When deputies arrived at David and Louise Turpin's house in Perris, California, they discovered a horrific scene. Thirteen children, ranging in age from 2 to 29, were found held captive and severely malnourished. One 22-year-old son was shackled to a bed, and one 29-year-old daughter weighed 82 pounds. The house was filthy, and reeked of human waste.

The deputies testified that all the children aside from the toddler suffered years of abuse, torture and imprisonment: They were only allowed one meal per day. They were only allowed to shower once a year. They never saw a doctor or a dentist. They weren't allowed to play. They lived in isolation without ever leaving the home, save for an occasional family trip to Disneyland or Vegas. They were forced to sleep during the day, and stay up all night. If they didn't obey their parents, they were beaten, caged or shackled to beds.

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The abuse was so severe that it stunted the children's growth and left two girls unable to bear children, according to court testimony. What's more, all 13 children had diminished mental capacity, according to a source close to the investigation. Although the Turpins filed paperwork with California to homeschool their kids, their education was minimal at best. "We don't really do school. I haven't finished first grade," the 17-year-old said, according to Deputy Manuel Campos, per CBS News.

Deputies discovered the shocking "house of horrors" in January 2018, after a 17-year-old girl leapt out the window. She did not know the date, or the month, or what 'medication,' meant, but she did know how to dial 911 on a barely functional cell phone, and reported the abuse to a police dispatcher. After authorities arrived, they called for medical assistance and arrested the California couple. The children were hospitalized and then split up into foster care.

In February 2019, David Turpin, 57, and Louise Turpin, 50, pleaded guilty in Riverside County Superior Court to 14 felony counts, including "cruelty to an adult dependent, child cruelty, torture and false imprisonment." Their house in Perris, pictured below, was kept neat from the outside, giving neighbors no indication of the horrors within. (Perris is a city with an estimated population of 77,000, located about 70 miles east of Los Angeles and 80 miles north of San Diego.)

"My parents took my whole life from me, but now I'm taking my life back," said one girl who described living independently and attending college, per CBS News. "Life may have been bad but it made me strong. I fought to become the person that I am. I saw my dad change my mom. They almost changed me, but I realized what was happening. ... I'm a fighter, I'm strong and I'm shooting through life like a rocket."

Another sibling said he's studying to be a software engineer, and surprisingly, forgave his parents for "a lot of the things that they did to us." However, he still struggles emotionally. "I cannot describe in words what we went through growing up," he said. "Sometimes, I still have nightmares of things that had happened to us, such as my siblings being chained up or getting beaten. But that is the past, and this is now."

Some of the other Turpin children agree, and say they still love their parents. One requested a lighter sentence for them because "they believed everything they did was to protect us." In addition, she asked for them to be incarcerated in a nearby prison, so she could visit them more easily. "I believe our parents feared if they asked for help, they would lose their children," she said in her statement.

In court, Louise Turpin apologized for hurting her children, and broke down crying. "I'm sorry for everything I've done to hurt my children," she said. "I love my children so much. ... I only want the best for them... [I look] forward to the day I can see them and hug them and tell them I'm sorry."

David Turpin gave a similar statement, and was so emotional his attorney had to read a portion of it. "I never intended for any harm to come to my children," the statement said. "I'm sorry if I've done anything to cause them harm. I'm glad we were able to resolve this case without my children being forced to testify." When David Turpin recovered enough to speak, he said he hoped his children succeeded in school and in their careers.

Judge Bernard Schwartz admonished the couple for their "selfish, cruel and inhumane actions," the sentenced them to 25 years to life in prison. "The only reason your punishment is less than the maximum, in my opinion, is because you accepted responsibility at an early stage of the proceedings and spared the children from having to relive the humiliation and harm they endured in that house of horrors," Schwartz said.

"The defendants ruined lives, so I think it's just and fair that the sentence be equivalent to first-degree murder," said District Attorney Mike Hestrin at the time of the guilty plea.

A forensic psychologist has opened up about the chilling "House of Horrors" case, where 16 children were found in a neglected, feces-filled rural Ohio home.

Authorities have asked the public to avoid speculation about the conditions the children, who were aged 18 months to 18 years old, were found in.

The children's living conditions were described as similar to the "third world," as police had raided the home due to an unrelated charge.

Investigators at the Vinton County Sheriff's Office made the shocking discovery in Ohio on June 30.

