Turpins - 13 shackled kids

[singsingsing]

18 minutes ago, TSOWOATNK said:

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. 

What's chilling to me is not so much the fact that they don't have houses and 401Ks, but that they were literally physically held in bondage by their parents in their own house and apparently malnourished and severely abused for decades.

[TSOWOATNK]

3 minutes ago, singsingsing said:

What's chilling to me is not so much the fact that they don't have houses and 401Ks, but that they were literally physically held in bondage by their parents in their own house and apparently malnourished and severely abused for decades.

At 29 you are well into adulthood. Heck, if you are a woman you will get the title "elderly" if you are pregnant in 6 short years. Parents shouldn't dictate to a 29 year old what they can and can not do, because a 29 year old is an adult and should have complete autonomy. The physical shackling just makes it even worse. I'd think it was abusive to control a 29 year old even if they weren't shackled and malnourished. 

[Elegant Mess]

2 hours ago, TSOWOATNK said:

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. 

There is a condition is known as psychosocial short stature that is commonly witnessed in cases where children are left in confinement or are under extreme stress for a long time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosocial_short_stature

[FoodieNotFundie]

25 minutes ago, singsingsing said:

What's chilling to me is not so much the fact that they don't have houses and 401Ks, but that they were literally physically held in bondage by their parents in their own house and apparently malnourished and severely abused for decades.

I completely agree. Obviously the physical aspect of the abuse is horrible, but the emotional/mental abuse, too. I hope they all have a lot of support in this crucial adjustment period. Does anyone know if there are laws in place to protect those aged 18+ in this type of situation? From what we can see superficially, it doesn't look like they are equipped to "adult" (for lack of a better term) *sigh* 

[Rachel333]

4 hours ago, Nikedagain? said:

Oh my cow.

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

The haircut makes me think of Jimmy Savile, which I suppose is fitting since Savile was an abuser as well.

[Destiny]

4 hours ago, backyard sylph said:

I see! After I refreshed three or four times, they appeared, though in an odd order.

Do you wonder how many more situations like this there are? Surely it's a bit like cockroaches; I've never seen one inside a house, but they say if you have them, there are nine more for each one you see.

Yeah, they were merged, because there was 4? 5? threads on this topic at once point. The order is because they are in chronological order from the various merges, so if you posted on thread 1 at 3pm, thread 2 at 3:15, etc, they would be in that order vs their original thread order. I hope that made sense.

[adidas]

Not much new info, just all put together in one place by the media. 

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/house-of-horrors-inside-creepy-christian-family-who-shackled-and-starved-children/news-story/cd632c934235c2dc30b0ca9cd9eaa958

[Aunt Bee]

The news said the legal age ones are in adult protective custody. 

[Dandruff]

2 hours ago, hasunah said:

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

The Arndts do it a lot better.

Dad's hair reminds me of Captain Kangaroo.

[Elegant Mess]

1 hour ago, Rachel333 said:

The haircut makes me think of Jimmy Savile, which I suppose is fitting since Savile was an abuser as well.

The dad also reminds me of British politician Boris Johnson.

The mom sure has creepy eyes, doesn't she? 

[luv2laugh]

The adults in their 20s living there remind me of the Arndt kidults. I think there's creepy mind control going on. Out of all the fundies, I'd say the Arndts have freaked me out the most because of this reason. The amount of adult sons under one roof is not normal.

I read that they were/are homeschooled and that the father made a salary of $140k as an engineer but were in a significant amount of debt. Apparently many neighbors had no idea kids lived there. A housewife that saw them said they only came out at night and thought it was vampire-like. They were instructed to not acknowledge her when she attempted to say hi. It sounds twisted, abusive, and sick. I wouldn't be surprised if the parents got involved with a cult.

[Curious]

5 hours ago, nausicaa said:

Also, I read that the father had applied for a license to operate a private school on the same street (which makes me think homeschooling?)

Didn't the Maxwell's have to do this?  I seem to recall they had some weird name they say their kids graduate from.  Maybe that was just a choice to seem like their kids graduated from an actual school though.  Now I'm not sure if it was required or choice.

[acheronbeach]

5 hours ago, TSOWOATNK said:

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. 

This is bizarre.  You've invented a whole history for this family based on... well, virtually nothing.  Why? 

Edit: Maybe... I'm hoping... you know them or have some sort of insider details?   

[mango_fandango]

38 minutes ago, Curious said:

Didn't the Maxwell's have to do this?  I seem to recall they had some weird name they say their kids graduate from.  Maybe that was just a choice to seem like their kids graduated from an actual school though.  Now I'm not sure if it was required or choice.

