A feral child known as Genie, who was abused by her father for the first 13 years of her life, was incontinent, could barely speak, and weighed only 59lbs (just over four stone) when she was rescued. The case, one of the most severe instances of child cruelty ever documented in the USA, has become a subject of study for researchers.
The Abuse and Rescue
Genie's father, Clark Wiley, subjected her to unspeakable abuse. He refused to speak to her, only communicating through barks, and kept her room extremely dark. He started locking her in the room from just 20 months old, with only a cot, chairs, and curtains as stimulation. She was kept restrained by her arms and legs.
Clark's wife Irene, 20 years his junior, was frightened of him and took more than 13 years to escape with her daughter. When she arrived at the welfare office in 1970, officials noticed something was amiss. Genie could utter only a handful of words, such as "go" and "mother." She would wet herself when distressed, and her conduct matched that of someone raised without social contact.
Medical and Linguistic Observations
The welfare office observed that she held her withered hands "like a rabbit" and was unable to properly extend her limbs. She also had a hunched posture, spat, and was incontinent. Initially, welfare officials suspected she was autistic, but they were unaware of the true extent of her abandonment.
The Linguistic Society of America carried out research in 1974, republished online this year, examining her language progression. Specialists stated that when they first met her, she was 13 years and seven months old, but she was so undernourished that she looked to be merely six or seven years old. Despite this, she demonstrated "remarkable development" during her hospital stay in California.
Recovery and Later Life
The report noted: "During her stay in the hospital she showed remarkable development. Physically she improved dramatically. Her cognitive growth was quite rapid." It continued: "Her language acquisition so far shows that, despite the tragic isolation which she suffered, despite the lack of linguistic input, despite the fact that she had no language for almost the first fourteen years of her life, Genie is equipped to learn language and she is learning it."
Her father escaped justice, reportedly taking his own life with a shotgun on the day he was due in court. He left a message: "The world will never understand." He was portrayed as a "controlling man" who "hated noise" and believed Genie had developmental disabilities, prompting him to conceal her. The catalyst appears to have been the death of his mother in 1958, killed by a drunk driver, which sparked his paranoia.
Genie left hospital in 1971 to reside with foster carers. Her mother Irene temporarily regained custody but struggled, leading to placement with another foster family. What followed was a succession of state facilities overseen by social services. Susan Curtiss, a UCLA linguistics professor who formed a bond with Genie, told the Guardian in 2016 that her last contact was in the early 1980s, when Genie remained under state supervision in California. Curtiss said: "Language and thought are distinct from each other. For many of us, our thoughts are verbally encoded. For Genie, her thoughts were virtually never verbally encoded, but there are many ways to think."
Jay Shurley, a professor of psychiatry and behavioural science, attended her 27th and 29th birthday celebrations and told journalist Russ Rymer that she appeared unhappy, hunched over, and seldom made eye contact. "It was heartrending," he said.
