Tag Archives: Louise Turpin

law, lessons learned, psychology, true crime

More thoughts on the Turpin family…

Once again, I realize there are many topics I could write about this morning. The world is in a lot of turmoil, thanks to the pandemic. Europe, in particular, is going through upheavals as COVID-19 cases climb, and fed up Europeans take to the streets to protest new restrictions. I may write about that today or tomorrow, or maybe I’ll put it on the travel blog, which needs more love. But to be honest, what’s really on my mind is the 20/20 special about the Turpin family that Bill and I watched yesterday. I blogged about our initial thoughts yesterday, but now that we’ve had a day to discuss it, and I discovered a December 2019 book review I wrote about the case, I want to write more. The book review reminded me of some details I had forgotten, which weren’t covered in Diane Sawyer’s interview.

I’ll mention again what I wrote yesterday. I am extremely impressed by Jennifer and Jordan Turpin, and their brother, Joshua, who bravely took part in Diane Sawyer’s interview. I realize that what we saw of three of the Turpin children was heavily edited. We have no way of knowing what they are like when they’re not on camera. However, as someone who has a tendency to get very nervous on camera, I must reiterate that the adult children who did participate in the interview are astonishingly bright and resilient.

I was especially moved at the end of the interview, when Jordan and Jennifer mock interviewed each other, asking each other where they saw themselves in ten years. Jennifer Turpin said she wanted to own a house and a car, and write a book. She said she wanted to visit Paris and have tea cakes. I have no doubt she’ll be able to do that if she wants to, and I hope she does write a book.

Jordan strikes me as so very smart, motivated, and curious, and she’s clearly very courageous. She appears to be very extraverted and hungry for life. While I’m sure she’s had some tough times in the almost four years since she rescued her family, she comes across as someone victorious and inspiring. I think she will eventually be just fine.

I do wonder about the other siblings, who haven’t been identified. I don’t blame them for not participating in telling this story. The “fame” that would come from outing themselves might be very damaging. I hope they are doing well, but I am not naive enough to assume that they are.

One thing that I realized in 2018, and wrote about in my post about Elizabeth Smart’s comments regarding this family, is that their situation is more challenging than hers was, simply because the Turpin kids’ parents were the perpetrators of the abuse. Elizabeth Smart went through sheer hell, but her hellish experience lasted nine months, and she had family members, friends, church people, and really, the whole country, looking for her. The Turpin kids, by contrast, were living out their hellish experience and no one knew that they needed help. David and Louise Turpin are now in prison for the rest of their lives, and apparently no one else in the family has come forward to help the children. So they are pretty much on their own, and they don’t have the benefit of having connections with caring relatives or friends to help them navigate the world they have been abruptly thrust into.

Once those kids were finally rescued, after living so many years in that hell, the Turpins were reportedly let down by the authorities and child welfare. I alluded to that possibility in my 2018 post, too. While I haven’t worked in social work for years, I know something about the foster care system. I had a feeling that once the press coverage died down, those kids might end up on their own. In most foster care systems I’ve studied, once a child turns 18, they age out of the system. Some kids are more ready for that than others are, but when you consider that the Turpins knew almost nothing about the world when they were rescued, it becomes easier to realize why they would need more help than other foster children would. Some of the children were too old to be foster kids, anyway.

Oldest brother, Joshua, who was shown in a video that he made with his back to the camera, explains that he needed help with transportation and had asked his caseworker for assistance. She told him to “Google it”. I don’t know the qualifications of Vanessa Espinoza, the deputy public guardian who was charged with helping the six adult children, but it’s clear that she failed at her job. Espinoza also works in real estate, and apparently no longer works for Riverside County. I think that’s a good thing. She clearly didn’t care at all about her clients, and wasn’t interested in helping them. How someone could be involved with helping vulnerable adults, particularly adults from the high profile Turpin case, and let them down so egregiously is beyond my comprehension.

Turpin advocate, and Riverside County Director of Victim Services, Melissa Donaldson, reports that one of the children, who is now an adult, was told by a foster parent that they could understand why her parents chained her up. Some of the other children live in bad neighborhoods or are “couch surfing”. At least one of the minor Turpin children was in a foster home where there were allegations of child abuse and was a victim of said abuse. On the 20/20 special, which was taped in July of this year, Jordan Turpin says she doesn’t have a way to get food. At the time, Jordan had been released from the foster care system without warning, and no plans as to how she might access food, shelter, and healthcare. It was reported at the end of the special that Jordan was getting housing assistance and food stamps with help from the college where she is taking courses.

