by John Glatt
Her classmates would hold their noses when she passed by. Dana, who was also bullied, was one of the few kids who would talk to her.
“I was a pretty shy kid as well,” he recalled. “I wouldn’t say we were drawn toward each other, but we talked on occasion. Jennifer was genuinely nice. I don’t think she ever had a mean bone in her body. On a dare, I once kissed her on the cheek, and I was ridiculed horribly for it.”
He still remembers the little Turpin girl as being unusually hyperactive and excitable.
“She was very full of energy at school,” Dana said. “On field days, she was always super-excited and would be the first one running in front of everybody.”
Aaron Pankratz was also in Jennifer’s first-grade class and still remembers her “really long, unkempt hair” and “hand-me-down dresses.”
“She struck me as being really poor,” he said, “and I remember being weirded out by her. I really just avoided her for the most part … she was more of an outcast.”
* * *
On December 17, 1995, Louise Turpin gave birth to her fourth child, Jonathan Wayne, at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Southwest Fort Worth. He was a healthy baby weighing eight pounds, eight ounces, and was twenty and a half inches tall.
His proud parents sent a photograph of baby Jonathan to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which subsequently appeared in the birth announcements column.
“He joins his older siblings,” it read. “Jennifer, 7, Joshua, 3, and Jessica, 2.”
In June 1996, Louise and David brought their four children back to Princeton for a family visit. They proudly showed them off, assuring close family members there would be many more to come. The children were all dressed in identical clothes, right down to their shoes.
“They would all walk in a straight line,” recalled Teresa. “They were like a school rather than a family. I just thought she was overly strict with them.”
Once again, David and Louise paid for everything, taking everyone out for lavish meals at different restaurants every night. And both their families were duly impressed by the luxurious lifestyle David, Louise, and the kids seemed to enjoy. It seemed that Louise really had found her Prince Charming and was living the American dream.
“We thought she had the perfect life,” said Louise’s half brother Billy Jr. “Any time they wanted something, they did it. I thought they were just a normal, happy family.”
During their visit, Elizabeth, who was now studying at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, asked if she could spend the summer with them in Fort Worth. David and Louise readily agreed, and when they left to return home, Elizabeth sat in the back of the van with the children.
As they drove through Louisiana, David suddenly took an exit off the interstate. Louise announced they were going to a casino to gamble, asking Elizabeth to look after the children while they were away. But first she made her sister promise never to tell anyone in the family they gambled, as it was against their religious beliefs.
“I was in shock,” remembered Elizabeth. “We were all raised up in a strict Christian home and taught that gambling was a sin.”
A few hours later, as the children slept in the back of the van in the casino garage, David returned. He seemed very upset, complaining that Louise had a serious gambling problem and refused to stop even though she was losing heavily. Then he went back into the casino, saying he hoped they would have enough gas money to reach Fort Worth.
Several more hours passed before David brought Louise back to the car. They had obviously been arguing.
“Louise was upset,” said Elizabeth, “and yelled, ‘I’m not a child! Stop bossing me around!’”
* * *
Former Princeton High School teacher Pamela Winfrey would often think back to the day she had unwittingly excused Louise Robinette from class so she could elope with David Turpin. She regularly shopped at the Walmart in Bluefield, where Phyllis Robinette now worked as a cashier.
“One time I mentioned to Phyllis that I had taught Louise on the day she’d left,” said Winfrey, “and asked her about it. She said it was because of [Louise’s] dad that she got married. I told Phyllis I was amazed how brave and gutsy she was to run off. I would never have the nerve to do anything like that.”
* * *
When Elizabeth moved into 3225 Roddy Drive, she was initially delighted to be reunited with Louise. They enjoyed spending time together, playing board games, listening to music, and watching movies. But Elizabeth soon realized just how strict Louise and David were with their young children, especially Jennifer.
“They had to ask permission to go to the bathroom,” said Elizabeth. “They had to ask permission to eat.”
Elizabeth never saw her sister or brother-in-law display any affection or tenderness toward their children. During the summer Elizabeth lived there, she never once saw them kiss their children or even hold them. They never read them a book, tucked them into bed, or gently rocked baby Jonathan to sleep.
Elizabeth was also puzzled by Louise’s almost ritualistic mealtimes. After placing the plates of food on the table, she would call the children down to eat one at a time. And for some reason, Louise was always harder on Jennifer than any of the others. Before being allowed to eat, the first grader had to look her mother in the eye and smile, and then wait for it to be returned.
“And then [Louise] would say, ‘Okay, sit down,’” Elizabeth said. “And then she would literally just sit there … waiting for permission to eat. And then [Louise] would tell her, ‘Okay, you can eat.’”
After Jennifer had finished eating, her mother would tell her to stand up, look at her, and smile before sending her back to her bedroom.
“It was like a secret code,” recalled Elizabeth, “at every meal.”
Jennifer and her three siblings were confined to their rooms for long periods of time and were never allowed any contact with their aunt unless Louise was present.
