Turpin interviewer reveals process for 16 Ohio ‘House of Horrors’ kids | Drop Dead Serious

Hey everybody. I’m Ashleigh Banfield and this is Drop Dead Serious. I wanted to talk to you about something that has been on my mind and I’m not going to lie, I’ve been pretty obsessed with this case in Ohio, the 16 children. Um Hamden, Ohio, Vinton County. It happened on June 30th. Sheriff’s deputies were executing a warrant on a house unrelated and found 16 kids crammed into a 12 by 12 room.

The governor said it was pure evil, almost like feral animals, deplorable, horrendous, disgusting. One or more of the children may have died if officers had not responded to the home when they did. This is the case that has just, you know, consumed me. A, how does it happen? But B, what do you do next? Yeah? I mean, you have 16 kids who probably know no other life other than horror and horror is the norm.

How do you save them, but at the same time tenderly care for them, but at the same time extract from them the forensic evidence you need to know? They’re the witnesses. They’re the backbone of the case against the people that did this to them. They’re the ones who we need the most to talk. And they are the least likely to want to, sometimes. Not in the Turpin case.

They wanted to talk. They wanted to escape. But in so many other cases, the dynamics are so complicated. Some of these children still love these parents that may have abused the hell out of them in all sorts of ways. But they’re still their parents. And so, this is why I decided to check up on someone who I know would have the answers as to what is happening, likely right this moment, with these kids in the Sider house.

What is happening to them? Where are they? And how are the forensic investigators, the interviewers, going to extract the information that’s needed from these kids to build a case against the adults who’ve been charged, their parents and their grandparents? How do you talk to them? How do you get them to talk, especially when they can’t talk or won’t talk or are way too terrified to talk? So, Denise Rodriguez-Bowman, she was that person.

She responded to the Turpin case. She questioned those kids. She forensically interviewed them. She knows more about how to deal with kids like the Sider 16 than any of us. And I had an incredible opportunity to ask her every question I could in a limited amount of time that I had. But oh my god, I had so many questions for her.

So, just so you know her background, she was the director of forensic services and victim advocacy with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department when they were called to the Turpin house. And that’s what she jumped into. That was her her role, her action. And since that time, she’s left the Sheriff’s Department and she’s started a nonprofit called Speak Heart Alliance, where she does a lot of the same services and has um you know, is able to offer a lot of her same expertise.

I had so many questions for her in a limited amount of time but wow did I ever learn a lot and you will too. Here’s our conversation. Denise thank you so much for being on Drop Dead Serious. I have so many questions and people like you are you’re just like child whisperers when it comes to kids who have been traumatized.

I want to speak mostly about what happened in Ohio with these 16 kids but because you’ve got you know the Turpin case as your history I’d love to just ask you if when you heard about Ohio and the 16 kids there if everything from Turpin flooded back to you.

“Unfortunately it’s not like that in my work. I’ve done 25 years of forensic interviewing and child abuse human trafficking. When I see these really horrific and sad cases that come on in the media it just breaks my heart. It it reminds me of every kid that I’ve interviewed many of them who’ve been tortured sexually abused starved. So it does it does take me back to that but actually that case in particular that happened in Riverside County kind of never leaves you. It’s always there you always kind of think about like what happened to those kids or wish them well and just all of the cases kind of run together in your in your in your mind and our mind as professionals. There are some that are really significant. Turpin was one of them but there were there many others that I’ve worked on that don’t make the media.”

“I’ll bet and I think the Turpin case made the media because A there were 13 which was just mind-blowing and then B these pictures of them in the Disney thing one two three four five and the cute little you know renew our vows garbage those things just made it it was mind-blowing and and so I’m looking to this new case where we don’t have these images of phony baloney you know, clean living. Instead, we have very scant reporting of I saw the kids now and again and they were dirty and they were skinny and then we just never saw them. So, this feels different.”

