Turpins - 13 shackled kids

[JermajestyDuggar]

I think I can pick out 5 that are in their 20s. There is one girl that is probably the oldest. Just looking at her face, she looks older than 29. The son with the glasses is definitely in his 20s. Then there are 3 other girls that look like they could be in heir 20s if you ignore their very childish outfits for the wedding. 

[singsingsing]

Only one of them looks like she could even be over 20 to me. The rest look younger than 16. Wow... what a terrible situation. I hope all of them get the treatment and support that they need, and that the parents are punished appropriately.

[Rachel333]

15 minutes ago, nausicaa said:

Yeah, I'm desperately trying to figure out which of those kids is actually 27/28 in those vow renewal photos. Food restrictions would stunt growth, but not facial aging. 

And who on earth would put twenty-something women in those bow sashed dresses? Even the Maxwells don't infantilize their kids like that. 

At least one of the girls, who I'm guessing is one of the ones in her 20's, looks seriously malnourished in those photos.

[nausicaa]

10 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I think I can pick out 5 that are in their 20s. There is one girl that is probably the oldest. Just looking at her face, she looks older than 29. The son with the glasses is definitely in his 20s. Then there are 3 other girls that look like they could be in heir 20s if you ignore their very childish outfits for the wedding. 

I can see the son and one of the girls being in their twenties (early twenties) but the rest just look like babies. 

It's interesting how significantly smaller all the children are than the father. God, this is all so sad. 

4 minutes ago, Rachel333 said:

At least one of the girls, who I'm guessing is one of the ones in her 20's, looks seriously malnourished in those photos.

I can definitely see that. Both parents look perfectly well fed. 

It also appears some of the kids may have special needs. 

How does adult protective services even deal with something like this?

[Rachel333]

I noticed people are writing really horrible comments on the facebook pages of the Turpins' friends, which is awful. There's no reason yet to think that those people knew about the abuse that was happening.

[JermajestyDuggar]

13 minutes ago, Rachel333 said:

At least one of the girls, who I'm guessing is one of the ones in her 20's, looks seriously malnourished in those photos.

She's the one I think is the oldest. She looks quite thin and because of the thinness, looks older than she actually is. Having a thin face ages you. Having a full face, makes you look younger. 

[luv2laugh]

This is devastating.

[Imrlgoddess]

The parents both look crazy as road lizards. That is horrible.... it's frightening & amazing at the same time that they were able to hide them so well for so long. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

There are a lot of pictures of just the baby on their page. I would guess the baby is the favorite. Maybe mom thought her baby days were through and got a surprise. None of the younger kids look That close in age to the baby. 

[adidas]

They are probably religious but maybe not fundie - her vow renewal dress shows her shoulders. 

Perhaps they became more fundie after the vow renewal.

[TSOWOATNK]

All older kids appear younger than they actually are. This could be because of abuse/malnourishment, or it could simply be genetics since it is literally *all* of them. I peaked around their FB page, and it looks like they were more "involved" in the outside world at some point. 

I have a hypothesis;

The family was weird, but just short of abusive for years and years. They caught the attention of child services, so they reacted by completely cutting their kids/family off from the outside world in order to "protect" them. The father worked in something akin to intelligence, so he was already fairly paranoid. When child services got involved, he thought it was some sort of government plot "new world order" kind of thing so the transition to paranoia was quick. This "unjust" intervention was known in their circle of friends, so the sudden lockdown of socialization was excused/largely ignored. The older kids that had once known some modicum of freedom objected to the lockdown, and were "influencing" the younger kids to "misbehave" so they were shackled and "disciplined" in order to get them on board with the new family rules. 

 

[lilith]

There’s a huge gap between the baby and next child - huge enough that it makes me wonder if the “mother” actually birthed the child. Pure speculation there though.

[Beermeet]

The wedding picture must be recent, yeah?  The youngest was said to be 2 in the article.  The clothes and size of everyone is shocking.   They all look like 5th-9th graders.  They were hidden and chained, my god.  This is maybe an hour from where I live.   Awful.

[Pammy]

The sister's Christmas post mentioned that both of her parents died within months of each other (possibly recently), and that she had been raised with abuse, poverty and malnourishment. If this information is true, and if it also applied to her sister (the mother of these children)  -- I think perhaps the death of her parents precipitated a crisis that spiked the level of abuse. It also may have normalized a longstanding level of abuse and ongoing neglect.

