Jolinda Turpin, left and Julissa Turpin sit down for an interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer. ABC News
ABC News
In early 2026, three of the youngest Turpin siblings sat in front of cameras together for the first time and described what happened after the world stopped watching. James, Jolinda, and Julissa Turpin were children when deputies pulled them from a Perris, California, home where their parents had starved, shackled, and isolated all 13 of their kids for years. The rescue in January 2018 made international headlines. But the three siblings say the abuse did not end that night. It followed them into the foster care system that was supposed to save them.
The night that split their lives in two
The Turpin case broke open when Jordan Turpin, then 17, climbed out of a window and called 911 from a deactivated cell phone. Deputies arrived at the family’s suburban home and found 13 siblings, ages 2 to 29, living in filth. Some were chained to furniture. Several were so malnourished that adults were initially mistaken for children. David and Louise Turpin were arrested that night and later sentenced to 25 years to life in prison in 2019.
For the public, the sentencing felt like a conclusion. For the six youngest Turpin children, all minors at the time, it was the start of a new ordeal. They were separated from their older siblings and placed into foster care through Riverside County, where they expected safety, stability, and a chance to catch up on the education, nutrition, and medical care they had been denied their entire lives.
“We thought we were safe”
In a joint interview with Diane Sawyer that aired on ABC in February 2026, James, Jolinda, and Julissa described how quickly that hope collapsed. They told Sawyer that foster parents tightly controlled food, communication, and even bathroom access, tactics that mirrored what their birth parents had done. According to the siblings, the adults in charge would invoke their history of abuse to keep them compliant, reminding them how “grateful” they should be for having a roof over their heads. The ABC News interview marked the first time any of the youngest six had spoken publicly about their foster care experience.
They also described being discouraged from talking to each other about what they had survived. One sibling recalled being told not to “live in the past” whenever they tried to process their trauma. Instead of therapy and openness, they say they encountered a culture of secrecy, one that allowed fresh abuse to go undetected by the caseworkers assigned to check on them.
The youngest finally speak
Until this year, nearly all public attention had focused on the older Turpin sisters. Jordan’s 911 call became the defining artifact of the case. Her sister Jennifer spoke alongside her in a 2021 ABC interview that revealed how donations meant for the children had been mismanaged by their court-appointed public guardian. That earlier reporting led to a California state audit and the resignation of the guardian.
The new interview shifts the lens to the six who were youngest at rescue and most dependent on the system that took them in. Julissa, now approximately 19, told Sawyer she used to beg Jesus at night to take her because she could not see the pain ending. Jolinda said she felt she had traded one prison for another. James, who was a small child when he entered foster care, explained that he had no frame of reference for what a safe home looked like, which made it harder to recognize that something was wrong. People magazine profiled the interview, noting that the siblings’ age and total isolation before rescue left them uniquely vulnerable to adults who understood their case history.
A $13.5 million settlement
The siblings’ accounts are now backed by legal outcomes. Six of the Turpin children filed lawsuits against Riverside County and ChildNet Youth and Family Services, the foster family agency responsible for their placements. In early 2026, those cases were resolved through a $13.5 million settlement that will be split among the six children.
Riverside County Executive Officer Jeff Van Wagenen said in a statement that the county “is committed to the wellbeing and long-term healing” of the siblings and acknowledged that the investigative process itself had forced them to recount their trauma repeatedly. The Associated Press reported that the settlement also acknowledged systemic failures in how the placements were supervised. Separately, foster mother Marcelina Olguin was criminally charged with abuse in connection with the children’s care, according to Riverside County court records.
What the system still hasn’t fixed
The Turpin case has become a recurring stress test for California’s child welfare infrastructure. The 2021 state audit found that the children’s public guardian had mishandled hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations and government funds meant for their care. The foster care lawsuits revealed that caseworkers either missed or failed to act on warning signs in the foster homes. And the new interviews suggest that even after the legal settlements, the emotional damage from those placements is far from resolved.
James, Jolinda, and Julissa say that seeing Jennifer and Jordan speak publicly years earlier gave them the courage to come forward. The ABC 7 Chicago segment on the interview noted that the conversation came more than four years after the older sisters first went on camera. The younger siblings say they hope their testimony pushes lawmakers and agencies to rethink how children from extreme abuse cases are monitored after placement, not just at intake, but for years afterward.
Their story is also the subject of the 2024 Disney+ documentary The Turpin 13: Family Secrets Exposed, which includes interviews with family members and investigators involved in the case.
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