I started the day worrying about the little problem of my baby’s physical development.

But this worrying vanished when I read Danielle’s story. 

Danielle is a little girl who was rescued in 2005 from her mother’s house in America. It’s a story of the most frightening neglect. And also a wonderful and inspiring story of a couple who chose to adopt Danielle not knowing whether she would ever recover.

 On July 13, 2005, police arrived at a house, after reports of child abuse from neighbours. This is a description of the house where Danielle lived:

“The police officers walked through the front door, into a cramped living room.

“I’ve been in rooms with bodies rotting there for a week and it never stunk that bad,” Holste said later. “There’s just no way to describe it. Urine and feces — dog, cat and human excrement — smeared on the walls, mashed into the carpet. Everything dank and rotting.”

Tattered curtains, yellow with cigarette smoke, dangling from bent metal rods. Cardboard and old comforters stuffed into broken, grimy windows. Trash blanketing the stained couch, the sticky counters.

The floor, walls, even the ceiling seemed to sway beneath legions of scuttling roaches.

“It sounded like you were walking on eggshells. You couldn’t take a step without crunching German cockroaches,” the detective said. “They were in the lights, in the furniture. Even inside the freezer. The freezer!”

While Holste looked around, a stout woman in a faded housecoat demanded to know what was going on. Yes, she lived there. Yes, those were her two sons in the living room. Her daughter? Well, yes, she had a daughter . . .

The detective strode past her, down a narrow hall. He turned the handle on a door, which opened into a space the size of a walk-in closet. He squinted in the dark.

At his feet, something stirred.”

And this is what he found:

“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.”

When he bent to lift her, she yelped like a lamb. “It felt like I was picking up a baby,” Holste said. “I put her over my shoulder, and that diaper started leaking down my leg.”

The girl didn’t struggle. Holste asked, What’s your name, honey? The girl didn’t seem to hear.

He searched for clothes to dress her, but found only balled-up laundry, flecked with feces. He looked for a toy, a doll, a stuffed animal. “But the only ones I found were covered in maggots and roaches.” ”

Danielle had not been cared for beyond the basic sustenance. She was never taken out, never hugged. She had been left in the care of her retarded brother while her mother went to work, or to play Bingo.

Once in care, she was diagnosed with environmental autism.

Danielle was placed in a group home but needed more care than the home could offer. Finally on the 2007 Easter weekend, she was taken home by Bernie and Diane Lierow, who had seen her photograph on an adoption agency’s flyer. Who would have chosen an 8-year old girl who couldn’t talk and was still in nappies? They did. You can’t pre-order your own kids. You take what God gives you, they said.

Over time, and with patience, love and care, there are changes in Danielle’s behaviour. The changes are subtle but her parents see the progress. She has learned to look at people. She let’s her family hold her. She is learning right from wrong. She is potty trained.  

 And her biological mother, Michelle Crockett. Is she in jail? No, she lives in a trailer with her two older sons. She had been charged with child abuse and faced 20 years in jail. But she waivered her parental rights  – Diane and Bernie needed this to happen for the adoption process – and avoided the jail sentence. She is on probation till 2012.

 This is just a summary of a very detailed feature which appeared in the St Petersburg Times last week. Read it and have a look at the multimedia package. It is a heartwrenching, and a heartwarming, story.

http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2008/reports/danielle/

http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article750838.ece

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