More than 20 years before a 17-year-old girl escaped through a bedroom window and revealed what went on behind the closed doors of a house since dubbed the “horror house,” one relative says she saw the seeds of David and Louise Turpin’s abuse while staying with them.
Elizabeth Flores, the younger sister of Louise Turpin, was only 20 when she moved into the Fort Worth, Texas home of her sister and brother-in-law in the summer of 1996, and while she originally only witnessed what she thought were strict rules and no signs of physical abuse, she now realizes they were signs of what would be revealed more than 21 years later.
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“I would ask if I could play with them, and she would tell me no and shut them in their rooms. She said it was to protect them from me, that she didn’t want ‘my ways rubbing off on them,’” Flores told PEOPLE. “I felt bad because I thought they were being held hostage because of me.”
She continued, “The whole time I lived with them, I never once saw them kiss when Louise and David walked through the door or anything. I never once saw them run up to them and say ‘Daddy!’ and jump in his arms. Never once saw them react to Louise in that way. Never once saw David and Louise just sit and hold them. Never once saw them read them a book, never once saw them tuck them in bed. Never once saw them rock the baby to sleep.”
On January 14, 2018, it would be revealed that the strange behavior and strict parenting led to something much darker, with the Turpin parents arrested on suspicion of torture and child endangerment after their 17-year-old daughter escaped the house and called police. When police raided the Perris, California “horror house,” some of the 13 siblings bound and shackled were found lying in their own feces. The children were allegedly abused, fed once per day, only permitted to take a shower once per year, and forced to march around for hours in the middle of the night.
“I wondered before I got there, what went on, did she already have them trained? You know, were there signs there that I didn’t see? Should I feel guilty?” Flores continued. “It’s just hard to fathom. You don’t want to believe that your sister would torture anybody.”
Flores previously revealed that during the years the abuse took place, she was not allowed to visit the 13 siblings.
“Something didn’t seem right about her parenting but never would I have expected it to be like this… they wouldn’t let anyone visit and we didn’t know their address. I haven’t seen her in 19 years. We would talk on the phone from time to time, but every time I would ask to talk to her kids, she wouldn’t let me,” she said. “She never let us talk to her kids. She wouldn’t even accept my Facebook request. We all wondered what was going on.”
Both David and Louise have been charged with 12 counts of torture, seven counts of abuse of a dependent adult, six counts of child abuse or neglect, and 12 counts of false imprisonment. David has also been charged with one count of lewd act on a child under the age of 14 by force, fear, or duress. If convicted, each could face 94 years to life in prison.
They have both pleaded not guilty to all charges and are being held on $9 million bond.
