A lawsuit in the United States revealed the involvement of an alternative family in the physical, psychological and sexual torture of children in their care, in an incident that the American media called the “House of Horrors case.”
The story began last year, when the children of David and Louise Turpin, parents from the city of “Perce” in California, called the police.
The sons revealed that they were subjected to various forms of torture and starvation for days at the hands of their parents.
The police rescued the sons, numbering 13, and the minors were placed under the care of an alternative family.
However, the new lawsuit reveals that the tragedy of some of these children continued at the hands of the foster family as well.
The network reportedCNNIn a report, Wednesday, six of Turbin’s thirteen children had had a “second bout” of abuse for years.
Ilan Zechzer, a lawyer for two of the children, said their reports were “disregarded by the nursing home” that placed them in the foster parents’ home.
Six children filed separate lawsuits last week against the nursing home and Riverside County, California. Both lawsuits require that the defendants be tried by a jury.
The suits allege that ChildNet was negligent in its care of the children, knowing that the adoptive parents were “unfit” and “with a past history of physical and emotional abuse and neglect of the children in their care”, but that the home did not act on the basis of that information.
Brett Lewis, ChildNet’s director of development and communications, said Tuesday that the home “is not at liberty to disclose the facts or discuss the allegations in the complaint.”
The children in the two lawsuits complained about the mistreatment they were subjected to, and said that the adoptive parents in the foster family, called “Mr. and Mrs. O.” And their adult daughter, they mistreated the six children of Turbin in their care.”
The ill-treatment included “beatings on the face with sandals, pulling their hair, hitting them with a belt, and hitting their heads,” the lawsuit alleges.
Both lawsuits allege that the children were forced to “eat excessive amounts of food” and “eat vomit”, in addition to being told by adoptive parents that “they are worthless and should commit suicide.”
The parents also, according to the lawsuit, forced the children to recount the abuse they had gone through in their lives, repeatedly, as a form of psychological punishment, and that they encouraged the children to self-harm and pushed them to commit suicide.
CNN notes that “the adoptive parents and their daughter were arrested in March 2021 after an investigation by the Riverside County Police Department on charges of imprisonment and child cruelty, among other things, and the children were removed from the foster family’s home.”
David and Louise Turpin, the biological parents of Turpin’s children, were sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2019 after pleading guilty to detaining and torturing their 13 children.