Ep. - 1528 - SUMMER HOUSE THE TURPINS: A NEW HOUSE OF HORROR

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It mixes easily with water or smoothies, making it simple, enjoyable routine that you can stick to every single day. Right now get 15% off the super elixir at wellco.com and use Kate Casey 15 at checkout. Try it for yourself and feel a difference within weeks. That's W-E-L-L-E-C-O.com code Kate Casey 15 at checkout for 15% off the super elixir. 15% off at W-E-L-L-E-C-O.com promo code Kate Casey 15. First time orders only. Welcome back for another episode of Reality Life with Kate Casey. Hope that you're having a great week. I hope that you took a chance to check out my What to Watch list for this week because there are plenty of things for you to watch this weekend now. The winter Olympics begin with the opening ceremony on Friday. For those of you who love sports, it's so much fun to hear all of the personal stories about all of the athletes. It's going to be one of those things where you're catching up on all of the events throughout the next two weeks. If you're looking for a sport to kind of deep dive on, I recommend Glitter and Gold. I did a whole episode about it Wednesday, I believe, of this week. They go behind the scenes of Olympic ice dancing in the run up to the Olympics over the last year and they follow three of the teams. I loved it because I really didn't know much about ice dancing. I feel like I know so much more now. If you listen to my episode, I go through how it's scored, how they choose judges, some of the dynamics of the different teams. You find out that all of them pretty much have grown up with one another and people are jumping from team to team. You know what's interesting too is I have a friend Stacey that I met when the kids were at preschool and she played softball at, I believe, Arizona State. She told me that she was in the Olympics but she played for Greece. That's crazy. She had a grand parent that was from Greece. Then I started to learn that a lot of Olympic athletes that are participating for certain countries are actually American college students who have like a grandparent or a great grandparent, a connection to that country and that's how they ended up getting to the Olympics. So interesting when you hear all of the personal back stories, Summer Olympics are much more my jam but the Winter Olympics because you know of course I hate the cold and I don't want to go to the cold but I do find all of the personal stories make it so much more interesting to watch. I was actually in Park City during one Olympics and that was kind of fun too because most of the people who were at the restaurant who were locals had some connection to athletes that were participating in the Olympics. So anyway I'm always excited for big Olympic game coverage. So watch glitter and gold if you want a deep dive on one of the sports. I feel like they need to do one about curling because on the surface it's like ice dancing where you're like what is the sport and then I feel like the more that people deep dive into it they get completely obsessed. So again Olympics check it out that series on Netflix. Also I'm going to say Netflix has tons of great sports dox series you know they've done a ton about football but recently I was telling someone about Icarus I think I actually put it on my sub stack about two weeks ago that if you like any of the sports dox series to check out Icarus because Icarus is the story of actually a Hollywood director who took up cycling is a hobby and he got quite frustrated when he would compete because he felt like I am training all the time and then these fools come in and they're getting much better times than I am and it doesn't make any sense. So he said I'm going to do a doping program and I'm going to basically cover the whole process of it. I'm going to document it so people can kind of see this is what happens when you dope all a lands arm strong. So he begins to do that and he hires this Russian doctor to help him well in the process that Russian doctor ends up becoming the whistle blower for all of Russia's doping and it feels like a psychological thriller in real time. That doctor has to go into witness protection you're sweating bullets the entire time that you're watching this documentary it went on to an Academy award and you can watch it on Netflix it's called Icarus I see a are you asked like Icarus who flew too close to the sun so go and check that out. Now summer house season premiere of this week okay I have to say first off I'm still troubled by the way that they have to navigate having a bickering married couple with younger summer house residents if you will because I'm trying to remember myself at like 30 years old the last thing I would want to do would be living in a house for the weekend with a couple that is married and unbelievably unhappy especially if you move into a share house and you want to just relax from the work week and you're around people that have been part of this social structure for 10 seasons and they kind of like tell you the way things are but you're also kind of like you're a buzz kill do I have to hear about your marital problems so that's the first thing that's kind of like a sticking point for me I don't know how they're going to navigate keeping people interested all season that remains to be seen but knowing that they're separated now and even though they've gone on a mediator and say that all's well I I can't imagine this has been an easy process for either of them so you've got of course Kyle and Amanda and then you have Carl who's back and Carl I feel like he's definitely got a better vibe the last couple years especially when he was engaged I felt like he just did not seem centered so he feels like a much better version of himself Jesse Solomon when they when his first