Abuse in house of torture was ‘severe, pervasive, prolonged’
RIVERSIDE (AP) — A California couple tortured a dozen of their children for years, starving them to the point that their growth was stunted, chaining them to their beds for up to months, preventing them from using the toilet at times and forbidding them from showering more than once a year, a prosecutor said Thursday.
“The victimization appeared to intensify over time,” Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said in announcing charges. “What started out as neglect became severe, pervasive, prolonged child abuse.” David Turpin, 56, and Louise Turpin, 49, were charged with multiple counts of torture, child abuse, dependent adult abuse and false imprisonment. David Turpin was also charged with performing a lewd act on a child under age 14.
The litany of physical and emotional abuse was enough to invoke a house of horrors that apparently went unnoticed for years in California and Texas until Sunday, when a 17-yearold girl managed to escape and call 911.
The girl and her siblings had plotted the escape for two years, Hestrin said. Another girl who escaped out a window with the teen turned back out of fear.
Hestrin did not say what finally triggered the girl to act. When deputies arrived at the four-bedroom, three-bathroom house on a dead-end street in Perris, about 60 miles southeast of Los Angeles, they were shocked by what they found.
Malnutrition was so severe that it was consistent with muscle wasting and had led to cognitive impairment and nerve damage, Hestrin said. The oldest child, a 29-yearold woman, weighed 82 pounds. A 12-year-old was the weight of a typical 7-year-old.
Some of the 13 children had been isolated so long they did not know what a police officer was.
The victims range in age from 2 to 29. The torture and false imprisonment charges do not include the 2-year-old, who was not malnourished. All the children’s names begin with the letter J, according to court documents that didn’t provide their full names. The parents were jailed on $12 million bail each after pleading not guilty Thursday at their first court appearance. If convicted, they could be sentenced to life in prison.
David Turpin’s lawyer, deputy public defender David Macher, had only begun to investigate the allegations, but said the case was going to be a challenge.
“It’s a very serious case,” he said. “Our clients are presumed to be innocent, and that is a very important presumption.”
David Turpin’s father, James, the grandfather to the children, said from his home in Princeton, West Virginia, that he did not believe the reports about the abuse.
“I’m going to talk with the children, find out the real story on this as soon as I can get a call through to them,” James Turpin told The Associated Press.
David Turpin had worked as an engineer for both Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Louise Turpin identified herself as a housewife in a 2011 bankruptcy filing.
The charges date to 2010, when the couple moved to Riverside County from outside Fort Worth, Texas.
The abuse began in Texas with the children being tied to beds with ropes and then hog-tied, Hestrin said.