TRUE CRIME: The Turpin Family

(0:25) Intro
(1:30) The 911 Call and the Morning of January 14, 2018
(9:35) History of the Turpin Family
(14:08) David and Louise's Sentencing 
(19:38) Round Two in Foster Care 
(20:41) The Turpin Children Sue

Links to sources can be found on www.jordanismylawyer.com

Transcript

Happy Tuesday. Welcome back to the Jordan is My Lawyer podcast. If you guys listened to yesterday’s episode, I hope you’re feeling that intelligence really just hit on another level today. I put so much thought into that episode and gave you guys so much information that I really hope you enjoyed it and are feeling so much smarter. So, yesterday was all about politics and the news and current events and today, we’re switching gears to a story that is bound to leave your jaw on the floor. And even when you think the story is over, it’s not. You may have heard about this story a few years ago because it made national headlines at the time, but I can say, with almost 100% certainty, that even if you have heard this story, you will learn at least one thing in this episode that you didn’t know before. So, without further ado, let’s get into it. 

 On January 14, 2018, at 5:49am, in Perris, California, a security camera catches a blurry figure exiting a window of a house across the street. That figure was 17 year old Jordan Turpin. From the footage, Jordan just looks like a normal teenager sneaking out of her parent’s house in the early morning hours. And, in fact, she was sneaking out of her parent’s house, but she was far from normal. The footage shows Jordan crawl out of the window, take a few steps across the grassy front yard, head towards the sidewalk, make a left turn, hesitate, switch directions, and start running. A few seconds later, 911 receives a call. The voice you heard on the other line of that call was 17 year old Jordan Turpin. While Jordan waits for the Sheriff to show up, the dispatcher keeps her on the phone because if the line cuts short, there’s no way to reach her again. See, Jordan called from a deactivated cellphone and the only way to use that cellphone was by making an outgoing call to 911, but the phone couldn’t receive incoming calls.

 So, in the 15 minutes it takes for the Sheriff to arrive, Jordan tells the dispatcher that she is 17 years old, she has 12 siblings, hasn’t bathed in almost a year, and has never been out of the house. She didn’t know what a sidewalk was, she didn’t know how to read street signs, and she had never had a conversation with a stranger before. When the dispatcher asked Jordan for her address, she read random numbers off of a piece of paper that she had taken with her thinking those numbers were her home address: 92570574. No street name. The dispatcher, thankfully, was able to grab her location from the GPS coordinates of the call. 

 At 6:11am, about 15 minutes later, the deputy arrives and finds Jordan waiting at a stop sign. He starts asking Jordan the normal questions you would ask a runaway, like “do your parents know you left the house?”. But here’s the thing, because Jordan had never been out of the house really or communicated with a stranger, she lacked basic vocabulary skills and was extremely nervous talking to the deputy. So, if I’m being honest, when I watched the footage myself, her behavior came off as if she were mentally unstable. The things that she was saying sounded so bizarre to the average person that you couldn’t help but think maybe she was having a manic episode. And the deputy apparently thought the same because he asked her if she takes any medication. But Jordan’s response to that question was one the deputy probably wasn’t expecting. Jordan said, “what’s medication?”. So, the deputy asks her another way. He says, “do you take pills?” to which Jordan responds, “I don’t think I’ve ever tooken a pill before.” She said “tooken”, not taken – that gives you a little insight into what her vocabulary was like. After Jordan explains that she has abusive parents and two of her sisters at home chained to a bed, the deputy asks Jordan if she has pictures. Thankfully, she did. She showed the deputy a picture of her sisters chained to the bed and explained that her sisters were put in chains for stealing her mother’s food. Nearly an hour later, once backup arrives, the deputies head to Jordan’s home. 

 It's 7:20am when the deputies knock on the Turpin’s front door. A minute passes and no one answers. After two minutes of knocking, Jordan’s parents crack open the door and Jordan’s mother steps outside. Jordan’s father stays behind the cracked door. The deputies tell the Turpin’s that they received a call and were there to conduct a welfare check. The Turpin’s are visibly breathing heavily and are clearly nervous. The father, David, asks if the deputies have a search warrant. The deputy tells him a search warrant isn’t necessary in this case and the deputies let themselves in the house despite the Turpin’s concerns. And once they’re inside, they see – what some might call - the unimaginable. 

