Latest / Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast / A Feral Child - Genie Wiley

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A Feral Child - Genie Wiley · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: For thirteen years, no one outside a quiet California home
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: knew she even existed, and when she finally entered the
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: public world in nineteen seventy, she didn't speak, she didn't cry,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: and she didn't even know how to live among other people.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: She was eventually given the name Genie to protect her identity,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and her story would become one of the most disturbing
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: and consequential child abuse cases in all of American history.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: This is the dark and sad tale of a fairal
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: child known as Genie Wiley.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: and Graham, a true crime podcasting.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: The following podcast and material intended for a mature audience
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: listener discretion, there was a small chance or tiny home
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: might get blown over today.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: I know, I'm kind of curious if people are going
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: to be able to hear how fricking windy it is
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: up in these parts.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: It's ridiculous today. I don't even know what the speed
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: is getting up to on these winds. But it's been well,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: it's been pretty brutal last twenty four hours. It was
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: even hard to sleep last night.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: My sleep score was sixty two, which is I think
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: sixty four. Oh, let's double check you dying now for
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: sixty four?
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, just trying to really get us to feel bad
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: for you.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: I know. Well, yeah it was a little rough. I
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: was just like laying there not being able to sleep
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: because it's dawn. When in a tiny home weather I
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: don't know, affects it a lot more and it's a
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: lot more noticeable, I guess you could say. And so, yeah,
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: it was something. It was moving our tiny home lightly.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good breeze or two would like kind of rock it,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: ever so slightly. It's not like we're gonna actually legitimately
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: get blown over now. It's it's definitely windy, to say
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the least.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: The joys of living on the edge of.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: A hayfield too, right, Oh right, it's just open. There's
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: no protection from the wind. But there's another thing though, too,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Like there's also no protection over on Patreon from getting
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: the exclusive behind the scenes stuff like extra episodes. If
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: you sign up for that, I'm sorry, you're just gonna
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: get it, just like Amanda Borman did, Karen Krantz, m
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Abel Gujierre, Megan Weber, and Melissa Kowalski. They're all getting
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: that stuff behind the scenes, whether they like it or not,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: because they signed up for it. I'm assuming they like
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: it because hey, they signed up.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: They're getting no protection over there, no protection.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: We got less filters over there too.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: So yeah, that is true, I guess. I mean, we're
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: fairly good at acting ourselves, but over there it feels
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: a little bit even more.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: So that's true. So that's one thing that we try
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: to make sure we do with this podcast is staying
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: true to ourselves this entire time, no matter how long
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: you run the show, no matter how big we get
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: or small we stay, We're going to be us unapologetically.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: No matter what people say exactly. Though that does affect
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: me sometimes. I feel like if I read something kind
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: of terrible, then I can be come across a bit
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: more like reserved at the next podcast or whatever. But
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: I shouldn't be like that. It's getting easier, It definitely
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: is easier to deal with, but it affects me.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: It's hard not to let it affect you sometimes. But
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of cool people out there who say
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: nice things too.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: There are cool.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What's really not cool though, is today's episode. This
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: is a survivor story, but unfortunately, I mean trigger warning.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: This child goes through a lot of abuse and unfortunately
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: has a lot of lasting impact on her life. So
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: she may have survived, but at a massive cost.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: That's okay, I know you told me. That's a basically
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: what you've told me about this case. So I am
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: very intrigued. But also I feel like my heart needs
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: some protection from this episode.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you might want to prepare yourself, kat. So there
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: are crimes that happen in public, very loud and very
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: impossible to ignore. But then there's also the ones that
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: unfold quietly behind walls that no one really thinks to question.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: In the late nineteen fifties and throughout the nineteen sixties,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: life moved normally on residential streets in southern California. Lawns
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: here were cut, children rode their bikes down the street,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: and neighbors waved at one another when they went inside
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: before dinner. In that time, nothing about the house on
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Golden West Avenue stood out. It wasn't abandoned, it wasn't
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: boarded up. It was simple, another home in another neighborhood,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: blending in the way most of the houses do. Inside. However,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: something was unfolding that would not come to light for
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: more than a decade. This is not a story about
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: a single moment of violence. It's a story of accumulation,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: small decisions, patterns of control, and silence that grows thicker
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: over time. It's about what happens when isolation is not temporary,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: but instead it's permanent, when it becomes the only world
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: a child has ever known. When this case finally became public,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: it stunned the country. Reporters described it as one of
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: the worst cases of child abuse in American history. But scientists, however,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: they saw something else as well. Yes, it was devastating,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: but there was a rare and unsettling opportunity here. Questions
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: that had long been debated in lecture halls and journals. Well,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: they suddenly had a living subject to turn to. Before
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: headlines and research grants, before the hospital rooms and court dates.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: There was Genie, a young girl who was locked away.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: But to understand what happened to her, you have to
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: begin with Clark Wiley, a man who grew up in
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwestern area in some rather unstable kind of
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: circumstances after the death of his father. His early life
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: was filled with a lot of neglect and displacement. His
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: mother's lifestyle reportedly left him without consistent care, and he
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: spent much of his childhood moving between different foster homes,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: and as a result, there was very little stability in
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: his life and even less emotional grounding. Accounts later suggested
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: that he felt humiliated as a child, including resentment over
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: being given a feminine name, something he reportedly despised and
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: later changed it to Clark as soon as he was
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: old enough to do so. Over time, however, his relationship
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: with his mother shifted as he entered adulthood. They became
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: very close. She appeared to attempt to reconcile all this
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: earlier neglect, and Clark well. He grew deeply attached to her.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: For a man who'd grew grown up without any sort