I also concur with the possibility of doomsday-type motivations for the isolation.

[FecundFundieFundus]

Totally off topic, but they (he?) has Magnum condoms publicly "liked" on Facebook. Idk if the company execs want an insane abusive father of twenty advertising their birth control. My guess is they're not fundamentalists exactly, but do veer toward conservative Christian churches because they support the parent's public authoritarian parenting. 

[Beermeet]

2 minutes ago, FecundFundieFundus said:

Totally off topic, but they (he?) has Magnum condoms publicly "liked" on Facebook. Idk if the company execs want an insane abusive father of twenty advertising their birth control. My guess is they're not fundamentalists exactly, but do veer toward conservative Christian churches because they support the parent's public authoritarian parenting. 

Ew.  They clearly don't use condoms.  Is that a "if I did, they'd be Magnums" thing?  Ew.

[mango_fandango]

Holy fucking shit. This is horrendous.

The joint FB is now gone. Not surprised.

Words can’t express what I wish would happen to these parents. I hope karma bites them in the arse HARD and that they end up burning in Hell. 

[hasunah]

I read through the websleuths thread and found this posting by a member there very fitting 

Quote

It is like the mom is the perpetual bride and the kids are forever children.

 

[Aunt Bee]

THe pictures at Disneyland on Facebook look like normal kids having a good time and being normal goofy kids. What happened in the last 18months?

[FoodieNotFundie]

Finally emerging from years of lurkdom on FJ...

First, I want to express how tragic of a situation this is and thank goodness that one was able to get to the authorities.

Just thought I'd share that I did some snooping (I'm into genealogy so am frequently on public records sites). I'm not going to out anyone's exact identity, but the eldest five (records are only available through a certain year) have first names starting with "J". Wonder if the rest are Js, too... (not to draw any parallels, of course). But weird nonetheless... 

[JermajestyDuggar]

8 minutes ago, Aunt Bee said:

THe pictures at Disneyland on Facebook look like normal kids having a good time and being normal goofy kids. What happened in the last 18months?

The Disney picture was from 2011! They didn't grow as much as they should have comparing the 2011 Disney pictures and the 2016 vow renewal pictures. 

4 minutes ago, FoodieNotFundie said:

Finally emerging from years of lurkdom on FJ...

First, I want to express how tragic of a situation this is and thank goodness that one was able to get to the authorities.

Just thought I'd share that I did some snooping (I'm into genealogy so am frequently on public records sites). I'm not going to out anyone's exact identity, but the eldest five (records are only available through a certain year) have first names starting with "J". Wonder if the rest are Js, too... (not to draw any parallels, of course). But weird nonetheless... 

Since they seemed to force them all to have the same exact hair cuts I am going to guess they all have matching J names. They were all a unit it seems. Like so many large fundie families.

[Cheetah]

The sister of the mom (Elizabeth Jane Robinette Flores) lives in W VA... my mind is wondering if there's some Rodrigues connection somehow.  

What an awful story!

[FloraKitty35]

2 hours ago, Nikedagain? said:

Oh my cow.

The dad looks like Michael Showalter's character Coop in Wet Hot American Summer!

I also see a resemblance to Michael Palin in a bad hairpiece.

[TSOWOATNK]

The fact that their 29 year old was held captive is so chilling. By the time I was 29, I already had a vocational degree, owned a house/car, and had 3 kids of my own with my husband of 11 years. By the time my husband was 29 he had a 401K, 2 kids, owned a house/car, and had literally been to war and back. 

56 minutes ago, hasunah said:

I read through the websleuths thread and found this posting by a member there very fitting 

 

I think this person is onto something. I love my husband, I'm very happy we have been wed for 20+ years; I have zero desire to re-live my wedding once more, let alone twice more (and definitely not with an Elvis impersonator). Maybe mom wants to be the eternal mother/wife, and the idea that the older kids could grow up and start families of their own is a threat to her status as the eternally young wife/mother.

The next wedding in our family will be for one of our kids; and I am absolutely OK with that. I don't want to be a grandmother real soon, but that has more to do with the fact that I really don't want our kids to have children before they are in their early 20s with an established vocation (our eldest is 16). Even if our daughters want to be mothers ASAP after getting married, they need to have some sort of vocational training/education.

[Jana814]

I just saw this story on my local news. So horrible!!  I hope they rot in jail.