Authorities found the kids in a 12-by-12 room, which was crumbling, with the children appearing to have suffered “serious physical harm.”

Some officials said that the children were being "kept in worse conditions than livestock.”

Following the discovery, four family members, the children's parents and grandparents, Gary Siders Jr, 36, Elizabeth Siders, 33, Gary Siders Sr, 73, and Christina Siders, 67, have been arrested and charged with 16 counts of second-degree felony child endangerment.

A psychologist has now shared who may be responsible for the home's horrific state.

Forensic psychologist analyzes Siders' family dynamic

Forensic psychologist John Delatorre spoke to WSYX ABC 6, explaining that long-term abuse can come from a family dynamic built on secrecy and the avoidance of external resources.

The specialist suggested that officials focus on the roles that older family members had, as they may have been responsible for starting these abusive behaviors.

He explained: "The ways in which this thing gets covered up requires planning, right? It requires a sophistication in being able to avoid what would be positive resources, but also law enforcement."

"And I think, when we think of who has those capabilities, it's usually someone who's been doing it for a long period of time. It's not someone who is, you know, relatively young," he claimed.

"So we're looking at the grandparents essentially, right? The elder Siders and his (Gary Jr's) wife as essentially being the catalyst for how these abuses could, number one, begin, but also kind of maintain," Delatorre concluded.

His explanation came after it was announced on Wednesday (July 8) that Gary Siders Sr. was released from jail to be taken to a hospital following health concerns.

Vinton County Prosecutor William Archer revealed that the 73-year-old fell and had to be tended to, as Judge Laina Rogers allowed for his $300,000 cash bond to be changed to a $300,000 recognizance bond.

Authorities urge the public to stop speculation

Vinton County Prosecutor William Archer also addressed claims and rumors that are doing the rounds on social media.

This included the legitimacy of images and videos being shared of the exterior and interior of the rural home.

Speaking to the public, he stated that a lot of the content being shared is "not truthful and not accurate," warning of the potential effects on the 16 children involved.

Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson admitted that he "didn’t know there were going to be 16 kids there" prior to the search as it is not "the type of thing that we’re not used to seeing here in America."

He described the scene as "pure evil" and "disgusting," but the Siders' lawyers have since hit back at the "language" being used by authorities when speaking about the case.

They have reminded them and the public that the defendants are innocent until proven guilty, with officials speaking about what may have been going on at the home.

Many have been assuming what has happened themselves, while others have started to post doctored photos and videos of the children "caged up."

Featured image credit: X / Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson

Two young girls, who were allegedly Satanists, have been arrested by police after it was discovered that they planned on murdering their classmates and drinking their blood in a ritual killing. The two minors were in the sixth and seventh grades, and attended Bartow Middle School in Florida.

At 1.30pm on Tuesday October 23, a police officer assigned to the school was summoned to the principal's office after one of the students made a complaint; stating that "something bad" was going to happen. Staff at the school were alerted to the fact that the girls were missing, and police began searching for them. The two girls were eventually found hiding in a bathroom, carrying a number of weapons, including several knives, a pair of scissors, and even a pizza cutter.

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While under interrogation, it later emerged that the two girls were planning on murdering their classmates as they entered the bathroom, and wanted to drink their blood out of a goblet, hoping that these homicides would damn them to hell. They had a suicide pact and planned to take their own lives shortly after they committed their crimes. Because the two girls are both minors, their identities have not been made public.

on Facebook, the Barton police station released the followed statemen shortly after the girls were apprehended: "Parents and guardians of children in our Bartow Schools: I understand that the recent news of a plot to kill students at Bartow Middle School is troubling. In fact, it shook me to my core when I was notified of it. However, I want to make it clear that your children are our most precious citizens here in the City and we do everything we can, every single day to make sure our children are safe."

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It continued: "We work very closely with the Polk County School Board and I want to assure you that I will do everything in my power to ensure safety. I am very proud of the staff at Bartow Middle School and my staff at the Police Department for thwarting this plot from becoming a tragedy. There are several measures in place to make sure our children are safe and that ALL threats of violence are addressed. In this isolated incident, these protocols worked. I believe in these protocols and we will continue to follow them. [sic]"

Commenting on the incident, Bartow Police Chief Joe Hall stated: "They noted that they wanted to kill at least 15 people and were waiting in the bathroom to find smaller kids that they could overpower to be their victims. I believe that these two small children. I’m going to call them small children, they are only 11 and 12, seriously sat down and plotted to do bodily harm to another student at school."