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: of dependable structure, that attachment seemed to become very central
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: to him. She was the constant in his life. As
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: a young adult. Clark would make the move to Los Angeles,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: USA during and after World War Two. He found steady
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: work in the aircraft industry. He seemed to function well
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: in his new and structured environments. He was employed, productive,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: and publicly not exactly a volatile individual, looking back. There
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: is very little in his employment records or anything to
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: suggest what he would later become and what would later
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: unfold in his home. Regardless, he eventually got married around
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two to a woman by the name of
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Irene oglesby a woman who was twenty years younger than him,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: and at the time he was in his mid forties
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: and she was in an early tiesies. Now, to neighbors
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: and acquaintances, the marriage initially appeared conventional. Yeah, there was
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: an age gap, but they were consenting adults, and they
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: lived in a suburban southern California area, part of the
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: post war generation, building quiet domestic lives. But even in
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: those early years, certain traits were already becoming visible. Clark
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: heavily disliked noise like a lot. He reportedly refused to
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: allow working televisions or radios in his house whatsoever. He
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: was also extremely rigid about routine and easily agitated by
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: any sort of disruption. He also did not want children,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: and was very open about that fact, which, for being
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: in the fifties was pretty different to say the least.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Well, he probably had something causing this, right like, I
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: don't know, autistic or OCD or something. Because I'm not
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: saying I'm not autistic or anything. But I could go
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: a whole day without any noise probably and be like
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: pretty content. But you, on the other hand, it drives
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: you freakin' not's quiet.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: I'm opposite. I like noise. I gotta have music playing
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: or something happening, something going on. It's it's almost this
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: isn't the case, this isn't what happening. What's happening in
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: my mind, but it's it's a good analogy, so you
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: can understand. It's almost like I'm quieting the demons in
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: my mind sort of thing. That's not what's happening, but
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: it's like it just it creates that sense of calm
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: and creates this, I don't know, drowned out of other
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: thoughts or other things, other busyness.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. See, I can kind of understand that when I'm working,
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: if I'm editing photos, I kind of need some background
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: or else. I almost have trouble focusing on the photos
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: because my mind is too loud. Yeah, so yeah, I guess.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: But for Clark, clearly it was more about the silence
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: for him, just like what you like. So yeah, for
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: him with like crying shouting or unexpected sounds. It just
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: irritated them beyond like any real measure, right, and honestly,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: it irritated him beyond what other people would consider normal.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, but that saying that makes sense why he maybe
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: wouldn't want kids.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Then for sure. Now, despite whether you or I prefer silence, though,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: for Clark, it was like his need for quiet was
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: not necessarily a preference, it was more of a demand.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Now, over time, his desire for control over people and
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: things around him, it started to grow and grow and
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: become more pronounced, and so he started becoming increasingly protective
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: and confining towards his wife, Irene. What started first is
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: just strictness, Well, it soon turned into full on domination.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: People saw less and less of the couple as Clark
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: preferred isolation. He distrusted the outside world, and so he
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: gradually withdrew from it. By late nineteen fifties, well, their
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: house had become very closed off. Clark worked, returned home
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: and maintained order inside those walls. And that's the way
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: he liked it. He valued the silence, the obedience, and
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: the control. It would be inside that very controlled environment
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: that the rest of this story would unfold now. If
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Clark Wiley was the architect of control inside his home,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Irene was the puppet who was always becoming increasingly trapped
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: within it. Her story didn't start with isolation, though it
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: was new to her, but what she did know was vulnerability.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: See as a child, Irene suffered a significant head injury
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: after slipping and striking her head on a washing mangle,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: which is an old school kind of handcrake machine that
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: usually like squeeze water out of wet clothes for cleaning them. Now,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: this accident caused neurological damage that would affect her for
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the rest of her life, and over time she developed
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: severe vision problems. Now by adulthood, her eyesight was severely
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: impaired and continued to go downhill. Eventually, cataracts caused her
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: to go blind in one eye and nearly blind any other.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: But when Irene married Clark, things in the relationship they
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: began to degrade. As I mentioned, Clark was controlling, rigid,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: and becoming violent. N Irene later described her life as
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: effectively ending on her wedding day, the very day that
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: she said her vows, which is dark, which.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Is not something that you normally hear no, she it's
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: the opposite, right, yeah.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Now, for her, physical abuse was not occasional, it was
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: a regular pattern. The beating she endured would further damage
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: her vision two, which also increased her dependence on Clark.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Like if she can't see very well, she has to
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: rely on him. But also he's beating her, like it's
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: this vicious psycho.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: That's terrible.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: So she soon relied on Clark for transportation, financial stability,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: and even decision making. But Irene was constantly discouraged from
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: leaving the house unless absolutely necessary, and contact with neighbors
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: and extended family diminished quickly. Clark's tolerance for noise and
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: disorder shaped their everyday life. Conversations were kept quiet, moments
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: were controlled, and movements were restricted. Even inside their home,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Irene moved carefully, trying to keep as quiet as possible.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: I'm talking like sneaking around quiet because that's the way
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Clark liked it.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: But also if you can't see properly or fully right,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: that would be very difficult.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Exactly. It was a very tightly managed space, but that's
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: what she was living.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, I feel terrible for her now.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Even though Clark didn't want kids, they soon entered the picture. Anyways,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: it was about five years into the relationship that Irene
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: became pregnant. It was with a baby girl, and she
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: was born healthy and beautiful. But what happened next would
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: become one of the earliest warning signs of how dark
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: this household could get. Clark couldn't tolerate the sound of
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: his daughter crying. He hated noise, right, and according to
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: later accounts, he began placing the infant in the garage
