The Family Next Door

by John Glatt

  When Louise reentered her children’s lives after her radicalizing “midlife crisis,” prosecutors say she seemed to take over as the dominant physical abuser. She always seemed angry, and all the children were terrified of her. She only allowed them out of their rooms to use the restroom, eat, and brush their teeth. All exercise was banned.

  Jordan would later tell police that in Murrieta, they would spend twenty hours a day in their rooms, waking up at around 11:00 p.m. and then going back to bed at 3:00 a.m. The rest of the time, they slept.

  They were fed minimal food on a schedule and had no access to televisions, radios, or newspapers, leaving them with zero understanding of the outside world. But Mother and Father still encouraged them to keep daily journals.

  “The abuse and severe neglect intensified over time,” said Riverside County DA Mike Hestrin, “and intensified as they moved to California.”

  * * *

  Soon after moving into the house, things began to go missing from Mother and Father’s bedroom. The adolescent girls, starting to explore their burgeoning womanhood, took to borrowing Mother’s makeup and trying on her clothes. When they were caught, Father decided to chain up all twelve children and teach them a lesson. Years later, Jennifer told an investigator that her father had said putting everyone in chains was the only way to stop it. But Mother objected, saying they should only chain up the culprits, and she knew exactly who they were.

  Mother labeled the children she suspected of stealing, or being disrespectful, as “suspects.” And Jonathan Turpin, then fifteen, was the chief one. It began after he took Joshua’s camera and hid it in the trash can as a joke, but it was accidentally thrown out. He was also a “suspect” for stealing food.

  As punishment, his parents hog-tied him, but he was able to bite through the ropes to escape. Then they started chaining him to the bed rail with padlocks. When Jonathan managed to slide the chains off, Mother and Father started using thicker, heavier chains. Over the next six and a half years, Jonathan would be chained up for weeks or even months at a time, causing permanent spinal damage.

  Mother could turn violent at any perceived slight. She disciplined her daughters by giving them a “pitching,” literally throwing them around the room by the hair. She would also choke them, hit their heads hard with her fists, or slap them in the face.

  On one occasion, Mother threw Joanna down a flight of stairs. She had caught the seven-year-old in her room and became incensed. She started yelling and throwing the little girl around the bedroom. Then she pushed her down the steps. Joanna lay at the bottom of the staircase, dizzy and crying in pain. Her neck and back hurt for days afterward, but she never received any medical attention.

  * * *

  A few days after David Turpin opened the City Day School, Louise posted a photograph on Facebook of her and David posing in front of the Cinderella Castle at Disneyland. David, with a goofy grin, wears a Disneyland T-shirt that reads, HAPPIEST MEMORIES ARE HERE. A smiling Louise has a red T-shirt featuring Grumpy, one of the seven dwarfs. Presumably their children were back in Murrieta.

  The middle-aged couple had recently opened a Facebook account in the name “louise-davidturpin.” Their profile picture showed them lovingly gazing in each other’s eyes. David and Louise began to post a series of carefully posed photographs, using their kids as models for what seemed to be their big new project—conquering Hollywood with a hit reality TV series.

  The Turpin parents were both avid fans of TLC’s reality show Kate Plus 8, which followed the lives of Kate and Jon Gosselin and their sextuplets and twins. It was one of the most popular shows on cable TV at the time, becoming even more so after the Gosselins’ contentious divorce. Making it big as reality TV stars, Louise had already informed her family, was one of the main reasons for their move back to California.

  “Louise used to say how they would be perfect for TV,” Billy Lambert told Sunday Mirror journalist Chris Bucktin, “and would often mention they would be bigger than the reality show Kate Plus 8.”

  The Turpins trained their children to walk in a line with military precision, in the order of their ages, with Father at the front and Mother at the back. All the girls wore identical dresses, and all three boys had their father’s Captain Kangaroo haircut. And perhaps looking to upstage the Gosselins’ octet even further, forty-two-year-old Louise was now trying to have another baby.

