Turpins 2- California Torture House (Graphic content discussed)

[Cheetah]

30 minutes ago, upkacrane said:

So, according to M2's youngest sister, M2 gleefully told her that M1 was ok with her, M2, having sex with a man that she had met online and even drove her to the hotel (many miles from their home, IIRC) where the affair was to be consumed. Apparently she, M2, was super excited about the whole thing and wouldn't listen to her sister's advice not to do it...

who are M1 and M2?  Are we talking about the Turpins?

Also-

Thanks to whoever pointed the way to the web sleuths site... I've spent a lot of time there... but wondering if anyone else periodically gets rerouted to some crazy loud virus-y site that you have to shut down quickly?  

[meee]

7 minutes ago, Cheetah said:

who are M1 and M2?  Are we talking about the Turpins?

Also-

Thanks to whoever pointed the way to the web sleuths site... I've spent a lot of time there... but wondering if anyone else periodically gets rerouted to some crazy loud virus-y site that you have to shut down quickly?  

M1 = Monster 1, David Turpin. M2 = Monster 2, Louise Turpin. I think whoever came up with it based it on their "Thing 1, Thing 2" etc. matching shirts picture.

[lilith]

36 minutes ago, upkacrane said:

So, according to M2's youngest sister, M2 gleefully told her that M1 was ok with her, M2, having sex with a man that she had met online and even drove her to the hotel (many miles from their home, IIRC) where the affair was to be consumed. Apparently she, M2, was super excited about the whole thing and wouldn't listen to her sister's advice not to do it...

Even if this is true, why would her sister share it with the press? It’s purely salacious, it has nothing to do with the crimes the Turpin parents have been charged with.

These people aren’t celebrities, they have been charged with hideous crimes. I understand there is a lot of interest in them, and if profiles in either name showed up on dating sites I would understand reporting on it, but why is Mrs Turpin’s sister telling the media irrelevant details about her sisters sex life?

BTW, not using the M1 and M2 designations. I have a thing about calling people by their names.

[Cheetah]

3 minutes ago, lilith said:

Even if this is true, why would her sister share it with the press? It’s purely salacious, it has nothing to do with the crimes the Turpin parents have been charged with.

These people aren’t celebrities, they have been charged with hideous crimes. I understand there is a lot of interest in them, and if profiles in either name showed up on dating sites I would understand reporting on it, but why is Mrs Turpin’s sister telling the media irrelevant details about her sisters sex life?

BTW, not using the M1 and M2 designations. I have a thing about calling people by their names.

I'm going to stick with LT and DT as shorthand, I think, and I didn't watch the interview but it seems like their relatives are nearly as whacked as they are.   I hope the authorities vet them extremely well if they turn the kids over.

[JillyO]

12 minutes ago, lilith said:

Even if this is true, why would her sister share it with the press? It’s purely salacious, it has nothing to do with the crimes the Turpin parents have been charged with.

These people aren’t celebrities, they have been charged with hideous crimes. I understand there is a lot of interest in them, and if profiles in either name showed up on dating sites I would understand reporting on it, but why is Mrs Turpin’s sister telling the media irrelevant details about her sisters sex life?

BTW, not using the M1 and M2 designations. I have a thing about calling people by their names.

Thank you!! These people have committed heinous crimes, so maybe focus on that. I really don't understand why their apprently completely consensual sex life should be of any relevance to the public.

[meee]

Something else that I don't think has been brought up (apologies if it has, these threads are moving quickly)

The articles I'm reading says D and L got married in 1984. The oldest child being 29 puts her born in 1988/89. So either they didn't have children right away or... well, I'm going with that being what happened, but then I wonder what changed.

[Anonymousguest]

1 hour ago, meee said:

Something else that I don't think has been brought up (apologies if it has, these threads are moving quickly)

The articles I'm reading says D and L got married in 1984. The oldest child being 29 puts her born in 1988/89. So either they didn't have children right away or... well, I'm going with that being what happened, but then I wonder what changed.

L was just 16 so maybe they used a little bit if sense and waited until she was an adult. Or maybe they didn't know they wanted lots of kids until they had the first one. The older kids were also in public school, so their philosophy obviously changed over time.