“Yes. Those kids definitely had the Turpin kids had some highs in their lives where they were able to go out and and that you know, interface with the world and have some um adventures and then go home and be and locked up and chained up and and and not given love, nourishment, or anything to survive in terms of basic needs. And then these children, because they are younger, they’re they’re different in age and they really don’t have the language, they they were just, you know, surrendered to this one room and then that was it.”

“So, I’ll go over those ages real quickly just to remind our viewers. The oldest was 18 and the report was that she couldn’t write her own name. Then it was 18, 16, 15, 14, 13, 11, 9, 8, 6, 5, twins who were 4, twins who were 20 month old, and of course a set of conjoined twins who died. So, 18 birth children, 16 survived, three sets of twins, and I it’s just hard to even say it, but two were life-flighted, seven were admitted to hospital, one would have died according to the governor had that child not received attention, and at least one critical I believe. And again, not because anyone called and said, “We’re in a crisis, come help rescue.” Just because they were found that way. This is just It’s unfathomable to me. Is it unfathomable to you?”

“[sighs and gasps]”

“I can’t understand how many systems have missed this family, but what I read and what I’ve gathered, I did not personally work on this case, is that this family was they moved around a lot. And often times when you move around a lot, you are trying to escape systems. So that could be child protection, that could be the school system, that could be law enforcement, many nonprofits that are trying to assist her family. Once we have seen this pattern in other families, once they there’s a cause of concern and maybe there’s a referral of some sort from one of those agencies I mentioned, if they come and have some interaction with family and they the family then feels like there’s a threat to maybe removal or criminal, they leave. So this family in particular was moving around a lot. It It could be because they wanted to not get too comfortable and under these systems that maybe were already starting to look at them.”

“Would you say it’s equal, less than, or more than some of these families who move around a lot might actually be moving because they are impoverished. They find a place, the bills come in, they leave for the next place. So it’s not so much that the law is chasing them, but maybe the landlords are.”

“That’s very well possible. I mean, we’re living in a country where it’s very difficult for families to make it today. And so and and that’s your average middle class family. You know, children that are you know, or young adults that are graduating from college. Like it is very expensive to live. I live in California, it’s absurd. So then you think about families who have so many children, who so the socioeconomic is lower and so then how do they survive? How are they This what leads me to this family in particular. Based on, you know, this family and how many children they had to have been getting some sort of government assistance. And so when that happens, you have to disclose how many children you have, you know, your living your address of where you live, and and um if those agencies need to follow up or there’s concern, then they would make a report to child protection. It really is child protection that would get involved or law enforcement. And then oftentimes, if there’s fraud in child welfare, then they have their own fraud unit and they would come out. So, someone should be having eyes. Um so, these families either by, you know, wanting to evade that or by just systematically being living in poverty moving, there’s so many factors and variables that could come into play.”

“Weirdly, the Dollar General store staff, um they noticed that they were using a food stamp kind of purchase device. Um and it just makes me wonder, were there food stamps being acquired in that household without the requisite information of how many kids there really were? Or maybe they were just surviving on I need food stamps for me and one or two kids. Because I would think at that point, if you’re getting the food stamps for the kids, they’d say, “Where are the kids? We don’t see them registered for school.””

“Well, and to that point is that agencies like child welfare that provide um food stamps and, you know, TANF benefits, child welfare benefits to families in need, not don’t necessarily correlate to school districts. And they may not necessarily, just depends on what state, they may want to see the children and they may not. So, it would be that and and and to the the point of those um government workers, they have very high case loads. When they are distributing um you know, aid, they’re they may have a caseload of like 200. So then to then be able to say, “Where is this? Where is that?” The system starts to weaken with that high caseload. So for them to say, “Where are the kids? We need to see them.” would really warrant uh some concern on that um that uh you know, social worker or that person that’s um distributing funds.”

