Twisted, Tormented Love

"Life may have been bad, but it made me strong. I fought to become the person that I am. I saw my dad change my mom. They almost changed me, but I realized what was happening."
"...I'm a fighter. I'm strong and I'm shooting through life like a rocket."
Daughter of California couple, Louise and David Turpin

"I cannot describe in words what we went through growing up."
"Sometimes I still have nightmares of things that had happened such as my siblings being chained up or getting beaten."
"That is the past and this is now."
"I love my parents and have forgiven them for a lot of the things they did to us."
Son of Louise and David Turpin

"I'm sorry for everything I've done to hurt my children. I love my children so much."
"They are very smart, amazing individuals. I hope they get all the education they need to make their dreams come true."
"They deserve only the best in life. I don't want any of them to be sad or depressed because of all of this."
"I want them to know that Mom and Dad are going to be OK. ... I really look forward to the day I can see them, hug them and tell them I'm sorry."
Louise Turpin, Sentenced to life in prison

David Turpin, right, and wife, Louise, left, listen to the judge, along with attorney Allison Lowe, during a courtroom hearing, Feb. 22, in Riverside, Calif. Their case was dubbed a 'house of horrors.' (Jae C. Hong/Associated Press)

"You have severed the ability to interact and raise your children that you have created and brought into this world."

"[The lives of the children] have been permanently altered in their ability to learn, grow and thrive." "You have delayed their mental, physical and emotional health. To the extent that they do thrive ... it'll be not because of you both but in spite of you both."
"The only reason that your punishment is less than the maximum time in my opinion is because you accepted responsibility at an early stage in the proceedings to spare your children from having to relive the humiliation and the harm they endured in that house of horrors."

Judge Bernard Schwartz, Riverside California court

There were no fewer than thirteen children in the Turpin household, ranging in age from 29 to a toddler of two years. A family where the father of the children -- living in a middle-class area of Perris, a city around 100 kilometers from Los Angeles -- a 57-year-old engineer for Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, and mother Louise 50, a housewife, strictly controlled their children's lives. Neighbours, though rarely seeing the children, had no reason to suspect anything was amiss, the house seemed well tended and everything appearing normal.

Normal is not knowing your neighbours, not taking note of the strange absence in public of a dozen siblings who were seldom permitted to move outside the house, children controlled to the extent that they were given permission to shower only once yearly, children strictly kept in their rooms other than for meals; and that only one meal a day. There was nothing normal about this family or the lives the children led, not allowed to play as normal children do.

The one thing that was 'normal' in their lives were trips taken by the entire family to Las Vegas or Disneyland. Surely no self-respecting American family could forego a trip to Disneyland...? Abnormal was sleeping through the day and moving about at night for a short period, and this was their life. Until a teenaged daughter escaped through a window. A girl of 17 whose home-schooling failed to imbue her with the simple knowledge of her home address, what month it was.

But she did know that if she punched 9-1-1 into a a cellphone it would connect her to the outside world and there help could be had. Where a police dispatcher listened to her description of a lifetime of horrible and unbelievable abuse at the hands of loving parents. One of her siblings asked that a lighter sentence than the 25 years her parents were given, be considered because in her opinion "they believed everything they did was to protect us".

The oldest daughter completed third grade under her father's home tutelage for which the parents had filed paperwork with the state to ensure that everything was legal and beyond questioning. "We don't really do school. I haven't finished first grade", stated the 17-year-old whose  runaway escapade had resulted in the rescue of the children from their parents' house of horrors. When deputies arrived at the house they found a 22-year-old son shackled to a bed. Taking the place of two sisters just set free.

The Turpin children were underweight, malnourished and grime-covered, since bathing was not permitted but once a year. They lived in a home deep in filth, where the odour of human waste permeated. At their release from their lifelong imprisonment by their loving parents, the children informed their rescuers that they were regularly beaten, caged and shackled -- as punishment for failing to obey their parents.

Of the thirteen children in the care of these two people, only the two-year-old had been spared abuse. Despite which, on their release from the house which had been their prison all their lives, all thirteen were initially hospitalized. Their parents had 14 criminal charges laid against them to which they pleaded guilty. Prosecutors stated the two would in all likelihood be in prison for the remainder of their lives.

"The defendants ruined lives, so I think it's just and fair that the sentence be equivalent to first degree murder", explained district attorney Mike Hestrin.

As for the resilient children, they spoke of their love for their parents even while they described the dread abuse they had suffered.

Balloons, stuffed animals and flowers are seen in the front yard of the home of David Allen and Louise Anna Turpin in Perris, California, U.S., January 24, 2018. (Mike Blake/Reuters)