[Curious]

20 hours ago, EmCatlyn said:

(Hello.  I have been away for a long time, but the Turpin story brought me back.)  

I have read through the two threads, and I don’t think anyone yet has posted that according to the Sunday Chronicle (UK),  Louise Turpin’s sister. Teresa and their half-brother want to adopt the younger Turpin children.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/907664/Turpin-family-California-children-torture-reality-TV-show-14-trial-latest-Louise-David

The article also reports what someone reported above about Louise telling her brother that she wanted to have a fourteenth child and that she thought their family could get a reality TV show and make lots of money.

On that subject my first reaction is that the renewal of vows tapes may have been, in Louise’s mind, a sort of audition.  My second reaction is that, sadly, the Turpin parents may still get money from selling their story, giving interviews, etc.   It’s a different kind of “reality,” but she may still get her “show.”

Welcome back @EmCatlyn!

I doubt the parents can make money off their "story."  There are laws that prevent people who have been convicted from making money off their crimes.   The kids, on the other hand, could probably make some decent money with a book, but who knows if any of them have the cognitive ability to do something like that

I hope they can all recover to the point where they are happy and can live as independent lives as possible.

[Rachel333]

I hope there's someone who can protect them from people who will want to take advantage of them and their story.

[NotQuiteMotY]

Someone up-thread asked about mandatory reporting. I don't know for sure about CA, but at least in my state, if you work directly with kids, you're pretty much automatically a mandatory reporter. Not just medical staff and teachers. I know this because I work in a public library and, since my job includes helping and talking with children, I'm considered a mandatory reporter. I don't have to report if, say, a kid has a bruise that could be explained by running into a table, but if I see a parent slap a child in front of me or the child says that the parent smacked them (as in @SapphireSlytherin's example above), that gets reported. If someone else in the library, not staff but there to just pick up a book, saw or heard it they'd be encouraged to report it but not required and have no penalties for not doing so.

[Black Aliss]

My state defines mandatory reporters (of abuse of anyone) as:

• Medical practitioners
• Nurses
• Dentists
• Social service counselors/therapists
• Psychologists
• Medical examiners
• Pharmacists
• School personnel
• Child care providers
• Law enforcement officers
• Juvenile probation officers
• Corrections employees
• DSHS employees
• Placement and liaison specialists
• Responsible living skills program staff
• HOPE center staff
• State family and children's ombudsman
• Any volunteer in the ombudsman's office
• Adults residing with child suspected to have been severely abused

[Imrlgoddess]

This story is still blowing my mind...I can't even. 

I watched the press conference last night and I keep thinking about each of the victims and what the detective kept saying...that they were relieved.  Being that there are so many of them at varying ages...what are the chances that one or more has the propensity to be this level abuser themselves?  I sincerely hope that with the amount of professional help they are receiving, that chance is slim.  I wonder about their lives as adults from this point on, not only for the ones who are currently of age but those yet to hit those years.  Will they be like some abused siblings who never marry and cling to each other for the rest of their lives?  What will "normal life" look like for them?  Will they always be in some state of survival?  So many questions.....it just makes my had spin......

[justoneoftwo]

About them having separate lawyers . ..  do we know her lawyer is being paid?  Many states have law firms on call for when the public defender's office has a conflict (i.e. there are two defendants).  They also may not really have been given much choice about having two different lawyers.  Most lawyers I know would insist that they couldn't represent both parties in this type of case.

Basically, her lawyer may also be a public defender, just from the conflicts list.  I wouldn't read much into the separate lawyers or one appearing to be not free unless we know it is the case.

[EmmieJ]

LT has a separate lawyer because if they shared an attorney, that attorney would have a conflict of interest.  My guess is that DT was assigned a public defender, then LT was assigned an attorney from a pool of pro bono attorneys who have agreed to donate their time to their local court system.

[anjulibai]

4 hours ago, upkacrane said:

So, according to M2's youngest sister, M2 gleefully told her that M1 was ok with her, M2, having sex with a man that she had met online and even drove her to the hotel (many miles from their home, IIRC) where the affair was to be consumed. Apparently she, M2, was super excited about the whole thing and wouldn't listen to her sister's advice not to do it...

