Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
This episode of Swindled may contain graphic descriptions or audio recordings of disturbing events which may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
And the Orlando freefall is a brand new ride at Icon Park. It just opened up at the end of December. At 430 feet high, it is the world's tallest freestanding drop tower. It takes people slowly into the sky and then drops them at speeds of up to 75 miles per hour. At 11:12 p.m. on Thursday, March 24th, 2022,
What is the name of the business, sir?
Orlando slingshot and free fall. Okay. Yes. Okay. Tell me exactly what happened. Sir, tell me exactly what happened. The ride was going and during the middle of the ride, the guy just came off. Okay. I had help on the way. Okay. Is he, is he awake? No, he's dead. He's dead. He's dead.
At first we thought it was a piece of the ride or whatever until we got a little closer and it was a person laying on the ground. Montre Williams told Fox 35. Everyone was just panicking and screaming. It was all captured on a cell phone video. Get us up! Get us up! Get us up! Get us up! Get us up! Get us up! Get us up! Get us up, bro!
Later that night, in St. Louis, Missouri, Yarnell Sampson stumbled across that video as it went viral on TikTok and Twitter. The footage is harrowing. He couldn't even imagine what that family was going through. It made Yarnell think about his own son, Tyree, who had traveled to Florida with a friend's family earlier that week for a football camp.
At 14 years old, Tyree Sampson stood 6 foot 5 inches tall and weighed over 300 pounds. A massive and natural athlete and an honor roll student, had his head on straight. There was no doubt that Big Tick, as Tyree's friends called him, would go pro someday. Yarnell Sampson went to bed so proud of his boy.
The next morning, he received the worst phone call of his life. Terrible story. The search is on for answers after a 14-year-old boy fell to his death at a Florida amusement park. Late last night, Tyrese Sampson fell from the free fall ride at Icon Park in Orlando. The teen who was visiting from Missouri with a friend's family died at the hospital. Park operators say they are saddened and devastated, and they're cooperating with investigators. That ride is 430 feet tall and is billed as the world's tallest freestanding drop tower.
The Orlando freefall operation has been suspended indefinitely while the investigation unfolds. The Slingshot Group, which owns the attraction, released a statement confirming that they were fully cooperating with the authorities and that they were heartbroken and devastated that something like this happened. Understandably, Tyree Sampson's family was also struggling with the news. What do I go from here? Ain't no sleep here. Ain't no eatin'.
In the immediate days after the tragedy, Yarnell Sampson arranged to bring his son's body home to St. Louis. Tyree's mother, Nakia Dodd, also stricken with grief, planned a funeral and launched a GoFundMe to help cover the cost.
Meanwhile, other family members remained on site at Icon Park in Orlando, where the freefall ride had transformed into a makeshift memorial for Tyree. "Sign the ride now!" Shay Johnson walks along I-Drive with about two dozen people holding signs and megaphones. They want the Orlando freefall ride shut down permanently after Shay's 14-year-old cousin Tyree Sampson was killed while riding it. "And so you actually created a petition, correct?" "Yes."
to get this ride taken down. They have around 4,500 signatures and Shay, what are you going to do with those signatures after you collect, what, 5,000 you're telling me? Yes. I'm going to take them to the lawyer and I'm going to take it to City Hall. Tyree Sampson's cousin, Shay Johnson, spoke with multiple news outlets about what unfolded that night. Shay said Tyree called her from the park and asked for money and she said that he told her he had been turned away from two other rides earlier due to his size.
He said, I know you got all the money. Cousin, let me owe some money. I said, I don't got no money. He said, yes, you do. So I went back to my job and I got him some money and I brought it back out. And I said, what you finna do with it? He said, I want to get on the swing on International. I said, okay, ride it twice and ride it for me too. And he called me back about seven minutes later. He said,
They said I'm too big, I can't ride. So I said go try another one. That's when he came to try the slingshot and he said they told him he was too big for that. So he said well cousin it's another ride, I'm gonna try that. I said okay. And he called me and he said they let me ride. I can ride, I can ride. I said okay get on. Didn't know this would be my last time talking to him live. He just wanted to ride and have a good time.
My cousin lost his life over this ride," Shay Johnson told Fox 35. "I don't feel it's safe and feel it should be shut down before someone else's family have to go through what we are going through." Shay started collecting signatures on a petition to close the Orlando freefall permanently. She swore to stay on site from sunup to sundown until the ride was taken down.
At a public memorial for Tyree Sampson at Icon Park, Shea Johnson gave a heart-wrenching eulogy for her cousin. This is hurting us. The hurtiest thing I had to do was clean his blood up. They didn't even clean it. The next day, she was at a balloon release ceremony, remembering some of the good times. Me calling him fat boy and him calling me mini-me because I was always shorter than him.
And I think that's what I'm going to miss the most. Shea Johnson showed up for Tyree every day. It was her duty. She became the voice of a family that was hurting badly and needed to be heard. I have to have my voice heard. I'm doing it for my cousin. He's not here for his voice to be heard. So I got to be his voice. I got to be his mom's voice. I got to be his dad's voice. I just got to be the voice for my family. That voice was asking for justice.
While the investigation to determine if someone was at fault for the accident has not concluded, the Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services has released the operations manual for the Orlando freefall, inspection records, training schedules, and the accident report. The operation manual warns, quote,
Be careful when seeing if large guests fit into the seats. Check that they fit within the contours of the seat and the bracket fits properly. If this is not so, do not let this person ride. Seems obvious enough, but in the video footage of the incident, it appears that Tyree's overhead harness does not fit properly. It comes to a stop on top of his belly, while harnesses for the other, smaller riders are locked between the legs. There was also a weight limit that seemed to have been ignored.
