by John Glatt
Deputy district attorney Kevin Beecham disagreed, filing a response in superior court.
“The falsity of giving education to multiple children,” it stated, “is directly connected to the commission of neglecting children, as children require education in order to eventually become independent. Therefore, the lack of educating children is directly connected to them becoming dependent adults.”
Arguing against the motion in court on May 18, Macher told Judge Bernard J. Schwartz—who had taken over the case from Emma Smith—that the new perjury charges bore no relation to the other crimes his client is accused of.
“A falsehood regarding education, if there is a falsehood,” he argued, “is not part of an atmosphere. It’s simply a misstatement written in a document.”
Addressing Beecham’s filed response, Macher told the court that lack of education does not necessarily lead to a dependent adult.
“A gentleman named Abraham Lincoln,” he said, “spent less than twelve months of his life in a classroom, and he did rather well for himself. And there are other examples as well. So there’s no linkage … and I would ask the court to sustain the demurrer.”
Beecham took the floor for his rebuttal. “Abraham Lincoln was educated,” he began. “That’s a difference with what’s alleged here, is that there are seven dependent adults that were not educated, not homeschooled, and didn’t go to school.”
The deputy district attorney said their lack of education had created “the atmosphere of neglect that led to dependency,” and all the crimes were connected.
Macher then apologized to Judge Schwartz for not using the word autodidact in his initial argument.
“I have to bring that up,” he told the judge, “because the opportunities do not come up frequently to say President Lincoln was an autodidact. That means a self-taught person. And I’d submit—”
“All right,” interrupted the judge. He had already reviewed the defense’s motion and made a decision. He said that the defendant’s “purported falsity” had prevented the Department of Education from checking on his children’s well-being and taking them to a proper school.
“And as a result,” said Judge Schwartz, “there was what’s been described as a ‘prolonged neglectful atmosphere in an uneducated environment’ that led to them becoming dependent adults. I think that, on its face, is sufficient to overcome the demurrer.”
David Turpin then entered not guilty pleas to the eight counts of perjury, and Louise pleaded not guilty to three charges of false imprisonment and one of assault.
28
“MY TWO LITTLE SISTERS ARE CHAINED UP!”
By 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 20, Riverside Superior Court’s Department 44 was packed with reporters and curious members of the public for David and Louise Turpin’s preliminary hearing. Judge Bernard Schwartz was only allowing cameras to be used when he was not in the court, and no photographs or audio recordings could be taken during the proceedings.
At the defense table sat David Turpin, his white hair now cropped to over his ears and brushed forward. He was wearing a baggy blue shirt and a white, blue, and yellow checked tie. A few feet away sat his wife, wearing the same loose-fitting dark suit and white shirt. Neither were shackled, and both had exceedingly long, well-manicured fingernails. Deputy public defenders David Macher and Allison Lowe whispered to David Turpin, while Louise smiled at Jeff Moore.
To their left, at the prosecution table, sat deputy DA Kevin Beecham and his cocounsel, Kim DeGonia, as well as the lead investigator, Wade Walsvick.
Judge Schwartz entered the courtroom, and the preliminary hearing began.
“With regard to the Jane and John Does,” Beecham told the judge, referring to the thirteen children, “we will be referring to them with their first name.”
Then the people called their first witness, lead detective Tom Salisbury of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office. He told the court that there were two separate recordings of Jordan Turpin’s 911 call on January 14, 2018. She had first gotten through to the California Highway Patrol at 5:50 a.m. in the morning, before being transferred to Riverside Sheriff’s Department dispatcher, Kelly Eckley, three minutes later.
Jordan’s harrowing twenty-minute 911 call was then played in the courtroom. Louise wiped away tears, while her husband studiously took notes on a yellow legal pad.
In the high, quivering voice of a ten-year-old, Jordan misspelled her name as T-U-R-P-E-N, and when asked for her street address, she gave the zip code instead.
“I’ve never been out. I don’t go out much,” she told the dispatcher. “I live in a family of fifteen people, and my parents are abusive; they abuse us, and my two little sisters are chained up. They will wake up at night and they will start crying. And they wanted me to call someone and help them. I wanted to call y’all and help my sisters.”
She said one of her brothers was also chained up to a bed.
Asked if there was any medication in the house, Jordan replied, “I don’t know what medication is.”
No one went to school, she told the dispatcher.
“A fake school is set up,” she said. “I haven’t finished first grade, and I’m seventeen.”
She had no idea of her mother’s age or much about her, except that she didn’t like any of her thirteen children except the two-year-old.
“Mother takes care of her right,” said Jordan.
Gaining composure, Jordan listed the ages of all her siblings, from the youngest to the oldest. She revealed that her parents had left them alone in a trailer in Texas for four years before they came to California.
She told the dispatcher they lived in filth and sometimes she struggled to breathe. Asked when she had last taken a bath, Jordan replied, “About a year ago.”
