“I genuinely just wanted to be safe,” Julissa Turpin, 19.
By PAUL J. YOUNG
City News Service
RIVERSIDE (CNS) – Six siblings whose natural parents abused and imprisoned them for years, only to be situated with a foster family that also engaged in abusive treatment, now have “enough money” to ideally ensure they’re secure for the rest of their lives following resolution of the lawsuit they filed against Riverside County and a child placement agency, one of their attorneys said Wednesday.
The Turpin children, most of whom are now emancipated adults, sued the Department of Public Social Services, ChildNet Inc. and others in 2023 based on their experiences in a Perris foster home into which they were placed after they’d escaped the oft-described “house of horrors” created by their father and mother, David Turpin, 63, and Louise Turpin, 56.
At the end of last year, the county and ChildNet reached a pretrial settlement with the plaintiffs to end further litigation. The complete terms of the agreement, which was publicly announced Wednesday, haven’t been disclosed.
“They have received enough money that it should assist them for the rest of their lives,” Elan Zektser, an attorney for two of the siblings, told City News Service.
He fretted that full disclosure of the sum would only lead to complications for his clients, as well as the four represented by fellow litigator Roger Booth. In a joint statement Wednesday, the men expressed hope that the case and its consequences would pave the way for lasting reforms.
“Representing the Turpin children and young adults has been one of the greatest privileges of our careers,” the lawyers said. “Their courage, resilience and unwavering commitment to protecting other foster children is extraordinary. We are beyond proud of them for standing up, speaking out and forcing real change in a system that failed them.”
Three of the older siblings, James Turpin, 24, Julissa Turpin, 19, and Jolinda Turpin, 20, spoke with ABC’s Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview that aired Tuesday night, recalling what they endured and how it affected them.
“I genuinely just wanted to be safe,” Julissa said about her life after leaving her parents’ home. She was 11 years old when placed in the residence of Marcelino Camacho Olguin, 66, his wife, Rosa Armida Olguin, 61, and their adult daughter, Lennys Giovanna Olguin, 40.
“I didn’t know very much, but I did know that (something) didn’t feel right,” the young woman said. “And I did feel very uncomfortable. And it made me feel so unsafe in the home.”
She specifically referenced Marcelino Olguin making lewd comments.
In 2024, Zektser characterized the abuse inflicted by the Olguins as “greater” than what the victims often experienced from their parents, saying “they were treated worse than animals.”
The attorneys’ consolidated civil complaint recited the following alleged acts: “making the plaintiffs sit by themselves, sometimes outside, for many hours at a time”; “making plaintiffs recount, in detail, the horrors that they had experienced while living with their parents”; “verbally abusing plaintiffs, cursing at them, and telling them that they were worthless and should commit suicide”; “forcing them to eat until they began to vomit,” then compelling them “to eat their own vomit.”
The Olguins reached plea deals with the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office in 2024. Marcelino Olguin admitted seven counts of lewd acts on a minor and one count of false imprisonment. He received seven years in state prison and was ordered to register as a sex offender for life.
His wife admitted three counts of child abuse and one count each of witness intimidation, grand theft and false imprisonment. She received four years’ felony probation.
The couple’s daughter admitted three counts of child abuse and one count each of false imprisonment and witness intimidation. She received four years’ probation.
Coordinating with placement agency ChildNet, county Child Protective Services put the six victims with the Olguins despite complaints of prior abuse in their home, according to the plaintiffs. When CPS agents were alerted to the endangerment of the Turpin children, they failed to act, according to Zektser and Booth.
Zektser said instead of removing the victims from the house to take statements from them in late 2020 and early 2021, agents interviewed the minors in front of the defendants, causing them to clam up. It was only when the sheriff’s detective who had investigated the victims’ parents, Tom Salisbury, learned of the abuse by the Olguins that the siblings were interviewed by “professionals,” culminating in a criminal investigation and charges, the attorneys said.
They were hopeful reforms to the foster care system proposed by former federal Judge Stephen Larson and the county Grand Jury in 2022 would net consistently positive results.
“The county and Child Protective Services have agreed to increase their social worker staffing levels by more than 25%, revise policies and procedures governing where children are interviewed by CPS, and contact law enforcement earlier and more frequently when concerns of abuse arise,” the attorneys said jointly.
ChildNet, with which the county no longer contracts, released a statement in response to the Sawyer interview stating, “The allegations raised in this matter came after the children were no longer in ChildNet’s care and after the foster care case had been closed. ChildNet had no oversight authority following the adoption and has no knowledge of what occurred thereafter. It is essential to be clear: There were no substantiated concerns during the period when ChildNet was responsible for the children’s care.”
The placement agency said it elected to settle rather than battle in court because examination before a jury “would have required deep personal testimony and would have risked re-traumatizing young people who had already endured more than any child should.”
The county Executive Office was expected to release a statement Wednesday afternoon.
Only one of the 13 Turpin children, a girl who’s now 10, remains in foster care. The others are in college, working and trying to find paths forward, according to Zektser and Booth.
In 2022, Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin and the Larson report acknowledged the Turpin siblings had received some funds from hundreds of thousands of dollars in charitable donations made after they were liberated from their parents’ Muir Woods Road home.
David Turpin and Louise Turpin were each sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison in 2019 after admitting child cruelty charges.
They kept some of their children restrained most times of the day, forced them to subsist on peanut butter sandwiches and burritos, made them sleep up to 20 hours daily, and allowed them to shower only once a year. There was also physical abuse that resulted in injuries.
The conditions were revealed after Jordan Turpin, now in her mid-20s, crawled out of a bedroom window with a semi-operable mobile phone and called 911, fearing for the welfare of one of her sisters, then caged.
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