  In late 2010, David and Louise posted a picture on Facebook, showing them with their twelve smiling children. They were all standing in a field, dressed in bright red shirts and holding their homeschool graduation diplomas, which Louise had ordered online. They all look painfully thin, except for David, who had a paunch.

  A friend on Facebook asked if the children were all theirs.

  “Yes all 12 are our children,” David-Louise Turpin replied, “and we are very proud of them.”

  * * *

  In January 2011, David Turpin found a job as a computer engineer in San Diego with leading aerospace and defense contractor Northrop Grumman. The highly specialized job at the Goldentop Road plant paid $143,000 a year and required a forty-four-mile commute each way on Interstate 15. He was working the 2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. shift, so traffic would be light at that time of day. It would also suit his family’s nocturnal lifestyle.

  Soon after the Turpins moved into 39550 Saint Honore Drive, their new neighbor, Mike Clifford Jr., who lived directly opposite with his parents, began to notice strange things happening across the road between midnight and 3:00 a.m.

  “We’d see them marching backward and forward [along the corridor] military-style,” Clifford, aged thirty, remembered. “The lights would be on and the window blinds would be open. They were odd. There was something definitely not right.”

  His sixty-year-old father, Mike Clifford Sr., also saw the children marching in circles for hours all through the night.

  “I’d come home,” he said, “and anywhere [between] twelve thirty to three in the morning, there’s kids marching between those two rooms up there. It looked like they were doing a loop … just like they were in the military.”

  Clifford Jr. said he only saw any of the children during the day once, when two of the Turpin sisters came out to check the mail.

  “I tried to say hi,” he said, “but they looked straight ahead, went to the mailbox, and went back [into the house] like zombies, completely monotone. No personality or social skills or anything.”

  The Cliffords thought the children were either disabled or autistic and that was the reason why they stayed inside the house.

  Over the next few months, the Cliffords also noticed their mysterious new neighbors driving in their van late at night.

  “They would load up their kids at about one in the morning,” said Mike Sr. “The garage doors would just pop open, and half a dozen kids would get into the van, and then they’d drive off.”

  This happened every couple of weeks during the three years the Turpins lived in Murrieta. The Cliffords often wondered if they were “selling the kids, sexually or whatever,” but they never contacted the authorities—another missed opportunity for the children to be rescued.

  When the Turpins first moved in, some of the neighborhood kids would go over to their house and ask them to play, but when there was no answer, they gave up.

  “I always thought they were some kind of a cult,” said Mike Jr., “or that the parents were psychotic. What kind of parents don’t let their kids play outside?”

  * * *

  On Thursday, April 28, 2011, David Turpin’s grandmother Bertha Green died in Gary, West Virginia, at the age of ninety-five. The sixteen-year-old child bride of the Reverend King Turpin Jr. had remarried Hobart Green and then outlived him by twenty-one years.

  Although David Turpin did not attend her funeral, he did post a tribute online in the Engle-Shook Funeral Home & Crematory guestbook.

  “Grandma meant love to me,” he wrote. “I always knew she loved all of her grandchildren. We will miss her, but s
he has finally reached her reward. My family and I are sorry that we could [not] be there today. David, Louise, Jennifer, Joshua, Jessica, Jonathan, Joy, Julianne, Jeanetta, Jordan, James, Joanna, Jolinda, Julissa.”

  12

  “SO MANY LITTLE BRIGHT-EYED DREAMERS”

  In early July, the Reverend Randy Turpin, now an ordained bishop in the Church of God, flew to California with his wife, Kerry, and their five children to visit his brother. The highlight of the trip was the two families going to Disneyland together.

  Randy’s second-eldest daughter, Miranda Joy Turpin, was the same age as her twenty-year-old cousin Jennifer. They had last seen each other in the mid-1990s, when they were six. The only other Turpin cousin she had met was Joshua, so she was particularly excited to meet her other ten cousins. Miranda, an apprentice horse trainer who lived in Maine, memorialized her visit to the Turpins on her blog called Dream Chaser.