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: whenever she made a noise. Result of that cold, cold garage,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: at just ten weeks old, the baby contracted pneumonia and
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: died what now officially the Kate this cause of death
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: was illness, but unofficially it was clearly exposure and neglect.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Holy shit, yes, okay, I don't okay, I was not
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: expecting that already, baby's crying.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Shove it in the garage.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Wow, that is just pure evil.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, a year later, Irene would give birth once again,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: this time to a boy. The baby was unfortunately diagnosed
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: with rh incompatibility, which is a condition in which maternal
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: antibodies attacking newborn's red blood cells, and as a result,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: he too, unfortunately died just two days after he was born.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: This wasn't the end of them having children, though they
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: would soon have another a third child, another boy, who
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: they named John, and he did survive, but Clark's intolerance
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: for crying hadn't changed. He reportedly forced Irene to keep
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: the baby quiet and even discouraged her from speaking to
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: her son. The result was very clearly visible. John developed
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: rather slowly, especially in learning language, and by the time
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: John was about four years old, his speech delays had
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: become quite noticeable, and he was sent to live with
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: his grandmother Pearl for several months. In that short period
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: of time, he made very clear developmental gains, which suggested
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: his delays were environmental rather than anything cognitive. Now when
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: he returned home, though, the rigid silence resumed, but still
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Pearl became a stabilizing figure in his life. She stepped
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: in whenever she could, sometimes caring for John for months
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: at a time, and she reportedly feared that her son,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Clark had some serious mental health issues of his own,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: and she did what she could to buffer the children
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: from this rigidity that he had. Now another child would
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: be born, and it was on April eighteenth, nineteen fifty seven,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: that Irene would give birth to her fourth child, a
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: daughter named Genie Wiley. Now Genie was not her birth name,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: it was later given to her to help protect her identity.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Even though her real name is available out there and
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: I do know what it is, I want to respect
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: that boundary, so I will be calling her Genie for
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: the entirety of this podcast.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: That's fair. Yeah, Now.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: The delivery of Genie was a difficult one, and she
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: also showed signs of rh incompatibility to the same condition
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: that had taken the life of her older brother. This time, however,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: she survived after receiving a blood transfusion. In her earliest months,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: there was no clear medical evidence since she had any
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: intellectual imparody at birth, Her weight was in the fiftieth percentile,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: and early records did not indicate any severe developmental abnormalies.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Abnormally abnormalities there were there you go. Within a few months, however,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: a different issue was discovered. Genie had a cog genital
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: hip dislocation, so to correct it, she was required to
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: wear a restrictive splint from roughly four and a half
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: months till she was about eleven months old, which is
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: rough for an infant.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Like that. Yeah, well it would probably be uncomfortable and
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: make her upset more often, right, which is not going
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: to be good in this house.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Well, and this splint also limited her movement, which is
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: a very crucial period of physical development for her, you know,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: at being an infant like that, it delays her ability
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: to crawl and potentially even walk. Now at routine medical visits.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: During her first year, her weight percentile began to drop,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: and by eleven months she had fallen into the eleventh percentile.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Later researchers believe this was likely the beginning of sustained malnutrition,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: but at the time, however, doctors also noted that she
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: appeared slow, quote unquote and may have been showing signs
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: of delay. There was no formal diagnosis of any intellectual disability,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: but the possibility in their mind and still lingered. But Clark, however, well,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: he quickly latched onto this idea. He reportedly told Irene
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: and their son that Genie was in fact mentally disabled,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: and from that point forward he treated her as though
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: that were a confirmed fact, even though it wasn't. For
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: whatever reason, he explicitly instructed that she not be spoken
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: to and that he limited any sort of exposure interaction
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: with her. He also appeared to have convinced himself that
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: she would not live very long. No, or maybe it
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: was you know, trying him to distance himself for her,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, but like in his mind she was
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: something to discard.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Basically, holy, this guy is just beyond fucked.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: He's evil. Now. In nineteen fifty eight, around the time
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Genie was about twenty months old, things got even darker.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Pearl Karl's mother was struck and killed by a drunk
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: driver while crossing the street. She'd been out walking with
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: her grandson John at the time. The driver reportedly only
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: received probation as a result, and Clark was outraged. He
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: believed the legal system had failed him, and to those
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: who later examined the case, described this moment as a
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: psychological breaking point for him, because after his mother's death,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Clark withdrew even further from the outside world. He quit
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: his job, and he moved the family into Pearl's house
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: on gold West app sorry, Golden West Avenue in Temple City, California.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Well, and Pearl was also really good for the children,
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: right she was, Well, this is just a disaster in
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: the making.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Here now in that home, He preserved her bedroom exactly
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: as she left it, and he forbid anyone from entering
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: inside there.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Huh.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: As a result, he and his family were forced to
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: live in the living room of that home. He slept
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: in a recliner, while Irene slept on a dining room chair,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: and John, their son, slept on the floor. Jeannie, on
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: the other hand, while she was moved into a second bedroom.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: At first, the isolation appeared to have developed gradually, but
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: it hardened quickly into total confinement from here. The windows
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: in her room were covered and darkened. Daylight entered only
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: in a narrow strip at the top. The door remained closed,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and contact with Jeanie was restricted. This wasn't simple neglect,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: mind you, It was structural separation, done entirely on purpose.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Clark determined that Genie would remain in that room, away
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: from the rest of the house. She would not eat
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: at the table, she would not sit with the family,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: She would not join What little conversation did occur in
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: that home, the physical geography of that home became the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: complete map of power that he controlled.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: What the hell is wrong with this man?