Anyone else feeling like the sister is just making shit up? 

[SilverBeach]

M1 and M2 are fine designators by me. Mrs. Turpin is way too respectful for someone who has damn near forfeited her human race membership card. And I do think people's names are important and I make every effort to spell and pronounce them correctly. But this situation? I just don't care. I guess I'm not as holy and righteous as some. Fuck M2, Mrs. Turpin, whatever the hell you want to call her.

[upkacrane]

2 hours ago, lilith said:

Even if this is true, why would her sister share it with the press? It’s purely salacious, it has nothing to do with the crimes the Turpin parents have been charged with.

These people aren’t celebrities, they have been charged with hideous crimes. I understand there is a lot of interest in them, and if profiles in either name showed up on dating sites I would understand reporting on it, but why is Mrs Turpin’s sister telling the media irrelevant details about her sisters sex life?

BTW, not using the M1 and M2 designations. I have a thing about calling people by their names.

You are absolutely right. I quoted Teresa only because, if the portrait she paints of her sister were found to be true, then we could definitely rule out that it was fundi-ness that caused/inspired/facilitated the abuse. Obviously, not because fundies cannot to things in secret that completely contradict their credo (Josh Duggar, anyone? Doug Phillips?), but because they wouldn't brag about it to their family members. These people  monsters had long ago stopped pretending they were even Pentacostal Christians (as I believe both Louise's and David's families had been/are) and were actually openly "looking into other religions", according, again, to Louise's sister. I believe Wicca and Mormonism were mentioned. In my opinion, they were just trying to find the religious doctrine that would best cover/justify the abuse. I guess (only speculating here) that at some point they realised that pure and simple isolation and terror-induced absolute obedience were going to be the safest route to prevent anyone from stopping the abuse. You don't need to justify shit, if those who could stop the abuse know nothing about it and those who do know about the abuse are too terrified or too weak to do anything about it.

Every time I think I cannot feel more horrified, I read/see something that horror-strikes me into an entirely new dimension of sheer evil. There is this moment in the Turpins' second vow renewal (the one in which the older girls are wearing stiletto heels) in which the three sons are dancing on the dias next to Elvis. [Caveat: the following is just how I personally read the images. I have no way to ascertain whether my interpretation is correct or not] The first time I saw the video (before the arraignment, when many details were still unknown) I thought the middle son must have been physically or mentally disabled due to the way he moves and the way his eldest brother seems to support him as if to prevent him from falling down. I have just watched the video again and have noticed that the way the fabric of his trousers moves when he hesitantly tries to follow the rhythm of the song reveals the size of his legs. They are bone-thin. And then it dawned on me: the boy is not disabled and that is not just starvation, either. That is muscle-wasting after long periods of immobilisation. I once broke my left leg and was bed-ridden; after a month my calf was gone, just gone, it was just the bone and the skin and a little flaccid tissue in-between, that you could easily pinch with two fingers. That boy must have been shackled and unable to stand for no less than fucking weeks and yet the monsters had him now there, dancing and smiling to the monsters' marital bliss. When he could probably hardly walk at all. I had read about that particular form of punishment in the media, of course, but seeing its consequences with my own eyes is an entirely different thing. They made the boy fucking dance in those conditions. That's when the horror reaches its highest peak, for me personally: it's not just that they are torturing you beyond belief, but that you must also show them how thankful and happy you are that they do those things to you. You must publicly show you love them and celebrate them. The one thing that might save your sanity is at least being able to openly hate your torturer's fucking guts, to shout out to the world your pain. But no, you must dance and listen with a smile on your face while your torturers describe how incredibly happy they are.

