RIVERSIDE, Calif. — She had been physically tortured — chained and deprived of sleep. And she had been psychologically tortured, too — apple pies and unopened toys left out in the open that she and her 12 brothers and sisters were forbidden to touch.

But after many long years of abuse, a stunted teenage girl who had grown up in a household of unimaginable horrors made her escape. She took one of her siblings with her, and made a dash for freedom. It was a plan she had prepared for on the sly for two years. And it almost fell apart, as the sibling who followed behind her got too scared and went back.

On Thursday, after the teenager successfully alerted the authorities to her family’s dark secret, her parents were charged with dozens of counts of torture and abuse. The Riverside County district attorney, Mike Hestrin, revealed the gruesome details in what he said was one of the most horrific cases of “human depravity” of his career.

The teenager grew up cowering in fear, doing exactly what her parents ordered and nothing more, which made her escape all the more remarkable. Dialing 911 on a cellphone she had grabbed from the house, she told the authorities what her parents had done to her and her brothers and sisters. How they beat them, forced them to urinate in their beds and allowed them to bathe only once a year.