A status hearing is scheduled Friday for a Perris couple accused of imprisoning and torturing 12 of their 13 children, with the possibility of a pretrial resolution to the case, which Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin will discuss after the hearing.
David Allen Turpin, 56, and Louise Ann Turpin, 50, are each charged with 12 counts of torture and false imprisonment, as well as eight counts of child abuse and seven counts of cruelty to a dependent adult. David Turpin is additionally charged with eight counts of perjury and one count of lewd acts on a child, while Louise Turpin alone is charged with a single count of assault resulting in great bodily injury.
Last fall, Superior Court Judge Bernard Schwartz tentatively scheduled trial proceedings to begin this coming September, and Friday’s hearing would have served as a conference to ensure the prosecution and defense were on track. But undisclosed developments appeared likely to change the character of the status conference.
Hestrin is slated to hold a news briefing at the D.A.’s headquarters in downtown Riverside about 10 a.m., following the hearing at the Riverside Hall of Justice, a block away.
David and Louise Turpin are each being held in lieu of $12 million bail at the Robert Presley Jail in Riverside. They’re facing nearly 100 years behind bars if convicted.
The couple’s 17-year-old daughter, Jordan, escaped the family’s Muir Woods Road residence on Jan. 14, 2018, and told a 911 dispatcher that her two younger sisters were “chained up to their beds,” shackled so tightly their bodies were bruised, according to testimony from the defendants’ June 20-21 preliminary hearing.
“They chain us up if we do things we’re not supposed to,” the girl said in a conversation with a 911 dispatcher, played in court. “Sometimes, my sisters wake up and start crying (because of the pain).”
Along with the 911 recording, the prosecution called sheriff’s Deputy Manuel Campos to testify regarding his Jan. 14 interview with the victim.
Campos recalled Jordan’s hair was filthy and her skin was caked with dirt. He said that the girl admitted “being scared to death” about fleeing her home, but felt desperate to get out and leapt from an open window.
Campos testified the teenager had been planning an escape for two years and was ultimately able to procure a mobile phone discarded by her older brother. She used it to snap pictures of her younger sisters chained to beds.
The lawman said that the victim told him her sisters had been shackled because they were caught by Louise Turpin snatching candy from the kitchen.
According to the witness, the girl described a compulsory sleep schedule of 20 hours a day and a middle-of-the-night meal — combination “lunch and dinner” — that consisted of peanut butter sandwiches, chips and microwave-heated burritos.
The girl’s only exercise was pacing back and forth in the room she shared with her two younger sisters, according to the deputy.
He said the filth and stench in the bedroom was so overwhelming that the teen told him she often couldn’t breathe and had to stick her head out the window for relief.
Hestrin said the victims were allowed to shower only once a year.
The siblings were virtually imprisoned, according to testimony, and the only time they were free to leave their assigned quarters was when both parents were out of the house.
D.A.’s office Investigator Wade Walsvick testified that all but one of the victims were severely malnourished.
Walsvick testified that when he spoke to the oldest son, 26-year-old Joshua Turpin, the victim revealed how he and his siblings were locked inside cages if their parents became angry with them. There were alleged beatings with paddles, “hitting on the face, slapping, pushing and being thrown across the room or to the ground,” the witness said.
The children, whose ages range from 3 to 30, are in the care of county Child Protective Services and Adult Protective Services staff. Most of them were hospitalized in January of last year for treatment, but they have since been released and placed in undisclosed residential facilities, according to county officials.
Only the now-3-year-old girl appeared to be in good health.