According to the operations manual, that weight limit is 130 kilograms. That's roughly 287 American pounds. Tyrese Sampson weighed 340 plus. He never should have been allowed on that ride. There also appears to be a potential design flaw. According to the accident report, quote, Freefall was coming down the tower. When the magnets engaged, the patron came out of the seat. Harness was still in a down and locked position when the ride stopped.
Independence ride safety experts have also pointed out that there were no seatbelts in place as a last resort. In the video after the fall, you can hear the ride operators ask each other if they had checked Tyree's harness. One confirms he had, and it was locked.
But obviously Tyree Simpson had not been fully restrained, and Tyree knew it. According to the friend sitting next to Tyree on the ride, Tyree started panicking as the freefall made its initial ascent. He turned and said, I don't know, man. If I don't make it down, please tell my mom and daddy I love them. I'm also here today to reassure Tyree's family, friends, and family
and all those impacted by this tragedy, that we are fully committed to finding out what happened so we can better prevent such tragedies from happening in the future. And that's why we will not be jumping to any conclusions before the information is provided to us and we know all the facts. Nikki Fried, Florida's Agriculture Commissioner, promised a complete and thorough investigation into the death of Tyree Sampson.
She announced that the agency hired a forensic engineering firm to help, but they would not be jumping to any conclusions. Results of that investigation are pending. We are not taking this lightly. We are going to do everything in our power, and including potentially increasing our power, to make sure that something like this never happens again.
In response to the tragedy, calls for a regulation overhaul at both the state and federal levels have grown louder. There is currently no federal oversight for fixed-site amusement park rides. The American Society for Testing and Materials issues industry guidelines, but it is up to the individual states to adopt and enforce them. It remains to be seen if Tyrese Sampson's death will strengthen oversight in Florida or on a national level. In the meantime, other things are becoming clear.
And in a strange twist here, we are now learning the woman who had been very outspoken about this whole thing, the woman who claimed to be Samson's cousin, is not at all related to the family. We heard from Shea Johnson earlier this week. She claimed that she spoke with the teen the night of the fall. But the Orange County Sheriff's Office now says Samson's mother told detectives that she has no idea who this person is and she does not speak for their family.
On April 1st, 2022, the Orlando Sentinel reported that the woman calling herself Shea Johnson was actually 32-year-old Louishana Browning. She was not related to Tyree Sampson. She did not know Tyree Sampson or his family. She never gave him money. On the night of the fall, Louishana was at work.
William Sear, her boss at Flash Dancers Orlando, told Spectrum News that Lois Shana, aka Candy Red, was dancing that night and the next night and never mentioned being related to Tyree. "We were as surprised as anyone else," he told Spectrum. "Again, her working Thursday and Friday, then Saturday we see it on the news. We knew immediately it was fraudulent."
For her to go on national TV and claim that she's related to someone just to better herself, it just crossed the line and I felt horrible for the family. Lois Shana Browning was fired. She disconnected her cell phone and someone tipped off the news who began digging into Lois Shana's past. They found a lengthy rap sheet comprised mostly of domestic abuse charges, vandalism, and driving without a license.
It was also discovered that Lois Shana Browning was currently awaiting trial on felony arson and criminal mischief charges. She's accused of torching her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend's car. On Lois Shana's phone, cops found photos of her in the hospital with burned legs and a Google search history that included the phrase, "What is the best thing to set a car on fire? Lighter fluid? Gas?" This trial could last for weeks.
The good news for Lois Shana Browning is that no charges have been filed against her related to her impersonation of Tyree Sampson's cousin. The Orange County Sheriff's Office says they have found no evidence that she broke the law, other than a plan to print and sell t-shirts featuring Tyree's face. There doesn't even appear to be a financial motive, but that didn't mean other people weren't trying.
While simultaneously fending off the phonies, the family raised enough money to bury Tyree Sampson on April 2, 2022. The majority of the expenses were covered by popular Jacksonville-based rapper YK Osiris.
YK donated $15,000 to the official GoFundMe and posted a screenshot for the world to see. But after the funeral, Tyree Sampson's brother, J-Rock, called YK out publicly. "YK Osiree or whatever dude name is canceled. Used Lil Bro for pure clout," a Facebook post read. "Didn't pay a dime but told the world otherwise.
Even posted a fake screenshot of a GoFundMe donation. Stop pretending you about giving back to the community just to get your sales up. Lame as hell. I'm not even going to argue about it, J-Rock wrote on another post that included a screenshot showing a list of donations. Top donation, $500, as shown. We didn't ask. Osiris volunteered. Stop lying to these people. You used my bro for clout. That's that. And the pain behind it can never be taken away.
And sorry is not going to take it back. Ain't no monies, no nothing in the world to replace that young man. And it's just sad. It's sad. A young man's bright future is taken away from him over a ride or amusement park.
Both of Tyree's parents have retained lawyers. Nakia Dodd is represented by Bob Hillard out of Texas. Yarnell Sampson hired Ben Crump, the Tallahassee-based attorney best known for representing the families of Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, and George Floyd. Crump has said that Tyree's death was completely preventable and that quote, "Other than George Floyd's tragic torture video, I think this is the worst tragedy captured on video that I've ever seen."
There's still much to be determined with potential criminal and civil charges pending. But one thing is for sure, injuries and fatalities at amusement parks will continue to happen. All it takes is one wrong move.
Less than three weeks after Tyree Sampson's fall, a ride operator at the Clay County Fair in Florida was injured when he became trapped under the bottom of a machine while retrieving a lost hat. Thankfully, he survived.
