by John Glatt
He then showed the court photographs of the children’s putrid clothing that hadn’t been changed for months.
“Dirt caked on them,” he said. “They weren’t allowed to take baths. They got used to this because of Texas. Because in Texas, they were getting left to fend for their own selves.”
When David Turpin came home from work, he would see his children in this terrible state, wearing heavily soiled clothing that stunk.
“All this stemming from the conditioning in Texas,” he told the judge. “Texas is extremely relevant. Not only is it relevant, it’s extremely probative because of the intent of both Mr. and Mrs. Turpin. What they did. How they did it. How they schemed in Texas. The level of abuse in Texas mirrors that of the abuse in California. It shows that both of these defendants have intent; the intent to cause cruel and unusual extreme punishment and pain and suffering to those poor thirteen kids here in California. It shows that they had knowledge of the conditioning of these kids.”
The prosecutor explained that he had concentrated on David Turpin’s role, as his attorneys had attempted to minimize his part in what had happened.
“Mr. Turpin initiated the chaining,” he said. “He wanted to chain all the children. It was his idea. He wanted all the kids to be chained. When he’d come home, he would see the status of [his] children: hungry, skinny, dirty, smelly, not leaving the house, coming into the kitchen one at a time to stand and eat.”
Beecham reminded the judge that for eight years running, David had submitted forms to the Department of Education, stating he was running a private day school for his children.
“He actually lists the grades of all the children,” Beecham said, “of all the children attending school. He’s not merely sitting idly by. He is a direct perpetrator of the neglect, of the abuse.”
The prosecutor described the physical damage inflicted on the children as torture and argued that David Turpin was criminally culpable.
“We’re talking about eleven of the twelve kids on the torture counts having muscle atrophy, muscle wasting away,” he told the judge. “They are emaciated, incredibly underweight. The adults … were on average thirty-two pounds underweight. We had many of the minors within a 0.01 percentile of [the] body weight they should be at. Point zero one. That’s incredible.
“At the very least, he facilitated the abuse. And the direct, natural, and probable consequence of that, to the point where they are so emaciated, so malnourished to the point of cachexia, is great bodily injury. They endured extreme pain and suffering as a result.”
Then David Macher stood up to argue against allowing the Texas evidence into the preliminary hearing. He began by labeling the prosecution’s claim of the children’s conditioning in Texas as “an interesting theory,” devoid of expert testimony.
“I mean, I’m not a psychology expert,” he told the judge. “Are we talking Stockholm syndrome? Are we talking some other kind of psychological conditioning? I have no idea.”
Macher said that the prosecution’s unproved theory was reason enough to strike the Texas testimony.
“The Texas evidence is inflammatory,” he told the judge. “Once you’ve heard it, it’s difficult to forget it. I believe the Texas evidence, based on Mr. Beecham’s argument, needs to go out. It is not relevant.”
The defense attorney called it “highly prejudicial,” saying it would deprive his client of the right to have a fair preliminary hearing. “As the court knows,” said the white-bearded attorney, “I’m fond of quoting Shakespeare, the speeches of Abraham Lincoln. But in this case, I think a scene from a Russian novel … Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov is particularly appropriate.”
He explained that in the novel, one of the three brothers, Ivan, tried to reconcile the existence of a benevolent, all-powerful God with all the evil in the world. But Ivan, who framed evil as the suffering of children, was unable to do so. So he turned his back on God and religion.
“Now why do I bring this up?” asked Macher. “I bring it up because, as Mr. Beecham has eloquently described it, in this case we see the enormous suffering of children. It’s cataloged for years. We’re not here to defend the conduct. We’re here to determine what this conduct means. Where does it fit in the corpus of the criminal law?”
As David and Louise Turpin looked on dispassionately, Macher told the court that it was only natural to protect innocent children from harm.
“They are innocent, vulnerable, and undeserving of any evil,” he said. “Evil inflicted upon children is so unacceptable to all of us that it may help to explain the interest in this case. But that’s just a guess, and it’s not the truly important point. The more important point is that our horror at the suffering of children presents a risk today right here in this courtroom. Crimes against children trigger outrage and anger. And in those circumstances, emotion—my emotions, the court’s emotions, Mr. Beecham’s emotions—can overcome our ability to reason. And reason is the life of the law.”
He then urged the judge to dismiss all the torture changes against his client.
“I think the word torture,” he argued, “is very similar to the suffering of children. I think it elicits a powerful and visceral reaction in us. That’s important. It’s important because, like the suffering of children, the word torture tempts us to step away from reason and follow instinct.”
The attorney said that torture was inapplicable in the cases of Joshua, who went to college and watched television with his parents, and Jessica and Joy, who went out shopping with their mother.
“Jordan described these two as, quote, ‘their real children,’” he said. “Jennifer, the oldest of the Turpin children, had social media accounts. She helped Jordan set up online accounts. For these four, I think dismissal of the torture charge is an easy call.”
