Deja vu ! Woman recalls being held captive, tortured with 19 kids, in Perris home 20 years before Turpins were busted in same California city
‘It has to be something in that city’
Woman, 19 kids tortured, held captive in Perris home 20 years before Turpins were busted in same California city
“Oh my gosh, it was deja vu all over, I couldn’t believe it,” Laura Cowan told a media outlet
Cowan recalls being held captive along with her kids by partner Mansa Musa Muhummed, a polygamist, in the 1990s
It was a horrific repeat performance. “It’s similar to my own story: 13 children being held captive like that, in the same location in Perris, and also the same sheriff’s department that rescued us, rescued them,” – laurie Cowan
“Oh my gosh, it was deja vu all over, I couldn’t believe it,” Laura Cowan told Fox 8 in Ohio.
Cowan and her two children were imprisoned by a man she was dating who turned out to be a polygamist. It is believed as many as 19 kids were kept against their will for three years before their rescue in 1998.
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Mansa Musa Muhummed invited Cowan and her kids to live with his family in a motel room in Riverside, and they later moved to Perris, the same city where the Turpins starved their kids before their arrest this month.
Laura Cowan was rescued from a living hell similar to the Turpin House ogf Horror’ in the 1990s. She recalls being held captive, along with her kids, by a polygamist in Perris, the same California towns.
Cowan recalled the moment when she first saw his children in the motel room.
“They were all sitting on their knees staring at the wall,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 2011. “They were like little robots.”
speaking to Fox 8 in Ohio, Cowan recalled that she and her kids were locked in a garage for six months at one point. She was stunned to learn about the Turpins in similar circumstances: “It’s similar to my own story: 13 children being held captive like that, in the same location in Perris, and also the same sheriff’s department that rescued us, rescued them,” she said.
Louise and David Turpin have been hit with nearly 40 counts each, of torture and child abuse. David has additionally been charged with molesting one of his daughters
Cowan was freed in 1998 after passing a note to a postal worker.
Mansa Musa Muhummed is serving seven consecutive life sentences after beating, torturing and starving his 13 children and three “wives” for decades, in what has been described as one of the most notorious child abuse cases in California history.
Related:
Louise Turpin and David Turpin, plead NOT GUILTY to abusing their 13 children! Starved siblings plotted for 2 years their escape from squalid ‘Horror house’
In an interview with HuffPost, eight of the children described the hell, they had to live through.
One of the children likened the conditions to a “concentration camp,”
Now all grown, eight of the siblings, in a joint interview, for the first time shared their history of unimaginable horror at the hands of their polygamist father who lived with three “wives.”
Mansa Musa Muhummed at his trial.
Born Richard Boddie Jr. near Norfolk, Va., he took on the name Mansa Musa Muhummed, after converting to Islam,
Muhummed home-schooled his children and required his wife and daughters to wear veils. Testifying at his trial Cowan said “At first [I] thought he was a good father who employed unorthodox methods to create a disciplined, religious family. Soon he asked her to be his second wife.
“He began isolating her from her children. My son’s entire demeanor changed. He no longer smiled and just stared at his shoes,” Cowan told the court.
Laura Cowan created a foundation to help counsel and advocate for abused women
In the video, the children recall living in the horrors they endured at the hands of their dad for decades. One son Michael, likened their : “living conditions [to] a concentration camp. We were on complete lockdown. The doors were locked, the windows were locked. I wasn’t even allowed to go to school.”
His brother Delmarcus added, “He would lock us in the basement for days at a time. He would beat us,” Delmarcus said
Their sister Crystal recalls the violence he exerted on his family: “[one] time my dad took a boat paddle and just cracked me straight across the head. Blood was everywhere. He got a needle and thread and stitched my head back up.”
Another one of Mohammed’s daughters, Likesha, described her particular hell:“I was raped by my father on a daily basis for 12 years.” – Likesha said.
Cowan now helps other victims of domestic violence and hosts her own radio show in Ohio.
“I savor every moment now,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 2011. “I’m just happy to be alive.”
and Muhummed is serving seven consecutive life sentences for torturing and beating his wives and the children.
“Thank God that 17-year-old girl, she reminded me of myself, you know, when I slipped that letter. She got that cell phone and she went out that window and she called for help,” said Cowan.
Laura who now makes her home in Lakewood, Ohio says she and her children have gone through intensive therapy. She is sure the Turpin children in California will need the same.
The eight Siblings confront Laura Cowan who they say watched them being abused as children and did nothing to help
Still that might not be telling the whole story.
Some of the children who were rescued after Laura Cowan, one of Muhummed’s “spiritual wives,” slipped a note to a postal worker, hold a massive grudge against her.
16 years after their rescue, the eight siblings come face to face with Cowan, who is now a domestic violence advocate, on one episode of the Dr. Phil Show.
“Laura paints a picture like she was being abused in the home, and that is not correct,” says Likesha, who says she was raped by her father on a daily basis for 12 years.
“She is not telling the truth. She was able to leave the home,” she adds, explaining that she believes Laura knew they were being starved, tortured, and forced to sit in a circle to beat one another, yet she did not help.
“She was able to eat while my father starved us,” says Delmarcus.
“She was part of what was going on,” adds Michael. “Laura never beat us, but she certainly instigated the beatings … If we would steal food, she would tell my father, and we would be beaten.” He tells Laura, “You can fool these people, but you know you can’t fool us.”
Their ‘rescuer’ has denied those allegations. Cowan, who created a foundation to help counsel and advocate for other abused women, says emphatically: “They’re absolutely wrong,” m,maintaining that she, too, was a victim of abuse.
“In that garage, that’s where I was held captive, that’s where the torture began for me. That’s where we were locked up with chains on that garage door.”
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