Turpins 2- California Torture House (Graphic content discussed)

[meee]

3 hours ago, Blahblah said:

And inevitably......

http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/accused-couple-david-and-louise-turpin-allegedly-had-a-twisted-plan-for-a-reality-tv-show/news-story/b9db69f7820982e450d8b6fa71b97f0b

 

HUH??? They can't be Duggar Fam 2.0 or Jon and Kate 2.0, because there has to be something to watch, interesting or quirky or cute or whatever--DEATH CAMPS are not going to be featured on TV!  This makes things make even LESS sense!

Anyone know if there is the possibility of death sentence for these two?

[FecundFundieFundus]

One of the main reasons I began considering homeschooling when I was pregnant has only been touched on slightly- American schools have started to push academic study earlier and earlier to try and improve scores. While I highly value education, my preliminary research seems to indicate that homework is actually detrimental to education before around age 12. I want my kids to have play based learning while they're young and lots of time devoted to music, art, breaks to physically move their bodies, and opportunities to go outside.

[Lgirlrocks]

53 minutes ago, FecundFundieFundus said:

One of the main reasons I began considering homeschooling when I was pregnant has only been touched on slightly- American schools have started to push academic study earlier and earlier to try and improve scores. While I highly value education, my preliminary research seems to indicate that homework is actually detrimental to education before around age 12. I want my kids to have play based learning while they're young and lots of time devoted to music, art, breaks to physically move their bodies, and opportunities to go outside.

Have you looked into magnet school? Those tend to be more hands on learning.

[smittykins]

1 hour ago, meee said:

Anyone know if there is the possibility of death sentence for these two?

Everything I've read says the maximum is 94 years to life.(Even if they were sentenced to death, odds are they'd still die in prison; California's last execution was in 2006.

[formergothardite]

12 hours ago, Crazy Enough to Join said:

I'm not trying to start a creation vs. evolution debate since that's not the purpose of FJ.

Yes it is. As someone raised being fed a steady diet of fake creationists science I would say discussing it falls under the dangers of fundamentalism. I didn't have a clue what was going on it came time to take a college science class since my understanding of evolution was "only godless people believe it" and my understanding of how the earth was made came down to "God created the earth in six days and anyone who says otherwise is going to hell". 

[Petronella]

6 hours ago, Hisey said:

I think one of the most important questions in the homeschooling debate is this: what does the child want?

Most kids want to go to school. They want to be with kids their own age. They want to be with friends. They DON'T  want to be with their mom all day.

Not all kids, of course. But most.

I've also noticed that homeschooled kids are usually very curious about school, even if they are reluctant to admit this around their parents. What goes on there all day? What's gym like? How about recess? What's a Friday night basketball game like? What about the dance afterwards?

One of the most important reasons I don't homeschool is that my kids want to be with other kids. (I've got nothing against homeschooling, though). I don't think attending a weekly coop is the same as being with the same group of kids every day. You don't get the feeling of solidarity, and it is harder to establish friendship.

There's also the fact that if you are homeschooled, most of your peers are in school and have a whole language/cultural references you don't have.

I actually would've loved to homeschool but I didn't feel it was fair to my kids. They had so much fun with their friends. I couldn't compete with that.

Actually, there are plenty of kids who find the long hours of school socially draining, who appreciate time to daydream, read, focus on projects. You can have great friendships without being in a large group 8 hours a day/5 days a week. Sometimes friendships even thrive better in smaller groups and one on one.

There is a wide variety in how homeschooling is practiced. There are a lot of options between "in a group of thirty+ children all day five days a week" and "home with mom, has no friends."

You seem very convinced (from this and previous posts) that homeschooled kids can't grow meaningful friendships, can't have regular activities (our most committed activity meets four times a week), can't participate in sports (for years we were committed to swimming, tennis, and kung fu group lessons and stopped when the kids were sufficiently skilled and no longer interested), can't be part of music groups with peers (orchestra and choir are our two biggest group activities), can't have large social circles with plenty of diversity (and yet somehow our local homeschool community is a mix of Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and atheist, and quite international, as is the community at large). It seems to me that you likely live someplace where the school is the hub of the community and the provider of all extracurricular activities. That is not the case in all places.

