Arthur Brisbane Child Treatment Center

Arthur Brisbane was a wealthy real estate investor as well as a well known American newspaper editor during the 20th century. While most of Brisbane's work was done in New York City, he decided to build the house of his dreams here in the Garden State. Between the years of 1907 and 1936, he had played a large role in the preservation of land in Central Jersey in Monmouth County. The property that he had purchased ended up being home to James P Allaire's Howell Iron Works Company. Interested in preserving the history of the land, it was his wish after his death in 1936 that the land is used for that purpose only. The land was donated to the State of New Jersey who agreed that the land would be used for land and historic preservation. The State only half kept that promise. 1,200 acres became the Allaire State Park while the Brisbane homestead forms the beginning of the Arthur Brisbane Child Treatment Center.

Though initially proposed to be a home for veterans recovering from illness, the state requested that the property become a psychiatric center for children. By 1947, the property officially opened as a state-run facility for the treatment and observation of children with mental illness. Initially, the hospital served children ages 5 to 12. This changed in the late 1980's when Trenton closed their adolescent unit and Brisbane increased their scope of care to 11 to 17 years old. At this time, Brisbane was housing severely mentally ill children as well as children who needed mental health services that were previously served in juvenile detention centers. The hospital's CEO at the time expressed concern about housing violent convicted criminal offenders with mentally handicapped patients but decided to do so anyway. In 1996, Brisbane opened the Phoebe's Place which operated as a one-year residential program for adolescent girls. This was a voluntary program for girls who have likely been rejected by all other state institutions.

After many strides through the 1980's, Brisbane soon became associated with a bad reputation. The original home (meant to be Arthur Brisbane's private residence) and Cottages A and B were meant to all house a total of 40 residents. In the very late 1980's the population was 80. The makeup of the buildings was awkward, especially that of the transformed private residence. This left patients unsupervised for the majority of their time. In 1998, the death of 17-year-old Kelly Young would change the fate of the hospital forever.

On Sunday, January 4th, 1998, 17-year-old Kelly Young was visibly upset after a phone call to her family. At this time there were four staff members assigned to accompany Kelly. These workers were Youth Worker Williams, Youth Worker Stoll, Head Nurse Simpson and a Human Services Assistant. While Kelly was on the phone, the head nurse had left the room to get her medication and Youth Worker Stroll had left for dinner. Youth Worker Williams and the Human Services Assistant were alone with Kelly. Kelly had requested permission to make another phone call to her family and was denied by Williams due to her being upset by the first call. Kelly became physically upset and began to kick a chair and nearby door. Williams responded not by attempting to calm her down, but immediately forcibly attempted to sit her down in a chair. A struggle ensued knocking Kelly to the floor and Williams putting her in a basket hold. Williams then dragged her approximately 12 feet to her chair. Kelly managed to break free and fall back to the floor. Stroll had returned from dinner at this point and helped Williams in restraining Kelly once again. Stroll held her legs down until Williams restrained her and held her face down on the ground until he felt her stop struggling. Stroll had already left to assist other patients as Williams held Kelly for several more minutes before noticing she was motionless. Once he realized she was unresponsive, he left without assessing her condition. When Nurse Simpson returned to the unit, she discovered Kelly was turning purple and had no pulse. She was placed on life support and pronounced dead the following day upon the removal of life support.

The State of New Jersey launched an investigation against Nelson Williams. They found Williams had failed to follow Brisbane's procedures resulting in the death of Kelly Young. He was never formally charged, only terminated from employment. This investigation leads to multiple findings of lack of responsiveness by staff, lack of action on abuse complaints, and various other issues with staff interaction with patients. Although Brisbane attempted to rectify these problems after them coming to light, the facility closed its doors for good in 2005.