Homeless deaf girl named Lucy

[Viper652]

Anyone remember this segment? I just watched it and wanted to know If there was any update. I cant find anything online about it.

[everybodylovesrs]

Originally Posted by Viper652

Anyone remember this segment? I just watched it and wanted to know If there was any update. I cant find anything online about it.

I do, but I can't find an update either. She spelled her name, for some reason, "Lucxi", I believe.

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/...d.php?t=148141


Person interviewed:

Marti Ruble, Former Mgr.
Ventura County Homeless Shelter

Chris Barrows
Communications Specialist

[everybodylovesrs]

TESTING PROVES WOMAN FOUND ON STREET CAN HEAR
Daily News of LA - Friday, October 9, 1992

After spending days trying to communicate with a woman they believed was deaf , mute and illiterate, officials at a women's shelter have learned that she can hear, but are still unable to identify her.

Workers with the Tri-County Greater Los Angeles Council on Deafness and the Lighthouse Women's Shelter have been trying to learn the identity of the Latina woman since she was found wandering the streets of Oxnard on Sept. 28, officials said.

Findings by an audiologist Wednesday that the woman could hear angered the advocate for the deaf and the hearing impaired who with others has been trying to talk to her through American and Spanish sign language.

"I think she was just acting," said Colleen Ashly, advocacy specialist for the deaf and hearing impaired at the Tri-County Greater Los Angeles Council on Deafness. "A lot of people find out that by portraying a deaf person, they can get a lot of sympathy from people.

"They find out that there's a whole range of services that they never had access to before. They can find food, they can find money, they can get free medical care, so they basically exploit the deaf community by portraying a deaf person."

Carol Roberg, associate director of the Ventura County Rescue Mission's Lighthouse Women's Shelter, said she is convinced the woman is unable to speak, read or write.

"I think she's genuine, trying to figure out where she is and who she is," Roberg said. "I think someone has used her and just abandoned her."

Roberg said that when confronted with the results of the hearing test, the woman appeared to be embarrassed but did not speak.

"She cast her eyes down after she was told we found out," Roberg said. ''She tried to explain her story again in a primitive sign language that she uses, a lot of motions and hand gestures. I told her that we loved her and that we still wanted to help her."

The search for the woman's identity began Sept. 28, when a resident brought her to the Port Hueneme Police Department after watching her walk aimlessly on Wooley Road in Oxnard, officials said.

"She apparently couldn't speak, read or write. She was apparently deaf ," said Brynda Parrott, Port Hueneme police dispatcher, who said the woman is between 20 and 25 years old, 5 feet tall, weighs about 100 pounds and has shoulder-length curly brown hair and brown eyes.

Police turned the woman over to Ventura County mental health workers, who along with Tri-County officials took her to the shelter, officials said.

Workers began to suspect that the woman could hear during her stay at the Tri-County office, Ashly said. She responded to a police siren by walking to the window and looking outside, Ashly said.

The woman showed no interest in attempts to find out where she was from through the use of picture books, maps, and flags, she added.

"And when we went to the neighborhood where she had been initially arrested, then she became very withdrawn, very shy, and very unwilling to let people see her face," Ashly said. "In my mind, that was very suspicious behavior. That indicated to me that she didn't want anyone to recognize her."

The woman was given a brain stem examination on Wednesday and a Ventura audiologist measured sound waves traveling through her brain stem, Ashly said. Deaf people show no measurements, she said.

"I told her that over and over again, and she just acted like she didn't understand," Ashly said. "She just kept shaking her head."
Caption: photo
photo: (Color in T.O. Edition) This woman was found wandering around
Oxnard on Sept. 28.

[everybodylovesrs]

WANDERER TO BE PUT IN HOME
Daily News of LA (CA) - Friday, October 30, 1992

A Latina woman discovered wandering aimlessly in Oxnard a month ago whom authorities believe is mute, deaf and illiterate, has been placed with the Ventura County Mental Health Services, officials said Thursday.