My guess is that Vanessa Espinoza is not a social worker, and was basically just working in her government job to collect a paycheck. Not to say that social workers are all benevolent and kind, but that field is literally about helping people find and navigate programs that can help them when they are in need, and pursue self-determination. Regrettably, social work, as a whole, doesn’t pay particularly well. The job is often stressful and, at times, can even be dangerous. It doesn’t always attract the best and brightest, and burn out is certainly an issue.

In any case, it sounds to me like the Turpins could use a social worker in their corner who acts as their advocate– and I mean a REAL social worker, not someone who is falsely given that title, but has never actually studied social work. In spite of what some people think, social work is an actual field that requires intensive study. My MSW program was 60 hours and required two internships. Had I continued in the field, I would have had to be supervised for two to three more years and sit for two national exams to get fully licensed.

I read a lot of comments from people who are outraged by how the Turpins have been let down by the system. I hope some of those people realize that social welfare programs are necessary and need government support. I’m sorry to bring politics into this, but the fact is, political parties that strip funding from social welfare agencies are partly to blame for situations like what the Turpins are facing. I suspect that California’s system is better than systems in “red” states, and obviously, that is not saying much. God only knows what would have happened to those children if they had been moved to Oklahoma, as was the plan. A lot of people think social work is “church work.” It’s not, and there are enough people who have been victimized by religion, as the Turpin children definitely have been, that my opinion will always be that welfare work, particularly as it pertains to children, should always be secular in nature.

Obviously, though, the Turpins have also run into some good people. Deputy Colace was a true hero to Jordan Turpin, and you can tell how grateful she still is to him. He’s an example of a really good police officer. And the 911 operator, Ms. Eckley, was also extremely helpful and kind to Jordan, as she called for help. It’s so fortunate that the dispatcher was calm and kind and didn’t assume Jordan was pulling a prank or something. As I listened to Jordan speak, and heard the outrageous story, I can understand how some operators might have thought she was lying. Even the deputy seemed to be skeptical of Jordan until she showed him the photos of her sisters in chains. The fact that Jordan thought to take those photos is incredible. She’s clearly a very bright young woman with a strong survival instinct.

And now… something else I want to bring up…

I mentioned at the beginning of this post that I discovered a 2019 book review I wrote about the Turpin case. I had completely forgotten some of the backstory regarding the Turpins. It goes all the way back to the 1980s, in West Virginia, where David and Louise Turpin grew up.

Allow me to state upfront that I am not excusing Louise Turpin for her incredibly abusive behavior. She brutalized her children, and that is putting it mildly. There’s no excuse whatsoever for the condition her children were in when they were rescued. BUT… I had forgotten about Louise Turpin’s horrifying upbringing. She and her two sisters were basically prostituted by their mother, Phyllis. Phyllis was the daughter of John Taylor, a World War II “hero” and owner of a Shell gas station in Princeton, West Virginia. The gas station was the only place to get fuel for miles around, so Taylor made a lot of money.

Phyllis was sexually abused by John Taylor. It was so bad that she decided to get married very young, so she could escape her father’s perversions. However, her husband, Wayne Robinette, was a Pentecostal preacher, and didn’t make much money. John Taylor enjoyed “tight hugs” with his daughter and his granddaughters. So, when Phyllis needed money, she would bring her daughters over for a visit with “dear old dad”. He would get his “tight hugs”, and then hand Phyllis a wad of cash. Louise reportedly sometimes protected her younger sisters from the abuse by volunteering. John Taylor’s wife, Mary Louise, apparently either didn’t know about the abuse or turned a blind eye to it. She eventually divorced John when she caught him raping fourteen year old Louise Turpin. However, because she was worried about the family’s reputation and, I suspect, losing access to Taylor’s money, she never turned him in to the police.