  “We went to California,” she wrote, “to visit my Uncle and Aunt and their 12 kids. We have always lived a continent apart and considering the size of both our families … we were never able to visit each other.”

  Upon entering the Turpin house, Miranda wept tears of joy.

  “We walked into their home and I saw my 12 beautiful cousins for the first time,” she wrote. “It was truly a dream come true. I cried, and it takes a lot for me to cry.”

  She described her cousins as the “sweetest” and “most well behaved” kids she’d ever met, saying she was “blessed” to be part of their family. Their trip to Disneyland, she said, was “unforgettable.”

  “It was amazing to be in ‘The Place Where Dreams Come True’ with so many bright-eyed dreamers,” wrote Miranda.

  During her visit, Miranda bonded with her cousin Jennifer, saying she was “the sweetest, most pure-hearted person” she’d ever met. Jennifer told her that she dreamed of being a professional singer one day. Miranda thought she had a naturally beautiful voice and an “amazingly creative imagination.”

  “Jennifer told me that she has written 141 songs,” wrote Miranda, “[which] she sings regularly to her younger brothers and sisters.”

  Jennifer allowed her cousin to video record some of her favorites, which Miranda later posted on her blog, along with a photograph of the two of them. She wrote that she was “truly blown away” by her cousin’s voice and her “great lyrics.”

  Jennifer then sang what she described as her “worst” song. It was called “Have Faith,” and Miranda found the lyrics so “uplifting and catchy” that she caught herself humming it in the shower the next morning. Jennifer told her that she was the first person outside her immediate family who had ever heard her sing.

  “She only ever sings for her brothers and sisters,” wrote Miranda, “and never has a chance to sing outside the house. Because of this, there is an amazing purity to her songs and her heart shines through so brightly because she is not trying to impress anyone and she has no reason to fear what others think of her.”

  During the visit, Jennifer even wrote a song for her cousin she entitled “Miranda.”

  “It’s number 142!” Jennifer told her.

  At the end of their visit, Miranda told Jennifer about her Dream Chaser blog, asking permission to post the videos of her songs on it.

  “Her face just lit up,” recalled Miranda.

  A couple of weeks later, Randy Turpin posted a family photograph on Facebook of the whole Turpin family posing in front of the Disneyland Cinderella Castle.

  “A memory that I will hold on to for the rest of my life,” read his caption. “It was so great being with you guys.”

  * * *

  Exactly one week later, David and Louise Turpin filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy, owing almost a quarter of a million dollars to scores of creditors. They hired a bankruptcy lawyer named Ivan Trahan, going to his nearby Temecula office for a consultation and paying him $2,700 for his services.

  Louise proudly told the attorney about their twelve children and how they loved Disneyland. He thought they were “a very nice couple.”

  Chapter 7 is designed for debtors who are unable to pay off their existing debts. As joint debtors, Louise and David Turpin would have to undergo a “means test” to determine if they were eligible to have their debts wiped out so they could start afresh. They would also be allowed to keep cars and other property, considered exempt under U.S. bankruptcy law.

  According to their filing, the Turpins owed $240,564 to sixty-three creditors and had assets of just $149,492. They claimed $100,696 in exemptions, including David’s 401(k)s from Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman; their three Ford vehicles; Louise’s clothing and jewelry; and $500 worth of DVDs. They listed their respective occupations as engineer and homemaker and their dependents as three sons and nine daughters.

  The eighty-three-page bankruptcy document reveals just how profligate the Turpins’ spending had become.

  Their debts included $88,421 on twenty-seven credit cards; $1,102 to AT&T on unpaid cell phone bills; $396 for pest control; and $140 to Bob’s Rural Garbage for trash service back in Texas. The Turpins also owed $45,283 for their repossessed double-wide trailer and $40,079 for their foreclosed farm in Rio Vista.

