Mother of feral girl: 'I love that baby, she's my life'

Sunday, August 3, 2008

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Danielle's biological mother denies that she ever neglected her child.

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY (Bay News 9) -- Danielle is nine years old, but instead of learning long division and reading chapter books, she is learning how to eat, how to use the bathroom and how to communicate - things a baby learns.

The young girl is considered a "feral child," having lived the first six years of her life with little human contact.

Bay News 9 has teamed up with the St. Petersburg Times to share Danielle's story. Bay News 9 has interviewed her mother to learn her side of the story.

Danielle's story first came to light in July 2005, when the Department of Children and Families received a complaint about her mother.

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Det. Mark Holste of the Plant City Police Department assisted on the call. He described what he found as the worst case of child abuse he'd ever seen.

"She was still wearing a diaper, she wasn't able to dress herself when I found her," he said. "She was covered from head to toe with insect bites, roach bites, flea bites, mosquito bites."

Police pictures show the filthy conditions in the house and the moldy mattresses Danielle slept on.

The Plant City police arrested Danielle's mother, Michelle Crocket, on charges of child neglect. However, she never served jail time. Instead, she took a plea deal and gave up custody.

Crockett still lives in Plant City. She denies that her daughter had been neglected, and says she is devastated that her daughter was taken away from her.

"They accused me of making her autistic - environmental - and that's a crock," Crockett said. "You cannot make a child autistic. You cannot make a child retarded."

In Crockett's mind, she did nothing wrong.

"The only thing I was guilty of was a dirty house, and it cost me my child," she said. "I love that baby. She's my life."

As for Danielle, she has a new life now, with a family who believes in her ability to recover. A Lee County family adopted her and moved out of Florida.

No one was sure if Danielle would find a family to take on her challenges, but it only took months for a family to find her, through the Heart Gallery of Tampa Bay.

They don't know if she will ever be able to talk, but for the first time in years, she smiles.