THE preacher uncle of the 13 kids found imprisoned and starving in their filthy California home wants to adopt the brood.

However, authorities first want to question him about whether he knew his brother and sister-in-law were allegedly abusing their kids, according to reports.

The New York Post reports that Dr. Randy Turpin — brother to accused dad-from-hell David Turpin — says he’d take care of the 13 abused kids, according to CBS News.

But Randy’s past is raising questions for investigators, the outlet reported.

He authored the 2016 book 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting, which promises to “help bring a person to a place of personal freedom.”

The text includes “guidelines for congregational implementation” and “a section for journaling as the reader takes the twenty-one-day journey,” according to a listing on Barnes and Noble.

Brother David and wife Louise Turpin forced their kids to subsist on just one rationed meal a day, and investigators found hundreds of journals the kids kept inside the house.

Dr Turpin is president of Ohio’s Valor Christian College, which is connected to the World Harvest Church founded by televangelist Rod Parsley.

The Ohio megachurch was forced to pay a family $US2.9 million after a daycare worker hit a two-year-old so hard with a ruler in 2006 that the child developed welts and bruises, including on his penis, according to the Columbus Dispatch.

Dr Turpin has been on sabbatical from Valor College to deal with “revelations about estranged family members,” the school said.

David and Louise Turpin are facing 94 years in prison if convicted on the 38 counts of child abuse, torture and false imprisonment they face.

A judge on Wednesday ordered them not to have any direct or indirect contact with the kids — and not to come within 90 metres of them outside a courtroom.