The hardest thing for me, when I was still in contact with my momster, was to have to utter the words "I love you" and having to hug her or kiss her. I would actually have to repress my gag reflex everytime I was close enough to her to smell her perfume. BTW, she also had a thing for vow renewals. By the time I was a teenager she had to have one every year on their anniversary. One year my Dad did not have enough money for the big celebration that she demanded of him, so she told my sister, who was 10 at the time, and me that she was going to pretend that they (my parents) were at a resort hotel and we had to be the staff. We had to cook and serve them all their meals but then disappear and come back only when she rang the bell to clear the table or to return something to kitchen, of she hadn't liked it (exactly as if she had been at a restaurant). We had to prepare her her spa treatments and think of the background music for their evenings, the candles, the flowers, everything that would make it feel like a romantic get-away hotel. And when we were not needed we had to stay put in our rooms and could not get out, speak on the phone or speak to each other, lest we "broke the spell". A. WHOLE. FUCKING. WEEKEND.

Oh, and my sister and I were only allowed to shower every 5 weeks, but occasionally, 6 or 7 weeks might go by before she could be bothered to supervise us as we showered (her excuse was that we couldn't be trusted to shower on our own because we might slip and break our necks). Thank God, where I grew up bidets are the norm and everybody (boys and men included) would use the bidet after using the toilet. So, we were allowed to do that, and of course we secretly used the bidet to wash our feet every night, as well. We would also wash our torso at the sink, and sponge-bathe the rest. Of course, you coulnd't do this all in one go or she'd notice, so we took care of different parts of our bodies at different times of the day. I was 14 when my father realised this was going on and intervened. The one thing we could not wash or she would have immediately noticed was our hair. Luckily, both my sister and I have rather dry scalps, but after week n.3. you could definitely tell that our hair was plain dirty. I had got to get creative with my hairstyles so that my classmates wouldn't notice. Astonishingly, nobody ever made fun of me because of that. Every time shower day came, the momster would be absolutely furious that she had to waste her time on us (bitch never worked a single day in her life and had a maid 5 hours a day, 6 days a week; and Dad was the one grocery-shopping and cooking) and would always, always scream and shout and push, but the absolutely worst part was that, because we weren't allowed to use the blow-dryer, she would be the one blow-drying it for us. Sitting there while she cursed and insulted us, deliberatly scorched our ears and scalp and combed our hair so furiously that she would actually pull out strands of hair and leave marks on our ears and cheeks, that was hell, I assure you. We think that her rage was not only due to the fact that her being a control freak interfered with her selfishness and laziness, but also to her alopecia, as she may have been jealous that we had hair to wash and comb. Who knows.

And another wall of worlds from yours truly. Sorry folks, I promise I will try and be briefer and leave the personal stuff out of my comments. If you're read so far, I appreaciate it. It's weirdly theraputic to be able to vent like this.

[Sideways]

5 hours ago, upkacrane said:

So, according to M2's youngest sister, M2 gleefully told her that M1 was ok with her, M2, having sex with a man that she had met online and even drove her to the hotel (many miles from their home, IIRC) where the affair was to be consumed. Apparently she, M2, was super excited about the whole thing and wouldn't listen to her sister's advice not to do it...

Yes. This was on the Today show.  Very disturbing.  Why didn't the sister call CPS THEN?  If this incident occurred in 2009 or 2010, then the eldest Turpin child would have been 20, meaning there were only two "adult" siblings over 18 in the Turpin home to manage eight or nine more minor children while Monster #1 and Monster #2 drove to Alabama, from Texas, to have a swinger's weekend?

https://www.today.com/news/house-horrors-aunt-my-sister-her-husband-are-dead-me-t121492

 

[nausicaa]

1 hour ago, anjulibai said:

Anyone else feeling like the sister is just making shit up? 

So, interesting Websleuths development (I am unhealthily obsessed with this case if you haven't noticed...) but the mother does have another individual Facebook account under her maiden name, with a very flattering photo of her from 2013. 

I don't really care what consensual sexual activities they engaged in as a married couple, but I do think these developments show that it's a possibility 1) They probably weren't that religious, and 2) LT wasn't as controlled by DT as I first suspected.

[justoneoftwo]

15 minutes ago, nausicaa said:

So, interesting Websleuths development (I am unhealthily obsessed with this case if you haven't noticed...) but the mother does have another individual Facebook account under her maiden name, with a very flattering photo of her from 2013. 