David Turpin married Louise when she was extremely young, probably in an attempt to get away from her grandfather. Clearly, the cycle of abuse began again with their family. Seeing the body cam footage of the house they were living in when the authorities were finally called and hearing about Louise’s obsessions with buying toys, games, and children’s clothes, I am reminded of my husband’s former wife, who had a somewhat similar upbringing. While Ex is not nearly as bad as Louise Turpin was, there are definitely some similarities in her behaviors and Louise Turpin’s. I have noticed that a lot of people with sexual trauma in their pasts have issues with shopping addictions and extreme immaturity. They have a lot of children and treat them as possessions, rather than people in and of themselves. There’s also often religious abuse involved in these cases, as religion can make for an excellent manipulation tool, as well as a way to instill fear in the victims. I have noticed that sometimes in these situations, the perpetrators marry an obsession with childhood and childish things with extreme abuse. Michael Jackson comes to mind, too. He was obsessed with childhood and suffered horrific abuse himself, and he never quite outgrew childish obsessions. And he is also alleged to have been a child abuser.

Again, I am not excusing the Turpin parents at all… but I can sort of understand the origins of how this came about. Over the past twenty years or so, I have seen and heard similar stories from Bill about living with his ex wife. Ex, who was similarly abused as a child, is obsessed with Disney, Dr. Seuss, Peanuts, and Star Wars, among other things. She would buy mounds of crap with money they didn’t have. She forced Bill’s daughters to do the housework and raise her youngest child, who has severe autism. She refused to let her children interact with people in the world who could help them, like their fathers or grandparents. Those who escaped got no help from her, and she would do whatever she could to sabotage their efforts to become independent. Ex is not as bad as Louise Turpin, but she’s definitely on the spectrum, to use an autism term (Ex seems to have incorporated raising children with autism as part of her identity– she claims that three of her five children have autism).

This is, yet again, another reason why we as a society should be more willing to employ people who can help victims of sexual trauma so that they don’t become abusers themselves. There should be much less of a stigma about mental health care, and more money to pay for it. And social welfare programs should not be fobbed off on religious organizations. Abuse victims have enough trouble as it is, without having to deal with religious dogma and potential abuse from religious leaders, too.

Anyway… it’s heartbreaking to hear that the Turpin children are still struggling and haven’t been able to access donated money intended to help them launch. It’s very disheartening, but not surprising to me, to hear that some of the foster families entrusted with their care have turned out to be abusive. I know there are some wonderful foster parents out there, but unfortunately, there are also a lot of people who do foster care so they can collect a check from the state. And it’s especially upsetting to hear that a woman who was supposed to help the adult Turpin children learn how to function in society turned out to be a lazy, uncaring, incompetent jerk. Those kids deserve so much better!

But… I am very happy to see that the Turpin children who have come forward still have a spark and want to get beyond their tragic upbringings. They still need a lot of help, though. I truly hope the 20/20 special helps them get the assistance they clearly still need, so they can go on to enjoy the “wonderful lives” fellow victim Elizabeth Smart predicts they can have. A least a few of those kids are game to take life by the horns. And I hope that the special shines a light on America’s child welfare system. It obviously needs an overhaul.

And on a final note, kudos to Jaycee Dugard, who made headlines in 2009 after she escaped her captors, Phillip and Nancy Garrido, after 18 years of hell. Jaycee Dugard, like Elizabeth Smart, has turned her ordeal into a way to help other people. She has started a foundation called JAYC, and according to the 20/20 special, she’s vowed to help the Turpin children as they continue to heal from their ordeal and adjust to living life on their own terms. I only hope that the money JAYC is raising actually gets to the Turpin children.

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true crime

Repost: Elizabeth Smart thinks the Turpin kids can go on to have “wonderful lives”…

Here’s a repost from January 19, 2018 about the Turpin case. I am reposting it because I just wrote about Diane Sawyer’s 20/20 interview of Jennifer and Jordan Turpin.

The Turpins in court.

Far be it for me to minimize the hell Elizabeth Smart endured for nine months when she was a teenager kidnapped by Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee.  I’ve read the books and seen the movies and I know Elizabeth Smart has survived a nightmare.  I marvel at her apparent recovery.   However, I was a bit taken aback when I read Smart’s comments in a recent article published by People Magazine.  Based on Elizabeth Smart’s comments in that article, I’m left with the impression that she thinks she’s the authority on survival.  (Edited to add: I have changed my mind about Elizabeth Smart’s comments after having seen the 20/20 interview. I am astonished by how bright and resilient Jennifer and Jordan Turpin are. I loved hearing them talk about their futures, and I especially loved seeing Jordan reunite with the deputy who rescued her and her siblings.)

