RedHanded - Episode 148 - Captivity: The Turpin 13

Episode Date: May 21, 2020

On 13 January 2018, a 17 year old girl made a break for freedom from the house of horrors in which she’d been held captive. She called 911 and soon police stormed the disgusting house in Perris, California. They discovered several children chained to filthy beds in a nightmarish room where the floors were lined with faeces.  The children were the escapees’ siblings, and those responsible for the torture and imprisonment, were their very own parents. MERCH : www.redhandedshop.com References: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lcPhyMb5cc https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6jochd https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47991829 https://allthatsinteresting.com/turpin-family-children https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/turpin-family?CMP=ILC-refresh https://abcnews.go.com/US/david-louise-turpin-parents-allegedly-tortured-held-kids/story?id=62431899 https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/20/us/turpin-family-911-call/index.html https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/house-horrors-case-turpin-parents-sentenced-life-prison-torturing-children-n996326 https://nypost.com/2019/07/13/airfares-fancy-clothes-and-lavish-meals-how-the-turpins-kept-their-evil-secret/ http://qpol.qub.ac.uk/turpin-family-children-hidden-in-plain-sight/ https://www.today.com/news/house-horrors-how-turpin-children-are-doing-1-year-later-t146841 https://www.chipchick.com/2019/06/where-are-the-13-abused-turpin-children-now-here-are-the-most-recent-developments-in-the-ongoing-house-of-horrors-case.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/us/turpin-family.html https://people.com/crime/inside-the-house-of-horrors-2-years-after-escape-new-secrets-emerge-about-how-turpin-kids-survived/ https://www.distractify.com/p/what-happened-to-turpin-children See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed episode 7 billion. I just had no idea. And that's just during coronavirus times. Exactly. Barely drawing breath. I feel like we've quadrupled our output. Yes, yeah. Nothing like a global outbreak to make you super productive and focused, which is exactly what's going on here. Although, in London today, only 24 new infections. Oh, well that's good news.

Down from like 20,000. It's been halving every week. Well, that is good news. So although we now owe several pounds for the coronavirus tip jar, that is good news. And we have more good news because if you haven't yet listened to our Red Haunted episode that came out on Tuesday, I think, and you don't follow us on social media, maybe you don't know yet, but we are relaunching the Spooky Bitch merch. I know it's very exciting. You guys asked and we were like, fuck it. It's going to cheer some people up. So let's bring it back. So if you want to get your hands on some spooky bitch merch there are hoodies there are t-shirts all that good stuff and you can get it at redheadedshop.com link is in the episode description and it's only going to be up for three weeks so if you want to get it we possibly won't bring it back until October so yeah and remember

that 10% of the profit will be going to Solace Women's Aid at the end of this merch run. So your money is going to a good place. Nobody should have to choose between coronavirus and safety at home. So we are sticking some money their way and also donating our coronavirus tip jar that we have not been keeping track of. We'll just round it up to a big round number and send it off. Yeah, exactly. Pretty devastating what's going on with the whole domestic abuse situation. I'm sure it is the same in every country. But obviously, we only know what's kind of going on here in the UK. I watched

like a Channel 4 like mini expose that they did just as part of Channel 4 News last week. Fuck, it's so hard because also a lot of women who are in shelters and homes right now who are ready to move on can't because of COVID-19. And so they want to leave, but they can't get out. And they're also then, therefore, that's a bed that can't go to another woman who desperately needs it right now. So it's just like such a fucking shit show. Not anybody's fault. It's just really difficult. Well, if it's anybody's fault, it's the fact that we've been systematically culling all of the fucking domestic abuse beds in this country for years because of austerity so we'll do what we can and uh yeah get yourself some spooky bitch merch

while you can yeah on the topic of unhappy families we've got uh quite the example for you this week we promised you no more dead children for the rest of the month and we are sticking to that promise just about by the skin of our teeth. Just getting as close to the line as we possibly can without crossing it today. Yeah, just really taking the piss. We're going to continue

with the child abuse theme from our Feral Children Patreon episode that we did last month, earlier this month, who knows, no idea. And today we're going to tell you all about the infamous Turpin 13. the children of Louise and David Turpin, whose legacy of abuse, torture and false imprisonment was thrown into the global spotlight on Sunday the 13th of

January 2018. On that fateful day, a 17-year-old girl, one of the Turpin 13, made a break for it. She called 911 from a deactivated mobile phone that belonged to her mother, Louise. And here is a clip of what she told police. us and my two little sisters right now are chained up. And how many of your siblings are tied up? Two of my sisters, one of my brothers. How are they tied up? With rope or with what? With chains. They're chained up to their bed. We live in stilts and sometimes I wake up and I can't breathe because how dirty the house is. When was the last time you had a bath? I don't know.

Almost a year ago. I've never been out. I don't go out much, so I don't know anything about the streets or anything. Are you homeschooled? No, we don't do school. Our mother tells people we're private school, and she has a fake private school set up. But we don't really do school. I haven't finished first grade and I'm 17. I don't know much about my mother. She doesn't like us. She doesn't spend time with us ever. As you can hear from that clip, this girl, she's 17, she's a woman absolutely no idea how to interact with the normal

world she'd been incredibly sheltered in this house with her family and that's what we're gonna find all about today so that was quite i know it's a bit of a cheesy opening but you're gonna have to work for it i'm afraid just like we had to because uh there's not actually that much information out there surprisingly on this case isn't that what you found out? I thought this was like super... Yeah. Bait case, but apparently not. I thought it was super bait too.

I thought it was just going to be like standard family cult, kind of like the Vampire King one or like the... That Mormon one we did. But it's not at all. Like there seems to be no ideology behind it or anything like that. It just feels like this completely, not that any kind of abuse is necessary, but there doesn't really seem to be any reason for it. I think that's it. I think the weirdest, scariest thing about it is the kind of lack of ideology

underpinning the whole systematic abuse story that happens here. So the accusations and charges that would follow the call that you just heard would leave Louise and David Turpin facing 94 years to life in prison. I keep wanting to call him Dick Turpin. He's not. David Turpin. Isn't that Highwayman? Dick Turpin. The Highwayman? I think that is actually it. Was that Dick Tracy? I don't know. What are we even talking about? I have no idea. Dick Turpin was either a highwayman or... I get him confused with Dick Whittington. Who's Dick Tracy?

Who just moved to London. Dick Tracy. People are so angry. People are so angry. I feel like, is this an American? I feel maybe it is. If it is, you know what? I don't know who Dick Tracy is or Dick Turpin or Dick Whittington.

But from last week's episode people were like what is S-N-O-O-K-A mate I was blown away guys how the fuck do you not know what snooker is it's on TV I honestly I couldn't stop laughing how did I not know S-N-O-O-K-A is just a fucking western European thing that's nuts how do you not that snooker is just a fucking Western European thing. That's nuts. How do you not have snooker in America? That's crazy talk. I guess like, I know it's not the same, but I think it's just like they just have pool and call it that. But not, or billiards and not snooker.

But like when you go on to, because somebody put that in Instagram story to us and I tried to find like a gif of snooker you can't find it you have to search pool and then you'll find it so we're coming out now isn't it I did find it very funny how like people were so sure of themselves on the Facebook group they're like oh it's just exactly the same as pool but the balls are different colors and I was like no no no my friend it is much more boring and complicated than pool it is not fun and i forever now will just spell snooker with an a instead of an er let's start our own snooker ball just so i can call it that uh it's just it's perfect people were like is it to do with that woman snooki from geordie short i was like what could that possibly have to do with us oh man i was comedy blown away by how few people i think

like in the league tables of weirdest times that we haven't realized that other people would be like, what the fuck about it? People carriers, white people carriers, and then SN-O-O-K-A comes next. And fabs. You lot lost your mind over a fab. Jesus. And then when you tell them it's an ice lolly, they're like, what the fuck's an ice lolly? Guys, guys, we can't. We can't. Perfect. Amazing.

