Couple who held 13 children captive due in court
LOS ANGELES: A California couple arrested on suspicion of torture was due in court yesterday after investigators discovered they were holding their 13 malnourished children captive in a suburban home.
David Allen Turpin, 57, and his wife Louise Anna Turpin, 49, had registered their home as a school, but instead of teaching materials, investigators found signs of torture inside.
County officials investigating the case announced a press conference for 1500 GMT yesterday. The court was expected to announce charges a few hours later.
Sheriff’s deputies in Perris, a town southeast of Los Angeles, found three children shackled with chains and padlocks in their filthy, foul-smelling home Sunday after receiving an emergency assistance call from their 17year-old sister who had managed to escape.
She was so emaciated that officers first thought she was a young child.
Officers also initially assumed all the other siblings to be children, but were shocked to discover seven ranging in age from 18 to 29.
All 13 are being treated for malnutrition and undergoing other diagnostic tests.
Mark Uffer, chief executive officer at the Corona regional medical centre where the adults were being treated, described their condition as stable.
David and Louise Turpin were booked on suspicion of torture and child endangerment with bail set at US$9 million each.
Neither was able to immediately explain why their children were restrained, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
Police said there was no initial indication of sexual abuse, but cautioned that the investigation was still going on.
Nor was there any indication that either suspect suffered from mental illness, Perris police chief Greg Fellows said, or that the children’s ordeal was linked to the family’s religious beliefs.
Initial investigations have confirmed that the couple were the biological parents of all 13 siblings, Fellows said.
According to police, the family moved in 2014 from Texas to a middle class neighbourhood of Perris, 110 kilometres southeast of Los Angeles, homeschooling their children in their Spanishstyle stucco house.