13 Chained Siblings Rescued by California Police

A California couple has been charged with torture after police rescued their 13 malnourished children from a home where some of them had been shackled to beds.
Police made the discovery after a 17-year-old girl escaped the house in Perris, about 70 miles (113 km) east of Los Angeles, and used a cellular phone she had found in the house to raise the alarm at 6am, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office said on Monday.
The children, aged two to 29, were recovering in a hospital, where staff were reportedly “heartbroken” by their condition.
The parents, David Allen Turpin, 57, who is listed as a school principal, and Louise Anna Turpin, 49, were detained and each charged with torture and child endangerment.
The case has shocked the United States and prompted questions about how such alleged abuse could unfold in a suburb without neighbours or authorities noticing something wrong.
David Turpin’s parents, James and Betty Turpin told ABC News they were “surprised and shocked” at the allegations. They described their son and daughter-in-law as extremely religious and said the parents kept having children because they believed “God called on them” to do so. They added that the children were expected to memorise long Bible passages as part of “very strict homeschooling”.
The couple were being held on $9m (£6.5m) bail and were due in court on Thursday.
> Shiuly Akter