The 13 Turpin siblings were discovered in 2018 when then-17-year-old Jordan Turpin escaped through a window in their Perris, California, home and called 911. The siblings, then ranging from 2 to 29 years old, were badly malnourished, allowed just one shower a year and sometimes chained to a bed or caged for weeks at a time. Their parents, David and Louise Turpin, were sentenced to 25 years to life for their crimes against the children.
Since escaping their parents’ control, however, life has been brutally difficult for the Turpins. According to an ABC News report in November 2021, although $600,000 in donations poured in for the Turpin siblings, they haven’t been able to access the money. At least two of the adult children have experienced homelessness.
“They’re living in crime-ridden neighborhoods. There’s money for their education — they can’t access it,’’ Riverside County District Attorney Michael Hestrin said. “That is unimaginable to me — that we could have the very worst case of child abuse I’ve ever seen, and then that we would then not be able to get it together to give them basic needs.’’
Now, court documents have accused a Perris family of abusing nine foster children, reportedly among them five members of the Turpin family.
Marcelino Camacho Olguin, 63, Rosa Armida Olguin, 58, and Lennys Giovanna Olguin, 37, were charged with child cruelty, false imprisonment and witness intimidation. Marcelino Olguin has also been charged with lewd acts on a child under 14 years old.
Four girls, whose identities have been withheld for privacy reasons, were sexually assaulted by Marcelino Olguin between April 2018 and March 2021, court documents allege.
“Regarding mental abuses to victims #3-#7, the Olguins were told/knew of the egregious, life-long severe abuses the biological parents inflicted on victims #3-#7, before agreeing to foster them. Immediately after being placed at the Olguins’, the three defendants pressure-questioned the siblings about their traumatic past,” an investigator wrote in an affidavit.
“They forced the siblings to participate in a ’circle confession talk.’ The siblings were forced to admit to their past sibling abuses, which their biological parents forced them to commit,” the affidavit continued. “The Olguins told the siblings non-participation would result in not seeing or visiting with their older siblings in the future.”
The Olguins pleaded not guilty at a hearing Friday, and are all free on bail. They are expected back in court in early June.
