'The only word I know to call it is hell': Turpin sisters share the details of their family's house of horror
Jordan Turpin was 17 years old when she found herself crawling out of a window of her family's home, hoping to save the lives of her 12 siblings.
For two years, she had been planning her escape after decades of unspeakable emotional and physical violence inflicted by her parents in their Perris, California home. Equipped with nothing but an old cellphone she found in the house, Jordan ran out and called 911.
"I was always terrified that if I called the cops or tried to escape, I would get caught, and then I knew I would die if I got caught," Jordan, now 21, told ABC News' Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview Friday. "But at the end, when I saw all my younger siblings, I knew that's what I had to do."
During the chilling 911 call, she told police the house the family lived in smelled so badly that she could barely breathe, and she thought she and her siblings might need to go to the doctor.
When the first police officer arrived, she immediately showed him the phone, full of photos and videos she took of herself and her siblings to prove the abuse.
Her bold getaway in January 2018 led to the discovery of her siblings and uncovered what Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin described as one of the "worst, most aggravated child abuse cases" he has ever seen.
Some of the siblings, who ranged in age from 2 to 29, had been found shackled to beds with chains and padlocks. A few of the adults were so malnourished, they looked like young teenagers.
That morning, Jordan sat in the back of a police car and watched as her parents, David and Louise Turpin, were arrested. The pair were each sentenced to 25 years to life in prison after pleading guilty to 14 charges of torture, adult abuse, child endangerment, false imprisonment and more.
Their first glimpses of freedom
When police arrived at the Turpin home and declared they were conducting a welfare check, it didn't take long for them to recognize the magnitude of the children's horrifying reality.
They discovered a home reeking of human excrement, decaying garbage, and molding food, with every surface covered in trash, ABC News reported in the 20/20 program titled, "Escape From A House Of Horror." The children were found quietly sitting in filthy beds, limp, frail, caked in dirt, their arms covered in bruises.
One child was found with his wrist and ankle chained to the bedpost; he had been in that state for weeks. Bodycam footage from that day show the heavy chains used on the children.
"'The only word I know to call it is hell," said Jennifer Turpin, the eldest of the children.
The 13 Turpin kids were taken to a hospital, where their nurses and doctors began treating them for a long list of issues. Some were so emaciated they could barely walk, others suffered from heart damage due to a lack of nutrients. One preteen's arm was the size of a 4.5 month old baby, according to ABC.
The children had limited language skills and knew little about the outside world.
Besides suffering severe caloric malnutrition associated with muscle wasting, several had cognitive impairment and "neuropathy, which is nerve damage, as a result of this extreme and prolonged physical abuse," Hestrin said.
The first thing Jennifer Turpin did to celebrate was dance in the middle of her hospital room.
"Music was playing, I got up," Jennifer, now 33, told Sawyer. "I made sure there was a little bit of a floor cleared out and I danced."
There was also an exhilarating visit to a playground.
"I was so excited because I could smell the air, I could smell the grass. I was like, 'How could heaven be better than this'?" Jordan said. "Oh my gosh, this is so free, like, this is life."
"If something happened to me, at least I died trying"
The parents had starved their 13 children, shackling them with padlocks and taunting them with pies left on the counter of their home, authorities said. None of them had seen a doctor in more than four years, and none of them had ever visited a dentist.
Usually, their only diet consisted of just peanut butter sandwiches, the sisters told Sawyer. On rare occasions, they were given frozen foods. And if they were still hungry and got caught trying to eat anything else, they were viciously punished.
Sometimes the children were left so hungry, they ate packets of ketchup and ice cubes.
"When you have parents abusing their kids to this level, and they're their own flesh and blood, it begs this question 'How can any sane person do this?'" Hestrin said on the ABC News special. "And the truth of the matter is sane people commit evil acts all the time."
The day before Jordan's escape, she said she overheard her parents saying they were moving the family to Oklahoma. If they moved, Jordan said, there was "a big chance" some of them would have died.
"That was my only chance," she continued. "I think it was us coming so close to death so many times. If something happened to me, at least I died trying."
Jordan recalled when she first began considering what her life could be like if only she weren't trapped. It was because of singer Justin Bieber, she says, whose music and interviews spoke out to her.
While her favorite Bieber songs are "As Long As You Love Me," "Boyfriend," and "Baby," it wasn't only his music that inspired her to take action.
"I started realizing that there's a different world out there," Jordan said.
She enjoyed watching his interviews, learning new words from him while realizing the things they had in common. But one day, her mom caught her secretly watching a Bieber video and choked her.
