Krause, however, denies abusing Alanna, and says that in the school incident, he had simply grabbed Alanna's arm and the teacher who called CPS "didn't understand" the situation. "I have two other children and three grandchildren, and I get along with all of them," Krause says. "If I had been a child abuser, it would have come out in my older children."
That summer, Krause sent Alanna to camp in Santa Rosa. On her last day, Krause picked her up and told her that instead of going directly home, they were going to visit a friend in Utah. Alanna says she was puzzled, but didn't protest.
Courtesy of Alanna Krause
Alanna (center, as a toddler) became "property to be
divided" during her parents' contentious child custody
battle in 1993.
Robert Davis
Alanna believes her $135 million lawsuit will send the
message that children need a voice in family courts.
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After several days' drive, Krause pulled up to the Island View Residential Treatment Center, a locked facility in Syracuse, Utah, for children with behavioral or mental problems. Court documents show that the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan -- which Krause unsuccessfully sued for coverage of the Island View stay -- noted it did not have any record of Alanna having behavioral or emotional problems during summer camp; Krause had used independent psychologists to refer Alanna to Island View. Krause says he checked Alanna, then 11, in to the $6,000-a-month institution because Lana Clark and two other psychologists recommended it. Clark had diagnosed Alanna with Parental Alienation Syndrome; Krause says she was "going out of control."
Alanna says she was traumatized by her time at Island View. "I had never had sex, tried drugs, or been arrested," Alanna says. "I was an almost straight-A student. Everyone else was 16 or 17 years old. They were prostitutes, gangbangers, or heroin addicts, teen parents. I'd go to AA and say, 'Hi, my name is Alanna and I've never had alcohol.'"
She says she underwent therapy in which she was forced to say that she loved her father, and that her mother was crazy. "They would tell me, 'Your dad is not a bad father and your mom is crazy.' They would hold me in there until I would say it. I remember staring at the light reflecting against the wall, and those ideas seeping into my brain. I realized what I needed to do was to pretend that it was working. But I had to stay in touch with both realities at once. There was the me that I was inside, and the me that I showed to the outside world. Every night, it was like that movie Memento, and I would remind myself, 'OK, this is real, and this is real.' I remember thinking, 'This is weird. Is this a movie? Is this my life?'"
Dr. Jared Balmer, executive director at Island View, says that many children who enter his facility have similar reactions. "A majority of the children here think that they have no problems," he says. "But they think that everyone else has lots of problems."
Alanna stayed at Island View for five months, with her father visiting every few weekends. When he came, they'd either undergo joint therapy or he'd take her on excursions into town. Simone-Smith, however, was not allowed to visit her daughter; Alanna could only make 10-minute calls to her mother after she'd earned phone privileges -- six weeks into her stay. To maintain contact, they sent each other letters, which were screened by the Island View staff.
When Alanna was discharged, Krause sent her to boarding school at Harker Academy in San Jose. Alanna says she enjoyed her time there, though on weekends she had to catch a train and a bus to Richmond, where her father picked her up for a couple of days' stay in San Geronimo.
After graduating from Harker at age 13, Alanna returned to live with her father, though she had already decided she wasn't going to stay. "Every time I told him I wanted to live with my mom, he'd say, 'Maybe when you're older,'" Alanna says. "But I realized that if it didn't happen now, it was never going to happen. It started to feel like maybe it would be a possibility that I could live on my own and survive."
Less than a week into her freshman year at the local San Geronimo high school, her father gave her a ride to school. Alanna never made it into the building. Instead, she walked to the bus station and bought a one-way ticket to Los Angeles, carrying nothing but a backpack that held a change of clothes and a toothbrush.
Alanna spent the next two months on the run in L.A., staying at first with a distant relative of her mother, who'd written to Alanna when she was at boarding school. "There was a lot of hiding out. I'd stay a couple nights here, couple nights there," Alanna says. "The people I was staying with would know someone I could stay with. And they knew someone. It was a very scary time, running and hiding, like a criminal on the run."
Alanna eventually found herself at the home of Kathy Schneiderman, another distant maternal relative. She stayed there for a few weeks, hiding in the house most of the time because she was too afraid to register at a school. While she was there, though, Alanna created discord within the family.
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