He then told the judge that Louise Turpin was far more culpable for what had happened than his client.
“It’s my view that this is a particularly malevolent intent involved with torture. And it can be argued, I suppose, that Louise had that intent. My client, David Turpin, there’s very thin evidence as to what he did in California. He worked a lot. He was gone a great deal. Julissa indicated she could not recall a single abusive incident when Mr. Turpin was at home.”
Macher conceded that there was some evidence that his client had suggested the chaining, but called it “hearsay twice removed.” And he acknowledged that when his client came home, he must have seen how thin his children were and how they were dressed.
“A blind man would know that there was something wrong in the house,” said Macher. “But was he aiding that? I don’t think the evidence is there because he was not at home, according to Julissa, at any time that an abusive incident took place … So I believe Mr. Turpin could only be convicted of torture on an aiding and abetting theory.”
Then Macher turned his attention to the seven counts of abuse of a dependent adult, saying none of the siblings over eighteen fit this description.
“They are not dependent adults simply because they don’t have a driver’s license,” he argued. “They are not dependent adults because their education has been woefully neglected. A dependent adult, as I understand it, is someone with physical or developmental disabilities. And we don’t have that here.”
The attorney then asked the judge to dismiss some of the counts, as they were outside the statute of limitations, and others because the older siblings were treated far better than some of the younger ones.
Allison Lowe then took over to address the charge that David Turpin had committed a lewd act on his daughter.
“Like Mr. Macher, I think,” she began, “if we take emotion … and speculation out of it, then the elements haven’t been proved here.”
Lowe told the judge that neither the intent nor the force elements of the charge existed.
“The evidence presented here,” she said, “is devoid of clear sexual intent as required. The defendant must commit the act with intent of arousing, appeali
ng to, or gratifying the lust, passions, or sexual desires of himself or the child.”
The attorney said the court had heard two different versions of what had happened from separate officers. One had said Jordan’s pants were pulled down once, while the other said twice. Nevertheless, she said, the evidence showed it happened very quickly and nothing sexual was said.
Lowe said that the officers who questioned Jordan had never asked how far her pants were pulled down and if any underwear had been removed.
“She never described any removal of actual underwear,” said Lowe, “or something more extensive. As the court knows, there’s been no allegation of touching of genitalia of either party. There’s no described attempt at groping beyond seating her down on his left leg. We know that Jordan told law enforcement, based on the evidence presented, that she got up on her own, pulled up her pants. And this happened before Mother entered the room, and no attempt was made to prevent that from happening.”
There was “very thin evidence,” she argued, that her client had subsequently forced kisses on his daughter and for how long.
“I would ask the court to discharge [the] count,” she said.
Finally, Louise Turpin’s attorney, Jeff Moore, addressed the judge, saying that he was in an “embarrassing position,” as his arguments had already been presented to the court by Mr. Macher.
“First, I want to make it clear,” he said, “that I’m not submitting, as a wink, concession that the elements have been met.”
He asked the judge to reduce the assault charge—that his client had choked Jordan as punishment for watching a Justin Bieber video—from a felony to a misdemeanor.
“I believe it would be appropriate based upon the testimony at prelim,” he said.
In rebuttal, prosecutor Kevin Beecham argued that the defendant could have caused her daughter great bodily harm. He said he could have understood Mother’s reaction if her daughter had been setting the house on fire.
“But Jordan, at age fifteen,” he said, “watching a Justin Bieber video, being choked and threatened. For Mrs. Turpin to make the statement, ‘Do you want to die? I’m going to kill you!’ and ‘You’re going to hell!’ Jordan was actually afraid [and] really believed she was going to die. I think that defeats any real justification to lower [the felony charge] to a misdemeanor. Not only that, Jordan said it didn’t just hurt for a minute, but it hurt for two days.”
The prosecutor also argued that the seven older siblings were certainly dependent adults who could not look after themselves.
“It’s obvious,” he told the judge. “The fact that they became dependent adults after decades and decades of abuse, no expert’s needed at this time to show that they were conditioned.”
He said officers had placed a 5150 hold on the seven adult siblings, as it was obvious they could not care for themselves.
“It’s not because they didn’t have a driver’s license,” he explained, “or they didn’t hold a job, or because they were uneducated. It’s because, again, they were conditioned to such a point, desocialized to such a point where we have a seventeen-year-old that presents like a five-year-old. We have a twenty-nine-year-old with a third-grade education [who] weighs eighty pounds.
“So after years and years and decades of, again, conditioning and torturous intent by the defendants, they unfortunately became dependent adults.”
31
“THERE’S A PLETHORA OF EVIDENCE”
Judge Schwartz began his summation by addressing the defense motion to strike all Texas evidence from the record. He explained that a preliminary hearing was different from a trial, as a jury may have difficulty separating what happened in Texas and in California.
“And obviously, in front of a jury,” said the judge, “there may be severe prejudice with respect to listening to additional acts that were purportedly committed by Mr. and Mrs. Turpin.”
