Back in the early 1960s, a 13-year-old girl went to a welfare office in Los Angeles, but she was unlike all the other children people had met.
With curled hands like a frightened rabbit and unable to talk, she found walking very hard. Her name was Genie, chosen to hide who she was and her story surprised the country and made many people reconsider language, brain processes and our connections with people.
Who was the Genie called Genie Wiley?
Arcadia, California was the birthplace of Genie Wiley in the year 1957. She might have grown up like another child, but she is linked to incidents of torture and abuse.
She was the youngest in her family and was the second oldest to live past childhood. Clark Wiley, her father, was a flight mechanic during World War II and afterward kept working in the aviation business. Her mother, just around 20 years her junior, was raised on an Oklahoma farm and moved alongside some friends to Southern California during the Dust Bowl because of the tragedy
Genie experienced a lot of harsh treatment and neglect during her early years. After her brother John was born, she seemed to do well at first, but she had a difficulty with her hips that made her unable to walk until later on. Because of this delay, her father became convinced that she was mentally disabled and he then limited his interactions with her and insisted her mother and brother do the same.
When Genie got older, her father’s actions scared her deeply. Going through a family tragedy drove him to be enraged and believe everyone in the world wanted to hurt him. He forced Genie to stay in a tiny, dark space, tying her to a child’s potty by day and a baby’s bed by night and often confined her for many straight hours. Any sound she made was punished by him and so he made her keep silent. When he wanted her to stop, he would bark and hit her, making her afraid of all animals.
She was mostly fed baby food and liquids by force and she was seldom allowed out or given a chance to talk. Keeping the family in complete control, her father forbade them from watching TV, listening to the radio or normal conversations, so Genie never had the chance to hear or see typical things a child might.
Because her mother was nearly blind and very afraid, she couldn’t shield her girl and would be beaten each time she tried to intervene. Genie’s brother was sometimes commanded to keep silent and sometimes even join in the abuse. Genie had hopes that everything would change when she turned 12, but this did not happen and she had to live through the nightmare for many more years.
One of the most devastating events of child abuse
When everything finally brought Genie and her mom to the welfare office, Genie’s mother by accident got into the wrong room and what came next had life-changing results for many.
Social workers at Los Angeles first thought the case involved autism, but what really happened was much worse.
The doctors said that Vivian was by far the most severely hurt child they had seen.
When someone found Genie, she was wearing diapers and looked incredibly thin, after many years of not being cared for. Even with the problem, there was an appealing kind of beauty in her, resembling Anne Frank a bit.
She had additional teeth and her chewing and swallowing were very difficult because she had almost no control over her limbs or eyes. Her body weight was about that of a child who was only half as old as she was.
Many scientists throughout the country went to observe Genie because they wanted to discover how language was formed or if it could still be formed, in someone who did not learn as a child.
Genie managed to say words including “blue,” “go” and “mother.” She could draw, put puzzles together and express herself using gestures or writing. Mastering how language works in this grammar component proved very difficult.
Researchers say the ability for her to develop speech had ended when she was young. Her way of walking, having a bunny gait, was not usual and she regularly spat saliva. The first few months, she was peaceful and lost control of her bladder, plus she understood her name and the word “sorry”.
Some linguists, psychologists and caregivers became involved in lively discussions about Genie’s experience. Some people believed she was getting better every day, but many were worried she could regress.
The awful outcomes
Regretfully, Genie’s life started to go downhill after she made some good progress. Right after Genie turned 18, she had to move back to live with her mother. After about four months, her mother realized she couldn’t give Genie the care she needed and asked for help. Because Genie requested it, officials placed her into an institution and a number of foster homes made for disabled adults.
I was not supported at all in these surroundings. Her caretakers got into arguments with each other. Funding vanished. She was sent from one foster home to another and even kept in institutions, kept far from public notice.
Her situation caused her health problems and the progress she managed in social skills and speaking soon vanished.
Those close to her had disturbing moments for decades. UCLA linguist Susan Curtiss hopes to see Genie again after their time together. She talked to The Guardian in 2016 about her career.
I keep asking every time I speak to them and every time they tell me she is well. My brother and mother always prevented me from getting in touch with her. My efforts to be close to her by visiting or writing are now useless. My last phone call or letter with them was around the beginning of the 1980s.”
Russ Rymer, who wrote the bestselling book about Genie, says the story influenced him deeply for the rest of his life. He shared much about Genie as part of two articles in The New Yorker and in his book Genie: A Scientific Tragedy and he felt that the images from her 27th birthday were tragic. He called her a “large, awkward woman, with dull eyes that seem out of focus as she looks at the cake.” He pointed out that her hair had been cut unevenly at the top, making her glance like a mental patient.
It is still not known what became of Genie. People think she lives somewhere under the care of the state in California, but her location is not disclosed. Genie would reach the age of 67 or 68 in the year 2024.
What happened to her highlights how truly resilient humans are, yet how terrible the outcomes can be from abuse and lack of care. She was studied by scientists, but she was treated more like a research project than a girl.
John still struggled with Clark Wiley’s abuse many years later. After going through the abuse and seeing his sister suffer, he said in an interview with ABC News the same year, “Sometimes I felt that God failed me.” Maybe it was me that he could not understand.” John’s final meeting with Genie was in 1982 and he lost touch with their mother after that, who died in 2003. Because I felt so bad, I tried my best to forget about Genie. I feel lucky that she was finally able to get support.
John struggled a bit after having dealings with the law and he moved to Ohio to start working as a house painter. He married and had a daughter called Pamela, though the marriage ended and his niece Pamela, later a teen, struggled with addiction.
Police found Pamela drunk in 2010 and charged her with risking the safety of her two daughters — Genie’s grandnieces. Unfortunately, no miracle happened in the end. John, who was diabetic, died in 2011 and after that Pamela, who did not meet her aunt Genie, also passed away the following year, in 2012.
Both of Genie’s parents were blamed for abuse and her father took his own life the day before going to court. Cops found two notes written by the shooter, the first for his son saying, “Be a good boy, I love you,” and the second for the authorities. One version — different sources give different answers — said: “The world will not understand.”
Genie’s experience brings up serious concerns: How can we look after at-risk children? How can we find the right balance between our scientific interest and caring for people? Can being cared for and understood fully mend the most serious emotional pain?
Her story reminds us always to support and give a voice to children who are invisible or unnoticed.