Affidavit Says Teenager Sent to Boot Camp Died in Bathtub

APB News/July 19, 2001

Phoenix -- A 14-year-old boy who was sent to a boot camp for troubled youths drowned in a motel bathtub, vomiting mud, after he was made to stand in the sun because he said he wanted to go home, according to a court record released Wednesday.

Authorities are investigating the July 1 death of Anthony Haynes, who was attending a boot camp run by the America's Buffalo Soldiers Re-enactors Association. The document released to The Associated Press was an affidavit the sheriff's office submitted for a search warrant of camp founder Charles Long II's home and property. Neither Long nor any others associated with the camp have been charged with any crime related to Anthony's death.

The results of an autopsy have not been released, but the affidavit cited preliminary results showing Anthony died from drowning. He also was dehydrated, the document said.

The Medical Examiner's Office would not comment on the information in the affidavit because the case is pending, spokeswoman Gayle Millette said. According to the affidavit, campers told investigators that supervisors began beating them two days after the five-week camp started June 25. They said they were whipped, kicked, stomped on and forced to put mud in their mouths.

On July 1, campers were allowed to say they wanted to go home. Anthony and others who said yes were made to stand in the sun as punishment for being "quitters," the affidavit said. Temperatures reached 114 that day.

Anthony began hallucinating and refused to drink water, the document said. When he became nonresponsive, camp supervisors took him to a motel and left him in the tub with the shower running. They returned to find Anthony with his face in the water. The affidavit said supervisors called Long and were told to bring Anthony back to the camp because Long thought the child was faking.

When he was returned to the camp, he wasn't breathing. Camp supervisors then called 911, but Anthony never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead later that night.

A man who answered the phone at Long's house referred calls to Long's attorney, David Burnell Smith, who didn't immediately return a message Wednesday afternoon. When sheriff's detectives searched Long's home July 6, they seized more than 100 videotapes and files of the association.

Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley didn't immediately return a message Wednesday. Anthony's father, Gettis L. Haynes Jr., said, "If the child was disoriented and unaware of what was going on around him, why did they take him and put him in a bathtub and go off and leave him?"