Louise and David Turpin were married 33 years ago but have renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas at least three times. After hearing that the couple were accused of starving their 13 children and chaining them to their beds, Kent Ripley, the Elvis impersonator who presided over their ceremonies, pulled up videos where the siblings, in matching outfits and similar haircuts, smiled and danced. “Watching them now it’s kind of haunting and disturbing,” Ripley told the Associated Press. “They all looked young and thin but I figured it was just their lifestyle. Maybe the activities they did, maybe because of their religious beliefs … I knew they were a fun family.”
Since the Turpin parents were charged with multiple felony counts of torture, child abuse, abuse of dependent adults and false imprisonment, the people who knew or met them are trying to figure out how the siblings’ alleged abuse went undiscovered for so long, reports the Washington Post. The siblings, who range in age from 2 to 29, were severely malnourished when they were rescued from the Turpin’s Perris, Ca., home on Jan. 14. When they weren’t chained they were fed very little food on a schedule. Louise Turpin’s sister, Teresa Robinette, recalls how the nature of her video calls with her nieces and nephews changed over time, until she was no longer allowed to speak with them. “They were very friendly, but it was a very weird conversation every time because they weren’t real talkative,” she told NBC’s “Megyn Kelly Today.” “When she let me video-Skype to them, it got to where instead of having them all together like we did years and years ago … she would bring in one or two or three at a time, and then she would send them out and tell them to send down so-and-so.”