Yeah, I'm almost positive Jaycee & her kids were not chained. They were certainly limited to their living area in the backyard but they weren't restrained.
I'm sure we'd know if Prader-Willi was a factor. I'm certain it's not. Good point tho. I too am really into speculating about what the heck the defense will pull outta their butts for this case!
Parents may lock up food or hide food if someone in the household has bulimia or binge eating disorder/compulsive overeating. I've experienced this myself firsthand. Obviously w/ 13 kids that can't be their excuse. Like, it's impossible that all 13 have Prader-Willi or another eating or feeding disorder. And feeding disorders include such things as nocturnal eating/sleepwalk-eating; extreme picky eating; rumination syndrome .. and even a lot of functional GI disorders such as GERD, IBS & IBDs can cause "phantom" hunger and malabsorption that can contribute to strange eating patterns (I live this myself every day of my life). Again, defense is outta luck 'cause not ALL 13 kids can possibly have such a condition (insert huge eye roll here).
Lauren Kavanaugh's mother successfully duped her relatives & her other children into believing Lauren had a compulsive-overeating-type eating disorder, saying that was why she was excluded from meals & locked out of cupboards. Indeed, the little girl DID compulsively eat anything she could get her hands on, bc of her prolonged starvation/malnutrition...so of course this only served to bolster the mom's original excuse, so everyone believed it. How messed up is that?!
Back to the Ts: I felt a teeny tiny bit of sympathy when ppl were speculating upthread that sheer lack of resources/finances may have started the spiral of food deprivation...but if the parents were eating out that often (Taco Bell every day?!) that's just crappy financial planning & meal planning on their part. Anyone who's ever been on a budget knows how to clip coupons and just boil up a ton of pasta for the week to really stretch their food dollar. Sure, the kids' diet wouldn't have been that "healthy" but at least calories would be going in more than once a day. It takes a LOT of planning & organization to feed a family of 15, plus 2 dogs. Mama Turpin is lazy or just doesn't care enough. Sad. Managing a big family is a job in itself, no doubt about it...but that's what you get when you choose to have that many children. I was raised LDS and I grew up knowing several families with 8 or more kids. It's tough but it can be done.