Turpin family: Parents charged with torture after 13 'starving' children found chained to beds in filthy California home

Children all admitted for treatment in hospital

A couple have been charged with torture after police rescued their 13 malnourished children, some of whom had been chained to beds in their filthy and darkened home.

Police made the discovery after a 17-year-old girl escaped the house in Perris, about 70 miles east of Los Angeles in California, and used a mobile phone she had found inside to call them, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office said on Monday.

She appeared emaciated and officers initially thought she was just 10 years old after she called on Sunday.

“Further investigation revealed several children shackled to their beds with chains and padlocks in dark and foul-smelling surroundings, but the parents were unable to immediately provide a logical reason why their children were restrained in that manner,” the department said.

“Deputies located what they believed to be 12 children inside the house, but were shocked to discover that seven of them were actually adults,” police said in a statement. “The victims appeared to be malnourished and very dirty.”

The children ranged in age from 2 to 29, police said.

Their parents, David Allen Turpin, 57, and Louise Anna Turpin, 49, were arrested and have since each been charged with nine counts of torture and 10 counts of child endangerment.

They were ordered held on $9m bail each and are due to appear in court on Thursday.

Perris residents watch as media gather in front of the Turpin's house (AFP/Getty)

Neighbours said the Turpins and their children rarely emerged from their unkempt home in the new-built development of closely spaced single-family houses.

Wendy Martinez, a 41-year-old housewife, said her only contact with the Turpins came as she passed the house at night in October. Four children were installing turf in the garden while the mother watched from the door, and none responded when Martinez said hello.

“They were very, like, afraid,” she said of the children. “Like they had never seen people before.”

Police said six of the couple’s children were minors, while the other seven were over 18.

The siblings told officers that they were starving and police did not give the parents’ motive for holding the children captive.

All the children were taken to hospital and admitted for treatment.

A Facebook page that appeared to have been created by the parents showed the couple dressed in wedding clothes, surrounded by 10 girls in matching purple plaid dresses and three male children in suits.

Their joint profile appeared to suggest they had visited the wedding chapel twice, in 2011 and 2016.

California state records list David Turpin as the principal of the Sandcastle Day School, with its address at the Turpin house. A representative for the California Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent.

Records show the Turpins filed for bankruptcy in 2011. Nancy Trahan, who works in the Temecula, California, law office that handled the bankruptcy, said the couple were friendly and spoke highly of their children.

“They seemed like very nice people,” she said by telephone.

Additional reporting by agencies