Genie Wiley Case Study

The Case of Susan “Genie” Wiley

On November 4th, 1970, Los Angeles child welfare authorities became aware of the abuse, neglect, and social isolation of Susan “Genie” Wiley. It was when social workers noticed the odd behavior of Susan after her and her mother, who was seeking financial support, walked into welfare offices. Upon further investigation, they discovered that Susan was thirteen years old and had been severely maltreated by her father her entire life. Susan’s father came to the conclusion early in her life that she was socially unfit, or “retarded’ and was ashamed of her. He hid her in the back bedroom of the Wiley home and kept her from neighbors, family, and friends. This left Susan unable to develop language skills learned from

communicating and interacting with other people. Authorities gave Susan the name Genie to protect her identity and privacy from the media and people who became fascinated by the young feral child.
At initial assessment it is clear that Susan is in imminent danger of serious harm.

When Susan was discovered, she was wearing a diaper and was thought to be much younger that what she appeared. There are evident signs for physical, mental, and emotional abuse and the child is severely malnourished. In the coming days after the discovering of Susan, it was found that Susan was kept isolated in one of the back bedrooms of her family home. She was either confined to a crib or tied to a child’s potty chair and was only given baby food. At this time, Susan it is not safe for her to return home and should be removed from future maltreatment. The mother has a history of vision problems and has been institutionalized in the past. When questioning the mother, she revealed that Susan’s father is the main source of violence in the home and has been abusing her throughout their marriage. After the eldest child ran off, the mother decided to take Susan and leave her husband. Both Susan and her mother are at risk of severe harm and need intensive services that focuses on their emotional, physical, and mental health. The mother and father should be evaluated and they need services that addresses on how to properly care for a mentally challenged child.

Susan is the youngest of four children, of which only she and her older brother, John, were the only to survive. It is believed that her father, Clark, is responsible for his first two children’s deaths. John was also severely physically abused by Clark and was often given notes to excuse him from gym at school. John and Susan had limited interactions together and John was beaten when he tried to give her food. At the age of eighteen, John ran away to escape his father’s callous abuse, thus leaving Susan to endure

alone.
Clark and Dorothy Wiley is the father and mother of Susan. Dorothy grew up in a farming family in Oklahoma. When Clark and Dorothy married, he was twenty years older than her and never wanted children. Dorothy’s family never approved of her marriage to Clark because of the large age gap. Both Clark and Dorothy had limited education and their relationship was littered with domestic violence. Clark was mostly raised in orphanages or his mother’s bordello in the Pacific Northwest. His father died when he was a small child and his mother rarely spent time with him due to running her brothel. It is believed that he held resentment towards his mother, because he was given a feminine name. He later changed his name to a more masculine name due to years of being bullied and teased. Later in his life, his mother showed interest in him and he put the relationship with her above his other relationships, including the one with his own wife and family.
The Wiley family moved into Clark’s mother two bedroom home in Los Angeles after her sudden death. Clark kept her room as a shrine and no one was allowed to touch her belongings. Scientist believe that with death of Clark’s mother, he felt society failed him and that he had to protect his family from the outside world. After Susan was born, the doctor told Clark that she was mentally retarded and he took it to the extreme by locking Susan in the one remaining bedroom. In Clark’s mind, he thought he what he was doing was expectable and never saw the destruction it was actually doing. He was the sole provider for the family and controlled who the family could communicate with. Both John and Dorothy were not allowed to interact with Susan and often were threaten with Clark’s gun collection. Clark became more paranoid as time went on and would often sleep in an armchair in the living room with a shotgun in his lap. John would sleep on the floor while Dorothy slept at the dining room table. John later explained that the house was like a concentration camp. Many neighbors did not know of Susan’s existence and thought that the Wiley family were strange people who kept to themselves. However after the discovery of Susan, some people claimed that when they drove past the house, they would see her playing in the yard or sitting on the front porch.