Genie (feral Child) - Media

Media

After the Fritzl case came to light in February 2008, ABC News ran two stories, almost two weeks apart in early May of that year, comparing the Fritzl case to Genie's. Their stories noted many of the similarities between Genie's father's abuse of his family and Josef Fritzl's imprisonment of his daughter and three of his grandchildren, and said the grandchildren Fritzl held captive had displayed many of the physical and mental problems Genie had when she was found. Their first story also noted that reporters were unable to contact David Rigler, as he was reportedly in declining health. In addition to interviews with James Kent and Curtiss—both of whom indicated they had not seen Genie since early 1978—the first story featured an interview with a British special education graduate student who was doing her dissertation on Genie's case and had established a rapport with most of the people central to it. The second story contained an interview with the police officer who arrested Genie's parents, who said he vividly remembered the case and described the conditions he found inside their house.

Genie's brother was also interviewed for both stories, which was the first time he publicly spoke about his or Genie's life. Prior to the news stories, his ex-wife and former in-laws were the only people with whom he had raised the subject. In the interviews, he spoke about the abuse he saw his father inflict and about how their father forced him to keep silent, discussing in detail how his father mistreated him. When talking about his parents, he said it was only later in his life that he came to fully understand how badly they had treated him and his sister; in addition to witnessing Genie's condition, he said that when he left home, he realized he was completely unprepared to deal with living on his own. At the time of the interview, he had reportedly only just found out their mother had died of natural causes in 2003. In addition, he also talked about his life after escaping his parents' home; he said he spent several years drifting around the country and combating alcohol abuse, eventually settling down as a house painter in Ohio, and mentioned he was divorced and had a daughter and two grandchildren who lived nearby but with whom he had mostly lost contact. He did not say in either story whether his daughter or grandchildren had ever visited or attempted to see Genie or their mother, nor did he mention whether his ex-wife ever met either of them during their marriage. Finally, he indicated he was still struggling to cope with the trauma of his and Genie's upbringing and blocked it out of his memory as much as possible, though he kept a small collection of photographs from his early childhood and a few letters and photographs his mother sent him in the 1980s.