Free, but still neglected
Despite overcoming a life many could not even begin to imagine, the Turpin children aren't completely safe yet.
ABC reported that a few of the Turpin children were placed with a foster family that was arrested and charged with abusing multiple children in their care, including at least one Turpin child.
Another Turpin child who is now an adult was placed in a home where her foster parent told her she understood why her parents would chain her up.
"They felt betrayed," Melissa Donaldson, the Director of Victim Services in Riverside County, told the show. "Did we see kids having to not have a safe place to live or stay at times? Yes. Did they have enough food at times? They did not."
"We have to fix it. You would think that this is the time to really get it together and do everything we can, and we didn't do it that way," she continued.
At times, some of the Turpin children didn't have access to housing, and relied on couch surfing for shelter, Donaldson said, adding that they also went to churches to get food.
"I don't really have a way to get food right now," Jordan said. It began when she was released from the extended foster care system in July, without any help with food, healthcare, or housing, ABC reported.
Unfortunately, her sister isn't in a much better position.
"Well, where I live is not the best area," Jennifer said.
Despite receiving $600,000 from generous strangers across the country, the Turpin children have had difficulty accessing the money, and questions as to why have gone unanswered by county officials who cited court-ordered secrecy, ABC reported.
"They're living in squalor. They're living in crime-ridden neighborhoods. There's money for their education, they can't access it," Hestrin said.
"They have been victimized again by the system, and that's unimaginable to me that we could have the very worst case of child abuse that I've ever seen, maybe one of the worst in California history, and that we would then not be able to get it together to give them basic needs, basic necessities," he added.
“我知道的唯一一个词是地狱”：特平姐妹分享了他们家恐怖屋的细节
乔丹·特平 17 岁那年，她发现自己从家里的窗户爬出来，希望能挽救她 12 个兄弟姐妹的生命。
两年来，她的父母在加利福尼亚州佩里斯的家中遭受了数十年难以言喻的情感和身体暴力，她一直在计划逃离。除了她在房子里找到的一部旧手机，乔丹跑出去拨打了 911。
“我总是害怕如果我打电话给警察或试图逃跑，我会被抓到，然后我知道如果我被抓到我会死，”现年 21 岁的乔丹在周五的独家采访中告诉 ABC 新闻的黛安索耶. “但最后，当我看到我所有的弟弟妹妹时，我知道这就是我必须做的。”
