GUILTY CA - 13 victims, ages 2 to 29, shackled in home by parents, Perris, 15 Jan 2018 #12

[Lilibet]

I have to disagree that they will likely live fairly normal lives. Especially the oldest victims. I’m the same age as the oldest, give or take, and I can’t fathom only being a free human for the first time at this age. The things I experienced in high school through my late 20s shaped me as a person, and I think this is true for many people. The 17 year old didn’t know how to pronounce Texas. They have had either very limited or zero socialization with peers their own age outside of family. I have a strong feeling this is going to be a long, uphill battle for them. Even the most resilient human in the world would have a very tough time living a “normal” life after what these victims have been through. Two of them can’t bear children due to the abuse they suffered.

I do agree that it is not safe or wise for them to be without guidance right now. While I really hope I am wrong, I just don’t know if some of them will ever live “normal” lives.

I agree that their experience will have stunted their development in many ways and their lives will not be “normal” in the sense we think of it. It will be a very long, uphill battle.

But the original question about a “normal life” had to do with whether being a ward of the state would prevent them from going out in public and living normal lives. Their normal is not our normal but being a Ward of the state will not hold them back from their goals and aspirations, so they will be helped to achieve whatever their individual level of normal is. They will be helped to experience normal life, whether it’s learning to do laundry, shop for groceries, make and keep appointments, order a meal in a restaurant, attend school, etc. Some will handle these things better than others.

Despite their living conditions, the oldest and the 17 year old wrote beautiful songs. The oldest son had the smarts to attend college. So there is hope for some of them, and being a Ward of the State will help them achieve whatever “normality” they can.

 

[Cafemalyn]

I can't remember where I read it, but years and years ago when researching serial killers and their "early years" and seeing so many similarities to killing animals at a young age, one mental health professional wrote that for children that experience extreme abuse, the desire to hurt or kill small animals (or even other kids, younger than them) was their way of taking back control of their own lives.

In a very dark, sad, and twisty way, that totally made sense to me. When an adult severely abuses a child, it's a VERY good bet they might be turning that child into a monster in their later years.

There is is nurture and there is nature. Some monsters seem to come from decent parenting. Some really wonderful people were controlled by monsters during their formative years.

Harming animals is a symptom that apparently all serial killers share. But not all who harm animals as kids become serial killers or even violent criminals. So there is hope.

Interestingly, there is no suggestion that any of the family pets were harmed. Maybe it was just a fantasy that, if this boy is given therapy and support, will never go beyond that. We can hope.

 

[Cafemalyn]

The reality show comment was made by the attention seeking sister. I don't believe for a minute this was a plan.

Also regarding the filth, smell and dirt in the home, maybe Louise grew up in a filthy, smelly, dirty home. Children (and later adults) learn from how they lived. Not everyone values cleanliness and orderliness.

I believe it was LT’s brother who reported this, and my thought was that she did tell him she had this reality show fantasy, but that she was just being delusional.

—

I think she likes them when they are young, and once they reach a certain age, she feels she has no use for them, so then the abuse begins.

It’s when they begin to develop individual personalities that some people can’t handle it. I had a great-aunt like that. She never abused anyone, but she just had no interest in anyone between 4 and 18. Little ones made her feel powerful and loved.

Louise is an extreme case, possibly because of having been abused herself. And David seems to have had some sadistic power-and-control issues to spoke to her needs also. Tragic.

 

[Cafemalyn]

Ew really? I know nothing about the duggars, but that is bizarre. In a different thread someone challenged me calling a victim brainwashed by asking if I think the duggar women are brainwashed. And after reading this, yep, I do.

I have followed the Duggar dog-and-pony show some since the scandal about the eldest son. While I think the family is a mess and the kids definitely brainwashed, I also think that Michelle was not always lacking interest in kids who weren’t babies. She seems to have enjoyed caring for the first five children or so, but became increasingly detached from hands on raising of the younger ones as she got further along in her commitment to being a walking womb. She is probably as brainwashed as her daughters, though she chose her brainwashing and embraced it.

The situation with the Turpins is different, not only because the Duggars didn’t starve and lock their kids up but because it appears that the Turpins resented the kids. It is a very strange situation.

 

[Cafemalyn]

. <snip> ... curious if this is the period where one of the older girls was described as attempting to run away, and when the person who found her drove her back she was asking about things like getting a job and a driver's license? Or if that incident might have happened just before or after? It seems hard to believe that the girl in this incident could have been taken back to the trailer if DT and LT weren't living with the children at the time, but if one of the older girls thought, "if I had a job and a car it would make it so much easier to care for all the younger kids" that would make a lot of sense? Was she running away or was she just wanting these things to make things easier to care for the younger ones?

There is a woman called LAHenna who has a You-tube Channel about the case and who was in court last week. She made videos based on her notes.

