Robert was at work when the call came.
It was his wife, and she was frantic. She said she'd just hung up with their daughter's therapist at Asheville Academy, the residential treatment center where they had sent their 14-year-old to live four months earlier.
The program was shutting down, she told him. They had 24 hours to pick her up.
The family, based in Texas, dropped everything. Within hours, Robert’s wife purchased a plane ticket to North Carolina, then drove from Charlotte through a storm to reach the campus in Weaverville.
“We just packed her up and headed home, not knowing why we had to come get her,” says Robert, who stayed in Texas to prepare the house for his daughter's return. “All of a sudden, she's home, and it's like radio silence. We're not hearing anything from Asheville.”
It was May 31, 2025, and everything was unraveling.
Two days earlier, a 12-year-old girl at Asheville Academy had died by suicide. It was the second such death that month; a 13-year-old died on May 3. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services had suspended further admissions on May 27 as it began investigating. Then, the program shuttered.