WEBVTT

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[News announcer] Officials in the 


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Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia

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have taken custody of a 13 year old girl,

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whom, they say, was kept in such isolation
by her parents,

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that she never even learned to talk.

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The girl still wore diapers,

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and was uttering infantile noises,

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when a social worker discovered the case

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two weeks ago.

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The authorities are hoping

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she still may have a normal
learning capacity.

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[Narrator] Among the first
to see the child

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was Temple City detective,

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Sergeant Frank Linley.

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[Eerie music]

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[Sgt. Linley] I already knew that

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the child was 13 1/2 years old,

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and I took one look at her,

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and she wasn't much bigger

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than my daughter, Beverly,

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who had just turned seven
about 3 months earlier.

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And, I really had a hard time

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conceiving of the idea that the child

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was the age that she was.

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The child, uh, obviously,

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had been severely mistreated.

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She was still in diapers, couldn't walk,

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she had no verbal skills at all,
at that point.

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[Eerie music]

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The last time I was on this street

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was probably 30 years ago.

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[Eerie music]

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Yep, there it is.

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Hasn't changed much.

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The back yard looks the same.

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It's all weeds and dead grass.

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[Eerie music]

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Looks the same as it did in 1970.

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[Eerie music]

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[Narrator] The house belonged
to Clark Wiley.

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A loner, Clark had turned his

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back on the world,

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after his mother had been killed

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in a hit and run accident.

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After the accident,

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things in the Wiley house

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would never be the same again.

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[Eerie music]

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[Sgt. Linley] The house was
completely dark.

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All the blinds were drawn.

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There were no toys.

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No clothes.

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Nothing that would ever
indicate to you

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that a child of any age
lived there.

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[Eerie music. Passing cars whoosh.]

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The child's bedroom was

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back in this corner.

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That was the bedroom.

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The, uh, windows were covered

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to about 3 inches from the top,

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which was the only natural light

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that had ever come in there,

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in all the time the child was

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in the bedroom.

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The entire furnishing to the bedroom

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consisted of a cage,

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with a, uh, pull-down chicken wire lid,

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and some type of -- piece of wire,

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securing it, when they closed it down.

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There was a potty chair,

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with some kind of homemade
strapping device.

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[Narrator] For thirteen years,

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Genie had spent her nights

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locked in bed,

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her days strapped 
to a potty chair.

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During that time,

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Clark had ordered his son John,

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and wife Irene,

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never to talk to her.

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In her darkened room,

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she had led a life

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or near total isolation.

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[Eerie music]

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Even close neighbors

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were completely unaware

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of her presence.

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[Neighbor] I came home from work,

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and the police was here,

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and they came to question us.

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That's when we found --

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found out, you know,

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what happened, and 
uh, you know,

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that they had a little girl.

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Nobody knew. Nobody knew before.

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And, uh, then we found out

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what happened, how she was treated.

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I mean, everybody was shocked,

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and, just -- unbelievable.

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[Narrator] For their whole marriage,

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Clark had imposed his will on Irene.

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Blind with cataracts,

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she had been too scared to resist.

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But one day, something broke.

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While Clark was out buying groceries,

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she seized her chance, and fled.

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It was the first glimpse
the world would have

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of Clark and Irene's dark secret.

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[Sgt. Linley] I met Clark and Irene

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at Temple City sheriff station,

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and they were both 
under arrest, at the time.

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When we interviewed Irene,

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she would make no mention

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of the family, whatsoever;

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particularly, the children.

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I attempted, along with my partner,

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to interview Clark.

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He refused to talk to us.

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He wouldn't say a word.

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He never even acknowledged

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that he understood
what we were talking about.

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[Reporter] Mr. Wiley?

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[Clark] Yes ma'am.

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Why did you keep your daughter

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in a room --

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[Lawyer] Mr. Wiley has no comment.

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[Clark] No comment.

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[Lawyer] We haven't had time to discuss
the charges.

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We haven't even seen them.

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[Narrator] Unable to face the truth,

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Clark took matters into his own hands.

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[Eerie music]

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[News announcer] This morning,

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the authorities reported

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that 70 year old Clark Wiley

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shot and killed himself,

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just before he was to go to court

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and be arraigned

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for child abuse.

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[Narrator] After 13 years,

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Genie was, at last, free.

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For scientists, she was just the case

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they had been waiting for.

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For 13 years,

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Genie had lived a life

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of complete isolation.

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Raised in a city bedroom,

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Genie was as much a feral child

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as if she had been

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brought up by wolves.

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At 13, she was the size

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of a six year old.