One detail she includes that I have not seen elsewhere is that during the period when the eldest girl and the oldest boy were left “in charge” of the younger ones (when they had to put the “bad” children in cages as ordered by parents over the phone), the girl finally couldn’t take it and tried to run away but came back because she realized she didn’t know about the world outside. This fits with the story of the neighbor who picked up a girl and took her back to the house.

The video where I found this is called “Cages.” This is the url

:

 

[Cafemalyn]

Dang..... I wonder if they did a dna test. It could be one of the girls, not the moms. Nothing would surprise me here.

We have been this road before. There were DNA tests, I believe to ensure none of the kids were kidnapped, among other things. And if any of the girls gave birth, her body would show it to trained medical staff. It is also unlikely that half-starved young women could conceive. Some of them may never have had a period.

 

[Jennifer17]

There is a woman called LAHenna who has a You-tube Channel about the case and who was in court last week. She made videos based on her notes.

One detail she includes that I have not seen elsewhere is that during the period when the eldest girl and the oldest boy were left “in charge” of the younger ones (when they had to put the “bad” children in cages as ordered by parents over the phone), the girl finally couldn’t take it and tried to run away but came back because she realized she didn’t know about the world outside. This fits with the story of the neighbor who picked up a girl and took her back to the house.

The video where I found this is called “Cages.” This is the url

:

Ha! Where I live, you are not allowed to put dogs in those cages unless you are transporting them or they have an injury that requires them to not move around.

 

[Cafemalyn]

Ha! Where I live, you are not allowed to put dogs in those cages unless you are transporting them or they have an injury that requires them to not move around.

According to the video, the kids would be put two-to-a-cage.

 

[Ontario Mom]

According to the video, the kids would be put two-to-a-cage.

We have a medium sized beagle and a "large" dog crate that she goes in every night (otherwise she messes on the carpet). It's plenty roomy for her, but I can't even imagine sticking two kids in one of those. I can't even imagine sticking one kid inside it. Ugh.

 

[Lucyray]

I'm not sure about this.....

Both LT and DT were out and about. He had a good job (though maybe not recently?). Even with a background like the one you describe (which no doubt takes places in tens of thousands of households in the US), there were plenty of other models for parenting.

Even as pre-natal care (LT had the babies in hospitals), there would have been instruction in how to be a nurturing parent. That's kinda the point once you get past the labor education?

Even more fundamentally, these folks were going to the grocery store and Walmarts, etc. You can't even get to the cash register without all kinds of stuff related to child-rearing, good and bad.

Finally, LT and DT took care of the youngest, evidently, so they did know something about appropriate care of a child.

(Interesting side note: since the judge decided not to charge for mistreatment of the 2-year-old, it's going to stick out like a sore thumb that DT and LT were selective in their torture and knew better. They did okay with one kid: must've known what was appropriate.)

All of this that you have written, plus, they knew to keep it all secret. That speaks volumes to me.

 

[Satch]

Now, am I to understand that DT and LT did allow Social Media access for the older children? Which ones if this is the case? I am really surprised that the siblings were allowed to keep journals. Since evidence is out that many of them could barely read or write. It seems that oldest male had the most education.

Satch

 

[claudianunes]

Now, am I to understand that DT and LT did allow Social Media access for the older children? Which ones if this is the case? I am really surprised that the siblings were allowed to keep journals. Since evidence is out that many of them could barely read or write. It seems that oldest male had the most education.

Satch

I don't think any of the children was actually allowed to have social media. I'm guessing the girl wouldn't use a fake name to set up her social media accounts if she was allowed to have it. My guess is that the oldest boy was required to have a email address for his college stuff, probably had to turn in assigments online and from there, he most likely just started finding out about stuff like social media. Plus, one of their cousins had a blog (that I assume has been deleted) with a post that dates back to one of the times they visited the family, I think she might have been the one introducing social media to the oldest girl. The cousin posted a video of the oldest girl singing on Youtube, stated that she gave her permission.

 

[ElizabethAnne]

I don't think any of the children was actually allowed to have social media. I'm guessing the girl wouldn't use a fake name to set up her social media accounts if she was allowed to have it. My guess is that the oldest boy was required to have a email address for his college stuff, probably had to turn in assigments online and from there, he most likely just started finding out about stuff like social media. Plus, one of their cousins had a blog (that I assume has been deleted) with a post that dates back to one of the times they visited the family, I think she might have been the one introducing social media to the oldest girl. The cousin posted a video of the oldest girl singing on Youtube, stated that she gave her permission.

I think you are right about the community colleges requiring email. And that is a very good theory as to how the kids became aware of social media. Most of them (perhaps all of the community colleges) in California actually create an email address for persons who enroll and then the student has to use the email address and/or account to actually register for the classes in one of the Ellucian software packages that the community colleges use. Also many use Canvas or Blackboard for the courses.

 

[jash]

The Dr. Oz show on Thursday is going to be about the Turpins and the Harts. I doubt there will be new information but it might be interesting nonetheless.

