Teen escapes family home and leads police back to house of horrors
The front yard of 160 Muir Woods Road was often overgrown. When the pale children spotted, they tended to avoid conversation.
Now neighbours know why. The alarm was raised on Sunday, when a girl, 17, escaped from the family home and called emergency services.
When they arrived at the single-storey house in a modern development in California, authorities found another 12 of her brothers and sisters in varying states of distress.
Some were chained to beds and some were malnourished, police said. The girl who raised the alarm was so under-sized they thought she was 10 years old. David Allen Turpin, 57, and Louise Anna Turpin, 49, were arrested on Sunday and each charged with nine counts of torture and 10 counts of child endangerment. “Further investigation revealed several children shackled to their beds with chains and padlocks in dark and foul-smelling surroundings,” the Riverside County sheriff’s department said.
“But the parents were unable to immediately provide a logical reason why their children were restrained in that manner.”
Officers were shocked to discover that seven of the 12 siblings they found in the house were actually adults, ranging in age from 18 to 29. They were so emaciated that they had the appearance of children. The youngest victim is two years old.
Neighbours in the small community of Perris, about 95km south-east of Los Angeles, said they were shocked to discover what had been going on in the detached home, where three newer model Volkswagen cars were parked out front.
Kimberly Milligan, 50, who lives across the street, said she had rarely seen the family.
“Why don’t we ever see the kids?” Ms Milligan said. “In hindsight, we would have never thought this, but there were red flags. You never don’t hear or see nine kids.”
She said she complimented three of the older Turpin children on the nativity display outside their house one Christmas, but they froze as if trying to become invisible.
“Twenty-year-olds never act like that,” she said. “They didn’t want to have a social conversation.”
Their Facebook page presents a portrait of a happy, loving family. One shows the gathered brood smiling during a visit to Disney World in Florida.
In another, they stand before a hilly backdrop, with the siblings all wearing “Thing” T-shirts from the Dr Seuss book The
Cat in the Hat. The girls all have similar haircuts, as do the boys, matching those of their parents.
A set of pictures shows a wedding vow renewal in Las Vegas, with one of the boys acting as ring bearer to his parents. The girls are all in matching plaid dresses, and an Elvis impersonator officiates.
State records show the children were home-schooled. The California department of education lists Mr Turpin as the principal of Sandcastle Day School, a private school operated from his home address. It says six pupils were enrolled there.
Their grandparents said the children had been subjected to strict schooling and were expected to memorise long passages from the Bible.
James and Betty Turpin told ABC News they had not seen their son and daughter-in-law for several years, but stayed in touch by telephone.
Public records show that Mr Turpin was declared bankrupt in 2011. At the time, he was working as an engineer for Northrop Grumman, a global defence contractor, where his salary was $140,000 (Dh514,220) a year.
A lawyer who represented the couple told the Los Angeles Times that they struggled to make ends meet with 12 children, as their outgoings exceeded Mr Turpin’s income by about $1,000 a month.
They will appear in court tomorrow and are being held on $9 million bail.