Three of the 13 Turpin siblings, who were chained to beds and subjected to horrific abuse by their parents in a California 'house of horrors,' have shared the horrifying details of their childhood and their ongoing path to recovery. Julissa, Jolinda, and James Turpin were rescued from their birth parents, David and Louise Turpin, who tortured them for years.
Escape and Rescue
In 2018, then-17-year-old Jordan Turpin fled the family home through a window and called emergency services on a mobile phone she had sneaked out. She told officers how her brother and sister were currently chained to a bed. When police arrived, they found one child shackled to a bed, where they had been for weeks, and an overwhelming stench of human excrement and rotting food.
The children, aged between 2 and 29, lived in horrendous conditions. They were allowed to eat only once a day, showered no more than once a year, and had never seen a doctor or dentist. They were routinely beaten, starved, and locked in cages if they broke rules. One 12-year-old child had the arm circumference of a four-month-old baby. Jennifer, aged 29, weighed just 5 stone 11 pounds.
Sentencing and Forgiveness
David and Louise Turpin were found guilty on several felony charges, including cruelty to an adult dependent, child cruelty, torture, and false imprisonment. They received sentences of 25 years to life in prison. In powerful victim impact statements read during sentencing in 2019, some children expressed forgiveness. One said: 'Sometimes I still have nightmares of things that had happened such as my siblings being chained up or getting beaten. That is the past and this is now. I love my parents and have forgiven them for a lot of the things they did to us.' Another stated: 'My parents took my whole life from me, but now I'm taking my life back. I'm a fighter, I'm strong and I'm shooting through life like a rocket.'
Further Abuse in Foster Care
After liberation, the six youngest Turpin siblings were placed with foster parents Marcelino and Rosa Olguin and their adult daughter Lennys Olguin. Tragically, the children suffered further abuse. In 2024, Marcelino Olguin was sentenced to seven years in state prison, while Rosa and Lennys received four years of probation each. The agency that arranged the placement paid a settlement to the siblings but did not admit fault.
Healing and Bonding
Julissa and Jolinda, now 19 and 20 respectively, have gone on to live healthy lives. In a Diane Sawyer special titled 'The Turpins: A New House of Horror,' they discussed their healing. Julissa said: 'To me, it feels like, "Why do people get to have a family, and we don't?" And like we have each other, and that's the world, you know, but we still want a mom.' Jolinda added: 'I've been, like, literally discovering all these things about my brain that helps me have clarity of who I am, my identity, and who I want to be.'
James, 24, said he wished he had stable parents but learned to rely on alternative support: 'I've always wished I had normal parents or just someone I could like go to and, you know, rely on or ask questions or whatever, but I have the internet, so it's okay.' The sisters now share matching tattoos with lyrics from Harry Styles' song 'Fine Line': 'we'll be fine, we'll be alright.' Jolinda said: 'To me that song just means that like we're gonna be okay, we're always gonna get through everything and at the end of the day we're always gonna have each other.'