his picture first pops up it says musician I remember interviewing him I don't I think he said he loved music and I think he was maybe working like an agency but I didn't know he is he actually making music I know he made like some song about himself but I mean that's not for real right so that threw me for a loop Sierra is back and always in bed with Amanda but while that would typically annoy me I do like that she has this bubbling still maybe a romance with West West I find it absolutely hilarious and he's brought a new friend from Missouri which I like because I like people who live from different places I don't want to do a share house where it's all people from the like the same neighborhood and then you've got some newbies that have come and again they're like 30 which I think is a good age because there's no way a 23 year old would want to be in a share house with a 42 year old but the 30 year old like it's getting a little bit better but it's still again like do I want to go and spend the weekend and the Hamptons and participate in divorce court I don't think I do so lots of tension in the house and I'm kind of excited now still one hiccup that the show has is that they have these theme parties because where I presume it's hard for them to film at different locations in the Hamptons so they have these theme parties but it makes it seem like it's all extras so at one point they get on the microphone they're like you have to leave in the next five minutes I don't know if there's some sort of zoning issue or what but it's so obvious these are extras it seems a little bit weird so nevertheless you can start watching summer house jump in I recommend listen sometimes people will ask me do I need to go to season one to start I mean if you have the time that's fun to do but if you don't like I get it you know it's kind of like a soap opera you can quickly get caught up to speed and maybe like peruse like so like social media like TikTok or Instagram and just put in history of summer house and you're going to find somebody who'll break it all down or you can DM me and I'll do it so check out those so today's episode I wanted to talk about I will revisit a story because there's a new a Hulu documentary about the turpents and there's some updates to it and I realized a lot of you are unfamiliar with this story maybe you are familiar but you don't know all the details and of course there are updates so if you are going to go back in time try to remember when news first broke in 2018 13 children found living in conditions that were so extreme that they barely resembled life it almost felt unreal chains starvation isolation a house that hid years of suffering behind closed doors in a quiet California neighborhood it was this gut-runching story in a way that stopped people cold but what made the turpents story a true wake-up call wasn't just that happened inside that house it was really also what happened after because rescue is supposed to be the end of the nightmare it's supposed to be the moment where the system steps in your wraps kids and safety and finally does with the adults and their lives failed to do and in the turpents case that promise did not hold so why I think this story is most interesting is it exposes brutality and unmistakability and how fragile the safety net can be for abused children how survival doesn't automatically mean protection how kids who have already endured the unimaginable can still fall through the cracks that should never exist so the turpents story forces us to confront something that's fairly uncomfortable that saving children isn't just about removing them from harm it's really about what do we do next who do we trust who do they fail to listen to and how often systems designed to protect the most vulnerable and retraumatizing them instead so we're going to go back in time now it's just before dawn on a cold January morning in Paris, California which is a small unremarkable suburban street which is about to become the scene of one of the most shocking rescues in recent American history the house sits at 160 Mure Woods Road it's a four bedroom stuck-o home tucked into an ordinary Riverside County near Roohood it looked from the outside like any other family residence but inside years of unimaginable suffering had taken place that address would later become infamous dubbed the house of horrors inside that home 17 year old Jordan Turpin had lived a life of starvation confinement and cruelty rarely seen the sun deprived of hygiene and isolated from the world for years she and her 12 siblings were kept in conditions so dire that some didn't even know what a police officer was when they finally encountered one so it's January 14th and Jordan knew this all had to end so with trembling hands and bravery forged with desperation she crawled through the window of that house before sunrise her frail body slipping out into the cool morning air she carried with her an old deactivated cell phone the only lifeline to a world that she had barely seen so once she's clear of the house she dials 911 and her voice is thin but resolute she said my parents are abusive my two little sisters are chained to their bed she's telling this to the dispatcher revealing the horror that had been concealed behind closed doors minutes later Riverside counties sheriff deputies arrive at the door they're appalled they knock they announce that they're there for a welfare check a standard call one that they expect would be routine but when David and Louise Turpin opened that door they are acting like they're baffled at the presence of law enforcement but what lay behind that threshold was anything but ordinary the deputies were hit first with the stench it's human waste rotting food and the filth and soon find all 13 children inside some more malnourished to the point of frailty