“You know, Tom Salisbury, who was the lead detective on the Turpin case, he referred me to you because he said you’re really good at what you do and it the questions that I have um regarding this new case in Ohio, I think are almost the same as the questions I would have in Turpin. These kids are extracted in an emergency situation. Again, some are non-verbal. Some are in critical condition. An 18-year-old can’t write her own name and in comes Denise Robinson Bowman. What What do you start? What do you do?”

“Yeah. So a forensic interviewer, which would have been my expertise, uh there are investigating social workers. So two people generally come out. Salisbury would call two people, child protection social workers and a forensic interviewer. Of the social worker would be looking at a global assessment and what are the needs immediately. What do these kids need? They’d be going to a hospital for a medical assessment, um you know, just kind of seeing the basic need and the global assessment of the family system. The forensic interviewer would come in and sit talk to law enforcement and say, “All right, what do we have? What was the condition of the home? What are parents saying? What do we know this far a a about the kids?” And they’re going to say limited language, can’t read or write, you know, whatever that is. And And the interviewer would go into a room, and really a forensic interviewer does uh a comprehensive forensic interview in terms of like assessing their language, assessing their cognitive ability, the developmental ability to even interact in an interview. When we interview kids, we need kids who speak.”

“Yeah.”

“There’s no other way around that. That’s what an interviewer does. And we mirror, we follow, we’re really patient, we do a lot of rapport building with kids prior to starting a forensic interview because we’re a stranger. But it’s an art.”

“me tell me about that. How do you build that rapport with kids who may have been, you know, there was awful stuff going on in the Turpin house. I don’t know what was going on in this other house. I have no idea, you know, what the Sider kids went through. But how do you build that rapport?”

“So, there’s a the art and science of interviewing. We follow a protocol. So, you have a question design of questions and and how you ask questions, which is very different than the way most people talk to children.”

“Right.”

“But the rapport building is really a finesse, a little dance, a real like really it’s hard to teach people this. If you really just know how to connect with people, it’s an energy, it’s an energy exchange, it’s a presence, it’s a kindness, but without being super kind and giving them all this information and and you really are walking a line. But you with experience, you come in saying like tell me everything about you. And if there is if there is like apprehension, you take it really slow. You may ask to draw with them or color.”

“But you don’t go to the heart of the crime right away. And you don’t just come in and say tell me everything your parents did cuz that’s it. It’s over.”

“Mhm. You know, you often times too if there’s a lot of uh apprehensiveness, you say like tell me about how you’re feeling right now. Tell me what you’re thinking right now. You know, I understand something’s happened in your family. How do you feel about talking to me? And then kind of, you know, assessing and just debriefing with them about their concern about what’s happening in their family system in that moment. They may not be saying anything about abuse. It’s just what their interest are. Tell me about something you like to do. Tell me everything about what you like to do. And then you hear what they like to do, rather than me saying, “Do you like school? Do you like pizza? Do you like food? Do you like” No, it’s it’s asking them what they are into, what they like, and then you play off that. You kind of grow that. You You do narratives, which is A narrative is really I’m going to ask you a question that’s open-ended. Tell me everything about what you like to do. I’m going to hear it, and then I’m going to build a narrative off that that you, the child, is going to have to explain. So, you said you like to dance. Tell me about the last time you danced, or you like to, you know, play”

“Where do you dance?”

“Yeah. Yeah, tell me about where, you know, tell me about You like to play with your brothers and sisters. Tell me about the last time. We’re actually trying to build um an event. So, it we we When we do this work, we’re not going to who, what, when, where.”

“Mhm, right.”

“We’re going to tell me about something. The kid is to then tell you a little bit, and then you say, “Tell me about the last time you did that.” Tell me everything from beginning to end. And you’re trying to get the child to talk.”

“Wait, so this is rapport building, but at the same time, there must be things that come out that are just clear and convincing evidence. So, for instance, what do you like to do? I like to walk from the one wall to the other, and I do it 300 times a day. This is no evidence. Like, it’s you’re rapport building, but you’re getting the goods.”

