HAMDEN, OH - The parents and grandparents of 16 children rescued from a Vinton County, Ohio, home in late June where they were reportedly subjected to inhumane living conditions were arrested and are currently facing felony child endangerment charges.
On July 1, 36-year-old Gary Siders Jr., 33-year-old Elizabeth Siders, 73-year-old Gary Siders Sr., and 67-year-old Christina Siders appeared in court on charges of second-degree child endangerment after being arrested the day prior when local police reportedly discovered 16 children living in squalor at the defendants’ rural Hamden home.
Authorities reportedly responded to the defendants’ residence on June 30 for an unrelated matter when they happened upon the children, aged between 18 months and 18 years old, which Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson described the living conditions the children were allegedly subjected to as “pure evil.”
Investigators believe the children had been essentially sequestered to a 12x12 area inside the home for roughly four years before being discovered, with some of the children reportedly being unable to speak and the eldest child being unable to spell her own name. All of the rescued children underwent medical examinations, with seven of them requiring hospitalization, one of whom was placed in an intensive care unit and was intubated.
AG Wilson emphasized that if authorities had discovered the children even a day later, “there is a very high probability that we’d be dealing with a death, or multiple deaths, of these children.”
Vinton County Sheriff Ryan Cain did not mince words when describing the alleged conditions of the home the children were found in, telling members of the press, “Most of the livestock was kept in better condition than the children,” later detailing the presence of human excrement and other bacterial hazards reportedly observed by officers while searching the home.
Vinton County Prosecutor William Archer stated that the children are now safe and in the custody of the state, stressing there’s no community threat due to the fact that the case revolves around “an intra-family situation. This is not human trafficking. There is nothing to put our other children at risk.”
Meanwhile, locals in the rural community were shocked to learn about the criminal allegations and the purported conditions the children were subjected to by the accused. Emily Collins, a small business owner in the nearby town of McArthur, said of the situation, “Right under our noses and nobody was able to help them sooner. It's just crazy with all the wonderful things going on in our little Hallmark town and this is what puts us on the radar. It's really sad.”
Officials say the Siders family had moved around southern Ohio for the past couple of decades while leaving little to no paper trail of the children either medically or educationally. The Vinton County Local School District reportedly said they had no record of enrollment for any of the children discovered at the Siders home.
The four defendants remain in custody after bond was set at $300,000 for each of the accused. If convicted, the defendants can face up to 12 years in prison for each count of child endangerment.
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