The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce Perry Read Free Book Online Page B

help her prepare.
    â€œShe doesn’t have one,” he said. This was disturbing news.
    â€œNo therapist? Where is she living?” I asked.
    â€œWe don’t really know. She is in foster care but the prosecutor and the Department of Child and Family Services are keeping her location undisclosed because there have been threats against her life. She knew the suspect and identified him for the police. He is in a gang and there is a contract out on her.” This was sounding worse and worse.
    â€œShe gave a credible ID at age three?” I asked. I knew that eyewitness testimony is easily challenged in court because of the properties of narrative memory we noted earlier, especially its gaps and the way it tends to “fill in” the “expected.” And from a four-year-old about an event that occurred when she was three? If the prosecutors didn’t have some help, a good defense attorney would easily make Sandy’s testimony appear completely unreliable.
    â€œWell, she knew him,” Stan explained, “She both spontaneously said he did it and later identified him from a photo array.”
    I asked if there was any additional evidence, thinking that maybe the little girl’s testimony wouldn’t even be necessary. If there was enough other evidence, perhaps I could help him convince the prosecutor that testifying posed too great a risk of further traumatizing the child.
    Stan explained that there was indeed other evidence. In fact, numerous types of physical evidence placed the perpetrator at the scene. Investigators had found the girl’s mother’s blood all over his clothes. Despite having fled the country after committing the crime, the man still had blood on his shoes when he was arrested.
    â€œSo why does Sandy have to testify?” I asked. I was already starting to feel pulled to help this child.
    â€œThat is part of what we are trying to figure out. We are hoping to have the case postponed until we can either get her testimony by closed-circuit
TV or make sure she is ready to testify in court.” He went on to describe the details of the murder, the girl’s hospitalization due to injuries she’d received during the crime and her subsequent foster care placements.
    As I listened, I debated whether or not to get involved. As usual I was overextended and extremely busy. Plus, I’m uncomfortable in court and I hate lawyers. But the more Stan talked, the more I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The people who were supposed to help this girl—from DCFS to the justice system—seemed clueless about the effects of trauma on children. I began to feel that she deserved to have at least one person in her life who might not be.
    â€œSo, let me go over this again,” I said, “A three-year-old girl witnesses her mother being raped and murdered. She has her own throat cut, twice, and is left for dead. She is alone with her dead mother’s body for eleven hours in their apartment. Then, she’s taken to the hospital and has the wounds on her neck treated. In the hospital, the physicians recommend ongoing mental health evaluation and treatment. But after she’s released, she’s placed in a foster home as a ward of the state. Her CPS caseworker doesn’t think she needs to see a mental health professional. So, despite the doctors’ recommendations, he doesn’t get her any help. For nine months, this child is moved from foster home to foster home with no counseling or psychiatric care whatsoever. And the details of the child’s experiences are never shared with the foster families because she is in hiding. Right?”
    â€œYeah, I guess all of that is true,” he said, hearing the unmistakable frustration in my voice and how terrible it all sounded when I described the situation so bluntly.
    â€œAnd now, ten days before a murder trial is scheduled to start, you become aware of the