Inside the California ‘House of Horrors’ Where Parents of 26 Children Born Mostly by Surrogates Are Accused of AbuseChristine Pelisek, KC BakerWed, November 4, 2026 at 1:01 PM UTC
Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang’s mansion in Arcadia, Calif.Credit: I RYU/VCG/AP
Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang are accused of abusing surrogate-born children living in their Arcadia, Calif. mansion
Xuan and Zhang had a number of nannies who monitored and allegedly hit the children
One nanny, Chunmei Li, is also charged with child abuse but remains on the run from authorities
In the summer of 2018, Amber Applegarth, a nursing student and single mom in Riverside, Calif., was considering becoming a surrogate again when she read the profile of a Chinese couple registered with a California surrogacy agency.
She immediately noted that Guojun Xuan, a businessman who she was told traveled regularly to the U.S., and his wife, Yuqin Li, were both in their 50s. “I thought, ‘That’s crazy,’ says Applegarth, 36, who had already been a surrogate the previous year and had “loved it.”
But after an evaluation and a conversation with Xuan (through a translator), Applegarth signed a $45,000 contract and became pregnant via embryo transfer at a California hospital in September of that year.
Her second surrogacy journey, however, turned into a lonely ordeal. Despite an agreement with Xuan and Li to stay in regular contact throughout the pregnancy, Applegarth says, she received only a handful of WeChat messages— and a gift basket—from Xuan, whom she met only once in person. And she claims she never met the child’s mother or even spoke to her. “I felt alone,” says Applegarth. “I was sending ultrasounds or letting him know about appointments, and nobody seemed to care about this baby.”
Guojun Xuan, right, and Silvia Zhang appeared for their arraignment in a Pasadena courtroom on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026Credit: David Butow/Los Angeles Times/Getty
Finally, Applegarth gave birth to a boy on June 3, 2019. She was heartbroken when Xuan, who told her he would be in the delivery room, failed to show up and instead sent an assistant, Silvia Zhang, she says. Zhang arrived a day late; by then the newborn had been taken from her room by hospital staff.
“I was just the surrogate, so I had no rights to have him with me,” says Applegarth. “The poor baby had to be by himself in the nursery until Silvia showed up to pick him up.” Applegarth, who last saw the little boy in a video sent by Zhang in the months after his birth, always wondered what became of him.
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On Oct. 6, 2026, Xuan, 67, and Zhang, 39, made national headlines when prosecutors in Los Angeles charged them with conspiracy to commit child abuse involving at least 14 children ages 2 months to 5 years— they have 26 children total, all but one born via surrogates—and with preventing five of the children from reporting crimes to law enforcement.
Amber Applegarth and the baby she gave birth toCredit: Courtesy Amber Applegarth
According to a criminal complaint, the pair—business associates who may or may not have been romantic partners—operated a private surrogacy agency, paying women around the country $45,000 to $135,000 to carry children from embryos.
During a 17-month investigation, police raided Xuan and Zhang’s 10,287-sq.-ft. mansion in Arcadia, Calif., and found classrooms where children sporting shaved heads and uniforms were forced to sit in rows for hours, enduring severe punishment if they fidgeted or cried. The pair, who were both born in China and are now U.S. citizens, allegedly employed Chinese-speaking nannies and maintained a network of 32 surveillance cameras to supervise the disciplining of children.
Images from the Mark Surrogacy facebook page
In addition, one of the nannies, Chunmei Li, 58, is charged with felony child abuse and has fled to China, prosecutors say. “This case is unprecedented,” said L.A. County district attorney Nathan Hochman at an Oct. 6 press conference. “It is horrific, and the physical abuse, beating and punishment that these very young children received is despicable. This house could only be described as a house of horrors.”
Xuan and Zhang have pleaded not guilty and remain in custody, with bail set at $20 million each. If convicted, Xuan—who was also charged with one count of child abuse—faces 17 years in prison, while Zhang, if found guilty, could serve 11 years.
Xuan’s attorney Mitchell Krems says his client, who grew up in China during Communist rule when the size of families was severely restricted, did not break any laws by having a very large family in the U.S. and that there is no evidence Xuan ever personally physically harmed any of his children. “It was the nanny,” Krems says. “I think ultimately Xuan wanted [his children] to be always educated, to be mentally stimulated and things like that. And he hired nannies that were supposed to be helping these kids, and unfortunately some of them were bad apples.”
Chunmei Li
Xuan, a real estate investor with more than $100 million in assets, prosecutors claim, began building his extraordinary family when he had a son, now 17, with Yuqin Li, his ex-wife, whom he married in 1987. After Xuan moved to California to buy and remodel properties, the couple had another child together—the baby boy, now 7, carried by surrogate Applegarth—before filing for divorce in 2021.
By then Xuan had already met and begun working with Zhang—a divorced mother of a daughter, now 15—who had emigrated from China to Southern California. It’s unclear whether the two began a romantic relationship; Zhang’s attorney says she is Xuan’s employee, but prosecutors claim they were living together by 2021, and the two have since represented themselves in family court as the parents of at least two dozen children together.
Starting in 2018, Xuan began working with an independent surrogacy agency to pay other women to carry children born from embryos created using his sperm and donor eggs. In 2021 he and Zhang bought the opulent two-story Arcadia mansion that would become home to their fast-growing family and house the offices of a new enterprise, Mark Surrogacy Investments LLC, through which they allegedly arranged the births of more children.
At the same time, Zhang worked with Xuan in expanding his commercial and residential property development and management businesses. Frank Acuna, 59, a former architectural designer at one of their ventures, Pacific Real Estate in El Monte, Calif., says fellow employees referred to Xuan as “The Teacher” and came to fear Zhang’s temper. “They would scream bloody murder at each other over money and his drinking,” he says. Zhang erupted in anger during disputes with tenants and once threatened to hire “gangsters,” according to a restraining-order request from a former homeowner in 2022.
The pair both had offices at their Arcadia home and managed the staff who homeschooled the children and maintained strict discipline. Beginning in 2019—when Zhang was charged on suspicion of leaving a daughter, 8, in a hot car and completed a pretrial diversion program to avoid prosecution—California’s Department of Children and Family Services received complaints and visited the home seven times, but no steps were taken to remove the children, the Los Angeles Times reported.
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Then, in May 2025, Zhang brought a 2-month-old son with head injuries to an L.A. hospital, saying he had fallen off his bed. Following an investigation, authorities claimed Chunmei Li, the nanny, had struck the infant in the head, causing a brain bleed and seizures.
Arrested on suspicion of child abuse on May 9, 2025, Xuan and Zhang were released days later. In July, police removed 16 children from their home. Along with five newborn babies who were not yet living at home at the time, the children were placed into the custody of child protective services. Police also recovered surveillance footage from the mansion allegedly showing nannies slamming children on a table—and Xuan lifting a toddler by one arm while striking the child’s head, D.A. Hochman said.
As Xuan and Zhang’s case makes its way through the courts, the defendants remain in custody in L.A. County jails. Five women who became pregnant as surrogates have sued for damages for sexual battery, gender violence and emotional distress. Upon learning about the allegations, one of the surrogates, Hallie Weaver, 31, confronted Zhang in a text message: “I straight up asked, ‘Why would you do this to all of us?’ Silvia said, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t want to hurt anybody.’”
If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to childhelp.org.
Source: Crime
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