one turned back...

Perris, California child abuse case / 13 children
Reader Comment:

annpm1
Psychotic depravity covers it for me.  The only way "homeschooling" enters into it is that if there were some accountability agency-wise, that would have brought inspection.  

But even in the case of social services, many times these situations have fallen through the cracks.  

It's the ability to escape detection -- also a pathological and cunning series of moves:  the [extended] family stayed away, the community kept its distance.  

The cunning and psychological power was enormous.  It's too easy to say that "homeschooling" was the determining faultline.

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     Some people blaming the Turpin-family-nightmare on home schooling -- it's like guns, I guess:

     A gun is lying on a table.  One person can come in and pick it up and go out duck hunting.  A different person could enter the room, pick up the gun, and shoot a person with it.

     Home schooling is an option.  One set of parents might use home schooling option to educate their children at home.  Another set of parents might use their home schooling option to conceal their abuse and torture of their children.

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Reader Comment:
"I am sure they are too selfish and self-absorbed to plead guilty.  I say no jail time.  Just put them back in the house and chain them together and put apple pies on the counter."
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     In my mind, the idea of the seventeen-year-old daughter (so emaciated from starvation that she appeared to be more like 10 years old) "going out a window" carrying a deactivated cell phone that she found in the house, and -- RUNNING -- and then using the phone to call  police (because apparently even a cell phone that doesn't work will work if you're calling 9-1-1, Wild!) 

...and successfully engineering the rescue of her brothers and sisters -- running, running, on a Sunday morning under a yellowish predawn sky, in a still, perhaps somewhat eerie California suburb.  

Running, with her plan firmly in mind....

(This next phrase is a variation on a centuries-old Anglo Saxon vulgarity, which we apologize for in advance, but in some instances you need this odd expression, for Emphasis) --

Fuckin' - A.

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Two things to contemplate in the Perris case.

1.  Timeline and Location-line
2.  The children's journals.


1.  Timeline

1984    the Turpins married, David 23 years old, Louise 16

1989    after four years of marriage, their first child (?) a daughter, is born (now 29 years old, weighing 82 lbs)

The baby they have now is 2 years old, so, born 2015

One report said it had been ten years since the last baby, so the last previous baby must have been born in 2005.

So --

12 children were born, 1989 - 2005
12 children in 16 years

During the 10-year gap with no new births (?), 2005 - 2015, the Turpins renewed their wedding vows at least three times (Vegas; Elvis impersonator; -- [don't even ask...]) in 2011, 2013, and 2015

2015, baby born

---------------- News today:  the Turpins had been planning to move their family to Oklahoma soon.

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State homeschooling laws, by state, are classified by four levels of stringency:

High regulation
Moderate regulation
Low regulation
No notice required

Texas, where the Turpins lived from the 80s to 2010, is a "no notice required" state -- lowest level of home school regulation, (which sounds like none...)

California, where the Turpins have lived since 2010, is "low regulation" -- second lowest.

Oklahoma, where they were about to move, is, like Texas, "no notice required."  ("The better to continue our false imprisonment policies, my dear" -- ?)

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Location-time-line

1986 - 2003    they rented a post office box in Burleson, Texas (16 miles from Fort Worth)

Lived in Fort Worth, I couldn't see during which years, exactly.  

Then they moved and lived in Rio Vista, Texas, which is 52 miles away from Forth Worth, until 2010.

2010 -- moved to Murrieta, California

2014 -- moved to Perris, California (19.2 miles from Murrieta)

2018 -- planned to move to Oklahoma.

-------------- So -- since 2010 (when the husband left engineer job at Northrop Grumman) -- parents moving their family once every four years.  And going to Disneyland and Las Vegas.

Back in Texas -- lived, two different towns, staying in same area.

2010 -- the big long move, far away, from Texas to California

4 years later -- moved to Perris, close by

another 4 years later -- planning another big, long move, far away, to Oklahoma

(getting into a move-every-four-years groove there...)

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Have Horror Fatigue.

Will discuss the children's journals in the next post.

-30-