others shackled to their beds and they all lived in a state of neglect and abuse that would soon obviously horrify the nation so that morning in the quiet neighborhood in Paris this window became an escape hatched to freedom and the knock on that door became the sound that finally brought help because before they were known as monsters before their home in Paris became synonymous with horror David and Louise Turpin were just a couple from West Virginia they met his teenagers in this small apple action town Princeton West Virginia it's the kind of place where everybody knows everybody churches central where girls are taught to be obedient long before they're taught to be independent so David is quiet he's bookish intelligent now Louise much younger much younger they marry in 1985 and David is 23 but Louise is only 16 now that detail often passes quickly but it matters because from the very beginning this was a relationship that was defined by imbalance of age of power and of control David went on to study engineering he graduated from Virginia Tech and he built a career working for major defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman and on paper he was stable successful he was a man that you likely trust but Louise she stayed home and they became deeply religious pentacostle and then later aligning with beliefs associated with the quiverful movement now i've covered the quiverful movement before in conjunction with stories relating to the dugger family so the quiverful movement isn't a formal church so there are no membership cards no centralized leadership there's no official doctrine that's written down in one place and that's part of why it is really hard to recognize and so easy to hide behind the name comes from Psalm 127 which says children are heritage from the Lord blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them so in that worldview children are arrows and parents are archers and God decides how many arrows you get so at its core quiverful teaches a few key ideas so first of all there's no birth control any attempt to limit family size is seen as interfering with God's will so pregnancy isn't just welcomed them it's expected so the more children that you have the more faithful you're considered to be and then the second is absolute parental authority so fathers are positioned as the unquestioned head of the household and then the mothers are submissive to their husbands children are expected to obey immediately and that's without argument without explanation not compliance but total submission and that third is the world is dangerous so public schools are seen as corrupting secular culture is viewed as morally toxic outside influence so i'm talking about teachers and doctors and social workers they treat them as if they they are under suspicion so homeschooling and isolation are just encouraged they're actually just framed as protection because look all of those people cannot be trusted and they're all out to get us so finally obedience equals righteousness so disobedience isn't just misbehavior it's a sin and sin must be corrected sometimes harshly for the child's own good and that belief system creates a powerful shield for abuse because when obedience is spiritualized punishment can be reframed as love so an isolation is wholly seek or seen looks like virtue and when parents are believed to be divinely appointed authorities questioning them becomes almost unthinkable and as you can imagine you're probably running through your head all the times you heard some of the dougar children talk on their tv show or in interviews and it still seems as if they're stuck in that mindset so it's important to say this clearly not every large religious family is abusive not every family with quiverful beliefs commits harm but the movement has been repeatedly linked to cases where abuse went unchecked for years because the ideology discourages outside oversight and then teaches children that suffering is not only normal but it's sanctified in the turpent family quiverful wasn't just a belief system it was in infrastructure so it justified all of the endless pregnancies and you imagine 13 pregnancies and it reinforced the hierarchy david is at the head of it and it framed control as godliness and when you combine that ideology with two parents who already crave domination and i'm sure that a lot of Louise having domination over children is her frustration that she's been under the control of her husband since she married and when she was 16 years old so again that combining of the ideology with the two parents who crave domination who already saw their children not as individuals but really as property then faith becomes a weapon so by the time the Jordan turpent climbs out that window the theology had long since stopping about god and it was about power and power unchecked thrives best in silence so to the outside world the turpans looked almost wholesome when they would go out in public which is very seldom lame but they would make sure that they looked in unison undervenly so they'd have matching outfits big smiles family trips they even renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas so it was carefully curated photos that were posted online showing a family that appeared joyful and close and deeply bonded but as we hear in this special by Diane Sawyer the children were suffering and were told you need to look happy you need to look joyful even though that was very far from the truth so appearances are a language of their own and they were lying so the family moved often okay so they're in Texas then they moved to California they're never quite settling never putting down roots deep enough for scrutiny so again with their crazy ideology they don't want to mix amongst people in the neighborhood they're telling their children nobody can be