Death In The Desert

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.

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.

Sunday, July 1,2001, marked the fourth day since "Hell Day", when the staff reportedly beat and bruised kids in the hot desert sun. But the worst was yet to come for Anthony Haynes.

Charles Long is used to kids wanting to leave his camp, and he didn't make it easy. "On Sundays I call a formation, and I will ask, 'Is there anyone here that feels as though he or she can't go any further and would like to drop on request, or leave the program,['" he says.

Haynes was one of many kids who asked to leave that day. The group, including Anthony, Allen Kent, and Russell Abbate, was separated from the rest of the kids and ordered to form a line. "We stayed out there until the sun went down," says Allen. The temperature that day reached 111 degrees.

The kids who dropped on request say they were not allowed any water. Some of the campers told investigators there was adequate water, but many said Anthony and his group had nowhere near enough. Long claims that the children were allowed full access to water that day.

The kids say that after several hours in the sun, Anthony began to hallucinate. "He said he saw Indians and water," says Allen. He was also eating dirt. By sundown, they say Anthony had gotten worse. "He was passed out. His face was just pale," says Russell.

But Colonel Long says Haynes was faking his sickness. "I've seen Anthony do the very same thing before," he says. Long believes Anthony was pretending again because he wanted to go home. The staff was told to put Anthony in a pickup truck along with other kids on their way to take a shower.

"Anthony was sitting up, with his eyes squinting, " says Long. "And I said, 'Anthony, do you want to go home?' And he'd open one eye. And he'd look at me. 'I just wanna go home, Colonel.' And he shut 'em back down"

"He didn't say that!" says Russell. "He would never say that."

"Colonel has a golden tongue," says Angel. "He tries to say things that kind of fit in."

Sirveorge Jones and another instructor took Anthony to a nearby motel room.

The staff put Anthony in the bathtub, turned on the shower, and reportedly left him alone for five to ten minutes. When they returned, according to some witnesses, the 14-year-old was facedown in the water and barely responsive. One of the instructors claimed he was concerned about Anthony's condition and called Long.

"There was nothing in the conversation that I had to be concerned about," says Long.

Despite that call, Long was still convinced Anthony was faking, and ordered his staff to bring Anthony back to camp. That's where Colonel Long finally got concerned and tried to revive Anthony.

At 9:43 p.m., Long's wife called 911. At this point, Anthony Haynes was not breathing.

Anthony was airlifted to the hospital. In Phoenix, his mother's phone rang. she rushed to the hospital, where doctors told her that her son had died.

An autopsy said the cause of death was "complications of near drowning and dehydration due to heat exposure." But the medical examiner called the death an accident.

Long still believes Anthony was trying to go home. "I think Anthony wanted to get himself sick, and sick to the point whereby he would get himself out," he says.

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."

What happens? Find out in Part II.