California Couple Sentenced to Life in Prison for Torturing 12 of Their Children

David and Louise Turpin sentenced during hearing that saw some of the children speak publicly about the abuse for the first time

Associated Press in Riverside, California

Taken from the open Facebook page of Louise and David Turpin. Photograph: Facebook

A California couple who pleaded guilty to years of torture and abuse of 12 of their 13 children have been sentenced to life in prison with possibility of parole after 25 years.

David and Louise Turpin were sentenced on Friday during an emotional hearing that saw some of the children speak publicly about the abuse for the first time.

Louise Turpin wept as she apologized for hurting her children, while her husband David Turpin struggled to give a short statement.

One of their daughters, weeping, said in court that “My parents took my whole life from me but now I’m taking my life back.”

Some of the other children said they still love their parents. One asked for a lighter sentence because “they believed everything they did was to protect us”.

It is the first time the children have spoken publicly since the arrest of their parents. They have the right to address the court to say how they have been affected by the abuse.

Their parents watched in tears, as their children related the nightmares about being chained and beaten.

The sentencing came just over a year after the Turpins’ 17-year-old daughter jumped out of a window of the family’s squalid home and called 911. She reported that some of her siblings were chained to their beds and that she hadn’t bathed in months.

The 17-year-old girl had lived such an isolated life that she didn’t know her address and didn’t know what medication meant. Most of the children ranging in age from two to 29 were severely underweight.

 David Allen Turpin and Louise Ann Turpin’s booking photos.

David Turpin’s lawyer read part of a statement because he was too upset. “My homeschooling and discipline had good intentions,” he said. “I’m sorry if I’ve done anything to cause them harm.”

Louise Turpin spoke for herself, saying, “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to hurt my children. I love my children so much … I only want the best for them."

The couple appeared in Riverside county superior court for a proceeding that was largely a formality.

They pleaded guilty in February to torture and other abuse and agreed to serve at least 25 years in prison.

Burned, Beaten, Half-Starved, Sexually Abused Son of Mountie with PTSD

Ottawa Mountie and his wife found guilty

of abusing man's 11-year-old son

WARNING: This story contains disturbing details
CBC News 

    An Ottawa Mountie and his partner have been found guilty of abusing the Mountie's son. 
    (Courtroom sketches by Sarah Wallace)

A Mountie and his wife have been found guilty of what Ottawa police sources have called the "worst case of abuse" the force has seen, involving the Mountie's then 11-year-old son.

The RCMP officer — who is suspended from the force without pay — was arrested in February 2013 along with his wife.

They had both pleaded not guilty to charges including aggravated assault, failing to provide the necessaries of life and forcible confinement. She faced an additional charge of assault with a weapon, and he faced additional charges of sexual assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon.

On Monday, the 45-year-old Mountie was found guilty of aggravated assault, sexual assault causing bodily harm, forcible confinement and failing to provide the necessaries of life.

The boy's 38-year-old stepmother was found guilty of assault with a weapon and failing to provide the necessaries of life.

The pair cannot be named due to a publication ban that protects the boy's identity. He is now 14 years old.

'Half-starved, burned and battered'

Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger said Monday that the video evidence presented in court was unequivocal and overwhelming, and he rejected the defence team's argument that the Mountie was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Last fall, the court was shown several videos from 2013, seized from the Mountie's phone, of the boy naked, crying and restrained in the basement of his family's home. 

The videos, made one month before the couple was arrested in February 2013, show the small boy breathing heavily and looking gaunt with his ribs sticking out. A man is heard repeatedly taunting and humiliating the boy, who was tied to the basement wall.

Onlookers inside the courtroom were seen wiping away tears and the last video left Maranger shielding his face.

"This was a very difficult trial. That a parent could do the things that were done to [the victim] was gut-wrenching," Maranger said on Monday in his decision.

"That being said, however, the fact that this half-starved, burned and battered 11-year-old could somehow summon the strength to escape his cruel captivity and later seemingly rise above it, is a testament to the indomitability of the human spirit," Maranger added.


Mountie said he suffers from PTSD

During the trial, the Mountie told court he had been diagnosed with severe PTSD, chronic depression and dissociative personality disorder as a result of the sexual assaults he endured when he was eight years old.

He testified he beat his son because he was experiencing flashbacks of the men he claims sexually assaulted him as a young boy in Lebanon.

He felt "the devil lived" in his son, whom he described as being "morally wrong," volatile and defiant. The Mountie admitted to tying his son up in the basement with chains and plastic ties.