 The floor is covered with various piles of moving boxes, toys, food, and garbage. The house has four bedrooms total. One room for the parents and youngest baby and three rooms for twelve children. When police open a bedroom door, they see two emaciated young girls. One sitting on a mattress on the floor, the other sitting on a bed. They’re dirty and have bruises on their arms, but the girls are no longer in chains. The police then open a second bedroom door and see two sets of bunkbeds. Six kids are housed in this room. Then, the police find the third bedroom door towards the front of the house and find two more sets of bunk beds and three more kids. One of the boys is shackled to his top bunk by his wrists and ankles. He had been chained there for weeks. At this point, the parents are handcuffed, walked out of the house, and placed in two separate police cars. As the deputies are walking them to their cars, one of the deputies asks the mother where the keys to the chains are. And this is what she says.

 This woman really says: “Is that what this is about?” IS SHE SERIOUS!! This woman really thinks she didn’t do much wrong at this point. So, the deputies go back in the house and the kids tell them the key can be found in the dresser in their parents’ room. When the bedroom door is opened, there’s more piles of trash. So many piles that it’s hard to even get to the dresser. But the deputy eventually finds the key and the little boy is set free. The children hadn’t been bathed in almost a year. They had never been to the dentist. Not even one time. The oldest daughter, age 29 at the time of the rescue, weighed just 82 pounds. All children were immediately taken to the hospital. 

 David and Louise Turpin grew up in a small town in West Virginia. David attended college at Virginia Tech and began working for Lockheed Martin. Louise was six years younger than David and married David when she was just 16. In their early years together, life was relatively normal. They were members of the Pentecostal church and saved themselves for marriage. But, once married, according to them, God called on them to have as many children as they could. At 26 and 20 years old, they had their first child, Jennifer. At this time, they lived in Fort Worth, Texas, and Jennifer was able to attend grade school when she became of age. But she says, as early as two years old, she has memories of her father getting violent with her mother and punching holes in walls. When Jennifer began elementary school, she says she had a hard time making friends because she was so dirty and smelled so bad. After third grade, Jennifer was taken out of school and none of the Turpin children would ever attend school again. 

 In 1999, the Turpins moved to Rio Vista, Texas. A rural town with a population of just 650 people at the time. Then, in 2006, the Turpins moved ten of their children to an isolated trailer on their property. David and Louise took the youngest two and left the rest to fend for themselves. The kids would sometimes be brought groceries, but not enough to feed everyone, so Jordan says she would eat ketchup, mustard, ice and even leaves. In 2010, the Turpins left their rural property and moved to Perris, California. This is where the Turpin’s story would finally change course, but not for another eight years. While in California, Louise picks up this weird habit of buying children’s clothes and toys but never letting her own children wear these clothes or play with these toys. Brand new children’s clothes would hang in closets with price tags on them, but the children were never allowed to touch them. The kids would often have to be awake at night and sleep during the day. The blinds and curtains of the home remained closed at all times and the kids were told not to look outside, and sometimes not to even stand up. At this point, there were a lot of red flags that simply went unnoticed by people around them. Jordan says she knows their neighbors had to have had an idea that something was wrong, but no one ever said anything. And in addition to that, the California Department of Education never looked into the “Sandcastle Day School”, which was where David and Louise Turpin said their children went to school but didn’t actually go to school. In paperwork filed by the Turpins, Sandcastle Day was a private school, and David was the principal. 

When David and Louise were gone, the kids would sneak and watch TV or open the windows and poke their heads out for some fresh air. Some of the older children at this point were trusted with smart phones so that David and Louise could contact them if needed. And on these smartphones, Jordan would sometimes get the opportunity to watch Disney Channel and Justin Bieber videos, and through watching, she realized there was a whole other life outside of her home. So, she started secretly posting videos of herself singing on social media. At one point, someone reached out to her asking her why her videos are always taken in her room, and she opened up to that person about her life. He then told her she should call the police and that’s when Jordan realized this whole time, she had been right– that her situation wasn’t normal. And then, one day, in 2015, she was caught watching a Justin Bieber video. Her mom choked her and took the phone away. It was soon after this that she realized she needed to get out. The plan to escape took over two years. Jordan was supposed to escape with her sister Jennifer, but Jennifer got nervous and stayed back. And finally, on the morning of January 14, 2018, Jordan crawled out of the window and called 911. 