“Right. And so, then you’re like, “Tell me everything about doing that. How do you do it? Where do you do it?” And then, you know, explain it to me essentially is what we’re saying. We use different language that is part of a protocol, but we’re like, “Tell me everything about that.” That’s open-ended questions, and you then follow them, and as you follow them and you’re listening to that, then you’re going to say, “Okay, well, you said that you do this this many times a day. Like, tell me more about that. How? Like, help me understand. I don’t know what that is.””

“Meaning, my mom told me I have to?”

“Yeah, we do it we don’t necessarily go why do you have to do these things, you know, we are [snorts] doing it very subtly. We’re doing it dance very subtly, and we will get to that that we’ll get to that point about like, “Who makes you do that?” You know, what what what’s the reason for that? Um so that they have that opportunity to speak their truth, their experience. It’s their experience, it’s their truth, and often times sometimes these kids don’t understand that it’s not wrong. So an interviewer is really like a facial, the tone of my voice has to really be built in neutrality and objectivity, and exploring all different hypotheses. So whatever they’re saying to me, I’m going to be leading it up with another question, but I what we really like to do is get them to explain it all to us, and then we’ll go back and ask additional questions.”

“Where where’s your goal when you find a circumstance and let’s just talk about this Ohio circumstance. 12 by 12 room, 16 kids, you can’t lie down. 16 bodies in that much space. So, what’s your goal now? Are you looking as a forensics interviewer, I need to know if there was uh you know, if they were physically forced into doing certain things through pain. Um I need to know if they were if food because it’s another form of torture. Um I need to know whether there was uh sexual abuse of these children. Are you have goals that you’re headed towards or is everything so open-ended you’re waiting to find out what the spectrum is?”

“So, there’s many protocols in the United States that we follow and most states follow different ones. Um and it just depends on the interviewer, their comfortability, like where they are with the child. Like no interview completely looks the same because a child is uniquely different. These children would not be uh a typical interview, right? Because they don’t really have language and um you know, there’s a lot of uh deficits based on the fact that they were not um in school and things like that. Um so, when you say like tell me I would say like tell me about what you eat. When do you eat? Like explain to me what you’re eating and you get them to explain it. I am not going to say like do you eat in the morning? Do you eat in the afternoon? Do you eat at night? I’m going to say like when you wake up in the morning, tell me what you what you first do. And then what do you do after that? And what do you do that? We build that up and then say and tell me what you eat. Um tell me tell me where you’re eating. Tell me who’s giving you the food. Help me understand um you know, when you’re hungry, what can you do to eat? Where do you get that food? So, we’re we’re doing it a little differently the way you ask it. So, what we do is we listen to like you may be an investigator saying, “I want to know this. I want to know this. I want to know that.” And then we go in there and kind of ask it in a different way. So, with the sexual abuse allegation, um we would say something like, “I talked to kids when, you know, something’s happened to their body. Tell me, has something happened to your body?” And if they don’t really understand what that means, then we funnel it a little bit more and say, uh you know, let’s go over body parts. Tell me what you got call these body parts. Do you have private parts? And they may not know what that means, especially these children, right? Cuz they they’re not they’re not nurtured. They’re not in school. They’re not learning this by teachers, um you know, that that touching is wrong. So, certain touching is wrong. So, then we have to scaffold it a little bit and say, um I talked to kids when someone’s touched them on these parts of their body. What do you call this? And we’ll go to the the private or, you know, to the other private parts. And then say, “Has Has someone touched you?” That’s a yes-no question. Generally, we try to keep away from those yes-no questions, but if we do get a yes, then we say, “Tell me about that. Who did that? What happened? Help me understand what happened.” And so, then we we will we kind of it is it is a lot of patience on an interviewer’s part, and they generally um can be long interviews, and we’re we’re kind of like moving it along just based on the kids’ ability to be in that room and how long they can be in that room.”

