California 13 siblings: How David and Louise Turpin children planned to escape their living hell as the DA tells of the degree of abuse and heinous living circumstances endured.
The 13 California siblings tortured by their parents plotted for two years to escape their home where they were chained up, strangled and starved, prosecutors said Thursday as the Turpin parents pleaded not guilty to all 38 charges against them.
It wasn’t until this past Sunday when one of David and Louise Turpin’s children, a 17 year old daughter defied her parents, managing to flee through a window and get help, revealing the terror that the siblings had been forced to endure inside the family’s four bedroom, nondescript, Perris, Murrieta, Cal. home.
Told Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin during a Thursday morning press conference, ‘What started out as neglect became severe, pervasive, prolonged child abuse.’
According to Hestrin, the abuse began in 2010 and has intensified ever since. The DA proceeded to detail the extent of the horrific conditions the children — ages 2 to 29 — were forced to live in.
From being fed once a day, constantly dirty and only allowed to shower twice a year, the Turpin children were forced to live in urine-soaked surroundings. The children had also been subjected to constant beatings, and occasionally strangled.
Other deprivations included the Turpin children having been deprived of seeing a doctor in four years and never having seen a dentist.
In some instances, the DA old of the Turpins abusing their children if they washed their hands above the wrist.
David and Louise Turpin plead not guilty with bail raised to $13m each.
Other acts of abuse included the Turpins regularly bringing food, such as pies, to the home, placing them on the counter and banning the children from eating.
The 13 siblings were also malnourished, he added, and the oldest, a 29-year-old woman, was just 82 pounds.
The family would regularly go to bed at 4 to 5 a.m., slept through the day and stay up all night.
The parents, David Turpin, 59 and Louise Turpin, 47 were booked with dozens of charges including torture, child abuse and false imprisonment.
David Turpin is also charged with touching one of his daughters in a lewd way, Hestrin said.
Each parent was charged with 12 counts of torture, 12 counts of false imprisonment, six counts, of neglect and seven counts of abuse of a dependant adult.
Their bail was each raised from $9 to $13million – one for each child they abused.
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California 13 siblings: Another sibling followed elder sister’s escape but returned home out of fear.
Upon responding to the fleeing 17 year old daughter, cops said they had initially been dealing with a ten year old girl, so malnourished and emaciated was the teen.
Another sibling escaped with her, Hestrin said, but became frightened and headed back to the house.
Upon arriving at the family Murrieta home, cops found three of the siblings chained to furniture. The siblings were from there brought to hospitals for treatment.
‘They’re in good hands,’ Hestrin told reporters. ‘As far as where they’re going to end up, I don’t know.’
The Turpins who had been held on $9 million bail, had bail raised to $13 million.
Thought to be used as evidence against the parents are hundreds of notes of journals the children had been allowed to keep.
California 13 siblings behind closed doors existence vs social media profile.
The family moved to California in about 2010, leaving behind a feces-smeared, trash-filled home in Rio Vista, Texas.
The siblings last saw their grandparents six years ago, who thought everything seemed fine.
‘They are the sweetest family,’ Betty Turpin, David Turpin’s 81-year-old mother, told Southern California Media Group on Wednesday. ‘They were just like any ordinary family. And they had such good relationships. I’m not just saying this stuff. These kids, we were amazed. They were ‘sweetie’ this and ‘sweetie’ that to each other.’
Turpin, who lives in Princeton, W.Va., said there was never a sign they were being abused.
‘We never heard those kids arguing,’ she said. ‘Some (now) say they were told to behave. But you take a household of kids over five days, they’re going to be themselves. It was wonderful.’
Claims that make sense given the diabolical track the Turpin parents pulled off, including presenting a ‘happy go lucky’ social media profile, banning relatives, including the children’s grandmother from ever speaking to the children on the phone, refusing in one instance to give the family’s address after relatives said they were in town along with cutting all physical ties to family and relatives for the last number of years, as the Turpin children continued to degenerate as David and Louise only continued to escalate the household of recklessness and by now open ended vindictiveness in their ‘religious belief,’ that they were the chosen ones….
David and Louise Turpin’s next court appearance is scheduled for February 23rd.
