The Turpin family came to the attention of the police and public in 2018 as a severe case of child maltreatment. On January 14, a Turpin child escaped from the home of David and Louise Turpin in Perris, California and contacted police who then raided the house and found disturbing evidence of prolonged abuse and torturous living conditions. Given the number of dependents involved, 13 siblings, the degree of abuse and the protracted nature occurring over decades, the story garnered significant national and international interest in the press. Experts in family abuse considered the case to be "extraordinary" for a number of reasons. In February 2019 both parents pleaded guilty on 14 felony counts, including cruelty to an adult dependent, child cruelty, torture and false imprisonment. In April they were sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
Background
David Allen Turpin and Louise Anna Turpin met when David was 17 and Louise was 10, and eloped in 1985 in Pearisburg, Virginia, which angered Louise's father, who was a pastor. According to David's parents he is a computer engineer who graduated from Virginia Tech and had worked for Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. In 1979, he graduated from Princeton High School in West Virginia, which Louise also attended until 1985. The couple are adherents of the Quiverfull movement and Pentecostalism. According to David's parents, the couple kept having children because "God called on them" to do so. From 1988 to 2015 they had ten daughters and three sons. According to Louise's sister, she, Louise and a female cousin were sexually abused as children by their maternal grandfather. Another sister claimed that their mother accepted cash in return for allowing their grandfather to sexually abuse them. The sisters have said that Louise became obsessed with witchcraft, Satanic rituals, and Ouija boards, and had tried to persuade one of them to join a snake handling festival, and that Louise and David engaged in "swinging". In 1999 the Turpins left Fort Worth, Texas for Rio Vista, then left the area in 2010. After the family left, neighbors found feces and beds with ropes tied to them in the house, along with dead cats and piles of garbage around the property. At the Turpins' Perris, California house, neighbors reported that the children were silent unless spoken to, "like children whose only defense was to be invisible"; would skip rather than walk; and appeared malnourished and pale. One of Louise's sisters later said that David and Louise refused to let her see the children, and another sister said she had been concerned about the children's weight; but Louise's aunt said the family pictures posted on Facebook had made her think that "they were one big happy family." David and Louise had been planning to move the family to Oklahoma at the time of their arrest.
Escape and rescue
By 2018 the Turpin children had been planning to escape their parents for more than two years. On January 14, 2018, two of the girls left the house through a window. The younger girl became frightened and turned back but the 17-year-old got some distance away and called 9-1-1 on a cell phone she had brought with her. When police officers met her she showed them photos of conditions inside the house. Deputies of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department raided the house, inside which they found the other twelve children; one was shackled to a bed and it appeared that two others had been shackled until just before officers arrived. The children were so malnourished that deputies thought they were all under 18 years old, when in fact seven were over 18. The sheriff's department said that Louise was "perplexed as to why we were at that residence." The house contained hundreds of journals written by the children about their lives. All the children spent several weeks in hospitals, after which the six minors were put into two foster homes. In early 2020 the Riverside CountyDeputy District Attorney said that "Some of are living independently, living in their own apartment, and have jobs and are going to school. Some volunteer in the community. They go to church." One had graduated college.
Nature of the crimes
For years the parents had imprisoned, beaten and strangled their children, allowing them to eat just once per day and shower just once per year. The older children appeared much younger because of malnourishment; the 29-year-old weighed just 82 pounds. Some appeared to lack basic knowledge of the world, for example being unfamiliar with what medicine and police were. The case is considered "extraordinary for numerous reasons", including that abuse was inflicted on multiple children by both parents, and the calculated and systematic nature of the abuse and torture.
Legal proceedings
The Turpins were charged with twelve counts of torture, twelve counts of false imprisonment, seven counts of abuse of a dependent adult, and six counts of child abuse; David received an additional charge of a lewd act on a child under 14. They were held in lieu of bail. David was eventually charged with perjury in relation to affidavits he filed with the California Department of Education over the years, in which he asserted that his children were being educated in a private school. On February 22, 2019, David and Louise each changed their not-guilty pleas to guilty to one count of torture, three counts of willful child cruelty, four counts of false imprisonment, and six counts of cruelty to an adult dependent. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 25 years. Experts believe they will never receive parole due to the severity of the crime, making it effectively a life sentence. David Turpin is in the California State Prison, Corcoran.
