Turpin 'House Of Horrors' Back On Auction Block After Sale Falls Through
PERRIS (CBSLA) – The "House of Horrors" is back on the market.
A home in Perris where a couple are charged with imprisoning and torturing their 13 children over several years is back on the auction block after a sale earlier this month fell through.
David and Louise Turpin's former home, located at 160 Muir Woods Rd., went for $310,360 to an unidentified buyer in a foreclosure sale on Jan. 2.
However, that sale has been negated and the house has been relisted on the website of real estate auction house Hudson & Marshall. The bidding opens Jan. 12 starting at $177,255.
It's unclear why the original sale fell through. By law, the identity of the bidder cannot be disclosed.
The four-bedroom, three-bathroom 2,386 square-foot house built in 2013 was appraised by Riverside County at $353,138, according to documents listed on Hudson & Marshall's website. The Turpins purchased the home in August 2014 for $351,000, according to property records.
None of the documents in the online listing reference the alleged crimes committed by the Turpins.
On Jan. 14, 2018, the Turpin children – then aged 2 to 29 – were rescued from the home after one of them, a then 17-year-old girl, escaped through a window and called 911 from a deactivated phone.
Prosecutors say the children were severely malnourished and punished. When they were not chained up, they were kept in different rooms. None of the children were allowed to shower more than once a year. The punishments would last for weeks and months at a time. The children were also not allowed to have toys.
David Turpin, 57, and his wife, Louis Ann Turpin, 49, are facing dozens of counts of torture, abuse, neglect, false imprisonment, cruelty against a child and perjury.
The charges relate to behavior going back to at least 2010 and apply to the cities of Murrieta and Perris. However, the abuse appears to have started when the family resided in Fort Worth, Texas, prosecutors with the Riverside County District Attorney's office said. The family moved to Murrieta in 2010 after living in Texas for 17 years.
The couple have pleaded not guilty. In June, they were ordered to stand trial. They have been barred from any contact with their children. Both are being held on $12 million bail.
The Turpin children were all home-schooled, officials have said. According to the state DOE, the Perris home where the children were rescued from was registered as a private school called Sandcastle Day School. David Turpin was listed as the principal.
One of the older boys took some classes at Mt. San Jacinto College, a community college, but his mother would take him to the campus and wait outside class for him.
The children, whose ages now range from 3 to 30, are in the care of Riverside County Child Protective Services and Adult Protective Services staff. Most of them were hospitalized last January for treatment, but they have since been released and placed in undisclosed residential facilities, according to officials. Only the now-3-year-old girl was in good health.
According to legal documents obtained by CBS2, the couple declared bankruptcy while living in Murrieta. The bankruptcy filing indicates David Turpin worked as an engineer for Northrop Grumman in San Diego.
(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)
