Timeline Of How The 13 Turpin Siblings Suffered Years Of Torture And Abuse Bad Behavior

Table Of Content

• years after rescue, some Turpin children still 'living in squalor' despite donations, pledges of support
• Ex-official told investigators Trump had 'no standing declassification order'
• "House of horrors" parents get 25 years to life in prison as siblings speak out: "I'm taking my life back"
• MORE: Video Listen to Jordan Turpin’s 911 call moments after escaping captivity
• PARENTS PLEAD GUILTY TO IMPRISONING, TORTURING KIDS
• Jordan Turpin details making 911 call moments after she escaped family's 'house of horrors'

“This is among the worst, most aggravated child abuse cases I have ever seen," Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said at a morning press conference. The Turpin children were deprived of many things by their parents including regular meals, access to lavatories, and daily showers. The children were allowed to shower no more than once a year and none had “ever” seen a dentist, he said.

years after rescue, some Turpin children still 'living in squalor' despite donations, pledges of support

Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said the abuse began as neglect during the 17 years the family lived in Fort Worth, Texas, and intensified when they moved to California in 2010. The Turpin girls were told that if they did not comply with the defendants' demands, they would not be able to see their older siblings again, court papers allege. It alleges that Marcelino Olguin fixed his attention on the sisters, while another girl, identified only by the initials "J.P.,'' was physically abused by the defendants, but not sexually assaulted. Van Wagenen also outlined several of his office's "efforts to progressively transform the county's child welfare and dependent adult systems," which include improved training and auditing protocols.

Ex-official told investigators Trump had 'no standing declassification order'

In 2022, she settled into her own apartment in Southern California and told PEOPLE that she remained "very close" to her siblings. “They have been victimized again by the system,” Mike Hestrin, the Riverside County district attorney who prosecuted David and Louise Turpin, told ABC. In a heartbreaking first interview, two of the 13 Turpin siblings opened up about the abuse they faced at the hands of their own parents in one Perris, Calif., home. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Lynchburg police department.

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"House of horrors" parents get 25 years to life in prison as siblings speak out: "I'm taking my life back"

She said some of the children would try to “steal” food and their parents would beat them or chain them up for it. When rescued, all of the children except for the youngest, a toddler, were severely malnourished, prosecutors said. The 17-year-old had only been outside a few times in her entire life and she was terrified. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably as she held a deactivated cell phone her parents didn’t know she had, but thinking of her siblings chained up inside the house, she worked up the courage to dial 911. The Turpin siblings were rescued from their parents' home in January 2018 after Jordan Turpin, then 17, executed a daring escape in the middle of the night and called 911.

But a judge admonished the couple, saying any success the siblings achieved would be in spite of, not because of, their parents. Judge Bernard Schwartz called the couple's actions "selfish, cruel, and inhumane." "It stopped me dead in my tracks," said Riverside District Attorney Mike Hestrin. He and other officials told Sawyer and ABC News correspondent David Scott about the shocking challenges the Turpin children have faced since their rescue. The couple's youngest child was the only one who appeared to have not been abused.

MORE: Turpin sisters describe living in 'house of horrors': 'I thought I was going to die'

In 2021, Jordan Turpin, who escaped in 2018 and made the 911 call, opened up for the first time on ABC's 20/20 about what it was like in the household, saying she thought she was "going to die." THE Turpin family made headlines in 2018 after it was revealed that there was a severe case of child maltreatment within the household. "This was a home that ChildNet was representing was a safe place to put children. And it simply wasn't at all," said Roger Booth, the attorney representing the four youngest siblings. “They literally used the bible to explain their behavior to us,” Jennifer said, describing how she and her siblings were thrown across rooms, put in cages and beaten with sticks for disobeying their parents or eating their food. Once inside, officers encountered mounds of garbage, feces, moldy food, and swarms of dirty, pale and extremely skinny children. On Jan. 14, 2018, Turpin found the courage to make the call in an effort to help save her 12 siblings who remained in the house where their parents held them in captivity.

PARENTS PLEAD GUILTY TO IMPRISONING, TORTURING KIDS

Deputies testified that the children said they were only allowed to shower once a year. They were mainly kept in their rooms except for meals, which had been reduced to one per day, a combination of lunch and dinner. Some of the children, who were not filmed, described still struggling with moving on from the plight, but expressed joy at being able to live new lives and attend school. Some of the children were bound to their beds and furniture by chains and padlocks and many of them told police they were "starving," according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

Turpin siblings molested by foster father after ‘horror house’ rescue: report

"I'm sorry for everything I've done to hurt my children. I love my children so much. ... I only want the best for them," she said. Authorities said only one child, a son, was allowed to leave home to attend classes at a community college but was always accompanied by his mother. District Judge Stephen Larson and staff attorneys from his Los Angeles-based law firm to conduct an investigation of the agencies, which is expected to conclude in May. "Well I am not -- I don't have the information you're looking for," Spiegel told ABC News. "We're still in investigation stages, so I don't have anything to share with you." "We take our work very seriously, including the extensive vetting of resource parents which is subject to state law," said Brett Lewis, the ChildNet spokesperson.

Investigators found that the toddler had not been abused, but all of the children were hospitalized after they were discovered. "My whole body was shaking. I couldn't really dial 911, because --" Jordan said through tears, recalling the day of her escape and why she felt she had to make an attempt to run to safety. "I think it was us coming so close to death so many times. If something happened to me, at least I died trying." Starved, beaten and chained for months at a time, those are just some of the abuses endured by the children of the Turpin family.

Sunday morning, Lynchburg Police officers responded to 2137 Wards Road in reference to a large fight. As officers were in route, 911 calls came in about shots being fired during the incident. Once officers arrived, they found two victims with gunshot wounds, one was a 74-year-old and the other was a 30-year-old. In the video attached to this article, 10 News reporter Kelly Marsh shows a Facebook live from one of the victims where the man shows his gunshot wound. We want to warn you that some of the images and video footage you see may be graphic for some viewers.

The badly abused siblings, aged 2 to 29, were taken to a hospital, where they received food and emotional support. When police first approached the house, after Jordan, then just a 17-year-old girl, made the life-changing phone call to authorities in 2018, loads of trash filled the rooms, urine and feces were smeared against the walls and moldy food was observed. We are taking the time to make sure our staff is ok and offering them options on how to cope and get through this. Police rushed all 13 children to the hospital, where they were treated, given clean clothes, rooms and food. The first thing Jordan said she ate was macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets.

An ABC documentary broadcast in November found that life had not improved much for most of the 13 Turpin siblings after they were removed from their parents' residence in January 2018. After a Nov. 9 meeting of the county's Board of Supervisors, Chairwoman Karen Spiegel, the county's top elected official, declined to discuss specifics about what has transpired with the Turpin children since they were rescued. The five children had even been adopted by that family in October 2019, the same time-period in which the alleged abuse was occurring. ChildNet declined to provide details about the vetting of the family, citing confidentiality laws. Five Turpin children remained in that home for three years while the alleged abuse took place.

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Last summer she gave her first interview to Diane Sawyer for ABC News. "I wasn't doing well," Jordan — who was joined by her older sister Jennifer — says now of that time. "But I felt we weren't the only ones being treated wrong in the system — and I wanted to help my siblings." Even as she suffered in foster care, Jordan — who taught herself basic math, reading and writing in captivity — found joy in schoolwork. Yet, Jordan and five of her siblings say their nightmare continued when they were placed in an abusive foster home.