Turpin horror house keeping me awake at night

[LivelyMummy]

I should have listened to my mum - apparently when pregnant you should keep away from bad news, scary movies, sad people etc

Since the story broke out, it is on my mind all the time. 13 beautiful children - how lucky are these parents! Just why treat them like this? I'm heart broken for these children.

There is nothing I can do. I am so angry, so sad, so helpless...

Does anyone understand why the parents did this?

Patricia, that’s heartbreaking, I hope your terrible experience hasn’t ruined your adult life, you are obviously very strong and brave and massively motivated to be able to break free of a drug habit. What I don’t understand is the report that the children were allowed to write journals which will be helpful for evidence but surely such controlling parents wouldn’t allow them to write freely? And OP I understand how something like this affects you, especially when pregnant, I was the same with Baby P, it rocked me for a long time and I had trouble processing it, it’s impossible to come to terms with horrors like these and we all respond differently. Take care xxxx

These won’t be anything like diaries or journals we are familiar with. Honestly, they’ll be bible verses. Or lines.

No, apparently these are detailed writings about their day to day lives.

The Parents don't seem to see what they've done wrong and probably didn't consider that the Journals could ever cause them any harm.

According to reports today the abuse started in 2010, when the children were locked in the house in Texas and the Parents lived elsewhere. That is the house that the photos are from. The next owners thought that they'd had animals locked in the house because of the scratches/damage/poo etc stains.

There is a fund set up for the children. Some will never recover, they have cognitive and nerve damage from the abuse. It will be similar to what was seen in the children rescued from being tied in cots in Romania.

Oh wow! Really? I wonder that they provided them with books and pencils yet objected to showers and water above the wrist.

No that level of delayed development started way before 2010. That’s life long.

WOW @patriciabateman thanks for sharing that fascinating but tragic story of yours. Hope you are OK now!!!

@LemonShark

I also wondered whether the youngest are the biological children of mum and dad in the family, sadly wouldn't surprise me if they were result of incest.

EXACTLY what I said! The mother seems too old to have had the 2 or 3 youngest children, and I do wonder if the father (of all 13 children,) is the biological father of the youngest 2 or 3 children. (And the mothers, are the older daughters...) GRIM.

Also not shocked to hear they are religious obsessives. Not just religious or someone with a faith, but deep into a cult-like state.

I am shocked though, to hear that several of the children are in their MID TO LATE 20's!!!

And why is it that these deeply religious people (I mean to the point of being in a cult,) treat their own FEMALE relatives worse than we treat animals. Locked up, obeying the man, having sex on demand, no mod-cons or luxuries (as luxuries are sinful!) no booze or TV or video games, no mixing with other people, very little formal education for the girls, married off to some bloke in the cult.

Most religions when taken very seriously and literally, treat women like second rate citizens.

Not meaning to bash peoples faith, and I know some people who go to Church who are nice people, but you know the sort I mean!!! Even people who have a faith and go to Church a couple of times a month, cannot stand these type of people.

The children weren't born with the physical issues that they now have. They are following the pattern that has been seen in other cases, such as the Romanian children (which taught us a lot).

Thankfully the two year old was adequately fed and was not get being badly abused. The Father is charged with lewd conduct towards one Daughter, but Police say that there will be more sexual abuse uncovered.

No I didn’t mean they were born with it, I meant the abuse started when they were very very young to have that much of an impact on their physical development. Certainly more than 7/8 years ago.

I just cannot believe these people slipped through the net.

There were 13 kids and the mom presumably gave birth in hospital? Did the other kids ever visit the mom and baby in hospital? They never had a doctors appointment, interaction with authorities ever? They were a huge family!

Can't believe there are detailed writings about their lives - they could read and write then.

Most peculiar, the whole situation.

Some of them can read and write. The oldest Son was allowed to go to College, but the Mother took him and picked him up.

They had a few children when the Maternal Aunt lived with them and there was controlling and strange behavior, but not abuse at that time. It seems to have escalated as some of the children tried to rebel, which is usual, in these types of Families.

The Aunt has lost residence of her seven children and tells how she watched her Mother being raped and beaten and was sexually assaulted from the age of Nine. She won't say if her Sister had the same childhood experiences.

A neighbour is reported as saying he saw them marched around one of the rooms at night from around midnight to 3am, they were going round and round, I know hindsight is a wonderful thing but wouldn’t that have raised alarms to maybe report strange behaviour to authorities? It always makes me feel angry when in cases of abuse neighbours say they heard screaming or saw strange things but didn’t take any action

This is a video of one of their wedding renewals on YouTube for anyone to see. Well, there are three videos of their three renewals.

This couple renewed their vows, white dress and all, THREE times in the past few years. Three. Who renews their vows so often? You can see the kids are painfully thin, uncoordinated, can't snap their fingers, they have such high pitched voices it's hard to imagine any are adults. Mom and dad look well fed. I read they rationed kids to a meal per day and left food out on counters to torment them looking at what they can't have. Seeing those stick thing kids next to overweight parents who starved them is one of the most disturbing things I've seen.

This whole case is so weird, on one hand house of horrors, charged with torture abuse and sexual molestation, on the other trips to Disneyland and regular trips to vegas? Wtf.

PatriciaBateman I'm so sorry for your experience. I honestly favour more government interference in ensuring all kids are adequately taken care of than less. It's awful how this stuff can slip through the cracks.

