Two California parents allegedly tortured their 13 children in their home for the past 8 years.

The Turpin’s, a family of 13 children, with ages ranging from 2-29, were living under the roof of their home in Perris, California, near Riverside. Investigators explained that the children appeared extremely malnourished; the oldest girl (29) weighed only 82 pounds.

In court, January 18, David Allen Turpin and his wife, Louise Anna Turpin, were placed in custody with bail set at $12 million apiece. Prosecutors filed 12 counts of torture, seven counts of dependent adult abuse, six counts of child abuse and 12 counts of false imprisonment against the couple.

The torturing started years prior, in 2010, when the family still lived in Texas. It has been determined that the parents used to hogtie the children, and also used chains and padlocks.

When police arrived at the home in Perris after one of the children escaped and called 911, they were shocked to see three children still tied up to a bed.

The children’s malnourishment shows how rarely they were fed. The parents would buy a lot of food for themselves but would never allow the kids to eat any. There was one instance where they bought pies and would only let the kids look at them, according to The Washington Post.

Being locked up in their houses for their entire life, the children seemed to have no real perception of how the outside world worked. They were not able to use televisions or radios, but they could express themselves using journals because they had knowledge of reading and writing.

On a sanitation note, the parents only allowed the children to shower twice a year. This is extremely disturbing, but to make it worse they also could not thoroughly wash their hands. The parents didn’t let the kids wash over their wrists when they were at the sink, reports said.

Back when the oldest daughter went to school, she was often made fun of for smelling horribly and wearing the same dirty dress to school every day. One former classmate, Taha Muntajibuddin, vividly remembers how nobody wanted to be around the girl, as she even tied her hair together with an old Hershey Bar wrapper. Muntajibuddin also remembers the daughter moving away from the school after the third grade, never thinking much about her horrible conditions, which he explained in a lengthy Facebook post.

Their family was extremely religious, according to the grandparents, and although they hadn’t seen the family in several years. They explained to media outlets that the children were homeschooled so that they could study religious views, and some of them even tried to memorize the entire Bible.

David Turpin was listed in a state Department of Education Directory as the Principal of the “Sandcastle Day School.” The address of the school had the same address as the family’s home and served as a K-12 school for all their abused children.

The parents forced the children to sleep at an inverse schedule, so that they would not be awake and moving during the day. Neighbors explained how they never saw the family because they were in their homes all day, but when they did see them they explained how pale the kids were.

The court hearing also disallows the parents from talking with their children for three years, unless through attorneys. A judge also ordered that the parents are not allowed to be within 100 yards of the children.

The parents’ next trial is set for February 23, and their attorneys are trying to push the date back even further. The two have both pleaded not guilty to the accusations against them.