NIGHTMARE RANCH

Christian Programs Accused of Tying Troubled Teens to Goats as Punishment

Twenty-two women claim one Wyoming ranch forced them into hard labor.

A pair of Wyoming-based Christian ranches designed as therapeutic boarding schools for troubled teens are facing a possible class action lawsuit. The Park County-based program, Trinity Teen Solutions, is accused of taking advantage of parents and patients between 2007-2020, promising equine therapy and Christian principles. But Trinity Teen Solutions and its sibling program Triangle Cross Ranch now stand accused of forced child labor, intervening in state investigations, and incidents that allegedly involved forcing the children to “box” one another, branding one teenage boy with a cross, and tying three girls to a goat as punishment, according to interviews and state records obtained by NBC. The program denies the allegations, claiming they gave the kids “chores,” but court filings document labor nothing short of intense. Women who attended Trinity describe cuts, frost bite, and torn ligaments from building barbed wire fences, dragging dead animals and lugging heavy metal pipes for irrigation work. They also describe restricted meals, boiled down to just a can of olives and beans, or being denied bathroom access, leaving them to wet themselves.