Escape From A House Of Horrors FULL AUDIO The Turpin Sisters

Escape From A House Of Horrors FULL AUDIO The Turpin Sisters
Escape From A House Of Horrors FULL AUDIO
PERRIS, Calif. -- Jordan Turpin quietly climbed up on a windowsill of her parents' home without them knowing and dropped down into the outside world.
The 17-year-old had only been outside a few times in her entire life and she was terrified. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably as she held a deactivated cell phone her parents didn't know she had, but thinking of her siblings chained up inside the house, she worked up the courage to dial 911.
"I was always terrified that if I called the cops or tried to escape, I would get caught, and then I knew I would die if I got caught," Jordan, now 21, told ABC News' Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview. "But at the end, when I saw all my younger siblings, I knew that's what I had to do."
Jordan's bravery that day in January 2018 freed herself and her siblings from a life of horrific abuse and captivity at the hands of their parents, David and Louise Turpin, who are now in prison for beating, shackling and starving 12 of their 13 children.
"That was my only chance," Jordan said. "I think it was us coming so close to death so many times. If something happened to me, at least I died trying."
Jordan and her eldest sibling, Jennifer Turpin, are telling their story for the first time in an exclusive interview with Sawyer. They are the first of any of the Turpin children to share their stories. In their interview, the Turpin daughters described physical abuse and being deprived of food, hygiene, education and health care for years.
"The only word I know to call it is 'hell,'" said Jennifer Turpin, reflecting on the trauma of her childhood
Growing up, Jennifer Turpin attended public school from first to third grade but then her parents took her out. From then on, the parents claimed to be homeschooling their children but weren't in reality. The children were rarely allowed to leave their home when the family lived in Texas and then in California, they said they were never allowed outside without their parents.
"We [weren't] even allowed to stand up. We were supposed to be sitting down all the time," added Jennifer, now 33. "Most of the time we were up at night and then sleeping in the day."
In the family's Perris, California, home that Jordan escaped from, she told investigators she was kept in a bedroom where two little sisters were chained on and off for months. She said she and her siblings lived in filth and that she hadn't bathed in seven months
Jennifer said for years she and her siblings only ate once a day, primarily peanut butter sandwiches, bologna, a frozen burrito or chips, while their parents ate fast food and other full meals. She said some of the children would try to "steal" food and their parents would beat them or chain them up for it. When rescued, all of the children except for the youngest, a toddler, were severely malnourished, prosecutors said.
An 11-year-old child was so malnourished that her arm circumference was the equivalent of a 4-and-a-half month old baby, investigators said.
Jordan said she hadn't been to a doctor in five years, she said, and had never been to a dentist in her life.
The plan to escape
In 2016, Jordan said she got a hold of one of her parents' old smartphones. It opened up a whole new world she had never seen before, and eventually she discovered Justin Bieber's music videos.
"I don't know where we would be if we didn't watch Justin Bieber," Jordan said. "I started realizing that there is a different whole world out there... I wanted to experience that."
The smartphone became a critical escape for Jordan. She said she watched Bieber's interviews, movies and used it to make little videos to post on social media. One day, she said someone commented on one of her posts to ask why she was always inside and awake at night.
"I did tell him that I didn't really go to school, and I wasn't allowed to go in the backyard or front yard and that I'm always kept inside, and I told him how we eat and how we're not allowed to get out of bed," she said. "He was like, 'This isn't right, you should call the cops' ... I was so happy to hear him say that because I was like, 'I was right. I was right that this situation is bad.'"
One day, a sibling in the house told their mother she had been watching Bieber's videos. Jordan said her mother came at her and began choking her.
"I thought I was going to die that day," she said. "After that whole day happened, I kept having nightmares that... she was going to kill me."
After that incident, Jordan secretly talked to a couple of her sisters about trying to come up with a plan to escape.
"She was like, 'We need to get out of here,'" Jennifer said. "So I gave her all the advice I knew, all the advice I could."
Jordan eventually decided her best option would be to climb out of her bedroom window and call 911.
Jennifer said she t...