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The girls have both been arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder, as well as possession of a weapon on school property, and disruption of a school campus. It remains to be seen whether they will be prosecuted as juveniles or adults, and for now they have been expelled from school and currently remain in police custody.

Residents in a small Ohio community are struggling to comprehend the horrific details emerging from a local home where 16 children were allegedly hidden away and abused.

Four adults have been arrested and charged with 17 counts of child endangerment after authorities discovered the victims living in squalor in the village of Hamden.

The suspects, identified as Gary Siders Jr., Gary Siders Sr., Christina Siders, and Elizabeth Siders, are being held on a $300,000 cash bond each.

The children, ranging in age from 18 months to 18 years, were found by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Vinton County Sheriff's Office.

Officials believe the children were locked inside a 12-by-12-foot room for nearly four years. Local law enforcement described the conditions inside the house as disgusting, noting that the property was littered with human feces.

A retail employee who interacted with the family just before their arrest is now sharing her memories of their late-night shopping trips. The encounters left workers concerned, though the true extent of the situation inside the home remained hidden until police intervened.

Late-night visits to a local store

Ariel Gutierrez, an employee at the Hamden Dollar General, recalled that the family members were regular customers. They frequented the shop almost every night right before closing time to buy basic necessities like water, vegetable oil, and sugar. They usually brought only one child along during these visits.

Gutierrez told WSYX ABC 6: "I noticed that he would keep her really close to her, and she was not allowed to speak to nobody. And when she came in with the kids, the kids were all very thin, very, very thin.

"Ghost white, didn't have no weight on their body and they had their hair over their face, like to block out the outside world to not see them," she said.

Store workers noticed the poor condition of the family and attempted to provide assistance by offering clothes and hygiene products. However, Gutierrez noted that they never saw the family actually use any of the donated items.

A lingering odor and a community in shock

In addition to the physical appearance of the children, a strong odor accompanied the family whenever they entered the store. This detail matches observations from state officials who helped rescue the children from the residence.

Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson mentioned that the smell inside the home was something he could not get away from.

"The smell to me, honestly, when I think about them and hear them, the smell will never leave my mind. I will always have that smell in my mind. Sad to say, just because it was so potent. Like they could have left the store five minutes ago and the store would still smell," Gutierrez said.

The discovery has left neighbors deeply shaken as they try to process how the situation went unnoticed for so long in a village of fewer than 1,000 people. The attorney general noted that the family was adept at keeping the children concealed and had moved around Ohio before settling in Vinton County.

The condition of the victims

Medical personnel transported the children to various hospitals across the state to receive treatment for their injuries. Some have been examined and released, while others required intensive care or transport to Level One trauma centers.

Officials stated that none of the children were enrolled in school, some cannot communicate at all, and the oldest child could not spell her own name.

"Some of these children couldn’t even speak," Wilson told reporters. "It was terrible. They looked like almost feral animals. It was terrible."

With the suspects currently in custody and barred from contacting one another or the victims, the local community is focused on recovery.

Gutierrez expressed her hopes for the future of the victims, stating, "I'm sorry, I should have said something sooner. And I'm praying and I know they're in better conditions now and they hopefully they get what they deserve."

Featured image credit: WSYX ABC 6

When you think of the phrase "witch-hunter", what comes to mind? Probably a Puritan guy from the 17th century with a pilgrim's hat and buckles on his shoes. The kind of person who unjustly burned innocent peasants alive in some earlier epoch of history, like the characters in Salem in Arthur Miller's play The Crucible. You probably wouldn't think of someone earnestly hunting down agents of Satan in the 21st century. But unfortunately, the truth is that there are still people out there who believe in witches. Worse, they think they should be exterminated - and then they actually follow through with it. Helen Ukpabio is one such contemporary witch hunter. This Nigerian Christian preacher leads the controversial Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries, who believe that Satan, and other demonic entities, are capable of manifesting themselves on earth to take possession of children's bodies. These children are dubbed witches or wizards by the LFGM and Ukpabio claims that she and her ministry are the only ones capable of rescuing the affected children from hellish damnation. If you believe in such supernatural forces it's a laudable goal, yet her methods are anything but benign.