In case you missed it, a few days ago, California authorities found the thirteen children of David and Louise Turpin living in a filthy house.  Some of the children were chained to furniture.  Oh… and they weren’t all children, either.  Their ages ranged from two to 29 years old.  However, the adult children were so malnourished that they looked younger than their ages. (ETA: Almost four years later, Jennifer and Jordan are still very tiny and look younger than their ages. Jordan could pass for 14 or 15, and she’s now 21.)

I’ve been reading up about this bizarre case.  Every day, more information comes out about this family that hid from authorities in Texas and California.  David Turpin, age 56, and Louise Turpin, age 49, apparently have a fixation with Disney, Vegas, and Dr. Seuss.  I’ve seen pictures of Mrs. Turpin dressed like Snow White.  I’ve looked at photos of their vehicles outfitted with vanity plates indicating how much they like Disney as well as family snapshots from Disneyland.  The Turpins visited Las Vegas at least twice to renew their wedding vows, their huge brood in tow.

And yet, for all of their apparent love of the fantastic perfection that is all things Disney, this family lived in several homes that they eventually reduced to squalor.  Last night, I read an account from a woman named Ashely Vinyard, who used to play with three of the Turpin kids, Jennifer, Josh, and Jessica, when they lived in Texas.  She reported that after the family moved away, she and her mother went snooping and found two dogs, a kitten, and a “dumpster smelling of death” at the house, which was littered with feces, dirty diapers, and religious literature.  

Another former neighbor reported that just before the Turpins disappeared from Texas, one of the daughters was spotted walking down the road.  The lady picked her up and the Turpin daughter allegedly asked how to get a driver’s license and a job.  She didn’t know who the President of the United States was.  Actually, it surprises me that no one called the authorities at that point.  But then, they were in Texas, where people tend to leave each other alone… unless they happen to be pregnant and hoping to get an abortion.

Although David Turpin is a graduate of Virginia Tech and once worked as a computer engineer for Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, the family had serious financial problems. They lost their house in Texas to foreclosure and had to move. Billy Baldwin, the man who bought the house they’d lived in, had to spend about $30,000 just to make it livable.

These kids were living like this for years and years; seven of them are now legal adults, yet they were forced to remain in the disgusting home, tied up or shackled to their beds. They hid in plain sight, since the Turpins listed their home as a private school. Turpin’s parents in West Virginia stated that the family is deeply religious, and the children were required to memorize long passages from the Bible. Thanks to little government oversight of homeschooling in Perris, California, no authorities were ever in contact with the Turpin kids. In fact, it was rare that anyone ever even saw the kids. When they were spotted, the children acted as if they were terrified.

The Turpin kids were found on January 14th, when a seventeen year old daughter escaped through a window and called 911 on a deactivated cell phone. Mrs. Turpin was reportedly “perplexed” when the police arrived. Yesterday, they were charged with torture, child endangerment, and false imprisonment. Mr. and Mrs. Turpin have pleaded not guilty to the charges. That seventeen year old girl is a hero.

All of this brings me to the comments made by Elizabeth Smart, who offers a ray of sunshine to the Turpin kids. She told ABC News, “I would want them to know that they survived, they did it, and that life is not as dark and terrible as it has been… That there is happiness in the future, and that they can go on to have wonderful lives.”


Perhaps there is truth in what Elizabeth Smart says. Seven of the kids are now adults and they have been rescued; the youngest one is two years old and might be too young to remember much about what’s happened. They are getting some help, at least in the immediate timeframe.

