LOS ANGELES—The desperate cry for help came from a girl who had lived in such isolation for 17 years that she didn’t know her address, the month of the year or what the word medication meant.
But after jumping out a window from the filthy home where she lived with her parents and 12 siblings, she knew enough to punch the digits 9-1-1 into a barely workable cellphone and then began describing years of horrific abuse to a police dispatcher.