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Worst of all,

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she had never been taught to speak.

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The question now:

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Could she ever learn?

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[Traffic softly whooshes.]

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Genie's case was so 
scientifically important,

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that the government funded
a team of scientists

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to help answer the many questions
she posed.

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[Clomps up the steps.]

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[Narrator] Two of the scientists

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who would become especially important
to Genie

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were child psychologist James Kent,

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and linguist Susan Curtiss.

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[Susan] So good to see you.

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[Narrator] Neither had ever

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encountered a case

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as extreme as Genie's.

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[Eerie music]

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[James Kent] We looked at her

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as a newborn, in a way,

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even though we know she hadn't.

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She came with 13 years

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of memories and experiences,

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not all of them wonderful.

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Most of them not, I think.

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And so, we thought we needed

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to start to expose her

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to what the world was going to

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be like for her,

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outside the hospital bed.

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[Narrator] To Genie,

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everything was a new experience.

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[James Kent] We did what you would do

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with your own kids,

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if you were introducing them
to the world.

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Take them out,

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hold them up, and show them. [Chuckles]

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Sort of judge, from how they reacted,

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whether this was too much,

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or not enough.

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And you could move on,

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and do the next thing.

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[Narrator] Genie was making

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amazing progress.

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As the experts looked on,

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they realized that she might
be the answer

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to the question that

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had troubled science for so long.

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[Susan Curtiss] So, we

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seized this wonderful opportunity

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that she provided us,

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in as loving a way as we could,

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but, using it to...

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finally get our chance to

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address, head on,

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specific hypotheses,

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and notions about

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human language,

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and the human mind.

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[Narrator] These hypotheses

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were based on the latest ideas

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about how children's brains developed.

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According to the theory,

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young children

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could only learn certain things

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at certain times,

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called 'critical periods.'

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Language was one of these

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'critical periods.'

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According to the theory,

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Genie, who was now a teenager,

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had missed her chance forever.

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But, incredibly,

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Genie seemed to be

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proving the theory wrong.

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As this footage shows,

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Genie was blossoming.

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Not only was she delighted

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by the world around her,

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but she was learning the words

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for the new things she was seeing.

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[Wistful piano music]

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[Susan Curtiss] She was extremely

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interested in everything around her.

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She wanted to know the word

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for everything around her.

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She wanted to engage people

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all around her.

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She was not mentally deficient.

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Her lights were on,

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and everyone who worked with her,

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from teachers, to therapists,

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to me, knew

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that she was not retarded.

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It was clear as day.

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And, as she began to learn

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more and more words,

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hundreds of words,

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much more rapidly

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than they ever imagined,

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and stringing them together,

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I began to think 'Maybe

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I will be wrong.

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Maybe she will be the one

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that will prove

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that this hypothesis is incorrect.'

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[Narrator] But Genie could not escape

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the effects of her past so easily.

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She was still haunted

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by her traumatic upbringing,

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trapped by the memories

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of the awful fate she had suffered.

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Linguistically, she had stopped
making progress.

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[Susan Curtiss] She learned tons of words.

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She has an enormous vocabulary.

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But language is not words.

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Language is grammar.

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Language is sentences.

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How do you make a sentence?

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What can be a sentence?

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What is a sentence?

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How do you automatically know

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something is a sentence?

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So, it wasn't because she was
cognitively deficient,

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in other respects.

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It was because she was
cognitively deficient

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in this island of human mind,

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the mental faculty that we call
'grammar.'

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[Narrator] At the time
Genie was found,

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brain science was in its infancy.

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Today, we have a much clearer picture

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of what actually happens

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in cases of extreme neglect,
like Genie's.

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[Dr. Bruce Perry] In Genie's brain,

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the left part of her brain, her cortex,

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that has those neural systems

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responsible for speech and language,

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because she never heard any words,

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and because she was never talked --

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spoken to very often,

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they didn't get stimulated.

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And, because they weren't stimulated,

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they got smaller, and less functional,

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and disconnected, and ultimately,

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that part of the brain literally,
physically changes.

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[Narrator] Today,

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with modern imaging technology,

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we can actually see what happens

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in the brains of feral children.

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The effects are shocking.

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Without normal stimulation,

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their brains are smaller, and malformed.

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The earlier this neglect begins,

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and the longer it carries on,

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the worse the damage will be.

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Starved of stimulation,

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Genie's brain had simply

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not developed the capacity
for language.

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And, now that she was 
a teenager,

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she would never be able to learn.

00:10:14.771 --> 00:10:15.912
Despite this,

00:10:15.912 --> 00:10:17.471
Genie continued to be a close part

00:10:17.471 --> 00:10:19.030
of everyone's life.