School can be great! I just want to assert that homeschooling can also be great. The world is wide. Lots of different ways to be a great parent. Lots of different personalities for kids (not everyone craves being in the midst of a large group all the time, as you asserted above). And lots of different life stages too; one may homeschool for one stage of life but not all the way through. Whatever works best for the child.

Re the Turpins: We live in a no-regulations, no registration country, but we voluntarily registered as homeschoolers and welcomed annual home inspections. Homeschooling being used as a cover for isolation and abuse can't be tolerated. Organizations (like HSLDA) that automatically side with anyone claiming homeschooling against the "evil government" are evil themselves. Kids need protecting (but eradicating/forbidding homeschooling is not the answer).

This case is a horror. Those poor (and very brave!!) kids.

[FecundFundieFundus]

@Lgirlrocks Lol I am a magnet school graduate myself! With our (currently only) kiddo, we're prioritizing finding a school district that has good special education services. Lil' Fundus has blossomed at his current Montessori daycare, so if that's in the budget I'd love to stick with Montessori style education. 

[FiddleDD]

On a lighter note, I found this gem in a random article. The Turpins were homeschooling! They renewed their “vowels”! 

[meee]

I keep coming back to the Turpins. I can't remember what I have already commented on (when I'm on my phone I generally read but don't comment), so sorry if I am repeating myself. And please don't get me wrong, I don't doubt any of this and my "what the heck" questions are out of horror that this could exist, not literal disbelief.

How the heck were they able to pass as normal at Disneyland and the vow renewals? Not to mention the one son who went to college. I would think one shower a year wouldn't actually do much and they'd all have greasy hair and bad skin. And the emotional abuse - I mean, yes, I could believe "we have to act happy or else" but if they don't know what police or medicine are then how do they know how to interact with the Elvis impersonator? 

I'll reiterate a question I had earlier, but flesh it out some: how is it that all of these kids were close to death but none had actually succumbed? And I don't just mean starvation: if none had been to a doctor ever, all it takes is one nasty bacterial infection in that unhygienic environment on a malnourished body, see? And they are all close enough together in age that I don't think (G-d forbid) they could have killed any children and hidden the body.

A thought I had about the journals: could this be some sort of "trophy"? I have heard of serial killers keeping things that belong to their victims - perhaps, similarly, Monster 1 and Monster 2 (thank you to whoever came up with that) liked them to keep journals so they could read and gloat over what they were doing? But hopefully that's enough evidence to put them both away for life at least.

What happened with the animals? One house had dead dogs and a kitten in the dumpster, and suddenly they moved and they had well-treated dogs? What changed?

I wish I knew what I could do to help :-( even locally, as people have said, I just don't even know who to turn to, who really needs my donations or my time.

[nausicaa]

17 minutes ago, meee said:

I keep coming back to the Turpins. I can't remember what I have already commented on (when I'm on my phone I generally read but don't comment), so sorry if I am repeating myself. And please don't get me wrong, I don't doubt any of this and my "what the heck" questions are out of horror that this could exist, not literal disbelief.

How the heck were they able to pass as normal at Disneyland and the vow renewals? Not to mention the one son who went to college. I would think one shower a year wouldn't actually do much and they'd all have greasy hair and bad skin. And the emotional abuse - I mean, yes, I could believe "we have to act happy or else" but if they don't know what police or medicine are then how do they know how to interact with the Elvis impersonator? 

I think the abuse radically escalated in the past year or so. I think there was certainly abuse during the time they went to Disney, but not quite on the level of showering once a year and the oldest kids essentially being starved to death. 

It's also clear that at some point the older kids at least were taught the alphabet and how to write, as evidenced by their journals. One of the daughters was taken to the hospital for a dog bit when they lived in Texas, so there was some degree of medical care. I believe the eldest even attended elementary school for a time.

I think the older kids probably have a bit more of a sense of the world. Perhaps that's why they were abused the most? Because they had the most sense that this was wrong and knew enough of the world to know there was more out there? Who knows.

