Season 1 Episode 10: Amanda: A Resident's Mother Artwork

What Really Happened at The Lord's Ranch?

Two former residents of The Lord's Ranch go back over 40 years and interview various generations of former residents, staff members, local towns people, and a local award-winning investigative journalist about a religious-based adolescent treatment facility in Warm Springs, Arkansas. The Lord's Ranch was founded by a financial felon from California; named Bud Suhl. After his time incarcerated, Suhl proclaimed he had turned his life around when he found Jesus. He left California and moved to Randolph County, Arkansas with his new wife Shirley. Bud Suhl opened up inpatient and outpatient treatment facilities for troubled youth. The newly found inpatient facility was in a small town of fewer than 300 residents and has since been the subject of numerous investigations that go as high up as the FBI. The Lord’s Ranch even briefly lost their license three years into business due to numerous complaints of abuse. These investigations ultimately made Bud's son, Ted a felon as well. In 2016, around 50 years after Bud’s conviction, Ted was convicted of bribery and fraud. Ted got out of prison about 4 1/2 years early when Suhl's family friend, Mike Huckabee convinced President Donald Trump to commute his seven-year sentence. As it stands right now, nobody has been able to find any documentation indicating how long Bud spent in prison. At any rate, since Ted had his sentence commuted rather than being fully pardoned, he remains a felon for financial crimes committed when his business hit a low point-- just like his father. With allegations of mental, physical, and sexual abuse at The Lord's Ranch, Sammi and Ryan decided to do a deep dive into the matter. Whether it was good, bad, or ugly, they searched for the full truth. The statements in this podcast may sound one-sided but nearly everybody who felt compelled to defend the ranch was unwilling to be interviewed on the podcast. We even offered to let defensive staff members speak while we asked zero questions and agreed to offer no rebuttals to anything the guest said. It would essentially have been a speech in defense of The Lord's Ranch. But unfortunately, most preferred to type words, rather than speaking on the phone. Some have also tried their best to prevent people from coming onto our podcast to share their story. For somebody claiming innocence, that seems rather suspect. At any rate, we continued asking anybody with any kind of experiece with The Lord's Ranch what it was like. These are their stories.WARNNG: Some of the details spoken in this podcast are disturbing. Listen at your own risk.

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What Really Happened at The Lord's Ranch?

Season 1 Episode 10: Amanda: A Resident's Mother

October 31, 2022 • Ryan & Sammi • Season 1 • Episode 10

Amanda shares her story of how people at The Lord's Ranch told her that with her help, a judge could deem her daughter incompetent to keep her in the Ranch's custody until she was 21. At the time, Sammi was nearing her 18th birthday, which would have meant she could be discharged as a legal adult. However, anybody who knew Sammi knew she had far above-average intelligence. So calling her incompetent was a blatant lie--as was the description of the place before she was flown down to Arkansas from Alaska. The biggest qualm the ranch staff seemed to have with Sammi was her adamant stance of being an atheist--a stance that prompted the staff members to tell all of her peers on a regular basis that Sammi was going to hell--despite religion being advertised as an optional portion of the program.

She talks about what it was like being a parent trying to deal with The Lord's Ranch. For example, when Amanda tried to pull Sammi out after deciding this wasn't a good place for her, The Lord's Ranch made threats to use the legal system to keep her until she was 21. This left her mom's hands tied and her own daughter was legally held hostage in what many now describe as an abusive cult.

Bear in mind, she hadn't broken any laws to be where she was. She went to this place for help with trauma and The Ranch only piled it on more. Whether it be phone calls with Sammi cut short without warning due to her telling the truth about how they treated her there, or for Sammi expressing any kind of unhappiness during a phone call. Amanda talks about how they would only return her calls when they were trying to plant ideas in her head such as the incompetence plea. Otherwise, she couldn't ever seem to get through to anybody about her own daughter once they had her in their custody.

She was often left in the dark while her child was being used as a source of income for a bootleg treatment facility run by mostly incompetent adults who appeared to derive pleasure from mistreating the children under their "care."

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