Sorry. Right. It's me. Dick Turpin. Sorry. I mean, David Turpin. I feel like that's going to happen a lot. I'm so sorry. So David Turpin was a well-to-do man. He showed a lot of promise at school and he went on to study computer engineering at Virginia Tech University. So clearly very intelligent man, very good school, very good degree. He's on it. Following all of this, he grew up to go on to work for Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, both obviously very reputable defense firms, and he worked in this space until he retired in 2012. His 1979 high school yearbook described David

as an officer in the chess club, the science club, and the Bible club. I can only imagine what a Bible officer does. Is it, I don't know, does he just have like a belt with loads of like mini Gideon's Bibles and throws them at people? He's like, hey, stop running in the hall. You need Jesus. and that's what i imagine a bible officer officer as well as the bible officer well look cost cuts you gotta you gotta merge all these officers into one but i do think his sort of um gravitation towards needing

to be officer in a lot of these clubs uh will resurface later on in his behavior with this particular family that he goes on to create. But you know, David, he wasn't just, you know, into being an officer of all these various clubs. He was also kind of a creative because he was a singer in the school's a cappella choir. And all this went down at the high school that he attended in West Virginia. This is also the very same high school that Louise Robinette, who would later go on to become Louise Turpin, attended. But she was there eight years after him. Louise and David therefore never met when they were at high school.

They didn't meet, in fact, until David was in his 20s and Louise was barely a teenager. And this love union happened at their local church. And this church was of the Pentecostal variety. and this love union happened at their local church. And this church was of the Pentecostal variety. Its members liked speaking in tongues and they did not like drinking alcohol. Well, even if they did like it, they certainly weren't allowed to do it. I'm sure people were having sneaky sips on the sly.

I always think it's very odd when Christians are like, oh no, no drinking. I'm like, wine's literally part of the dealio. Like,'t get it no i don't get it either jesus bloody loved wine turning all that water into wine he loved it so much he made water into it he was like fuck this water let's have wine come on guys kill with the program literally just at a wedding because they'd run out of booze literally no other reason he was like this wine is shit i'm gonna make better wine out of this water that's how much much Jesus loved wine, guys. And weren't they like, in the desert,

I'm probably quite thirsty for water. And he's like, nope, no one's having water. We're all having wine. No, they were at a wedding in Galilee. I haven't read the Bible. No, but even when he was in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights, he couldn't magic any wine then, could he?

He just had a chat with the devil for a day. Oh God. Very conditional powers, Jesus Christ. It does seem like it, doesn't it? Not the most convenient. So before Louise and David met, according to her sister, Teresa Robinette, Louise was an obedient daughter to her parents. But Louise was the kind of person who always got what she wanted, apparently.

When Louise and David got together, Louise's preacher father was furious. He thought it was totally inappropriate, given the pair's age difference, that they were ever left alone. But Louise's mother, on the other hand, loved David. He was a good Christian boy from a good Christian family. So she let little Louise see David, who was in his 20s, behind her father's back. And this decision from Louise's mum may well have been driven by guilt. And here's why. Louise's mother was sexually abused throughout her whole childhood. And when she had children of

her own, the very same abuser started on Louise and Teresa too. There are three documentaries out there on this case. Two of them are linked below. One is on Now TV. But if you don't have Now TV, there's literally no need to worry about it because the Channel 5 documentary that we've linked in the show notes called Tortured by Mum and Dad? is exactly the same documentary. They've just got a British guy doing the voiceover.

It's madness. I watched the Now TV one because I lied to our accountants and said that we only use it for work purposes and definitely not to watch Dance Mums. So I watched it and they were like, oh no, I will get my money's worth out of it this month. So I did watch it and then I watched the Channel 5 one afterwards

and I was like, hang on a minute. I've seen this before. I mean, fucking hell. Seriously, Channel 5? Yeah, great job really earning that money. You're making from all that quality television you're putting out. I mean, Hannah and I once did go for a chat with somebody about maybe you know doing a little docu-series for channel five didn't go anywhere that's okay we're fine with it but i did come home the day we were

told that it wasn't going to go ahead and i just went on um you know five on demand or whatever the fuck their online players call to take a look the headline one that was running across the top of the banner was raffles the world's biggest dog a documentary i remember that i was like sick cool no one wants red-handed the documentary but you want fucking the biggest dog in the world oh fuck off honestly man i keep thinking stuff like that whenever I watch a really shit documentary like oh my toe has kittens hats or something like that and I'm like why why do people why is that getting commissioned I know who is paying I am like the prime audience for watching and just consuming any of that kind of shit quote-unquote documentaries as much as you're enjoying our work-sanctioned Now TV, I'm really

enjoying our work-sanctioned ExpressVPN. Not sponsored, but maybe should be. When you are pretending to be in the United States, YouTube is so much better and there are like loads of fucking weird documentaries on there that I've been watching. I don't even know, I'm just fascinated with anything that's like medical when you made up one saying my toe has kittens I was like oh my god I'd watch that what what happened and honestly like the fucking I very recently voiced a documentary for and I just recorded it in the booth now that I'm doing and I did it for not very much money so like whoever recorded the channel 5 version channel 5 will have just bought the footage from Oxygen or whoever the fuck and then paid some poor guy in a box in his room to do the voiceover.

Probably like 200 quid. Outrageous. Genius. So don't pay for it. Don't go on Channel 5 and put it there advertising. It's on Dailymotion. I've linked it below. Just do that instead.

Right. The Channel 5 documentary, which is obviously the same as the Now TV documentary with a slight twist. Teresa doesn't reveal who this abuser is. She just says that he was a very wealthy man intertwined with the Robinette family's inner circle and that he would pay their mother to sexually abuse both her and Louise. And in the interview, she says she can still feel his breath on her neck as he told her not to tell anyone what he had done.

That detail is in almost every interview Teresa gives like across all platforms. So I think it must be like a really strong memory for her. And apparently this man would slip money into Teresa's hand as if that made everything okay. Louise and Teresa's mother told her daughters that she kept taking them back to see this man because she needed to feed them

and put clothes on their backs. In a later 60 Min australia video linked below it's all right it's a 60 minutes it gets the job done theresa also gives another interview in this documentary and she tells the journalist this time that the man who so viciously and consistently sexually abused her and louise was their own grandfather all the other reports I could find don't reveal the man's identity. It's only this one interview that I could find that Teresa confirms that it was her grandfather. Maybe he died and that's why she felt like it was okay to reveal the truth. We may never know. And of course, this abuse left an indelible mark on both Louise and her sister Teresa. Teresa's self-worth was totally destroyed and she is sure that Louise's of course was too. But Teresa insists to this day that even though

Louise went through hell in her childhood and well into her teenage years, she always knew right from wrong. According to Teresa, Louise knew what she did to her children was wrong, because if she didn't, she wouldn't have hidden it. Despite her abuse, Louise had a reputation of being good girl, and she kept that reputation for decades. She never smoked, drank, took drugs, gambled, or even came close to partying. Her only vice appeared to be David Turpin. One day after the pair had been courting behind Louisa's dad's back for a while, David showed up at his old high school wearing a disguise. Teresa claimed that he wore a fake moustache, pretended to be Louisa's dad and signed her out of school.

Teresa. I really want to believe her, but I just don't. I'm sorry. I'm sure there are some parts of her story that are 100% crystal clear, but she embellishes, I think. I'm not saying that she's made up her abuse. I'm absolutely not saying that. But I'm saying that there are some stages in the interviews

where she says things and I'm like, I don't know if I think that's true. If that is true, if that is true, I'm going to say if your boyfriend, if you're in high school and your boyfriend who is not in high school can turn up at your school and sign you out pretending to be your dad only wearing a moustache, only wearing a fake moustache, then not to be judgy, but he's too old for you. Well, not old enough. He can't grow his own moustache, clearly. Oh, mate, I've dated, not old enough. He can't grow his own moustache, clearly. Oh, mate, I've dated guys in their 30s who can't grow moustaches.

Maybe it's quite sad, isn't it? It's like being face-buried. Oh, man. I'm sorry, guys. You are going to get in trouble. It's not my fault. Oh, man. According to Teresa, as we said, this ridiculous disguise of just a moustache apparently miraculously worked, and David and Louise got in the car and

drove off to Texas. Remember at this point David was 24 and Louise was 16. Their plan was to elope but they were intercepted by Louise's father who had called the police and they were sent back to West Virginia. To everyone's surprise Louise's father wasn't enraged even though he had disapproved of the relationship from the get-go. The tables turned and he told Louise's mum wasn't enraged even though he had disapproved of the relationship from the get-go the tables turned and he told Louise's mum that she should be allowed to live the life that she wanted she being Louise and just like that the red sea of parental disapproval parted and Louise and David were married in a proper ceremony the service was small only immediate family attended and straight after the wedding the newly wedded Turpins moved to Texas to start their new life and what would become their enormous family. Could I just say when you said the tables have turned have you seen that tweet by one of like Donald Trump's kids? I don't know

I think not Don Jr the other one? Barron. Eric of it and he tweeted about like some stuff that's going on in the US. These are very bad guys. The chips are truly crumbling now. And Twitter just went for him. This man doesn't understand how to use metaphors. He's mixing them all over the place. It makes no sense. And it was just like a long list of tweets after that of people just mixing up these

metaphors. And it was perfect. And someone was like, I can't remember. There's a great one about tables have turned. I'll find it. I'll share it. It gave me five minutes of jokes during this weird time. Find it for under the duvet.

