The lawyer for six of the “House of Horrors” Turpin children, who were rescued from their parents’ former California residence in 2018, received worse treatment in foster care than from the home they were taken from, their lawyer says.
Attorney Elan Zektser, who’s representing the youngest of the 13 children, told Fox News Digital that they plan to question the foster parents under oath in connection with a civil suit filed, after learning about the alleged conditions the children endured while in foster care.
“We’re headed into some more serious litigation,” he said. “People are digging their heels in on all sides because no one likes to take responsibility for such horrific conduct. It’s not easy for people to accept the fact that what they did caused horrific harm to children.”
As CrimeOnline previously reported, lawsuits were filed by the six youngest Turpin siblings, alleging physical, emotional, and sexual abuse by the foster family they were placed with. The complaints said that officials “failed to report” the “severe” conditions even when they were warned of it.
Marcelino Olguin, 63, along with his wife Rosa, 58, and daughter Lennys, 37, were criminally charged in connection with the abuse, in 2022. Marcelino Olguin has been charged with seven counts of committing a “lewd and lascivious act on a child,” along with torture, while his wife and daughter were charged with aiding and abetting him.
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Before being placed in foster care, officers with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department arrived at a house in Perris in 2018, after a 17-year-old girl told them she stole a cell phone from the home, escaped from its horrid conditions, and called for help.
According to responding officers, an additional 12 people were found inside the “foul-smelling” home, shackled in chains to filthy beds. All of the victims were the children of David Allen Turpin, 57, and Louise Anna Turpin, 49.
David and Louise Turpin were subsequently convicted in 2019 and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the torture and abuse of their children.
The California Child Protective Services and Adult Protective Services were supposed to take care of the children after they were released from the hospital, but they ended up enduring a “worse” experience, Zektser said, adding that the high-profile exposed major problems in foster care.
In February 2022, a Riverside County judge ordered the unsealing of records about the county’s care of the Turpin children, after complaints of being placed in crime-ridden neighborhoods and without access to thousands of dollars in private donations.
Further, the lawsuit claims that despite previous allegations of abuse and neglect, the Olguin couple continued to be entrusted with foster placements, with the prioritization of funding and “financial incentive” over the well-being of the children.
“Against the advice of some of its own employees, ChildNet placed plaintiffs and two of their siblings in foster care with Mr. and Ms. [Olguin],” the lawsuit read. “Soon thereafter, defendants were put on notice that these foster parents and their adult daughter were sexually, physically and emotionally abusing and severely neglecting plaintiffs.”
Zektser added that “ChildNet and the county of Riverside” should be held “accountable.”
“They are not going to act weak or just hope this goes away,” he said.
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[Featured Photo: Turpin children with the birth parents/Facebook]
