Foster family pleads guilty to abusing Turpin children following ‘house of horrors’ rescue

A California foster family pleaded guilty to abusing a number of youths in their care – including multiple Turpin children who were rescued from their parents’ “house of horrors.”

Marcelino Olguin, of Perris, pleaded guilty Thursday to to four counts of lewd acts on a child 14 or 15 years old, with the defendant being at least 10 years older; three counts of lewd acts on a child younger than 14; one count of false imprisonment; and one count of injuring a child, the Press-Enterprise reported.

Olguin’s wife, Rosa, and their daughter, Lennys, also pleaded guilty to three counts of willful child cruelty, one count of false imprisonment and one count of intimidating a witness, the outlet reported.

Rosa pleaded guilty to grand theft, as well, said Thalia Hayden, a spokesperson for the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office.

Olguin will have to register with the state as a sex offender, and will spend seven years in prison after his sentencing, his attorney Paul Grech, told the Press-Enterprise.

“He just wanted to bring closure to his family, and this was the best way to do that,” Grech said of the guilty plea.

Both Rosa and Lennys Olguin face four years of probation and a four-year suspended sentence.

Lennys Olguin will also be sentenced to 150 days in the sheriff’s work-release program, while Rosa Olguin is expected to spend 120 days in the same program, according to Hayden.

All three will be sentenced on Oct. 18.

The family was charged in November 2021 after local sheriffs obtained a sworn statement alleging that they sexually and psychologically abused the foster children in their care, the Press-Enterprise reported. 

The children were allegedly forced to eat their own vomit and were told they should kill themselves, the outlet said.

Six of the children abused in the Olguins’ home were part of the large Turpin family who were placed in the residence in April 2018 – just three months after they were rescued from captivity in their parents’ so-called “house of horrors.”

The 13 Turpin kids, ages 2 to 29, endured a lifetime of heinous abuse at the hands of their parents, David and Louise Turpin.

Six of the underage siblings were then sent to a foster home only to be tortured again by the Olguins, according to two lawsuits filed by those kids n 2022.

“Immediately after being placed at the Olguins’, the three defendants pressure-questioned the siblings about their traumatic past,” one investigator wrote, according to the Press-Enterprise report.

“They forced the siblings to participate in a ‘circle confession talk,’” authorities said. 

“The siblings were forced to admit to their past sibling abuses, which their biological parents forced them to commit. The Olguins told the siblings non-participation would result in not seeing or visiting with their older siblings in the future.”

One 5-year-old child in the Olguins’ care was given sleeping pills and then forced to stand in a small, square area marked by blue tape, according to reports.

The Olguins would spray the child with water, ring a bell and yell to keep them awake.

The child was also locked in their bedroom for nine hours a day.

It was not clear whether this child was a Turpin.

Speaking to the US Sun earlier this year, an attorney for the Turpin kids said the abuse they suffered in foster care “was even worse than what they experienced at the hands of their parents.”