That same day, a four-year-old child in Australia was left unharnessed in a free-fall ride. A popular thrill ride at the Royal Easter Show has been shut down after it got underway with a four-year-old boy not strapped in. Luckily, he was okay. Both of those incidents are still under investigation. Both are trying to answer that familiar question. Who's at fault? Is the designer, the operator, or the regulator to blame?
Was it negligence? Was it gross? Is it manslaughter? Is it murder? Maybe it's the owner's fault for even building that stupid ride in the first place. But as many have argued, isn't there an inherent risk one accepts by entertaining themselves with such delights? Lord knows one never feels more alive than after being in the grips of heavy machinery operated by a teenaged carny. We're all forever chasing that high. But it's over before you know it. Back to where we started.
Dismount in an orderly fashion please. Let the next group in line taste the thrill. We know, accidents happen. But, could it have been avoided? And if so, since it wasn't, does that constitute a crime? For instance, what if engineers ignored warning signs in their quest to build the biggest, tallest, fastest water slide in the world? Should they shoulder the blame if something goes terribly wrong? What if those engineers were not even really engineers at all? And then someone dies?
An inevitable tragedy at a theme park in Kansas City leads to questions of culpability, accountability, and responsibility on this episode of Swindled.
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♪ Do you remember the best times we ever had ♪ ♪ They always happened in the summertime ♪ ♪ Well, so dive into these sunny days ♪ ♪ And now we can play, we can make lots of memories ♪ ♪ At Shredder Bar ♪ ♪ Well, it's the hottest, coolest time in Kansas ♪ ♪ We're going to Shredder Bar ♪
Schlitterbahn is widely considered the gold standard of water parks. Initially conceived in 1966 as a campground resort with a single waterslide, the family-owned park in New Braunfels, Texas has won Amusement Today's Golden Ticket Award for Best Water Park 23 years in a row and has expanded to five different locations.
Much of Schlitterbahn's success can be attributed to one man's consistent innovation: Jeff Henry. People call him the Wizard of Wet, Lord of the Slides, the Aquatic, Walt Disney. Jeff Henry is the son of Schlitterbahn founder Bob Henry. Jeff and his two siblings took over the park when his parents retired in 1989.
Gary, his brother, focused on operations. His sister Jana handled the retail side of the business and Jeff Henry designed the rides. He was a visionary. Uphill water slides, lazy rivers, landlocked surfing. Jeff Henry's designs revolutionized the water park industry. He took great pride in his work. There was no patience for a second place.
That bravado was on full display at a water park trade show in October 2012. Jeff Henry and his longtime collaborator John Schooley had an impromptu encounter with a couple of executives from the Travel Channel. The TV guys told Jeff about a new show they were working on called "Extreme Water Parks." So, according to Jeff, who told this story to Grantland, he asked the Travel Channel guys what it would take to make him the number one feature on the show.
They told him building the biggest, tallest, or fastest would do it. So, that's what Jeff Henry told them he was doing, even though it didn't exist. Yet. I always set out to break all the records. I want to be the first at the bar to buy a drink, and I want to be the first to meet a pretty girl, and I want to be the first at everything, and I want to have the biggest, the tallest, and the fastest rides in my parks. The next one I build is going to be twice as big, and then the one after that is going to be even bigger than that. Alright, calm down, Jeff. Let's play it cool.
You still have to sell this obnoxious idea to your family of co-owners and financiers, remember? You might want to clean up the drool a bit. It was an easy pitch. Jeff would build the new, record-breaking waterslide that Schlitterbontz recently opened, Fledgling Park in Kansas City, Kansas.
the Travel Channel show was offering to provide free promotion. They could probably get the Guinness Book of World Records involved. It would completely renew interest in the Kansas City Park, which at one time had stirred up quite a frenzy. "That what you're going to see is people will come to Kansas, the Kansas City area quite frankly, and instead of staying one or two days, we're going to see them stay maybe for a week." Everyone agreed that building the world's tallest and fastest water slide was a good idea.
Schlitterbahn publicly announced the new ride on November 14th, 2012. This ride is going to be the tallest, the fastest, the first of its kind ever built. It's going to be wickedly fast. It's going to be wickedly dangerous. The first people down this thing are going to be terrified for sure. Not just the tallest, not just the biggest, not just the fastest, but the coolest. I'm doing something that's never been done before.
Schlitterbahn said that this new extreme, yet to be named waterslide, would be open to the public by summer 2013. They promised it would break the current world records for speed and height. Our greatest challenge will be to find thrill-seekers brave enough to ride, Jeff Henry told Engineering.com.
Jeff was boisterous as always but everybody involved knew it wouldn't be easy. This is Jeff's collaborator John Scholey talking about what their crew was up against. It's like a roller coaster but it's more complicated on a roller coaster because you have water involved and it's hard to exactly, it's much harder to quantify what the water effects are than what just rollers on rails are for a regular roller coaster. So this is very challenging.
The summer of 2013 came and went, and the world's tallest waterslide was nothing more than a half-scale model at a warehouse in Texas. Once construction began on the full-scale version in Kansas City, weather delays and miscalculations continued to slow the project down. A little behind schedule, but the excitement persisted, courtesy of some new details about the ride that emerged by the end of the year.
A water slide that is an inch taller than Niagara Falls could soon open in Kansas City, and they call it the Wehr-Rut, German for insane. The 168-foot-tall slide is the tallest in the world. You slide down a raft that could reach speeds up to 50 miles an hour, you're on a raft. It's not even open to the public yet because there are safety concerns. The engineers are still testing it.
Engineers were still testing the Verruckt, and the Verruckt was still testing them. The crew built and rebuilt the slide probably a dozen times over two years. Every raft they sent down went airborne on the second hill and crashed to the ground. Fortunately, only sandbags were the passengers on those early tests. The Travel Channel was there to document it all. Look at this ridiculousness going on. Money going down the drain.
