SALT LAKE CITY — Taylor Goodridge, 17, died of a treatable condition on December 20, 2022, at a boarding school for "troubled teens" called Diamond Ranch Academy in Hurricane.
Her father is now suing the school for medical neglect. It’s just one of hundreds of lawsuits against these types of facilities in Utah.
READ: Father sues Hurricane boarding school for malpractice after daughter's death
“I never thought I was gonna have to worry about burial plots,” said Taylor’s father, Dean Goodridge, ”She’s going to be missed. I mean, there’s no doubt in my mind about that.”
Goodridge said pictures of his daughter could never do justice to the light Taylor brought to those around her.
“In this community, she was everywhere,” he said, “There’s not somewhere or somebody she touched in this tribe.”
He said her death has left a lasting imprint on her entire Native American tribe, the Stillaguamish Tribe in Washington.
“She had the biggest heart. She would do anything for anybody. If someone was down, she would try to do whatever she could to cheer that person up. I mean she was well-loved.”
Taylor was the first girl of 11 total tight-knit siblings, who loved Disney and her rescue dog named Sushi.
“It’s not just, ‘oh, you lost your child.’ Yeah, I lost my child but she also... two nieces that will never see their aunt, grandparents that never get to see their granddaughter, brothers and sisters that never get to see her again," Goodridge said. "The devastation is the hardest part.”
As a young teenage girl, Taylor had some emotional problems.
Goodridge explained a counselor who used to work for the tribe picked Diamond Ranch Academy as a place for Taylor to get help.
“She got Taylor to agree to go to it. What parent is there to say, when their child or daughter goes ‘Dad, I need help. I think this will help.’ I’m not going to tell her no,” he reflected. “She was having some problems and wanted to get help. She wanted to get help. Not end up in a box.”
Autopsy reports revealed Taylor died of Peritonitis, an infection of the abdomen, which led to Sepsis and organ failure.
“If they would’ve taken her to the doctor or the ER, she would still be here. I would still have my daughter,” Goodridge reflected.
Medical reports show Taylor was throwing up for weeks at the school and complaining of severe pain.
“They put her through so much punishment, and pain and agony,” Goodridge said, “and my daughter died alone. Not with one family member by her. I would have dropped what I was doing and been there."
Taylor’s case is not new to the industry, not even to Diamond Ranch Academy.
She’s the third student to die there since it opened in 1999.
In 2009, James Shirley Jr., 14, died of complications from congenital adrenal hyperplasia, a genetic disorder, while at Diamond Ranch Academy.
According to a lawsuit, in 2013, the academy left a suicidal 16-year-old boy unsupervised and staff members did not help for nearly three minutes when he took his own life.
On December 21st, 2022, the night after Taylor died, former employee Matthew Thomas attended a meeting held for night watch employees, those who monitor children overnight at Diamond Ranch Academy.
“I’m a very suspicious person when it comes to things, so I just set my phone to audio for the meeting or the amount of meeting I was in before I was removed,” Thomas explained.
In the recording, the night watch director is heard briefing staff on Taylor’s death.
“Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with this, probably won’t be the last depending on how long I stay here,” the director addressed the group.
When the director asked if there were any questions, Thomas spoke up.
“I’m a little concerned she got sick and passed away,” Thomas asked. “Like what did she get sick with? Because all these kids are getting sick and we’re sitting here around all of them. Like did she have any pre-existing conditions that…?”
In a muffled recording, the director is heard saying, “She was up and better, well… she seemed like she was doing better… her vitals…”
At that point Thomas interrupted.
“I mean, that’s not what the email said. Because I heard about it this morning, and I went back and I looked through emails because I heard about it like a week ago from Kerry because she said there was a student sick, and I feel like there’s a lot more neglect at play than is what’s being led to believe.”
That day would be Thomas’s last day working at Diamond Ranch. He said he was fired shortly after.
“After the meeting, I quickly downloaded as much stuff as I could off of my email, because I was actually blocked from my email the next day,” Thomas said. “I was fired on December 26, the day after Christmas.”
One of the emails he downloaded Taylor said, "Expressed to be angry and felt like staff weren’t trying to help her with being sick lately."
Another text from a staff member, who wanted to remain anonymous, was sent on December 17th, three days before Taylor died, reading, in part, “Honestly, if she was my kid I would take her to the hospital or at least an instacare.”
“There’s the overall feeling from almost all the kids that they all feel neglected,” said Thomas, “They don’t believe in the program of the school.”
Thomas said he doesn’t think the school helps the children at all.
“They instill in these kids' minds that their parents aren’t going to take them back, this is their last straw,” said Thomas, “So if they leave Diamond Ranch Academy, they’re on their own. And so, it scares them into submission basically.”
“Any time anyone gets sick or has an injury requiring individualized care, they often will label them as dramatic, manipulative liars or lazy and it gives them excuses to ignore their needs,” said Meg Appelgate, CEO of the grassroots organization "Unsilenced."
Applegate knows firsthand what it’s like living inside these facilities.
“I first entered this industry when I was 15 years old, when I was kidnapped from my bed in the middle of the night,” she said, “I was then forced to travel to a lockdown facility in Boise where I spent the next 6 months.”
After Applegate was transferred to a therapeutic boarding school in Montana, she experienced a group therapy tactic called ‘The Circle’ where other kids were forced to scream at a single student in the "hot seat."
“We would hear every personal fear, everything that you’re self-conscious about,” Applegate remembered. “The kind of trauma, of learned helplessness that sprouts from that is so damaging that many people end up going and believing this far beyond when they leave the program.”
For Appelgate, Taylor’s case hits close to home.
“It hit a lot of survivors because anyone could have been Taylor, any one of us could have been her because we were really forced to stay silent about anything that we were going through,” she said.
She’s using her voice now as an advocate for survivors and by trying to educate lawmakers about what she says are faults in the industry.
“We really try to impact change is heavily focusing on forcing transparency into the troubled teen industry,” said Applegate, “And we do that by way of our online program archive, which now has over 100,000 documents and information on over 3,500 programs.”
Now added to that archive is the lawsuit filed by Goodridge on behalf of Taylor, against Diamond Ranch Academy.
“I don’t want to see any child though, any, to go through this,” said Goodridge, “And I feel sorry for everyone that went to DRA or any of these other facilities before this. In my mind, every day I’m terrified for every child that’s there.
Applegate said she stands behind the Goodridge family and their decision to sue.
“I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a facility or program that classifies as part of this industry that doesn’t have at least one allegation of abuse, neglect or worse,” she said.
Concerns with the industry aren’t new to Utah and State Senator Mike McKell has been pushing for amendments for a while now.
“This is an industry that thrived on controlling kids for decades,” he said, “It’s a $500 million industry. And it grew outside of a regulatory structure. We had some oversight, but it was very, very limited as a state.
In 2021, McKell passed Senate Bill 127 with unanimous support.
“I think, what happened with Taylor Goodridge is an example of where, you know, we had a law in place,” said McKell, “The law was violated. I’m very concerned about that.”
The bill, among other things, added new investigators, banned more pain restraints, and mandates weekly, unsupervised phone calls with families.
The week before Taylor died, she and her father were scheduled to get on a call, but Dean said Taylor never got on.
“The reason why the parent coordinator was there was because Taylor got in trouble. For being sick,” said Goodridge, “She got in trouble for laying in the bed below her because she was so sick, she couldn’t get into the top bunk.”
McKell said more action needs to be taken at the state level to prevent cases like Taylor’s from ever happening again.
“This is an industry that needs to be updated,” said McKell, “I’m not comfortable with where we’re at right now.”
