RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) A California couple who for years starved a dozen of their children and kept some shackled to beds were sentenced Friday to life in prison, ending a shocking case that revealed a house of horrors hidden behind a veneer of suburban normalcy.
The conditions inside David and Louise Turpins home in suburban Los Angeles came to light only after one of their daughters fled and pleaded for help to a 911 operator. The parents pleaded guilty in February to neglect and abuse.
The sentencing was preceded by the first public statements from some of the children, who alternately spoke of love for their parents and of what they had suffered, as the couple wiped away tears. None of the children was publicly identified.
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