California parents plead not guilty

Turpins face many felony counts of torture and abuse

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — 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 months at a time and forbidding them from showering more than once a year or using the toilet, 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-year-old 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-year-old 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 parents were jailed on

$12 million bail each after pleading not guilty Thursday at their first court appearance. If convicted of all charges, they could be sentenced to life in prison.

On Sunday, three children had been shackled to beds, though the parents freed two of them — ages 11 and 14 — when officers knocked on the door, Hestrin said. Deputies found a 22-year-old chained to a bed.

Punishments included being beaten and choked, Hestrin said.

Evidence of human waste on the floor indicated the children were prevented from using the toilet.

The children never received dental care, and they had not seen a doctor in more than four years. When the girl who escaped was asked if any pills were in the home, she did not understand what medication was.

The children, who were schooled at home, were rarely seen outside the house, though the parents posted photos of them smiling together at Disneyland and in Las Vegas, where the couple renewed their wedding vows.