ABSTRACT
Marcie was living in a working-class neighborhood with her parents and brother when disaster struck. Her father, who worked in a coal mine, was killed when the carbon monoxide detector failed and he collapsed from lack of oxygen. By the time they found him, he had already suffered massive brain damage, and he died a few days later. Marcie, then 13, went through periods of depression and anger. When a couple of girls at school made fun of her father’s death, she stabbed one of them twice, sending her to the emergency room for 10 stitches. Marcie was arrested for assault and kicked out of school. Although she was placed in a juvenile diversion program and given grief counseling, she also had to attend an alternative junior high school for “troubled” youth. Marcie’s mother, who was on medication for severe anxiety, had little time and seemed to take no interest in Marcie’s problems. Some of the neighborhood kids began to call her “ho” and “skank” because the school she attended was also for pregnant teenagers. Marcie rarely backed down from these kids and began to threaten them with a knife that her brother gave her.
