10A j The BirminghamNews Sunday, December 12, 2010FROM PAGE ONEU

“You kind of get your memoriesand what you’ve been told mixed up.

I think it’s a good thingthat I don’t remember everything.”

She couldn’t rememberwhich room had been herprison, but she picturedHutto studying her throughthe glass. She recalled thestories that her brother, 6,and sister, 8, were allowedto roam the neighborhoodfreely while she and Jenniferwere kept locked away.

She wondered if any ofthe old neighbors, whohadn’t even known sheexisted, were still there.

“I wanted to get out andwalk around,” Rachel said,“but I didn’t want anybodyto think I was a weirdo.”

She wanted to lookthrough that window onemore time. This time, fromthe outside.

Now Rachel Hood, the22-year-old Birminghampolice officer pounds a beatin the East Precinct, some-times the very same neigh-borhood where she and hersister were discovered.

Her goal is to make a dif-ference in the lives of others,like those who helped tosave her.

What a long way she hascome.

“What this officer hasdone with her life sends apowerful message for usall,” said Birmingham PoliceChief A.C. Roper. “She hasproven the will to succeedcan overcome tough cir-cumstances and insur-mountable challenges.”

RescueMost of what Rachel

knows about her childhoodcomes from newspaperclips and details filled in byher adopted mom, SherriHood.

But she knows the story.“Nobody even knew we

existed,” she said. “It’s kindof hurtful, that nobodyknew who we were.”

That changed on July 31,1993. Hutto, who had leasedthe home the previous yearto Albert and Laurie Vaccaand what he thought wastheir only two children,went by the house that Sat-urday to cut grass afterevicting the family.

Hutto saw the face of achild peering through thewindow blinds. When he gotno answer at the door, andcouldn’t find a way inside,he called police who forcedtheir way in.

They found their way to aback room, which waslocked from the outside.They opened the door to ahorrific scene.

Two little girls were there.One was handcuffed aroundher leg and both were par-tially undressed. The girlshad feces in their hair andall over their bodies.

The room was covered inhuman excrement and con-tained only a tarp coveredwith a few blankets.

The girls said they werehungry. When asked by po-lice where their mother was,one of them said, “I don’thave a mommy.”

Curious neighborsquickly gathered at thehouse, wanting to help.Over and over, the girls saidthey were hungry and theneighbors rallied.

Police later testified eachgirl ate five bowls of cerealand begged for more. Huttohad called Laurie Vacca, 32,where she was working at anearby Red Lobster. Whenshe showed up at the scene,claiming she was coming tocheck on her daughters,neighbors surrounded herand took away her car keys.

She was arrested andcharged with child abuse. Inthe following days, AlbertVacca, a licensed practicalnurse, also was arrested andcharged. Their other twochildren were taken intostate custody. Laurie Vac-ca’s eldest son from a previ-ous relationship already wasbeing raised by his father.

The family had moved toTrafford four days before,leaving Rachel and Jenniferalone to die. Doctors latertestified it would have takenonly two to five more daysfor that to happen.

Rachel and Jennifer hadtrouble standing and walk-ing. They were so malnou-rished, one of the officerssaid she could count theirvertebrae.

They were taken to thehospital where each wasgiven a tray of food. Onetried to eat the chicken bonewhen the meat was gone;the other saw a sponge and,thinking it was cheese,screamed out for it.

Other than crying out inhunger, they were void offeeling and emotion.

Sherri Hood, then a32-year-old single womanand first-time foster mom,got the call she had longawaited. She was about toexperience her inauguralstint as an emergency shel-ter foster parent, meaningshe was the first, and sup-posedly temporary, stop onthe way to a longer-termfoster home.

A deeply religiouswoman, Hood was in noway prepared for what shefound. She had stopped topick up booster seats enroute to the hospital for the51⁄2-year-old girls, only tofind they weighed 18pounds each and insteadneeded infant seats.

Once home, she and hermother got the twins settled.Then they stood arm andarm in the front yard, bothretching from the sight andsmell of the girls. The twins,who were unaccustomed tofood, had become violentlyill from the chips and cook-ies neighbors had lovinglygiven them.

“I prayed they wouldn’tdie that night,” Hood said.“I talked with God and said,‘I have prayed so long to bea foster parent. Why did yougive me these children thatare going to die in my hometonight?’ ”

ThrivingWhat was supposed to be

an overnight stay with Hoodturned into days. The girlsthrived under her care.

They had to get re-accli-mated to food, first withbroth and then rice, and in aweek were potty-trained.

They had to be taughthow to hug.