“She didn’t want me talking to the kids,” explained Elizabeth, “and they weren’t allowed to talk to me without permission.”
Louise told Elizabeth it was to “protect” her children, as she didn’t want her beliefs “rubbing off on them.”
Although she felt uneasy about how David and Louise were treating their children, the nineteen-year-old never challenged them.
Elizabeth also noticed how they both had bad tempers. Usually soft-spoken, David would fly into a rage at the least provocation.
“David would get set off if Louise did something he didn’t like and get really mad,” said Elizabeth. “When I lived there … he didn’t want us doing anything together without him. She knew not to do it because he would just flip.”
Years later, Jennifer Turpin would tell investigators that she had witnessed her father losing his temper and physically attacking her mother. Eventually, David promised to stop, but it is unknown whether or not he did.
* * *
According to Rick Ross, an expert on cults and the founder of the Cult Education Institute, it was in Fort Worth that David Turpin began molding his family into a twisted cult, using his warped version of Pentecostal teachings as a foundation. He viewed himself as a charismatic leader, with Louise as his second-in-command.
Over the next few years, as their family expanded, David and Louise introduced a set of elaborate rules and punishments, conditioning the children into absolute obedience and dependency. The children were required to call them Mother and Father.
“What we call ‘cult brainwashing’ is actually a synthesis of coercive persuasion or thought reform,” explained Ross. “And they develop influence techniques, either by trial and error, instinctively, or they read books and figure it out.”
Ross said family cults were all about power, control, and domination.
“The father figure simply wants to turn his family into essentially a group of devotees,” said Ross. “And there is no legitimate reason to leave. You don’t grow up and move out.”
He said there was noth
ing new about family cults like the Turpin family.
“Who knows how many there are around the United States?” he said. “This is not uncommon, but we only find out about it when something horrible happens.”
* * *
Soon after moving to Fort Worth, Elizabeth found a summer job at a local store. Louise insisted on driving her to and from work, laying down a strict set of rules for her to follow. She was not allowed to have any friends, use their home phone, or even tell anyone where she lived. It was if she had now been recruited into the family cult.
“Louise was a very private person,” explained Elizabeth. “I was told if I broke the rules, I would be kicked out.”
That summer, Elizabeth observed David and Louise at close quarters, learning the strange dynamics of their relationship. Outwardly, her sister appeared to be in control and to make all the decisions as David quietly watched with his arms folded. But then Louise would always look at him for affirmation.
“They’d make eye contact,” said Elizabeth, “and she’d say, ‘Right, David?’ And David would either say, ‘Right,’ or he’d say, ‘Well…’”
Elizabeth said it was Louise who would decide whether or not to punish the children for some infringement of her growing set of rules. Then David would carry it out.
Elizabeth was also becoming uncomfortable with her brother-in-law’s increasingly inappropriate behavior. He began teasing her about an ex-boyfriend, saying that he must have gotten excited when she went swimming in her skimpy bikini. One day in the kitchen, David and Louise opened up about their relationship. David admitted having had “the hots” for her sister since Louise was ten years old, when he had made “a pass” at her.
Soon after this revelation, Elizabeth was taking a shower when Louise picked the bathroom lock with a coat hanger. Then she and David came in to watch.
“That was real inappropriate,” said Elizabeth, “and made me feel very uncomfortable. [They] would come in and watch me shower and make me get out in front of him.”
As she self-consciously dried herself off, they began laughing at her embarrassment.
“I was red from head to toe,” said Elizabeth. “They tried to [pretend] it was a joke. Like they weren’t doing anything wrong.”
From then on, David and Louise often watched Elizabeth in the shower, telling her she was beautiful. Although Elizabeth hated it, she had no alternative. She insists that David never laid a finger on her.
Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Michael Stone, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, explained that incest victims often have no sexual boundaries.
“They tend to have various sexual abnormalities,” said Dr. Stone. “They were raised by people who violated rules, so there’s no rules. Some of them become wildly promiscuous, and others feel that sex is dirty and disgusting after what happened to them. But there is usually some abnormality.”
* * *
Toward the end of the summer, Louise discovered her sister had befriended a fellow worker and regularly ate lunch with him. She was furious. After dropping Elizabeth off at work one day, she never returned to pick her up. Elizabeth was frantic and kept calling Louise, who refused to answer the phone. She spent the night sleeping on a bench at a nearby Walmart.
For the next three nights, Elizabeth slept outside, going to work in the same clothes. Finally, Louise answered the phone, telling her sister to go home to Tennessee. It was only after Elizabeth threatened to call the police that Louise allowed her to come back and collect her things.
* * *
On May 21, 1997, Louise was back at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Southwest Fort Worth, giving birth to their fifth child, a baby girl they named Joy Donna. The bouncing baby girl weighed seven pounds, seven ounces, and was twenty and a half inches tall. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram printed her photo in its birth announcements column.
