LOOK: 16 Children Found In Feces-Filled Home, State Intervenes

Piles of human feces, garbage stacked several feet high, and bug-infested debris greeted authorities when they stepped in to rescue 16 “almost feral” children from the home now called the “house of horrors” in Ohio.

Photos from inside the home, which was raided in late June, have been released, showing the horrific conditions in which the children had been living.

Credit: New York Post

The photos obtained by The Post show broken windows, trash scattered all over the floor, broken furniture, food containers among other junk. There also appears to be an empty Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey “Party Bucket” laying in the middle of the other moldy waste.

The state is planning to give $1 million to assist the Siders siblings, ranging in age from 18 months to 18 years, who were living in the 12×12 foot area, and prosecutors are looking to put the children’s parents and grandparents behind bars, The New York Post reported.

Credit: New York Post

The Siders siblings, who have been described by authorities as “almost feral,” are unable to speak and have never been enrolled in school.

Authorities were serving an unrelated warrant when they found the 16 siblings living in deplorable conditions with their mother, 33-year-old Elizabeth Siders, their father, 36-year-old Gary Siders Jr., and their grandparents, Gary and Christina Siders, 73 and 67, respectively.

Credit: Southeastern Ohio

All four were arrested and charged with 16 counts each of felony child endangerment.

Court records show the ages of the children removed from the home as 18, 16, 15, 14, 13, 11, 9, 8, 6, 5, 4, 4, 20 months, and 20 months. The children listed as the same age are two sets of twins. The 15th and 16th charges against the Siders do not list ages for those two children, WOWK news reported.

Elizabeth and Gary Jr. were apparently married as teenagers (15 and 18), according to court records obtained by WOWK. The eldest child removed from the house, now aged 18, was born just two months after their marriage in 2008. The outlet also reports that the two welcomed another set of twins, both girls, who were born in November of 2022, but died the same day.

A state legislative panel is expected to approve the request from the Ohio Department of Children and Youth to give extra cash to Vinton County, an extremely rural county, to help the 16 victims in this child-abuse case, the outlet reported.

The children were forced to live inside the tiny room, which was overfilled with waste, for the past four years, according to authorities. Authorities said local livestock in the rural area lived in better conditions than the children, The Post noted.

Vinton County has just over 12,000 residents and the smallest budget out of Ohio’s 88 counties, which is why the state is stepping in.

Gary Sr. is also costing a pretty penny for his care behind bars.

Vinton County Prosecutor William Archer Jr. said the medical care costs for Gary Sr. would have “bankrupted the county,” per The Post. The court had to change the grandfather’s bond from the original $300,000 and release him from jail, with the understanding that Gary Sr. would need hospital care, so the county wouldn’t have to pay up.

“Based on the information the county was provided, his medical care could potentially bankrupt Vinton County,” Archer told reporters Wednesday.

Since the June 30 arrest, Archer said Gary Sr. had fallen at the jail, and authorities quickly realized that the grandfather would need specialized care.

Gary Sr.’s son-in-law, Ronnie Fletcher, told a local news station in Ohio he didn’t know about his nieces’ and nephews’ horrendous condition until he heard about it on the news.

Fletcher told WOWK he is married to a daughter of suspects Gary Sr, and Christina. The son-in-law claims his wife and the couple’s other three daughters had no idea the home situation had gotten this out of control.

Credit: New York Post

“Horrified. Worried about the kids. It’s hard to explain the action when you’re distant family,” Fletcher told WOWK. “‘What can I do to help?’ That was the original reaction to it.”

Fletcher described his in-laws as distant family members, saying that over the years they had grown apart, citing no tension, but saying that they had just focused on their own lives.

The children, who had to spend time in the hospital because of their dire condition after being rescued, will be placed in care that will cost $150 and $250 per child daily, according to the Ohio Department of Children and Youth.

The Post reports the daily rates equal roughly $850,000 a year, which is more than three times the amount generated by Vinton County’s levy that goes toward both children’s and senior services.

An agency in Ohio is also consulting its attorneys about setting up a trust for the 16 siblings. South Central Ohio Job and Family Services has been handling donations for the children on Facebook since the news of the case broke.

The $1 million from the state would help with the children’s treatment, and would also help to cover court costs, and police overtime, The Post reported.

The case has moved to the grand jury for indictment after the Siders’ attorneys waived their preliminary hearings.

Gary Jr. will appear in court on a separate public indecency charge July 23 at 10:15 a.m. in Vinton County.