“And the And the child’s, you know, willingness to reveal what’s so mortifying potentially to them or terrorizing. “Never tell anybody or I will do something to you” will never leave those kids. So, how how do you get beneath the the terrified child? And again, I don’t know that that’s the circumstance in this home. I know something is very wrong in that home, but how do you get beneath the terrified child who thinks everything will get worse if he or she says anything?”

“So, the difference between these kids and the Turpin kids is that the Turpin kids they were ready. Some One of the siblings jumped out of the room, got help, and said, “We’ve had enough.” So, when I talked to them, they what the one child, she never stopped talking. She was like talk talk talk talk talk. She told me everything. These kids These kids are accidental disclosures is what we would call that. They did not make the intentional outcry. They were They Someone didn’t go get rescued, or they didn’t find a support person to be able to tell you know, what is going on. So, then when you from the, you know, authorities, they still see you as a person with the system. Um They may not have the words or know what that is, but it’s scary to them. And so, you go and talk to them, they um accidental disclosures, they those kids may not tell you initially what happened. It may take time. So, you may try to interview them, and they’re not saying anything. They’re really reluctant. They don’t They They won’t speak, or they’re very limited in disclosure. Um”

“How do you make them feel safe? How do you convince them, “Oh, no, this is now the safe place. You are free to speak.” How do you convince a little kid?”

“say those kind of things like this is a really safe room. Everyone here that’s here to talk to you today, my job is to talk to you to keep you safe, to understand your family, figure out how we can help, help to understand what’s happened to you. This is a safe place. So, it is language, it is a feeling, it is a finesse of the interviewer to make that kid feel that way. Do all kids come out feeling safe? No, but it really It’s like so many little parts of who you are as a person is how you showing, conveying like a lot of through your eyes, through your tone, through your body language that you really genuinely do care, and that you’re here for their safety. And then we’ll say like it’s really important that I know what happened. It’s really important I know what happened so that we can help you. Let you know, let us help you, but we need to know what happened. And then there’s a reluctancy. It take It can take about 20 minutes just in that space just saying it, going the non-abuse related topics, talking about things that are not there, bring it back in, see if you can get something, take it back out, just depending on the kids. So you’re kind of going in and out of little bit of disclosure, talking about safety and they’re okay, and then trying to get information, and then going to back to non-abuse related topics.”

“Does it ever work with the with the non-verbal? I’m thinking about Ruby Franke’s case when one of the the children, uh it was a little girl, her head was shaved, she was sitting in a closet, and the police officer, God bless him, was so gentle and dear offering her pizza. She just wouldn’t move or speak. Do you ever Yeah, and do you ever get a child who just does not break from that? Like you will never get through, you will never get anything from that child. They will continue to be non-verbal, they will not give up the goods.”

“So when I saw that just recently actually, I watched them often. And so um I saw that and I thought it’s just a little too soon for her. So that officer doing those things, that was nice. That was a nice gesture. He was trying to you know, build rapport. He was trying to show that he was safe. And that’s great, they should do that. But they should really never in that moment try to start forcing conversation about what happened to them. That’s why forensic interviewers exist. They should you know, be the safe person, let them reiterate you’re safe, we we have you, and then a skilled forensic interviewer will come in and they really do a lot of effort not to align with law enforcement. You’re a neutral person. You’re not the police and you’re not the child protective social worker. And sometimes you need to articulate that. Like I’m just a I’m just a lady who who talks to kids and I I really I understand something happened. I’m really here to hear you and and what’s happened. But, let’s color. Let’s get to know each other. Let’s do this non-abuse related information gathering before we even get there. So, that’s what we would do with that little girl. It wouldn’t be in her best interest when I saw that to interview her in that home where she was victimized. Get her out of there and get her into a child advocacy center. They’re all over the country. They are built on 10 standards that is recognized by the National Children’s Alliance so that there is best practice on how to do that. So, when you take a child to a child advocacy center, it’s very friendly. It’s child-friendly. It’s all made for children. It’s all all those systems are set in place to help um this reluctant child start to speak.”

