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They are expected to serve the rest of their lives behind bars, unless granted parole in 25 years.<\/p>\n
What did the children say?<\/h2>\n
The couple wept as they heard victim-impact statements from four of their children at Friday’s hearing.<\/p>\n
“I love both of my parents so much,” said one child in words read by her brother.<\/p>\n
“Although it may not have been the best way of raising us, I am glad that they did because it made me the person I am today.”<\/p>\n
Another sibling recounted being haunted by their ordeal.<\/p>\n
“I cannot describe in words what we went through growing up,” said his statement.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes I still have nightmares of things that had happened such as my siblings being chained up or getting beaten.<\/p>\n
“That is the past and this is now.<\/p>\n
“I love my parents and have forgiven them for a lot of the things they did to us.”<\/p>\n
But not all the children were so conciliatory.<\/p>\n
One daughter, visibly shaking, said: “My parents took my whole life from me, but now I’m taking my life back.<\/p>\n
“I’m a fighter, I’m strong and I’m shooting through life like a rocket.”<\/p>\n
She added: “I saw my dad change my mom. They almost changed me, but I realised what was happening.”<\/p>\n
What did the parents say?<\/h2>\n
David and Louise Turpin also cried as they apologised for the treatment of their children.<\/p>\n
The 57-year-old father’s lawyer read a prepared statement on his behalf, saying: “My home schooling and discipline had good intentions.<\/p>\n
“I never intended for any harm to come to my children. I love my children and I believe my children love me.”<\/p>\n
He was an engineer for major US defence contractors Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.<\/p>\n
Speaking directly to court, housewife Louise Turpin, 50, said she was “truly sorry” for what she had done.<\/p>\n
“I love my children so much,” she said. “I really look forward to the day I can see them, hug them and tell them I’m sorry.”<\/p>\n
What did the judge say?<\/h2>\n
The couple sat stony-faced as the judge rebuked them for their “selfish, cruel and inhuman treatment”.<\/p>\n
Judge Bernard Schwartz said: “You have severed the ability to interact and raise your children that you have created and brought into this world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “The only reason that your punishment is less than the maximum time in my opinion is because you accepted responsibility at an early stage in the proceeding.<\/p>\n “And you spared your children having to relive the humiliation and the harm they endured in that house of horrors.”<\/p>\n The tidy exterior of the middle-class family home 70 miles (112km) south of Los Angeles offered a veneer of respectability that masked the squalor and stench of human waste found by authorities within.<\/p>\n The children, between the ages of two to 29 at the time of the police raid, were severely malnourished.<\/p>\n A 22-year-old son was discovered chained to a bed. His two sisters had just been released from shackles.<\/p>\n The victims were forbidden to shower more than once a year, were unable to use the toilet and none of them had ever seen a dentist.<\/p>\n Some of the adult siblings’ growth had been so severely stunted by starvation that authorities at first mistook them for children.<\/p>\n Newly released audio of their daughter’s call to 911, obtained by ABC<\/a>, provides a hint of the conditions in which the children lived.<\/p>\n “Two of my sisters and one of my brothers… they’re chained up to their bed”, the 17-year-old girl, who did not know her own address, told the emergency operator.<\/p>\n “Sometimes I wake up and I can’t breathe because how dirty the house is.”<\/p>\n The girl was also unaware of the year or month, or meaning of the word “medication”.<\/p>\n The children – whose names all begin with the letter J – were kept indoors, but were allowed out for Halloween, or on family trips to Disneyland and Las Vegas.<\/p>\n About 20 people from across the country, including nurses and psychologists, have offered to care for the seven adult siblings and six children.<\/p>\n Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"The](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/12B75\/production\/_99616667_turpin_family_chapel_2_blur.jpg\")
<\/span>What did the children endure?<\/h2>\n
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