The depraved California dad who authorities say tortured his 13 kids
kidnapped his future wife when she was 16 years old so they could elope,
according to a report.
David Turpin, now 57, talked school employees in Princeton, W.V.,
into letting him sign Louise Robinette out of her high school, and sped
his tenth-grade sweetheart cross country with plans to elope.
When they were finally caught in Texas and returned home, Louise
Robinette’s family let the 16-year-old marry the man eight years her
senior.
Now Louise Turpin, 47, and her husband are facing life in prison for starving and torturing their children, aged 2 to 29, in their Perris, California, home.
They were 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 was also charged with a lewd act against a
child under 14. They are each being held on $12 million bail and deny
all charges.
Back in 1984, Louise’s mother allowed her to date the older David
behind her preacher-father’s back, Louise’s younger sister and
half-brother, Teresa Robinette and Billy Lambert, told the Daily Mail.
Their father only found out when David and Louise went missing and
authorities at Princeton Senior High School were forced to admit that
they had let David sign her out of school.
But when they returned to West Virginia, the parents’ roles reversed,
and Louise’s father, Wayne, let them marry. The young couple went to
start their life in Texas, but the incident formed a rift between her
parents, who separated about two years later and eventually divorced.
Louise rebuffed her family after moving away, even denying her father a dream visit to California when he retired in 2012.
Both of their parents died in 2016. She didn’t visit either of them
as they were dying, or attend their funerals, claiming she couldn’t
bring all of the children back with her.
The kids were found malnourished, shackled to beds and tortured
in their four-bedroom home. Authorities said they started chaining the
kids to furniture after one had previously tried to escape.
Their
17-year-old daughter, who authorities said looked like a 10-year-old,
managed to get out of the
house and call 911 last Sunday.
“I hope they suffer as much, if not more, than those kids suffered,”
Robinette told the Daily Mail. “I hope they torture my sister for the
rest of her life.”
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