I wouldn't be surprised if the mom gave birth at home for a lot of the kids so they were never on the radar of anyone at all. None had ever had dental treatment or knew what medication was. They'll be feeling a lot of different emotions right now from fear to guilt, maybe a touch of relief but it must be terrifying to be out of all you've known and away from your parents. Chained up for months at a time, only allowed to shower twice per year, all kids were covered in faeces and urine when the police finally arrived. God those poor poor people. One relief is these parents will never be able to harm them again, though the damage done already will affect them for life.

Also you can see from the 2013 video the kids are desperately malnourished even then. So whether the chaining began in recent years or not, the starving has been long term.

I wonder if parents lost control, couldn't keep up with so many kids, had some deep religious values about not allowing the kids to develop or be exposed to 'sinful' outside world, some religious people believe beatings and discipline and self denial of pleasures are key to being closer to god, they clearly had some warped views and perhaps they sleepwalked to a point where they realised that if it came out they'd be in deep shit so they just doubled down on what they were doing, chaining the kids so they couldn't raise the alarm, obviously they must have some kind of psychological issues as any sane person would know it can't last forever, at least one day it'll come out or somebody will die. But just stuck their head in the sand and carried on.

The mum was a child bride at 16 so possibly had no idea how to mother or what a normal household looked like, no chance to become an adult before being a wife. Zero excuses, but it's interesting to ponder motivation.

At one stage the parents were living separately from the kids and just bringing them food. God, the only comfort is they had each other and weren't alone. But I sincerely doubt some of them didn't learn to be cruel from their parents to one another.

But then again the kids kept extensive diaries, you'd think if the parents were self aware they'd have stopped them from that as its evidence or a potential way out (if you can get the diary to an outsider)? So maybe they genuinely didn't think they were doing anything wrong. Or maybe they thought they'd never get caught or be dead by the time it came out.

Reports say the 17 year old was planning escape for two years, another younger girl escaped with her but turned back. What a hero she is.

Whenever I have doubts about a child being harmed or exposed to violence in the home or hear ongoing screaming or sobbing many days on end I always report, always. I'd much rather a good parent be visited by social services and know that others are looking out for their kids than turn the other way. Lord knows I'd want other adults to keep an eye out for me if I were a child and there were warning signs, and if I were the parent I'd much rather deal with the emotions of being referred to SS than know that children were being abused and people were looking the other way out of a social pressure not to be a 'snitch'. People get so caught up on the feelings of the parent and the thankfully more common occasions where everything turns out okay for the child instead of focusing on what actually matters, which is that a vulnerable helpless child is completely at the mercy of their caregivers, and can sustain abuse or neglect for years before getting help because others feel it's none of their business. The safety of kids is all of our business in society.

Mloo In my opinion you are wrong to feel the way you do. We should all be grateful that the authorities do investigate the possibility of child abuse. Surely it's better that people like you have a period of discomfort than everyone is just left to do their own thing irrespective of the level of depravity. This case illustrates to a high degree what happens when home schools have no monitoring whatsoever and the ability to actually give birth gives a person the right to treat their offspring in any way they see fit.

It is disturbing, it's horrible and like others it's impossible not to think about other families who no doubt are doing this right now. The best we can do is be decent parents and be observant. These children at least were taken out occasionally. And any person older than 20 who wants to marry a 16 year old girl is suspect and should never be allowed to open a school FFS.

ButtPlugInMyHalloweenHaul Agree completely. If you ignore signs of abuse or neglect to turn the other way you are complicit. Simple as.

@PatriciaBateman thank you for sharing your story. It is heartbreaking but I am so glad that you are well now. Hopefully it is positive that these children will have a better life in the future.

It would have sat better with me if it was a case of the family had no money and didn't know how to get help... Here you have these monsters eating in front of the kids to taunt them... who on earth does that? I'm thinking they must be mad. It's in our human genes to love and put our children first.

I wouldn't say it is in our human genes as such.
I am also not sure why you are supossed to avoid "sad people" while pregnant? I understand re: news stories etc. that may be upsetting but are the experience of other people, unfortunately.

Thanks Lemon I was born in the mid sixties and am still friends with my bestie from primary school. Her family set up was very damaging and whilst I had less material things than she did, she was physically abused, mentally abused and neglected. She is very intelligent but has zero self esteem. The abuse has affected her her entire life and I am astonished that it wasn't reported when she was a young child (left in her cot full of faeces and urine for days). A neighbour would randomly look in on her and feed her. From a young age she was home alone as her mother went abroad as much as possible and her father was in hospital. When I was quite young I remember questioning my DMum as to why she lived alone rather than having parents and DMum said that she was like Wellington from The cartoon The Perishers (who was a young boy who lived alone in a shed with a big hairy dog) and I didn't question it further until I was an adult. Blind eyes were turned constantly or it was seen as normal back then. She was sent to school wearing her mothers skirts tied on with string. She was clean because the neighbour did the washing but she was alone when she was home unless I spent time with her. I can't quite believe it looking back. It's far better now that people are more sticky beaky.

@superpug My mom tends to think that pregnant women can be more fragile mentally... Sadness is catching apparently.

It must be mental illness, no sane parent could imagine it would be a good idea to keep children awake all night, asleep all day, chained to beds and starved. The parents sound deeply paranoid and quite disturbed.

Those poor children. I fear they will never be OK, the damage must be so severe. Heartbreaking to think of the years going by and the world being oblivious to their torment.

Apparently they've been examined and no mental illness.