“She is welcomed by her brothers and sisters, Jennifer, 8 years, Joshua, 5 years, Jessica, 3 years, and Jonathan, 18 months,” read the caption David had provided.
* * *
Three months later, Jennifer started second grade at Meadowcreek Elementary School. Her hygiene had deteriorated even further.
“She smelled just like dirty clothes and urine,” recalled classmate Jessica Bermejo. “She always wore the same clothing … so she probably just never took it off, I guess.”
But her aunt Teresa, who had recently visited, vividly remembered seeing a row of expensive dresses in Jennifer’s closet that had never been worn.
“[They] didn’t even fit her anymore,” said Teresa. “The tags hadn’t even been taken off … $200 and $300 dresses.”
While the expensive dresses gathered dust in her wardrobe, Jennifer wore the same dirty long-sleeved white shirt and purple pants each day.
The nine-year-old, now confined to her bedroom for hours at a time, also seemed unnaturally hyperactive, constantly doodling and playing with her hair. She also began exhibiting disturbing behavior in front of her classmates.
“She would touch her private area,” Bermejo said. “I don’t know if it was itching, and it could have been because she was dirty as well.”
Jennifer also said things that made everyone uncomfortable.
“She was talking about things that could indicate sexual abuse,” Bermejo reflected. “Things that were inappropriate for that age. I just kind of brushed it off.”
Jared Dana remembers a teacher sending Jennifer to the principal’s office for rubbing her pubic area, but apparently, no action was ever taken to investigate if there was a problem at home, and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services have no record of the Turpins.
When Jennifer was in third grade, there was a lice outbreak at Meadowcreek Elementary School, and everyone blamed her.
“I actually was one of the kids that got lice,” said Bermejo. “It was a big deal that a lot of people got lice too. The kids were calling her the Cootie Girl, because everyone knew that her hygiene was [bad].”
Taha Muntajibuddin and his twin sister, Nuha, were also in third grade with Jennifer and observed how badly she was treated.
“She was often made fun of by the other third graders,” wrote Muntajibuddin on Facebook, “because her clothes would sometimes look as though they had been dragged through mud, which she would also smell like on most days.”
One day, Jennifer was humiliated when a teacher ordered her to remove an old Hershey bar wrapper, which she was using as a scrunchie to tie up her long, dirty hair.
“I distinctly remember my entire third-grade class scoffing at her,” Muntajibuddin wrote.
But even though she endured so much ridicule, the good-natured girl was always friendly.
“She tried to socialize,” said Bermejo, “but people just didn’t want to play with her and stayed away from her. I reached out to her a few times, but I was an introvert as well.”
* * *
On June 15, 1998, Louise gave birth to her sixth child, Julianne Phyllis, at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Southwest Fort Worth. The healthy baby weighed eight pounds, fourteen ounces, and was twenty-one inches tall.
“She is welcomed by her brothers and sisters,” read her birth announcement in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, alongside a photograph.
A month later, Louise, David, and their four oldest children drove east to Princeton for a family visit. It was an unhappy stay, and Louise made no secret of how much she hated Princeton.
“She went to see the family one last time,” Elizabeth later told Dr. Oz, during an interview on his popular television show. “She had [told me] that she wasn’t going back there. She wanted [to] let Mommy and Daddy see their grandkids.”
Teresa believes her oldest sister was traumatized by that final visit, as all her childhood nightmares flooded back.
“She was so hurt,” explained Teresa. “Being there made her sick. Made her resentful.”
It would be the last time Louise and David ever set foot in West Virginia, and ther
e would be no more all-expenses-paid annual visits for the Robinette family.
* * *
As Christmas approached, the Turpins were in dire financial straits. Although David was earning good money working for Lockheed Martin, he and Louise regularly drove to Louisiana to gamble, and she was still losing badly.
Since getting kicked out of the Turpin home, Elizabeth had dropped out of college and gotten married. She eventually reconnected with Louise, and they talked on the phone regularly. During the calls, her sister often spoke about her love of gambling and how David disapproved. She said she loved “the rush” gambling gave her and couldn’t stop.
In late December, Elizabeth called her sister’s cell phone. Louise said she was out Christmas shopping and would call back. Several hours later, she did, boasting that she was maxing out all her credit cards to buy as much as she could before they were declined. At that moment, she told her sister, David was in the garage stacking up all the children’s presents.
She then proudly announced they were about to file for chapter 7 bankruptcy. The bank was foreclosing on the Roddy Drive house, as they had fallen so far behind in mortgage payments.
When Elizabeth questioned whether bailiffs would seize all their possessions after they filed for bankruptcy, Louise laughed. She explained that although they would lose their house, they could still keep everything else bought on credit. Under chapter 7 rules, they would even be able to keep their cars if they started paying off what they owed.
Louise assured her shocked sister that all their debts would be written off, so they wouldn’t have to pay for anything. When Elizabeth called this dishonest, Louise argued that they were only doing it so their children could have as many clothes and toys as possible in the future. It was only good sense, she said, to exploit the system before filing for bankruptcy.