When she was a toddler, Genie’s father decided she was “retarded”, tier her
to a chair and left her alone in a room for 10 years.
In 1970 her mother
removed her from this solitary confinement and took her to child services, where workers saw that she had an odd “bunny-walk”,
wasn’t toilet-trained and couldn’t speak. She also constantly spat and clawed at herself.
She returned to live with her mother for a short time but never learned to speak or read properly. She later passed through foster homes
where she was harassed and abused, then returned to a children’s hospital, now completely silent. Funding for her rehabilitation stopped in 1974,
and she now lives in a home for mentally underdeveloped adults.