Yes, save it for there. I'll dig it up. David and Louise. After the tables had been flipped or whatever. The tables had been sauced. The chips had been built up. The house of pancakes had crumbled. I started watching Money Heist

the other day. It's cool, but in Spanish, it's called House of Paper, which is like a much better name. Money Heist is such a lazy name for a show about a fucking money heist. Is that what it is in Spanish? Because you're right, Money Heist is terrible because people

keep recommending it to me to be like, watch it'll really like it and i can't get past the title it's so shit money heist yeah it's it's better in spanish it sounds like they've directly translated it from another country to call it money heist cash steal funds grab like that's what i expected that's what i expected it to be and then i watched this the um the title sequence and i was like wait a minute that is not what that means i think i gave up but i've got so much time i struggled with it to be honest i usually fucking love shit in spanish but i think i think because it's um they just talk so damn quickly david and louise set up their newly wedded bliss in fort worth in texas and they had their first child three years after they got married.

So bear in mind that Louise was 16 when she got married, so she has her first baby at 19 years old. To every other member of her family, Louise seemed to have the perfect life. Teresa in particular puts a lot of emphasis on Louise having married her high school sweetheart and having stayed with him for so long as some sort of fairy tale ending. And I suppose like each to their own, and maybe it's a West Virginia thing. I can't really see not ending up

with your high school boyfriend as being a failure. But maybe it's like a preservation of virginity thing. It's like, oh, I've only ever been with one man kind of thing, maybe. Yeah, I reckon, because obviously they're quite churchy. So yeah, I feel like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But at the end of 1996, Louise had popped out six whole children

and was showing absolutely no signs of stopping. They have an interview with her half brother and he was like, she wanted 20. She was going to keep going until God gave her the many paws. That was her. The many paws? That sounds much cuter than it is. Hey Lil, would you like a little many paws? No.

She was literally going to keep having children until she physically could not anymore. That was her plan. David, as we know, had a great job. He had a six-figure salary and the Turpins were absolutely not afraid to flaunt it. They invited all of their extended family to come and stay with them for a week once a year and sometimes they even went to Las Vegas all together. David and Louise would treat their families to restaurant meals every single night of the week. And during the day, they would go to theme parks like Disneyland and Six Flags. And I have written here,

yo, we need to talk about Six Flags. I have never seen anything like it. It's like a theme park, but like the theme is just fun. There is no like, it's not like Disneyland where it's just like Disney characters. I don't know. I guess it's kind of like, yeah, it's not like Disneyland where it's just like Disney characters or whatever. I don't know,

I guess it's kind of like, yeah, there's like a water park, but Six Flags looks fucking dope. I like it. I feel like. When we go to America, let's go to Six Flags.

You'd hate it though, the water park bit. We don't have to go in there. I love water parks. Let's do it. I'm game. Are you really? They're a bit germy,

aren't they? Oh, probably. I'll get over it. It'll be fine. Maybe by then it'll be fine. We can get like big drinks in plastic pineapples. I think they do that. That sounds so much fun.

Fuck Disneyland. Let's stop giving our money to fucking Disney. Let's go somewhere else. Let's go to Six Flags. I'm game. Maybe Six Flags is at the heart of some sort of global conspiracy I don't know about. But I was only on their website for about five minutes and I was like, this looks like my kind of place.

Someone tell us about the politics of Six Flags. Are we okay to go there? I don't know anymore. When I was younger, my family used to go to Florida for every Christmas. So I have done my time in Disney World

and I know for a fact that those tickets are fucking expensive. They are so, so expensive. For like a day pass, especially if you want to go to all of the different parks, it's like hundreds of dollars, man. It's so expensive. Just extorting pass, especially if you want to go to all of the different parks, it's like hundreds of dollars, man.

It's so expensive. Just extorting families, man. I hate it. Yeah, exactly. And it's not like it's just David and Louise and their own spawn. It's like Louise's sisters and their kids. It's like huge groups of people that they're paying for. But the Turpins footed the bill every single time.

Never asked for any financial help from anybody. Even though they had already filed for bankruptcy once. This was kept top secret. Louise was too ashamed to tell anyone. And instead of cutting back on their spending, they just kept having more children, taking more holidays and getting more credit cards. Yes, a six-figure salary is great.

That is fantastic. But not if you've got like a million kids and you keep taking a bazillion people to fucking Disney World. Yeah, and the fucking rest. They were up to quite a lot of stuff. But these holidays did quickly come to a halt though in 1997. The Turpins now had seven children and they were about to totally drop off the radar. Teresa says the last time she ever saw any of the Turpin children was in 1998, when Louise brought her four eldest back to West Virginia for a visit.

Louise made it clear that this would be the last time she would be returning to where she grew up. She was too hurt and the memories were too strong. After this trip, when the Turpin family returned to their house at 3225 Roddy Drive, see, we're nailing those American house numbers. You're so good at those, Mara. I did practice when I read the script. I just put it in your bit because I didn't want to do it. When they returned to 3,225 Roddy Drive in Fort Worth, the Turpin children would lose all contact with reality.

Louise is so interesting because obviously she had a terrible fucking childhood but sometimes that can bond siblings together but she doesn't really she just completely cuts ties. I can understand the sort of not wanting to see her mum thing but like her sisters as well she's like I'm not I it's too physically too painful for me to even set foot in the state of West Virginia I'm not doing it anymore Yeah, it's like she puts all of that bonding onto David rather than with any of her siblings. Oh, totally. Yeah, I think, you know those people,

you know those couples who are just so like symbiotic with each other that they're not actually that bothered about having friends or anything else. They're just like, this is it. This is all I need. I think it's very that. Exactly. To the absolute fucking max. All of the children were given names that began with the letter J.

Very few news outlets will name the children, but they are out there. We've chosen not to use their names in this show because it doesn't really feel fair or responsible. And if you want to find them, you can. There are already a lot of people in this case. And if I were to start throwing all of these names at you, it's going to get more confusing.

And like, I'm sure they just want their privacy. And also finding 13 variations of names beginning with j is a feat in itself towards the end they just started making them up I swear to god just three kids just called j that'll do blue j humming j I don't know oh do you know that what animal has the highest blood pressure I thought it was a hummingbird which is what made me think of it but it's not uh what has the highest blood pressure is it a giraffe was a hummingbird, which is what made me think of it, but it's not. What has the highest blood pressure? Is it a giraffe? Oh, you fucking bitch.

Yes. I just guessed because obviously their extremities are so, their like limbs are so long. Well done, you. I swear I didn't know that, but I would have guessed hummingbird had you not said it's not a hummingbird.

Though I would say you asked me the other day if I could think of animals that are like start with the same as they end and i have desperately been thinking since we had that conversation and i can't fucking think of any and you gave even gave me one alpaca so no one gets any points for yeah and tweeting that but if you think of any others they go that'll keep your brain occupied for like 30 minutes until you get bored. Eagle's one. You is one, but I'm not sure if you counts because it's like a gender of an animal. Yeah.

Don't know. Anaconda, that's another one. Oh, yes. I don't know how many more there are, but those are the only ones I can think of. Someone tell us. As you were. It wasn't long after the family jolly holidays stopped that the Turpin children ran into some trouble at school. An eight-year-old female Jay started in first grade at a local elementary school.

