The religious kook accused of starving her 13 kids and chaining some of them to the furniture was “perplexed” when authorities arrested her — as new details emerged about how desperate her whistle-blowing daughter was to escape the hellish conditions, officials said Tuesday.

“It seemed that the mother was perplexed as to why we were at their residence,” Riverside County Sheriff’s Department Captain Greg Fellows told reporters during a press conference.

Louise Turpin was spitting and smirking as she was arrested along with her husband David Turpin, but there is no indication the couple suffers from a mental illness, Fellows said.

The Department of Public Social Services did not previously have contact with the family, according to agency Director Susan von Zabern.

The Turpins’ 17-year-old daughter slipped out a window in the Perris, Calif., home Sunday and called 911 from a deactivated cell phone she found in the house, according to Fellows.

When she met up with police, she was able to show them photos of the squalid conditions that she and her siblings were forced to endure, he said.

“I need to acknowledge courage of the young girl who escaped from that residence,” Fellows said.