The police found Feather fifteen miles away—she had walked the entire distance. When Gelo arrived at the Everett Police Department, Feather was in handcuffs because she was still threatening to hurt herself or hurt others.
“At this point,” said Gelo, “it was decided to take her to Everett General Hospital. She was released from handcuffs for a while at the hospital and she took a paper clip and was trying to carve in her arm. Two mental-health professionals evaluated her at the hospital that night, and had her transported by ambulance to the Fairfax Psychiatric Hospital in Kirkland, Washington, arriving about five in the morning on Monday the twenty-fourth.”
Gelo took Feather to Harborview Hospital for an involuntary-commitment hearing, requesting that the youngster be held for fourteen days for a complete psychiatric evaluation. The involuntary-commitment order was declined, Gelo explained, because “Despite Feather’s threats, there had never been any actual harm done to another child in my home, and because the scratching and the carving on her arm had not drawn blood.”
The Department of Social and Health Services decided that it would not be safe for Feather to return to Gelo’s home until there were other services in place to make sure she would not carry through with her threats.
“At that point, she was placed in a facility called Cedar House from Tuesday, the twenty-fifth of February, until Monday, March third,” said Gelo. “I had numerous contacts with her while in Cedar House, and we worked on things such as family reconciliation, and we worked on getting additional services in place to make it possible for Feather to return to my home, which she did on March third.”
Feather returned under close supervision and heavy medication, including twenty milligrams of Prozac, one milligram of Klonopin, and forty milligrams of Ritalin. Near comatose from Klonopin, she sleepwalked through school on Tuesday, March 4, before that medication was removed from her regimen.
“We also had, in addition to once-a-week group therapy sessions, a case manager and outreach worker appointed for her by LifeNet Mental Health,” Gelo said. “We had no-harm contracts drawn up between Feather and our household and a crisis-intervention plan was set into place. And with that, she seemed to level off for a little while.”
Tuesday, March 11, Feather came home after a session with the outreach worker and told Gelo that she had something to show her. “She took me into the kitchen and showed me that on the inside of her right ankle that she had started to carve initials, initials of a boy. These actually were cut into the skin,” Gelo recalled. “It was not a scratch, and it was an actual cut done by a razor blade. We then put into place more precautions at home, locking up all knives, even dinner knives and kitchen knives, taking away all mirrors, everything that we could find that could be potentially dangerous.”
The following day, March 12, deputy prosecutor Ronald Doersch sent Feather a fax via Lori Vanderberg at LifeNet Health. The transmission contained an avalanche of embarrassing and troubling questions.
Doersch requested the girl’s recollection of how often she was touched, what she felt, what it felt like, what he said before, during and after she was tied up, where she was touched after being tied up, and what parts of Richard Clark’s body touched her body. He also asked if Richard touched himself while touching her, and what parts of his body were touched, why and when he stopped touching her, what he did after the touching stopped, and if Richard Clark told her not to tell anyone, or he threatened her in any way.
“Thank you in advance for your cooperation in this matter,” wrote Doersch. “We realize how difficult this is for you.” It was more difficult than Doersch knew.
“She completely lost her appetite,” recalled Gelo. “She was now down to ninety-eight pounds and was being monitored twice a week by the pediatrician because we were really concerned about her weight loss and her not wanting to eat.”
A few days after receiving Doersch’s fax, Feather requested adoption by Gelo and her husband. “She wanted to be able to use our last name, that she wanted to know that she was going to be safe and in our home forever, and not ever have to leave.”
The desire for adoption did not spring fully grown from Feather’s heart in a sudden burst of inspiration. Adoption was an ongoing topic at Gelo’s, and Feather witnessed the process firsthand. Gelo took Feather’s request seriously, advising her to discuss it with her court-appointed guardian.
“Gelo’s remarkable sensitivity to Feather’s personal issues,” said a woman familiar with Gelo’s unquestioned dedication to those in her charge, “is well known in the foster-care community. Gelo’s own life, and personal challenges, are not only inspirational, but mirror in many ways those of her troubled foster children.”
Born and raised in a North Dakota alcoholic home, Gelo was drinking out of her dad’s beer bottles as early as she can remember. Her first major drunk was at thirteen. At fourteen, she met her first husband. He was nineteen and on his way to Vietnam for his first of two tours of duty.
Gelo was always with kids older than herself, and by age sixteen, she was spending most of her free time on the college campus drinking three to four nights a week. When her husband came home after two years in Vietnam, his drinking fit right in with her alcohol-based lifestyle. They partied every weekend, said Gelo, and she did “controlled” drinking a couple of times during the week.
Pregnant at seventeen, she denied the condition until almost her sixth month, and kept up her drinking lifestyle. Two days after Gelo’s eighteenth birthday, her first child was born. A daughter, Faith, was only six pounds twelve ounces, and eighteen inches long. All through school and with the subsequent birth of two more children, Gelo realized that Faith was different. She struggled in school and with relationships, but she graduated from high school at nineteen without much special help from the schools.
Gelo stopped drinking when Faith was eight years old, divorced her first husband, and married again five years later to another alcoholic, but one who was in recovery. Moving to Washington State, they became foster parents. Nothing prepared them, however, for the difficulties of their first foster children. One day her second daughter came home from high school and told her about Linda LaFever, a woman from whom she heard about fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effect (FAS/FAE) are disorders of the brain resulting from exposure to alcohol while in the mother’s womb. FAS is the most severe form; FAE, although not as physically visible in its outward signs, has equally serious behavioral impact. LaFever’s son, Danny, was seriously affected by her drinking during pregnancy.
The most serious characteristics of FAS/FAE are the invisible symptoms of neurological damage, including mental illness, disrupted school experience, incarceration, alcohol/drug abuse, and inappropriate sexual behavior. Almost half of individuals with FAS/FAE between the ages of twelve to twenty commit crimes against persons, such as theft, burglary, assault, murder, domestic violence, running away, and child molestation.
Gelo’s young foster children manifested many traits symptomatic of FAS. They were all obstinate and defiant, failed to bond with anyone, had no sense of personal boundaries, and did self-injurious things. Gelo had her two foster boys diagnosed; both had FAS. Faith, Gelo’s firstborn child, was also affected.
Feather Rahier was part of the Gelo household in July 1996 when the Gelos adopted two of their foster children, a boy and a girl. The boy was diagnosed with atypical FAS and his sister with neurobehavioral disorder—alcohol and cocaine exposed. They both had a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The young boy also had reactive attachment disorder, oppositional defiance, and conduct disorder. The female had post-traumatic stress disorder, separation anxiety, and depression.
Soon