She was frail and constantly taunted by her peers. She was older than everyone else by a couple of years. She smelled bad. Her hair was the greasy state. She wore the same clothes to school every day. These clothes were never washed. And kids can be cruel when none of these elements are present. So you can only imagine the torment that that poor girl faced when all of

those things made her such an easy target. But even though this bullying was going on, and I think it's pretty obvious when a kid is showing up to school dirty in the same clothes, you know, that's something's going on there. I mean, it's the first signs of neglect, the very first signs you should look for. But still, no one called social services and even family members didn't seem to twig that anything was wrong, not with the Turpin children, at least. Some red flags were raised, though,

when Louise's younger sister spent the summer with the Turpins in Fort Worth. While they were all driving through Louisiana, David took a turn off the interstate and Louise told her sister they were all going to go gambling. This was a huge shock to her sister Elizabeth, who could never imagine that her big sister with a fairytale life would indulge in something as sinful as gambling. Elizabeth was left to look after the children as Louise and David skipped off to the casino. The couple returned hours later and David was fuming. He told Elizabeth that Louise had a significant gambling problem and she just refused to stop, even when it was clear that she was on a

losing streak. Louise was equally upset when she returned. According to Elizabeth, she kept screaming, I'm not a child, stop bossing me around. I think we all know now where David's six-figure engineer salary went. So when Elizabeth and the Turpins made it back to the Fort Worth house, Elizabeth slowly noticed how authoritarian the Turpin parents were with their children. The kids had to ask permission to go to the toilet and ask permission to eat. And even stranger than that, Louise would place food on the table and call the children to eat one at a time.

The children had to sit down and smile and then wait for their mother to smile at them. Only then were they allowed to start eating. I mean, he's really like pulling out all of those chess Bible officer tips he gained. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Chess Bible officer is the name of my upcoming album. I haven't done one of those in fucking yonks.

What was my last one? Oh, the wonky avocados. The wonky avocados. And thank you for everybody who told me I should just keep avocados in the fridge to stop them going ripe. Like, I didn't fucking know that. Don't put them near a banana now.

Isn't that mad that bananas just didn't control the entire environment? Do you know you can't put onions and potatoes together because they just make all the potato sprout? Why? Do they make mutant... I thought they were going to be like all the potato sprout. Why did they make mutant? I thought they were going to be like a mutant baby potato onion.

I don't know, but that would be delicious. Elizabeth, in the same way as Teresa, as we'll come on to later, I'm not sure how much of her story I believe either. I think what it is, is there's a lot of like passing the blame, especially with Louise's sisters and her half brother. There's a lot of, oh, well, we had no idea because of this this this and this but then you'll look at something like this and Elizabeth's telling the story she's oh well I did notice that we were a bit strict and that was a bit weird and actually but they're kind of qualifying why they didn't do anything about it I think and that's

where some of these embellishments of the story come from, possibly. It's really hard because we obviously know that Louise's mum was sexually abused. And then we know that Louise and Teresa say that they were also sexually abused. Don't know the extent of it, I guess, with the other siblings. But it does seem like a group of siblings and a previous family, for Louise at least, where the frame of reference for like normality or anything like that just seems completely skewed but you know it it does seem very strange that nobody ever says anything but also what I thought was strange it's not just the family like other people see the kids and nobody reports anything and I think the whole like highlighting the gambling I'm sure Louise if not David both had significant gambling problems but I think it's like highlighting the gambling, I'm sure Louise, if not David, both had significant gambling problems.

But I think it's this sort of Christian background of like almost in for a penny, in for a pound. I mean, like if you're gambling, you're a terrible fucking person. And of course, you can abuse your children, you know. Definitely. And I also think I know we will go on to discuss this, but I do feel like to some extent, Louise and David are massively almost like busting a lot of taboos if you grow up in a very religious family but we'll come on to that. So over the whole summer Elizabeth lived in the Fort Worth house and she says that she never saw Louise or David be affectionate in any way with their children. After that summer the little female Jay that we heard from earlier started

second grade and her hygiene had got even worse. A classmate remembered that she smelled like dirty clothes and urine. Little Jay also discussed things that could be indicators of sexual abuse, things that certainly weren't appropriate for her age, even if she was a couple of years behind in her school career. She was also sent to the principal's office for rubbing her pubic area, but yet again no action was taken and there was no sent to the principal's office for rubbing her pubic area, but yet again, no action was taken and there was no investigation into the Turpin household. Again, classic signs of sexual, literally like the 101 signifiers of sexual abuse. I know. And the only thing I can say is obviously this is the 90s. This kind of thing is very front of mind these days for frontline workers. I don't know what

the situation would have been like there. And even if they didn't necessarily know exactly what was going on, it seems strange that nobody even called home to be like, even if they didn't suspect the parents of doing something that they didn't query it further. But again, maybe they live in like quite a repressed area. Maybe it's just something like no teacher or anybody would have felt comfortable calling their parents up and being like, hey, she's talking about sex at school and rubbing her pubic area. Maybe it's just too much. Yeah, especially in a Christian environment. In 1998, the Turpins filed for bankruptcy again.

It seemed that the Louisiana gambling trips had not stopped. This second trip to Bankruptville inspired the Turpin family to become even more isolated. So they moved to a 36-acre lot in deepest, darkest rural Texas, a place called Rio Vista. This really was in the middle of nowhere. There were neighbours, but their houses were quite a way away from the Turpin home. And one of these neighbours were the Vinyard family. And they, being polite Texans, went over to make an effort to get to know the newcomers. But they very quickly noticed that there was something off. The Vinyard's daughter, Ashley,

would approach the house every time she saw the children come outside. But as soon as they saw her, these children would retreat. One day, Ashley did actually manage to speak to the children. And she asked them what their names were. And one of the older girls replied, if you pay attention to what we say, you might be able to figure out what our names are that's fucking creepy i i feel like she's been told she's not allowed to say her name and that's why she's saying it like that but that's fucking scary yeah it's like that riddle with the like the two people in front of the doors that are like one always lies and one always tells the truth

it's literally like one of those it's like a scene from Labyrinth. Poor Ashley Vinyard. She's just probably just so fucking happy that some new kids have moved into this fucking bumfuck nowhere place that she lives. Yeah, and there's fucking billions of them. So she's like, oh my God, one of them probably would be cool. I can finally have a friend. They're like, well, if you pay attention to what we say,

maybe you can get... I'm not making fun of these kids. It's just like... I have four legs in the morning. Oh, how the cookies have turned. Oh, God, I'd be scared. So this entirely bizarre sentence that was uttered at Ashley was met with terror from one of the other Turpin girls.

She was younger and she said to her sibling who had said it, no, don't, as if they were afraid of getting in trouble for talking to strangers. That isn't a weird thing for a child to be taught. But the Vineyard family soon noticed something much more worrying about the Turpin brood. All of their hands were totally white. They looked like they were all wearing gloves. But they weren't wearing gloves at all. It was just that the rest of them were so dirty that their hands looked like they belonged to entirely different children. And when the Vineyard family managed to ask the children about their hands, one of the little Jays replied that to wash your hands above the wrist

was wasting water. These people, let's just, you know, remind ourselves. These people, he was on a six-figure salary working for a defence contractor. They were going off fucking gambling, spending all this fucking money. But for their kids to wash their hands above their wrists was a waste. It's just so nonsensical. It's so bizarre. It's like Andrea Yates's husband who worked at NASA but lived on a bus.

It's very similar. So many kids, constant kids. Yes, NASA. Not Rayathon. Where do you work? Lockheed Martin. It's very similar. So many kids, constant kids. Yes, NASA, not Rayathon, where do you work? Lockheed Martin. It's very similar, you're right. It would later be revealed that the Turpin children were only allowed to wash once a year and the ordered mealtimes had devolved into one meal a day

while living in their rural Texan home. Two of the older J-boys were spotted rummaging through the bins near the property and still no one reported anything. That's pointed out by Louise's half-brother and again I think it's, you know, because the family are having video calls with their children and they're not

seeing anything wrong so like the brother says oh well people spotted them rummaging through the bins, if I'd have seen that I would have done something. Shirking the blame slightly I think. Although the children were so undernourished, they weren't growing properly. Louise still sent photographs of her children all together to family members that she refused to see in person.

In these images, the children look normal, although they are small and slight. They are all wearing matching clothes. And my personal favourite photo is all of the children together, I think at Disneyland, and they all wear like thing one and thing two t-shirts from cat and the hat but except the numbers go all the way up to like however many turpins they were at that particular time so it's like thing nine it's so weird i'm like all this cutesy family stuff but then also all this like bizarre abuse and restrictions and control. It just makes no sense.

Like I literally, trying to get my head around this, looked up, literally googled, why do people abuse children? And I still don't know. I still don't have an answer. Obviously, what people will use in this example is that children who are abused themselves are more likely to abuse their own children because that's sort of what they know or you know there's lots of different ways of explaining it but I just don't feel like that

fits here I mean we don't know that much about David for reasons that we'll go on to explain later but I know Louise was abused but in in such a different way yeah I mean the only thing I can think and obviously when we say are more likely to we just mean we're not saying at all if you were abused as a child that you would go on to abuse your children. Of course not. Just saying that there can be that behavior from some people. And the only thing I can think with Louise is that her frame of reference is so skewed. She's so controlled by David.