“Right.”

“And like I said, do you ever have uh ones that just never ever come around?”

“Yeah, I mean, I’ve had kids where just that never spoke. Um but, you know, when I was younger, when I first started the work, it was a little bit more difficult. As I started to kind of become really comfortable as an interviewer, to really just here’s my protocol. Yes, I know what I need to do as a forensic interviewer, but I can be a human. And bringing in like that humanistic part, just so like you can’t say I care about you so much. You can’t say those things because you’ve got to go to court and that could be suggestive, could be seen as coercive. So, really it’s just a presence and I’d say that I’ve gotten I I was a person that would they would bring the most difficult kid to and say, “Let’s see if you can do it.” And often times I could do it. But, it’s a lot of humility. It’s a lot of grace. It’s just like you’re really like surrendering to like the space of like saying before an interviewer like [snorts] interview please let me be like the best self that I can be and let them know that I’m really authentic and getting that in front I’m here to I’m I care. Really I do.”

“it sounds to me like you truly have to have the patience of a saint and me as an interviewer I would go mad because I’m just always diving for the information as quickly as I can. Um but I want to ask you about the the heart the look all of it’s hard but when there’s sexual abuse of these kids sometimes the criminal code is so specific. I mean there’s penetration and there’s not and then these are the kinds of questions I can’t even imagine how you get there. How do you?”

“[gasps]”

“That’s an all that’s a lot of it just depends but again I really firmly believe that forensic interviewers when all of them out in the country they’re amazing people but you have to be at the top of your game. Like you have and you have to have be able to have a lot of constructive criticism. Based from your colleagues in the work. You have to constantly re-evaluate yourself and say what did I do right or what I do wrong in order to get these kids to talk. Um when we talk about penetration you know we follow like did tell me about the first time tell me about the last time tell me about another time that was different. Um most forensic interviewers the majority of their work is sexual abuse. So they’re like 90% talking about sexual abuse and then like the other 10% is torture general neglect domestic violence you know things like that. And so you’re really just like tell me about where that happened in your body what what did they touch that part of your body with? Help me understand how were your body? Tell me about how his body was. Tell me what that felt like and then from there you’re scaffolding around you know what they’re telling you about which parts of their body and then you’re hearing it and you’re like you know, you said this and this. Help me understand, you know, what you said about this. And so they they they they really the kids really have to do the tough job of articulating all of the experience. And we say, “Tell me everything even if you don’t think it’s important. Tell me everything that happened. I wasn’t there. I need you to help me explain everything that happened. I know this is hard, but this is this is why we’re here.””

“Do you Do you have a sixth sense for when a child is and I will use the AI term AI hallucinates and comes up with stuff that’s crazy? Do you ever have a sixth sense for a child who is either making something up out of anger or making something up out of remembering a nightmare and thinking it was real or just trying to please you?”

“So, um most children that disclose um sexual abuse are actually disclosing that it didn’t happen when in fact it did. So, most kids when you ask a kid if they were abused sexually, they use if they more than half are saying no for true abuse that actually happened.”

“It’s the opposite.”

“So, it’s the opposite. And when you look at false allegations, which is what kind of you’re talking about, the the the percentage is really low.”

“Or innocent like honest-to-god an innocent false allegation it was a nightmare this child thought was true because they’d been through so much of the reality.”

“But most kids are able to say, “It was a nightmare.””

“Okay.”

“And then I then it was and that nightmare was this, this, and this. But then someone, an external person, is saying that it did happen. So, then we’re doing source monitoring. Like, where do they believe it happened and why do they believe it happened when they just told us it was a nightmare? And so then we start to explore who has talked to them and where did they get that information from? There are some kids that um you know are coached and so you’re you’re trying to get that information and then you really go into the family system like tell me everything about mommy, tell me everything about daddy, what does mommy say about daddy, what does daddy say? You know, and you you you’re but you’re neutral. You have to talk about both people. You can’t just hone in on one.”