From the clips posted, I see both sets of parents made the kids wear those "thing #" shirts.

The Shocking Similarities Between the Turpin and Hart Families

 

[claudianunes]

The Dr. Oz show on Thursday is going to be about the Turpins and the Harts. I doubt there will be new information but it might be interesting nonetheless.

From the clips posted, I see both sets of parents made the kids wear those "thing #" shirts.

The Shocking Similarities Between the Turpin and Hart Families

Is the Harts' thread still closed?

 

[Laughing]

Toxic kid collectors.

 

[jash]

Is the Harts' thread still closed?

This one is currently open: CA - Hannah, 16, Devonte, 15, & Sierra Hart, 12, Mendocino County, 26 Mar 2018 #4

 

[SkipperKey3]

The Dr. Oz show on Thursday is going to be about the Turpins and the Harts. I doubt there will be new information but it might be interesting nonetheless.

From the clips posted, I see both sets of parents made the kids wear those "thing #" shirts.

The Shocking Similarities Between the Turpin and Hart Families

I didn't see it, but I doubt there was anything new. And I think the similarities are a bit overplayed. There are some similarities, true, as there are bound to be in any case that includes this type of extreme neglect, but there are a lot of dissimilarities as well. These kids, for example, were certainly never allowed outside, or interact with the public, or even able to go begging food from neighbors.

Anybody see this show?

 

[Amonet]

I didn't see it, but I doubt there was anything new. And I think the similarities are a bit overplayed. There are some similarities, true, as there are bound to be in any case that includes this type of extreme neglect, but there are a lot of dissimilarities as well. These kids, for example, were certainly never allowed outside, or interact with the public, or even able to go begging food from neighbors.

Anybody see this show?

I think there might be more similarities than neglect and abuse. I think they both share some of the reasoning behind why they treated their children the way they did. In the Hart case a lot of it seems to me to emanate from a desire for behavior modification/control to achieve the outcome the women wanted of absolutely perfectly behaved children with prescribed and limited interests.

The Turpins seem to share some of that at the outset, at least in the story that one of the sisters told of the eldest daughter, when still very young, being sent to her room and then having strictly prescribed behavior when she came down to eat with the parents. I think the Turpins have a multitude of other layers, the neglect seems far worse, yet even part of that seems to still be about prescribing/controlling the behavior of the children and limiting the freedom of the children.

They both seem to have different reasons for why the control and domination is important to them, and there are differences in the specifics of how they go about achieving their goals with their children, but neither family seems to be able to handle children being normal children and both have gone beyond reasonable chastisement for 'bad behavior' and into the realm of child torture with things like the withholding of food in both cases, in the Hart case with stress positions, in the Turpin case with restricting children inside the home, and in both cases limiting contact of the children with the outside world.

I think in some families neglect comes from the adult(s) not caring too much about parenting, something like drugs or alcohol taking the priority that the children should have, and maybe a sense of parenting being overwhelming and they give up? But I don't think any of these fit for the Turpins or Harts. Both the Turpins and Harts did give themselves circumstances that would be overwhelming at times due to the number of children in the household, but they both seem predisposed to the cruel control aspects in the first place and even one child would likely have suffered as an only child. Maybe for the T's and H's the sense that they could 'control' the behavior of the children made them feel a sense of invincibility with regard to the number of children that was reasonable for them to have and 'care' for (though 'care' meant something different for each of them than it does to most people and was probably closer in meaning for them to the word 'control', but maybe those words are blurred for them?)

 

[Niner]

Friday, August 3rd:
*Post Prelim Arraignment hearing for both (@ 8:30am PT) - CA - 13 victims, ages 2 to 29, shackled in home (Jan. 15, 2018) - *David Allen Turpin (57) arrested & charged (1/18/18) with: 12 counts of torture, 1 count of lewd act on a child, 9 counts of abuse of dependent adult, 5 counts of child abuse, 12 counts of false imprisonment & 8 counts of perjury for "filing a Private School Affidavit with the Cal Dept. of Education in 2010-17 where he certified under penalty of perjury that the children in the home were receiving a fulltime education in a private day school. Plead not guilty. Bail set at $12M. Faces up to 94 years to life in prison.
*Louise Ann Turpin (49) arrested & charged (1/18/18) with: 12 counts of torture, 9 counts of abuse of dependent adult, 5 counts of child abuse, 12 counts of false imprisonment, 1 count of felony assault. Plead not guilty. Bail set at $12M. Faces up to 94 years to life in prison.
1/24/18: DA Motion for Order of Protection for 13 survivors. A judge has issued a protective order to bar a Perris couple from having any further contact with their 13 children amid a torture and abuse case. Which is set to be effective until Jan. 24, 2021.
6/21/18 Update: Judge dismisses 1 count of child abuse/endangerment against D & L for 2 yr. old, & accepted all other charges. Next post prelim arraignment hearing for Aug. 3rd @ 8:30am.