Turpin Case: New details in the 911 call reveal the extent of sexual abuse at 'house of horrors'
"My parents are abusive; they abuse us and my two little sisters are chained up..." the courtroom and judges listened in shock as the heartwrenching voice of 17-year-old Jordan Turpin was played out in the chilling 911 call. After escaping her house, where she and her siblings were being held captive, Jordan alert the authorities of the horrific abused they suffered at the hands of their parents David and Louise Turpin. The tape was played as a part of the preliminary hearing held at the Riverside Hall of Justice on on June 20, reported ABC7.
The scared but brave teen was heard telling the 911 dispatcher: "I’ve never been out. I don’t go out much, so I don’t know the streets or anything… I live in a family of 15 people and my parents are abusive; they abuse us and my two little sisters are chained up. Sometimes I wake up and I can’t breathe because of how dirty the house is. We never take baths."
Jordan and her 12 siblings were famously named the Turpin Thirteen, the children, who escaped the California House of Horrors.
ABC7 reporter Rob McMillan, who was live-tweeting the entire trial, said Jordan told the authorities that "she was sexually abused by David in the TV room upstairs, when they lived in Murrieta," aside from other horrifying things she went through. She also claimed that her father "called her over to him, pulled her pants down, and put her on his lap."
Jordan had told her father that "[She] didn't like that stuff" but the man kept harassing her. The alleged encounter had stopped the moment the two of them heard the mother, Louise, walking up the stairs. Jordan said she immediately jumped off her father's lap and pulled up her pants. David then told her that she "better not tell anybody what happened".
The two parents were charged with 12 counts of torture and false imprisonment, nine counts of child abuse and seven counts of cruelty to a dependent adult. David also faces one count of lewd acts on a child under 14-years-old, while Louise has been charged with assault resulting in great bodily injury.
According to all the thirteen victims, their disgraced parents used to chain them to their beds for months on end, force them to stay in their rooms for almost 20 hours a day and only allowed the children to shower once a year. The parents also prevented the children from having social media accounts or even going outside without their permission. David and Louise both pleaded not guilty to the multiple abuse charged that were laid against them earlier this year.
McMillan reported from the court that Jordan, who has allegedly only finished the first grade, said that her mother nearly choked her to death after she was caught watching a Justin Bieber video. He wrote in a tweet: "Mother told her 'Do you want to die? Yes you do, you want to die. You want to die and go to hell'."
The Turpin family children are all enjoying their newly-found freedom to the fullest. The lawyer for the eldest of the 13 children has revealed that the children eat lasagna and watch 'Star Wars' movies among other things they were never able to do before.
Jack Osborn, the lawyer, has said that the children read a lot of books, have started using iPads and also like listening to country songs. The kids faced many years of abuse from their parents, David and Louise, and the news of one child escaping the horror home to free the rest of her siblings made headlines across the country in January.
Osborn also said that the children play basketball and football while putting together a "game plan for their life" in the time that it takes for them to get all the care they need. Ranging from ages 2 to 29-years-old, the 13 Turpin children were rescued in January after undergoing years of alleged abuse and also being starved by their parents at their home in Perris, California.
When authorities raided the home, they had found some of the kids chained up to beds and there was evidence that emerged recently that the children were beaten. Some of the kids who are minors are being kept at a facility for care while the rest of the children, seven of them, are adults so they are being treated at a hospital while enjoying all the freedom they can.
Osborn, whose law firm is representing the older children in the on-going legal battle against their abusive parents, has been visiting them regularly at the Corona Regional Medical Center in California. He said in a statement to USA Today: "Most of all, they’re looking forward to being independent and coming up with a game plan for their life."
"They want to finish school, they want to have careers. They look forward to going out to movies and shopping and everything else people their age are doing." The authorities raided the home after Jordan managed to escape after plotting the daring mission for 2 years.
The 17-year-old said that she and her dozen other siblings are very happy to be free after suffering endless years of torture and abuse at the hands of their parents. Currently, the children are under the protection of the Child Protective Services (CPS) and are pretty optimistic of their futures.