  They listed their monthly expenses as $8,938, including $2,500 for food, $1,300 for transportation, and $350 for clothing.

  As part of the requirements for chapter 7 bankruptcy, Louise and David Turpin both completed an online course in personal financial management. Both passed.

  A few weeks later, the Turpins signed an agreement with the United States bankruptcy court, agreeing to repay the Ford Motor Company $424.31 a month over the next four years, putting David’s 2010 Ford Mustang up as collateral. All their other debts would be erased.

  In a reaffirmation agreement, Louise Turpin explained how they had now cut their monthly expenses by more than $2,000.

  “We started using coupons,” she wrote, under penalty of perjury, “and being more conservative in our spending.”

  * * *

  At the end of October, David Turpin officially registered his City Day School with the California Department of Education for a second year. Then he and Louise drove to Las Vegas to renew their wedding vows after twenty-six years of marriage.

  Despite their claims of “cutting back,” the couple spared no expense for the occasion. The bride got a complete makeover, chopping off her long brunette locks to go blonde and buying a new wedding dress. Unlike the old-fashioned, conservative dress Louise had worn in 1985, this time she selected a far sexier one. It was a spaghetti-strap gown, fitted over the bodice with lightly gathered layers of fabric over the long full skirt. David purchased a classic tuxedo with a wing-collar shirt and black bow tie.

  For the ceremony, Louise had booked the Hound Dog Package at A Elvis Chapel, right off the Las Vegas strip. For $325, they would receive a package that included the chapel’s resident Elvis impersonator, Kent Ripley, singing three of the King’s songs; a limousine to and from their hotel; a copy of Elvis and Priscilla’s original license certificate; and a video and fifteen digital prints, taken by a professional photographer during the service.

  David and Louise arrived in Las Vegas on Friday, October 28, checking into the Circus Circus Hotel, Casino & Theme Park. They had left their twelve children back in Murrieta.

  On Saturday morning, they put on their wedding outfits in their hotel room before getting into their stretch limo for the five-minute drive to A Elvis Chapel. When they arrived, they were met at the door by Kent Ripley, wearing a gold lamé jacket and sporting a young Elvis haircut and sideburns. It would be the first of three Turpin marriage renewals that fifty-two-year-old Ripley would conduct over the next four years.

  “They came in by themselves,” he remembered. “David’s haircut was just unusual, and listening to him talk, I had the impression he was a rocket scientist. So I was thinking … he’s a very smart guy.”

  Before the ceremony, the Turpins told him about their twelve children, whom they homeschooled.
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  “I joked to myself,” said Ripley, “‘This is the Brady Bunch times two.’ I mean, that’s a big family.”

  The ceremony took place at the altar beneath fake Grecian columns. The happy couple held hands and gazed lovingly into each other’s eyes as they renewed their vows. As Ripley sang “Love Me Tender” to a prerecorded music track, an emotional David gave Louise a ring. They then slow-danced to “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” followed by a rousing rendition of “Viva Las Vegas” to finish the ceremony.

  That night, the newly remarried couple went out drinking and gambling. Louise later told her sister Elizabeth that she got so drunk she could barely stand up. Finally, at around 6:00 Sunday morning, David told her to stop gambling, as she was losing so heavily, and a drunken Louise furiously lashed out at him.

  “She … made a scene,” wrote Elizabeth. “That’s when the security guards got involved … and literally escorted her out.”

  * * *

  Six weeks later, the United States bankruptcy court officially discharged David and Louise Turpin, writing off almost all their debts and leaving them with a clean financial slate.

  13

  “LOUISE TURPIN IS A SUPER MOM”

  That Christmas, James and Betty Turpin flew to Murrieta to visit their grandchildren. Years later, the Turpin grandparents, then both in their late seventies, would describe the children as healthy and well adjusted.

  “They were joyous to see us,” said their grandfather. “The kids were fine. They weren’t skinny or nothing. They were ‘sweetie’ this and ‘sweetie’ that to each other.”