David and Louise Turpin children: From eating only once a day, being allowed to shower twice a year, urine soaked bedrooms, forbidden to talk, socialize, as questions as to why authorities were never called.
Investigators have told the thirteen siblings rescued from a Murrieta, California house of horrors where they were abused by their parents were allowed to shower just twice a year and were fed one rationed meal a day, it has been revealed.
The Turpin children, who range in age from two to 29, were rescued on Sunday after their 17-year-old sister managed to flee the four bedroom home and call 911. Upon responding police arriving, officers found the sister’s twelve siblings shackled to furniture and lying in urine and feces.
Their parents David Turpin, 57 and Louise Turpin, 49 were arrested inside the home once police arrived.
Upon making their first court appearance, Thursday at 9am, both parents pleaded not guilty to the total of 38 charges against them, with bail raised from $9m to $13m each.
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 dependent adult. The Turpins were remanded to next appear in court, February 23rd.
Thought to be used as evidence against the parents are hundreds of notes of journals the children had been allowed to keep.
David and Louise Turpin plead not guilty with bail raised to $13m each.
Since been released from their ordeal, authorities have begun to recount some of the horrors the children, ranging from ages of two years old to twenty nine years old were forced to undergo.
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.
Other deprivations according to Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin, 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.
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.
According to Hestrin, the abuse began in 2010 and has intensified ever since.
Reiterated Hestrin, ‘What started out as neglect became severe, pervasive, prolonged child abuse’.
Of particular note, prosecutors told that although all thirteen children had been imprisoned, one of the older sons had been allowed out of the home to attend college classes but Louise accompanied him there, waited for him until it finished then accompanied him home.
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Equally disturbing is how the Turpin children continued to be exposed to such depravities with relatives now stepping forward acknowledging that over the years there had been many inconsistencies in their relations with David and Louise Turpin but not once thought to reach out to child protection services.
Sample incidents included Louise’s parents being denied the family addressing after landing at a nearby airport to visit the family, the Turpin parents strict forbidding of relatives ever talking to the children on the phone, and the parents reluctance to ever allow relatives to visit or for the Turpins to ever visit relatives.
Similar stories of ‘missed opportunities’ included neighbors saying they had seen the children scrummaging through rubbish bins looking for food but not calling authorities after one neighbor said it ‘didn’t look sinister.’
In the end, child protection services in Perris said they were never once alerted to the home nor did they receive complaints about the Turpins.
‘Not one person called us. How sad,’ Mary Parks, senior public information specialist for the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services, told Desert Sun.
On Saturday, hours before they were arrested, the couple reportedly ‘said goodbye’ to friends and said they had to ‘leave town’.
They did not give any indication of where they planned to go or why they were leaving, according to one friend who spoke to Mirror Online.
David and Louise Turpin children ‘happy go lucky’ on Facebook at odds with bitter reality.
Police and relatives of the Turpins have been left disorientated by the revelations of what actually transpired in the Turpins home, which contrasted wildly to the seemingly ‘happy go lucky’ vibe that images posted of family outings celebrated.
Told Brenda Taylor, Louise Turpin’s aunt via CNN, ‘With the pictures they put on Facebook, you thought they were one big happy family.’
Taylor said her niece, who is now 49, married David when she was just 16.
Other relatives told how Louise joked about how skinny the children were and trivialized their weight by saying they were ‘tall and lanky’ like their father.
‘I always made comments to Louise, when I did talk to her about, ‘Gosh they’re so skinny’, and she would laugh it off saying ‘Well, David’s so tall and lanky. They’re going to be like him’,’ Teresa Robinette told Today earlier in the week.
‘(The children) weren’t allowed to date, or they didn’t have a social life,’ she said. ‘They weren’t allowed to watch TV.
Adding, ‘They weren’t allowed to talk on the phone, have friends over, stuff like that. Normal things that kids do.’
While the children received just one meal a day, Louise frequented a local pizza shop where she would often buy herself a slice of pepperoni or a club sandwich.
She sometimes brought one of the children with her, a daughter, but workers at the restaurant had no clue how many other offspring she had.
‘Louise was in here every other day. Sometimes with her husband, and a few times with a little girl, but never more than one,’ worker Matthew Alex Padilla, 20, told the Telegraph.
Adding, ‘We knew each other, and would chat – she was normal, if maybe a bit reserved. I had no idea she had 13 children, because she’d only ever order a slice of pepperoni, or a chicken club sandwich with no tomato’.
David and Louise Turpin children: Home schooled with California Department of Education never not once making an assessment.
The new owners of properties the family lived in in Texas have also come forward to share disturbing photographs of the state they left their houses in once they moved out.
Scratch marks, boarded up windows, stained carpets and closets that had been converted into cages were among the indicators of abuse left at the properties in Fort Worth and Rio Vista.
The new owner of the Rio Vista house told CBS that neighbors described the house, when the Turpins lived in it, as a ‘religious compound’.
They said none of the children were ever allowed to reveal their names.
David Turpin had worked in the past for defense contractors. In 2011, the couple filed for bankruptcy.
All of the children were homeschooled, including the ones who are now adults. Their mental capacity is much younger than their age, according to authorities.
Education officials in California revealed that no inspections were ever carried out at the couple’s home or the private school, SandCastle private school, which David Turpin had set up in 2011 and was the school’s principal out of the family’s four bedroom home.
The law requires private schools to register as such. Once they do, the state department of education cannot legally monitor them but they must undergo a fire safety inspection.
In the case of the Turpins, no such inspection ever took place. It is not clear if the couple ever registered their home or themselves as a private school.
Told California Education officials, ‘We are sickened by this tragedy and relieved the children are now safe and authorities are investigating.
‘Private schools are required to register with the state to record their students’ exemption from compulsory attendance at public schools.
‘Under current California law, the CDE does not approve, monitor, inspect, or oversee private schools’.
In the interim, police went on to say it was difficult to record credible statements from the Turpin children because their mental states remained fragile.
The 17-year-old who saved the entire brood has however told them that she believed she would be killed by her parents if they caught her trying to escape.
‘In her mind, she was risking her life,’ a source told the Daily Mirror. ‘She used a disabled cell phone to call 911,’ and with that one phone call put a stop to years of child abuse and torture that the David and Louise, a deeply religious couple, ‘compelled’ to do God’s bidding and procreate had been parceling out to their children. Actions and behavior that may have been continued unseen, un-noticed, misunderstood this very day if not for the bravado of one seventeen year old girl who knew otherwise….