 David and Louise Turpin were ultimately charged with 12 counts of torture, 12 counts of false imprisonment, seven counts of abuse of a dependent adult, and six counts of child abuse. David received his own charge of a lewd act on a child under 14 and eight additional felony perjury counts for lying about properly schooling his children. David’s bail was set at $12M; Louise’s at $9M. David and Louise weren’t able to post bail, so they sat in jail awaiting sentencing. At their sentencing hearing, on April 19, 2019, at least three of the Turpin children told the court that they had forgiven their parents. One of their sons recounted the torture he endured during his statement to the court saying, in part, “I cannot describe in words what we went through growing up. Sometimes I still have nightmares of things that happened such as my siblings being chained up or getting beaten. That is in the past and this is now. I love my parents and have forgiven them for a lot of the things they did to us. I have learned so much and have become very independent. I live in an apartment and go to a nearby college. I am getting a bachelor’s degree in software engineering, and after I get my bachelor’s degree, I’m going to get a job as a software engineer and go to school part-time to get my master’s degree.” He said how he had learned to ride a bike and now rides a bike everywhere he can. That son also read a statement on behalf of one of his sisters and said, “I love both of my parents so much. Although it may not have been the best way to raise us, I am glad they did because it made me the person I am today. I just want to thank them for teaching me about God and faith. I hope they never lose their faith.” A lawyer read a statement on behalf of another daughter who asked the court to remove the restraining order so she could visit her parents in jail. The statement read, in part, “I want the court to know our parents loved each other and loved each of their children. I remember our mother sitting in her recliner saying she doesn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to use rope or chain but was afraid her children were taking in too much sugar and caffeine.” 

 Another child, who wasn’t so forgiving, said “My parents took my whole life from me, and now I’m taking my life back. I’m a fighter, I’m strong and I’m shooting through life like a rocket.” She also said, “I saw my dad change my mom. They almost changed me, but I realized what was happening.” Now, to me, it seems kind of obvious that some of these children were a bit brainwashed in a way. And I know that their parents taught them lessons by way of the bible and kind of justified their punishments and behaviors through the bible, so it’s very possible that their children don’t realize how crazy their parents actually were and that is why some of their children are willing to forgive them.

 As for David and Louise… they both cried as they heard each statement from the kids and cried as they apologized themselves for how they treated their kids. In a statement prepared by David, but read by his lawyer, David wrote, “My home schooling and discipline had good intentions. I never intended for any harm to come to my children. I love my children and I believe my children love me. I hope the very best for my children in the future.” Louise spoke to the court, without her attorney’s assistance, and said that she was truly sorry for what she had done and that she loves her children so much and she really looks forward to the day she can see them, hug them, and tell them she’s sorry. Before handing down their sentence, Judge Bernard Schwartz explained that the treatment of their children was selfish, cruel and inhuman. He went on to say, “You have severed the ability to interact and raise your children that you have created and brought into this world. 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 proceeding and you spared your children having to relive the humiliation and the harm they endured in that house of horrors.” David and Louise were each sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 25 years. David is currently serving time in the California State Prison and Louise is serving her sentence at the Central California Women’s Facility.  

 Once the children were freed from the reign of their parents, they spent several weeks in the hospital recovering from starvation, filth, and emaciation. Jennifer, the oldest daughter, remembers feeling her first sense of freedom at the hospital. She says there was a day when no one was around and music was playing, and she just got up and danced. And at that moment, she said she finally felt free. But, if you think the story ends here, sadly, it doesn’t.

 Unfortunately, once the children were released from the hospital, the six minor Turpin children were placed in a foster home. Their caseworker at the time said she would do everything she could to find the children a nice, loving family to try to make up for everything the kids had been through. The children were placed with foster parents in early 2018. And, as it would turn out, the caseworker didn’t keep her promise. Once again, the kids landed in the hands of another abusive couple. And this time, it wasn’t just the foster parents contributing to the abuse. It was the foster parents and their oldest daughter. The children would be hit in the face with sandals, have their hair pulled, hit with belts, and some of the kids would be forced to eat excessively and then eat their own vomit. Finally, in 2021, after three years of enduring even more abuse, the foster parents and their daughter were arrested. And just last month, in July, the children brought suit against the foster care agency, ChildNet Youth and Family Services, Inc., and Riverside County, California. The suits allege that ChildNet was aware that the family was “unfit to be foster parents” because the family had a “prior history of physically and emotionally abusing children as well as severely neglecting children who had been placed in their care.” The complaint goes on to say, “As to ChildNet, it had a financial motive to continue placing a large number of children in this foster home and thereby strengthen its relationship with the County of Riverside, and it put that financial motive ahead of its responsibility to the children.” The complaint alleges that the agency was aware of the family’s prior history of alleged abuse, and that the agency failed to act once they were alerted to the allegations of abuse by the Turpin children. According to one of the complaints, because there were two different complaints filed separately, the Turpins remained in this foster care home for three years despite the alleged abuse that was brought to the agency’s attention and the “defendants were put on notice that the foster parents and their adult daughter were sexually, physically, and emotionally abusing and severely neglecting them.” 

