The Turpin family, two parents and 13 happy children who lived in Perris, California, in a beautiful home with a nice neighborhood, at least that’s what people thought. In 2018, David (father) and Louise (mother) Turpin were detained on Sunday, January 14, but why? David and Louise were two kids who grew up in a small town in West Virginia, David was a shy nerdy boy who graduated and was offered a good-paying job, Louise on the other hand who was six years younger that him was a choir and bible club member who a family member was sexually abusing along with her sister Teresa. They married at such a young age, with Louise being 16 and David 22. A few years later, they had their first child in 1990, Jennifer Turpin, in Fort Worth, Texas.
The couple started having arguments when Jennifer was two years old. Louise also started having mood swings: happy one minute, angry the next. When Jennifer started to attend school, she would have “unwashed hair and unwashed clothes.” In third grade, she was taken out of school completely, never going back.
The family moved to Rio-Vista, Texas, in 1999, where their family grew bigger and bigger, one child became 5 children, then 12 children, and finally, the last child of the Turpin family, making them 15 in total. They would pose for photoshoots and send them home to their families. David and Louise then started to abuse their children in horrific ways, if any of them (except for the youngest child) misbehaved or disobeyed they would get thrown across the room, pushed down the stairs of the home and even get hit with belts, sticks, and were forced to get in dog kennels by their father.
“I was afraid to do one little thing wrong; if I did one little thing wrong, I was going to be beaten.”-Jennifer. David and Louise would not let children outside, look out the windows, or even open the blinds. Because of that, they had no social life, limited vocabulary, and couldn’t hold a proper conversation, so they only spoke to their parents and each other.
In 2006 the children were abandoned and the parents would drop off groceries but they weren’t enough for everyone, “There was a lot of starving so I would have to figure out how to eat, I would either eat ketchup, or mustard, or ice.”-Jordan Turpin (8th child of the family). In 2010, they moved to Parris, California, in a lovely home, but the inside was a horror, a mess everywhere, rotting food in the kitchen, and children’s toys that were brand new but couldn’t be touched. Louise used them as a torture tactic on the kids.
The children always remained in the same dirty clothes for weeks up to months, they were not allowed to take baths except once a year according to Jordan Turpin. They would also be forced to always be seated. “We weren’t allowed to stand up, we were supposed to be sitting down all the time”- Jennifer. The parents also claimed to be homeschooling the kids. Still, it was weird because the school system never checked up on them. When Jennifer, the oldest, “graduated,” they set up a fake celebration party filled with balloons and gifts. “A lot of child abuse gets reported through our school, and administrators are mandated reporters, so if a child comes to school with bruises or emaciation, that is a very common way that it gets reported.” – Mike Hestrin, Riverside County District Attorney.
The kids would spend most of their time in shackles and chains, which were attached to their bunk beds in the rooms they shared with their siblings. On rare occasions, they would be taken to Disneyland to pretend to be a “happy family,” but they were not allowed to speak to anyone (strangers). On January 14 2018, Jordan decided that it finally time to escape the horror of what she and her siblings are going through and get help, she takes an old phone from one of her brothers, climbs through the window, and starts to run (her sisters in the shared room know what’s going on and encouraged her).
She calls the police on the phone and tells the 911 dispatcher what’s going on,
Jordan: “My two little sisters right now are chained up.” As the call continues, a police officer is nearby and goes to talk to her. Jordan shows him the pictures she took of her sisters chained up, and the cop believes her. At 7:20 AM, just 2 hours after she ran away, Reinforcements arrive and deputies knock at the door of their home. They see the mess, smell the horrific smells of trash and rotting food, and, most importantly, the children sleeping with chains around their wrists and ankles. They detained David and Louise.
All 13 children were taken to the hospital, and they found out that the oldest kids were not actually children, but adults who were aged 18-29 years old. Jennifer was 29 years old but appeared as a little child. David and Louise pleaded guilty to their crimes and were sentenced to life in different prisons.
