Susan Wiley "Genie: The Wild Child" (page 3)

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Susan Wiley: The Full Biography

Clark Wiley and Irene Oglesby married, probably somewhere in California, sometime between 1937 and 1948. Irene had come to California with her parents Robert Oglesby and his wife Beatrice from her birthplace of Altus, Jackson County, Oklahoma. Clark Wiley did not like children. In fact he disliked them intensely. Clark and Irene had four children altogether, but certainly one of, and probably both of, the first two had died at Clark's hands.

Their first child Dorothy Irene Wiley was born 2 Jun 1948 in Los Angeles County. She developed some sort of typical childhood illness, so Clark wrapped her in a blanket and put her in the drawer of a dresser in the garage. She died. Their second child Robert Clark Wiley was born 15 Sep 1949 and died 17 Sep 1949 "choking on his own mucus" as it has been reported. (See here) When their third child John Gray Wiley was born 11 Mar 1952, he initially lived with them apparently, but when John was about four, Clark's mother Pearl, believing that Clark was unbalanced, took John to live with her. Two years later, on 29 Dec 1958 while Pearl and John were outside together, Pearl was killed by an "out of control pickup truck" and dragged down the street.

At this time, John went back to live with his parents. Meanwhile, Clark and Irene had had their fourth and final child Susan M Wiley born 18 Apr 1957 in Los Angeles County.

The picture on the far-left shows Dorothy Irene (Oglesby) Wiley with her two surviving children John and Susan "Genie". The side-by-side photo is of that son John Wiley today. The original photo is at the ABCnews article linked below in Sources.

The teen-aged driver who killed Pearl was never charged in the incident, which apparently sent Clark even further off the deep end. He blamed his son John for the death of his "beloved mother Pearl"

The family then moved into Clark's deceased mother Pearl's old house on Golden West Avenue in Temple City, California. Although the house had two-bedrooms, Clark did not allow anyone to sleep in his mother's old room, instead the family had makeshift sleeping arrangements in other parts of the house. Clark had been told something along the lines that Susan was perhaps slightly retarded and might develop slowly and developed a strange compulsion that she must be "protected" from the outside world. Clark's idea of protection was to keep Susan shut in her bedroom most or all of every day, and tied into a straitjacket at night. She was also sometimes or often tied to a potty-chair and left that way for hours, all day, or even perhaps overnight at times.

Susan still wore diapers, couldn't talk, and was fed a substandard diet which stunted her growth. Her unusual diet consisted of "warm cereal, honey, milk and an occassional egg". (so reports the 18 Nov 1970 ''Arcadia Tribune'') It has been reported that when found she weighed 59 pounds and was the size of a 7 to 8 year old. From years of confinement, her muscles had not developed normally, which caused her to walk in a peculiar way. "Susan is only now learning that there are other people in the world."