[FecundFundieFundus]

They probably "read" as poor, unhygienic and a little slow. I went to school with lots of kids who didn't have the best home lives and acted weird with poor hygiene. I don't know if their parents were contacted about the smell or if the teachers got DHHS involved or not, but it would surprise me if they did. Quiet kids pass under the radar and being poor isn't a crime. Students with non-abusive but poor parents may come to school in dirty clothes; laundromats are expensive, laundry detergent is expensive and they may or may not be living in a situation where they have access to hot water for a bath. Homelessness isn't uncommon for families, unfortunately. 

With the mom picking the son up at college, that's pretty normal for students with intellectual disabilities. I was in several art classes with a guy whose mom dropped him off and picked him up. 

[IntrinsicallyDisordered]

This story is an utter, heartbreaking horror and I don't have much to add but I keep going back to the dead dogs in the Texas house and live kitten in the trash...how does one see the condition of the house after they left, see dead/abandoned animals on the property, and not call CPS to check on the welfare of the children that also lived there?  Or just someone to check on the mental health of the adults if you didn't know there were kids?  At the very least you know they neglected animals to death!   Maybe they did and it just didn't go anywhere, but it's baffling to me that no one got involved at that point.  

 

 

[BlackSheep]

10 hours ago, DashwoodDaring said:

That house was built early in the development (2013) while most of the other houses, including neighbors, are newer; most were built in 2015 and 2016. One of the odd social behaviors of new development is that newcomers tend to almost cede the territory to the earlier residents. Think of it like getting on a crowded elevator - you’re far more careful to not intrude into someone’s personal space than when you’re the first person in the elevator. 

 It’s quite likely nobody in the neighborhood saw Monsters 1&2 move in because everyone came after, and never realized the preternaturally quiet people were dangerously strange. The children look enough alike, at least from a distance or in passing, that if I hadn’t seen the group photo early on, and only saw 3-6 of them at a time, I might not immediately guess there were 13. (And I’m sensitized to huge families; I’m the eldest of eight and grew up in the Corridor.)

I looked up their address on Google Maps, and in the satellite photo it looks like their house was one of three houses built for touring by potential residents. Fences are in front of those houses, and a parking lot is next door to the one that would become the Turpins' house. So it may have been among the first built, but it might not have been occupied until much later.

Satellite pic:

Spoiler

 

[meee]

Spoiler

 

I accidentally made a spoiler and can't figure out how to get rid of it, sorry. And if nobody knew where they moved to when they left Texas, they wouldn't have known where to call.

[DashwoodDaring]

The house was last sold in August of 2014 (to the Turpins), so if the house was originally a model, KB sold it well before the development was closed. (Which isn’t their practice. The model usually goes up for sale when the last lot is under contract.) 

[Firebird]

I actually begged my parents to homeschool me in seventh grade. At the time I was going to a small private school and in 1-5th grade I had basically been one of the golden children, one of my teachers had even been my babysitter when I was a baby to preschool age. 6th grade was a hard transition because I was in a class with a new teacher and with 6-8th grade boys and they terrified me.  I have always been extremely shy. I enjoyed seventh grade at home and was actually ahead or at least on par in some classes when I went back to the same school in 8th grade. I did miss being with my friends, which is why I went back. I don't regret the experience. I still had a hard time in 8th grade with socializing, but what teen doesn't struggle with figuring out social structures.

[BlackSheep]

5 hours ago, meee said:

HUH??? They can't be Duggar Fam 2.0 or Jon and Kate 2.0, because there has to be something to watch, interesting or quirky or cute or whatever--DEATH CAMPS are not going to be featured on TV!  This makes things make even LESS sense!

Anyone know if there is the possibility of death sentence for these two?

At what point did they plan to stop abusing their children and clean the house so that their life is camera-ready?

Stanley Steemer would have seen that mess and been like, nope. (And hopefully would have called the authorities.)

Delusions of fame and fortune by exploiting their children, on top of abuse and neglect! Monsters, indeed. I'm so thankful that that daughter found the courage to escape and get help. It probably took every ounce of courage and strength that she had.

