January 3

January 3, 2003 - Transcript

Death In The Desert

(CBS) Anthony Haynes was a troubled kid. In the spring of 2001, after the Phoenix teen was caught shoplifting, his mother Melanie enrolled him in America’s Buffalo Soldiers Re-enactors Association, a boot camp run by 57-year-old Charles Franklin Long II. She never expected him to end up dead. Who is to blame? Richard Schlesinger reports.

Long modeled his camp after military boot camps. He commanded kids as young as 7, who are in trouble with the law or whose parents just want them to have some extra discipline. He has his own style of working with kids - it’s a lot of managing and a little menacing.
A.H.
(Photo: CBS)

Anthony started attending the boot camp’s weekend program, and his mother finally had some hope.

But Anthony quickly tired of the program and slashed his mother’s tires to avoid going back to camp. So Melanie enrolled her son in a more intensive program run by Long. Allen Kent and Angel Campbell were also sent to the boot camp to straighten up. Russell Abatte was sent there to gain confidence and lose weight.

Their diet: an apple for breakfast, a carrot for lunch, and a bowl of beans for dinner. Their dress code for the Arizona desert: black sweatshirt, black sweatpants, black hats.

Russell Angel and Allen became friends with Anthony Haynes at the camp, about an hour outside Phoenix. The first two days of boot camp passed without incident. But on the third day, things really started to heat up - it was a day the kids call “Hell Day.”

Police say the trouble started when Long left the camp that morning, putting his “drill instructors” in charge: teen-agers Matthew Fontenot and Sirveorge Jones - and 39 year-old Raymond Anderson. Witnesses say it all began after lunch, for no apparent reason.

Allen says he was forced to drink from a jug filled with water, rocks and dirt. One of the instructors then allegedly jumped on his chest with both feet.

Angel Campbell claims she was also beaten by the instructors and slapped all over her body. You can still see the bruises on a videotape shot 5 days afterward.

Hell Day continued well into the evening. Russell Abatte says one of the drill instructors poured sugary water from the baked beans all over his body, then left him alone as bees swarmed over him. He claims he was stung 82 times.

Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio shut down the camp. His detectives started investigating Anthony’s death and Colonel Long. “This was a kid that died under a very, very strange situation,” Arpaio says.

Long doesn’t believe he was responsible for Anthony’s death. “Do I feel bad that I didn’t take him home alive to his parents? Yeah, I feel bad about that,” he says. “So bad that you will never, ever understand how bad I feel. Am I responsible? I didn't kill Anthony.”

Weeks after Anthony Haynes’ death, Charles Long was back in business, running his boot camp on weekends. Long has no degree or even any formal training in how to reform defiant young people. Before this, he was a stunt man, a disc jockey, a cop and a Marine.

Each morning before sunup, the drill begins at Long’s house. There is no doubt who is in command. His wife calls him “colonel,” and his kids call him “sir.”

(Photo: CBS)

Despite the controversy surrounding the camp, Cheri Butkowski and her husband are still hoping that Long can help their 13-year-old son, Jason. “He was defiant. He was disrespectful,” Cheri says. “It got to the point where… he did get violent with us.”

She tried psychologists, psychiatrists and medication. Finally she was so desperate she sent her son to Long’s program, three months after the death of Haynes.

“Right now I don’t think any of us really know how that boy died. And if that boy died because of an accident or a suicide, why should we stop using this program,” Cheri says.

Colonel Long (Photo: CBS)

She says she is there watching him every day, and that what she has seen is encouraging. She watches as her son takes a 4 and a half mile run through the desert.

As the race begins, Jason lags behind. Then he takes a short cut to the finish line. But even though he did not run the entire course, Jason’s mother believes he’s done more than he ever has before. She says she is proud of him.

“Bottom line is, we take them to the extreme, to the extreme, it gets a lot of young people’s attention,” says Long.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who brought back chain gangs and keeps prisoners in desert tents, calls himself “America’s toughest sheriff.” But even he thought things went too far at Long’s boot camp.

Witnesses say after several hours under a sweltering sun, in 111-degree heat, Haynes was delusional and eating dirt before he passed out.

Says Long: “If I knew that Anthony Haynes had been eating dirt, then I would immediately had taken steps to make sure that Anthony got some treatment. He says he didn’t find out about that until Anthony had gone to the showers.

But Long did not immediately call for help, when counselors called him from a nearby motel, where Anthony was slumped in the shower. Later that evening after Anthony had been brought back to the camp, Long finally had his wife call 911. The police believe Anthony may have been in danger for nearly two hours before anyone called for help.

No one else has ever died attending the Buffalo Soldiers, but there have been other charges about other boot camps run by Long. Just one summer before Haynes’ death, Long was running a boot camp on an Indian reservation a few hours to the north. 48 Hours Investigateshas obtained a copy of the FBI investigation into complaints lodged by kids and parents there. The allegations involve kids being kicked and beaten and denied water.

No charges were ever filed against Long that summer, and he denies any wrongdoing then or now. He says he’s the victim of lying, scheming teen-agers. Long says that Russell Abatte, Allen Kent and Angel Campbell, who have left the program, made up their stories about how they were abused, and how Haynes died. Long says they are lying.

Was Abatte covered in sugar water and left for the bees to sting him? “Hell no. That’s bizarre,” says Long. “He’s a liar. He's lying.”
Allen Kent says he was
abused in the program
(Photo: CBS)

But hospital records show Russell had extensive bee stings. Detectives who spent eight months investigating all the charges concluded the kids were telling the truth.

In February 2002, Long was arrested. Authorities charged him with child abuse, aggravated assault, and 2nd degree murder for failing to prevent Haynes’ death.

His murder trial is scheduled to begin in June. If convicted, he could face more than 20 years in prison.

“It's taking somebody else's life when you have them stand outside in the sun for over five hours with very little water and very little food,” says Haynes’ mother Anthony. “I'm sorry, that’s killing somebody. Slowly.”

(Link to 48 hours: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/06/24/48hours/main513184.shtml)