At the end of the call, she mentioned that Mother and Father were the only people who ever came to the house, and the rest of their family didn’t know them. Her aunt Elizabeth had asked to see them, she said, but her mother wouldn’t allow it.
* * *
After Jordan’s 911 call was played, neither the prosecution nor defense had any questions. Detective Salisbury was excused, subject to recall later in the hearing.
Then deputy DA Beecham called his first witness, Deputy Manuel Campos of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. The deputy had responded to Jordan Turpin’s 911 call and later interviewed her at Perris Police Department.
“First, I want you to describe to the court what her appearance was like,” said Beecham.
“Jordan appeared to have the mental capacity of somebody a lot younger than seventeen years old,” he replied.
Defenders Jeff Moore and Allison Lowe both objected, and Judge Schwartz sustained it, ordering the deputy’s answer to be stricken from the record.
“Going off, visually, what she looked like?” Beecham clarified.
“She was wearing a pink hat,” said the deputy, “had a jean jacket and blue jeans and white shoes. Her hair appeared to be unwashed. She appeared not to bathe regularly. She had a lot of dirt on her skin. It looked like it was caked on. And she had an odor emitting from her body, that of one who doesn’t bathe regularly.”
Then Beecham asked how she referred to her parents during the interview.
“Mother and Father,” Campos replied. “She said she was taught to address them that way because it was more like the Bible days.”
“Did you ask her how she felt when she initially left the house?” asked the prosecutor.
“Yes,” he replied. “She said she was scared to death. She said it was one of the scariest things she’s ever done. She said she couldn’t even dial 911 because she was so scared, she was shaking.”
Jordan told him that she couldn’t stay in the house any longer, watching her chained-up sisters crying in pain.
“She said it was hurting and depressing her,” he told the judge, “and she couldn’t stand to watch it anymore. The morning she escaped, she said everyone was crying. She said Mother was yelling at e
verybody. She was half-asleep. And Julissa had told her that Mother had … told her she was worse than the devil.”
Deputy Campos said he asked Jordan some very basic questions, and she did not even know the date.
The prosecutor then asked if Jordan had told Campos how long she had been planning her escape.
“Two years,” answered Campos. “She was trying to get ahold of a cell phone.”
“How did she get a cell phone?” asked the prosecutor.
“Her brother had received a brand-new cell phone and got rid of his old [one],” said Campos, “and she was able to get that old cell phone.”
The deputy testified that prior to the escape, Jordan had photographed Joanna and Julissa in chains on the cell phone to prove what was going on in the house.
“On the subject of chains,” said Beecham. “Did Jordan tell you … how tight those chains were on Joanna and Julissa?”
“Objection!” shouted Jeff Moore, springing to his feet. “Calls for speculation.”
“Overruled,” said the judge. “You may answer.”
“She talked about a time where Julissa and Joanna slipped their hands out of the chains,” said the deputy, “and because of that, Mother put the chains tighter. The chains would leave marks around their wrists.”
Then Campos told the court about Jordan’s daily routine. She spent twenty hours in the bedroom she shared with three of her sisters and was only allowed out with Mother’s permission to eat, use the restroom, and brush her teeth.
“Did Jordan tell you the reasons why [her little sisters] were in chains?” asked Beecham.
“Yes,” said the deputy, “because they were stealing candy from the kitchen.”
The prosecutor showed Campos a photograph of Jordan’s bedroom, asking him to describe it.
“To my left, I see two bunk beds,” he replied. “And then to my right, I see another set of bunk beds with the top mattress on the floor.”
“And what do you see on that mattress?” asked Beecham.
“Two padlocks,” Campos said.
He testified that Jordan had told him that the children only received one meal a day: either a peanut butter sandwich, a baloney sandwich, or a frozen burrito. “She had constantly been eating peanut butter sandwiches for five years,” he said, “and she can’t eat peanut butter anymore, because she starts to gag and throw up. [By then] she was only eating the burrito.”
The deputy then described how Mother had “choked” Jordan when she was fifteen for watching a Justin Bieber video on Jennifer’s cell phone.
“Her brother [Joshua] found out she watched the video and told Mother,” he said. “And Mother choked her because of that … and said very hurtful things.”
“Did she tell you what hurtful things Mother said to her?” asked Beecham.
“Yes, [while] Mother was choking her, she told her, ‘Do you want to die?’ Jordan said that she responded by saying, ‘No.’ And Mother [said], “Yes, you do! Yes, you do! You want to die and go to hell!’”
The deputy then told the court how Jordan had accused Father of attempting to sexually assault her when she was twelve. He had only stopped when Mother came up the stairs.
“She immediately jumped off,” said Deputy Campos, “pulled her pants up, and then Mother walked in. [Later] her father told her she’d better not tell anyone what happened.”
“Did Jordan tell you whether there was any other incidents of inappropriate or attempted inappropriate contact between her and her father?”
“Yes,” replied the deputy. “She said that Father would try to force kisses on her mouth.”
“How many times was that?”
“She estimated ten times,” said the deputy.
Finally, Beecham asked if Jordan had mentioned leaving her room to socialize with her siblings.
