Gotta Read It: ‘The Girl in the Window’
She was found as a feral child. (From the St. Petersburg Times)
It’s one of those stories, you know? The St. Petersburg Times follows the case of a girl found in squalor in a Plant City, Fla., home. Not quite seven years old, she weighed 46 pounds. A neighbor finally called the police, the paper reports:
First he saw the girl’s eyes: dark and wide, unfocused, unblinking. She wasn’t looking at him so much as through him.
She lay on a torn, moldy mattress on the floor. She was curled on her side, long legs tucked into her emaciated chest. Her ribs and collarbone jutted out; one skinny arm was slung over her face; her black hair was matted, crawling with lice. Insect bites, rashes and sores pocked her skin. Though she looked old enough to be in school, she was naked — except for a swollen diaper.
“The pile of dirty diapers in that room must have been 4 feet high,” the detective said. “The glass in the window had been broken, and that child was just lying there, surrounded by her own excrement and bugs.”
Now the girl has been adopted by a local family. They’re working to bring the girl back from her “environmental autism.” Cue the Pulitzer, please.
Bonus: Poynter goes behind the scenes.
Tags: Add new tag, news
-- Filed by Laura Conaway
August 7th, 2008 at 9:47 am
that family deserves an award, and so does that girl. what a fighter. what a beautiful story…made the mistake of reading it while at work and cried like a baby.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Wow. That may be the best article I’ve ever read out of either of the Tampa Bay papers. (I went to school at University South Florida.) What a heart-wrenching story. I’m glad it appears to be having a happy ending.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
That is one of the most remarkable stories! The people in this story are incredible - it’s hard to believe this can happen, but it’s so important that we know it did. I’m glad that the team of people behind the story chose to take it on with this vigor and put so much effort and detail in bringing the story to the world. Thank you to them and to everyone involved in this child’s rescue.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Thanks for making us aware of this amazing article.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Wow - what an amazing, compelling story.
I thought the Poynter article about the piece was fascinating - so often, we civilians read news stories without really thinking about what actually goes into them: the research, the interviews, the documentation, the writing, etc.
August 8th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
I worked at a children’s home and heard stories from the kids that made me sick to my stomach. But always there was a tie to the birth parents. The children would make excuses for them and then alternate between feelings of love and hate towards them. I wonder as she grows older if Dani will have any memory or display any emotions about her birth mother or brothers?
The adoptive parents learned in the trenches, like all parents learn. They and their young son have given up a lot to help their new family member, and it seems they are being rewarded many times over.
Thanks for bringing this story to my attention!
August 8th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Laura,
Thanks for that article! I found the level of neglect by the biological mother in the story amazing. That this could happen in this day and age is beyond sad and disturbing.
Her new parent and brother are saints.