TRUE CRIME The Turpin children went from one house of horrors to another

The nightmare for the 13 Turpin children wasn’t over when they were rescued from their parents’ house of torture in January 2018. All children were traumatized and woefully unprepared for the world, including the adults, but the minor children still needed caregivers. Now we have learned that five of the minor children were transferred to the home of a predator where two of the children were sexually abused, and another child not related to the Turpins was given sleeping pills and forced to stand for hours as punishment.

63-year-old Marcelino Olguin of Perris, California was arrested in November 2021 and charged with seven counts of “committing a lewd and lascivious act on a child.” His wife 58-year-old wife Rosa, and 37-year-old daughter Lennys were also charged with fraud and witness intimidation. In April 2022, all three pleaded “not guilty” to these charges.

Marcelino has been charged with inappropriately touching two girls under his care, one of who was under 14-years-old at the time. According to court documents, he told the girls if they didn’t do what he asked of them they would never see their older siblings ever again. The other Turpin children in their care were also allegedly abused in other ways and threatened with the punishment of never seeing their siblings again.

Along with the five Turpin children in Marcelino, Rosa, and Lennys care, they were fostering four other children, nine in total. All of the children are reported to have been subjected to some sort of abuse, and four girls in total allege sexual abuse. One of the non-Turpin children was given a torturous punishment of being force-fed sleeping pills and made to stand up for hours afterward while they rang a bell in her ear.

During this they chanted at the child, “You don’t let us sleep, we’re not letting you sleep.” Eventually, the girl collapsed from exhaustion onto a hard floor.

November 2021, the same month that the Olguins were charged, ABC News found that $600,000 had been raised to help the Turpin children, but they haven’t been given access to any of it. The adult Turpin children have been struggling to establish themselves in the world after a lifetime of abuse, isolation, and lacking education and basic life skills.

The Turpin parents, David and Louise, are currently serving 25 years to life in prison for abusing and imprisoning their 13 children, who were ages 2-29 when they escaped.