I hope that these children will all graduate to a normal diet, and can someday enjoy everything from Thanksgiving dinner to hot fudge sundaes and much more, and that their parents will forever subsist on a prison diet. Even that is too good for them.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

15 hours ago, Crazy Enough to Join said:

There are 700 Ph.D. scientist members of the Creation Research Society alone I believe. I've personally met dozens of Ph.D. scientists who were young earth creationists (I used to hang out with a ton of scientists because of certain social ties.) I'm not trying to start a creation vs. evolution debate since that's not the purpose of FJ. But I just hate to see inaccurate information passed around saying that 0 Ph.D. scientists believe in young earth creationism. I know very intelligent Ph.D. scientists on both sides of the issue and I respect both.

Where did they get their PhD? In Clown College? Did they research science at Bible times? Did they develop new theories to prove that Earth is flat? Did they follow an online med research course while protesting outside Planned Parenthood?

But after all you may be right, even the Trumps got their degrees.

[feministxtian]

I don't know how true this is, but it wouldn't surprise me...

http://popculture.com/trending/2018/01/21/turpin-cadaver-dogs-house-of-horrors-dna/

[libgirl2]

A reporter on CNN was just commenting how Louis might use the defense that she was a battered woman. Wouldn't surprise me.

3 minutes ago, feministxtian said:

I don't know how true this is, but it wouldn't surprise me...

http://popculture.com/trending/2018/01/21/turpin-cadaver-dogs-house-of-horrors-dna/

Ugh, some how it wouldn't surprise me.either

[unsafetydancer]

@DashwoodDaring you made some interesting points, you also mentioned the Vimes theory of inequality with Boots which made me smile.

This story is probably the creepiest I have read about on here but I keep coming back to it. Those kids must have suffered horribly and I can't believe that no one even thought to try and look into their lives a bit more when they noticed the really strange behaviour mentioned by some of their neighbours. Homeschoolers definitely need to be monitored better to make sure that they are giving their kids a proper education and not abusing them behind closed doors.

Reading what other people have said on here about homeschooling and kids with different needs has been interesting. In the UK we have a lot of the same problems. There are not enough resources or teaching assistants available to give kids with special needs the education they deserve. My sister is a high school English teacher in a poor area with high crime levels and some of the stories she has told me are heartbreaking. Kids regularly come to school dirty and with no money for lunch or warm jacket in the winter. So many of the kids are falling behind due to dealing with stress at home that teaching them often involves prioritising the kids who are most likely to disrupt the whole class if left unattended and the quieter kids can end up missing out on the help they need. 

My own disability was entirely missed by both primary and secondary school and was only picked up halfway through university when I finally had a nervous breakdown from the sheer effort I had to put into coping on a daily basis. I would consider homeschooling kids if they had some of the same problems I did, at least until they are ready for high school so that they are allowed to figure out what they are good at in their own time and not pigeonholed by teachers who do not have enough time to spend figuring out how to include every child in everything. That said, I would also think that it should be obvious that homeschooled kids should be given tests by the education authority to make sure they are being taught and not just isolated by their parents. 

[CrossingRivers]

1 hour ago, FiddleDD said:

On a lighter note, I found this gem in a random article. The Turpins were homeschooling! They renewed their “vowels”! 

Did their vowels expire? Did they forget one the first time? 

I haven’t been able to read all the comments as I just can’t imagine what sort of fucked up parents would do this to other humans, let alone their own children. These parents are horrible and I hope they never see the outside of a prison for the rest of their miserable lives. 

[Howl]

I noted on one of the earlier threads that this immediately crossed my mind.  If the kids were on the brink of death when discovered, it would  certainly be possible that some kids/infants had died at some point, either recently or in the past. 

 

[FecundFundieFundus]

1 minute ago, CrossingRivers said:

These parents are horrible and I hope they never see the outside of a prison for the rest of their miserable lives. 

Hear, hear!!

I can't lie; all the bloodthirsty comments calling for torture, death, forced sterilization, etc. turn my stomach. Torture and abuse are evil, that's why we hate what was done to those kids. Committing more evil acts in revenge against evil doers doesn't make it moral... I guess more Quaker rubbed off on my atheism than I thought. Put them in jail where they cannot cause more harm. Get those children help. Change the laws to increase protection for homeschooled kids. 

[CrossingRivers]

@FecundFundieFundus I agree! I’m an absolute pacifist and abhor violence and the death penalty.