Long recovery for abused kids
RIVERSIDE — They are safe for now, and according to authorities, they are relieved.
But the 13 children, ageds 2 to 29, rescued from what was described as a torture chamber will have years of therapy ahead, experts say, as they learn to live in a world that, until a week ago, they never really knew.
Since arresting David and Louise Turpin last week, authorities said they have learned the children were confined to the house, chained to furniture, starved and often deprived of the use of a toilet. Some of the children were so detached they didn’t understand the concept of a police officer or medicine.
“You don’t need to learn what a police officer is from going to school, you learn that from just being out in the world,” said Patricia Costales, chief executive of the Guidance Center, a Long Beach nonprofit that provides mental health therapy to children.
“To not even know something like that really speaks to how incredibly controlled their environment was. They’re going to experience a culture shock even apart from the trauma they have undergone,” said Costales, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist who has treated kidnap victims, some held for years.
The Turpin siblings, seven adults and six children, probably need years of therapy, psychology experts said, adding that if possible it would be best to keep them together.
“Their brains are still adapting, they’re still forming, they’re still developing their understanding of the world,” she said of the younger children. “But someone who has experienced these things for 20-some years of their life will have a lot of learning to do about what relationships are like, what the world is like, how they’re supposed to be treated.”
Even being separated from their parents, who are now in jail on torture, child abuse and other charges, could be unsettling initially to some of the children, said Jessica Borelli, a professor of psychology and social behavior at UC Irvine.
“When we come into this world, our attachment figures are our primary sources of safety and security, no matter how abusive they are,” she said.
Police were summoned to the Turpin home in Perris, a city of about 70,000 people 60 miles southeast of Los Angeles, last Sunday after the couple’s 17-year-old daughter jumped out of a window and called 911. She had planned the escape for two years and fled with a sibling who became too scared and turned back, Riverside County authorities said.
David Turpin, 56, and Louise Turpin, 49, have pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of torture and child abuse.