Parents of 13 ‘shackled’ siblings charged with torture

The parents of 13 brothers and sisters believed to have been held captive in their California home were charged today with multiple counts of torture and child endangerment.

Bail was set at $9m (£6.5m) each for David Allen Turpin, 57, and Louise Anna Turpin, 49, reports CNN, citing the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.

Police say they discovered the siblings, some shackled to beds with chains and padlocks, inside the house in Perris, about 60 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

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The captives are believed to be siblings aged between two and 29. They were located after a 17-year-old girl escaped and raised the alarm using a mobile phone she had found in the house.

The sheriff’s department says officers found “several children shackled to their beds with chains and padlocks in dark and foul-smelling surroundings”.

The parents were “unable to immediately provide a logical reason why their children were restrained in that manner”, the BBC reports.

The escaped teen looked like she was “only ten years old and [was] slightly emaciated”, and officers were “surprised to learn that seven of [the captives] were adults”, police said.

David Turpin’s parents have told ABC7 they are “surprised and shocked” at the allegations against their son and daughter-in-law, with whom they had been in regular contact but hadn’t seen in four or five years.

The couple were described by David's parents as “deeply religious” and were said to have believed that God had “called on them” to have so many children, The Daily Telegraph says.

CNN reports that the home is registered as the Sandcastle Day School, a “private school serving grades 1-12”. David Turpin is listed as the school’s principal.

The New York Times says the family’s neighbours “rarely saw the parents or the children, except for when some of the siblings were mowing the yard”.