It was the year 2018 when two girls came out of a window at 160 Muir Woods Road, a normal-looking house in a residential neighborhood of Perris, California.
After becoming afraid of going further, one of them went back into the place, but the other (a 17-year-old, who looked like she was 10) took out a cellphone that she had been hiding and called 9-1-1.
When officers arrived, she showed them photos of what had been going on inside her house, where their parents had imprisoned her and her twelve siblings for the extent of their whole lives.
Police officers immediately conducted a raid within the house, to encounter a ‘foul smell’ invading the premises, and what they believed to be twelve minors, who were the mostly-adult (but severely malnourished) children of David and Louise Turpin, a quiet, devoutly Christian couple that, according to their neighbors, mostly kept to themselves.
Follow up as we review ten facts about a crime story that shocked America not so long ago.
10 /10 The Abuse Started As Early As 1995
For over twenty-three years, the Turpins had been abusing their children in one form or another: according to their eldest daughter, Jennifer, classmates had already mocked her when she was eight years old, in 1995, for her smell.
This was due to their house’s deplorable conditions (reported as having garbage lying around, stains of feces on the walls, and other stomach-curdling traits), and the Turpin parents had forbidden their children from taking a shower more than once a year.
9 /10 The Turpins Had Had Financial Problems
Some have speculated that part of the motivation behind the twisted minds of David and Louise Turpin was to punish their children for the poor financial state of the family.
They had been forced to declare bankruptcy in 1998, even though David received a six-figure salary in his job as an engineer.
However, this was due to a gambling problem that both David and Louise had been secretly feeding.
They used to leave their children unattended to go away and gamble, often losing heavily.