# HouDopers! Read today's paper? Merry Christmas. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 23, 2002, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464 "2002-12-23T01:55:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Blackeyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f6c823/32.png) [@Blackeyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackeyes)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/1 "2002-12-23T01:55:26Z")
[Houston Chronicle- Girl freed from closet budding under adoptive parents’ care](http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/page1/1711203) ☹ :mad: ☹ :mad: ☹ :mad: ☹ :mad: ☹ :mad: ☹ :mad: ☹ :mad: ☹ :mad: ☹ :mad: ☹ :mad: ☹ :mad: ☹ :mad: ☹ :mad: ☹ :mad: ☹ :mad: > [@](#): > > She was 8 years old when she celebrated her first Christmas, and none of it made sense to her. > > She didn’t understand why a tree draped with lights and tinsel was placed in her living room or why wrapped packages were stacked around it. > > Most children her age had stopped believing in Santa Claus, but she had never even heard of him. That’s just saddening. I’ve only heard about people not knowing what Christmas was through Christmas-time movies and I’ve usually regarded that with an “okay, I’ll play along, since it’s a Christmas special and all” smirk. Now, I know. > [@](#): > > “She didn’t know what the sun was,” says Sabrina Kavanaugh, 38, who, with her husband, Bill, 64, adopted the girl in the summer of 2001, shortly after authorities liberated her from six years of isolation in the squalid and insect-infested crawl spaces, closets and secret rooms of the houses where her family lived. > > “She didn’t know what a leaf was. She didn’t know what an animal was. Everything was strange to her – trees, power lines. The first time she walked on grass she thought it was biting her,” says Sabrina. > [@](#): > > She survived from age 2 to age 8, the evidence indicates, with little exposure to the outside world but the radio that blared country music at a volume that would prevent neighbors from hearing her cries when her parents and siblings were away. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: > [@](#): > > Although her older sister was allowed to take her out of the closet and bathe her once a month or so, she apparently had little other human contact, except for the alleged sexual abuse by her stepfather. But there’s a good side too: > [@](#): > > The girl’s birth mother was sentenced in January to life in prison and the stepfather received the same punishment earlier this month. > [@](#): > > “She’s happy,” Sabrina [her adopted mother] says. “We’re all happy now.” Merry Christmas, you worse-than-Hitler piece of fucking shit shit shit fucktard. And your bitch-demon wife too. You get what you deserve. Merry Christmas to you, little girl. You know who Santa is now. ---
**Author:** ![Skerri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Skerri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skerri)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/2 "2002-12-23T02:26:06Z")
Oooh. Don’t you think this should go in the Pit? But I agree with everything you said. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/3 "2002-12-23T03:14:21Z")
Wow. What an amazing little girl. How she could live what approaches a normal life I’ll never understand. ---
**Author:** ![Blackeyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f6c823/32.png) [@Blackeyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackeyes)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/4 "2002-12-23T03:17:26Z")
I guess it should be in the Pit. To get some ahem, _proper_ responses like the ones generated by the women who made me child think she had cancer. ---
**Author:** ![TVeblen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@TVeblen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVeblen)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/5 "2002-12-23T03:50:26Z")
**Moderator’s note:** I’ll move this on over to The Pit for you. _Zap!_ TVeblen, for the SDMB ---
**Author:** ![SmileyDeath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb8c5e/32.png) [@SmileyDeath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmileyDeath)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/6 "2002-12-23T04:00:18Z")
What. The. Fuck. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: ☹ ☹ That’s sickening. ---
**Author:** ![cherry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cherry)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/7 "2002-12-23T04:14:02Z")
Woah that is sickening, and to think that her adoptive parents tried to adopt her before and she was returned to her natuaral mother. ☹ Im glad shes safe now. ---
**Author:** ![NotWithoutRage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/22d042/32.png) [@NotWithoutRage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotWithoutRage)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/8 "2002-12-23T04:15:35Z")
Fucking assholes. People really should need a license to have a child. ---
**Author:** ![Rosebud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rosebud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rosebud)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/9 "2002-12-23T04:32:13Z")
What the fuck is wrong with people… And what about the birth mother’s (and stepfather’s?) relatives-- they never bothered to ask where this girl was, says the article. I know zip about TX law but jeez, I’d like to see them have to answer for that. ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/10 "2002-12-23T05:00:05Z")
Sadly, this is not exactly new: [Two](http://www.psychology.sbc.edu/cesarz.htm) [links](http://kccesl.tripod.com/fall2002/genie.html). ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Blackeyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f6c823/32.png) [@Blackeyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackeyes)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/11 "2002-12-23T05:16:04Z")
I’ll link another one too: [Fred Phelps](http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/michael_haggerty/expose3.htm) ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/12 "2002-12-23T06:05:03Z")
I did read that one. Words fail me. ---
**Author:** ![Siemsi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b19c9b/32.png) [@Siemsi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siemsi)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/13 "2002-12-23T13:46:08Z")
Thank God she was rescued and is now recovering. Poor little girl. I cannot fathom living in those conditions. It truly amazes me. ---
**Author:** ![80sHairMetalMaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/8/ed655f/32.png) [@80sHairMetalMaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/80sHairMetalMaven)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/14 "2002-12-23T17:33:50Z")
And people say there is nothing wrong with the Texas Departman of Health and Human services!!_sarcastic_ If they had come and gotten my siblings and I from our abusive home as children, perhaps we wouldn’t be the fucked up,cynical,depressed people we are today. But the Texas HHS dept has fucked up too many times for me to trust it. THis is just another sign of their incompetence and the idiocy of their employees. IDBB ---
**Author:** ![Daowajan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@Daowajan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daowajan)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/15 "2002-12-23T19:46:01Z")
From the article: “Although her older sister was allowed to take her out of the closet and bathe her once a month or so, she apparently had little other human contact, except for the alleged sexual abuse by her stepfather.” There are no curse words in any known language that express just how inhuman that is. What the hell is wrong with some people? ---
**Author:** ![JayElle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/4bbf92/32.png) [@JayElle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JayElle)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/16 "2002-12-23T19:52:40Z")
I read that too on Sunday. It made me sick and weepy. I hope those two receive a very special kind of welcome in the penitentiary. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/17 "2002-12-23T20:27:42Z")
Thank God that couple will never breed again. Do we know where the other children are? Please, people in authority, take a good hard look at people who put their children up for adoption and then want them back. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/18 "2002-12-23T20:41:32Z")
“The first time she walked on grass she thought it was biting her,” says Sabrina." In Houston, this is likely to be literally true.\* \*Fire ants. ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/19 "2002-12-24T03:05:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Daowajan \* > What the hell is wrong with some people? They possess human genetic material, but it’s v. 1.0. No morals clause. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Zero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@Saint\_Zero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Zero)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464/20 "2002-12-24T05:36:23Z")
…and they’re so nice to publish these stories right before christmas. I’m glad the kid is safe now, however. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houdopers-read-todays-paper-merry-christmas/144464.md?page=2)