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'I still have nightmares': 'House of Horrors' survivor Jordan Turpin breaks silence on abuse at foster home

Jordan Turpin revealed that she and five of her siblings faced more physical and psychological abuse while in foster care

Jordan Turpin, one of 13 siblings horrifically abused and locked up by parents David and Louise Turpin, finally spoke out about the trauma faced by her and the siblings in foster care. The 21-year-old, who is now a TikTok star with more than 500K followers, said, “It's been a very scary journey.”

In an interview with People on July 27, Jordon shared, "I'm not ready to go into details about what happened to me in that home [House of Horrors]. I was very traumatized, and it's been a very scary journey. It was really hard to understand the first situation [with my parents]. Then going into another, that was just really, really hard. You have all these questions and you just don't get the answer." Talking about her parents David and Louise, with whom she hasn't spoken in years, Jordon said, "I still have nightmares. I can't imagine if I ever kept in contact with them. There's no way I would be able to heal."

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Talking further about her bond with her siblings, Jordan said, "We all look out for each other. We all have this super big bond. We have our inside jokes, and we're all very, very close." She also added that after the rescue, she and five of her siblings faced more physical and psychological abuse while in foster care. As per the People report, the siblings filed lawsuits against Riverside County and a private foster care agency in March 2021, which got followed by the arrest of their foster parents, Marcelino and Rosa Olguin, and their adult daughter Lennys Olguin, who were charged with multiple counts of child abuse. Marcelino has also been charged with committing lewd acts on children.

Netizens react to abuse

After the interview was published, netizens expressed their anger toward the foster family. One wrote, "How F*cked is our Society. These "Foster" Parents knew where these Children came from and further abused them. It makes them Complicit of a High degree of charges." Another individual expressed, "Finding out Jordan Turpin was able to graduate high school is emotionally wrecking me today."

"Those poor kids went through hell and back with their parents, but to have to live in an abusive foster home was unacceptable and a slap in the face to their existence. Prayers to all of them that they can move on with life, grow and enjoy life for a change," another user wrote.

House of Horrors

In January 2018, it was Jordan, then 17, who managed to escape the Perris, California, house that led to her siblings’ freedom. Thirteen of them were starved, beaten, chained up, denied education, and barely bathed when they lived with their parents. In an interview with ABC, along with the eldest sister, Jordan described, “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. But at the end, when I saw all my younger siblings, I knew that’s what I had to do.”

As reported earlier, Jordan crawled out of one of the bathroom windows in the house and ran out in the open, planning to get help for her other siblings. After Jordan managed to escape, she was too traumatized to even dial 911. "My whole body was shaking. I couldn't really dial 911. I think it was us coming so close to death so many times. If something happened to me, at least I died trying," she recollected.

When the police arrived at the home, they shockingly found everything the escapee said to be true. The other children were found in a room at the family home, cruelly shackled in a dark and terrible-smelling room. At the time of the raid, seven of the 13 children were over the age of 18. The parents -- David and Louise Turpin -- were arrested by the authorities but they pleaded not guilty. There had been many legal charges and court hearings that followed the arrest.

In February 2019, both pleaded guilty on 14 felony counts, including cruelty to a dependent adult, child cruelty, torture, and false imprisonment. Later, in April 2019, they were sentenced to life imprisonment.

If you or anyone you know suspects child abuse, you are urged to immediately call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential and the hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.