Someone enjoyed Linda as soon as she stepped into Rena and you may Lenny Sims’ house
‘She desired a clean life’
The new promote parents have seen the latest deepness off punishment over 21 years: children raped from the relatives; girls pimped out-by fan moms and dads who want an answer; men growing right up in the home in which father overcoming mom was a keen everyday occurrence.
Linda, following fourteen, failed to talk about the woman youthfulness or this lady physiological friends – instead she gushed on the the girl love of Juicy Couture, and you can displayed her drawing experiences. She played with Bratz dolls and you may performed almost every other kids’ hair and you may cosmetics. Noted for the lady make fun of, hence built away while the a premier-pitched cackle and frequently came just after she busted right up at the lady very own laugh, she made timely family that have group.
Rena Sims’ sprawling residence is designed to complement of several, with 11 bed rooms, half a dozen restrooms, four grand sectional couches, around three totally stocked refrigerators, and you will a huge framed paint away from Martin Luther King Jr. propped toward an easel reverse an enthusiastic 8-foot overflowing grizzly-bear. She tells pupils exactly who already been truth be told there that “the audience is already to your benefit.”
Linda got in order to Rena Sims immediately, tagging together so you’re able to numerous people characteristics projects due to the fact Rena Sims’ biological girl Robinson-Wells and you can Sarita Knull, upcoming 19 and you can 20, correspondingly, teased Linda you to definitely she are Rena Sims’ micro me.
However, for approximately Linda you may endear herself so you can their foster household members by creating banners so you can commemorate the little ones’ birthdays and you will knowledge their siblings how-to dancing, there is a dark side, also. From the beginning, it absolutely was clear Linda had a problem with drugs and alcohol.
Rena Sims states Linda utilized ingesting and you will medicines “to flee the lady earlier in the day” in order to participate in the girl physiological nearest and dearest, whom she lived in reach that have. Starving to possess a permanent house, Linda talked publicly of wanting to feel a girlfriend in order to provides people as well as her wish to do so the best method.
Linda try part of “the brand new key,” a small grouping of 20 former promote infants and biological college students who stored in touching through a team text secured by the Robinson-Wells and you can Knull, and you can who usually stopped by for the vacations. Whenever Linda did not show up to celebrate brand new 2016 New year, her foster nearest and dearest realized one thing was from.
Linda’s siblings never somewhat knew as to the reasons Linda dropped to possess, and almost instantly hitched, Thomas. They think she sensed pressure from this lady physical household members in order to get married other Alaska Indigenous (Linda is actually from the Tlingit group).
Off their foster family’s angle, Linda jumped within very first options she spotted making you to happens. She enjoyed which he got a flat and a vehicle. “I’m willing to settle down,” told you Linda, upcoming merely 23 yrs . old.
Rena Sims, 61, quotes that the brand new three hundred-plus people this woman is taken in for the past twenty years, 98% have seen some form of intimate stress
The lady family members states two months after they partnered, Linda was furious to discover Thomas was actually faced with intimately harming a. During the , Thomas Skeek was convicted away from tried sexual abuse out of a great slight, a misdemeanor. Following conviction, he was required to sign in just like the an intercourse culprit and also as of , he was however towards Alaska gender-culprit registry.
New siblings state it refused to get in the midst of Linda and Thomas’s relationships – perhaps not because they did not care and attention, however, while they was in fact alarmed because of their own safeguards. Knull, 41 and you will a father or mother out of a couple of, claims her partner shared with her, “Up to your own cousin is able to leave, I am unable to enjoys my partner and you will my personal babies in peril.”
Whenever Linda and you will Thomas relocated to Anchorage, the household expected Linda’s burgeoning breastfeeding career you’ll stabilize her relationship that have Thomas – otherwise potentially render this lady the money to leave and begin more. Nevertheless friends says the exact distance did actually embolden Thomas, which they believe only grew even more criminal once the ages passed.