The doors of the house inhabited by the Jack Wilson family on Telegraph Hill lead to a terrible secret. Within those walls, Charles S. Wilson and his sisters suffered heartbreaking physical and mental abuse at the hands of their own parents.

Mother Mame was a well-known caretaker in the community, but she also brought strangers into the house and force-fed them until they were sick. Their father Jack, better known as the town drunk, threw Wilson around like a rag doll for the amusement of his drunken friends. And then there were Annabelle and Abigail, Wilson's beloved sisters, whose...