Ohio house of horrors: 16 children found in Hamden home, four adults charged

On June 30, deputies in Vinton County, Ohio executed two search warrants at 182 Ohmer Street in Hamden and found sixteen children, ages twenty months to eighteen, in a twelve foot by twelve foot room. Investigators said they had not expected to find children in the house at all. The first warrant grew out of indecent exposure incidents tied to Gary Siders II in May. The second was to collect his DNA for an investigation opened in March into alleged unlawful sexual conduct with a minor in 2022.

The home was in extreme disrepair. First responders nearly fell through the rotten floor. The children were covered in insects and human feces. Ohio attorney general Andy Wilson called the conditions deplorable and disgusting and described prolonged and extreme interfamilial neglect and abuse, explicitly ruling out human trafficking. Two children were airlifted to Level I trauma hospitals and one was intubated. None of the sixteen were enrolled in school and neighbors did not know they lived there. The house, built in 1900 with five rooms and one bath, was valued around one hundred twelve thousand dollars. One outlet reported the children had been kept in the room for four years; no other source has confirmed that.

Four adults were arrested. Gary Siders II, his wife Elizabeth, Gary Siders Sr., and Christina Siders. Elizabeth is the mother of all sixteen, with births nearly every year across about eighteen years. She and Gary II married in Mason County, West Virginia in 2008, when he was eighteen and she was fifteen.

The first charges in July were sixteen counts each of second degree felony child endangerment. A grand jury indictment on August 21 replaced them. Gary II, Elizabeth, and Christina each face nineteen counts: two second degree felonies, ten third degree felonies, and seven misdemeanors. Gary Sr. faced sixteen counts: ten third degree felonies and six misdemeanors. The same day, Gary II and Elizabeth were indicted separately on four sex charges, two counts of sexual battery and two of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, covering January through September 2022. The alleged victim was between thirteen and sixteen, was not their child, and both adults are accused of acting in loco parentis.

On September 9, Gary Sr., seventy three, was ruled incompetent to stand trial and unrestorable within the legal timeframe, and a judge dismissed all sixteen charges against him. He had been released from custody in August. On September 16, Elizabeth pleaded not guilty to all charges and appeared in court visibly pregnant in an orange jumpsuit. Her attorney requested a competency evaluation, which was granted and is pending. Gary II pleaded not guilty to the sex charges.

No trial dates are set. The cases against the other three defendants are ongoing. All sixteen children are in foster care in Vinton County, the least populous county in Ohio, which is struggling with the cost of their care. Six of the children are twins age four or younger. In a separate fact confirmed by records reporting, conjoined twins born to Elizabeth on November 20, 2022 died the same day of natural causes.