David And Louise Turpin Wiki: 13 Shackled Siblings & Facts To Know

The Turpin Case is a heart wrenching and unbelievable situation of the horror and extremities that humans are capable of. The Turpin Case is about a California couple who pleaded not guilty to the allegation of torturing more than a dozen of their children and forcing them to live in inhuman conditions. These mentally sick and monstrous parents chained their own children to beds for months and starved them to such extents that their growths were stunted and their muscles atrophied. David Allen Turpin and his wife, Louise Anna Turpin, were arrested after some authorities found malnourished children chained in their home in Riverside County. They were each held on $12 million bail. Their attorneys made no comments and only said that they were still reviewing the serious allegations against them. The parents, David and Louise Turpin, were married in 1985 in Pearisburg, Virginia. She was just 16 when Louise Turpin eloped with the 23-year-old David. They both lived in Fort Worth and Rio Vista and then moved to Murrieta, California in 2010. They moved into their current home in Perris, near Los Angeles, in 2014. David Turpin had worked as an engineer for both Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. Louise Turpin has been a housewife. The couple filed for bankruptcy in 2011. The couple had renewed their vows thrice in 2011, 2013 and 2015. Their children were brought to two of these ceremonies.

David and Louise Turpin have 13 children aged between 2 and 29 years old. Seven of their children are adults. According to the investigators, the siblings were so malnourished that the older ones still looked like children. Their eldest daughter, a 29-year-old woman, weighed just 82 pounds. Their 12-year-old looked like a 7-year-old. The Turpins have a 17-year-old daughter who had been planning an escape with other siblings for the past two years. One fine day, the girl managed to jump out of a window with another sibling and escaped. The other sibling got scared and eventually went back home. The 17-year-old used a deactivated cell phone to call 911. As soon as the authorities arrived at their home, the Turpins rushed to free two of their children, an 11-year-old and a 13-year-old. The deputies found a 22-year-old chained to the bed. Most of the 13 siblings were home-schooled but only one of the older boys was allowed to attend a local college. He was driven by his mother there and she used to stay outside in the hallway during the class and then take him back home after the class.

The prosecutors said that the children had been abused for years. The Turpins started abusing their children when they lived in Texas and, with time, their abuse only intensified. They would tie up their children with ropes and they have even hogtied four of their children. After their children used to escape from ropes, they used to start using chains and padlocks. They used to even chain some of their children for months or weeks at a stretch and would not even let them use the bathroom. The Turpins used to punish their kids by frequently beating them up or even strangulating them. The children were only allowed to bathe once in a year. If while washing their hands, the children would wash above their wrists, they would be accused of playing with water and chained up as a punishment. The children were fed very little, on a schedule, and locked in different rooms in the house. From the outside, the house used to look quiet and residential. The neighbors had said that they were not close with the Turpins and said that they had never seen all the children together at once. David and Louise Turpin had crossed all levels of humanity. They would buy food for themselves but not allow their children to eat. They would torture their children by placing apple and pumpkin pies on the table and only letting their children look at the food but not allowed to eat. The mad couple also used to torture their children by buying a lot of toys but not allowing them to ever open them. According to the prosecutor's report, the entire family would sleep at 4 a.m. and sleep through the day and would stay up all night. The children were only allowed to write in journals. The investigators are reviewing hundreds of journals which were seized from their homes. David Turpin used to homeschool his children at his residence. He used to call it the Sandcastle Day School. Private or home schools in California are not licensed by the state government but are subject to annual inspection by the local fire marshal.

The case of the Shackled Siblings is so horrific that it boils the blood. The Shackled Siblings will face a long road to recovery and even after they become more normal will they ever be able to forget the misery and trauma they lived with for so long?