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Police rescue 13 siblings found shackled in California home; parents charged with torture

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A Perris husband and wife are in custody on suspicion of torture and child abuse after police found several of the couple’s children chained to beds in putrid surroundings, authorities said Monday.

The nightmarish discovery came Sunday after one of the children, a 17-year-old girl, escaped from the house in the 100 block of Muir Woods Road and called 911 on a cellphone she found in the home, according to an account released by Perris police.

When officers from Perris and deputies from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department met the girl, she appeared to be about 10 years old and emaciated, police said.

Inside the house, officers found “several children shackled to their beds with chains and padlocks in dark and foul-smelling surroundings,” the statement said. The youngest was 2 years old. Like their sister, the 12 siblings in the house appeared to police to be minors and malnourished, but authorities determined seven of them were in fact adults from the ages of 18 to 29, police said.

Police provided food and drinks to the children, who “claimed to be starving,” before they were admitted to hospitals.

The parents, 57-year-old David Allen Turpin and 49-year-old Louise Anna Turpin, were being held in jail in lieu of $9-million bail.

The couple's children were found in their Perris home.
The couple’s children were found in their Perris home.

Public records show the couple own the nondescript tract house. Its address is also listed in a state Department of Education directory as the location of the Sandcastle Day School, a private K-12 campus that opened in 2011. Turpin is listed as the principal.

Public records indicate the couple have lived at the address since 2010 and lived in Texas for many years before coming to California. They declared bankruptcy twice, public records show.

Anyone with additional information is encouraged to contact Master Investigator Tom Salisbury at the Perris Station at (951) 210-1000, or by email at PerrisStation@RiversideSheriff.org