Thirteen siblings, ranging in age from two to 29, were rescued by police in California from a house where some of them had been chained to beds, and their parents have been charged with torture.
Police made the discovery after a 17-year-old girl escaped the house in Perris, about 113 kilometers east of Los Angeles, and used a mobile phone she had found in the house to call them, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
“Deputies located what they believed to be 12 children inside the house, but were shocked to discover that seven of them were actually adults,” police said.
The children’s parents, David Allen Turpin, 57, and Louise Anna Turpin, 49, were arrested and each charged with nine counts of torture and 10 counts of child endangerment.
They were ordered held on 11.3 million USD bail, police said.
Six of the couple’s children are minors, while the other seven are over 18, police said.
The siblings told officers that they were starving and they were provided with food and drink, police said.
Police did not detail the parents’ motive for holding the children hostage, and a spokesman said he had no further details.
Neighbours said the Turpins and their children rarely emerged from their unkempt home in the new built development of closely spaced single-family houses.
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