However, I would submit that while Elizabeth Smart is herself a survivor of something horrendous, she has some things going for her that the Turpin kids don’t.  For one thing, Ms. Smart has loving parents who are comparatively wealthy.  She has the backing of a huge, powerful church.  She has even managed to parlay her experience into a career after attending college as a music major.  Moreover, while what Elizabeth Smart went through was horrible, the actual experience lasted nine months.  The Turpin kids have endured many years of abuse and neglect.  It’s going to be a tremendous project for them to overcome what they’ve endured.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love that Elizabeth Smart has apparently recovered so well.  I am especially glad she’s turned her experience into something that will help other people.  I also hope her prediction for the Turpin kids will ultimately come true.  However, I do think the Turpin kids’ challenges are formidable… much more so than Elizabeth Smart’s were.  There is no telling how much physical and psychological damage was done to these kids.  They are not prepared to simply pick up their lives and move on the way Elizabeth was eventually able to do.  They’re going to need a lot of help, and probably a lot of therapy, to have some semblance of normalcy.  They will need support that, given the way our current government is, may not be forthcoming. (ETA: Sadly, based on the interview, it sounds like my predictions about the government’s help was prescient.)

I’m sure if I pressed Ms. Smart on what she said, she might backpedal a little.  Or maybe not.  Maybe she would insist that her comments about the Turpin kids are as true as her evident belief in Mormonism.

I think it’s appropriate to have hope for these kids.  I also think that realism is in order.  Perhaps one bright spot is that Louise Turpin’s siblings have spoken out and they may be in a position to help these kids recover.  Of course, they are strangers to the kids, since David and Louise Turpin refused to let them visit.  But they are still family and hopefully, they will be able to step up for them and help them assimilate into the world.  It will be interesting to see what happens in this case.  I’ll be watching.

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true crime, YouTube

Just watched Diane Sawyer’s 20/20 special about the Turpin case…

I distinctly remember back in January 2018, when I first heard the horrific story of the Turpin family. Like so many other people who became aware of this story, I wondered how in the world this family remained under the radar for as long as they had, particularly given how connected everyone is by the Internet. Now, having watched Diane Sawyer’s 20/20 interview with sisters, Jordan and Jennifer Turpin, I have more of an idea of what happened. I am astonished by the sisters’ strength and resilience, as well as their attitudes, given everything that happened to them.

Who are the Turpins and why did Diane Sawyer interview two of them?

David and Louise Turpin lived in Perris, California with their thirteen malnourished children. Their home was filthy, and the children lived as prisoners, sometimes even chained to their beds. On January 14, 2018, 17 year old Jordan Turpin slipped out of an open window in her parents’ house. She knew she had to act fast, since her parents had announced that they were moving to Oklahoma, and everyone would be in chains. Several of Jordan’s siblings were so debilitated by malnutrition that the move might kill them.

Jordan had her brother’s cell phone. It didn’t have service, but was capable of making emergency phone calls. She called 911, even though she was terrified. She told the dispatcher about the filthy house she lived in, and how two of her little sisters were chained to their beds. Even though Jordan had never spoken to a stranger before, and had no concept of addresses, or other aspects of everyday life that most people learn in early childhood, she bravely spoke to a stranger who would help her save herself and her siblings. The dispatcher sent a deputy to meet Jordan. She told him her story, and showed him photos she took of her sisters in chains. He called for backup, and later that morning, the police raided the Turpin home. That was the day Jordan and her twelve siblings were finally set free, although sadly, some of the older children are still struggling as they try to launch into normal life.

They’re so incredibly strong.

My thoughts on the 20/20 interview…

I was really impressed by both of the Turpin sisters who were interviewed. Jordan Turpin, who is now 21 years old, is still very tiny, and could pass for a much younger person. In spite of being kept out of the world her entire life, she’s friendly and seems optimistic about her future. She finished high school in just one year, and is now taking college courses. Through school, she has gotten access to food stamps and housing. Justin Bieber, of all people, is responsible for teaching Jordan some new vocabulary. So is Miley Cyrus.

Jennifer Turpin, who is about 32 years old, is now in training to be a restaurant manager. She also looks very young, although she’s obviously more mature than Jordan is. Jennifer is the one child who had the benefit of attending school. She said that kids in school avoided her, and admitted it was probably because she was dirty and smelled bad. It surprises me that her teachers didn’t find Jennifer’s appearance concerning, but I also know that many people hesitate to get involved when it comes to abusive situations.

One of the brothers, Joshua Turpin, did not want to appear on camera, but did send a video diary to 20/20, shedding some light on his perspective of what happened to him and his siblings. All of the shots including him were shown from the back, with beautiful California mountains and a white picket fence as a backdrop.

