WEBVTT

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[News anchor] 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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who 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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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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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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Looks the same as it did in 1970.

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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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[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 what, you know,

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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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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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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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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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[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 would 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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[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 that maybe

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I will be wrong.

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Maybe she will be the one

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who 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

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
something is a sentence?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
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

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
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 got disconnected, and ultimately,

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that part of the brain literally,
physically changes.

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[Narrator] Today,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
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.

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Despite this,

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Genie continued to be a close part

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of everyone's life.

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But, there was more trouble ahead.

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[James Kent] Children have to

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belong to somebody when they grow up,

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and she was still a child,

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and she needed a family to belong to.

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So, that's what we would've liked.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A family that she could belong to.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And, that's not what happened,
unfortunately.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
What did happen

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
um, is about, I think,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the worst outcome
we would've envisioned.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
On her 18th birthday,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Genie moved back 
with her mother Irene,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
into the house in which

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
she had been so terribly abused.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But after only a few weeks,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it was clear that Irene couldn't cope.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
From here, Genie was moved
into state care,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with terrible consequences.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[Susan Curtiss] I was a student,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and people wouldn't listen to me.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
People who needed to intervene

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
did not listen to me.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And, so, I spent lots and lots of time

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
on the phone, pleading with people

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to intervene, and save this person

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who had had the worst experience
of deprivation,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and isolation, in all recorded
medical history.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[Narrator] Genie moved

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from home to home,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
sometimes with the very people

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who served as her therapists.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This potential conflict of interests

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
raised tensions among the many people

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
involved in her life.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A tug of war erupted over the child.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
As Genie's condition deteriorated,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Irene decided that Susan Curtiss

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the other academics had become
too close to Genie.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A lawsuit followed.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[Susan Curtiss] I went from being asked

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to be her guardian,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to, one week later,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
being prevented from seeing her,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or phoning her.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Ever since then, I've been prevented

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from having any contact, at all.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So, although I have lots of,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you know, I'm still a scientist,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I'm still interested in knowing things

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
about her language now, and

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
all kinds of interesting things

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I would like to pursue academically,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
primarily I would just like to see her.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[Narrator] Now a ward of the court,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Genie lives in an adult care home

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
somewhere in Los Angeles,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
prevented from seeing the people

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who once meant so much to her.