CALIFORNIA News

Her story went viral, before there was such a thing as the Internet.
In
1990, a little girl, starving and abused, was rescued from a
cockroach-infested closet in a San Bernardino house where she had been
locked by her parents for much of the past 10 years.
At age 12, she weighed just 57 pounds.
Convenience-store
food wrappers littered the floor, remnants of the scraps that were
thrown her way. Her clothes were matted with urine and feces. She had no
bed. A bucket was her toilet.
She hadn’t been to school in years, allowed out of the closet only to clean the kitchen and scrub the toilets.
News of the little girl’s horrific abuse flashed around the world, prompting an outpouring of sympathy and support.
People
as far away as Singapore and Saudi Arabia, and all over the U.S., sent
cards, toys, stuffed animals, clothes and money. Abuse victims wrote
heartfelt letters of encouragement.
This is the story of how the
little girl, nicknamed Angel by her rescuers, has triumphed over some of
the most horrific abuse San Bernardino police had ever seen.
You see, sad stories can have happy endings.
Not
long ago, I attended her wedding to a terrific guy. It warmed my heart
to see how her faith, her church, her new family and her friends
surround her with love and support.
Whenever I’ve written about
her over that past 22 years, I’ve called her Angel to protect her
privacy. But now she is ready for you to know her real name.
She
is Rose Gift. She is 34 years old, still sweet and soft-spoken, with an
innocence about her that makes her seem younger than her years.
She
is also amazingly strong. Those of us who have known her since her
rescue marvel at how she recovered from years of isolation and brutality
that left her with scars on her scalp and broken front teeth.
“Having
worked with thousands of crime victims, she is one of the most
resilient human beings I’ve ever met in my life,” said Marilynn Kimball,
now retired as chief of the DA’s Victim-Witness program.
Kimball,
Steve Filson – the officer who pulled her from the closet -- and I also
marvel at her warmth, caring and nurturing spirit.
The night of
her rescue, as she waited in the emergency room with her six siblings,
she kept checking to make sure the younger ones were OK.
When
Filson brought her to see the room full of gifts people had sent her,
even then -- barely settled in her new foster home -- she picked a few
things and told him to donate the rest to other children in need.
It
was a relative’s tip that brought police to Rose’s rescue that October
night. All seven chldren were removed, although only Rose suffered the
deprivation and beatings.
Years behind in physical development and
schooling, Rose was sent to a foster family where, with a stable
environment, regular meals, special tutoring and several years of
counseling, she slowly recovered.
She graduated from high school
in the Coachella Valley, where she became involved with her church. With
the support of her pastor, she began to speak publicly about her ordeal
and give testimony about how God changed her life, she told me. Talking
about it helped her heal.
“That kept me going,” she said. “I
always tell people, if I didn’t have people helping me, where would I
be? I would be in San Bernardino … in the street, taking drugs.”
Rose
studied cosmetology, and floral arranging, eventually moving to San
Diego County, where she has worked in a supermarket since 2004. She
began as a bagger, moved to the floral department, then produce, then
transferred to another store where she was promoted to baked-goods,
stocking shelves with fresh products and making sure the old ones go to
charity.
That’s where Rose met the man who became her husband April 21.
As
Michael Gift tells it, one day after work, he spotted Rose across the
room. He asked a coworker who she was and wrangled an introduction.
Within four or five dates, he knew she was the one.
“You feel
bubbly, excited,” he told me in a recent phone interview. “When we were
going out each night, I didn’t want the night to end.”
Rose had
dated other men. Before things got serious, she always told them about
her abuse. “I need you to know where I’m coming from, and if you don’t
like it, you know where the door is,” she’d tell them. (See what I mean
about her strength?)
When she had that talk with Michael, his support and love never wavered.
He
soon introduced her to his family, and in the presence of his mother
and father, he proposed. She accepted. The engagement lasted seven
years.
A year ago, they began planning the wedding. Rose knew who
she wanted to walk her down the aisle: Filson, the man she calls her
hero, now retired from the San Bernardino Police Department.
Rose
and Filson have stayed in touch all these years. Whenever she needed
help or advice, he was there. In 1990, when she was rescued, he was
president of the San Bernardino Peace Officers Association. The SBPOA
office was where all the stuffed animals, toys, letters and other gifts
poured in after Rose’s rescue.
SBPOA set up a trust fund in her
name to buy her clothes, pay for dental work and other care she so long
had been lacking, as well as pay for special tutoring and classes.
SBPOA
also started an annual Christmas charity event called Cops for Kids, to
bring gifts to foster children, that was inspired by Rose.
Rose
still has the first teddy bear Filson gave her. She still has the book
Kimball gave her. They are touchstones of the night that changed her
life.
Rose not only stayed in touch with Filson, she also stayed
in touch with Kimball and me. From time to time, we had lunch, each time
noticing her healing and growth.
One day about six years ago she
called me to say she was taking the bus to San Bernardino and could we
meet for lunch. When Kimball and I picked her up at the Greyhound
station, we saw a different Rose, no longer a little girl but a mature,
beautiful woman.
We were thrilled to be invited to her wedding,
and curious to see, who was this man she was marrying. (Filson, ever
protective of his “angel,” wanted to size up the groom.)
Michael
Gift more than met our approval. And it was heartwarming to see how his
family has embraced Rose and welcomed her into their circle. His mother,
Dorothy, at the reception told Rose she’s a Gift. I loved the
double-meaning.
So what happened to her abusers? Rose’s father,
Joseph P. Sauceda, spent nearly 8 years in prison after pleading guilty
to child abuse causing great bodily injury. Her mother, Sandra Sauceda,
was sentenced to five years.
I was in court the day the judge
sentenced them. He chastised both mother and father for spending more
energy blaming the relatives who reported the crime than understanding
why they did what they did.
In a stern lecture, he condemned their
“lack of insight and lack of accepting responsibility” for what they
did, and the “high degree of cruelty” of the abuse.
The judge was Pat Morris, now mayor of San Bernardino.
Rose is not in touch with her parents. She has seen some of her siblings from time to time but not lately.
The
only family members she invited to her wedding were her aunt and uncle
Mary and Richard Fernandez, the ones who alerted authorities to her
abuse and made sure she was rescued.
Mary Fernandez told me she
and her husband knew the family would ostracize them for reporting the
crime. But once she learned Rose was being held in the closet, her
priority, she said, was getting her out.
By all accounts, it saved
her life. She was close to starvation — so emaciated, her clothes hung
like a sheet on a hanger, Fernandez said.
A few years ago, Rose
began doing artwork to express the pain she experienced as a child and
to work through the abuse. “Let me get whatever I went through on
canvases,” she told me last week. She also writes poems.
Michael
DJs in his spare time and the couple formed DJ Pokkey and Rose. They put
on “Beat Barbecues” in the courtyard of their apartment. Neighbors
young and old come to enjoy the music.
Rose displays her artwork and poetry at Healing Through Art shows at a local coffee shop and park.
She agreed to let me tell her story — her happy ending — to give other abuse victims hope.
“Don’t ever give up,” is her message. “You’ll make it through. There will be some hard times,” but you can survive.
The most important thing, she said, is to have other abuse victims to talk to.
“If you don’t have nobody in your life who’s been through the same thing, find someone,” she said. The voice of experience.
http://www.pe.com/incoming/20120721-angel-abused-child-grows-into-strong-woman1.ece