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking a lot, no.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Kidding, This is just hard to listen to it. It
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: just doesn't even make any sense. What the hell he's doing.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense. He knows it too, But we'll
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: get to that, don't worry. Clark occupied the central living space.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Pearl's room was basically a shrine. Irene and John existed
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: on the margins, but Geenie, while she was entirely placed apart,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: and Clark's mental state continued to spiral, and it deepened
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: into paranoia, so much so that he reportedly sat in
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: the evenings with a loaded gun sitting on his lap.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: He believed, at least to him, that he needed to
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: protect his family from an evil world that was outside.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: But in sealing the house off from that quote evil world,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: he was also sealing them off from help.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well he was the evil really in their.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Life, definitely. Now. What happened inside that second bedroom was
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: not accidental sort of neglect to say. It was sustained
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: for a long time, over the course of years. During
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: the day Genie was who now at taught, she was
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: strapped to a child's potty chair. Clark constructed a makeshift
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: harness that secured her in place so she couldn't get
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: off this potty. She could move her hands and feet,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: but very little else. She could not stand, she could
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: not crawl freely, She could not explore the room in
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: the way toddlers naturally do. Her entire world was reduced
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: to the space directly in front of her. She was
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: strapped to that potty chair and left alone.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, gracious, holy heck.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: At night, she was moved into a crib that had
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: been altered as well. Clark modified a sleeping bag to
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: basically be a form of a homemade strait jacket and
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: enclosed the crib with wire mesh over the top. Once inside,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: she couldn't fully sit up or definitely climb out, and
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: the entire setup ensured that her body remained restrained nearly
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: twenty four hours a day.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Holy, oh my gosh. Okay, And like she would have no, no,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: like idea that this is not right.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: She has no frame of reference, yeah anything.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Frame of reference. Yeah, Like this is just probably how
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: she thinks life is, which is just so heartbreaking.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, as I mentioned, the windows in the room
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: were almost completely blacked out, with very little light coming
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: out from the strip on the top. Her visual environment
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: never extended beyond the dim, small dimensions of that bedroom.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: She didn't see streets, she didn't see trees, the rest
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: of the house, the sky, nothing. The room itself, it
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: contained very little. Though you may be picturing a you know,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: a basic nursery with you know, a chair in the corner,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: rocking chair and that sort of thing, maybe a dresser
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: or a teddy bear in the crib, but there were
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: only a few pieces of necessary furniture. There were curtains
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: and two plastic raincoats hanging on the wall, with no
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: toys whatsoever.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: This is worse than a prison.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: On rare occasions she was allowed to handle some objects,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: and everyday objects such as empty threadspools, plasts to containers,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: or TV guides with certain images torn out. These were
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: not toys in any typical sense, but for Geenie there
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: were the only objects she got to interact with. Now.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Most of all, Clark continued to enforce his pattern of silence.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: John and Irene spoke in whispers as little as possible,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: often out of earshot, but words were not directed towards Genie,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: not at all. Language was withheld completely from her, and
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: if Geenie made any noise, crying, trying to vocalize, or
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: even hum, well, Clark would beat her with a wooden
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: plank he kept in the room. He reportedly only growled
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: and barked at her, imed hitting dogs and cats as
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: a form of some sort of communication to let her
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: know he was displeased, and as a result in her
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: later life she developed a noticeable fear of dogs and cats,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: likely connected with these behaviors. But I digress. Feeding was
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: controlled too. She was given baby food, cereal milk, and
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: occasionally a hard boiled egg, and she was fed quickly
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: and without conversation, often by her brother under Clark's orders,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: and if she choked it all or spat the food
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: out while it was rubbed in her face. Jeanie's mother, Irene,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: whose eyesight had deteriorated severely by this point, was largely
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: prevented from participating in her daughter's care, though she sometimes
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: attempted to sneak food to her daughter at night. Now,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: the whole system of silence and abuse Clark built did
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: not last weeks or months. I need to make that clear.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: It lasted for more than a decade. That is how
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: she lived for years.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: Oh what the actual fuck is going on here? This
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: is like ridiculously hard to listen to, it's.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: A tough one. From roughly the age of two until
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Jeanie was thirteen years old, she lived inside that dark
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: room under near constant restraint. The physical consequences accumulated slowly
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: over the years, but severely. Because she rarely stood or walked,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: her muscles didn't develop normally, her legs were thin and weak,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: and when she was eventually freed, she walked with a stiff,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: awkward kind of gait, holding her hands out in front
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: of her body like elbows bent, almost like an animal
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: balancing on its hind legs. She was not toilet trained
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: in the usual way either. Yes, she was strapped to
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: a potty chair for years, which meant she never learned
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: normal bladder control. She has kind of went. She was
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: incontinent and unfortunately became her baseline condition to just be incontinent.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: She was also fed soft foods for so long that
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: she never learned to chew either, and even when she
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: was later offered solid foods, she struggled to break it down,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: often spitting the food out, trying to use her hands
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: to break it down instead of her teeth. She didn't
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: know better.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Well, yeah, and she's also not like
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: being able to watch people right and what they do.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: She knows nothing of the outside world around her, nothing
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: about humanity, nothing about behaviors, nothing for thirteen years now
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: with this not learning how to chew. Also, her baby
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: teeth never naturally displaced through this chewing and development, so
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: she retains nearly two complete sets of teeth. When she
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: was finally discovered.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Holy, okay, you know, I'm just sitting here like I
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: just this can't get any worse. But every sentence that
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: you say is just getting worse.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm gonna make it worse again.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Her vision adapted to the room that she knew. She
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: could only focus a few feet in front of her.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: She had no reason to look beyond that distance. Ever,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: because that was her entire world. She could never even
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: look beyond those walls if she wanted to, so she
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: never looked learned to look beyond it. Her eyes never focused,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: and so she couldn't focus beyond a few feet.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: And this is stuff that you probably like, it needs
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: to develop as you age, right, So then exactly, it's
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: never going to develop.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Exactly. She only developed to what her environment let her develop.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Her rib cage was also underdeveloped, Her hips were narrow.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Her like her body clearly reflected the confinement that she
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: endured so long. Emotionally, she was very detached. She rarely cried,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: She did not seek comfort in recognizable ways. She made
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: very few sounds at all, even I mean language, of course,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: never formed for her, and silence was enforced so consistently
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: she just basically adapted to this as a survival strategy.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: The rest of the household lived in fear of Clark's reactions. John,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: her older brother, was beaten regularly and threatened, and when
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: he left for school, he reportedly even have to walk
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: up to the family's front door and confirm his identity
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: before being allowed back inside. Due to Clark's extreme paranoia,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: neighbors later said they rarely saw the family. Some were
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: even unaware that there was a young daughter there living
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: in that house at all. But by the fall of
