‘She wished a clean life’

The new foster parents have experienced the new depths away from discipline more than 21 years: college students raped by the loved ones; lady pimped out-by addict parents who want an answer; people expanding up when you look at the homes in which father conquering mommy is a keen informal thickness.

Linda, upcoming fourteen, don’t discuss their youngsters or this lady physical friends – rather she gushed on the her passion for Juicy Couture, and you can displayed her attracting event. She played with Bratz dolls and you may performed other youngsters’ tresses and you may make-up. Known for the girl laugh, and therefore built aside since a leading-pitched cackle and often came after she damaged upwards within their own joke, she generated fast members of the family which have someone.

Rena Sims’ sprawling home is designed to accommodate of several, that have eleven bed rooms, half a dozen restrooms, four huge sectional sofas, about three completely stored refrigerators, and you will a huge presented painting out of Martin Luther King Jr. propped to the a keen easel opposite a keen 8-feet overflowing grizzly bear. She tells college students exactly who become indeed there you to “we have been currently in your favor.”

Linda got in order to Rena Sims immediately, tagging with each other so you’re able to different community functions programs because Rena Sims’ physical daughters Robinson-Wells and you can Sarita Knull, up coming 19 and you can 20, respectively, teased Linda you to definitely she try Rena Sims’ micro myself.

Nevertheless, for up to Linda you will definitely endear herself in order to her promote nearest and dearest by making ads in order to celebrate the little ones’ birthdays and you can teaching the woman sisters how to dance, there’s a dark front side, as well. Right away, it was clear Linda had a problem with alcohol and drugs.

Rena Sims claims Linda used consuming and you can medication “to leave her past” also to fit in with the woman physiological loved ones, exactly who she lived-in reach having. Starving to own a long-term family, Linda talked publicly out of trying to getting a wife and also to has youngsters as well as this lady desire to take action the best means.

Linda is actually part of “brand new core,” a group of 20 former promote children and biological children who kept in reach via a team text secured of the Robinson-Wells and you can Knull, and whom constantly dropped by in getaways. When Linda failed to arrive so you’re able to commemorate the 2016 New-year, the woman foster family unit members understood some thing try from.

Linda’s sisters never ever a bit knew as to the reasons Linda fell to possess, and you can very quickly married, Thomas. They think she noticed pressure from the girl physiological members of the family so you can get married other Alaska Indigenous (Linda is about Tlingit tribe).

From the lady foster family’s perspective, Linda sprang within very first opportunity she watched and come up with one to takes place. She preferred that he got a condo and you will a car or truck. “I am prepared to settle down,” told you Linda, then just 23 years of age.

Rena Sims, 61, estimates that this new 3 hundred-together with students she actually is taken in over the past 20 years, 98% have observed some form of intimate trauma

The girl household members states a couple months once they married, Linda is mad and see Thomas was charged with sexually abusing a small. During the , Thomas Skeek is actually found guilty out of tried sexual punishment from an effective minor, an infraction. Pursuing the belief, he was required to register once the a sex culprit so when from , he had been however for the Alaska intercourse-offender registry.

The newest siblings state they refused to enter the midst of Linda and you can Thomas’s relationships – perhaps not as they failed to care and attention, however, while they had been concerned for their individual safeguards. Knull, 41 and you can a parent of a couple, says their partner informed her, “Up until the sister is able to get off, I can not has actually my wife and you may my children in danger.”

Whenever Linda and Thomas gone to live in Anchorage, the household wished Linda’s loveaholics prices burgeoning medical community could balance out the lady matchmaking that have Thomas – or probably render the woman the amount of money to leave and begin more than. However the household members says the length appeared to embolden Thomas, just who they believe simply became even more violent given that age passed.