Frustration isn't the right word. Now I'm getting pissed off. I need a beer. After months of failed tests, Jeff Henry decided to tear down much of what had been built to redesign it himself.
He used a hand-drawn sketch as a blueprint since none of the previous math and calculations had worked. My partner John sometimes is an idiot and he messed up the engineering. Now we went back and rebuilt it my way. 30 months and $3.6 million later, the Verruckt was finally unveiled.
It stood a towering 168 feet and 7 inches. Taller than Niagara Falls. Taller than the Statue of Liberty. Riders would have to climb 264 stairs to get to the top. Jeff Henry and John Schooley volunteered to be the first to do so. Jeff said he wore his cowboy boots just in case he died.
Neither Jeff nor John was injured or killed. The slide worked, for the most part.
Quick, someone call Guinness. Someone call the governor. Get the mayor on the line. They need to know. Schlitterbahn is putting Kansas City, Kansas on the fun map.
It is insane and that's actually what it's called. It's called Verruckt, which is German for insane. And today the governor of Kansas, Sam Brownback, Mayor Casey Kay, Mark Holland, officials from the Guinness Book of World Records will all be here to officially measure this water slide and submit it for the world record. Today I can confirm that the official measurement for Verruckt
It was Geoff Henry's crowning achievement. On April 25th, 2014, the Verruckt officially became the world's tallest waterslide.
"This is an erotic piece of art," Henry told Grantland about the Verruckt. "It's gorgeous. It's just a beautiful shape. It's grander curves, grander valances, steeper drops. Everything is just really, really, really sexy." It's hard to imagine, but Geoff Henry wasn't entirely satisfied with its creation. More specifically, Geoff Henry wasn't happy that the rafts were still flying off the slide on occasion during the test.
So, after the record-setting event, Henry and Scholey dismantled two-thirds of the slide to adjust the angle of the second hill.
Aerial photos of the deconstruction leaked to the media, so Henry began making adjustments at night. He was like a mad scientist who couldn't rest until his monster came alive. I'm going to prove to everybody when we finish this on time and everybody sees it running and sees it working that I'm not crazy. He added squeeze zones to slow down the rafts. He adjusted the power of the water cannons to ease the velocity, and he added netting on top of the slide, just in case the raft catches air.
But all that tinkering was wasting valuable time. Verruckt's opening was delayed again and again. From May 23rd, 2014 to June 29th. It wouldn't be ready for the park's season opener. But it would be operational by the time the Travel Channel's one-hour special about the construction of the Verruckt was set to debut. But then, the conveyor belt that hoist the rafts to the top malfunctioned. Verruckt's opening was delayed again until early July.
Despite this being the ride's third delay to open, most visitors here at Schlitterbahn plan to return for the ride. Derek Potts just caught the end of a test run. The raft slowly made it over the final hill. They have a little net over the top, so it looks like they'll catch you if you fly off of it. Good enough for him to let his 10-year-old daughter take the drop come opening day.
Others said, "No thanks." All the delays and retesting were ringing too many alarms. Are you gonna go on that water slide? No. Why not? It's too scary. But Verruckt's creator insisted that it was safe. It's been tested. It's been evaluated. But you're saying it is safe? Hell yeah. This ride is probably the safest speed slide that's ever been built. On July 10th, 2014, the Verruckt opened to the public.
National media outlets descended upon Schlitterbahn in Kansas City to send their lowest ranked correspondent down the slide with a camera.
Next tonight, a kind of daredevil race underway at America's big theme parks. Bigger, faster, scarier new rides. And tomorrow, the world's tallest water slide opens, higher than the Statue of Liberty. The world's tallest water slide is set to open. The 168-foot-tall slide is in Kansas City, and it opens tomorrow. That's taller than both Niagara Falls and the Statue of Liberty. The slide plummets riders at up to 70 miles an hour on four-person rafts.
Three-person rafts, actually. That's one of the adjustments made by Jeff Henry and the designers. The rafts set three people with a combined required weight of between 400 and 550 pounds.
Riders would be required to weigh in at the bottom of the stairs and again at the top platform just before launch. Then, if the math works out, riders would be fastened to their seats with Velcro straps and sent over the edge of a 17-story near vertical drop before being launched up a second massive hill followed by another 50-foot fall.
It's just like a roller coaster. Stomach drops out, you get that rush, and this one you just kept going and going. You're just kind of airborne for a second, and then just a rush, I guess. The second hump right there is even scarier than the first one. You're going down, you think it's all over. It ain't over. Once you're strapped down,
It's kind of just hang on for dear life. You can't look down. It's literally they open the gate and you're like, oh, and then the raft drops and you can't see anything but netting and sky. The drop, you feel like you're off the ground for like 10 seconds. Great. And you're hanging on for dear life. I would probably do it again. It was maybe the most intense 25 or so seconds of my life. Yeah, yeah. That's what they all say.
But the critics agreed. Schlitterbahn, Kansas City's Verruckt was sensational. The giant slide took home the award for best new water park ride at the 2014 Golden Ticket Awards with 59% of the vote. It was so popular that the park implemented a reservation system to manage the crowds.
But two years after Verruckt opened, something horrible would happen. Something unimaginable. Something inevitable that would drown out any joy the world's tallest water slide may have brought to this world. We can go where the rivers connect us. We can go where the current takes us. Always the hottest, coolest time. Let's go to Schlederbach.
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and I was looking at possibly taking another job. My wife was possibly looking at another job, and we both had job interviews that week. And we were talking about it as we were leaving the house. I remember grabbing the keys off the hook. I said, honey, our lives are fixing to change. Sunday, August 7th, 2016, was elected officials day at Schlitterbahn in Kansas City. That meant free admission for state representative Scott Schwab and his family.
