Years of warning before the Arcadia ‘house of horrors’ case emerged

Arcadia’s “house of horrors” is back in the news again.

The Chinese-born couple who paid other women to be surrogates to bear most of their children — they have more than 20 — had been accused of abuse and threats of violence long before a trip to the hospital with an infant who had a suspicious head injury brought police to their door in May of 2025.

Prosecutors say the couple operated a “house of horrors” at their nine-bedroom Arcadia mansion.

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My colleague James Queally reviewed civil lawsuits, restraining order applications and police records and discovered that the mother, Silvia Zhang, had been accused of leaving a child in a hot car and threatening to send gangsters to settle a property dispute with a tenant. The father, Guojun Xuan, had been accused of throwing rocks at another tenant and using a Taser on a dog.

What’s more, officials at Los Angeles County’s Department of Children and Family Services had received more than half a dozen referrals about the family since 2019, but authorities did not take custody of the children until an infant was allegedly beaten so badly he suffered a brain bleed, Queally wrote.

It remains a mystery why the couple felt the need to have so many children, but defense attorney Mitchell Krems related it to growing up under China’s strict one-child policy, suggesting his clients were simply taking full advantage of the freedoms America has to offer.

And what about all of those abuse allegations? Krems seemed to think they were hardly a shock; it was just kind of a numbers game.

“Anytime you have 21 kids you’re going to be a target for public speculation,” Krems told Queally. “The fact that there are seven referrals [to child welfare officials], I’m surprised there aren’t more with a family this large.”

Krems blamed much of the scrutiny the family has come under on racism and anti-China sentiment.

Among the most chilling evidence against the couple is video footage they recorded themselves.

After the raid at the home last year, authorities found that almost every room in the house was equipped with surveillance cameras that fed a series of monitors in the parents’ bedroom, Queally said.

Prosecutors have 10 days’ worth of footage from those cameras and, even within that limited sample, they found “literally thousands of acts of physical abuse,” according to court records, Queally said. All of it was allegedly inflicted by a group of about half a dozen nannies: spanking, punching, kicking the children and even hitting them with sticks, Queally said.

Authorities don’t know where most of the nannies are today, but prosecutors alleged the couple helped at least one flee to Tijuana, where she boarded a flight back to China, Queally said.

China does not have a formal extradition treaty with the United States.

One room in the house wasn’t equipped with a camera, and prosecutors have described it as a “torture room,” Queally said.

Prosecutors can’t see what happened there, but they can hear it. The audio is full of children screaming, they said.

Prosecutors asked the judge to set bail at $100 million: a mind-boggling number given that the standard bail for someone accused of murder in Los Angeles County is about $2 million. The judge instead set bail at $20 million.

Xuan is the head of a substantial real estate empire, with bank records showing one account with $71 million and a series of other accounts that moved $250 million between 2023 and 2025, Queally said.

With such enormous assets at their disposal, and Chinese citizenship, prosecutors are arguing that the couple are an obvious flight risk.

The pumpkin spice latte and coffee cake from Homegirl Cafe in Chinatown. (Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times) ☕Here are 18 of L.A.’s best pumpkin spice lattes and seasonal drinks to sip this fall.🪴Five native plants you can plant this month that will benefit from a wet fall and winter.🍁These 13 California destinations are splendid in the fall — and now’s the time to book a trip.Today’s recipe (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times) This shaved apple and peanut salad is meant to be a showcase for apples, so get really good, sweet-tart varieties from the farmers market or your local grocery store. And for an added crunch, use roasted, sesame-scented peanuts.

Scott E. says: “My favorite Halloween candy was not a particular brand or flavor. It was size that mattered. When I was a child, a few of our immediate neighbors who knew our family would have full-size candy bars for us. That gesture always made me feel special and privileged. I have never forgotten their kindness.”

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Jack Dolan is an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times and lead writer of its Essential California newsletter. A winner of numerous national awards, he has twice been named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

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