The woman , who has indicated only that her name is Luxci, is being tested by Mental Health Services and the Tri-County Regional Center and will be placed in a home for developmentally disabled people.

"We don't have the professional help here to deal with her problems," said Carol Roberg, director of the Ventura County Rescue Mission's Lighthouse Women 's Shelter, where the woman first was placed. "We are not equipped to handle the magnitude of issues. She has to be completely retrained."

Although a physical examination showed sound waves traveling through her brain stem, a psychologist later said that she was deaf because the sounds were not being processed, said Roberg.

Duane Essex, deputy director of mental health services, said all patient information is confidential and he could not discuss the case.

The woman first was found Sept. 28 on Wooley Road in Oxnard. A passerby took her to the Port Hueneme Police Department and she ultimately was placed in the shelter, officials said.

Chris Barrows, a volunteer at Lighthouse Shelter who has been working with the woman since her third day at the shelter, said the woman ran away
from the shelter Oct. 18 and was found later weaving in and out of traffic.

"When police brought her back after she ran away, she was very withdrawn and depressed," Barrows said. "She just cried and said she wanted to get on an airplane and go home. I called the Mexican Consulate and the (Immigration and Naturalization Services), but they couldn't help because we have no accurate birth date, age or anything else."

For almost three weeks, Barrows said, she communicated with the woman through some home-taught sign language, drawings and hand gestures. The woman has not spoken and does not understand English, Spanish or other languages used in South America.

"We know she is from Mexico," said Barrows, who owns three homes for the developmentally disabled and is a communication specialist. "But we don't know how to get her back to her home.

[everybodylovesrs]

The Mystery of L Deaf Woman Is Found Wandering in Port Hueneme
LA Times Oct 3, 1992.

Deaf, mute and illiterate, a young woman was found wandering the streets of Port Hueneme, posing a mystery that Ventura County shelter officials said Friday they cannot solve.

"She has been abandoned," said Marti Ruble, manager of the Women's Lighthouse shelter in Oxnard. "She does not know her name, she does not know how to communicate much."

Unable to explain her identity or show the way home, the slim, smiling, curly-haired woman on Friday became one of the first residents of the newly opened shelter.

"Can you imagine what a lonely feeling it must be?" said Carol Roberg, associate director of the shelter. "She can neither read nor write nor speak."

Using a deaf Latino member of the Greater Los Angeles Council on Deafness as an interpreter, shelter officials believe they have squeezed out a few scraps of information:

Her name begins with an L.

She is sweet-tempered, well-groomed, trusting-and quite lost.

She came to California by airplane.

She recently gave birth to a baby girl.

She wears a single cultured pearl pendant on a gold chain and three rings on her left hand: a filigree silver ring with an onyx stone, a man's pewter school ring reading "Inst. Bancario Comm. Latino Americano," and a gold ring with white stones shaped in the letter S, which may have been the baby's initial.

She recently wore white in a church ceremony-possibly a baptism or wedding.

She is wary of men.

Authorities met the woman when a citizen brought her into the Port Hueneme Police Department on Monday because she was "walking around acting like she was lost," said Officer Darin Schindler.

Trying to interview her in English, Spanish and the American Sign Language for the deaf, police could learn very little. All they knew was that her clothes were clean and she was carrying about $10 in American currency, Schindler said.

"She seemed to be fine, so after about five hours we had to let her go," he said.

Later that evening, Schindler was on patrol when he spotted the woman again, dancing in the median of Ventura Road near Pleasant Valley Road.

"I don't know what the deal is with her," he said. "At times she'll try to talk to you using body language, but she was acting real strange. She kept walking into traffic, causing traffic problems."

More attempts at communication were fruitless: "We'd write down things like, `What's your name?' and she'd write gibberish, numbers and letters that don't mean anything," Schindler said.

Police finally turned her over to Ventura County mental health workers, who kept her for observation at their Ventura inpatient unit. The workers had a doctor examine her at Ventura County Medical Center, where it was determined that she had given birth. However, they later released her after ruling she was not a danger to herself or others.