Within a month, Jenniferhad gained 10 pounds; Ra-chel had gained seven,equivalent to one year’sgrowth in a normal child.

“It was one miracle afteranother,” Hood said.

As Hood and friends andfamily poured love and nou-rishment on the girls, detailsemerged about the night-mare that had been theirlives.

Former landlords saidthey, too, had rented homesto the family in years pastonly to find that once theywere gone, there was alwaysone room where the carpetwas saturated with humanwaste. It was disclosed thatthe other brother and sisterweren’t allowed to feed theirsiblings, play with them, oreven talk about them.

It also turned out thatthere were those who knewof the twins; many, in fact,who had tried, and failed, toget them the help theyneeded.

Day care workers saidthey had contacted the Ala-bama Department of Hu-man Resources about thegirls. At day care, the work-ers around 1991 would marktheir diapers on Friday toprove that when they re-turned on Monday, the girlswere still wearing the samediapers.

Workers at Children’s

Hospital had also reportedthe girls to DHR after theywere patients there in 1990,as did a Jefferson Countysheriff’s deputy who foundthem home alone in 1989.

The media coverage ofthe twins’ plight promptedreforms at the state Depart-ment of Human Resources.

Still, the girls were re-turned to their parents, whoby all accounts were well-groomed, well-dressed andknown to drop at least $60 aweek on drinks while outpartying with their friends.

Laurie Vacca even con-fessed the she and her hus-band once took the twoolder children to Six Flags,and left the twins homealone.

Legal battleA fierce legal battle en-

sued. Authorities sought tosever Laurie and Albert Vac-ca’s parental rights. Doc-tors, lawyers, and evenChick-Fil-A founder TruettCathy offered to adopt thetwins.

Hood wasn’t going to letthem go. She said she knewthat within 24 hours of tak-ing possession.

“God,” she prayed, “what-ever hell they’ve got to gothrough, I really want to gothrough it with them.”

And there was hell. Plentyof it.

Hood likened the journeyto a line in Garth Brook’ssong The Dance: I couldhave missed the pain, but I’dhave had to miss the dance.

In February of 1994, theVaccas finally gave up theirparental rights. In April, thejudge awarded the girls toHood permanently.

“It was a beautiful time,”she said. “It was awesome tosee them grow, to see whatGod could do.”

Another family adoptedthe other two children.

Laurie and Albert Vaccaboth were convicted of childabuse and sent to stateprison in 1995. LaurieVacca, sentenced to two10-year sentences, was re-leased in 1999.

Albert, whom a psycholo-gist called a sociopath, re-ceived two 20-year sen-tences to be servedconcurrently, and was re-leased in 2008. He had aprior felony conviction.

They divorced, and nei-ther lives in the Birminghamarea.

Little memoryRachel doesn’t remember

much about those darkerdays.

“You kind of get yourmemories and what you’vebeen told mixed up,” shesaid. “I think it’s a goodthing that I don’t remembereverything.”

“We always knew we wereadopted,” she said. “ And Iconsider (Hood) my mom,not just somebody whoraised me.”

After Hood adopted her,Rachel said, her life was nodifferent than that of anyother child her age.

“I played outside all of thetime, had stitches in mychin from bike wrecks. Iwanted to be outside assoon as the sun came upuntil the sun went down.”

They spent weekendsworking in the yard, anddriving around to look atnew cars after church onSundays. “I guess me andmy sister just liked lookingat new cars.”

They dressed alike untilthey were about 9, and Ra-chel recalls going to sleep atnight to the sounds of Hood,an aspiring singer, beltingout gospel and countrytunes.

It was a fairly unremark-able life, except that it wasremarkable, consideringthey were predicted to bementally and physically re-tarded because of the yearsof abuse and neglect.

“I played soccer in el-ementary school, basketballmy 8th grade year and I rantrack and cross country,”she said. “In high school, Iplayed basketball my 9thgrade year, I ran cross coun-try every year but my junioryear, and I played soccer mysenior year.”

They had play dates withtheir older siblings, butthose relationships eventu-ally waned as they movedinto adolescence and be-yond.

See NIGHTMARE Page 11A

NEWS STAFF/LINDA STELTER

NIGHTMARE:ChildrenabandonedFrom Page 1A

Birmingham policeofficer RachelHood sits in frontof the RoebuckGardens homewhere she and hertwin sister, at age 5,were foundshackled and leftto die in their ownexcrement. Theywere known thenas Rachel andJennifer Vacca.Now, at age 22,Hood pounds abeat in the EastPrecinct,sometimes thevery sameneighborhoodwhere she and hersister werediscovered in 1993.