Death of boy in Trails Carolina wilderness camp ruled homicide

The death of a 12-year-old boy at a controversial wilderness camp for troubled youth in North Carolina has been ruled a homicide, according to an autopsy report.

The teen – identified in documents only as “CJH” – died in February of “asphyxia due to suffocation” after being locked in a damaged bivouac sack, a small enclosed tent, on his first night at Trails Carolina Camp, the state’s chief medical examiner ruled Monday.

It is standard procedure for Trails Carolina campers to spend their first night in a small tent, but staff deviated from this procedure when they noticed that the inner netting on the door of the dead camper’s bivouac was torn.

Instead, they secured the opening with a weatherproof door and equipped it with an alarm system that would go off in the event of an escape attempt.

“He was placed in this vulnerable sleeping area by others and had no opportunity to remove himself from the situation as the opening was secured by the alarm,” the forensic experts wrote, pointing out that bivouac products often advise against fully securing the weatherproof opening as this could lead to “respiratory obstruction.”

“Standard protocol was deviated from as a damaged bivouac was used and the outer weatherproof door was secured instead of the inner mesh panel.”

No charges have been filed since the report, but the Transylvania County Sheriff’s Office has been conducting a criminal investigation since the death in February.

Trails Carolina has repeatedly claimed the death was an accident.

However, police claim that the camp did not fully cooperate with the investigation and deliberately relocated its campers to another location to avoid contact with investigators.

The camp was closed in May after the Department of Health found that the facility “posed a threat to the health, safety and welfare of clients.”

According to the autopsy report, 12-year-old CJH had a history of anxiety, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and migraines.

He arrived from New York for what he described as a naturopathic treatment program less than 24 hours before his death. Caregivers told investigators he was “loud and angry,” refused to eat dinner and suffered a panic attack around midnight.

Caregivers checked on CJH at 3 and 6 a.m. but were unable to see the boy because the bivouac’s “outer, opaque layer” was closed, the autopsy report said.

When the boy was found “cold and stiff” at 7:45 a.m., his body was turned 180 degrees from the entrance and his feet were near the opening, “allowing the waterproof material to fall on his head and face,” the report said.

Trails Carolina did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.

With post wires