I don't know. It's very, very difficult. It doesn't make any sense because like we said, there's not a clear ideology that underpins their behavior that you can look to to reference why they're behaving like this to make any sense of the decisions that they make it just doesn't make any sense and maybe them taking their kids out wearing all these cutesy t-shirts taking photos sending it to the family it does feel like it's a way to maintain normality to not raise any alarm bells i don't know no one spotted a problem from these staged photos of a happy family but then it's quite difficult even for an expert to spot a prolonged child abuse from a singular smiling snapshot

children generally smile when they're told to especially when they know there will be severe consequences if they don't do you know what else learned? I learned the proper term for stunted growth. I think, I'm going to get this fucking wrong now, I think it's psychosocial dwarfism. Psychosocial dwarfism? Oh. When your environment stunts your growth. And that's, yeah, that's, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. And that's what happens here to basically all these kids, isn't it? In May 2004, the Vineyard family noticed something else on the Turpin property, other than children with clean hands and dirty everything else. A mobile home worth $36,000 appeared out of nowhere overnight. And this particular model is described as a double wide. What on... America, you've got to quit. You've got to quit right now. What the fuck is a double wide?

What on God's green earth is a double wide? I hate that. And my brain immediately just jumped to a sexual place. So maybe there is something sexy about a caravan and I've been wrong all this time. No, I don't know. I don't know. I feel like these kind of...

I mean, obviously we have caravans here, but do we have this much choice as the Americans seem to? I don't know what they're talking about. I don't think a double wide would fit on our roads, to be honest. That's a good point. And I don't think we'd be able to attach it to a fucking Ford Fiesta and drive it around. And again, very, very similar to the Andrea Yates case, because now David and Louise, along with their 10 children, moved into this caravan. I don't care if you're calling it a double-wide. I don't feel like any kind of caravan is going to be big enough for 12 people. That just doesn't seem like a thing. And they moved because their house had become totally uninhabitable. But no one would know how bad it had really got for months. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We

bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history, presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all You don't believe in ghosts? I get it.

Lots of people don't. I didn't either. Until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals,

prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death.

The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Soon after the family moved into their double wide, Louise gave birth to her 11th child. And in 2006, baby number 12 followed. Oh my God.

But things in the trailer obviously didn't get any better. And it was here that David constructed a cage to keep the children in, that strayed from his preordained straight and narrow. The exact dates aren't clear, but at some point Louise and David left 10 of their children in the double wide to essentially fend for themselves. They took the two youngest children and moved into an apartment 40 miles away. The teenagers were put in charge of the younger ones and they were strictly instructed by phone by their parents. It's really like we said it's very

hard to know the motivations of David and Louise during this period of time, but many have speculated that the Turpin parents only maybe liked the very early stages of childhood, the bit where children are totally defenseless and in need of like 24-hour care from their parents. And perhaps once the child got bigger, maybe they just lost interest. Really hard to know with these two.

Like we said, they never make anything particularly obvious. I also wonder if they just felt like they got in over their heads, you know? They're fucking 12 kids. We've had 12 kids. And now, fuck, let's just take these two, pretend none of this is happening, and just go live in an apartment 40 miles away

and pretend, like, stick our heads in the sand. It's just very bizarre avoidance true i think they were abusing the the older one i think they've they've always abused them like it wasn't just like they got to 12 and like a flip a flip switched a switch flipped no that's true that's true and maybe you know the uh psychosocial dwarfism like you told us about uh you know, that starvation that they inflicted upon their family. Maybe it was so severe because they knew it was going to stunt the children's growth and this was like an attempt to keep the kids little forever, to trap them in childhood and to stop them from ever growing up because maybe they didn't want that. So that makes sense, yeah. It's literally the only thing I can pin on it because it just seems so

senseless it does I don't know do you know what it reminds me of is did you ever read a child called it no I never did I just I couldn't face it I haven't read it no I think yeah it would push you over the edge actually I read it when I was I think I was probably about 16 when I read it and it reminds me of that because the way I mean the man who writes the book the way his mother treats him as a child is so some of the most horrific descriptions of abuse I've ever heard and just because she could that was it there was no real like she was obviously not a very well woman but there wasn't any ideology behind it again not that that makes it okay but that's what I find it difficult to get my head around is that there just seems to be no reason for it at all. I think you're right I think a lot of this does have to do I mean

if you're controlling how much somebody eats how much somebody can even wash their body what they can do keeping them in literal cages this is as it usually is it's all about power it's all about control what's underpinning that and their reasons and their motivations for doing that are harder to tell we know with the Andrea Yates episode that we did it was all because of her sort of psychological issues her challenges around feeling like she was failing her children but here that isn't really as clear but yeah I feel like it is as it ever is it's about control and yeah like you said because they could and just like Teresa said as well, if they knew, if they didn't know what they were doing was wrong, they wouldn't hide it.

They wouldn't keep the children indoors. They wouldn't tell them not to speak to people. They wouldn't keep them out of school. They know it's wrong. Of course. So while he left most of his children living in a caravan on their own, David dropped off frozen food to the children at irregular intervals. But he never went inside.

He and Louise left their children for three years and the older children locked the younger ones in cages. And in 2010, one of the J girls made a break for it. She was found wandering the streets confused. She was picked up by an anonymous person and all we know about this exchange that J had with this stranger is that she was asking how to get a job, an apartment, and a car. She refused to tell the driver her name or her age. Do you read a lot of things about this, but this is what I've gleaned. Some reports say that the stranger drove the child back to the trailer straight away. Others say that the stranger drove the terrified girl into town

where she attempted to get a job, but failed to because she had no id who is this person it's just pick it because even if this girl is even if she's 17 these kids look about 10 years younger than they actually are who is this person that picks up this girl on the street and is like sure you can go and get a job at the fucking dairy queen i'll take you no this guy or this person is is lying quite obviously i just do not believe that that is something somebody with good intentions would do. It's fucking Predator, and he probably did something. Or, I don't know, maybe he drove her back to the trailer, but she fled. Why would she willingly tell him where it was to be taken back?

So I find that quite hard to believe as well. But yeah, like a lot of this case, it's just a bit of a question mark about who's actually telling the truth. According to District Attorney Beecham, who you could argue is probably one of the more reliable voices in this story. You'll see him speaking at all of the press conferences on this case. He said that this girl never stood a chance, quote, no socialization whatsoever. So what did she do? She called her mother and her mother came and picked her up and took her away. The small J runaway should have raised alarms across the county, but the car-driving stranger never reported the incident and little girl Jay and all of her siblings

were left at the hands of David and Louise. And things only got worse. Had some sort of investigation been launched after this jailbreak, authorities could have stopped years of suffering. Again, specific dates here are tricky to pin down. But at some stage, the one time good girl Louise Turpin started to quote, to sow her wild oats. I was thinking about this. Do women sow their wild oats or do we have our various patches of oat field sowed? Do we have oats thrown out stone i don't know

that's just what theresa says louise said to her i love it so i don't know maybe we catch wild i don't know i don't know what we do i don't know what our relationship with i'm just trying to think of agricultural terms i know it's slashing that's Rotational farming. I don't know. I've forgotten the terms. So not only now was she gambling, but Louise had started drinking. And according to her sister, she had started sleeping with other men. On one occasion, David drove Louise to a hotel where she had sex with another man and filmed it so that David could watch it later. Photographs of this encounter featuring Louise in lingerie made their way onto MySpace. And don't misunderstand this, this isn't in a kind of revenge porny kind of way. Louise had released them herself. And

exactly a year after this indecent proposal, the Turpins returned to the very same hotel and David had sex with Louise in the very same bed. This is what we're talking about when we said, you know, they're pushing the boundaries in terms of what may have been taboo given religious upbringings and stuff like that with the gambling, with the sex, bringing other people into the marriage, that kind of thing. Obviously, sexual experimentation was clearly making an appearance in their marriage and this was of course disproved of heartily in the interviews that we've seen with their family members. They use it as proof that Louise was being changed by David but I don't

know they don't know that they don't know whose decision it was and I don't think consensual experimentation is really any cause for alarm but of course abusing your kids is so they seem very fixated on the wrong things it seems like even after all this totally totally they're like you know it's nothing to do with I mean obviously it's not their fault but like you know maybe they should have raised the alarm sooner but I think it's much more to do with them dealing with the guilt that they feel rather than like, because Teresa will say things like, oh, well, like evil always finds a way and stuff like that, which I don't know, just doesn't quite sit right with me.