After church, Scott and his wife Michelle watched their four boys light up when they were told what was in store for the rest of the day. The morning cloud cover had dissipated by the time the Schwab family arrived at the water park. It was about 78 degrees and sunny. You couldn't ask for a better afternoon. Once inside, the two oldest sons, 12-year-old Nathan and 10-year-old Caleb, made a beeline for Verruckt. Before they took off, I said, brothers stick together.
He says, I know, Dad. The brothers stuck together until they couldn't. The scale at the bottom of the world's tallest water slide demanded they would need a third, 300-plus pound passenger in order to meet the minimum weight restriction. Instead, Nathan and Caleb were split up. They were permitted to ride the Verruckt separately, with two unfamiliar adults seated behind them. Nathan's crew launched first.
The Verruckt performed as advertised. Thirty exhilarating seconds later, 12-year-old Nathan Schwab was back on dry land, waiting for his little brother to fly down the chute. That's when he heard a sickening thud. Nathan watched Caleb's raft go airborne over the second hill. The 10-year-old's head slammed into the round metal support beams of the safety netting at 65 miles per hour.
The impact ripped Caleb's head off his shoulders, striking the passengers behind him. One woman had a broken jaw. The other suffered a fractured orbital. We saw his friend screaming and crying about it. His friend was screaming for help, and then I think that's when staff members and medics and stuff started running. Nathan Schwab ran to retrieve his parents, who were camped out with their two youngest children.
Nathan tried to explain what happened, but words were difficult to muster. "He fell from Verruckt. He fell from Verruckt," the 12-year-old repeated. There was a gentleman who wouldn't allow me to come close enough to see what was going on. And he just kept saying, "No, trust me, you don't want to go any further."
As Scott and Michelle Schwab approached the giant water slide, the gravity of the situation began to reveal itself. They were in complete and utter shock. I said, I just need to hear you say it. Is my son dead? And he just shook his head. And I said, I need to hear it from you. Is he dead? He says, yes, your son is dead.
new tonight a tragic death at a water park in kansas tragic accident at a popular water park a young boy died while riding the rocked water slide at schlitterbaum park in kansas city kansas it's a shocking story for families across the nation but we can confirm that the young boy
is Caleb Schwab of Olathe. Family pastor says the boy is 10 years old and the son of Kansas State Representative Scott Schwab. It was elected officials day here at the water park, a day that went terribly wrong on the world's tallest water slide. I saw most of what happened. I didn't see all of it, but I heard the noise. I looked over immediately and I saw his broken neck and him sliding down the slide, leaving a blood trail.
We are saddened to share that a 10-year-old boy died on Verruckt this afternoon, Schlitterbahn said in a statement. Given that safety is our first priority, we have closed the Kansas City Park today and Monday and have closed the ride pending a full investigation. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family during this difficult time. Schlitterbahn's corporate communications director also held a press conference but did not have much information to share. Why is it that you don't have any information about it?
That evening, the Schwab family released a statement of their own. Quote,
Michelle and I want to thank the Olathe and Kansas City, Kansas communities and all of our friends and family for their outpouring of support and compassion as it relates to the sudden loss of our son Caleb Thomas Schwab. Since the day he was born, he brought abundant joy to our family and all those he came in contact with. As we try to mend our home with him no longer with us, we are comforted knowing he believed in our Savior Jesus and they are forever together now. We will see him another day.
Schlitterbahn, Kansas City reopened less than 72 hours later. The Verruckt was understandably out of order. A lengthy and thorough investigation was already underway.
Now we're learning more about that horrific waterslide accident that killed a 10-year-old boy in Kansas. According to a person familiar with the investigation, Caleb Schwab, the kid, was decapitated. The son of a Kansas state lawmaker died Sunday while riding the Verruckt ride at the Schlitzerbahn water park in Kansas City. The two adults who were in the raft with him suffered facial injuries.
Since the accident, at least two people who've ridden on the water slide have come forward saying their shoulder straps snapped or popped off while they were on the ride. Now, the exact cause of Sunday's accident, though, is still under investigation. A few months after the accident, on November 22, 2016, Schlitterbahn announced that it planned to remove Verruckt from the Kansas City park. In a statement, the company wrote...
All of us at Schlitterbahn have been heartbroken over the tragedy that occurred on Verruckt. In our 50 years of providing an environment for families and friends together, we've never experienced this kind of devastating event. Once the investigation is concluded and we are given permission by the court, Verruckt will be decommissioned, closed permanently, and the slide removed from the tower.
In our opinion, it is the only proper course of action following this tragedy. We will, at some point in the future, announce what will be built in its place. As we move forward, we assure everyone who works for us and the community, we remain wholly committed to our Kansas City Park and the original vision of Schlitterbahn, providing a great place to work and an environment for families and friends to gather together.
The Schwab family sued Schlitterbahn and related parties. In January 2017, the company settled with the family for a reported $20 million. Scott Schwab announced that part of the money would be used to start a foundation in Caleb's honor. It's called Can I Go Play? That was Caleb's favorite question. He was a sports fanatic. The foundation provides scholarships for club sports for those unable to pay.
In February 2017, the Schwab family broke their silence for the first time since the tragedy. Scott told Good Morning America, "We have a box of greeting cards from around the world, and we just want people to know we're grateful. And yeah, we're still hurting, but we're going to be okay." Later that year, in April 2017, Kansas passed a new law spearheaded by Representative Scott Schwab that strengthened amusement park regulations in the state.
