Due to many raucous parties, alcohol, and unstable family life, Tammy and her sisters are permanently removed from the home of Tom and Katie King by Social Services.
Over the years Tammy and her sisters were placed in numerous foster homes; some good and some not so good. The final foster home for Tammy is a small outport community called Deep Harbor. This is the place where Tammy endures much sexual abuse that eventually leads to the end of her young life, at age 15. .
In Deep Harbor the story of sexual abuse, which Tammy and her sister were to endure from the Weller family, began long before their arrival. Girls like Dawn Williams and Ann Wicks, who were foster children of the Weller family, were also sexually abused by members of the family. There was a whole clan of Weller brothers in Deep Harbor involved in sexual abuse of foster children.
What is so heartbreaking about this story is that the tragic death of Tammy King could have been prevented. Numerous people were aware of the sexual abuse that was taking place in the Weller foster homes. Dawn Williams, who was in the foster care of Levi Weller, revealed the abuse to her boyfriend, to relatives of her natural family, to relatives of her foster family, and to at least two social workers, but no one mentioned it. Ann Wicks, who was in the care of Albert and Alice Weller (Tammy's final home) revealed the abuse to a nurse at the Janeway hospital and she in turn told a cystic fibrosis camp coordinator, Ruth Howse. But still nothing was mentioned; there was utter secrecy. Ann did not tell any social workers about the sexual abuse because they were already unsympathetic to her when she reported physical abuse in her former foster home. " one social worker was, as Justice Hughes pointed out in his Royal Commission, openly hostile" (Moore,1994, p.117).
On August 17, 1988 the RCMP and Social Services were given a detailed statement of sexual abuse against Ann Wicks by Albert Weller.