Were the ‘vampire children’ tortured for two decades?
THE ‘ vampire children’ imprisoned by their parents in a California suburban home may have been tortured for more than 20 years, it was revealed last night.
The owners of David and Louise Turpin’s former homes in north Texas say they now fear the worst about scratch marks on doors and air vents in cupboards they discovered after the family moved out.
The Turpins face charges of torture and child endangerment after their 17-year- old daughter managed to escape the family home in Perris, California, on Sunday and alert police to the horrific plight of her 12 siblings, who were found starving with some chained to beds.
Neighbours had dubbed the children ‘vampires’ because they were allowed out only at night and looked so pale and skinny.
However, speculation that the fiercely religious parents only recently started mistreating and starving their children – aged between two and 29 – when they ran into serious financial problems appears to be premature.
From around 1992 to 1999, the Turpins lived in a house in Fort Worth, Texas, before they lost it to foreclosure. The Anderson family, who moved in afterwards, say the Turpins left it in a dirty, dilapidated state, with windows broken and boarded up, and carpets and walls covered in dirt. They also discovered scratch marks on the backs of doors.
The new owners – who photographed the damage – thought the marks could have been made by animals but, following the chilling revelations about the Turpins, they now suspect the scratches could have been made by children desperately trying to claw their way out of confinement.
The Turpins moved from Fort Worth to Rio Vista, where they lived for a decade. The home’s current owner, who did not want to be identified, said she found two vents in a closet in the master bedroom. She now wonders if the Turpin children were locked in there for prolonged periods and needed to be allowed to breathe.
Police who raided the California house on Sunday said it was filthy. Three of the young children were chained to furniture and the Turpin offspring were so small and malnourished that officers did not initially realise that seven of them were adults.
As questions are increasingly asked about why nobody raised the alarm, former neighbours said they never felt the family’s behaviour was so strange that they needed to alert the authorities.