3 Turpin Siblings Say They’ll ‘Always Have Each Other’ in Their First Interview Since ‘House of Horrors’ Rescue

Julissa, Jolinda and James Turpin spoke out in their first interview since being rescued from the “house of horrors,” where they were abused by their birth parents for years.

The siblings are three of the 13 Turpin children who suffered abuse at the hands of their parents in California. They were also among the six Turpin children who were later abused by their foster parents.

The siblings addressed their lives after the rescue and their feelings about family after their traumatic upbringing in The Turpins: A New House of Horror — A Diane Sawyer Special Event,  which aired on Tuesday, Feb. 3 on ABC.

“To me, it feels like, ‘Why do people get to have a family, and we don’t?’ ” Julissa, 19, told Diane Sawyer. “And like we have each other, and that’s the world, you know, but we still want a mom.”

“Something good needs to come from this. It has to. And I can’t accept it not,” Julissa added.

The siblings cited therapy as a key element in their healing journeys as they process the trauma tied to their abusive families.

“I’ve been, like, literally discovering all these things about my brain that helps me have clarity of who I am, my identity, and who I want to be, what I can work on, what I can fix, and also realizing, too, that it’s not my fault is a big thing, too,” Jolinda, 20, explained.

James, 24, expressed a desire for having reliable parents and how he learned to lean on other resources available to him.

“I’ve always wished I had normal parents or just someone I could like go to and, you know, rely on or ask questions or whatever, but I have the internet, so it’s okay,” James said with a smile.

Jolinda later explained that the sisters share matching tattoos that feature lyrics from the title track of Harry Styles’ 2019 album Fine Line: “we’ll be fine, we’ll be alright.”

“To me that song just means that like we’re gonna be okay, we’re always gonna get through everything and at the end of the day we’re always gonna have each other,” Jolinda said.

In the special, Sawyer, 80, revealed that the siblings were offered a settlement from the agency that placed them in the care of their abusive foster family, but that the agency did not admit wrongdoing.

The interview comes nearly eight years after the 13 Turpin siblings were rescued from the family’s Perris, Calif., home in early 2018. The rescue came about after Jordan Turpin — who was 17 at the time — escaped from the home and told authorities about their captivity and abuse.

Before their rescue, the Turpin siblings, who ranged in age from 2 to 29, spent most of their lives inside the home where they were regularly beaten and starved. At times, the children were chained to their beds or put in cages for breaking house rules.

Their parents, David and Louise Turpin, were later convicted on multiple felony counts, including cruelty to an adult dependent, child cruelty, torture and false imprisonment, and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

After their escape, the six youngest Turpin siblings were sent to live with foster parents, Marcelino and Rosa Olguin, and their adult daughter Lennys Olguin. In the home of the Olguins, the Turpin children also experienced abuse.

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An attorney for some of the siblings told PEOPLE that their ordeal in foster care was “worse” than what they experienced at their parents’ home.

“These kids were just hit with a double whammy,” attorney Elan Zektser previously told PEOPLE. “They were made to feel worthless at home by their parents and then they were hit again when they went to the foster home. They constantly told these children, ‘Your parents were right. You are worthless. You’re a nobody. You’re a Turpin,’ like that was some kind of grotesque thing. And it brought their confidence to an all new low.”

The Turpins: A New House of Horror — A Diane Sawyer Special Event is also available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu starting Wednesday, Feb. 4.

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.