No, it makes it feel like there's an inevitability to it. Yes, exactly. But this resounding disapproval hasn't stopped Louise's younger sister from writing a book. It's called Sisters of Secrets. And in this book, she claims that Louise Turpin, quote,

was drinking, smoking, partying, going to bars, practicing witchcraft, gambling, handling and eating rattlesnakes, dressing and acting vulgar on MySpace, intersex practices, and it goes on and on.

I think she's made our point for us there. Yeah, no comment. Despite thoroughly disapproving of all of this, Elizabeth told the press that she never suspected child abuse. So she was like, oh, my sister's turned into this absolutely awful person, like absolute mirror image of Satan, but she can definitely look after kids all right. That's fine. That's the one thing I'm not worried about. And that's the one thing that I've actually witnessed happening with her

behaving bizarrely in front of the children and the children looking very strange. But she can't be doing that. But she's definitely handling rattlesnakes. And eating them. Watch out for her. She's a fucking wrong-in. Elizabeth and Teresa only ever saw the children on video chat after their final visit. And what was it? I think it was 98. And they were never all together. So Teresa is convinced that Louise started to hide the children that had been abused the worst. And later, in 2010, David lost his job and the rural Texas house was foreclosed by the bank.

And they filed for bankruptcy yet again, this time for $24,000, no, $240,000 in credit card debt. Who is giving them credit cards after they've been bankrupt twice already? I don't think I understand the American credit system, my friend. I don't think that would happen here. $240,000 in credit card debt. I mean, maybe if you've got like fucking 120,000 credit cards, like how do you get that much credit?

Well, I guess he was on a six-figure salary, so he have had a higher but he'd been bankrupt twice already but then this is this is literally the subprime mortgage lending this is what the 2008 financial crash was about this kind of situation that's happening all those people stealing from those sheds exactly so the bankruptcy paperwork this time listed him as should we explain that just carry on for a bit should you explain yeah sorry saruti um did a an interview for what was it the chamber of commerce something like that what didn't you do an interview for like some big economics job and they were like explain 2008 like you're explaining to a five-year-old and you're like there are all these sheds and people keep putting stuff in and then other

people keep taking it out but nobody talks to anybody about it i didold explaining it to a five-year-old and you're like, there are all these sheds and people keep putting stuff in and then other people keep taking it out, but nobody talks to anybody about it. I did do. I went to a final interview at this, it was just like a fucking random consultancy company in the city when I thought that was the life I was going to pursue. And they, yeah, they were like, explain to us how the 2008 financial crisis happened as if you were telling a five-year-old, because if you can't tell a five-year-old, then you don't understand it well enough and you can't have a job here. And I thought I did quite a good job of it. I'll save it for Not In This Economy by Saruti Bala whenever we eventually do that.

But it's to do with gold. It's to do with sheds. So, right, back to the... I swear this is like tangent number 75 today. I don't know what's wrong with me. We're just desperate for conversation. So the bankruptcy paperwork this time listed Mr Turpin as the principal of a school called Sandcastle Day School. The only pupils were his own children. None of the 12 Turpin kids were going to normal school and they hadn't for years.

Oh my God. Once again, the Turpins disappeared overnight. So curiosity overtook the neighbouring vineyard family and they decided to take a peek at the mystery house. Don't do it, vineyards. Just leave it alone. Just leave it alone. You know what they say, curiosity killed the cookies. I don't know. I would have gone to have a look. Just leave it alone. Curiosity made sure everyone had a really nice time and a Capri Sun.

Oh, God. So, yeah, they were curious about this mystery house that had been occupied by the mystery family and their children with the very white clean hands and when they went over they couldn't believe what they found the house stank and there were human feces strewn all over the floors where carpet had once been there was now filthy splintered plywood. There was a chalkboard in the living room and the children's bedrooms were full of rows and rows of bunks. The bedposts had ropes tied to them. The vineyard family didn't think too much of this then. They simply thought it was strange that parents would allow their children to play with something so dangerous. But it became clear that the children weren't allowed to play

at all. Brand new toys were found in the house, all in their original packaging. I think that we can safely say that this was not for collector's item reasons. Like those Beanie Babies we're all obsessed about. I used to buy fucking tag protectors for them. Oh mate, that's so funny. Have you watched Broad City? No. no oh my god so there's an episode of broad city where like one of the characters alana is like a beanie baby obsessive and she collects them and sells them on ebay and she finds one that is a jean benet ramsey memorial oh my god ty you have no fucking decency it's not real oh right okay okay i thought you meant it was a real one it's just got these little white frilly socks on.

Oh my God. Like a princess crown. Beanie Babies though, is there a bigger scam? I can't think of a bigger lie that I've been told other than Beanie Babies will one day become incredibly fucking valuable when basic economics is like, if every fucking idiot in the world buys 10 of these bloody blue one of a kind premium bears there's not going to be any value to them even in 20 years time even if you

put a fucking five pound tag protector on it i think the only other biggest lie i've been that granola is good for you it's not it's not i've been eating a lot of jordan's tropical granola punch or whatever it's called delicious looked at the back horrified horrified i don't know what to do now i've eaten so much of it i just can't get on the granola train it hurts my mouth and you know how i feel about things that are difficult to eat oh i like it the harder it is to eat like whenever me and sarita are in an airport we're like oh should we should we get a sandwich on it and what's the best bit can it does it fall apart in my mouth with very little effort? Because that's the only thing.

See, I like the crusty bits. The crustier, the better. For me, I would buy a French stick and dig out all of the soft bits inside and just eat the crust. That makes me happy. I'm the opposite. We're literally the opposites of each other. I just dig it out, the soft bit with my hands and just stuff it into my disgusting face.

No. Roll it up into a little gummy ball. Yes. Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, now we know it up into a little gummy ball. Yes. Oh my gosh. Okay, well, now we know we can share a French stick happily. Okay, great. See you in the park

for our socially distanced picnic. Exactly. I'll just chuck you the soft bits rolled up into disgusting grey balls in my very clean, sanitised hands. Anyway, where were we? So, obviously, these kids weren't playing with all this like fucking random

toys they found in the house if you've got a house full of kids and you've got a fucking load of toys in plastic packages still you're taunting your kids that's what they were doing louise and david were taunting these kids there's nothing else that makes sense that could have been going on here i've also started watching hoardarders quite obsessively. That's right up your street there. US Netflix. Oh, with your Vipaner. With my Vipaner. I can't believe I didn't think of that. Goddamn. The Turpins show up again and they showed up in Paris, California, which is a nice, unassuming neighbourhood about 70 miles south of Los Angeles and not that far from where Jeannie

was. Note. In Paris, the abuse escalated. The children were being beaten with belts and paddles and even an oar like an oar from a rowing boat. Louise even threw one of her children all the way down the stairs. The kids were given one meal a day and this was usually a peanut butter and bologna sandwich. Also, America, we've got to talk about how you spell bologna because it's incorrect. How is that? No, sorry. Next. Moving on. The eldest son was allowed to attend a course at the local community college. One report from a fellow student detailed how whenever there was free food, this elder member of the Turpin family would stand at the table and eat and eat and eat

like he'd never seen food before in his life. In February 2016, Louise's mother died. David Turpin went to the funeral, but Louise flat out refused. She did manage another ceremony, though, because her and David renewed their wedding vows in an Elvis-themed chapel in their favourite place on Earth, Las Vegas. You know, seeing is believing, so if you want to take a look at this, you can easily find the footage.

Louise and David look very happy and in love. And all of the children are there. The boys are wearing matching suits and the girls are all in little pink tartan dresses. The kids were very quiet and well behaved, according to the Elvis impersonator officiant who did the wedding. How does one get that job? I am curious to know. How does one wake up in the morning and be like, oh, just another day at the Elvis-themed chapel where I pretend to be Elvis all day?