If signed into law by Governor Brownback, the new legislation would require amusement park rides to be inspected by experienced outside engineers. Previously in Kansas and many other states, amusement parks were allowed to inspect their own rides privately. And I love every one of you and I thank you for everything you have done for our family. But this bill's really not about Caleb. I think we understand that. It's for the next kid that goes someplace in Kansas for a fun weekend.
It's on their behalf. I want to thank you because on September 7th, a month after the incident, when our inspectors went to the park, I wanted to meet the team. So I went back to the park to meet our team. And I had to re-walk Nathan's steps and my steps and my wife's steps because my imagination was way worse than reality. It was surreal. But the boom we had to use for our inspectors to look at needed a permit.
at a slide that didn't. So this is a good measure. And for those of you who have consternation with the expansion of government, sometimes you just need some because even John Adams expanded government when he created the US Navy. So... Governor Brownback signed the bill on April 24th, 2017. That same month, Schlitterbahn also settled claims with the two sisters injured on Verruckt for an undisclosed amount.
And with that, the civil complaints were behind the company. But the criminal investigation lingered on without an end in sight. It's an accident, but there's an accounting because someone was negligent.
Back in 2014, the Verrückt water slide at a water park in Kansas was billed as the tallest in the world. The ride was shut down two years later after the death of a 10-year-old boy, and now comes the first criminal charges lodged against the Schlitterbahn water park and Tyler Austin Miles, a former executive. On March 19, 2018, a grand jury in Wyandotte County, Kansas, convened to review evidence in the 2016 death of Caleb Thomas Schwab.
Four days later, a criminal indictment was unsealed, charging the Schlitterbahn Corporation and the 29-year-old operations manager of the Kansas City Park, Tyler Austin Miles, with 20 felony counts, including involuntary manslaughter. The indictment alleges that a fatal accident was a foreseeable and expected outcome.
Mr. Miles had avoided or delayed repairing Verruckt's severe maintenance issues. Punctures in the rafts were patched with duct tape. The hook and loop Velcro seat restraints were allowed to erode so severely that they routinely tore loose during rides, as corroborated by multiple witnesses, and the Verruckt's braking system was on the verge of failing. Tyler Miles, the man responsible for ordering the repairs, ignored most of those reports.
The indictment also alleges that Tyler Miles and other Schlitterbahn staff were aware of ongoing issues with Raft B, the raft that Caleb Schwab boarded on August 7, 2016. Raft B was notorious for going airborne, but it was rarely taken out of circulation. There were 17 separate staff reports voicing concern about the defective raft during the summer of 2015 and 2016. There were five reports about Raft B during the week that Caleb Schwab was killed.
According to the indictment, Tyler Miles ignored them all. As a result, investigators discovered that before Caleb's death, at least 13 other Verruckt riders had suffered injuries ranging from broken toes and lacerations to concussions and slipped discs. In June 2016, about a month and a half before Caleb's death, a man named JJ Groves rode the world's tallest waterslide with his wife and son.
The raft, like Caleb's and many others, went airborne on the second hill, causing Mr. Groves' face and forehead to collide with the overhead hoop and netting. The lifeguard waiting in the run-out pool below commented that the raft had gone down the slide way too fast. J.J. Groves did not suffer any significant injuries, but his eye was swollen shut for the rest of the day.
According to the indictment, an incident report was filed, but ultimately destroyed by Tyler Miles, who then forced lifeguards to write coached statements that omitted any detail of how the injury occurred. Investigators only learned about Verut's pervasive maintenance issues and injuries after a 17-year-old lifeguard came forward with details of a cover-up. Miles, who appeared cooperative during the early stages of the investigation, did not turn over the reports to detectives.
In fact, Miles loaded the documents into his car and drove them from Kansas City to Texas. When investigators asked Tyler Miles if he was aware of any previous injuries related to Verruckt, he said no. In addition to the manslaughter charge, Tyler Austin Miles was charged with two counts of interference with law enforcement for not being forthcoming with the documents or the truth. Authorities said that the investigation had been delayed for six months as a result of the operation manager's actions.
Tyler Austin Miles was also charged with multiple counts of aggravated battery and aggravated endangering a child for the past injuries that occurred on the Verruckt under his watch. As the operations manager, Miles had failed to address the almost daily reports that something was very wrong with the slide. Authorities alleged that most, if not all, of the injuries could have been avoided had Tyler Austin Miles done his job. The indictment read,
Evidence in the form of corporate emails, memoranda, blueprints, video recordings, photographs, and eyewitness statements revealed that this child's death and the rapidly growing list of injuries were foreseeable and expected outcomes. Varouk's designers and operators knew that Varouk posed a substantial and unjustifiable risk of death or severe bodily harm. Schlitterbaum begged to differ.
The company, which had also been named in the indictment, released a statement saying how they were, quote, The company added, quote,
Throughout his employment with us, our operations director, Tyler, demonstrated the highest dedication to safety, from the training of our lifeguards and ride operators, to ensuring all rides have operated in accordance with our strict protocols. He was conscientious and committed to providing visitors to the water park a safe and enjoyable experience. Tyler left us in September to accept a great opportunity. We were sorry to see him go and wished him well.
We stand by him and are shocked by these allegations. Tyler Miles turned himself in and pleaded not guilty to all of the charges. His attorney said the charges alleging their client avoided or delayed repairs and covered up similar incidents were not true. Quote, "Not only had Tyler ridden the slide numerous times, but, as the state is aware, he had scheduled his wife to ride it on the day of the accident. These are not the actions of someone who believed the ride to be dangerous.
The grand jury disagreed, and they had more charges coming down the pipe.