trusted and also meeting neighbors would mean that you're letting them into your home and they are hoarders of the highest order now neighbors are describing them as odd they are quiet they're reclusive again that has this weird haircut i mean he most looks like emo Phillips like kind of like someone put a bowl on top of his head and just cut around it and on top of the fact his hair was super thick so strange looking and the mom would just kind of wear like leggings and t-shirts but eyeballs just like a skew like there's definitely something off but although they are described as odd and quiet and reclusive it's not alarming not enough to call for help not more so like yeah i mean and we never see them they just seem like odd balls but again there are 13 kids living in this house and they don't let them lift the shades they don't want them looking outside they don't want anybody to see somebody you know at the bottom of the window peeking out by the time they land in Paris, California in that modest house on mere woods road the abuse had already become a system so there's rules there's punishments surveillance control the food was restricted and the movement was monitored punishment was severe and arbitrary some of the children like i said were chained to beds others were denied basic hygiene of course they were denied in education they were homeschooled but really they weren't learning anything most of the kids didn't even understand just basic things about the world even the vocabulary you to describe what was happening to them is just unfathomable so this wasn't just chaos it was methodical and that's the part that's hardest to sit with this was an loss of control it was controlled taken to the most extreme inescapable form so for years nobody knocked on the door with the right questions no authority figure saw past the facade and the house stayed quiet and the street stayed ordinary again until that one morning when Jordan 17 years old climbs out the window so Jordan didn't just escape her parents that day she's exposing the story that david and louise had spent decades carefully hiding and when deputies filing knock on that front door the image that they had built collapsed in seconds so these officers are walking through the door like i said the stench hits them right away piles and piles of trash and they're going room to room and seeing children who are emaciated chain to beds what they found inside was not disciplined it wasn't faith it wasn't family this was absolute torture and the people responsible were strangers they were parents who had once posed with the smiling photos and they're looking at all these pictures thrown about so it's like this weird juxtaposition of people having family photos up in their house or in frames and then they're confronted by the torture that they've been doing so now the public narrative is like you know rescue freedom and safety but the truth was escape was only the end of the beginning because when authorities entered the house all 13 children were removed immediately so they had to be hospitalized they had to be treated for malnutrition and dehydration but also cognitive delays and also injuries from prolonged restraint some of the adult children legally adults but developmentally closer to children had never been to school never handled money never made a doctor's appointment never eaten a full meal without permission they were survivors but they were also profoundly unprepared for the world so then this system takes over so foster care group homes and the promise of protection Riverside County officials in California publicly promised that the turpent children would receive trauma informed care stable housing therapy education and financial support from a victim's compensation fund and for those of you who are already familiar with the story you may go back in time and remember those press conferences you thought obviously people are going to step in they would never want these children to be harmed again some of the older children or some of the younger children I should say they replaced into foster homes and then the others were sent to group homes the adult siblings were scattered across assisted living situations so often alone with minimal guidance and many of those placements were not safe so what went wrong quietly then publicly over time reports emerged that some of the children were reabused in foster care now this is the one the part that I find the most impure eating and is covered in this story some of the children were placed in the all-grain family in Riverside County Maris Alina and Rosa were licensed foster parents their adult daughter Lenny lived in the home and they received $15,000 a month for the children's care now on paper they were trusted caregivers but in reality prosecutors later proved that they became the next source of trauma for the children that had already survived absolute hell so according to court records and guilty pleas the children were physically abused and they were emotionally degraded they were controlled isolated and punished in ways that mirrored the very captivity that they had of course just escaped so Maris Alina admitted to loot acts involving children in its care and as you will hear to list out one of the most brave kids that I've ever heard talks about what she experienced in this foster home and they were restrained intimidated told to stay silent and that is hard to let sink in is that they were just retraumatized and at the hands of adults who had promised to protect them these were children who had finally learned that it was safe to tell the truth and then their taught once again that adults in power could hurt them without consequence so Maris Alina the father was sentenced to seven years in state prison and Rosa and Lenny's received probation after pleading guilty