I don't really care what consensual sexual activities they engaged in as a married couple, but I do think these developments show that it's a possibility 1) They probably weren't that religious, and 2) LT wasn't as controlled by DT as I first suspected.

I don't know that it shows LT wasn't controlled.  For some that is actually a kink and if she wasn't into it even the affair could have been an element of control (he wants x so she has to do x or something).  I'm not sure we will ever know who was really the leader in this, but a trial will provide some evidence.  

[SilverBeach]

I too got a virusy pop-up on websleuths, staying away from there.

[lilith]

1 hour ago, SilverBeach said:

M1 and M2 are fine designators by me. Mrs. Turpin is way too respectful for someone who has damn near forfeited her human race membership card. And I do think people's names are important and I make every effort to spell and pronounce them correctly. But this situation? I just don't care. I guess I'm not as holy and righteous as some. Fuck M2, Mrs. Turpin, whatever the hell you want to call her.

Not particularly holy or righteous, I just find the designations cringey. We are all adults here, we can all see that atrocious acts have been committed, we don’t need to take it upon ourselves to use language to exclude the perpetrators from the human race. The tragedy is that humans do commit these acts.

You often see this in comments on other child abuse cases - “I refuse to call her a mother, she doesn’t deserve that title”. Mother isn’t an earned title, it’s a statement of biological function or, in the case of adoption or step parents, legal designation. We might like to think that mothers don’t hurt their children, but they do and we can’t hide from that by manipulating language.

Its just something I feel strongly about.

[Maggie Mae]

47 minutes ago, nausicaa said:

So, interesting Websleuths development (I am unhealthily obsessed with this case if you haven't noticed...) but the mother does have another individual Facebook account under her maiden name, with a very flattering photo of her from 2013. 

I'm just impressed you can stand reading Websleuths! It's so confusing to navigate and all the signatures drive me batty. I tried to follow a missing family in my area there and it was so disappointing when the thread would blow up with "Prayers!" So much false hope that something actually happened in the case. 

[FilleMondaine]

2 hours ago, upkacrane said:

You are absolutely right. I quoted Teresa only because, if the portrait she paints of her sister were found to be true, then we could definitely rule out that it was fundi-ness that caused/inspired/facilitated the abuse. Obviously, not because fundies cannot to things in secret that completely contradict their credo (Josh Duggar, anyone? Doug Phillips?), but because they wouldn't brag about it to their family members. These people  monsters had long ago stopped pretending they were even Pentacostal Christians (as I believe both Louise's and David's families had been/are) and were actually openly "looking into other religions", according, again, to Louise's sister. I believe Wicca and Mormonism were mentioned. In my opinion, they were just trying to find the religious doctrine that would best cover/justify the abuse. I guess (only speculating here) that at some point they realised that pure and simple isolation and terror-induced absolute obedience were going to be the safest route to prevent anyone from stopping the abuse. You don't need to justify shit, if those who could stop the abuse know nothing about it and those who do know about the abuse are too terrified or too weak to do anything about it.

Every time I think I cannot feel more horrified, I read/see something that horror-strikes me into an entirely new dimension of sheer evil. There is this moment in the Turpins' second vow renewal (the one in which the older girls are wearing stiletto heels) in which the three sons are dancing on the dias next to Elvis. [Caveat: the following is just how I personally read the images. I have no way to ascertain whether my interpretation is correct or not] The first time I saw the video (before the arraignment, when many details were still unknown) I thought the middle son must have been physically or mentally disabled due to the way he moves and the way his eldest brother seems to support him as if to prevent him from falling down. I have just watched the video again and have noticed that the way the fabric of his trousers moves when he hesitantly tries to follow the rhythm of the song reveals the size of his legs. They are bone-thin. And then it dawned on me: the boy is not disabled and that is not just starvation, either. That is muscle-wasting after long periods of immobilisation. I once broke my left leg and was bed-ridden; after a month my calf was gone, just gone, it was just the bone and the skin and a little flaccid tissue in-between, that you could easily pinch with two fingers. That boy must have been shackled and unable to stand for no less than fucking weeks and yet the monsters had him now there, dancing and smiling to the monsters' marital bliss. When he could probably hardly walk at all. I had read about that particular form of punishment in the media, of course, but seeing its consequences with my own eyes is an entirely different thing. They made the boy fucking dance in those conditions. That's when the horror reaches its highest peak, for me personally: it's not just that they are torturing you beyond belief, but that you must also show them how thankful and happy you are that they do those things to you. You must publicly show you love them and celebrate them. The one thing that might save your sanity is at least being able to openly hate your torturer's fucking guts, to shout out to the world your pain. But no, you must dance and listen with a smile on your face while your torturers describe how incredibly happy they are.

