[News anchor] Officials in the
Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia
have taken custody of a 13 year old girl,
who they say, was kept in such isolation
by her parents,
that she never even learned to talk.
The girl still wore diapers,
and was uttering infantile noises,
when a social worker discovered the case
two weeks ago.
The authorities are hoping
she still may have a normal
learning capacity.
Among the first to see the child
was Temple City detective,
Sergeant Frank Linley.
[Eerie music]
[Sgt. Linley] I already knew that
the child was 13 1/2 years old,
and I took one look at her,
and she wasn't much bigger
than my daughter, Beverly,
who had just turned seven
about 3 months earlier.
And, I really had a hard time
conceiving of the idea that the child
was the age that she was.
The child, uh, obviously,
had been severely mistreated.
She was still in diapers, couldn't walk,
she had no verbal skills at all,
at that point.
[Eerie music]
The last time I was on this street
was probably 30 years ago.
Yep, there it is.
Hasn't changed much.
The back yard looks the same.
It's all weeds and dead grass.
Looks the same as it did in 1970.
[Narrator] The house belonged
to Clark Wiley.
A loner, Clark had turned his
back on the world,
after his mother had been killed
in a hit and run accident.
After the accident,
things in the Wiley house
would never be the same again.
[Sgt. Linley] The house was
completely dark.
All the blinds were drawn.
There were no toys.
No clothes.
Nothing that would ever
indicate to you
that a child of any age
lived there.
[Eerie music. Passing cars whoosh.]
The child's bedroom was
back in this corner.
That was the bedroom.
The, uh, windows were covered
to about 3 inches from the top,
which was the only natural light
that had ever come in there,
in all the time the child was
in the bedroom.
The entire furnishing to the bedroom
consisted of a cage,
with a, uh, pull-down chicken wire lid,
and some type of -- piece of wire,
securing it, when they closed it down.
There was a potty chair,
with some kind of homemade
strapping device.
[Narrator] For thirteen years,
Genie had spent her nights
locked in bed,
her days strapped
to a potty chair.
During that time,
Clark had ordered his son John,
and wife Irene,
never to talk to her.
In her darkened room,
she had led a life
or near total isolation.
[Eerie music]
Even close neighbors
were completely unaware
of her presence.
[Neighbor] I came home from work,
and the police was here,
and they came to question us.
That's when we found --
found out what, you know,
happened, and uh, you know,
that they had a little girl.
Nobody knew. Nobody knew before.
And, uh, then we found out
what happened, how she was treated.
I mean, everybody was shocked,
and, just -- unbelievable.
For their whole marriage,
Clark had imposed his will on Irene.
Blind with cataracts,
she had been too scared to resist.
But one day, something broke.
While Clark was out buying groceries,
she seized her chance, and fled.
It was the first glimpse
the world would have
of Clark and Irene's dark secret.
[Sgt. Linley] I met Clark and Irene
at Temple City sheriff station,
and they were both
under arrest, at the time.
When we interviewed Irene,
she would make no mention
of the family, whatsoever;
particularly, the children.
I attempted, along with my partner,
to interview Clark.
He refused to talk to us.
He wouldn't say a word.
He never even acknowledged
that he understood
what we were talking about.
[Reporter] Mr. Wiley?
[Clark] Yes ma'am.
Why did you keep your daughter
in a room --
[Lawyer] Mr. Wiley has no comment.
[Clark] No comment.
[Lawyer] We haven't had time to discuss
the charges.
We haven't even seen them.
[Narrator] Unable to face the truth,
Clark took matters into his own hands.
[Eerie music]
[News announcer] This morning,
the authorities reported
that 70 year old Clark Wiley
shot and killed himself,
just before he was to go to court
and be arraigned
for child abuse.
[Narrator] After 13 years,
Genie was, at last, free.
For scientists, she was just the case
they had been waiting for.
For 13 years,
Genie had lived a life
of complete isolation.
Raised in a city bedroom,
Genie was as much a feral child
as if she had been
brought up by wolves.
At 13, she was the size
of a six year old.
Worst of all,
she had never been taught to speak.
The question now:
Could she ever learn?
[Traffic softly whooshes.]
Genie's case was so
scientifically important,
the government funded
a team of scientists
to help answer the many questions
she posed.
[Clomps up the steps.]
Two of the scientists
who would become especially important
to Genie
were child psychologist James Kent,
and linguist Susan Curtiss.
[Susan] So good to see you.
[Narrator] Neither had ever
encountered a case
as extreme as Genie's.
[James Kent] We looked at her
as a newborn, in a way,
even though we know she hadn't.
She came with 13 years
of memories and experiences,
not all of them wonderful.
Most of them not, I think.
And so, we thought we needed
to start to expose her
to what the would was going to
be like for her,
outside the hospital bed.
[Narrator] To Genie,
everything was a new experience.
[James Kent] We did what you would do
with your own kids,
if you were introducing them
to the world.
Take them out,
hold them up, and show them. [Chuckles]
Sort of judge, from how they reacted,
whether this was too much,
or not enough.
And you could move on,
and do the next thing.
[Narrator] Genie was making
amazing progress.
As the experts looked on,
they realized that she might
be the answer
to the question that
had troubled science for so long.
[Susan Curtiss] So, we
seized this wonderful opportunity
that she provided us,
in as loving a way as we could,
but, using it to...
finally get our chance to
address, head on,
specific hypotheses,
and notions about
human language,
and the human mind.
[Narrator] These hypotheses
were based on the latest ideas
about how children's brains developed.
According to the theory,
young children
could only learn certain things
at certain times,
called 'critical periods.'
Language was one of these
'critical periods.'
According to the theory,
Genie, who was now a teenager,
had missed her chance forever.
But, incredibly,
Genie seemed to be
proving the theory wrong.
As this footage shows,
Genie was blossoming.