Judge Schwartz said that it would be decided later in pretrial motions whether or not the Texas evidence would be admissible at trial.
“Is the evidence relevant?” asked the judge. “I think it’s extraordinarily relevant. And it’s prejudicial. But I think it is probative to the grand story that is being told in the evidence that unfolded yesterday.”
He said that the evidence clearly met the legal requirements of torture: an infliction of great bodily injury to cause cruel, extreme pain and suffering.
“There is a plethora of evidence in that regard,” said the judge, “beginning with the feeding of the children. They ate twice a day for a while and then it was once a day.”
He said that their extremely limited diet of peanut butter and jalapeño baloney sandwiches led to malnutrition and anemia.
“There’s very little food value in those items,” he said. “And the repetition of the food—I think Jordan’s statement was that she got to a point where she couldn’t even digest the peanut butter anymore because she was so sick of it. So clearly, the children were not fed appropriately.”
Then Judge Schwartz addressed the various punishments the defendants had inflicted on their own children after moving to California.
“There was various hitting, slapping, hair-pulling, throwing around the room, pushing, which was described as not just a push but a severe push causing a substantial distance between the person inflicting that act and the child. And of course the chaining, which would occur for weeks, maybe months at a time, left some bruising on the children that were chained.”
Judge Schwartz said he was astounded at the lack of medical care and that none of the children had ever seen a dentist.
“The lack of socialization,” he said, “the lack of allowing the children to go out and play with other children and even, for that matter, socialize with each other. And we know what negative effects that has on the upbringing of a child, and the ability to be able to function in society.
“The lack of education,” he continued. “It was clear that these children were not being educated.. One of the children got to the letter I, and I think she was around fifteen years old.”
The judge then spoke on the deplorable conditions the Turpin siblings lived in.
“The court saw the exhibits that were shown,” he said. “The soiled underwear that they wore for many, many months and other clothing that was not washed. The bedsheets were not washed for upward of two years. And just the idea that they lived in that kind of environment … I think Jordan had testified that in spite of her warnings not to look out the window, she actually had to stick her head out of the window to get away from the odor to allow her to be able to breathe.”
Judge Schwartz said that this had resulted in severe physical damage to the children, including malnutrition, cachexia, psychosocial dwarfism, scoliosis, and stunted growth.
“And so clearly, the infliction of great bodily injury occurred to each one of these children to various degrees. In some instances, some of these things will be fixed. I know they were fed and gained weight. But some of these things are not going to be fixed in the medical conditions that they have.”
Although Louise carried out most of the physical punishment in California, Schwartz said her husband had done nothing to prevent it.
“So here we have clearly Mother, or Mrs. Turpin, inflicting much of the corporal punishment causing great bodily injury. But Mr. Turpin, either directly as a perpetrator or as an aider and abettor, clearly had a duty to ensure that these children were cared for in a proper manner. And it’s clear to the court that he failed in that duty. The court thinks that the elements of torture have been met as to Mr. Turpin.”
He then turned to the charge that the defendant had committed a lewd and lascivious act on his then twelve-year-old daughter.
“Court heard evidence yesterday that, according to Jordan, Mr. Turpin told her to come over, pulled her pants down. There is one version where that is all that occurs. The other version is that she pulled them up and he pulled them back down.”
Either way, said the judge, he u
sed some degree of force to pull her pants down, as well as then picking her up and placing her on his lap. And she was only able to get away when Mother came home.
“What is of significance to the court,” Schwartz continued, “in its consideration of this count is the kissing. [It] certainly shows the intent … of Mr. Turpin and why he may have done this activity for some sort of sexual gratification. Also, what was of significance to the court was him telling her after the fact, ‘Don’t tell anyone.’ Why would he say that if nothing happened, or if it was an activity that was completely innocuous? Mr. Turpin is her father. He’s in a position of trust and in a position of power over her, especially in this case where there is such tight control over the children.”
The judge then addressed whether the seven older siblings were dependent adults. He said it was only “common sense” for the deputies to put a 5150 hold on them, because of their lack of education and inability to care for themselves.
The only one of all the charges against the defendants Schwartz was not convinced of was that of child endangerment on two-year-old Janna.
“It’s true that she lived in an environment that was horrific,” he said, “one that obviously she wasn’t even aware of. But there was testimony that she was cared for properly. There’s no evidence that she was subjected to any of these kinds of physical abuse or emotional abuse.”
The judge then dismissed that single charge against both defendants before moving on to the twelve charges of false imprisonment.
“It’s clear to the court,” he said, “that there were two kinds of false imprisonment that were ongoing in the case. One was the chaining, the physical chaining of the children. But the other was just simply the inability of the children to be able to leave the house.”
He noted that even when some of the older siblings did leave the house, they went with Mother and were never allowed to be alone. And most of the time they all had to remain in their bedrooms, only coming downstairs to eat.
