Jordan Turpin had left her home only a few times in her 17 years of life.
In the early hours of January 14, 2018, in Perris, California, she climbed out through a window without her parents knowing. She was carrying an old, deactivated cellphone they didn’t know about: it wasn’t good for much, but it could call 911. According to ABC News, her hands were shaking so much she could barely dial. Even so, she did. She told the operator that she had just escaped and that her two little sisters were chained.
Inside the house were the other 12 siblings, ranging from 2 to 29 years old. They were all malnourished, living amid garbage and in conditions nobody would want to imagine. Those who were already adults barely looked it; they had grown up in captivity and never developed.
The officers arrived, and Jordan showed them photos of the inside. Captain Greg Fellows of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department publicly praised her courage: she was the one, he said, who made the rescue possible.
The question many people ask is where she found the strength. Years later, in an interview with Diane Sawyer, she explained it herself: if something happened to her, at least she would have died trying.
Today, her parents are serving life sentences on a host of charges, and they have at least 20 years left before they can seek release.