The Turpin Case is a child abuse and captivity incident discovered in Perris, California, United States, in which David and Louise Turpin imprisoned their 13 children for years or even decades. On January 14, 2018, one of the children escaped and contacted police who, upon entering the home, found some of the children in a dark, foul-smelling room. The siblings ranged in age from 2 to 29, with 7 of the 13 children being legal adults (ages 18 and up) at the time of the parents’ arrest that same month.
The Turpins shackled, beat and strangled their children, allowing them to eat just once per day and shower just once per year. According to investigators, the older ones were so malnourished they appeared to be much younger. The eldest, a 29-year-old woman, weighed just 82 pounds. Some of the siblings appeared to lack basic knowledge of the world, being unfamiliar with what medicine and police were.
The case is considered “extraordinary for numerous reasons,” such as the abuse being done to multiple children by two parents (whereas abuse with only one child victim is more common), and according to Dr. Bernard Gallagher, because “you don’t often get cases of children being tortured, where the abuse seems calculated.”
The couple was arrested and detained but pleaded not guilty to all charges. Various legal charges and court hearings followed in the succeeding months. On February 22, 2019, the couple changed their pleas to guilty on 14 felony counts, including “cruelty to an adult dependent, child cruelty, torture and false imprisonment.”<1>
Jack Osborn, an attorney who is representing the seven adult children said, “They do worry about their parents, and I think at times they do miss their parents. They’re not bitter. They really take every day as it is, as a gift.”
“They came from a situation that seemed normal to them and now they’re in a new normal,” Osborn said.<2>
CITED REFERENCES
1. Wikipedia contributors, “Turpin case,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turpin_case (accessed April 4, 2019).
2. “California torture house: Adult Turpin children aren’t bitter after alleged abuse”
Elisha Fieldstadt and Miguel Almaguer. NBC News: January 16, 2019.
Link: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ca ... er-n959216 (accessed April 4, 2019).
