Turpin Family – Image courtesy of NBC News
WARNING: Graphic Images
Most of us remember the Turpin children because of the extreme abuse they endured.
The 13 children suffered years of torture, starvation, and neglect at the hands of their parents before being rescued in 2018 from the house of horrors in which they were raised.
Now it appears that rescue was illusory.
Further Abuse
The 6 youngest children have filed suit against Riverside County, CA; ChildNet Youth and Family Services; and the Foster Family Network, alleging they were placed with a foster family who emotionally, physically, and sexually abused them [1A][2].
The children claim the Olguins for three years fondled them, struck them with belts, forced them to eat their own vomit, threatened them with a return to their biological parents, told them they were worthless, and urged them to commit suicide.
Faithless Bureaucrats
How could this have been allowed to happen?
These children had been brutalized. They should have been treated with the utmost care by the agencies which undertook to safeguard them. Instead, they were subjected to trauma on trauma, as their lawyer Roger Booth put it [1B].
Dante in his Divine Comedy assigned sinners guilty of treachery against those with whom they had special relationships to the 9th circle of hell [3]. The Turpin children have already experienced that. One cannot help but think faithless bureaucrats belong there, as well.
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[1A and 1B] New York Post, “Tortured Turpin kids say abusive foster family made them eat their own vomit: suit” by Marjorie Hernandez, 7/20/22, https://nypost.com/2022/07/20/turpin-children-abused-by-foster-family-forced-to-eat-own-vomit-lawsuit/.
[2] NBC News, “Turpin siblings rescued from torture in California home were then ‘horrifically abused’ by foster parents, lawsuit says” by Diane Dasrath and David Li, 7/20/22, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/turpin-siblings-rescued-torture-california-home-horrifically-abused-fo-rcna39151.
[3] Wikipedia, “Inferno (Dante)”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante).
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ANNA WALDHERR A Voice Reclaimed, Surviving Child Abuse 
Horrendous story!
It grieves me to write about such things. But it grieves me even more that they continue to happen. We urgently need to reform our foster care system.
I cannot agree more! I have my supply of horrendous stories, having worked with severely emotionally disabled children, many of whom had been abused, molested, and/or neglected, and quite a few came from inappropriate foster homes.
This is ghastly; thanks for making us aware Anna, we must see how claim and allege are examined, watching that the process is handled justly. However it is, though, those 13 have been brutalized in life. Faithless bureaucrats … and faithless us: we give many bureaucrats plump budgets (an opinion) – a pox on us all for allowing those connected with our children to get the least effective resourse allocation. But then, we are a hedonistic society of adults.
Well said, Marilee.
This is an abomination, Anna. Just dreadful. One good thing however, they are recognizing abuse for what it is. They are reporting it. Even better, they are believing it is not okay and that they deserve better. Those are things we take for granted, we assume everyone knows, but abused kids often don’t.
It takes great strength to endure what these children have endured. We need to recognize that, as well.
Es ist furchtbar, dass solche schrecklichen Dinge geschehen sind und immer noch geschehen. Jeder muss verstärkt die Augen offen halten und sofort reagieren, wenn er Anzeichen für eine Missbrauch bemerkt. Alles Liebe, Marie
So wahr, Marie. Missbrauch kommt leider in vielen Formen vor. Nicht nur Kinder sind betroffen.
Wow so heartbreaking; I prayed for these kids just now; they are going to have major trust issues in life…may God have mercy on them