00:10:19.030 --> 00:10:22.409
But, there was more trouble ahead.

00:10:23.579 --> 00:10:25.038
[James Kent] Children have to

00:10:25.038 --> 00:10:26.801
belong to somebody when they grow up,

00:10:26.801 --> 00:10:28.120
and she was still a child,

00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:30.021
and she needed a family to belong to.

00:10:30.021 --> 00:10:31.721
So, that's what we would've liked.

00:10:31.721 --> 00:10:33.789
A family that she could belong to.

00:10:33.789 --> 00:10:38.008
And, that's not what happened,
unfortunately.

00:10:38.008 --> 00:10:39.067
What did happen

00:10:39.067 --> 00:10:40.819
is, about, the worst outcome, um,

00:10:40.829 --> 00:10:43.561
I think
we would've envisioned.

00:10:43.831 --> 00:10:45.709
[Narrator] On her 18th birthday,

00:10:45.709 --> 00:10:47.809
Genie moved back 
with her mother Irene,

00:10:47.809 --> 00:10:49.149
into the house in which

00:10:49.149 --> 00:10:51.441
she had been so terribly abused.

00:10:51.441 --> 00:10:52.832
But after only a few weeks,

00:10:52.832 --> 00:10:55.450
it was clear that Irene couldn't cope.

00:10:55.450 --> 00:10:58.070
From here, Genie was moved
into state care,

00:10:58.070 --> 00:11:01.179
with terrible consequences.

00:11:01.179 --> 00:11:03.444
[Susan Curtiss] I was a student,

00:11:03.444 --> 00:11:05.067
and people wouldn't listen to me.

00:11:05.067 --> 00:11:06.830
People who needed to intervene

00:11:06.830 --> 00:11:08.467
did not listen to me.

00:11:08.467 --> 00:11:10.933
And, so, I spent lots and lots of time

00:11:10.933 --> 00:11:13.258
on the phone, pleading with people

00:11:13.258 --> 00:11:15.328
to intervene, and save this person

00:11:15.328 --> 00:11:19.720
who had had the worst experience
of deprivation,

00:11:19.720 --> 00:11:23.223
and isolation, in all recorded
medical history.

00:11:23.223 --> 00:11:24.291
[Narrator] Genie moved

00:11:24.291 --> 00:11:25.542
from home to home,

00:11:25.542 --> 00:11:27.081
sometimes with the very people

00:11:27.081 --> 00:11:28.930
who served as her therapists.

00:11:28.930 --> 00:11:31.218
This potential conflict of interests

00:11:31.218 --> 00:11:33.111
raised tensions among the many people

00:11:33.111 --> 00:11:34.929
involved in her life.

00:11:34.929 --> 00:11:37.969
A tug of war erupted over the child.

00:11:37.969 --> 00:11:40.177
As Genie's condition deteriorated,

00:11:40.177 --> 00:11:42.027
Irene decided that Susan Curtiss

00:11:42.027 --> 00:11:45.339
and the other academics had become
too close to Genie.

00:11:45.339 --> 00:11:47.971
A lawsuit followed.

00:11:47.971 --> 00:11:51.210
[Susan Curtiss] I went from being asked

00:11:51.210 --> 00:11:52.637
to be her guardian,

00:11:52.637 --> 00:11:54.178
to, one week later,

00:11:54.178 --> 00:11:56.120
being prevented from seeing her,

00:11:56.120 --> 00:11:57.330
or phoning her.

00:11:57.330 --> 00:11:59.099
Ever since then, I've been prevented

00:11:59.099 --> 00:12:01.218
from having any contact, at all.

00:12:01.218 --> 00:12:03.469
So, although I have lots of,

00:12:03.469 --> 00:12:05.709
you know, I'm still a scientist,

00:12:05.709 --> 00:12:07.729
I'm still interested in knowing things

00:12:07.729 --> 00:12:09.940
about her language now, and

00:12:09.940 --> 00:12:12.094
all kinds of interesting things

00:12:12.094 --> 00:12:14.159
I would like to pursue academically,

00:12:14.159 --> 00:12:17.779
primarily I would just like to see her.

00:12:17.779 --> 00:12:19.709
[Narrator] Now a ward of the court,

00:12:19.709 --> 00:12:21.700
Genie lives in an adult care home

00:12:21.700 --> 00:12:23.432
somewhere in Los Angeles,

00:12:23.432 --> 00:12:24.930
prevented from seeing the people

00:12:24.930 --> 00:12:26.842
who once meant so much to her.