Officials from the mental health department and the Greater Los Angeles Council on Deafness arranged for the woman to enter the shelter Friday.

On Friday, officials from the council on deafness interviewed her.

They tried hand signs in English, American Sign Language and Spanish, "and none of them could make any sense," said Barbara Meehan, an adviser for the group's Ventura County chapter.

"Her signs are a combination of Mexican signs and home signs," Meehan said. "Home signs are made up in the home so only people in the home can understand them."

On Friday, Women's Lighthouse workers began calling newspapers and television stations, hoping that someone who knows her will see her picture.

Until then, the woman with no name waits in the shelter, cuddling and patting a stuffed white teddy bear they have given her.

She sways back and forth for minutes at a time, cradling it in her arms, her gaze distant and her chin sunk into its fur.

Then she brightens, beaming broadly, and tosses it lightly into the air, focusing on it like a mother on her child.
[Illustration]
PHOTO: Marti Ruble of the Women's Lighthouse shelter in Oxnard tries to solve young woman's mystery.; PHOTO: COLOR, (A1) Woman known only as L.; PHOTO: An unidentified deaf woman whose name begins with the letter L finds comfort in a teddy bear. /

---------

EXPERTS SAY WOMAN IS NOT DEAF
LA TImes Oct 9 1992

A homeless mystery woman whom Oxnard shelter officials believed was deaf was revealed Thursday to have perfect hearing, but she has a mental age of 9, according to experts who examined her.

Officials at the Women's Lighthouse shelter said they still don't know who the young woman is or where she came from, but they were disappointed to learn that the woman was posing as a deaf person. The revelation came from hearing tests that were ordered after the woman, whom shelter officials have named Lucy, jumped when a balloon popped behind her, said shelter Director Carol Roberg. While an audiologist rated the woman's hearing as perfect by measuring her brain waves, a psychologist ruled that she has a childlike mind, limited reasoning and possibly dyslexia, Roberg said.

"I feel a bit discouraged," said Roberg, associate director of the Ventura County Rescue Mission, which runs the shelter. "I said to her, `Lucy, you've been putting us on (and) you've been making monkeys of us,' " Roberg said, explaining that she augmented her speech by imitating an ape. "She just cast her eyes downward and looked embarrassed. When I further tried to talk to her, she pretended she didn't understand-or she really didn't."

Also disappointed were officials at the local chapter of the Greater Los Angeles Council on Deafness. A battery of deaf interpreters skilled in several languages spent days trying to decipher the woman's foreign hand signs. "The signs don't mean anything," said Coleen Ashly, advocacy specialist for Tri-County GLAD. "Whether she's got some other processing problem or whether she's just faking, we have no way of knowing that."

[everybodylovesrs]

MUTE WOMAN WAITS FOR NEW PLACEMENT
Oct 31 1992
LA Times

Oxnard shelter officials seeking to identify a mysterious woman who communicates only in sign language said they have referred her to a Ventura home for the developmentally disabled.

The woman needs more supervision than the shelter can provide, said Carol Roberg, associate director of the Women's Lighthouse shelter.

The Women's Lighthouse took the young Latina in after Port Hueneme police found her dancing on a Ventura Road traffic island late last month.

The woman was unable to speak and appeared to be deaf, communicating in hand signs that belonged to no established language for the deaf, according to a battery of interpreters who worked with her for several days.

Shelter officials eventually learned her name was Lucy, but could not find out where she belonged.

Then, when a popped balloon caused the woman to jump, shelter officials ordered electronic audiology tests that found her to have perfect hearing.

On Oct. 18, shelter officials turned her over to the Ventura County Mental Health Department for evaluation.

A doctor there ruled that she may be mildly mentally ******** and, while she hears, her brain may not be able to process the sounds.