At the end of the program, 20/20 revealed that some of the children were re-victimized in foster care. One child was told by a foster parent that they could understand why David and Lousie Turpin had chained them. To be sure, it is probably very challenging taking care of children who have had such a horrifying and abusive upbringing. However, regardless of the challenges the foster parents have faced, there is no excuse for telling a child that they deserve to be chained, especially a child whose parents actually resorted to chaining them.

I know there are good foster parents out there, but I’ve also read and heard some accounts of foster parents who aren’t much better than natural parents and are only seeking money. Unfortunately, it sounds like some of the Turpin children have landed with such people. It also sounds like at least one of their caseworkers was simply collecting paychecks, rather than doing her job. I am glad she doesn’t work with the agency anymore, although it sounds like there are a number of officials who are supposed to be helping the Turpin and haven’t done much for them. Hopefully, the 20/20 interview will light a fire under them.

I wanted to watch this special when it aired, but being in Germany makes it difficult to see programs from the United States that get a lot of buzz. Fortunately, ABC News has uploaded the show, and some kind YouTuber actually uploaded the whole show without any breaks.

This special is well worth watching.

I really hope this show helps the Turpin kids. Although a lot of money was raised for them by GoFundMe, they’ve been unable to access it. And no matter what, they all have to somehow recover from their delayed access to the world. These are people who never got to go to school and learned from watching videos on secret cell phones. They never learned basic life skills as children. They’re clearly very bright and want to learn, but now they’re adults who somehow have to sink or swim. That seems wrong to me.

When this case was fresh, I wrote about it a few times on the Blogspot version of this blog. I will probably repost some of my early blog entries about the Turpins. I might even do it today, if the mood strikes. The weather is yucky, and COVID-19 is on the rise, so I’ll probably have time.

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book reviews

A review of The Family Next Door: The Heartbreaking Imprisonment of the 13 Turpin Siblings and Their Extraordinary Rescue, by John Glatt

I remember that day in January 2018 well. The news trumpeted headlines about a seventeen year old girl who’d escaped her parents’ home in Perris, California and used a deactivated cell phone to call 911. Jordan Turpin, one of thirteen siblings between 30 and 2 years old, didn’t even know the alphabet and was covered in months of filth. She and another sister, aged 13, had planned, for two years, to escape the hell of their parents’ house. The sister got scared and ran home again, but Jordan was determined. She called 911 and, within minutes, the authorities were there at her house with their blue lights flashing. Jordan’s mother, Louise Turpin, ordered one of her eldest daughters to unchain the two younger siblings who had been restrained for months to their beds. There was no time to unchain their elder brother, a grown man in his 20s, who had spent months chained up in his parents’ filthy house.

I was fascinated and horrified by the Turpin family, but details about them were kind of scant. I saw the pictures of David Turpin, a tall man with a ridiculous hairstyle, who had a well paid job at Northrup Grumman. I saw his wife, a woman just four years older than me, with long, dark, salt and pepper hair and a malevolent affect. These were the parents who had starved, beaten, chained, and terrorized their children… even the ones who were well over the age of adulthood. Eldest daughter, Jennifer Turpin, tried to escape once, but had no prospects. She had no skills, no identification, and a third grade education, even though her father had graduated with honors from Virginia Tech with a degree in electrical engineering. She could go nowhere and do nothing, so she called her mother, who came and got her. I’m sure she paid dearly for her escape attempt.

John Glatt, a well-known true crime author, has written about the Turpin family in his new book, The Family Next Door: The Heartbreaking Imprisonment of the 13 Turpin Siblings and Their Extraordinary Rescue. I’m a fan of true crime books, so I’ve read a few of his over the years. I can’t say he’s my favorite true crime author, but he gets the job done. He’s done a competent job of writing about the horrors the Turpin children endured at the hands of their parents. The book is easy to read and fairly comprehensive, although a lot of what I read, I could have, and actually did, read online. He’s done a pretty good of compiling the information, though, and included some information I didn’t know, such as the history behind David Turpin and Louise Robinette, as they were known in Princeton, West Virginia, before they got married when she was sixteen and he was twenty-three.