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The Nigerian children that Ukpabio and her followers condemn as Satanic are subsequently subjected to a horrific litany of abuses and torture: some are splashed with acid or beaten, an attempt to flay the demon out of them. Occasionally those who show signs of improvement are allowed to live and are simply expelled from their communities and shunned by others. But some children are not so lucky. The Human Rights Watch, British Humanist Association and the Witchcraft and Human Rights Information Network report that the LFGM has killed multiple children who they suspect are possessed. Some are burnt to death, others buried alive. Unfortunately, in many parts of rural Africa, where often babies seldom live to see the age of five, it is easy for Ukpabio to make such claims. In some corners of the Third World, few infants can boast a balanced diet, sanitary living conditions or clean drinking water, so children are often crying, feverish and disturbed. In her book, Unveiling the Mysteries of Witchcraft, Ukpabio writes that children who are: "possessed with black, red and vampire witchcraft spirits" can be identified by features such as "s/he screams at night, cries, is always feverish, suddenly deteriorates in health, puts up an attitude of fear, and may not feed very well," and that children who stamp their feet are "trying to make signs … to communicate with gnomes, the witchcraft spirit in charge of the earth." Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of the British Humanist Association, has stated that: "The fact that she is threatening to launch a legal claim for half a billion pounds over an alleged distinction between being accused of exorcising 'Satan' or 'Vampires' tells you all you need to know about Mrs Ukpabio. Threats of legal action like this are blatant attempts to silence critics of the harms done by these religious and superstitious beliefs and rituals. Rather than entertaining her vexatious claims in the courts, we believe the UK should be ensuring that Mrs Ukpabio and her ilk are denied entry to our country to protect children from their degrading practices." It's not just children who are susceptible to being preyed upon by religious zealots. In many parts of rural Africa, superstitious bigots persecute a number of minorities and will torture and oppress anyone who does not conform to their standards by accusing them of witchcraft. Groups that have been unjustly targeted include albinos, people with AIDS, the disabled or those who are deformed, old women, unmarried women and homosexuals. These marginalised victims are vilified as scapegoats, since the witch is often spoken of as the epitome of evil in certain African societies, and are blamed for disease, crib deaths, violence, rapes and crop failures, among other maladies.

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What's even more alarming is that Mrs Ukpabio isn't the first of her kind; there are many such preachers who travel around the world delivering messages of hate and suspicion to their devoted clergies. Hardly surprising when the job of saving children's souls can be such a profitable enterprise. Mrs Ukpabio has capitalised on her exorcisms and charges parents and concerned communities exorbitant fees in order to deliver them from evil. Witch hunting isn't only a campaign of needless violence; it's a veritable industry. Other Nigerians have condemned Mrs Ukpabio's practices as reprehensible. Nigerian author Professor Wole Soyinka has stated: "The activities of self-styled exorcists who stigmatize children as witches, vampires or whatever, and subject them to sadistic rites of demonic expulsion, are criminal, and constitute a deep embarrassment to the nation. That their activities are carried out under a religious banner expose them as heartless cynics, playing on the irrational fears of the gullible."

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Ukpabio has attempted to take legal action against those who seek to defame her. Back in 2014, she sought a libel case against the British Humanist Association (BHA) and the Witchcraft and Human Rights Information Network for damages of a whopping £500,000,000, claiming vehemently that the BHA had misrepresented her. The BHA has since called her legal case one of libel tourism: an attempt to exploit British libel laws in order to make money. Furthermore, she has also sent out mobs to disrupt protests organised by the noteworthy Nigerian humanist Leo Ingwe and has clashed with numerous fundamentalist organisations in the past. Yet Helen Ukpabio is something of a nemesis. On July 29, 2009, when Igwe asked to make a public speech in which he would: "condemn the abandonment, torture and killing of children alleged to be witches," more than 150 members of the Liberty Gospel Church stormed the meeting and attacked him. He was beaten and mugged before he managed to escape to a nearby police station and seek sanctuary. Ukpabio then filed a suit for $1.3 million against the government for protecting Igwe. We have no idea how long these horrific human rights abuses will be perpetuated for, and it's clear that a larger cultural change is needed to save vulnerable minors from being hurt. In the meantime, the most important thing to do is spread awareness and make sure that people know, no matter who they are or where they live, that hurting children is unacceptable. For more information, please visit the official website of the Witchcraft and Human Rights Information Network.