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, the household on Golden West Avenue was already unraveling.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: John was now eighteen, and he eventually ran away from home.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: He later described living in constant fear and shame, aware
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: that what was happening to his sister was wrong, but
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: unable to change his father's authority. Irene was now nearly
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: blind in one eye and losing vision in the other,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: and she finally reached a breaking point. Accounts from her
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: describe a violent confrontation in which Clark threatened to kill
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: both her and Genie if she ever attempted to leave,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: but still, despite that, Irene finally managed to gather the
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: courage to take her daughter and walk out of that house.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: It was late in October of nineteen seventy when Irene
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: went to apply for disability benefits for her worsening blindness,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: but because of her limited vision, she mistakenly entered the
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: General Social Services office of the Los Angeles County Welfare
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Department instead of the Office for the Blind. As Irene
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: approached the counter, staff members immediately noticed the girl standing
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: beside her. She appeared much younger than her actual age.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: She was small, thin, and stooped, and she moved with
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: a very unusual shuffling kind of walk with her hands
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: held up in front of her body. She avoided eye
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: contact and made no attempt to talk. At first, staff
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: considered that Genie had some severe autism or other severe
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: developmental disorder, but within minutes of speaking with Irene, they
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: learned something more disturbing that this girl was thirteen years old.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: A supervisor was called almost immediately and authorities were contacted
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: that very same day, resulting in Genie being removed from
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: the situation and law enforcement they began investigating the home
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: in Temple City. Clark Wiley and Irene Wyley were arrested
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: and charged with felony child abuse, and a court date
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: was scheduled for November twentieth, nineteen seventy. However, Clark Wiley
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: would never appear in court. Shortly before his scheduled appearance,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: he retrieved a Smith and Wesson handgun and shot himself
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: in the head. He laid out funeral clothes on the
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: bed for himself and left two suicide notes. One reportedly
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: contained instructions regarding his son, and the other included a
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: short line that read quote the world will never understand endo, oh.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: This sky, Oh my god, she is just infuriating.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Yep, so you said that it didn't make sense. He
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: too knows it doesn't make It won't make sense to
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: anyone else, but apparently it makes sense to him.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: But also he doesn't want to face the consequences of
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: what he's done.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly because he knows it doesn't make sense. But now
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: with Clark dead, the criminal case shifted focus onto Irene.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Her defense, though, argued that she'd been a battered and
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: dependent spouse, isolated and nearly blind, acting under extreme coersion,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: and so eventually the charges against her were diminished. On
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: November fourth, nineteen seventy, the thirteen year old Genie was
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: admitted to the Children's Hospital in Los Angeles, and when
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: she was doctors were not prepared for what they were
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: about to see. She was thirteen years old but weighed
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: just fifty nine pounds and stood approximately fifty four inches tall.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Her body appeared severely underdeveloped. She was pale from a
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: life lack of sunlight. Her muscles were weak, poorly formed,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: especially in her legs. Years of being restrained had left
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: her unable to fully straighten her arms or legs at all.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: When she walked, she did so with a strange shuffling gait,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: often described as bunny like, holding her hands in front
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: of her chest. She was incontinent. She salivated excessively and
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: frequently spat. She couldn't chew foods retain her baby teeth,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: as I mentioned, which is a rare condition known as
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: supernumerary teeth. I think I said that right. But her
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: vision seemed intact at close range, which was good. I mean,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: she was focusing on objects more than just a few
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: feet away. That was about it. Anything beyond she couldn't.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: She never learned to focus her eyes beyond just a
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: few feet and psychologist James Kent, who evaluated her early on,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: later described her as one of the most profoundly damaged
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: children he had ever seen.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: It would just break their heart. Hey, Yeah, to have
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: to just I don't know, like you wouldn't even you
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: would have no a background of have dealing with this,
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: and like so you'd have to try to figure out
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: how to help her. But also you're just like freaking
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: devastated the world as such a piece of shit.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just gobsmacked over the situation. Yeah, and that's exactly
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: what it was. There's this big, old, kind of balanced
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: thing that we're going to get into here pretty quick
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: between you know, how to care for her and also
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: to kind of research her because this is a very
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: unique situation.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Well, and she wouldn't really and she's not she can't
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: speak right, nope, and tell you like what she needs
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: or anything.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: So well, I mean my next sentence here that I
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: have written. Because she could not speak and had extremely
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: limited expressive behavior, assessing her intelligence was difficult.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and she was probably scared as heck, probably
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: this is like a complete new world for her. She
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: didn't know anything existed outside of that bedroom.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: To her, it'd probably be much like getting abducted by aliens.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Early developmental testing placed her at roughly the level of
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: a one to three year old child. Her skills were
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: scattered so extremely delayed, yet others were surprisingly intact. She
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: showed fear responses to certain stimuli, particularly dogs and cats,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: but she didn't cry. I mean she spent her whole
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: life being trained not to. Instead, when distressed, she often
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: turned inwards, scratching herself in self harm or urinating, rather
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: than acting out towards others. Yet even those in those
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: first days, there were signs of awareness. She did recognize
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: her name, She appeared to understand simple words such as
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: mother and sorry. She showed curiosity about her environment, and
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: she was staring at objects intently. Things she likely had
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: never seen before just fascinated her. She responded to sound,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: sometimes with fascination, as though discovering noise. For the first time.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: She also displayed inappropriate, sexualized beha behavior in public settings
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: during those early therapy sessions, which raised some questions because
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: she'd been completely isolated, and some professionals wondered whether she'd
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: been exposed to sexual abuse, though that would never be
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: able to be proven. For the hospital staff, the question
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: shifted from quickly what is wrong with her? To what
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: has been done to her? And almost immediately another question
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: followed that after thirteen years of isolation, how much could
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: she recover? In the first weeks after her admission, something
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: unexpected began to happen. Jeanie started to change. The progress
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: was not dramatic, but it was steady. Within days, she
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: began helping nurses dress her. Soon after, she started learning
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: how to use the toilet rather than remaining in continent.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: These were skills most children master in early childhood, yet
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: for Genie they represented something entirely new, new experiences and
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: such small gain well, it signaled that her limitations were
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: not exactly fixed. Doctors noticed that she remained intensely curious.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: When taken outside the hospital, she reacted to the world
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: with visible fascination trees, cars, sunlight, sidewalks, ordinary sightings just
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: captivated her. Staff members reported that strangers often felt drawn
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: to her too. Without speaking, She had a way of
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: holding eye contact that made people want to help her. Emotionally,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: changes emerged too. At first, Genie rarely directed anger outwards,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: but within a few months, staff documented the first incident
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: of her expressing anger towards another person. It was a
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: small moment, nothing massive or scary. It was just a
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: gesture at another child who had taken something that she recognized,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: perhaps a toy. It's unclear, but it marked very clear
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: development of sense of self. Other tests revealed something else
