Police have discovered more than ten children and adults aged between two and 29 confined in their family home in Perris, about 70 miles east of Los Angeles. Some of them were shackled to beds, according to media reports.
"Deputies located what they believed to be 12 children inside the house but were shocked to discover that seven of them were actually adults. The victims appeared to be malnourished and very dirty," the Riverside county sheriff’s office said in a statement.
According to the police, six of the children were minors, while the other seven were over 18.
The discovery was made after a 17-year-old girl managed to escape the house and call police with the help of a mobile phone she found there.
The children’s parents, 57-year-old David Allen Turpin and 49-year-old Louise Anna Turpin have already been detained and accused of nine counts of torture and ten counts of child endangerment. They are due to appear in court on Thursday.
Media outlets cited the Turpins' neighbors as saying that "they seemed like the perfect family."
Meanwhile, Twitter users have been quick to react, with most of them saying that they were shocked about the news.
Some cast doubt on the notion that the children were "natural-born" siblings.