 After an investigation into the foster home, the family was arrested last November and now they all face multiple child abuse charges. The foster father, Marcelino, has been accused of “grabbing and fondling” the children and “kissing them on the mouth”, and making sexually suggestive comments towards them. Mr. O (as the complaint names him) would tell the female children that they were sexy and suggest they wear revealing clothing. The foster mother, Rosa (or, Mrs. O, as the complaint names her), and the oldest daughter, Lennys, would force the children to sit in a circle and recall their past abuse. Rosa and Lennys also face charges of fraud and witness intimidation. On one occasion, the O’s gave one of the children, who was five years old at the time, a sleeping pill, and forced her to stand against a wall, sprayed her with water, and rang a bell in her ear while telling her “you don’t let us sleep, so we’re not letting you.” The child ended up collapsing on the floor because she wasn’t able to stand once the sleeping pill kicked in. The family would lock the five year old in her room for 9 hours at a time and not change her diaper. When the children would express to their foster parents that they felt depressed, their foster parents would give them ideas as to how they could take their own lives. According to the felony complaint against the foster family, which is linked on my website, the family faces 17 total counts. The foster parents pled not guilty to all of their charges in December 2021, they posted bail, and at this point, they’re awaiting trial. 

 According to the complaints filed last month against the county and the agency, during the time that these children were living in this foster home, one of the children actually spoke up to their social worker. The child explained the abuse and recounted stories of what the children were experiencing, but the social worker did nothing. The foster care agency turned a blind eye. 

 In a statement to PEOPLE, Brett Lewis, Director of Development and Communications at ChildNet Youth and Family Services, said: “At this time, out organization is not at liberty to disclose facts or discuss the allegations made in the complaint. We look forward to providing the facts at the appropriate time in court. Our agency has been serving California’s most vulnerable, traumatized youth for over 50 years. We have a strong track record of providing excellent care and continue to demonstrate our commitment to these children.”

 In an interview done last month, Jordan told People magazine that she wasn’t ready to discuss details of what went on in the foster home but she did say that during that time, she was extremely traumatized and fell into a very deep depression. 

 Over the course of time, the children have received over $600,000 in donations from random strangers but haven’t been able to use it. This money was placed into an official trust managed by the court and hidden from public oversight. The court also appointed the children a legal guardian, who was supposed to teach them basic life skills and provide them with necessities but failed to do so. The reality is, these children have been failed, not only by the foster care system, but by the court, by their legal guardian, by their own parents – by literally everyone that they’ve been in contact with throughout their lives aside from their attorneys. 

 This past February, Jordan Turpin moved into her own apartment. She says she finally feels free. Jordan is also on TikTok and Instagram and loves being able to use social media. She wants to continue her education and become a motivational speaker. Four of the Turpin children are still in foster care, but their attorneys ensure that they are safe, together, and working towards recovery. If you want to follow Jordan on social media, her username is @jordan_turpin on TikTok and @jordan__turpin on Instagram. So, one underscore on Tiktok, two on Instagram. She really is such a bright light despite everything she’s gone though, and someone that I personally have so much admiration and respect for. Because not only did she singlehandedly save her siblings, but she’s now using her story to now help other people that have been in similar situations. 

 So, over time we will see what happens with the trial against the foster care agency and the county of Riverside as well as the charges brought against the foster family. I will be sure to keep you guys updated whether it be on TikTok or Youtube, so make sure you follow along there. My handle on all of my platforms is @jordanismylawyer so I’m super easy to find no matter where you look, and my website is also jordanismylawyer.com for those who don’t know. And I announced in yesterday’s episode that I introduced a new comment section on each episode description webpage. So, you can go to the episode description page of this episode or whatever episode you’re listening to and actually comment your thoughts on that episode so we can engage with each other and have more of a conversation with each other. And if you haven’t already, make sure you listen to yesterday’s podcast episode which covered some major news stories. And with that, I will talk to you guys on Monday.