在令人不寒而栗的 911 电话中，她告诉警方，这家人住的房子闻起来很糟糕，她几乎无法呼吸，她认为她和她的兄弟姐妹可能需要去看医生。
当第一个警察到达时，她立即向他展示了手机，里面装满了她为自己和她的兄弟姐妹拍摄的照片和视频，以证明虐待行为。
她在 2018 年 1 月的大胆逃亡导致了她的兄弟姐妹的发现，并揭露了河滨县地方检察官迈克赫斯特林所说的他所见过的“最严重、最严重的虐待儿童案件”之一。
一些年龄从 2 岁到 29 岁不等的兄弟姐妹被发现被锁在床上，身上挂着链子和挂锁。有几个大人营养不良，看起来像十几岁的少年。
那天早上，乔丹坐在一辆警车的后座上，看着她的父母大卫和路易斯·特平被捕。在承认犯有酷刑、虐待成人、危害儿童、非法监禁等 14 项指控后，这对夫妇每人都被判处 25 年有期徒刑。
他们第一次看到自由
当警察到达特平家并宣布他们正在进行福利检查时，没过多久他们就意识到孩子们可怕的现实的严重性。
美国广播公司新闻在 20/20 题为“逃离恐怖屋”的节目中报道说，他们发现了一个充满人类排泄物、腐烂垃圾和霉菌食物的房屋，每个表面都被垃圾覆盖。孩子们被发现静静地坐在肮脏的床上，软弱无力，满身泥土，手臂上布满瘀伤。
一名儿童的手腕和脚踝被锁在床柱上；他已经处于这种状态好几个星期了。那天的随身摄像机镜头显示了孩子们使用的重链。
“‘我知道的唯一一个词是地狱，”孩子们中的长子詹妮弗·特平说。
13 个特平孩子被送往医院，在那里他们的护士和医生开始为他们治疗一长串问题。有些人瘦得几乎不能走路，有些人则因缺乏营养而心脏受损。据美国广播公司称，一个青春期前的手臂大小相当于一个 4.5 个月大的婴儿。
孩子们的语言能力有限，对外面的世界知之甚少。
赫斯特林说，除了遭受与肌肉萎缩相关的严重热量营养不良之外，还有一些人患有认知障碍和“神经病，即神经损伤，这是这种极端和长期的身体虐待的结果”。
詹妮弗·特平庆祝的第一件事就是在她病房中央跳舞。
“正在播放音乐，我起床了，”现年 33 岁的詹妮弗告诉索耶。 “我确保清理了一点地板，然后我就跳舞了。”
还参观了一个令人兴奋的游乐场。
“我很兴奋，因为我可以闻到空气的味道，我可以闻到草的味道。我想，'天堂怎么可能比这更好'？”乔丹说。 “哦，天哪，这太自由了，就像，这就是生活。”
“如果有什么事发生在我身上，至少我已经死了”
当局说，这对父母让他们的 13 个孩子挨饿，用挂锁把他们铐起来，并用留在他们家柜台上的馅饼嘲弄他们。四年多来，他们没有人看过医生，也没有人看过牙医。
通常，她们唯一的饮食就是花生酱三明治，姐妹们告诉 Sawyer。在极少数情况下，他们会得到冷冻食品。如果他们仍然很饿并且试图吃其他东西被抓到，他们就会受到恶毒的惩罚。
有时孩子们饿得要命，他们会吃一包包番茄酱和冰块。
“当你有父母将他们的孩子虐待到这种程度时，他们是自己的血肉之躯，这就引出了一个问题，‘任何一个理智的人怎么能做到这一点？'”赫斯特林在 ABC 新闻特别节目中说道。 “而事情的真相是，理智的人一直在作恶。”
乔丹逃跑的前一天，她说她无意中听到父母说他们要把全家搬到俄克拉荷马州。乔丹说，如果他们搬家，他们中的一些人“很有可能”会死去。
“那是我唯一的机会，”她继续说。 “我想是我们多次如此接近死亡。如果我出了什么事，至少我死了。”
乔丹回忆说，当她第一次开始考虑，如果她没有被困住，她的生活会是什么样子。她说，这是因为歌手贾斯汀·比伯 (Justin Bieber) 的音乐和采访对她产生了影响。
虽然她最喜欢的比伯歌曲是“只要你爱我”、“男朋友”和“宝贝”，但激励她采取行动的不仅仅是他的音乐。
“我开始意识到外面有一个不同的世界，”乔丹说。
她喜欢看他的采访，从他那里学习新词，同时意识到他们的共同点。但有一天，她的妈妈发现她偷偷看比伯的视频并掐了她一把。
自由，但仍被忽视
尽管克服了许多人甚至无法开始想象的生活，特平的孩子们还没有完全安全。
美国广播公司报道说，一些特平儿童被安置在一个寄养家庭中，该家庭被捕并被指控虐待他们照顾的多名儿童，其中至少包括一名特平儿童。
另一个现已成年的 Turpin 孩子被安置在一个家里，她的养父母告诉她，她明白为什么她的父母会把她锁起来。
“他们感到被出卖了，”河滨县受害者服务中心主任梅丽莎·唐纳森 (Melissa Donaldson) 在节目中说。 “我们是否看到孩子们有时不得不没有一个安全的地方居住或逗留？是的。他们有时有足够的食物吗？他们没有。”
“我们必须解决它。你会认为现在是时候真正把它整合起来，尽我们所能，但我们没有那样做，”她继续道。
唐纳森说，有时，一些特平儿童无法获得住房，只能靠在沙发上冲浪寻求庇护，并补充说他们还去教堂买食物。
“我现在真的没有办法获得食物，”乔丹说。据美国广播公司报道，这开始于她于 7 月从长期寄养系统中释放出来，在食物、医疗保健或住房方面没有任何帮助。
不幸的是，她姐姐的处境也好不到哪里去。
“嗯，我住的地方不是最好的地方，”詹妮弗说。
据美国广播公司报道，尽管从全国各地慷慨的陌生人那里收到了 600,000 美元，但特平的孩子们很难拿到这笔钱，县官员援引法院命令保密的理由也没有回答这些问题。
“他们生活在肮脏的环境中。他们生活在犯罪猖獗的社区。有足够的钱供他们教育，但他们无法获得，”赫斯特林说。
“他们再次成为系统的受害者，这对我来说是不可想象的，我们可能会遇到我见过的最严重的虐待儿童案件，这可能是加州历史上最严重的案件之一，然后我们将无法把它们放在一起，为他们提供基本的需要，基本的必需品，”他补充道。
