Does anyone remember this case ("Genie", the feral child in the 1970's)

[bluestateguy]

Last night on one of my late night cruises through the Wikipedia site I stumbled upon this fascinating, yet heartbreaking story:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_%28feral_child%29

(born April 18, 1957), better known as Genie, was a feral child discovered by California authorities on November 4, 1970 in the Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia. she was the fourth (and second surviving) child to unstable parents, Irene and Clark Wiley. An older brother, John, also lived in the home. Her mother was partially blind due to cataracts and a detached retina, and her father (who was 20 years the mother's senior) was mentally unbalanced due to depression over his mother's death from a hit-and-run accident.

At the age of 20 months, Genie was just beginning to learn how to speak when a doctor told her family that she seemed to be developmentally disabled and possibly mildly retarded. Her father took the opinion to extremes, believing that she was profoundly retarded, and subjected her to severe confinement and ritual ill-treatment in an attempt to "protect" her.

Genie had spent her life locked in her bedroom. During the day, she was tied to a child's potty chair in diapers; and most nights, she was then bound in a sleeping bag and placed in an enclosed crib with a metal lid to keep her shut inside. Her father would beat her every time she vocalized and he barked and growled at her like a dog in order to keep her quiet; he also rarely allowed his wife and son to leave the house or even to speak, and expressly forbade them from ever speaking to Genie. By the age of 13, Genie was almost entirely mute, commanding a vocabulary of only about 20 words and a few short phrases (nearly all negative) such as "stopit" and "nomore".

more



After being rescued by Child Welfare services, "Genie" was taken care of by a team of scientists, who developed a bond with the child. She even made some minor progress in learning to speak and function in controlled settings. But the developmental damage to the child from ten years of confinement and isolation was too great. She later fell into the abyss of the child welfare system in California, and now lives in a foster home at the age of 50.

What a sad story.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. Heart breaking. Tragedy.

How very sad.