Turpin Nightmare

A 17-year old runs away from a California home on Sunday, January 14, 2018.  It was the great escape, two years in the making. She finds the nearest telephone and dials 911.

The 17-year old is the daughter of a happy couple and sister to twelve other children. In photos, they seem to be the average perfect family, even smiling in photos where they are wearing matching outfits and in a photo where the couple of 33 years renewed their vows.

However, that is not what the police found when they paid the teenager’s house a visit. Padlocks, chains, “foul-smelling rooms,” unopened boxes of toys, and thin and malnourished individuals ranging in age from 2-29 year olds.

It is a simple tale of neglect, abuse, and torture. But this is not a tale, nor a story born out of fiction. It as the reality of the world we live in, the reality of thirteen children who has suffered “horrific torture” at the hands of their parents. After seventeen years, the world comes to know the names of their parents David and Louis Turpin.

Details of their experience sicken the police and the legal team on the case. The headlines reported “House of Horrors” and one can see why that was.

Prior to California, the family lived in Texas where the couple allegedly lived separately from their children. They often visited the children at the other house to drop by food. It started off with basic neglect, never escalating to anything more than forgetting to feed them, to intentionally withholding food and giving them small portions of water per day.

As punishment–which, at this point, is severely understated–they were tied to their bedpost as a form of discipline. When one of the children broke out of the ropes and attempted to escape, David and Louis resorted to chains.

The parents did buy them food and toys; though rather than use them to please their kids, they exploited their use as devices for taunting. Among these foods were desserts, such as apple or pumpkin pies, which they would set out on the door, forcing their children to look. They had done the same with toys, which are still intact in their original boxes.

It was “severe abuse over time,” District Attorney Mike Hestrin explained. Shackled, they were not allowed to use the bathroom, but were allowed one shower per year. In addition, they could only eat once a day. They were also beaten regularly in their padlocked rooms.

However, they were not completely hidden from the public life. There is evidence of one of the oldest attending classes at a community college. They also have photos of them going on vacations. Louis even went as far to say that she wanted her family to star on a reality TV show because they might pique the public’s interest.

Though the strange behavior of the kids was commented on by the neighbors when they encountered them setting up a nativity scene. Strange, as in, they seem paralyzed from head to toe when their neighbor spoke. None of them has even heard of a police officer, an insight to the isolation of these children that they were denied their basic right of an education although the parents claim David was tutoring them.

Severely malnourished, the 13 children were placed into hospitals to get their much-needed care. Even the oldest of the 13 had a weight of 82 pounds. But they have also found the support they needed as the The Riverside University Health System Foundation and the Corona Chamber of Commerce raised around $400,000 for their care. Still, that would not be sufficient for all of the them, not even the minors. Their future remains undecided, but they would most likely be placed in foster care homes.

Meanwhile, David and Louis are charged with 12 counts of torture and false imprisonment–Hestrin said, ”the two-year old was still getting enough to eat”–six counts of child abuse, and seven counts of abuse of a dependent adult, and a lewd act charge against the father. Their bail is set at $12 million.

They will return to court on February 23.