The boy testified he was "scared to death," and that his father would threaten him with a revolver among other punishments, which included hundreds of pushups, praying on his knees for hours and being locked in the bathroom. 

Another horrific example of the devastating and inter-generational effects of child sex abuse. It may also reflect the spiritual aspect of child sex abuse.

Romanian Police Free Five Young Men & Boys from Slavery, Inhumane Conditions

38 remanded as Romanian police free 'slaves'

AFP

Residents of Berevoiesti, where dozens of vulnerable young men and boys were kidnapped and taken into modern-day slavery, are pictured in the streets of the village on July 14, 2016 (AFP Photo/Mircea Restea)

Berevoesti (Romania) (AFP) - Romanian authorities remanded 38 people in custody on Thursday suspected of holding dozens of vulnerable young men and boys like slaves, chaining them up and forcing them to fight, authorities said.

They were arrested followed large-scale police raids on Wednesday in Berevoesti, 170 kilometres (105 miles) north of Bucharest, when five people including two boys aged 10 and 12 were freed.


Berevoesti, Romania

The captives were "attached with chains and straps... beaten (and) humiliated", starved of food and fed on scraps, prosecutors from the DIICOT organised crime investigation unit said.

They were "left fully naked, cold and hot water being thrown alternatively on them. Their hands and feet were tied and they were told to eat off the ground or to fight each other to amuse the suspects," they said.

Since 2008, some 40 victims were "captured in public places, near churches or train stations, or at their homes" and forced to do household chores, look after animals and do illegal logging, prosecutors said.

Ninety people from Gamacesti, a Roma district within the municipality of Berevoesti in the Arges region, were initially thought to have been involved.


Berevoesti, Romania

"Their treatment was terrible," said Mihaela Porime, a spokeswoman for the DIICOT. Some of the victims are believed to have suffered sexual abuse as well, prosecutors said.

Those freed on Wednesday "had visible traces of open wounds all over their bodies, particularly their scalps. They appeared physically and psychologically traumatised," Adrian Macovei from the DGASPC child protection agency told local media.

Local inhabitants told journalists on Thursday that they didn't believe the claims, saying that the boys had been homeless orphans and that they were not mistreated.

"These people, if they came to work in our home, we'd give them food, we gave them shelter, we didn't do anything bad to them," said one woman who refused to give her name.

"They were unhappy, with no mother or father. We felt sorry for them. They were like our children," she told AFP.

Berevoesti's mayor Florin Proca said he was "stunned".

"I couldn't imagine that in 2016 such soulless people could exist. I have seen shocking photos of the slaves, people held against their will, abused," he told AFP.

    Berevoesti, Romania

ISIS Tightens Grip on 3,000 Sex Slaves; Women Who Try to Escape are Beaten, Raped or Killed

"A girl for sale is Virgin. Beautiful. 12 years old"

By Lori Hinnant, Maya Allezeruzzo, Balint Szlanko, The Associated Press 


Lamiya Aji Bashar, an 18-year-old Yazidi girl who escaped her ISIS enslavers, describes how she was abducted along with her sisters and brothers when the group overran her village in 2014. She says she was passed around from militant to militant, trying to escape many times. (Balint Szlanko/Associated Press)

The advertisement on the Telegram app is as chilling as it is incongruous: A girl for sale is "Virgin. Beautiful. 12 years old.... Her price has reached $12,500 and she will be sold soon."

The posting in Arabic appeared on an encrypted conversation along with ads for kittens, weapons and tactical gear. It was shared with The Associated Press by an activist with the minority Yazidi community, whose women and children are being held as sex slaves by the extremists.

While the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is losing territory in its self-styled caliphate, it is tightening its grip on the estimated 3,000 women and girls held as sex slaves.

In a fusion of ancient barbaric practices and modern technology, ISIS sells the women like chattel on smartphone apps and shares databases that contain their photographs and the names of their "owners" to prevent their escape through ISIS checkpoints. The fighters are assassinating smugglers who rescue the captives, just as funds to buy the women out of slavery are drying up.

The thousands of Yazidi women and children were taken prisoner in August 2014, when ISIS fighters overran their villages in northern Iraq with the aim to eliminate the Kurdish-speaking minority because of its ancient faith. Since then, Arab and Kurdish smugglers managed to free an average of 134 people a month. But by May, an ISIS crackdown reduced those numbers to just 39 in the last six weeks, according to figures provided by the Kurdistan regional government.