It's really something. I don't know. And they're not there in any sort of ironical way. This is their dream. They fucking love it. They're living it up. So once the Vegas break was over,

it was back to the crushing reality of the House of Horrors in Paris, California. They are very much about avoidance, aren't they? They love running off into fantasies, like with their kind of gambling, with the sexual exploits, with this kind of stuff. Like it's all very head in the sand. Let's avoid it. Let's not deal with reality. And I think in the end, it's these sort of trips to the outside world that are kind of their undoing. Because I think if the end, it's these sort of trips to the outside world that are kind of their undoing. Because I think if the children, obviously I'm not saying that's what they should have done to get away with it. But if the children had never seen Disneyland, if they'd never seen Vegas, if they'd never seen the inside of another house,

they wouldn't know that the way they were living was wrong. No, you're totally right. And they're not disciplined enough fucking abusers. That's the thing with the turkeys. The other families we've talked about they're not letting you out they're not letting you see what you're missing out on but these guys they take their kids with them and you're right it is their undoing so when they returned from this weird wedding the turpin family became almost entirely nocturnal the

children were allowed one shower now per year they They were only allowed outside after dark. And the parents bought bikes that the children were again never allowed to ride. More weird taunting. Very strange. That's just sadism. The neglect stuff, you know, you could argue that maybe they're just shitty parents. But physically spending money on things and watching your children not be able to have them is sadism. There is literally no other way around that. And I read this somewhere and it may not have been true

because you obviously did the research on this so you can fact check me, but I read somewhere that they would do things like bake pies and then just leave them out so that the kids could smell them and then just like throw them away or eat them themselves. Or they'd leave them to rot on the side. Jesus, what the fuck? Coming back to the fact that there's just no overt reasoning behind why

they do the things they do so although the parents did sort of take these kids out every now and again the turpin 13 were so isolated that they had almost no understanding of the outside world they didn't know what a policeman was they didn't know what the word medication meant they only knew about las vegas the most real place on earth. And one of them knew about YouTube. Didn't see that coming, did you? Curveball. A 17-year-old female, Jay, somehow managed to start a YouTube channel under the name Lacey Swan. And she populated the internet airwaves with videos that look like they're filmed on a phone in a bathroom. In these videos, Jay sings songs that she wrote herself, and she accompanies herself on something that seems like a toy keyboard for toddlers.

It's never really in the shot, but you can hear it's like a tinkly noise. And her songs were called Where Is The Key, You Blame Me and So Weak. They aren't good songs and I'm afraid she's not a good singer, but they are haunting as fuck. And now we're right back at the beginning. On the 13th of January, 2018, eight years after the last escape attempt, the 17-year-old YouTubing Jay had had enough and made a break for freedom in the real world. Her shackled siblings looked on, helpless.

Originally, she was accompanied by her sister. They both jumped out the window and ran. But the other Jay got lost and had to turn back by her sister. They both jumped out the window and ran. But the other Jay got lost and had to turn back to her prison. At least five of the Turpin children knew about this escape plan. It wasn't the first time that they tried. The children had tried to get to Las Vegas, so they called a taxi company and asked how much a taxi would be from Paris, California to Vegas. This plan of course soon fell apart when the children realized that they didn't actually know what their address was

or even the name of the street that they lived on. During their internment, the children had taken pictures of themselves in shackles and tried to get them to the outside world, but they'd never managed it. However, YouTube Jay did manage to make a 911 call, the one that we heard at the top of the show, and this was when she was 17. But when police picked her up 20 minutes after she made the call, she looked no older than 10, and she absolutely stank.

She hadn't had a bath in a year, and she told the dispatcher, quote, Our mother tells people that we're homeschooled. She has a fake private school set up, but we don't really do school. Jay told officers that she and her siblings were chained to their beds with padlocks for 20 hours a day. They were only allowed to brush their teeth and eat. If Jay broke the rules, she would be beaten. Her parents would pull her hair and smack her in the face. Once she was caught watching a Justin Bieber video on a mobile phone, Louise choked her as a punishment. The abuse wasn't just physical.

YouTube Jay told authorities that her father had pulled down her trousers and forced her to sit on his lap while he kissed her on the mouth. And this happened at least 10 times. It transpired that Louise and David were planning yet another move, this time to Oklahoma, and they were going to keep all of their children chained up until then. Apparently, so they started off tying the kids with ropes. And then when they learned how to escape from them, they would tie them with like hog ties.

And then when they figured out how to escape from them, they would graduate to chains and padlocks. So this is like years of sustained like trial and error abuse. And this is the thing as well, because they keep moving around. It's very similar to like, I mean, it's not the same thing, but like that incest plan episode we did for Patreon about how they keep moving around it's very similar to like i mean it's not the same thing but like that incest clan episode we did um for patreon about how they keep moving because if you stay in one place too long that is how you build some sort of awareness in the local community and people are going to start reporting you they're not stupid this lends more to the fact that they know what they're doing is wrong and they're actively trying to cover it up and it was this final move to oklahoma is what made YouTube J decide that enough was enough.

YouTube J was rescued by police and her siblings would be next. Early in the morning, the police stormed the Turpin family home. It was just as disgusting as the one that they had left behind in Rio Vista. Feces lined the floor and the children were discovered chained to their beds. I say children, but the eldest victim was 29 years old. And when discovered, she weighed 82 pounds, which is just over five and a half stone or 37 kilos for our continental friends. Seven of the Turpin 13 were legally adults when they were discovered. All of the children were malnourished except one, the 13th child, who was a toddler and seemed to be in reasonably good health.

As we said, Louise and David liked the babies the older the children got, the less they had to offer them. One of the kids was 11 years old and their arm had the same circumference of a four and a half month old baby. Oh my God. A 15 year old boy had difficulty walking, vitamin D deficiency and visible scoliosis, presumably from being tied to his bed for 20 hours a day for God knows how many years. And when he was taken into hospital, he told the doctor that he wanted to kill animals and that he could predict the future. Like the damage is just uncomprehensible, incomprehensible, uncomprehendable. One of them.

It's everything. It's just a big fucking what the fucking fuck like it just makes me sick a four and a half month old at 11 the abuse is so deep and you're right the damage they've done to these children as you said some of the money when children they're adults legally at this stage how do you come back from this how do you recover from this it is it's sick yeah one of the doctors in the documentary even says she was like you can recover nutritionally you can recover physically but mentally it's a long road so amazingly the years of abuse were written down by the turpin 13 the ones that were literate anyway and they had filled hundreds and hundreds of journals that were found at the property during the rescue mission. These journals

have not been released, but I'm sure every publisher listening right now just got a little bit hard probably. Can you imagine? Like, I think that's the thing about this case is like some of the details are a little bit fuzzy and people want cold, hard evidence. It would literally be like Anne Frank's diary on fucking meth. It would be madness how much that would sell. I'm just, I'm getting so cynical the longer we do this, man. I really am just a grubby capitalist. But it's because of the level of like how much people wouldn't be able to understand this and to hear it from a first person perspective of like what actually happened

when there is so little information out there about these two and about why they did what they did. Maybe why they did what they did to some extent. Their ideology lies in those journals. We'll never know, or at least we don't know right now. I read the JC Dugard book that she wrote. I'm absolutely drawing a blank on what it's called, but if you just Google JC Dugard book, you'll find it. And she was a little girl who was held captive, I think, for 17 years by a stranger.

It's fucking nuts. That's the book that made me understand what Stockholm syndrome actually is. If you haven't read it, I would definitely, definitely recommend it. How she explains it is bang on. Louise was perplexed when the police invaded her squalid hellhole of a house, or so the reports say. I don't think for a second that she didn't know what she'd done was wrong. I think it's all just an act. These people aren't stupid. They go to a lot of lengths to cover up what they're doing. I think they're damaged. I think Louise is incredibly damaged, but I don't think she

doesn't know what she's doing. But some of the children were indeed perplexed. They had no idea that life could be different. They'd been chained to a bed for 20 hours a day. That's all they knew. So many people had turned a blind eye to these children and the abuse that they suffered. So we may as well knock on some more of those to the list. So the Turpins' neighbours claim that they had no idea what was going on in that house and they didn't know there were so many children in there

and that they just didn't want to invade anybody's privacy. Yeah, right. Louise and David were arrested immediately and when they lawyered up, the only thing the leader of their team could think of to tell the press was that they would not be tried in the media but in a court of law and that they were presumed innocent until proven guilty. Hot tip, guys.

If that is all your defence lawyer has to say about you, you are in some real deep shit. If all they can say is, my client is innocent until proven guilty, goodbye. Stop this trial by media. Other cliche, cliche, cliche. Fuck off. Yeah, you're in trouble. And up to their armpits in shit, Louise and David Turpin certainly were.

