I was a backwoods eight-year-old with a three-year-old sister and an infant who barely held the dark angel of death at bay. I knew we had to leave what meager security the house offered and travel toward the road. Could we do it? Who knew how far away that blacktop was? And then, who knew how long before help came?

Judy was a wild child. Pregnant at 13, she had a cruel temper, a disdain for authority, and a love affair with alcohol. For the most part, she let her kind, elderly parents raise her daughter, but when she got married and took full custody of Lizbeth, the little girl’s nightmare truly began. Set in the 1950s in middle America, Silent Screams is the true story of three children who are abandoned in the middle of nowhere and their struggle to survive. It’s a candid and emotionally shattering testimony to the fact that some women should never be allowed to bear children.