Before moving to California, the now disgraced Turpin family — where parents, David and Louise allegedly abused and tortured 12 of their 13 children — lived in Texas. In a shocking, new interview, a neighbor from their former Texas residence claims one of their children, a female, attempted to escape, but sadly failed. “One of the girls did try to run away,” years after the Turpin family moved to Texas, Rick Vinyard, their former neighbor tells People. “But, I was told the police returned her,” Vinyard says, adding that if he knew what was happening at the time, “I’d be calling the police on them 10 times a day.”
Vinyard went on to explain that he visited the Turpin home, after the family moved out. “There were dirty diapers piled waist-high,” he describes, which wasn’t even the worst of what he had seen. “We found a dead dog and a dead cat inside. There were padlocks on everything — the closets, the bathrooms, the refrigerator. There were ropes tied to the bed.”
The Turpin parents’ alleged acts of torture and abuse on their children finally came to light when on child — a 17-year-old female — managed to escape out a window and use a deactivated cell phone to call 911. Her escape plan was something police say she had worked on for two years. The children — who ranged in age from two to 29 — were found inside their Perris, CA home with evidence that they had been shackled to furniture and living in unhealthy conditions.
All of the children were taken to Corona Regional Medical Center, where they were described as appearing to be pale and malnourished. Authorities said the children were only allowed 1 meal per day and 2 showers per years. It was also reported that the siblings who were legal adults, looked like children because of their conditions. “It’s that profound when you see what they’re going through. How does this happen?” the hospital’s CEO and Chief Managing Director Mark Uffer told ABC News. “When we first saw them, everybody thought they were children,” Uffer said, adding that he and his staff had never seen abuse of “this magnitude.” He also said some of the victims suffered nerve damage.
Parents, David and Louise Turpin have both been charged with torture and child endangerment. They each face nine felony counts of torture and 10 felony counts of child endangerment. They are being held at the Robert Presley Detention Center on $13 million bail — $1 million for each child.
HollywoodLifers, what’re your thoughts on this new discovery?