In reality, Schlitterbahn should have seen it coming. Everybody knows that the first drop is scary, but it's the second one that really makes you shake. It's the latest in a string of charges this week tied to the death of 10-year-old Caleb Schwab at Schlitterbahn Waterpark. The newest charges are against ride designer John Schooley, Schlitterbahn co-owner Jeff Henry, and Henry's Construction Company. Each is charged with battery, child endangerment, and second-degree murder.
On March 27th, 2018, the Kansas Attorney General unsealed a new indictment charging Schlitterbahn co-owner, 62-year-old Jeffrey Wayne Henry, his Henry & Sons Construction Company, and Henry's right-hand designer man, John Timothy Schooley, with second-degree murder for the death of Caleb Schwab, in addition to 12 counts of aggravated battery and 5 counts of aggravated endangering of a child for the past injuries sustained on Verruth.
The indictment alleges that Jeff Henry, the "waterslide visionary," rushed to complete the design and construction of a route to impress the Travel Channel. The indictment also states that Henry was motivated by a desire to flaunt his achievements, as evidenced by the contents of corporate emails. "I'm gonna brag a lot," he wrote. In his rushed quest to be the best, the indictment alleges that Mr. Henry skipped fundamental steps in the design process, resulting in a "dangerously flawed construction."
Jeff Henry may be creative, but he's no engineer. Jeff Henry dropped out of school at age 14. He may have been around water slides most of his life and knew how they worked, but he was incapable of doing the physics. Instead, Jeff Henry essentially just drew a slide on a piece of paper, wrote the word big with an arrow pointing to it, and grunted it into existence.
The indictment indicated that the lead designer, John Schooley, another man who possessed no engineering credential relevant to amusement ride design or safety, was responsible for doing the math. But instead of math, Henry and company relied almost entirely on crude trial and error methods. At one point in the design process, John Schooley actually admitted as much, quote, "...if we actually knew how to do this, and it could be done that easily, it wouldn't be that spectacular."
Jeff Henry continued to push the project forward, despite others' warnings and misgivings. In a string of emails sent on December 14, 2012, Henry wrote,
The indictment says that after Caleb's death, experts who examined the ride found that Verruck's design violated nearly all aspects of the long-standing industry safety standards. John Hunsucker, the founder of the National Aquatic Safety Company, was actually a consultant on Verruck. Hunsucker warned Henry before and after the ride opened to the public that it was "unfinished and was still in an unsafe condition." Geoff Henry obviously ignored those concerns.
Jeff Henry also ignored his own eyes, the indictment purported. The rafts were flying off the slide during testing, plain as day. There's footage of it on the Travel Channel show. Jeff Henry even comments on it. It fell backwards, tipped over, and killed every sandbag in there. But despite the red flags and constant delays for rebuilds, Verruckt was open for business, design flaws and all.
According to the indictment, the most obvious and potentially lethal flaw was that Verruck's design guaranteed that rafts would occasionally go airborne in a manner that could severely injure or kill the occupants. Henry, Schooley, and Miles all knew about this problem before the ride opened to the public. A video of the Caleb Schwab incident shows the 10-year-old boy abiding by all the rules. He was seated, strapped in, and his group's combined weight was in the acceptable range.
The original age restriction of 16 years old had been lowered to 14 years old, despite industry suggestions. But the day before Verruckt opened, Geoff Henry scrapped the age restriction altogether, which allowed Caleb to ride. In the face of the accusations, Schlitterbaum vowed to fight.
Since the date of the incident, we have worked closely with law enforcement, the company said in a statement. At no time have we withheld evidence. At no time have we altered evidence. The indictment uses quoted statements from a reality TV show that was scripted for dramatic effect that in no way reflects the design and construction of the ride.
Here's their statement saying, "We as a company and as a family will fight these allegations and have confidence that once the facts are presented, it will be clear that what happened on the ride was an unforeseeable accident." Jeff Henry was taken into custody on South Padre Island, Texas on March 27th, 2018. He was transported to Kansas City, Kansas a few days later, where he pleaded not guilty to the charges and bonded out for $500,000.
Afterward, Henry's attorney, Carl Cornwell, did all the talking. In this indictment, which suggests that my client...
did this under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life is ridiculous. That's the furthest thing from the truth. This is just ridiculous. I don't know why people think this is a criminal case. It makes no sense to me that it's a criminal case. It's just not. He does not have any formal education in terms of engineering or physics, correct? Neither did Henry Ford. He built the car.
Jeff Henry was tired. I don't have anything to say today, thanks. I'll be talking to you guys shortly after I get some rest. But if it were rest Henry was looking for, he would not find it in Kansas, or Texas for that matter. He flew home by private plane to New Braunfels the night he posted Bond to discover that his house had been burglarized.
He was standing next to his car and he was screaming. And I thought, I couldn't understand what he was talking about. Henry claimed that two of his trucks were missing, along with $500,000 worth of personal property. He knew it was CJ, a man who was already locked up but usually lived on the Henry Ranch with his mom. I'm going to kill your son. I'm going to kill myself and kill him.
Officers arrived at the Henry property around 3 a.m., but Jeff Henry was gone. The prosecutors in Kansas heard about the incident and filed a motion to revoke his bail, but the judge denied that motion after Henry apologized for losing his temper. Three months later, on July 13, 2018, Jeff Henry was in trouble again.
Merriam Police Officer Kristen Jasinski responded to a reported disturbance. Further investigation found Jeff Henry with more than 61 grams of meth, 18 hypodermic needles, and 16 Xanax pills. Court records further claim Henry agreed to pay a human trafficker $400 for a prostitute, but instead paid him $240 in cash and then 10 Schlitterbahn all-day passes to make up the difference. Police in Merriam, Kansas responded to a disturbance at the Drury Inn Motel.
