Louise Turpin currently sits in a California jail. The 50-year-old mother and wife was sentenced to life in prison in February 2019.
Together with her husband David, Louise Turpin had secretly kept her 13 children in captivity for years — possibly even decades.
Some of the kids were so isolated from society that they barely knew what medicine or police were, upon finally being rescued from their false imprisonment after one child managed to escape and alert police in January 2018.
The children weren’t allowed to eat more than one meal per day, which led to malnourishment so bad that Louise’s eldest — a 29-year-old woman — weighed a mere 82 pounds when she was saved.
Additionally, Louise Turpin didn’t let her children shower more than one time per year, Yahoo reported.
After their 17-year-old daughter ran off and managed to use a cell phone to call the police, Louise Turpin and her husband were quickly arrested.
Louise Anna Turpin was born on May 24, 1968. As one of six siblings and the daughter of a preacher, Louise’s life has seen its fair share of tumult and purported trauma. Her sister claimed it was an abusive household and that Louise’s abuse toward her own children originated from her childhood.
Throughout Louise Turpin’s years- or decades-long streak of criminal child abuse, her and her husband’s crimes were almost found out several times. The state of the family home and the visible psychological damage bestowed on the kids were simply too obvious to ignore.
The only saving grace these 13 children ever had was the ingenuity and bravery of one of their own, KKTV reported.
When Louise’s 17-year-old daughter jumped out of a window and ran off in January 2018, she managed to call 911, pleading with them to save her younger siblings who were chained to a bed.
“They will wake up at night and they will start crying and they wanted me to call somebody,” she said. “I wanted to call y’all so y’all can help my sisters.”
Though Louise Turpin and her husband were finally arrested as a result, her children had been suffering from unspeakable, torturous conditions for years.
When police arrived at the home — an unsuspecting residence in an average, middle-class part of Perris, outside of Los Angeles — they found what has since been described aptly as a “house of horrors.”
Louise Turpin’s children, who were between two and 29 years old at the time, were glaringly underfed and malnourished. They also hadn’t been washed, showered, or bathed in months.
When questioned by police, they admitted to having been beaten. They also said they had been purposefully starved and often caged like animals.
Two of the girls had just been released from being chained to one of the beds, just like their 17-year-old sister described on the phone earlier that day. One of their brothers, who was 22 years old at the time, was still shackled to a bed when law enforcement arrived.
The Turpin family was reportedly very nocturnal, presumably to continue the wretched state of affairs without curious neighbors assessing the situation more carefully. As such, the children weren’t just deprived of food and proper sanitation but were prohibited from spending time outside as well.
When they were rescued, all of them were immediately hospitalized. They haven’t spoken publicly since, as Riverside County authorities have garnered temporary conservatorship of them.
Louise Turpin and her husband pleaded guilty to 14 criminal charges on February 22, 2019, ranging from torture and false imprisonment to child endangerment and adult abuse.
This plea deal will keep both of them in prison for the rest of their lives, securing the two main goals of the prosecution — punishing the adults, and ensuring they would never be able to hurt their children again.