Yep, the Maxwell kidults graduated from Flowing Streams Christian School (more like Stagnant Pond Christian Prison). I think naming a homeschool may be a thing to do, to have something to put on a graduation certificate maybe? Having said that, the only other family I know of who’ve done it are the Fergusons (four kids, shilling doTerra in an RV), the kids attend “4 Oaks Academy”. 

[Tim-Tom Biblethumper]

Here's a little more on the religious connection:
Homeschooling where the Bible was key.
God called us to have eleventy children.
Oh, and they're Pentecostal.
http://abc7.com/grandparents-say-god-called-on-perris-couple-to-have-so-many-children/2950254/

1 minute ago, mango_fandango said:

Yep, the Maxwell kidults graduated from Flowing Streams Christian School (more like Stagnant Pond Christian Prison). I think naming a homeschool may be a thing to do, to have something to put on a graduation certificate maybe? Having said that, the only other family I know of who’ve done it are the Fergusons (four kids, shilling doTerra in an RV), the kids attend “4 Oaks Academy”. 

There's Duggar Academy, and Joyful Noyes Homeschool (Rodriguii)  

[Rachel333]

35 minutes ago, mango_fandango said:

Yep, the Maxwell kidults graduated from Flowing Streams Christian School (more like Stagnant Pond Christian Prison). I think naming a homeschool may be a thing to do, to have something to put on a graduation certificate maybe? Having said that, the only other family I know of who’ve done it are the Fergusons (four kids, shilling doTerra in an RV), the kids attend “4 Oaks Academy”. 

Yeah, I knew lots of families who made up names like that for their homeschooling.

[Destiny]

4 hours ago, Rachel333 said:

Yeah, I knew lots of families who made up names like that for their homeschooling.

Yup, and there are a lot of umbrella schools with names like that too. There was one I knew of that was something along the lines of Pleasant Oak Christian Academy. 

[mango_fandango]

Oh man I totally knew the Joyful Noyes one! That’s actually a pretty good pun 

[adidas]

I hate that Louise is smirking in her mug shot :/

In the following video they say a neighbour said they rarely saw the children, but when they did, they seemed afraid

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/house-of-horrors-inside-creepy-christian-family-who-shackled-and-starved-children/news-story/cd632c934235c2dc30b0ca9cd9eaa958

[FunFunFundie]

I can still see their Facebook.

I was trying to pick out which kids were adults and realized that, it’s hard to tell because of the infantilizing dresses, but it looks like none of the girls have any hint of breasts - I don’t think they’ve gone through puberty. :(. 

[Dogalog]

I can still see it too.

What a bizarre situation. Those kids will need years of therapy. I wonder what prompted the 17yo daughter to finally try getting help.

[bird]

8 hours ago, nausicaa said:

It's interesting how significantly smaller all the children are than the father.

I also noticed the very tall dad. Puts the children's size into perspective. They look so happy and relatively normal (apart from the tiny size). Very sad. And sad that these situations seem to be happening so often . 

[imokit]

Smiling in photos means nothing. A lot of ex fundies have spoken about being punished for not being happy.

The pearls openly talk about punishing for being ungrateful and having bad attitudes or countenance.

You can even look at Duggar photos and see how all the children start looking happier at a certain age, as the smiling training starts to work.

Looking happy in photos may mean they are happy or it may mean that they were beaten right before and are decent enough at acting to fake happy for pictures.

[OhNoNike]

“The parents were unable to immediately provide a logical reason why their children were restrained in that manner,” sheriff’s officials said in a news release.”

That’s such a weird thing to say.   When would there ever be a logical reason?

[Burpies]

2 hours ago, FunFunFundie said:

I can still see their Facebook.
I was trying to pick out which kids were adults and realized that, it’s hard to tell because of the infantilizing dresses, but it looks like none of the girls have any hint of breasts - I don’t think they’ve gone through puberty. . 

Oh man, those infantilizing dresses. That's what makes those pictures so unsettling to me. When I first saw those pictures, I didn't realize they were taken in July of 2016! I thought the girls were all 12 and under in that picture. I can't imagine any teens who would want to wear dresses like that, much less adults. Many of these families do wear the matchy matchy clothes, but usually the older children and adults wear something more appropriate to their age. Like this Bates family photo. The little girls are all wearing the same dress, but the older girls are all wearing something that matches, but it's a little different, with the older boys wearing suit jackets and different color ties. Whomever said the mother is playing perpetual bride with the children being perpetual children, hit the nail on the head. And truly, if that's what the parents were playing at, they may have accomplished their goal. Those adults may have been infantilized for so long, they may never be able to be full fledged adults in society. How evil these parents are in the name of their God.