Twins Georgia Noel Lahi Inman and Walker Patterson Inman III (called ‘Patterson’), born in 1997 to Walker Patterson Inman Jr.—the heir to the Doris Duke fortune—and his fourth wife Daisha Inman (nee Aunday), were starved, imprisoned, and physically abused by their father and stepmother Daralee Inman (nee Steinhausen), as well as by several other caregivers.
Walker Inman was awarded custody of the twins in 2000 after his divorce from Daisha Inman, and he married Daralee in 2001. The abuse of the twins began almost immediately—they suffered from serious speech delays and did not know how to hold a pencil at age 4. They were homeschooled after second grade. “‘Home schooling,’ however, turned out to be little more than a revolving cast of tutors with no teaching experience.” In Wyoming, the twins were locked into their room at night and forced to relieve themselves in the corner. In South Carolina, they were kept locked in a feces-covered basement. Daralee hit Georgia with a baseball bat and pushed Patterson down the stairs. Walker punched Georgia in the face. A caregiver scalded them in the bathtub. They were repeatedly endangered by Walker and Daralee, who were both drug addicts—while high on drugs, Daralee crashed into a tree with the twins in the car; Walker detonated a tear-gas grenade in the house and forced the twins to play Russian Roulette. When they were rescued at age 12, both children were seriously underweight. The abuse was reported to child services at least four times, but Walker Inman’s money and connections allowed him to avoid consequences. When nannies noticed the abuse, they were immediately fired.
The children were rescued from the abuse after their father’s death in February 2010 from a drug overdose. Though Daralee attempted to keep the children, Daisha Inman eventually was able to gain custody of them in August 2010 by bringing “a court order, a fleet of police cars and two ambulances” to their Wyoming home. The children spent three months in a psychiatric facility before going to live with Daisha. Daralee has not been charged, although South Carolina’s Department of Social Services determined in April 2011 that she had abused the children.
Date: August 2010
Location: Grover, Wyoming and Georgetown, South Carolina
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