“Yes,” replied the deputy. “When Mother and Father were not home and they would all come out of their rooms.”
Moving on to the Turpins’ time living in Texas, Beecham asked, “Did she ever tell you about a time period in which her parents did not live with her?”
Defender Allison Lowe immediately objected, telling the judge that anything that happened in Texas was not relevant to any of the charges.
“Are you going to go into incidents that occurred in Texas?” asked the judge.
“Yes,” said the prosecutor.
“What’s it being offered for?”
“Well, one of the elements that we have to prove is dependency,” explained Beecham. “I think what happened in Texas is relevant to how the adult children became dependent adults. In addition, I think it shows the conditioning and the intent on the part of the defendants with regard to torture.”
Judge Schwartz ruled that the court could consider evidence from Texas, although the Turpins couldn’t be charged for anything that occurred there, as it was out of jurisdiction.
Defense attorney Macher wasn’t pleased with the ruling. “Now, Judge,” he said, standing, “given your ruling, I want to ask for a mistrial, if this was a trial, so I guess I’ll ask for a mis–preliminary hearing. And that the court declare this hearing over and we can start again at another time without that evidence. I feel very strongly that that is so prejudicial, that we cannot get a fair preliminary hearing with that evidence in.”
Judge Schwartz noted the defense’s objection but said he would allow Texas evidence in the preliminary hearing. He promised to reconsider when it came up again in pretrial motions if the trial went ahead.
The prosecutor again asked Deputy Campos if Jordan had mentioned a time when she didn’t have any parents living with her.
“Yes,” he answered, “between the ages of six and nine.”
“Who took care of her?”
“Her siblings,” said the deputy. “And I believe she specifically named Joshua.”
“Did she tell you whether she saw her mother from the age of six to nine?”
“She said that she did not,” he replied.
The prosecutor finally asked if Jordan had witnessed Mother inflicting any abuse on two-year-old Janna.
“Yes,” said Campos. “She said Mother would hit her on the head with a pencil and that she had also pinched her.”
In cross-examination, Allison Lowe asked if Jordan had spoken about opening various social media accounts, including Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
“Yes,” replied the deputy.
“And, in fact,” said the defender, “she told you that she also uploaded YouTube videos of herself singing?”
“That is correct,” he said.
“She did have friends on social media, because she told you about some of them, correct?”
“She spoke about one friend, yes.”
“And do you recall also that she discussed making another friend, who was going to assist her with making music videos?”
“Yes.”
Lowe asked if he was aware there was also a landline in the Turpin house.
“I believe one of the other children that I spoke to did tell me that they had a landline in the house,” Campos said.
“And Jordan did tell you that when Mother and Father were gone,” asked Lowe, “that she would come out of the room to hang out with her siblings?”
“Yes.”
Lowe began asking pointed questions, attempting to show that her client, David Turpin, was rarely at the house and that Louise administered all the punishments.
“Did [Jordan] tell you how many hours her father was gone during the day?” asked Lowe.
“She said he was always gone working,” Campos answered.
“And do you recall us talking about rules, in terms of them having to sit in their room, not go outside, et cetera?”
“Yes.”
“Did Jordan tell you who enforced those rules?”
“She said Mother.”
“And I just wanted to clarify,” said Lowe, “that when you talked about punishments for disobeying, that being knocking heads, pulling h
air, smacked in the face, et cetera, when Jordan described those incidents to you, she would say Mother did them. Correct?”
“That is correct,” replied the deputy.
“She never described being struck or physically hit by her father?”
“Correct.”
“Because her father was at work?”
“Correct.”
“Let’s talk about the chains,” Lowe continued. “Jordan mentioned three of her siblings that had been chained. She herself had never been chained. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And do you recall Jordan saying that Father [had] not chained up anyone himself?”
“Yes, I do.”
Prosecutor Beecham objected, arguing that Jordan had only spoken from her personal knowledge.
“Well, I assume it’s based on what she told you she saw,” said Judge Schwartz. “She may not have seen everything. But based on what she saw, she never saw Father do that?”
“That’s correct,” said the deputy.
Lowe then addressed the allegation of sexual abuse against her client. Campos said Jordan had told him about the incident after he and a CPS worker had asked if there had been any inappropriate touching in the household.
“And her response was, she thinks her father has tried?” asked Lowe.
“Yes,” said the deputy.
“Now, what she described to you was that her father was in the TV room in a recliner, and that he pulled down her pants?”
“Yes.”
“She demonstrated for you that when he pulled her into his lap, that it was to his left leg, his left thigh. Somewhere halfway in between the knee and the hip area. Is that correct?”
The deputy said she had demonstrated with her hands but had not been specific with where his leg had been.
“Okay, did Jordan ever clarify, when she said that he pulled down her pants, whether or not that encompassed her underwear as well, or was it just her pants?”
“She just said her pants.”
“Okay. And besides pulling down her pants and sitting down on his lap, did she describe any other sort of touching?” Lowe asked.