The hardest thing for me, when I was still in contact with my momster, was to have to utter the words "I love you" and having to hug her or kiss her. I would actually have to repress my gag reflex everytime I was close enough to her to smell her perfume. BTW, she also had a thing for vow renewals. By the time I was a teenager she had to have one every year on their anniversary. One year my Dad did not have enough money for the big celebration that she demanded of him, so she told my sister, who was 10 at the time, and me that she was going to pretend that they (my parents) were at a resort hotel and we had to be the staff. We had to cook and serve them all their meals but then disappear and come back only when she rang the bell to clear the table or to return something to kitchen, of she hadn't liked it (exactly as if she had been at a restaurant). We had to prepare her her spa treatments and think of the background music for their evenings, the candles, the flowers, everything that would make it feel like a romantic get-away hotel. And when we were not needed we had to stay put in our rooms and could not get out, speak on the phone or speak to each other, lest we "broke the spell". A. WHOLE. FUCKING. WEEKEND.

Oh, and my sister and I were only allowed to shower every 5 weeks, but occasionally, 6 or 7 weeks might go by before she could be bothered to supervise us as we showered (her excuse was that we couldn't be trusted to shower on our own because we might slip and break our necks). Thank God, where I grew up bidets are the norm and everybody (boys and men included) would use the bidet after using the toilet. So, we were allowed to do that, and of course we secretly used the bidet to wash our feet every night, as well. We would also wash our torso at the sink, and sponge-bathe the rest. Of course, you coulnd't do this all in one go or she'd notice, so we took care of different parts of our bodies at different times of the day. I was 14 when my father realised this was going on and intervened. The one thing we could not wash or she would have immediately noticed was our hair. Luckily, both my sister and I have rather dry scalps, but after week n.3. you could definitely tell that our hair was plain dirty. I had got to get creative with my hairstyles so that my classmates wouldn't notice. Astonishingly, nobody ever made fun of me because of that. Every time shower day came, the momster would be absolutely furious that she had to waste her time on us (bitch never worked a single day in her life and had a maid 5 hours a day, 6 days a week; and Dad was the one grocery-shopping and cooking) and would always, always scream and shout and push, but the absolutely worst part was that, because we weren't allowed to use the blow-dryer, she would be the one blow-drying it for us. Sitting there while she cursed and insulted us, deliberatly scorched our ears and scalp and combed our hair so furiously that she would actually pull out strands of hair and leave marks on our ears and cheeks, that was hell, I assure you. We think that her rage was not only due to the fact that her being a control freak interfered with her selfishness and laziness, but also to her alopecia, as she may have been jealous that we had hair to wash and comb. Who knows.

And another wall of worlds from yours truly. Sorry folks, I promise I will try and be briefer and leave the personal stuff out of my comments. If you're read so far, I appreaciate it. It's weirdly theraputic to be able to vent like this.

You write all the walls you like. This has brought up a lot of yucky stuff for many of us, and it is important to express yourself in a safe environment. New to commenting, lurking for years. FJ folks are pretty great. Hugs.

[faraway]

Wasn't the general tone that Louise Turpin was (almost) estranged from her siblings? But she tells her sister she's  some other guy on the side with her husband's consent? I have a feeling most of the family members aren't fully there themselves then and I'm very hesitant to believe what those siblings are saying. 

 

Also, has this been posted before? This family was dysfunction central...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5292731/Aunt-13-California-house-reveals-abusive-childhood.html