to child cruelty and related charges now the legal system called it accountability of course survivors are calling it insufficient and here's the part that matters beyond this one family the all queens didn't slip through the cracks accidentally they were part of the system that failed repeatedly and that's by agencies that they're ignoring these red flags the misciences of abuse the prioritized placement over protection several of the turpen siblings later sued Riverside County and the foster care agency involved and they said that the abuse that they endured after the rescue was both foreseeable and preventable so this isn't just a story about one abuse of household it's really a story about what happens when trauma survivors are treated like they're just files to be moved instead of people to be protected for the turpen children freedom didn't arrive all at once for some of them and had to be fought for again and that's the part that makes me sick why do they have to fight so hard for basic protection and that's the part we also can't forget because they were financially exploited they were left with that access to the money donated in their name remember to that victims fun denied consistent therapy the older children are left alone in facilities and in some cases they were left hungry again one foster parent was later accused of abusing several of the children another allegedly restricted food echoing the very trauma that they had escaped so the lawsuit and the reckoning in 2020 several of the turpen siblings filed a lawsuit against Riverside County alleging negligence and failure protect them after their rescue so the lawsuit claimed that the county placed them in unsafe environments failed to monitor foster homes withheld money meant for their care and ignored warning signs of further abuse in 2022 Riverside County agreed to a multi-million dollar settlement now it's been reported that it was around 30 million dollars in this special they say it was just a large settlement they don't give the specific number and while it might seem like that seems like a lot of money no amount of money can restore a childhood or undo what happened after the rescue so this story is important to follow because it's not just about survival not salvation it's where the story can deepen because the turpen cases and just about these monstrous parents it for me it's about what happens after the headline fades and I feel like this has been a recurring thing that I've heard a lot of people that have been victimized say that there's this afterlife and that we sometimes assume that rescue equals recovery when a reality recovery is slow it is uneven it's often lonely some of the siblings are now building lives quietly they're learning to drive they're going to school they're forming friendships they're setting boundaries redefining family in their own terms Jordan in particular has spoken publicly about healing not as a straight line but as a series of small hard-won freedoms but when people hear the story the question comes fast and almost in reflection what kind of parents would do this well parents who were part of this religious movement is probably part of it now that's also where psychologists tend to slow the conversation down because no licensed professional has publicly diagnosed either of the turpen parents there's no psychological report that neatly explains them in any way but what experts can do and what they've done in cases like this is to look at patterns so the pattern here is not chaos it's control experts who study long term family abuse say that the turpen case doesn't resemble a mental break or a loss of control it looks like something much colder coercive domination it's carried out deliberately and over decades so this wasn't impulsive violence it was routine David Turpin in particular appears to have been the architect of that system psychologist they have pointed to traits consistent with pathological narcissism so it's not the kind that shows up as vanity or charm but the kind rooted in entitlement again this is I think part of the the religious fanaticism it's this belief that his authority was absolute that his role as a father gave him ownership over everybody in that house and in that framework children aren't people their extensions their property their instruments of obedience experts also know that they abuse followed a classic pattern of coercive control which is a concept more often used in domestic violence cases which is isolation surveillance starvation physical restraint unpredictable punishment forced dependency so the goal is in discipline it's submission and then there's the part that's hardest to name some of the punishments inflicted on the turpen children went far beyond even extremist religious discipline the chaining and the prolonged starvation the denial of basic hygiene these are acts that suggest not just but in difference to suffering and almost like a pleasure in it and what striking is how calm it all was there were no reports of explosive rage no loss of temper just rules and then consequences Louise the mother complicates the story because she was both shaped by this system and then also a participant in it she's married as a teenager she never lives independently her entire adult identity existed inside this belief structure that taught her submission was holy and obedience was love so psychologists often describe this kind of dynamic as dependent and and mashed where leaving feels like just impossible but also immoral but Louise was not passive she enforced punishments she denied food she restrained her children experts sometimes describe this is identification with the aggressor so aligning with the person in power as a way to survive but survival does not erase responsibility so over time cruelty becomes normalized rationalized even