David and Louise Turpin grew up attending the same Pentecostal church in Princeton, West Virginia, the Church of God. David knew Louise when she was just a baby; in fact, he’d even held her. He decided he liked her as a woman when she was just ten years old. David was bookish, academically gifted, and loved chess. Louise was the granddaughter of the wealthiest man in Princeton, John Taylor, who had been a hero in World War II. He came back from the war in World War II and opened a Shell gas station, which was the only place to gas up for miles. Taylor made a lot of money, but he was also a lech. He hit on his customers, even though he was a married man. He and his wife, Mary Louise, had three sons and a daughter, Phyllis. Phyllis was Louise’s mother. She was also a victim of sexual abuse. Her father abused her for years, until she married Louise’s father, Wayne Allen Robinette, when they were teens.

Phyllis was keen to get out of her father’s house, and Wayne provided just the right opportunity. But he was a preacher, and that job didn’t pay so well. Phyllis was left without as much money as she needed. Phyllis and Wayne had three daughters: Louise, Elizabeth, and Teresa. They were far apart in age, and Louise used to protect Elizabeth from her parents’ fights, as well as the unwanted attention they got from their grandfather, John Taylor, who would ask them for “tight hugs”. “Tight hug” was a euphemism for the sexual abuse that had destroyed Phyllis’s childhood. And yet, even though Phyllis had been abused and hated it, she subjected her daughters to her father’s abuse. She’d bring them over to his house; he’d have his way with them; then he’d hand their mother a wad of cash.

Mary Louse divorced John Taylor when she caught him raping fourteen year old Louise one day. But she didn’t turn him into the police, because he was such well-known businessman and she worried about the family’s reputation. So although John Taylor moved out of the home, he still had his granddaughters come over for “tight hugs”. He was never brought to justice.

With an upbringing like that, it almost seems like the conditions were just right for Louise Turpin to go off the rails. She ran away with David, who had busted her out of school one day, posing as her dad David had a job in Fort Worth, Texas, and he took fifteen year old Louise there. Her parents were furious, but her father, Wayne, decided he’d rather see them marry than prosecute David for technically kidnapping his daughter. He didn’t want her having premarital sex. So they went back to West Virginia, got married, and began popping out children, starting with Jennifer in 1988, and ending with Janna in 2015.

According to Glatt, things were somewhat normal at first. The Turpins lived in comfortable homes and they sent their eldest children to school, although Jennifer would wear the same dirty, stinky clothes every day. Kids picked on her. She wasn’t allowed to have any friends, anyway. As the family expanded, things got weirder. Louise and David stopped inviting and paying for family to visit. They moved to different homes, trashing them all, leaving creditors unpaid, and making the few people who interacted with them think they were extremely weird people. Louise and David liked visiting places like Disneyland and Las Vegas. They’d bring the kids, let them shower and wear identical clean clothes for photos, then force them back into their nasty, putrid clothes when the trip was over. The children slept during the day and marched at night, hiding from anyone who might betray their secret to the authorities.

Or you could just watch 60 Minutes…

I’m not sure how much information John Glatt got from sources other than the news and Facebook. Other books have been written about this case and I suspect he read them, gathering bits and pieces of the story from those sources. I didn’t get the idea that Glatt did a lot of interviewing or looking for fresh information. However, I didn’t think his book was a bad read, since it strings everything together now that the Turpins have each been sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. He also includes photos of the Turpins and the children, as well as the names of the kids.

Some of the facts regarding this case are truly heartbreaking. It’s amazing to me that no one died, although several of the children will suffer lifelong ill effects from being starved and beaten, denied medical and dental care, and not being taught life skills. There was an outpouring of support for the Turpin children, particularly from their caregivers, healthcare professionals who were specifically chosen because they were so compassionate. The community also came together to help and protect them.

Glatt does make it sound like Louise Turpin was the chief perpetrator of the abuse, although David certainly was guilty of a lot of it. For instance, he was the one who had decided to start chaining the children. Prior to chaining them, the kids were tied with rope. They were also sometimes put in dog kennels. And the children were so filthy that the chains left clean spots on their skin, which along with bruises, served as evidence of their ordeals.

I think this book could have been better, but it’s not bad if you just want a run down of what happened. You could probably find most of what’s in this book in several articles on the Internet. But finding and reading those would require more effort than just reading Glatt’s book. Anyway, I’d give it three stars out of five.

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