The emergency call a 17-year-old girl made to end years of abuse she and her 12 siblings suffered inside a squalid California house has been played at a committal hearing for parents David and Louise Turpin.

The girl’s quivering, childlike voice is heard on the January 2018 recording saying her two younger sisters and a brother were chained to their beds at their home in Perris, 113 kilometres south-east of Los Angeles.

“They will wake up at night and they will start crying and they wanted me to call somebody,” she is heard to say in a high-pitched voice.

“I wanted to call y’all so y’all can help my sisters.”

David and Louise Turpin have pleaded not guilty to torture, child abuse and other charges and are each being held on $US12 million ($16.3 million) bail. News Corp reported that Louise Turpin dabbed her eyes with a tissue as the recording of her daughter was played.

The Turpins have 13 children ranging in age from 2 to 29.

The girl had planned her escape for two years and was terrified as she climbed out a window to freedom, Riverside County Sheriff’s Deputy Manuel Campos told the California court.

The emergency call marked a new start for the Turpin siblings – some who had lived in such isolation they didn’t even know the role of the police.

“I don’t go out much so I don’t know anything about the streets or anything,” the 17-year-old said on the emergency call.

She confirmed she was reading her address off a piece of paper with her mother’s name on it. The girl said she hadn’t bathed in about a year and that the house was filthy.

“Sometimes I wake up and I can’t breathe because of how dirty the house is,” she said, adding she washed her hair and face in the sink.

The Turpins on a rare family outing. Photo: Facebook/David-Louise Turpin

Dirt was caked on the girl’s skin and she smelled unbathed, Deputy Campos, who interviewed the girl later in the day, said.

Two girls, 11 and 14, were hastily released from their chains when police showed up at the house.

But a 22-year-old son remained shackled. He later said he and his siblings were suspected of stealing food and being disrespectful, Detective Thomas Salisbury said.

The children were deprived of food, toys and games, authorities said. They were allowed to write in journals which may now corroborate their horrific stories.

Investigator Patrick Morris said some suffered from severe malnutrition and muscle wasting. An 11-year-old girl who was shackled to a bed had arms the size of a baby and another girl, 12, couldn’t recite the alphabet.

The hearing continues.

-AAP