Turpins plead guilty to violence involving 12 children: NPR

Sitting in a Riverside, California, California courtroom, David Turpin, 57, and Louise Turpin, 50, pleaded guilty to 14 indictment charges related to crimes. against 12 of their children. This case has drawn the world's attention to its degree of depravity. .

According to Riverside District Attorney Mike Hestrin, each parent pled guilty to one count of torture, four counts of unlawful imprisonment, six counts of cruelty to a dependent adult and three counts of cruelty to a person. voluntary child.

The children's trial was revealed in January 2018 when a girl managed to escape their home and call 911 with the help of a disabled cell phone, at 911. Police found "several children chained to their bed with chains and padlocks in the dark and nauseating environment," according to Riverside Sheriff's Department.

Their parents were arrested and after Friday's plea, they risk 25 years in perpetuity; Sentencing is scheduled for April 19.

"The accused have ruined lives, so I think it's fair and equitable that the sentence is equivalent to first-degree murder," Hestrin said at a press conference on Friday.

Hestrin said he spoke to the children, "and they are all relieved to know that the case has been resolved.The defendants in this case have basically accepted the maximum penalty provided by law in California."

The Turpins initially pleaded not guilty, but the passage to guilt allowed them to avoid lawsuits. Hestrin said that part of the reason prosecutors were receptive to the idea was that they did not want to put the children to the test of testimony. He said: "We decided that the victims had endured enough torture and abuse" in what he described as "among the worst and most serious cases of child abuse that I've never seen it before. "

During a period of eight years and a move from Texas to California, the family escaped the attention of the police, schooling the children at home and retaining a neatly cared exterior said the authorities. But inside, children have been deprived of food, have no right to take a shower a year, are beaten, strangled or tied up for weeks or even months at a time. Hestrin declared last year.

The children were so malnourished that their growth was apparently delayed. The police thought the girl who asked for help was 10 years old; she was 17 years old. The siblings were aged 2 to 29 at the time, and the police were "shocked" that seven of them were actually adults.

"Many victims have cognitive impairment and neuropathy – nerve damage – as a result of this prolonged and extreme physical abuse," Hestrin said last year.

There are 13 children, but the charges concern 12 of them, because a judge had already found that the youngest was the only one to have been spared. They are now between 3 and 30 years old, according to the Associated Press.

After talking with them, Hestrin was struck by how optimistic they are about their future: "They have a taste for life and a huge smile."