Flashback: The Colorado Teen Abuse Case You’ve Never Heard Of

A 2024 documentary titled "The Program: Cons, Cults and Kidnapping" explores an organization that, at its height, was accused of kidnapping troubled teens and subjecting them to horrific abuse.

Read More: Revealing The Troubling Past Of Colorado's Mental Health Institute |

While the documentary series focuses on a facility in upstate New York, another facility that operated in Colorado was also the subject of similar controversies and even saw one of its employees sentenced to jail time for crimes against the teens that lived there.

What Happened at the Notorious Colorado Institution?

The Royal Gorge Academy in Cañon City was part of an organization called the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs, or WWASP, the organization behind the atrocities depicted in the aforementioned documentary.

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At the time of the academy's permanent closure in 2008, the project manager and co-founder of the boarding school, Randall Hinton, was tried and later convicted of third-degree assault and false imprisonment, a conviction that carried a jail sentence.

According to an article dating back to 2008, Hinton was accused of slamming a 15-year-old boy's head into a wall, keeping a 17-year-old boy face down so long that he vomited, not allowing a 17-year-old girl to change her pants after experiencing a period, and forcing four boys to lie on top of a red ant pile.

The building that housed the Royal Gorge Academy was also once home to the St. Scholastica Academy, but sat abandoned for many years before eventually being demolished in favor of apartments.