House of Horrors dad David Turpin ‘KIDNAPPED wife from school when she was 16’

Mr Turpin allegedly whisked his childhood sweetheart away from the school in Princeton Senior High School without her parents knowledge after convincing employees to release her. 

Her sister Teresa Robinette said the pair had made it 1,000 miles to Texas before they were stopped by police.

Ms Robinette said: “The day he came and picked her up from school, I was told he told her that if she would elope with him and marry him he would give her everything she ever wanted.”

She said the pair’s relationship began in 1984 and had the blessing of Mrs Turpin’s mother but not her father.

Ms Robinette said: “My mum, who had let them date, ended up being the one telling the police they had to send her home. 

“She wanted her home right now, but my dad said, ‘No, she has made her choice, she should go off and live her life.’

“He was angry at my mum for letting them date. He was so upset. He told her it was all her fault. 

“He got on the phone and told Louise, ‘This is the life you want, you’re now an adult, I love you and I’ll always be your daddy, but now you can take care of yourself. 

“If this is what you want, you go for it.’

“So he let her marry him. They came back to Princeton and had a small intimate church wedding, just the two families. Then they went back to Texas to start their lives together.”

It comes as Mr Turpin, 57, and his 49-year-old wife denied more than two dozen charges of torture, abuse and false imprisonment when they appeared in court yesterday.They face 94 years to life in prison if convicted.

Ms Robinette said she was shocked by the charges against her sister who, she claimed, revealed she wanted a 14th child just days before she was arrested.

She said: “I hope they suffer as much, if not more, than those kids suffered.

“I hope they torture my sister for the rest of her life.

“I have four siblings now instead of five. She is off my family tree, she is dead to me. 

“I couldn’t care less about speaking to Louise ever again.”

Prosecutors accused the parents of “depravity”, saying the Turpins began chaining their family to the bed after one of them attempted to escape.

The children, aged two to 29, were beaten, shackled, starved and even taunted with food that they were forbidden to eat during their years inside the squalid family home, according to prosecutors.

They were found severely malnourished, suffering from muscle wasting and stunted growth. 

A number of children even had cognitive impairment and nerve damage from extreme and prolonged physical abuse, the prosecutor said.

Prosecutors said the children were denied food, basic hygiene and medical care and were punished for perceived infractions such as washing their hands above the wrist.

Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said: “The parents would apparently buy food for themselves and not allow the children to eat it.

“They would buy food, including pies, apple pies, pumpkin pies, leave it on the counter, let the children look at it but not eat the food.”

He said the victims were chained for weeks or even months at a time, not released even to use the bathroom. They were allowed to shower only once a year.

As a result of malnourishment, the 12-year-old child was the weight of an average seven-year-old while the oldest, a 29-year-old woman, weighed just 82 pounds, he said.

It has been claimed harsh physical punishment including beatings and strangulation were meted out for transgressions such as washing their hands above the wrists, which the parents considered playing with water.

Forensics teams examining the home have found a number of board games and a huge collection of Disney memorabilia alongside hundreds of DVDs kept in painstaking alphabetical order with the family known to visit Disneyland. 

The films include a number of child-friendly films and box sets of comedies like Everybody Loves Raymond, alongside Elvis discs.

But Mr Harpin said: “The children were not allowed to have toys although there were many toys found in the house that were in their original package and had never been opened.”

He said the children had not been to a doctor in at least four years and none has ever visited a dentist.