[citation needed] The Golers supported themselves on a combination of social welfare and occasional labor at the many nearby farms, supplemented by fishing and foraging for berries and other fruits.
As the case was investigated, authorities learned that a number of Goler children were victims of sexual abuse at the hands of fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers, cousins, and one another.
During interrogation by police, several of the adults openly admitted to, and even boasted about, engaging in many forms of sexual activity, up to and including full intercourse, with the children many times.
There was only one full-time prosecutor, who normally handled one or two rape cases per year alongside a relatively small number of assaults, thefts, disorderly conduct, and other crimes.
Authorities had largely ignored them for a century or more, despite documents dating to the 1860s that showed the prevalence of intrafamilial relationships through high rates of birth defects and intellectual disabilities, although the county's low-income housing society had been working to build 565-square-foot 'hearth homes'.
[4] A year after the book On South Mountain was published, she began a long fight to revise the Criminal Code, saying that it failed to protect the young relatives of convicted child molesters.