How Riverside County authorities failed others before they placed Turpin siblings in Olguins' care
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.
PERRIS, CALIFORNIA: The Turpin siblings experienced severe abuse living in the "House of Horror," and five of the 13 children were moved to a foster home, which only made the trauma they already experienced worse.
MEAWW previously reported the five younger siblings were put under the care of Marcelino Olguin, his wife Rosa, and their adult daughter, Lennys, by Riverside County and ChildNet despite knowing that "they were unfit." From early 2018 through March 2021, the Turpin siblings resided with the Olguins. Olguin sexually harassed the siblings, so there was no doubt that they were denied the opportunity to heal from the abuse they had already experienced. He was accused of "grabbing and fondling their buttocks, legs, and breasts, kissing them on the mouth and making sexually suggestive comments," as per the lawsuit filed. He was also accused of physically torturing the siblings by "pulling their hair, hitting them with a belt and striking their heads," with his wife and daughter.
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ChildNet and Riverside County Children's Services Division were the social services that assisted in finding foster care for the Turpin siblings. Kathy Hughes, 62, who earns $398,154 year, has been running ChildNet, a Long Beach-based charity that specializes in connecting vulnerable children with foster parents, since 2013. Charity Douglas, 50, a career bureaucrat who has served as the division's director since September 2018, is in charge of the Riverside County Children's Services Division.
Douglas was hired to fill the position after her predecessor was fired because of a different abuse incident in which Jacqueline Doe, a 13-year-old girl, was regularly raped and got pregnant by her mother's boyfriend. Riverside County was eventually compelled to give Doe a record $10M after being found to have made a number of mistakes. The Riverside County was also sued in a similarly shocking incident that involved a baby boy being badly beaten up and left with serious head injuries after social workers sent him back to his abusive mother.
More shocking information has also emerged about the Olguins. The "sick" family forced the children to recount the trauma of their upbringing in "confession circles" and barred them from communicating with their adult siblings, according to the DailyMail.
All five children were also subjected to frequent threats of having their hands inserted into electrical shockets and forced to watch as Lennys reportedly tormented another child in their care. These fresh disclosures come as the Olguins were getting ready to face criminal charges, starting with a two-day pre-trial hearing that will start on January 13, 2023. All three have entered not guilty pleas to several counts of child abuse
Living with their biological parents David and Louise Turpin, who were both currently serving life terms for years of cruelty meted out to their 13 children, forced the siblings to deal with the brutal reality of growing up. With only one meal a day and one bath a year, the siblings were imprisoned, beaten and strangled.
David and Louise Turpin were charged with 12 counts of torture, 12 counts of false imprisonment, seven counts of abuse of a dependent adult and six counts of child abuse. Both were given life sentences with a 25-year parole eligibility period, which experts believe will not be possible considering the severity of the crime.