The parents and grandparents of 16 children found living in a dilapidated house in southern Ohio were arraigned Wednesday on more than a dozen felony child endangerment charges, officials said.
Vinton County Sheriff Ryan Cain called the home “disgusting,” saying it was littered with human feces. He believes the children were being kept in a 12-by-12-foot room for nearly four years.
“Most of our livestock was kept in better conditions than the children,” Cain said at a Wednesday news conference.
Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson said he could not get the smell of the home “away from me.”
The suspects were identified as Gary Siders Jr., Gary Siders Sr., Christina Siders and Elizabeth Siders. It’s unclear if they have obtained attorneys.
At their arraignment, each was ordered held on $300,000 cash bond and barred from contacting one another or the children.
The attorney general said investigators were pursuing a separate case when the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the local sheriff’s office discovered the children in the Hamden home. They ranged in age from 18 months to 18 years and included both boys and girls.
Hamden, a village of fewer than 1,000 people, sits about 60 miles southeast of Columbus.
The children were taken to the hospital; some have since been examined and released. One was placed in intensive care at one point, Wilson said, and two were flown to Level One trauma centers because of their injuries.
Some of the children can’t communicate at all, and others have “limited” speech, officials said. None were enrolled in school and the eldest — 18 and described as developmentally disabled — could not spell her own name.
“Some of these children couldn’t even speak,” Wilson told reporters. “It was terrible. They looked like almost feral animals. It was terrible.”
Tessi Siders, a relative of the family, said she had not seen them in at least eight years.
“I knew little Gary had kids, yeah. I don’t remember meeting any of the kids, though,” she said in a phone interview Wednesday. “I knew they had a lot of kids through family talking years ago, but there’s no way I thought they had that many kids.”
She said she’s only met the children’s mother once.
The attorney general said the family was “pretty good at hiding these kids” and appeared to have bounced around in Ohio before settling in Vinton County about four years ago. The home was owned by a trust.
Wilson called the scene the worst he had ever encountered in his career, describing what he found as “pure evil.”
“Justice will be served for these children,” he said.
If you are a child being abused or know a child who may be facing abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at (800) 422-4453 or go to childhelphotline.org.
