Girl Among Thorns is a true story.  It is, actually, a collection of many stories that expose the lies and deceptions as well as the hopes and strengths of a child who grew older without growing up.  Chelsey Ann Davenport is a girl who took on the responsibility of nurturing and caring for her younger siblings at an unbelievable cost to herself.  She was a victim of: Child Debilitation Syndrome. Like the web of a spider, the hideous crimes of one man and the abandonment of many others,sucked the life out of the small dreams and futile hopes of a helpless child. But it wasn't just the villans in Chelsey's life that held her in their web. No. It was much more than that.  It was the combination of good and evil, the dictates of her own tender heart, and the debilitating effects of terror that robbed Chelsey Davenport of her life for twenty-eight years.

What happened to Chelsey Ann Davenport that held her captive to a mad man's demands for almost thirty years?  Why didn't she leave when she became an adult?  Who were the criminals in this story and who were the victims? 

Chelsey is not alone in her ordeal.  Child Debilitation Syndrome is more common than you may suppose.  Perhaps, if we understand the deadly syndrome that overpowered them as children we will be able to help the Chelseys among us recover and use the strength of their survival to become the loving, powerful, women they were meant to be.