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: to her. Cognitive abilities were uneven. She wasn't completely impaired
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: across the board. On some tasks, particularly nonverbal and spatial tests,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: she performed far above the expectations. She could match patterns,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: assemble objects, and recognize shapes with impressive accuracy. This scatter,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: as they wrote in her development, became a consistent theme.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: In some areas she functioned at the level of a toddler.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: In others, she demonstrated abilities closer to that of a
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: much older child. Language, meanwhile, it began to emerge slowly,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: very slowly. At first, it was just single words, simple words,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: things like blue, orange, mother, go, and then she started
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: combining two words together into phrases like want milk. By
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: mid nineteen seventy one, she even occasionally strung together three
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: word combinations. One day, even to ring a shopping trip
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: after a series of positive experiences. Mind you, it wasn't
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: a three word combination, but it was still profound. She
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: said very clearly, Genie happy.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, this is just so fascinating to listen to.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: And it's just like, I don't know, breaking your heart
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: at the same time, and you're also like rooting for her,
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: like come on, we're.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Here for you now, for the team working with her.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: That phrase, Genie happy, it carried enormous weight because it
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: showed not only vocabulary growth, but emotional awareness and the
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: ability to refer to herself explaining how she's feeling now.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: With her speech also came insight. Genie tried telling some
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: things about what had happened to her, things that she
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: went through, which shows that she still remembered the horrors
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: of her youth. And I have something that she said,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: quote from her, This is I don't I'm not aware
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: if this is a consistent quote or if this is
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: put together from research of things she said over time.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: But either way, I'm going to read it as a whole,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: and it goes like this, Father hit arm, big wood,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: Genie cry not spit, Father hit face spit, Father hit
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: big stick. Father is angry. Father hit Genie, big stick,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Father take peace? Would hit cry? Father make me cry?
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Father is dead?
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Oh God? Could we not have just left it at
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: Genie happy? That is hard to hear.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: It is so. She also found ways to communicate beyond
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: speech as well. Drawings became a very powerful outlet for her.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: She could arrange pictures to tell the sequence of events.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: She collected brightly colored plastic buckets, eventually amassing more than
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: twenty of them in total, and kept them carefully by
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: her bed. Now, plastic objects seemed to hold a particular
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: meaning for her, possibly tied to the few plastic items
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: that existed in her childhood bedroom. Those raincoats. Allegedly those
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: were her toys really, among some of the other objects
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: she was allowed to eventually sometimes touch and play with.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: So that plastic feeling correlating to the raincoats is what
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: some people think could be why she was really liking
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: the plastic.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: It was familiar to her yeah now.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: For a period, Optimism filled the hospital corridor surrounding Genie.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: The rapid early gains suggested that deprivation had delayed her development,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: but had not erased her potential. Specialists began to believe that,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: with structured support, Genie might continue advancing now. As Genie's
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: early recovery gained attention, her case quickly became more than
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: a medical story. It also became a scientific one. In
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one, researchers applied for and received funding from
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: the National Institute of Mental Health also known as NIM
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: to study Genie's development. A formal team was assembled, with
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: psychologist David Rigler helping lead the project. James Kent continued
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: his clinical evaluations. Linguistics Victoria Formkin and graduate student Susan
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Curtis became central figures in studying Genie's speech and comprehension too.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: At the time, a major debate was unfolding in linguistics
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: and psychology. Neuropsychologist Eric Lennenberg had proposed what had been
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: known as the critical period hypothesis, the idea that language
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: must be acquired before puberty or it can never develop fully.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Linguist Gnoam Chomsky had argued that humans are born with
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: an innate for grammar, but that it requires exposure to
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: language early in life to activate properly. Now Genie discovered
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: at thirteen, had missed that very window they're discussing. So
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: this was a very rare opportunity. If she could now
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: learn grammar naturally, it would challenge the theory. If she
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: could not, it might support it. So without intending to,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Genie had become a real world test of an idea
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: that could never ethically be studied in a laboratory because
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: it would in fact consist of, you know, keeping a
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: child for that long away from language to test it.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: But here they have a very real situation of that
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: very thing. Her progress with vocabulary continued. She learned new
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: words rapidly. She could label objects, describe simple actions, and
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: refer to past events. As we already discussed. She demonstrated
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: that she understood far more language than she could produce
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: as well, and her comprehension expanded steadily. But grammar, on
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: the other hand, it proved very difficult. She went from
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: single words to two word combinations and occasionally three word
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: phrases with words that were meaningful, but the structure itself
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: was broken. She didn't ask questions, She struggled with pronouns,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: often confusing you and me. She rarely used articles or
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: verb endings. While most children, once reaching two and three
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: word phrases experience what researchers call quote a language explosion, Genie,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, never did. Her language instead plateaued. Now,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: some brain studies suggest something unusual. Testing indicated that Genie
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: process language primarily in her right hemisphere, rather than the
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: left hemisphere of her brain, which typically is associated with
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: speech production. Some researchers interpreted this as evidence that the
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: usual language pathways had not developed during childhood, and that
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: other brain areas were trying to compensate for that. Either way,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: it became clear that while Genie could acquire words, could
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: communicate wants, feels, and events, what she could no longer
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: do was acquire grammar in the typical way. Now, as
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Genie's language development became the focus of national attention, the
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: environment around her began to shift to. What had started
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: as a coordinated medical and research effort slowly turned into
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: something more complicated. In nineteen seventy one, Jeene Butler, a
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: special educations teacher who had been working with Genie at
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: the children's hospital began to foster her. Now, Butler believed
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: that Genie needed stability, warmth, and protection from what she
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: saw as excessive testing. During a rebella outbreak, Butler kept
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Genie isolated in her home for weeks, limiting access for
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: members of the research team, and she later described Genie
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: as vulnerable and in need of shielding from over exposure.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: But the research team, on the other hand, well, they
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: saw it differently. They believed that Butler was restricting access
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: to try and main contain any control over Genie's progress
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: and to position herself as the primary authority in the case.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: But honestly, it kind of makes sense that she does
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: need some protection too. She can't just be like, you know,
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: this test subject.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Forever for sure, But just isolating in her.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: In your life's kind of the same as what she
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: already had. I don't know exactly.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: So now accusations are beginning to circulate between these, you know,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: different groups of scientific and medical, and there's claims of
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: possessiveness and doing this for professional, ambitious.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Gains, which is not good at all.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Right, So to say that you were the one who
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: held Genie, you were the one who taught her speech.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: You can now write these reports in these these books
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: about how you were the central figure in her life.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: That's where this is going. It's like, do you actually
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: want to help her or is this selfish gains you're
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: looking at?
