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.
Season 1 Episode 25: The Brother of the Boy Who Died Trying to Escape The Lord’s Ranch.
•Ryan & Sammi•Season 1•Episode 25
On February 13, 1995, Robert Westerhoff and Christopher Chandler escaped The Lord’s Ranch in a staff vehicle after a staff member left their keys out. Robert was known for being an escape artist from facilities and he took advantage of the keys being left behind. After driving 100 miles, he fell asleep at the wheel and drove off into a large ravine. Robert died in that accident and Chris was airlifted to a hospital with a ruptured spleen. Terry Westerhoff was Roberts's younger brother. Terry wants to get the message out to everyone that The Lord's Ranch was an inadequate facility. The staff member's inexperience made them ill-prepared to properly run a residential treatment facility. But cheap labor and staff ignorance was purposely chosen over expensive tenured employees, and obeying the law.
The music composed for this podcast came from Blaq2ba. You can contact him at: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=199500549
