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IT WASN’T ONCE EVERY MONTH OR EVERY OTHER SIX MONTH, IT WOULD BE ALMOST EVERY DAY. IT WOULD BE TWO OR THREE TIMES A DAY. IT WOULD BE ALWAYS THAT NO ONE WOULD BE HOME TO SEE THIS. DAD WOULD BE OUT, OR (older brother), (older sister), TOM WOULD NOT BE HOME WHEN THIS HAPPENS. NO ONE ASK ABOUT OUR RED MARKS ON OUR FACES, OR NO ONE AT SCHOOL WOULD ASK US IF THERE WAS ANYTHING WRONG AT HOME. THE SCHOOL TEACHER DID NOT KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON, AND I GUESS NO ONE KNOWS WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE BEATEN UP AS A SMALL CHILD. I GUESS NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT BATTER CHILDREN IN THOSE DAYS.

Visitors often marveled at how well behaved they were, because they would sit silent and motionless on a couch when company came. The Child Abuse Man says they were afraid to move. The same thing happened when they played outside. If he and Paula saw their mother watching them out the window, they would stop playing and stand still. They knew they would get in trouble for having fun.

"It was only him and I," Paula says. "My dad was rough with my (older) sister, and with my (older) brother, but they never received what we received - never. Even our brother, Tom - he was retarded, but we were envious of him, jealous of him. We weren't allowed to have anything. On Christmas morning we weren't allowed to get out of bed and go to the Christmas tree until the afternoon."

Older sister (name omitted) says, "They would come home from school and get sent straight to the corner until it was time to go to bed.

"It's really a horror story; it really is."

AS I WALK ALONG WITH MY PARENTS, GOING TO CHURCH, I WOULD BE VERY AFRAID OF MY PARENTS AND ALSO ASHAME OF THEM. I WOULD SEE MANY PEOPLE ON THE STREET OR IN CHURCH AND I WOULD CRY INSIDE OF MY MIND FOR HELP. I WOULD SAY TO MYSELF, "LOOK AT ME, I AM BEING HURT." I WOULD ALSO SAY "HELP MY TWIN SISTER, WE NEED HELP."

Their mother was particularly obsessed with daily bowel movements. She would order them to sit on the toilet for hours and would demand to see proof that they had gone. To fool her, Paul and Paula shredded chunks of foam padding that they pulled from beneath the carpet. Dropped in the toilet, the foam sank to the bottom of the bowl and resembled loose stool.

Sometimes she woke them at night and made them stand in a corner. To make them stop watching television, she would poke them in the eye. Once she split Paul's head open when she struck him with the spiked heel of her shoe.

"We use to run away," Paula recalls. "He ran away this one time without me. They brought him home and beat him and beat him. My mother took a can of pepper and poured it down his throat. My sister (Betty) is the one who saved his life, because he was choking. She saw him choking and got him some water."

Twice the Red Cross removed Paul and Paula from the home and placed them with foster families in the Donora area. Each time they were eventually returned. Paula remembers staying for a short time with a family that lived on a hill near the McLaughlin house. The Child Abuse Man says he doesn't remember being removed.

Paul and Paula didn't resist the physical abuse. "We were too petrified to move," Paula says.

We were kids at that time, too," (older) sister says. "We couldn't help them. Me and my oldest brother (name omitted) tried to step in when we could. We would physically get into it with my mother."

"Paul always thought she was possessed by a demon, by the devil," Paula says.

WE WOULD HAVE A BIRTHDAY CAKE THAT MOM WOULD MAKE FOR US. BEFORE BLOWING OUT THE CANDLES, MOM OR DAD WOULD TELL US TO MAKE A WISH AND TO KEEP IT TO OURSELVES. I ALWAYS WISH THAT I WAS OLDER, OR NOT LIVING WITH MOM OR DAD. I WOULD ALSO WISH THAT I WAS DEAD OR LIVING WITH ANOTHER FAMILY.

I THOUGHT THAT PAULA AND I WAS TO STAY SMALL FOREVER AND NEVER TO GROW UP, AND LIVE IN A WORLD OF PAIN AND HATE. I THOUGHT ONCE YOU WAS BORN SMALL, OR BORN LARGE, THAT A PERSON WOULD STAY THAT WAY FOREVER. I THOUGHT I WAS TO BE SMALL FOREVER AND TO BE PUNISH FOREVER.

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