Two children in the Perris, California "house of horror" climbed out a window and escaped Sunday, January 14th, but one of them stopped and went back, out of fear.
What a harrowing story. News reports say the 17-year-old who met police had photographs, to back up what she was telling them about conditions in the house.
It said she and some of the other children had planned this escape for two years.
(Would it take that long to plan this? Well, the level of fear and intimidation and horrendous abuse and neglect and starvation these people had been living under would make everything you try to do much more difficult, hard, and scary.
It's possible that what prompted the children to finally put the long-considered plan into action was the family's imminent move to Oklahoma....)
One aspect of the story that's so sickening and hard to wrap your head around, is how long it's been going on. Almost 30 years, and 13 children. With each child, they must have provided proper nutrition up to a certain age -- seven? Nine? -- and then started cutting back on food and stepping up the "punishments."
It looks like the M.O. was the same with each kid -- that isn't like a parent having a really bad day and losing temper in frustration and taking it out on sons and daughters -- this is like meticulous, routine, purposeful breaking of spirits -- assembly-line abuse....
That the six legal adults and five of the minors all look much younger than they are because of long-term starvation is -- just... It's like they were stealing the kids' childhoods -- and their future! Everything! I just don't know if I've ever heard of anything exactly that atrociously cruel, it's like the Nazi concentration camps....
Some Comments I saw, expressed kind of what I was feeling but didn't know how to articulate...
"Strategic neglect and deprivation coupled with low level chronic physical abuse is the worst form of child abuse."
"Those parents stole their childhood -- those kids never had a chance -- this makes me so mad."
"It's unclear whether they can ever have a normal life: this couple purposely and knowingly completely destroyed their kids."
"Is this mental illness or just sadism at its worst" -- Dan Banks
"it's nice to see police doing real work between harassing minorities and shooting people."
"Why did they have so many children, if they were going to abuse them?"
(And the vile possibility suggests itself -- that they had the children, all 13 of them, specifically in order to abuse them....)
An interview with one of Louise Turpin's sisters (on ABC, I think) -- she said in a slow, thoughtful way: "I knew my sister was different from us, but -- I would never, ever, have imagined anything like this."
She said she stayed at the home of David & Louise Turpin and their four oldest children in Fort Worth, for a while, in the mid-1990s -- the sister described a "weird dynamic between them."
The sister said Louise Turpin "made all the decisions -- and he just sat back and watched. It was weird.
...She always seemed to be in control, but she'd look back over at him, there were these looks between them and he was always sitting back, watching..."
The thought comes to my mind: wouldn't the parents, during these long years, get --tired? Tired of their own behavior? Tired of hitting and -- strangling -- ??
--------------------
The default reaction is to ask,
"Why?!?"
"What caused this?"
Answer:
_____________________________
I sometimes forget that there is evil in the world. Then -- I am reminded. "Oh, yeah..."
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment