Parents accused of torture face new charges
Kids revealing more about treatment as officials gain trust.
The 13 Turpin siblings gained their freedom last month after one of them escaped through a window and called 911, ending years of imprisonment under parents accused of starving and chaining them to their beds in a putrid home not far from Los Angeles.
But investigators warned that gaining the trust of the socially stunted siblings would be a protracted process: They were accustomed to beatings and hadn’t been to a dentist or doctor in years. When police officers stormed into the house freeing the remaining chained Turpin children, they had no concept of what a police officer was.
“Victims in these kinds of cases, they tell their story, but they tell it slowly; they tell it at their own pace,” Riverside County District Attorney Michael Hestrin said. “It will come out when it comes out.”
As the Turpin children grew to trust their liberators, court officials said, they might open up more — and possibly reveal more about life in the Southern California house.
Prosecutors on Friday said as a result of the ongoing investigation, they have charged David Allen Turpin and his wife, Louise Anna Turpin, each with three additional charges of child abuse, according to the Los Angeles Times. Louise Turpin has also been charged with felony assault.
In total, Louise and David Turpin are each facing about 40 charges, including a dozen counts of torture and another dozen counts of false imprisonment. They have pleaded not guilty to the charges and continue to be held on $12 million bail apiece in a jail in Riverside, California.
Last month, a Riverside judge barred the parents from contacting the children for the next three years, including by phone or electronically. They can’t be within 100 yards of their children, or attempt to get their addresses, according to the Riverside Press-Enterprise.
Their lawyers could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Now the Turpin children have strikingly different lives. They’re receiving medical and rehabilitative care at various facilities, and have been exposed to iPads and Harry Potter books, entertainment and technology they had been deprived of, according to People magazine.
“They are progressing well, and looking into the future, seeing where their lives could go and they have the support system,” Corona Mayor Karen Spiegel, who works closely with the siblings’ nurses, told People. “They have the whole community behind them.”