justified and here's what experts are clear about this was not psychosis this was not delusion not poverty not confusion the turpans knew what they were doing was wrong and that's why the windows were covered why the children were coached on what to say why the house looked normal from the street secrecy is awareness the most disturbing thing about david and Louise isn't that they lost control it's that they never did this wasn't madness it wasn't chaos it was kind of design and when abuse is designed its plan justified hidden it becomes almost invisible until someone climbs out a window and then finally says it out loud now in the special they also know that there was this retired detective Thomas Salisbury he played a critical role in the initial rescue not just investigating the original abuse by the parents but also listening and acting again when the children were mistreated in foster care so he was among the law enforcement officers who took statement from the siblings after that 2018 rescue and vividly recalled seeing children who had never felt sunlight on their arms and began asking detailed questions about what they had endured at home so when Riverside officials initially said there was nothing to worry about he pressed for action he emphasized his decades of training and experience in child abuse cases and when officials resisted removing the children from the foster at home he obtained arrest in search words and personally helping charges against the augwing foster family and that intervention led to their guilty pleas and prison probation sentences attorneys representing the siblings in later lawsuits publicly described him as a hero someone who once again listened when the siblings were crying out for help so for me another ongoing message of like just taking the time to listen because of him they were able to break free from being re-traumatized what if he had never sat and listened and paid attention and went through all the files and check through the power structure so Jordan of course she was seen in the first dinosaur you're special she's been rebuilding her life she settled in her own apartment in southern California and she's very close with the siblings she's also expressed interest in becoming a motivational speaker and advocate Jennifer who was also the other sister who participated in the first special is now married and built a life outside of the immediate crisis and she has spoken publicly about the healing journey some older siblings have spoken out publicly in interviews and specials sharing how they've survived and their ongoing recovery process and then in the special you'll see there are three more siblings that have come forward including jolissa and james and james what struck me so much about it is that after living in isolation for so long it's the little things that mean so much to him going to concerts he said I like to be a bartender like he just wants to be around people all the time and have conversations and learn and he seems like he's got a big social network I mean he's the kind of person that you're like oh my god and bite him over for Thanksgiving he's great he's like chatty and he's interested everybody but to live in a house where you're changed you're you're starved and you don't see anybody outside of that world and then how much we take advantage of that the opportunity to go to a restaurant and look around and see people and the importance of reaching out and connecting even the detectives case like he sat and listened David and Louise were sentenced to in 2019 to 25 years to life in prison after pleading guilty to multiple charges including torture child abuse false imprisonment and other felony counts related to the horrific conditions they inflicted on their children now since that sentencing there are no credible reports that either parent has spoken publicly so I'm saying again interviews or statements or through the media about their case their actions are their children during the sentencing hearing in 2019 the last time either parent spoke publicly in a court Louise wept she expressed a desire to hug her children again one day she said something along the lines of an apology acknowledging that they heard their kids but like not much more David in that courtroom appeared emotional but did not make any extended public comments with parts of what he said that were read by his attorney because he struggled to speak but again that's under in court under circumstances where the parents had already pleaded guilty in refacing life sentences so there have been no interviews reflective explanations or public outreach ever since there's been no credible public statement from them since I would presume that they still are under the belief system that these children you know that was submission that's becoming holy and that everybody needs to suffer so you can watch it it's called the Terpen's new house of horror a Diane Sawyer special event it's streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu and again it's a one hour documentary special it's produced by ABC new studios it's hosted by veteran journalist Diane Sawyer and it revisits this shocking abuse case one of the most deeply disturbing child abuse stories in modern US history and it includes new firsthand interviews with some of the Terpen siblings that have never spoken publicly before so again make sure that you are subscribed to this podcast please leave a five star review join the Facebook group reality life with K KC I've got bonus episodes on Apple podcast and on patreon at p at r e o n dot com back slash k k c follow me on social media i'm on instagram at k k c c a tiktok it's k k c and twitter threads and blue sky at k k c and check back tomorrow for an on new Saturday series episode i've got great Hollywood stories that you do not want to miss out on