House of Horrors: Parents Accused of Abuse and Malnourishment of Their 13 Children

The parents of 13 brothers and sisters with ages ranging from 2 to 29 have been arrested and charged with abuse, torture, and other criminal offenses against their children. Conviction on the charges will likely keep them in prison for the rest of their lives. The children were found malnourished in their California, four-bedroom, Spanish-style family home on Sun. Jan. 14.

Mike Hestrin, Riverside County District Attorney, detailed a house of horrors involving the father David Turpin, 57, and the mother Louise Turpin, 49, who raised their children in an atmosphere of abuse and filth. Some of the abuse, according to accounts, involved chaining their children to furniture, taunting them with food they needed for nourishment, but were repeatedly denied.

Both parents were charged with multiple felony crimes, including child abuse, torture, false imprisonment, and abuse of dependent adults. The father was also charged with a single count of a lewd act of a child by force. If they are convicted, they each face 94 years to life behind bars.

In describing this case, Hestrin told reporters, “As a prosecutor, there are some cases that haunt you.” He added, “Some deal with human depravity, and that’s what we’re dealing with here.”

The extent of abuse

The District Attorney said that the Turpin children were forced to sleep during daylight and were only awake at night. He described the valiant actions of the teenage girl who escaped from her home and notified police about the deplorable conditions inside. He said, she had been “working on a plan to escape this abuse for more than two years.”

Detailing further the extent of the abuse, Hestrin explained that the parents would buy food to eat for themselves, but not give it to the children. They would buy apple pies to eat for themselves only. Many children’s toys also sat in the house unopened.

The couples’ 17-year-old daughter, in her effort to escape, reportedly took a cell phone, escaped out of a window, and fled away from the home at night. She called 911, telling how her other 12 brothers and sisters were being held hostage by their parents, some bound to their beds with padlocks. A sibling of the sister fled the house with her, but was frightened and returned back home.

The children were described as extremely malnourished to the point that they all looked like minors. In fact, the Attorney General noted that the 29-year-old adult female child only weighed 82 pounds.

They all showed signs of serious malnourishment as well as mental impairment, with the exception of the two-year-old toddler. The children were only permitted to shower once a year.

The abuse perpetrated by the parents, according to Hestrin, began as neglect and increased in severity over time that involved strangulations and beatings. The child victims were restrained with ropes and even hogtied at times as a means of punishment. As the abuse progressed over time, eventually chains and padlocks were used to restrain the children.

Several of the children were found to have neuropathic and cognitive impairment as a result of the physical abuse they suffered. Many were not aware of such things as pills or medications, or what a police officer was. None had ever been to a dentist.

When the abuse began

According to the Attorney General, the abuse began it when the family lived in Fort Worth, Texas. Hestrin described the living arrangement at that time as the parents living apart from the children and delivering food to them on certain occasions. Prior to moving to California, the family lived in Texas for 17 years.

Hestrin also revealed that the children were permitted to write in journals. He said that the information in those journals may be very important to understanding the scope of the abuse that took place over time.

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