ISIS militants took this photo of Yazidi girl Nazdar Murat as part of a database the militants have put together of Yazidi girls and women they have enslaved. (Maya Alleruzzo/Associated Press)

Mirza Danai, founder of the German-Iraqi aid organization Luftbrucke Irak, said in the last two or three months, escape has become more difficult and dangerous.

"They register every slave, every person under their owner, and therefore if she escapes, every ISIS control or checkpoint, or security force — they know that this girl … has escaped from this owner," he said.

U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby told the AP that the U.S. continues "to be appalled by credible reports that ISIS is trafficking in human beings, and sex slavery in particular."

"This depravity not only speaks to the degree to which ISIS cheapens life and repudiates the Islamic faith, it also strengthens our resolve to defeat them," he said.

ISIS doesn't repudiate the Islamic faith, they follow it much more closely than westernized Muslims.

The AP has obtained a batch of 48 head shots of the captives, smuggled out of the ISIS-controlled region by an escapee, which people familiar with them say are similar to those in the extremists' slave database and the smartphone apps.

Lamiya Aji Bashar tried to flee four times before finally escaping in March, racing to government-controlled territory with ISIS fighters in pursuit. A landmine exploded, killing her companions, eight-year-old Almas and Katherine, 20. She never learned their last names.


Lamiya Aji Bashar considers herself lucky to be alive after escaping while enslaved to ISIS. (Balint Szlanko/Associated Press)

The explosion left Lamiya blind in her right eye, her face scarred by melted skin. Saved by the man who smuggled her out, she counts herself among the lucky.

"I managed in the end, thanks to God, I managed to get away from those infidels," the 18-year-told the AP from a bed at her uncle's home in the northern Iraqi town of Baadre. "Even if I had lost both eyes, it would have been worth it, because I have survived them."

The Sunni extremists view the Yazidis as barely human. The Yazidi faith combines elements of Islam, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, an ancient Persian religion. Their pre-war population in Iraq was estimated around 500,000. Their number today is unknown.

Nadia Mourad, an escapee, has appeared before the U.S. Congress and the European Parliament to appeal for international help.

"ISIS is proud of what it's done to the Yazidis," she said to Parliament. "They are being used as human shields. They are not allowed to escape or flee. Probably they will be assassinated. Where is the world in all this? Where is humanity?"

'They are being used as human shields.

They are not allowed to escape or flee.'

- Escapee Nadia Mourad

ISIS relies on encrypted apps to sell the women and girls, according to an activist documenting the transactions, who asked not to be named for fear of his safety.

The activist showed AP the negotiations for the captives in encrypted conversations as they were occurring in real time.

The postings appear primarily on Telegram, and on Facebook and WhatsApp to a lesser degree, he said.

Both Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Telegram use end-to-end encryption to protect users' privacy. Both have said they consider protecting private conversations and data paramount and that they themselves cannot access users' content.


On a chat on the WhatsApp app, an ISIS militant offers a woman and her children for sale. 'If you know one of the brothers who has a slave for sale, please let me know,' it reads in Arabic. 'She wants her owner to sell her. He wants a price of $3,700 for her. She has two daughters, one 3 years old, the other 7 months.' (Maya Alleruzzo/Associated Press)

"Telegram is extremely popular in the Middle East, among other regions," said Telegram spokesman Markus Ra. "This, unfortunately, includes the more marginal elements and the broadest law-abiding masses alike." He added the company is committed to prevent abuse of the service and that it routinely removes public channels used by ISIS.

In addition to the posting for the 12-year-old in a group with hundreds of members, the AP viewed an ad on WhatsApp for a mother with a three-year-old and a seven-month old baby, with a price of $3,700. "She wants her owner to sell her," read the posting, followed by a photo.

"We have zero tolerance for this type of behaviour and disable accounts when provided with evidence of activity that violates our terms. We encourage people to use our reporting tools if they encounter this type of behaviour," said Matt Steinfeld, a spokesman for WhatsApp.

Like the Bible, (Old Testament) some passages of the Qur'an implicitly condone slavery, which was widespread when the holy book emerged. It also allows men to have sex with both their wives and "those they possess with their right hands," taken by interpreters to refer to female slaves.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, most Muslim scholars backed the banning of slavery, citing Qur'anic verses that say freeing them is a blessing. Some hardliners, however, continued to insist that under Shariah, sex slavery must be permitted, though ISIS is the first in the modern era to bring it into organized practice.

