LATEST NEWS — FORMER PROSECUTOR SPEAKS OUT ON OHIO ‘HOUSE OF HORR0RS’ CASE… AND ONE WARNING IS LEAVING MANY PEOPLE UNEASY
Julissa Turpin to NewsNation about her revictimization following being among 13 children, ages 2 to 29, who were discovered after being tortured, starved and imprisoned by their own parents, David and Louise Turpin.
, a former trial prosecutor with the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office who prosecuted the Turpin case in 2019, has a unique insight into the recent Ohio “” case and knows the risk of revictimization for the children as they enter the next phase of their progress.
DeGonia told Entin on “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” that the organizations working on the much-publicized case of 16 children rescued in the case should practice “hypervigilance” to avoid them being re-victimized.
“I just think everybody in the process needs to have their eyes and ears open, including the prosecutors,” DeGonia said. “Don’t look at this case like another file across your desk. Take the time to get to know the kids and get to know the needs.”
Gary Siders Sr., Christine Siders, Elizabeth Siders and Gary Siders Jr. were arrested June 30 after authorities said 16 children, ages 18 months to 18 years, living in unsafe, unsanitary conditions inside the family’s Hamden, Ohio, home.
DeGonia responded to the news that wishes to see her children, saying that while she’s sure she’d like to see them, she doesn’t believe it’s likely.
“I think the studies and the psychologists and the therapists who are treating those kids would agree with me that introducing after they have just been freed from such a traumatizing situation will only re-traumatize them,” she said. “Being forced to rebond with the mother right now who inflicted so much pain and so much suffering on them, I don’t believe that that’s the proper approach right now.”
All four face 16 felony counts of child endangerment and have pleaded not guilty.
In the Turpin case, DeGonia reflected on how such a high-profile case can lead to revictimization.
“If you put them in foster care and they’re able to be re-victimized when they’re the most highly publicized abused children in America, that’s pretty disturbing,” she said.