This story is about the torture of 12 children who were trapped in the house of horrors shocked Americans across the nation. But today, on April 19, she came to a logical conclusion.
During an emotional hearing in which some of the children expressed their love of parents, wife — 57-year-old David Turpin and his 50-year-old wife Louise was sentenced to life imprisonment with possibility of parole after 25 years.
In February Turpini pleaded guilty to six charges of ill-treatment by adults who were under their supervision, four cases of unlawful deprivation of liberty, three paragraphs of ill-treatment of children and one case of torture.
«My parents took away my life, but now I return my life,» said one of the daughters.
But some children admitted in court that they still love their parents. One of them asked for a lighter sentence, because «they believe everything that [the parents] were doing it to protect them.»
David and Louise Turpin
The couple were arrested in January 2018 after their 17-year-old daughter Jordan managed to run away and call 911.
«I live in a family of 15 people, and my parents treat us. They mock us, and my two younger sisters now in chains. There are 13 children and mother and father,» she says on an audio recording that was made public in court.
When the police arrived at the house of Turpanov, they were shocked by what they saw: there were 12 prisoners held in inhuman conditions. The youngest was barely 2 years, and seven of them were adults aged 18 to 29 years. The house was dirty, and the smell of human excrement was overwhelming.
None of the neighbors did not even know what is happening in the home spouses. Residents of the district admit that they rarely saw children on the street.
But the children said that they were beaten, imprisoned in a cage and chained if they did not obey their parents. District attorney Mike Hestrin said the victims were allowed to shower only once a year.
Children were not allowed to play. Except for individual family trips to Las Vegas or Disneyland, they rarely left the house. All 12 prisoners slept 20 hours a day and ate only once a day — in the middle of the night. Their diet consisted of peanut butter sandwiches, chips and burritos.
According to Deputy Sheriff Manuel Campos, who called the girl in the police said that he had planned the escape for two years. The children also did not go to school because the parents decided to teach them at home.
«In fact, we do not learn in school. I have not finished the first grade,» he admitted, according to Campos, 17-year-old son of Turpanov.
The only children who were not injured, there was a 2 year old toddler.