In the images obtained by AP, many of the women and girls are dressed in finery, some in heavy makeup. All look directly at the camera, standing in front of overstuffed chairs or brocade curtains in what resembles a shabby hotel ballroom. Some are barely out of elementary school. Not one looks older than 30.

One of them is Nazdar Murat, who was about 16 when she was abducted two years ago — one of more than two dozen young women taken away by the extremists in a single day in August 2014. Her father and uncles were among about 40 people killed when ISIS took over the Sinjar area, the heart of the Yazidi homeland.


Nuri Murat was enslaved by ISIS in August 2014 when militants overran Yazidi villages and towns. The militants killed her husband and abducted her daughter, Nazdar, who was about 16 at the time. Her fate remains unknown. (Maya Alleruzzo/Associated Press)

Inside an immaculately kept tent in a displaced persons camp outside the northern Iraqi town of Dahuk, Nazdar's mother said her daughter managed to call once, six months ago.

"We spoke for a few seconds. She said she was in Mosul," said Murat, referring to Iraq's second-largest city. "Every time someone comes back, we ask them what happened to her and no one recognizes her. Some people told me she committed suicide."

'Every time someone comes back, we ask them what

happened to her and no one recognizes her.'

- Mother of abductee Nazdar Marat

The family keeps the file of missing Yazidis on a mobile phone. They show it to those who have escaped the caliphate, to find out if anyone has seen her, and to other families looking for a thread of hope they'll see their own missing relatives again.

The odds of rescue, however, grow slimmer by the day. The smuggling networks that have freed the captives are being targeted by ISIS leaders, who are fighting to keep the Yazidis at nearly any cost, said Andrew Slater of the non-profit group Yazda, which helps document crimes against the community and organizes refuge for those who have fled.

Kurdistan's regional government had been reimbursing impoverished Yazidi families who paid up to $15,000 in fees to smugglers to rescue their relatives, or the ransoms demanded by individual fighters to give up the captives. But the Kurdish regional government no longer has the funds.

Even when ISIS retreats from towns like Ramadi or Fallujah, the missing girls are nowhere to be found.

"Rescues are slowing. They're going to stop. People are running out of money, I have dozens of families who are tens of thousands of dollars in debt," Slater said. "There are still thousands of women and kids in captivity but it's getting harder and harder to get them out."


Clothing worn by a Yazidi girl enslaved by ISIS militants, collected by a Yazidi activist. The militants are tightening their grip on the estimated 3,000 Yazidi girls and women they hold as sex slaves, creating a database to identify them so they can't sneak away. (Maya Alleruzzo/Associated Press)

Lamiya was abducted from the village of Kocho, near the town of Sinjar, in the summer of 2014. Her parents are presumed dead. Somewhere, she said, her nine-year-old sister Mayada remains captive. One photo she managed to send to the family shows the little girl standing in front of an ISIS flag.

Five other sisters all managed to escape and later were relocated to Germany. A younger brother, kept for months in an ISIS training camp in Mosul, also slipped away and is now staying with other relatives in Dahuk, a city in the Iraqi Kurdish region.

Sitting very still and speaking in a monotone, Lamiya recounted her captivity, describing how she was passed from one follower to another, all of whom beat and violated her. She was determined to escape.

She said her first "owner" was an Iraqi ISIS commander who went by the name Abu Mansour in the city of Raqqa, the de-facto ISIS capital deep in Syria. He brutalized her, often keeping her handcuffed.

"I tried to escape from him," she said. 

"And he captured me, too, and he beat me."

Lamiya

She tried to run away twice but was caught, beaten and raped repeatedly. After a month, she said, she was sold to another extremist in Mosul. After she spent two months with him, she was sold again, this time to a bomb maker who Lamiya said forced her to help him make suicide vests and car bombs.

"I tried to escape from him," she said. "And he captured me, too, and he beat me."

When the bomb maker grew bored with her, she was handed over to an ISIS doctor in Hawija, a small ISIS-controlled Iraqi town. She said the doctor, who was the ISIS head of the town hospital, also abused her.

From there, after more than a year, she managed to contact her relatives in secret.

Her uncle said the family paid local smugglers $800 to arrange Lamiya's escape. She will be reunited with her siblings in Germany, but despite everything, her heart remains in Iraq.

"We had a nice house with a big farm … I was going to school," she said. "It was beautiful."