RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — A California couple charged with torturing their children by starving, beating and shackling them is due in court on Friday.
FILE – In this Jan. 24, 2018 file photo, David Turpin appears in court in Riverside, Calif. David and Louse Turpin, who are charged with torturing their children by starving, beating and shackling them, are scheduled to appear Friday, Feb. 23, 2018, in a Riverside courtroom for a conference about their case. (Mike Blake/Pool Photo via AP, File)
David and Louise Turpin are scheduled to appear in a Riverside courtroom for a conference about their case.
They have pleaded not guilty to torture and other charges and each is held on $12 million bail.
The couple was arrested last month after their 17-year-old daughter escaped from the family’s home in Perris, California, and called 911. Authorities said the home reeked of human waste and evidence of starvation was obvious, with the oldest sibling weighing only 82 pounds.
The case drew international media attention and shocked neighbors who said they rarely saw the couple’s 13 children outside the home. Those who saw the children recalled them as skinny, pale and reserved.
Authorities said the abuse was so long-running the children’s growth was stunted. They said the couple shackled the children to furniture as punishment and had them live a nocturnal lifestyle.
The courtroom conference is expected to focus on date-setting and other procedural issues. The district attorney’s office has drafted an amended complaint but it has yet to be filed in court, officials said.
It is not immediately clear where the children, who range in age from 2 to 29, are now. They were hospitalized immediately after their rescue and since then county authorities have declined to discuss their whereabouts or condition.
Riverside County has obtained a temporary conservatorship for the seven adult siblings, who declined to speak with reporters through their attorneys.
“Our clients need time, space, and privacy while they receive services and begin the difficult process of rebuilding their lives,” Caleb Mason, an attorney for the siblings, said in a recent statement.
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They need to be locked up. Never to be freed. They have ruined the lives of these children, and they don’t need to be away from society and caged like animals. May God be with those poor innocent children.
I made a mistake in my comment. They need to be locked up away from society. That is what i meant. They need to be caged up like the animals they are.
That really saddens me. They suffered all that abuse for all those years. Those poor excuses for parents need to be killed.