to get something done about this. Are they pretty reputable?
posted by gurple at 11:33 AM on April 11, 2005

I dunno. Call me an evil skeptic, but too much about this seems novelized...
posted by klangklangston at 11:37 AM on April 11, 2005

Ya. I hate to admit it but I was one of the assholes who didn't believe her at first. I said some things that were to be quite frank, immature and cruel. Then I did some research and found out from legal docs and articles that yes it seems like fiction 'cause she is an author now but its all true and she and a few other ex-prisoners of the camp are working on this together. Also there are a lot of people on her forum who know her personally who reminisce with her about the time she was there and they freely give support. I posted this today on MeFi partly because after I dogged her I thought I should maybe try to help her by sharing her story. Also, I guess a morning news show from the 80's went out there and there's proof by means of video tape. Ya, I had a hard time believing it, too. You're not an evil skeptic klangklangston, just curious like my ass.

She has links on the side bar so you can check her story.
posted by AbbyRoad at 11:50 AM on April 11, 2005