Psychologist of ‘Girl in the Closet’ says trauma should be considered in sex-abuse cases

Lauren Kavanaugh, who was charged with sexual abuse of a child Monday, became nationally known as the ‘The Girl in the Closet’ after being found in a trailer in Hutchins at 8 years old.

Psychologist Barbara Rila saw the extent of Kavanaugh’s abuse firsthand when she spoke with the then 8-year-old in 2001, just days after the girl was rescued.

Rila said Kavanaugh was frail, could not speak and did not know what common objects were.

“She looked terrified and overwhelmed,” Rila said.

Kavanaugh had been starved and abused from the time she was 2 years old, and her parents kept her inside a 4-by-8-foot closet, according to The Dallas Morning News.

Rila said while not all the facts are known yet in Kavanaugh’s sex assault charge, intense childhood trauma like Kavanaugh’s can affect a person’s future mental state and actions.

“Trauma affects the growing developing brain of the child, so the brain grows according to experiences,” Rila said. “When children have a steady diet of harm and danger, we’re going to anticipate a much more dire outcome.”

Greg Westfall, a criminal defense attorney in Fort Worth, said it the case against Kavanaugh should be dismissed based on her traumatic past.

“I think it’s utterly inhumane to have her in jail right now,” Westfall said. “To run her through the legal system for this is completely inhumane unless one can be convinced there is no consent in this deal.”

Westfall said counseling is more appropriate for Kavanaugh than a possible prison sentence.

“Is she a predator? Hell no,” he said. “Is she someone who is going to be able to better communicate with a 14-year-old than an adult? Hell yes. She’ll catch up at some point. Not at her mid-20s.”

A study by the Centers for Disease Control conducted annually since 2009 found that as the number of traumatic experiences children face increases, their risk of negative outcomes also rises. These outcomes can include mental distress, depression and suicidal ideation.

A 2005 study based on the CDC’s report also found a high level of traumatic experiences as a child can cause impairment of brain development.

“With these kind of early childhood experiences, there can be less empathy for people, less attachment, less self-control,” Rila, the psychologist, said.

Kavanaugh was also sexually abused by her mother and father as a child, the Dallas Morning News reported.

Rila said this kind of abuse can affect someone’s development.

“Emotionally, people from a significant trauma background don’t mature at the same pace as other people,” she said. “That’s also thought to be the reason why people turn to sexuality with children — that was their initial sexual experience, and they have recreated their initial sexual experience with the victims.”

Westfall agreed, saying Kavanaugh did not have the socialization she needed as a child to understand age-appropriate relationships.

“This girl’s relationships aren’t going to make sense to her in the way we judge them,” he said. “Her emotional level is probably on par with that 14-year-old girl. She was not socialized from the time she was 2 to 8 — she was in a closet.”

Kavanaugh lacked many of the basic needs as a child, Rila said, both emotionally and physically. She did not have “sources of love, affection, being treated by respect, somebody being worried about her safety, there was none of that.”

Rila said it was “absolutely one of the most extreme” cases of trauma she’s ever seen.

Dallas attorney Josh Healy said if ever there was a case for leniency and mercy, it might be Lauren Kavanaugh’s case.

“You have to consider what she had been through when she was a child, which is something none of us can ever imagine going through in our lifetime,” Healy said. “We know that up until now, she has done pretty well considering what she has been through.”

Healy said important factors in Kavanaugh’s case will include whether the 14-year-old girl Kavanaugh is accused of sexually assaulting is the only victim.

“Public safety is your number one concern here,” Healy said. “If you find out there are no other victims, you’re going to dig into it and decide how the communication happened and how it got started.”

Kavanaugh’s past will also be taken into consideration, Healy said.

“Obviously, she is a different alleged defendant than most – actually than any – because of what she has been through in her early childhood,” Healy said.

This story was originally published December 21, 2018 at 6:00 PM.