[everybodylovesrs]

SILENT WOMAN IN COTATI SUBJECT OF EARLIER PROBE ' UNSOLVED MYSTERIES ' COULDN'T HELP IDENTIFY HER
San Jose Merc. News (CA) - Thursday, December 16, 1993

Sonoma County officials are not the first to try to unravel the mystery surrounding the unidentified young woman found last week sleeping under newspapers on a Cotati sidewalk.

The homeless coordinator for Ventura County said Wednesday the same woman , who is deaf and apparently knows no language -- even sign language -- showed up there a year ago and became the focus of a major identity search that included a February appearance on television's " Unsolved Mysteries ."

But authorities still have no clues to her identity, nor can they explain how she has managed to survive on the streets -- and remain relatively clean and healthy -- with virtually no ability to communicate.

''It's an incredibly unusual case," Ventura County's Nancy Nazario said. "She seems to be bright, but she is functionally very impaired because of her inability to communicate clearly. It's surprising to me this woman is in as good shape as she is."

Nazario said the woman , who appears to be in her early 20s, was referred to her in October of last year after police found her on a roadway median strip near Oxnard.

They called her "Lucy" because that is the name that most closely resembled the crude letters she scrawled. She was of cheerful disposition but unable to hear, speak, read or write.

After mental health experts concluded that deafness had prevented her from learning language, she was approved for Supplemental Security Income, a federal disability program, and placed in a board-and-care home.

Then she bolted.

Nazario said she later saw the young woman several times on the streets. One one occasion she appeared badly bruised, but even then Nazario had no legal basis to detain her . So, she said, she simply waited for a crisis to force the woman to return to a more protected environment.

''She's very sweet but very strong-willed," Nazario said. "She's going to do what she's going to do."

That, the young woman had no difficulty communicating.

''The last time I saw her , I gave her my card, hoping she would contact me," Nazario recalled. "She looked up at me, smiled sweetly and tore it up."

When the young woman was found last week in Cotati , she was in possession of a small quantity of methamphetamine. She was held on a misdemeanor drug charge but only to give authorities a chance to establish her identity and try to help her .

''We're not going to proceed criminally," Sonoma County District Attorney Gene Tunney said earlier this week. "We just didn't want to kick her out in the street."

Deputy Public Defender Kirsten Dimond said Wednesday she has received hundreds of telephone calls from people who have read or heard about the woman and are eager to help . But so far, no one has been any more helpful than the woman herself in determining who she is and how she ended up in Sonoma County.

''She writes letters and numbers, but they never make any sense," Dimond said. "We'll probably never know how she got to Cotati ."

[sdb4884]

hmmm interesting, anyone on here know what is her current status?

[everybodylovesrs]

Originally Posted by sdb4884

hmmm interesting, anyone on here know what is her current status?

It'd have to be a family member if since identified, or someone who works with the homeless. So far not finding any other articles. But the last one isn't exactly encouraging.

[egswanso]

Interesting updates. It seems much of my previous hypothesis on "Lucxi" are almost certainly wrong. Honestly, while I'm sure she's ********, I doubt she knows as little about her origins as she pretends. ******** doesn't mean she lacks deviousness.

[everybodylovesrs]

Originally Posted by egswanso

Interesting updates. It seems much of my previous hypothesis on "Lucxi" are almost certainly wrong. Honestly, while I'm sure she's ********, I doubt she knows as little about her origins as she pretends. ******** doesn't mean she lacks deviousness.

Well, it seems like she really must have flown or come from Mexico like she indicated. I realize it wasn't her idea to get her case on Unsolved, but she must have known that it could possibly result in her location/identity being revealed to whoever she was running away from. Kind of like "Tyler" with amnesia...

No one recognized her apparently.

[sdb4884]

Any further updates?

[DarkDante]

The last I heard about Luxci is that she vanished from the board and care home she was staying in and was never seen again which could lead to all types of possibilities as to just what her current status may be.

[everybodylovesrs]

Originally Posted by sdb4884

Any further updates?

I've googled repeatedly for years, and still can't find anything new.

[sdb4884]

We'll keep an eye on the new UM episodes to see if her name pops up.