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: Huh? Which cost? You have to be a terrible person
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: if you're thinking that way with this little girl.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So, the conflicts grew serious enough that authorities in
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: fact had to step in and remove Genie from Butler's home.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: Yikes, Okay, so it was pretty bad then.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: It was whether it was you know what, Butler is
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: actually being bad host to Genie, or it's just the
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: arguments and accusations got to the point where the authorities
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: had to step in. I'm unclear, but as far as
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: I do know that at least the conflicts were bad enough,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: right could be more now? Soon after, David Wriggler and
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: his wife Marlon Wriggler, they became genies of foster parents.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Unlike Butler, the regulars were formerly part of the research team.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: They had training in psychology and human development, and the
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: arrangement was approved as both a caregiving and observational environment.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: So you have medical and science under one roof now,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: and from nineteen seventy one to nineteen seventy five Genie
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: lived with them. Their home provided relative stability. She attended
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: therapy sessions, continued language work, and participated in structured assessments.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: Reports in that period described her as curious and increasingly
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: engaged with her surroundings. She went on outings, visited stores,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: and interacted with other children and people cognitively her age,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: but the ethical tension never disappeared. Genie was both a
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: child in recovery and the subject of a federally funded
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: research project. Observations were recorded, tests were administered, audio recordings
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: were made, Academic papers were published, and some outsiders while
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: they began to question whether the line between treatment and
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: study was being blurred too much. Questions about how much
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: testing was appropriate, how often, who had authority, and who
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: spoke for Genie began to be raised. Eventually, in nineteen
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: seventy four, the NIM grant funding the research was not renewed.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Without federal support, the formal structure of the project weakened,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: and the collaborative effort that had once united doctors, psychologists,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: and linguistics fractured into separate directions. The folks on Genie's language.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: While it slowed the protection and coordination that had defined
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: her early hospital years, they began to fade. Then, in
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, Genie turned eighteen. Legally she was now
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: an adult, and that technical milestone changed a lot. For
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: several years, she lived with the Wrigulars in what, despite
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: the ethical tensions, were a relatively stable environment. But around
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: that time her mother, Irene, who had maintained periodic contact,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: sought to resume custody over Genie, and so Genie left
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: the Wrigular household and moved back in with Irene. But
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: that transition, however, while it didn't go well. Irene had
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: struggled for a law long time with visual impairment and
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: had a history of abuse herself and now looking after Genie.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: While she found it overwhelming, caring for Genie required constant supervision,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: emotional patience, and specialized understanding. Genie's behaviors were still unpredictable.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: She had made progress, but she was far from independent.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: So within a short period of time, Irene contacted the
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Health department for assistance, and she placed Genie into a
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: series of foster homes and state supervised facilities. Unlike the
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: structured hospital and research environments of the past things that
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: she'd previously known. These placements varied widely in quality. Some
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: were described as strict, even rigid, and in at least
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: one home, she reportedly faced harsh discipline routines, and her
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: progress it began to reverse. At one placement, Genie stopped
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: speaking almost entirely for approximately five months. Caregivers reported that
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: she withdrew, avoided on eye contact, and used silence as
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: a response to stress. In another instance, she began deliberately
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: withholding bowel movements, a behavior interpreted as one of the
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: few areas where she could exert control over her body
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: and environment. Malnutrition resurfaced as an issue in some settings, too.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Emotional regression followed, and the stability that allowed her to
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: expand her vocabulary and engage socially was now gone. Instead,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: she faced repeated moves, unfamiliar caregivers, and inconsistent therapeutic support.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: By the late nineteen seventies, the early optimism surrounding her
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: case had faded. The child who had been described as
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: a breakthrough subject in language research was now cycling through
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: institutions without a unified plan. Her rescue had been dramatic.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: Her recovery had seemed hopeful, but her adulthood brought fragmentation.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy five, Irene Wiley filed a lawsuit against
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: Children's Hospital Los Angeles and several members of the research
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: team who had worked with Genie. The lawsuit alleged that
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: Genie had been subjected to excessive testing and that researchers
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: had prioritized scientific publication over her emotional well being. Irene
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: objected in particular to the way Genie's case had been
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: presented in academic work, including the psycholinguistic dissertation that emerged
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: from the research in nineteen seventy nine. It was settled
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: out of court and specific financial details were not made public,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: but the lawsuit had consequences beyond money. The research team,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: which had already been strained by internal disagreements, fractured. Further
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: trust eroded between clinicians, linguists, and administrators. Questions that had
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: once been theoretical about whether Genie was being studied or
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: helped now became a personal. Funding had already been withdrawn
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy four, when the National Institute of Mental
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: Health chose not to renew the grant. But without federal support,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: formal research effectively ended. The lawsuits cemented that closure, and
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: Genie was no longer as accessible to the scientific community
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: in the way that she once had been. Disputes also
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: arose over the management of funds set aside for her care,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: who looked after it, how to be allocated, those sort
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: of things. But by the end of the decade, the
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: experiment was over and Genie herself was no longer part
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: of that conversation. She had moved beyond the reach of researches,
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: living in placements few outsiders could access. But by the
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: end of that decade, the experiment was over and Genie
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: herself was no longer part of that conversation. She had
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: moved beyond the reach of researchers, living in placements that
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: few outsiders could access, and by the early nineteen eighties,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Genie had largely disappeared from public view. After cycling through
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: multiple foster homes, she was eventually placed in a state
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: run institution in California. Access to her became very tightly restricted.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Some former researchers, including Susan Curtis, who Genie had grown
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: very close with, attempted to maintain some contact, not out
