Three of 13 children held in ‘house of horror’ by parents speak out years after abuse
Warning: This article contains discussion of child abuse which some readers may find distressing.
Three children who were starved and tortured by their parents alongside nine of their siblings are speaking out about the 'nightmare' that ensued after they were rescued.
It was hoped that the Turpin children could try to rebuild their lives after escaping the clutches of their 'selfish and cruel' mum and dad, but that wasn't the case for several of them. A number of the siblings tragically found themselves in a similar situation straight afterwards when they were placed in foster care.
Now, three of the Turpin kids are opening up about how their caregivers 'tried to break' them in a heart-wrenching special with veteran broadcaster Diane Sawyer.
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Take a look at the trailer for The Turpins: A New House of Horror here:
David and Louise Turpin were sentenced to life in prison in 2019 for the horrific abuse that they inflicted on all but one of their 13 children. Judge Bernard Schwartz described the squalid family home in Perris, California as a 'house of horrors'.
The Turpin children were physically, verbally, and mentally abused, chained to their beds, allowed to shower just once a year, and deprived of food.
None of the kids had ever even seen a dentist, and when they were eventually rescued, the children were so malnourished that they were all assumed to be under 18, despite seven of them being adults.
The kids. who were between the ages of 2 and 29 at the time, escaped their birth parents in January 2018, after Jordan Turpin escaped the family home and alerted authorities.
In a harrowing 911 call, the then-17-year-old said: "My parents are abusive. Two of my sisters and one of my brothers... they're chained up to their bed. Sometimes I wake up and I can't breathe because how dirty the house is."
In the wake of their parents being taken into custody, several of the younger children were placed in foster care. But horrifically, the families that took them in inflicted further abuse on the already-traumatised kids.
Three of the youngest Turpin children - Julissa, Jolinda, and James - have now sat down with TV titan Diane Sawyer to discuss the 'bad' things that happened to them during their time in foster care.
In the chilling trailer for The Turpins: A New House of Horror, which is set to air on ABC on 3 February, one of the sisters explained that they were initially over the moon to move in with a new family.
"We were running around in circles because we could feel the fresh air," she said. "I was like, 'Wow'. It was just like, 'This is for real'."
However, the emotional young woman later added: "Something bad did happen the first night I was there. I didn't know very much, but I did know that didn't feel right."
Their brother James also opened up about his experience in care, telling Sawyer: "They would do everything in their power, it seemed like, to try to break me."
In the trailer, one of the Turpin children can also be heard saying: "To me, it feels like why do people get to have a family and we don't?"
Marcelino Olguin, who cared for six of the Turpin children after their rescue, was locked up for seven years in 2024 after pleading guilty to lewd acts on a child, false imprisonment, and injuring a child. His wife Rosa and daughter Lennys also pleaded guilty to child cruelty, and were each sentenced to four years of formal probation.
In a victim impact statement read aloud at their sentencing hearing, one of the Turpin children said, as per ABC News: "All I wanted was to finally have a loving family and recover from my trauma, but unfortunately, I did not receive that."
Sawyer praised the youngsters 'extraordinary courage' in an Instagram post announcing the upcoming ABC special.
"I want to share a new chapter in a story I’ve been covering for years - one that still stops me in my tracks," she said, in part. "For the first time, three of the youngest Turpin siblings are telling their stories.
"James, Jolinda, and Julissa Turpin have never spoken publicly about the abuse they endured - first at the hands of their biological parents, and then shockingly, again after they were rescued and placed into foster care."
Sawyer added: "Their courage is extraordinary. I hope you’ll watch."
The Turpins: A New House of Horror – A Diane Sawyer Special Event airs on ABC on 3 February and will be available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu the following day.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence regarding the welfare of a child, contact the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000, 10am-8pm Monday to Friday. If you are a child seeking advice and support, call Childline for free on 0800 1111, 24/7.
Topics: Crime, Parenting, TV, True Crime, US News, Mental Health
Olivia Burke