The Turpin Family House of Horrors

Not even the residents most familiar with the quietness of the Muir Woods neighborhood in Perris, California, suspected what was going on behind the door of the Turpin family's house number 160, whose front yard was always kept clean, trimmed and beautiful despite the drought. No one heard laughter, conversation or movement the way you would expect in a place where 15 people lived together, 13 of them children.

“I didn't even know they had children, ” was what one of the neighbors told the press when the house was surrounded by vehicles that quiet Sunday morning of January 14, 2018, when the world found out that Louise and David Turpin were all committing the kinds of abuses with their children and kept them in private prison in inhumane conditions for over six years.

Louise: A Life of Abuse

Louise Ann Turpin was born in May 1968 and had an abusive and troubled childhood. In a statement to the Daily Mail and also through her book Sister of Secrets, Elizabeth Flores, Louise's younger sister, reported that the two were regularly sold by her mother, Phyllis, to a wealthy pedophile who molested and raped her in exchange for her. money. Sometimes a cousin closest to them, Patricia, was also harassed by the man. Louise, however, as the oldest, has always been the target, including of her maternal grandfather, John Taylor, a decorated military man. She even begged her mother not to let pedophiles take her away; But the woman said she needed to feed and put them on.

Elizabeth further stressed that the family environment was chaotic. Parents fought and beat each other in front of them. Louise suffered bullying and death threats from colleagues, while her calls for help were totally neglected.

However, despite the never-expressed traumas and self-destructive processes that took place in her psychology, Louise always appeared to be a good person, very engaged, thoughtful and kind to all, though extremely reserved, according to Elizabeth.

It was at age 40, however, that the woman began to behave differently: drinking, smoking, dressing and acting vulgar on the Internet, commenting and sharing obscene or explicitly sexual content, and also satanic in nature.

By this time she was no longer alone on this emotional roller coaster.

David: a practically perfect life

Very different from the future wife, David Allen Turpin, born in October 1961, was always considered the school nerd. Although he shared Louise's insight, he was part of a well-structured home with a supportive and encouraging mother. While in Louise's yearbook there was nothing below her picture, David collected positions, such as a Science Club member, Coral Acapella, Bible Studies, and so on.

He eventually graduated in Computer Engineering from Virginia Tech University and worked for large companies before retiring.

David and Louise met when he was 17 and she was only 10. Over time, they began dating on the sly due to the disapproval of Louise's father Wayne Robinette, a strict pastor of a local church. Her mother, Phyllis, supported the relationship and facilitated the meetings.

Until in 1985, after much insistence and a frustrated escape from the two, they finally got married - David at 23 and Louise at 16.

The beginning of everything

In 1986, the couple already had four children and moved to Texas due to a new job offer addressed to David. Elizabeth, Louise's younger sister, decided to take advantage of the cue and live with them both while attending college and working.

During her stay, little by little, the sister came to realize that their upbringing was extremely rigid, especially with her eldest daughter, to the point that they were required to ask permission to do anything, whether to sit at the table at the table. their presence or talk to your aunt.

Because of her brother-in-law's sullen manner, the woman noted that Louise always created the most rules, from the most common to the most extreme. Elizabeth herself was forbidden to tell anyone the address of the house. She was not allowed to have friends in town. He couldn't talk to anyone from his job, nor bring them home. It was forbidden to use the phone or fool around outside the house. Neither she nor her nephews could close the doors of their rooms, not even the bathroom. At the slightest sign of privacy, the couple quickly intervened, like the time they broke the locked bathroom door while she showered.

One day Louise eventually drove Elizabeth home after finding out she had friends at work and at university.

The change

Following the move from Texas to California due to financial conditions in 2011, David Turpin registered their home in Perris as a private school for home-based childcare. He was appointed director of this supposed institution called Sandcastle Day School and enrolled six students in different grades. According to the government, parents, students or legal guardians are fully in charge of this type of foundation and the state is not allowed to monitor them.

It was after this that the couple ceased their family appearances and banned visits to the house until any close ties were broken. Louise no longer even allowed Elizabeth to contact her or her nephews through Skype video calls. Louise, to keep up appearances, updated the couple's social networks with old photos of the few trips the family had made before the total imprisonment of the world.

"Save my sisters"

On January 14, 2018, after two years of planning, two of David and Louise's sons managed to escape from the house around 5 am. One of them, however, got scared and eventually returned to the house. At 17, Jordan continued the long-awaited escape.

Armed with a mobile phone that had been discarded by her mother and only made emergency calls, the girl called the police desperately for help. She knew nothing of the world outside the house. He did not know his own address when one of the agents asked him to inform him, but was able to pass the zip code number printed on a mailbox and police quickly arrived at the scene.

Jordan just made a wish: "Please save my sisters"

What was happening?

One of the officers reported that the children looked very fragile, as if they were going to disintegrate in the light of their flashlights. They were chained to their beds in the total darkness of the rooms. The house stank of rotting stool, urine and spoiled food. There was dirt on the floor and trash bags everywhere. The children were malnourished, ragged and filthy. The only clean part of their bodies was where the handcuff met the skin.

David and Louise Turpin beat, strangled, and kept their 13 children handcuffed to hooks daily. In confessions, the children detailed that they were forced to sleep around 4 am for 15 hours a day, all to ease their parents' abuse and so that no one could notice their existence. They had not seen sunlight for more than five years. They could only leave their rooms when parents called them one by one to eat. They ate only one meal a day, consisting of a peanut butter sandwich or a frozen burrito, so they had severe malnutrition and potassium and blood glucose deficiency.

They only took one bath a year. They didn't go to the bathroom often. They didn't play. The toys were replaced by weapons that parents used to beat them in such a way that some of them developed brain and cognitive damage from beating sessions. They had never been to the dentist. Only two of them knew what the police were and what medicines were for.

After being admitted and evaluated, doctors found that not everyone was a minor. The oldest among them was a 29-year-old woman who weighed 37 pounds, while the other 12-year-old had the weight of a seven-year-old. Five were of legal age and six of them were minor.

David and Louise Turpin pleaded guilty to all 14 counts and were sentenced to life in prison and could be paroled after 25 years.

In testimony, one of the couple's daughters stated of all the abuse and part of her life taken: “I saw my father change my mother. They almost changed me, but I realized what was going on. ”