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: of study but out of compassion. However, even they were
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: eventually barred from visiting. Information about her condition became very
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: confidential under state privacy protections, and requests for updates were
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: routinely denied. What is known now comes from very limited accounts.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: Psychiatrists Jay Shirley, who attended Genie's twenty seventh and twenty
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: ninth birthday gatherings in the late nineteen eighties, later described
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: her as stooped, withdrawn and minimally verbal. She reportedly made
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: little eye contact and showed signs consistent with long term institutionalization.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: The rapid progress she had made in the early seventies
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: had not continued. Instead, in many ways it had reversed.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: From the late nineteen eighties onward, confirmed information became even
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: more scarce. A private investigation in the year two thousand
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: reportedly found that Genie was living in an adult care
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: facility in California, and they described her as stable and
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: generally content. There have been no publicly confirmed updates since then.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Irene Wiley died in the year two thousand and three
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: at the age of eighty seven. Jeannie's brother John had
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: left the home as a young adult and lived much
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: of his life life in a distance from the case,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: and in two thousand and eight he did an interview.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: He described feelings of guilt and shame over what had
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: happened in that household. He saw Genie only once after
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: leaving the home, and he eventually died in twenty eleven,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: and his daughter, Pamela, who would be Jeanie's niece, struggled
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: with addiction and died in the year twenty twelve. Clark
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: Wiley's suicide in nineteen seventy prevented a criminal trial that
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: might have further documented the abuse Genie had suffered, and
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: his note reportedly stated, the world will never understand, but
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: no further explanation was left. And he's right, the world
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: will never understand. It doesn't, and I don't think it
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: ever will. To do such a thing to anyone, let
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: alone your own family and daughter is beyond comprehension. To me,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: it's nothing short of pure evil. As of today, Genie's
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: case is still used largely in lectures and studies regarding
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: growth and linguistics. But just because that is her legacy
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: to the world, it doesn't mean that that's what she deserves.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: More than fifty years after she walked into that Los
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: Angeles welfare office. Genie remains largely unseen. If she's alive today,
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: she would be in her late sixties. Her location is undisclosed,
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: her privacy is protected by law, and as it should be,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: Jeanie deserves that protection. She deserves quiet, and she deserves safety.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: She's already given more than anyone should ever have to
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: give through unimaginable neglect, through years of scrutiny. Her life
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: became a case study to the world, and whatever of
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: it remains should belong only to her. Whether she found
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: peace in a quiet room somewhere in California, or whether
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: she's already passed from this world. The only outcome that
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: truly matters now is that she's no longer suffering. And
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: that's the story of Genie Wiley.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: Well, that is just heartbreaking as shit.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah it is. Like I said, it's a survival story,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: but it came at a very large cost.
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I don't know, survivor stories they always I'm
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: not saying it's not that, but they end where you're
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: feeling a little bit hopeful, I guess, or like.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Even inspiring and what something go through.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: And this I don't feel any of that whatsoever. I
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: just feel absolutely terrible for her.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: She was abused by her family, she was abused by
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: potentially abused, I should say, by medical and scientific communities.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: I was abused in foster.
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: I want. I like to think though, that they were
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: very much so trying to help her in that study
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: and in the hospital.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: I do, I do. But the idea is not necessarily
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: that the medical staff and the scientific staff were abusing her.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: It's that the tug of war that she was in
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: the middle of between the two, that itself was abused
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: to someone like her.
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: I know it wasn't good, but I do think, you know,
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: they the intention was to be.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: Of help to her, Yes, not just her, though, others
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: as well, because they could learn, right.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: In that sense, she became a test subject to a
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: certain degree, right, And that's what should have been first
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: and foremost for her benefit was her health, her well being,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: her development.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: But then also to stay in that you know environment,
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: they needed to have a reason to have her there
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: in the sense of like testing and stuff, right, or
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: she might have entered the foster system earlier or something.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know. It's just sad, like it's sad to
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: think that it couldn't have gone a different way, I
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: know after she got rescued.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it's a heartbreaking story.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: And her dad is such a frickin' piece of shit
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: that I I don't know, like when you have kids
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: and stuff or bring something into your house a pet
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: or whatever, even obligation right to fulfill to take care
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: of this individual, Like you know, you think that you
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: wanted this child, and like, what the actual fuck was
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: he doing?
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: Yep, you're a caregiver. I don't care how old a
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: person gets. I don't care their condition. It's your responsibility
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: to ensure, even if you can't do it yourself, to
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: ensure that they're getting the care they need.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because I mean we've talked about this before
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: in episodes. There's people that like desperately want children and
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: they cannot have them, and like someone would have loved
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: to have had her right and given her the most
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: beautiful life. Yeah, so like what the fuck?
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: So fuck you, Clark, hope he's rotting and uh a
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: little bit of a cheers to Jeannie.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah to Jeannie. Gosh, my heart is just going
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: to be a little heavy today for her, because yeah,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: that is not a good story.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, thank you guys for being here. Hopefully, hopefully
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't make you cry too much. Hopefully that we
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: can walk away and just just think about Genie a
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: little bit today, because she deserves to be remembered, whether
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: she's alive or not. Today, I'm not going to try
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: and research. I don't think it's out there, but I
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: think that she deserves to just be thought of at
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: the very least. So I'm going to end it at
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: that today, thank you for being here, and until next time,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: stay wicked.