They found a man trying to kick down the door of a room occupied by Jeff Henry and two women. He was not a fan of water park passes as payment, apparently. Jeff Henry was charged with felony possession of methamphetamine with the intent to distribute, as well as a drug paraphernalia charge and a misdemeanor charge for buying sexual relations. The hearing was scheduled for December.
Jeff's lawyer blamed his client's mental health for his most recent run-in with the law. When Caleb died, I think a piece of Jeff died too. And since that time, he's been in a depression. Jeff Henry spoke briefly about his mental state in one of the only interviews he gave after the Verruckt tragedy with Texas Monthly. Quote, If I really believed I was responsible for the death of that little boy, I'd kill myself right now.
"There are members of my family who would like to commit me to a facility because I'm suffering from depression. Sometimes I can't get out of bed for four days." "The real Jeff Henry was not indicted," he told the magazine. "The actor Jeff Henry, who was trying to glamorize the ride, was indicted." "Not true," clarified Jeff's ex-wife, Louise Setry, who filed for divorce earlier that year. "Jeff's mental problems and substance abuse were nothing new. The trouble started long before Verruckt was built.
Here's what she filed in court. "Jeff Henry has had in the past serious mental, psychological, psychiatric, anger management and emotional problems long standing in nature that in part caused or contributed to horrific assaults and beatings." The civil lawsuit goes on to say Henry assaulted, battered, beat and tormented his ex-wife.
She was sexually assaulted in many different ways. Some of the alleged horrific assaults took place at Schlitterbahn's New Braunfels water park, and she says her child was the victim of witnessing the horrific acts.
Those statements were in specific reference to a May 2013 incident where the ex-wife claimed she called 911 when Henry rammed his vehicle, owned by Schlitterbaum, into her car at her house, then broke in and then used a concrete pedestal to break down her bedroom door where she and her child were hiding in fear of their lives.
"There was a lot of hitting, there was a lot of kicking, there was a lot of rape, there was using a belt," Setri testified in court records. "He's crazy. He pulled a gun on me. He made me hold the bullets and raped me for three hours," she added. Luis also claims that Jeff stomped on her foot so hard that it required pins to repair the brakes. Henry's attorney in the divorce case vehemently denies the accusations.
The divorce would have to wait, as would the feud with his brother Gary and the bankruptcy of a failed Schlitterbahn expansion in North Padre Island. There were more important matters on the docket. Those problems seemed insignificant considering Jeff Henry was facing murder charges. It was possible that he could spend the rest of his life in prison unless he caught a break.
A judge has dismissed criminal charges related to the death of a 10-year-old boy at a Kansas City water park. The child was decapitated on a water slide called Verruckt at the Schlitterbahn Park in 2016.
After the incident, the park owner and the slide designer were charged with second-degree murder. But today, the judge dismissed those charges, citing improper evidence and saying the defendants were not afforded due process protections. The judge also dismissed an involuntary manslaughter charge against the park's operations manager. On February 22, 2019, a Wyandotte County judge dismissed all charges against Jeff Henry, John Schooley, and Tyler Miles.
Judge Robert P. Burns took issue with what he called the highly dramatized footage from the Travel Channel show. Defense attorneys had argued that the footage did not depict reality and that the Attorney General never told the jury it was a dramatization. "They wanted me to create suspense and danger, to make Verruth look really scary, to add drama to the show," Jeff Henry told Texas Monthly. "You know the raft that went airborne on our 90-foot model in New Braunfels? It was faked. We added rollerblade wheels to the boat to make it fly off.
The defendants also claimed the jurors were repeatedly told that the water slide was not built to the nationally accepted standards established by the American Society for Testing and Materials. But Kansas law didn't require the Verruckt to meet those standards at the time of Caleb's death. That's why Verruckt was built in Kansas in the first place. No laws regarding standards could have been broken because they barely existed in that state to begin with.
Finally, one of the prosecution's experts discussed the death of Nico Benavides. A lifeguard at Schlitterbahn in South Padre was pinned to the wall by a wave pole generator in 2013. Judge Burns ruled that that testimony was irrelevant to Caleb Schwab's case and threw it out. The court has grave doubts as to whether the irregularities and the improprieties improperly influenced the grand jury and ultimately bolstered its decision to indict these defendants, Judge Robert Burns said.
Quite simply, these defendants were not afforded the due process protections and fundamental fairness Kansas law requires. A decision by a judge to throw out charges in the Schlitterbahn case brought strong words from one of the defense attorneys. They were given crap, and that's the kind of case they had, and Judge Burns just flushed it.
"We welcome today's decision, which dismissed the charges against all defendants," said a spokesperson for Schlitterbahn Waterparks and Resorts. "We are thankful for all the support and encouragement we've received." It was the first happy day in a long time for the Schlitterbahn family. However, Jeff Henry wasn't totally off the hook. He eventually pleaded guilty to a felony drug charge for the meth bust. He was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison in March 2022.
Farouk was deconstructed back in November 2018, the same month that Scott Schwab was elected as Kansas' Secretary of State. 2018 was also the last summer that Schlitterbahn Kansas City opened its doors.
Rumor has it that the location will soon be replaced by a Margaritaville. Wasting away again in Margaritaville, that Jimmy Buffett classic. Perhaps the idea coming before the unified government of Wyandotte County. This week, UG commissioners heard plans for an $85 million Margaritaville-type resort for the former home of the Schlitterbahn Water Park. ♪
Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, a concerned citizen, with original music by Trevor Howard, a.k.a. Deformer, a.k.a. Too Scary. For more information about Swindled, you can visit swindledpodcast.com and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Swindled Podcast, or you can send us a postcard at P.O. Box 6044, Austin, Texas 78762. But please, no packages. We do not trust you.
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