Reclaim the mantle: It takes a village

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Here we are again with nightmarish news of children being abused and neglected. A few such stories follow, including one of four dead sisters.

Each story illustrates why we must reclaim the mantle: It takes a village.

• Thirteen siblings are found shackled and malnourished in their home in Perris, California, after one of the kids grabs a cellphone and calls police. Their parents — David Allen Turpin, 57, and Louise Anna Turpin, 49 — are arrested and jailed on various charges. The parents are scheduled to appear in court on Thursday.

• Nearly four years ago, 8-year-old Relisha Rudd disappears from a homeless shelter after being spotted with a man in a D.C. motel. Earlier, social workers who had visited Relisha’s home discovered inadequate food for her and for a newborn baby, and they suspect Relisha may have been physically abused.

• Ten years ago this month, federal marshals entered a Southeast home to serve an eviction notice and discovered four sisters dead, their bodies decomposing. Their mom, Banita Jacks, was charged with their murders. Jacks was sentenced to 120 years in prison, 30 years per child.

None of the children lived on an island, yet they were deserted — abandoned by the village of adults who should have looked out for their well-being.

The news of such cases is shocking, and the questions surrounding them are always fast and furious. What happened? When did it start? Who knew the family was troubled? How could this happen? Why did it happen?

The case of the 13 Turpin children is very revealing. The couple visited the Elvis Chapel in Las Vegas with their children on three separate occasions to renew their vows. The family had annual passes to Disneyland, about a 90-minute drive from their home. A photo on the Turbins’ Facebook page shows each child mocking the Thing 1 and Thing 2 characters of Dr. Seuss’ “The Cat in the Hat.” In the photo, the kids’ red, black and white T-shirts were numbered from Thing 1 up to Thing 13. The children’s paternal grandmother, Betty Turpin of West Virginia, said the children were home-schooled and that the family often dressed alike for “protective reasons.”

Neighbors saw the Turpin children laying sod at night. Neighbors said the Turpin kids unresponsive when setting up outdoor Christmas decorations. Neighbors lined up outside the Turpin home when news of the house of horrors broke.

Grandmother Turpin said she hadn’t seen her son and his family in four or five years, while neighbors described the family as intensely private. One Turpin neighbor told the Press-Enterprise of Riverside: “I had no idea this was going on. I didn’t know there were kids in the house.”

Is that a problem? Well, yes and no.

Not knowing that a so-called neighbor has kids is one thing. The children could, say, be living with the other parent, away at college or in the military.

The Turpins, however, had 13 children, ranging from 2 to 29 years old, and all 13 of them lived in the same house.

Ten years ago, the Jacks girls had neighbors, too. Next-door neighbors. Neighbors who lived across the street. Neighbors who lived in the single-family homes around the corner. Neighbors whose kids attended school just as the Jacks girls used to do.

Aged 5 to 17, the girls also had relatives — on their mom’s side and their fathers’ side. The older daughters carried their mom’s maiden name, and the younger girls’ their dad’s last name of Fogle.

Because they were enrolled in public schools and their mom was considered destitute, social workers, teachers and school authorities looked in on the mother of four. School absences mounted. Police took up interest as well, but Jacks wouldn’t produce the children, and she wouldn’t let anyone inside the home.

None of the adults had the kids’ back.

By the time the marshals arrived, it was too late. With the girls’ corpses rotting upstairs, Jacks tried to block the stairway. The marshals headed toward the stench.

The trail of a different sort appears to have gone cold. Relisha was a sweet girl by all accounts, and social workers had been familiar with her family’s problems since Relisha was a tyke. So, there was much already known about Relisha, who went missing March 1, 2014, from a near-wretched public shelter on the fringes of Capitol Hill. It was at the shelter where a janitor befriended Relisha and her mom.

Closed-circuit cameras caught Relisha being led by that janitor, Kahlil Malik Tatum, down a motel hallway a few days earlier. Police suspected that Tatum had killed his wife. Days later, Tatum’s body was discovered in a park with a single, self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Relisha’s whereabouts remain a mystery. Relisha Rudd did not vanish into thin air. Somebody knows something. Somebody should come forward, even if that somebody comes forward with the truth of her disappearance and wants to claim the $25,000 reward.

Here’s another newsworthy item. It’s about three local boys who, through no fault of their own, are now men who can barely cope after having been isolated from family and friends, never held accountable by their parents in their youth. They never even walked the family dog, which was fenced in just like they were.

Some members of the neighborhood village witnessed the paths these brothers were on and embraced the mantle.

You don’t have to be the nosy neighbor who inhales and exhales on others’ business. But to not know that your neighbors have 13 kids? Well, no, you do not get a pass.

As the Turpin, Relisha and Jacks stories illustrate, if you don’t help look out for the young, who will?

• Deborah Simmons can be contacted at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.