Investigators have released the recording of the phone call that got the Turpin children released from the so-called “Horror House” back in January.
On Jan. 14, one of David and Louise Turpin‘s 13 children broke out of their home in Perris, California. With reportedly little knowledge of the outside world, she located a phone and called 9-1-1. On Wednesday morning, the audio recording of that call was played in a preliminary court hearing for the Turpin parents, both of whom are facing numerous charges.
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“I live in a family of 15 people and our parents are abusive,” the 17-year-old said in a small voice, according to a report by PEOPLE. “They are abusive, and two of my sisters are chained up.”
In the course of the call, the teenager told an operator that two of her sisters and one of her brothers were all chained to their beds back in the house she had just escaped from. She also began to describe their reclusive lifestyle, which would go on to shock the country in the coming months.
“Our parents don’t let us move out,” the Turpin daughter said. “Some of us have asked for jobs and they said that would never happen.”
She reportedly read her address to the operator off of a piece of paper she had absconded with, and could do little to describe her location. She admitted freely that she knew little about the world and had rarely been allowed to leave the house.
“I haven’t been out. I don’t go out much. I don’t know anything about the streets or anything,” she said.
The caller and her siblings ranged in age from 2 to 29 years old. All were kept in the house in a state of filth and malnourishment, according to the officers who responded to the scene.
“I don’t know what medication is,” the 17-year-old said when asked about what was in the house. “We don’t really do schools. I haven’t finished first grade and I am 17.”
The call also provided insight as to what went on behind the Turpins’ closed doors. According to the caller, her parents “only chain us up if we do something we are not supposed to. I have never done anything I am not supposed to.”
She was particularly bothered by their living conditions, and their isolation.
“We live in filth,” she told the operator. “Sometimes I wake up and can’t breathe because of how dirty the house is.”
As for meeting new people, she said that she and her siblings were only ever visited by their grandparents.
“The rest of the family, we don’t know them,” she said.
Both Turpins are behing held on $12 million bail. Each of them faces 12 counts of torture, seven counts of abuse of a dependent adult, nine counts of child abuse or neglect and 12 counts of false imprisonment. Louise has an additional charge of felony assault, while David has a charge of a lewd act against a child and perjury, for claiming that he was home-schooling his children.
Both parents have pleaded not guilty to all of their charges.
