Abuse family ‘were living in waist-deep filth’

FORMER neighbours of David and Louise Turpin, the American couple whose 13 children were discovered chained and malnourished last week, have described a previous home littered with faeces, dead animals and had a makeshift classroom.

Ricky Vinyard, a tree feller from Rio Vista in Johnson County, Texas, also told how one of the daughters once ran away from home, only to be returned to her parents by a local resident.

“It was waist-deep in filth. There were dead dogs and cats in there,” he told the Los Angeles Times.

Inside the four-bedroom, two-bathroom home, he said: “There wasn’t a place that wasn’t filthy. Everything had locks on it: the closet had locks, the toy chest, the refrigerator.”

Mr Turpin, 56, and his wife, 49, claimed to have home-schooled their children, and the faeces-littered living room included eight small desks, a chalkboard, alphabet and number signs stapled to the wall.

The family lived in the rural neighbourhood, south of Dallas with eight children from 2000 to 2004 before they abandoned the property and moved to Perris in California.

There, last week, the couple were charged with multiple counts of torture, child abuse, the abuse of dependent adults and false imprisonment relating to the children aged from two to 29. They pleaded not guilty to all counts and are being held in custody on $9million bail each (£6.5million).

Mr Turpin was also charged with a lewd act on a child by force. If convicted, they could be jailed for 94 years.