By February 2021, it had been three years since the 13 Turpin siblings had escaped the torture imposed on them by their biological parents in their Perris home. And now six of them were ready to flee again, this time from the clutches of the foster family that had adopted four of them.
One of the minors, a boy, “practically ran away” because of physical and psychological abuse, said Tom Salisbury, a Riverside County Sheriff’s Department master investigator brought in when the county Children’s Services Division learned of what he said were only the latest allegations against Marcelino, Rosa and Lennys Olguin.
Another of the minors, a girl, was able to request a different foster home in Moreno Valley so she could have a four-hour conversation with a court advocate, away from the Olguins’ gaze and threats of retaliation, Salisbury said.
That conversation prompted the Children’s Services Division to alert the Sheriff’s Department.
Salisbury, the lead investigator on the original Turpin probe, was once again attached to a case that has received worldwide attention.
But there was a problem, Salisbury said as he revealed in an interview details on the children’s latest ordeal:
“They said they were going to interview four kids and needed a detective present so they could close out their case,” he said. “They wanted us to attend the forensic interviews, nod our heads and call it a day.”
That meant caseworkers had been unable to substantiate the allegations against the Olguins and planned to return the children to the Scenic Way home.
Salisbury wasn’t having it.
“I was familiar enough with the Turpins to know that if they left the house and the siblings who they loved, I know something must have happened,” he said.
Salisbury’s instincts proved correct.
On Friday, Oct. 18, Marcelino Olguin, 65, was sentenced to seven years in state prison and was required to register as a sex offender after pleading guilty to seven counts of lewd acts on a minor and other crimes. His wife, Rosa, 60, was sentenced to probation and 120 days in the sheriff’s work-release program. Their daughter Lennys, 39, was sentenced to probation and 150 days in work release.
Elan Zektser, an attorney for two of the Turpins formerly in the Olguins’ care who are among six suing the county and the foster family agency that placed the children in that home, highlighted Salisbury’s role in their most recent rescue at a news conference Monday.
“They are thrilled with the Sheriff’s Office, especially Detective Salisbury, who was the only one that once again listened to the Turpins when they were crying out for help,” Zektser said.
County spokeswoman C.L. Lopez on Wednesday, Oct. 23 declined to comment on Salisbury’s assertions, citing the lawsuits. She referred a reporter to a statement sent Monday that said in part, “The county is dedicated to continuous quality improvement, and we are constantly reviewing our practices, procedures, and policies.”
Contradicting Children’s Services
Salisbury, 65, said he spoke to a reporter at length about the case so such a tragedy wouldn’t happen again.
“My whole purpose was there has to be more accountability from everyone,” he said.
Salisbury was one of seven children in his family and the son of “a hard-working father and caring mother.”
He was a law enforcement officer for 40 years before he retired in December 2021. Salisbury’s assignments included jail, patrol, narcotics, tactical flight officer, crimes against children and investigator. He now splits his time between Virginia and California.
“My mottos have been, ‘Treat others as you wish to be treated’ and ‘Handle each call, case, and incident as if they involved your family,’ ” Salisbury said.
With those mantras in mind, Salisbury dove into the case, and his research uncovered four previous calls to Children’s Services Division about the Olguins that he said should have resulted in reports to law enforcement.
The same day that Salisbury joined the case, March 3, 2021, he concluded that a 5-year-old unrelated to the Turpins was receiving the most abuse and needed to be removed immediately. He also believed previous allegations should be re-investigated and that all the children should be removed in the meantime.
However, caseworkers disagreed, Salisbury said.
“They determined that the children were not at any high risk. I had to make a decision after they weren’t going to take any action, so I canceled the forensic interviews and continued the investigation,” Salisbury said, referring to the interviews with the four children that Children’s Services had planned before closing the case.
Children’s Services Division caseworkers were hamstrung for a couple of reasons, Zektser and Salisbury acknowledged.
For one, caseworkers had difficulty gaining access to the records of ChildNet, the foster family agency under contract with the county. (The county subsequently cut ties with ChildNet). Salisbury said ChildNet also refused to release records he believed should have been given to him because he was a law enforcement officer. ChildNet did not respond to a reporter’s request for comment.
For another, the truth of what was happening out of sight — as it was at the Turpin home — was elusive.
The Turpin children rarely reached out for help because they “were basically led to believe no one would have them except for the Olguins. That was not true,” Salisbury said.
Law enforcement officers and ChildNet and Children’s Services Division caseworkers would interview the children in front of the Olguins, Salisbury said, and disclosing trouble would result in even harsher treatment.
As a result, Salisbury said, “The kids would talk around the bush” and the allegations could not be confirmed. The Olguins, he said, “felt they would be believed over the victims regarding any and all allegations.”
So Salisbury interviewed the children separately.
“It did not take a professional to have a conversation with any of these kids to recognize that something is wrong here, and until Detective Salisbury said took a report and gave that information to the District Attorney’s Office for the first time, the District Attorney’s Office and Sheriff’s Department forced CPS to do something,” Zektser said. “He insisted they be removed from that home.”
‘I’m going over there’
Salisbury said his bosses told him that he was too emotionally intertwined in the case because of his previous involvement with the Turpins, but he was able to convince them that it was time to act.
“I told my supervisor’s supervisor, ‘If you are going to deny me, you better get some cops to the door because I’m going over there,’ ” Salisbury recalled.
He served a search warrant two days after the investigation began. Nobody was home, but the Olguins soon rolled up in a van with seven children inside after a trip to San Diego.
Marcelino, Rosa and Lennys Olguin were arrested. Salisbury said they later confessed to the crimes.
“When the foster kids saw their parents being placed in the back of the patrol car, they were very emotional,” Salisbury said. “None of the kids wanted to get the Olguins in trouble.
“They cared about the people and didn’t want to lose what they now called their mom and dad.”