They were charged with 12 counts of torture, 12 counts of false imprisonment, nine counts of child endangerment, nine counts of child abuse, endangerment, seven counts of cruelty to an adult dependent. The list goes on. David was separately charged with a lewd act on a child under 14 and Louise was handed a charge of assault with force,

likely to create great bodily injury. I think those two things pertain to the sexual abuse that David did to YouTube Jay and also Louise throwing people down the stairs. Again, we'll see why, but the details are tricky to sort of need out. And here's why. David and Louise originally entered a plea of not guilty to all charges, but eventually they agreed to a plea deal. And the terms of the deal were that Louise and David had to plead guilty to one count of abuse per child and a stipulated sentence of 25 years to life in prison. And this deal meant that the Turpin 13 would not have to testify in

a jury trial and relive their trauma. So what that means is we don't really have that much information because it never went to a jury trial. There's no court transcripts. None of this is written down. There's no press in the courtroom. And that's why the details feel like they're not concrete enough. Do you know what I mean? And when I first heard that this hadn't gone to trial

and they'd been given a plea deal, I was like livid because I was like, why? You caught them bang to rights. There's so much evidence. They were literally, the kids were fucking chained to beds. But yes, of course, to avoid these children having to relive their trauma in front of a courtroom. I completely understand why. The Turpin 13 did, however, read victim impact statements.

And many of them told an astounded court that they had forgiven their parents. One male, Jay, said, I cannot describe in words what we went through growing up. Sometimes I still have nightmares of things that had happened, such as my siblings being chained up or getting beaten. That is in the past and this is now. I love my parents and I've forgiven them for a lot of the things they did to us. Another said, quote, I love both my parents so much. Although it may not have been the best way of raising us, I'm glad that they did because it has made me the person I am today. Some children even submitted written statements asking that the court treat

their parents with leniency and that they were only trying to do the right thing and protect their children. Some wrote, quote, I feel like 25 years is too long. I believe with all my heart that our parents tried their best to raise all 13 of us. They wanted to give us a good life and they did everything they could to protect us. Obviously Stockholm Syndrome is very deep here, but it's interesting that it shows in some children and not in others. I guess that depends on personality and stuff like that.

Because Stockholm Syndrome is a survival mechanism, right? And I even read that when I was trying to get my head around it during the research, I read some psychologists who, they were like, if you find yourself in a hostage situation, they actively encourage you to adopt Stockholm Syndrome thinking because it will make you safer. Then the longer you do that, the more ingrained it becomes in you. It's fascinating.

It is. It's really, really interesting. And we touched on it when we did the uh colleen stan episode years ago now but um i think what is really interesting there is that although this person is the reason for your deprivation of freedom or you know safety or anything or to live a life free of abuse they are also the person that is uh periodically feeding you bringing you companionship, bringing you all of the other things that you need to survive. So the two things get meshed together and it creates a very weird feeling. These children are also clearly trauma bonded to these parents. It's just a very strange situation. And this isn't to undermine what these kids feel

at all, because there are real psychological reasons for why they would feel this way. When we did the Fred and Rose Westcott episode, their daughter who had been abused her entire life by these two still sent them Mother's Day and Father's Day cards in prison. It's a very difficult thing for a child to come through but like we said not all of the kids felt this way and some were not so forgiving. YouTube Jay stood strong with her emotional support dog and said, quote, my parents took my whole life from me, but now I'm taking my life back. I believe everything happens for a reason. Life may have been bad, but it made me strong. I fought to become the person I am. I'm a fighter. I'm strong and I'm shooting through life like a rocket. She's amazing. I'm just in awe of her.

I have no words. I wish her all of the best because, fuck me, I can't think of many cases we've come across where a child has had such an intensely difficult start to life. 57-year-old David and 50-year-old Louise also gave a statement. They claimed that their homeschooling and discipline had good intentions and they never meant to cause the children any harm. Don't throw them down the stairs then. Fuck off.

Like, I can't stand it. No, I can't. And actually, you know, other stuff about me saying, oh, well, I wish there had been a trial so that they would have hopefully had to serve longer than the 25 years. No, I don't at all. Because listening to that, because not only do I not want the children to have to relive their trauma,

I would have hated to see the defence abuse these children further by forcing them to, by allowing them to, or forcing them to testify on behalf of their parents like this. Louise said that she was truly sorry and that she couldn't wait for the day she could hug her children again. Fuck you, Louise. She had almost 30 years to hug them and she fucking didn't so you don't get to actually Louise. The judge told Louise and David

Turpin you have severed the ability to interact and raise your children that you have created and brought into this world. The only reason that your punishment is less than the maximum time in my opinion is because you accepted responsibility at an early stage in the proceeding and you spared Louise and David Turpin were sent down for 25 years and we will have to wait over two decades to find out if they will be granted parole. So, where are the Turpin 13 now? That they have been released from their prison and from their parents? Well, all of them made astonishing physical recoveries, but life in the real world will take some adjusting too.

Some of the older Turpin children live together. Others live independently and attend university. Teresa Robinette and her half-brother have offered to adopt some of the younger children. In fact, over 20 people have offered to take in the children after working with them on their rehabilitation. Nurses and psychologists were all totally taken with the Turpin 13. We don't know where all of them are now. I believe the youngest two have been taken into foster care. But wherever they are, we hope that they are doing well and that louise and david will one day accept what they have done there you go longy yeah longy

for your thursday i know i thought this was going to be so short i thought there was literally nothing to it at all but we managed it we always do just spin spin some gold out of wool there just to end on another broken metaphor for you guys today not metaphor saying you know what it is anyway thank you guys for listening as ever get yourself some spooky bitch merch like we said that and the get in the bin merch is now out you can get hold of that at redhandedshop.com other than that you can follow us at all of the social medias at Red Handed the Pod. I tried to make Blue do the toilet roll jumpy thing. He wasn't game. He's so grumpy.

He doesn't do it. He's like, there's a fucking other way to get to you, you stupid woman. So if you want to check out that kind of content gold, follow us on social media. And if you would like to help support the show and also join the fantastic and ever-growing community of patrons that we have and all the cool content they get access to you can also do that at patreon.com slash red handed and here are some lovely people shall i go first yes that'd be lovely here are some lovely people who have done so and lovely hannah's gonna say some of their names now take it away annie olsop katie reeves melanie owie young um natasha de bellis petra pembroke rebecca mourn kristen nelson Is that like a bum astronaut? I'm losing the will to live. Sarah Ongiri, Neil Parsons, Murphy, Aoife Maria, David Bond, Marina Del Rey, Jennifer Bukok,

I'm losing the will to live, Jenny Sheehan, Steph Ng, Amy Lee, Maddie, Emily Wright, Lucy Cavill, Rebecca Quimby, Artemis Kamboris. Where in the world do you come from Artemis? That is a great name and I actually said when she gets to Artemis Camboris, I'll tag in. So I'll go from there. Okay. Jackie Rodriguez, Abigail Bolin, Amir, Amir? I think so. I don't know. Amir Short, Amelia Cummings, Madison Whitney, Jasmine Proksha, Harriet Harding, Rachel Janda, And Hannah Orian Thomas. Katie Zabar. Kimberly Grandy Maria.

Sarah Morgan. Matt H. Emily. Emily? Ellie, even. Somebody called Emily just got a free shout out, so there you go. Margaret Buckwalter. Caitlin Sparks.

Isabel Collicott. Allora. Allora? Yep. Hannah Arno Burgess. Holly Hatch. Ren Brianna Hesing. Yeah. I don't know. Svidonovic, Diana Harriman, Stephanie Corbin, Abigail Walker, Claire White,

and Claire Crutchley. Thank you guys so much. Woohoo! We love you. Thank you for all of your support. We do love you. We do. And maybe one day we'll be allowed outside. Exactly.

To see all of your lovely faces. But if not, tonight, if you are listening to this on the day of release, Oh shit, damn, yeah. We are listening to this on the day of release. Oh, shit. Damn. Yeah. We are going to be doing a live stream for all $20 and up patrons over on Crowdcast.

But you can just get the link through the Patreon platform. $10 and up patrons. You will get the recording of it like tomorrow. So don't worry about that. It's on Thursday, not Wednesday. People listening on Wednesday. Yes, it is. So yes, sorry.

It is on Thursday, which is, people listening on Wednesday. Yes, it is. So, yes, sorry, it is on Thursday, which is the 20-something. I've forgotten. Anyway, Thursday, Thursday, Thursday. We'll see you then. Bye. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery+.

In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go.

A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding

Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment,

charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. But I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the rise and fall of Diddy. Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus.