Sixteen children rescued from a home in Vinton County in southeast Ohio on Tuesday were living in a small room contaminated with human feces.
“Most of our livestock was kept in better conditions than the children,” Sheriff Ryan Cain said at a news conference Wednesday.
The children were found during a search of a home in the village of Hamden. Attorney General Andy Wilson said at the news conference he did not enter the children’s room but stood at the doorway.
“I can still smell it. … I cannot get the smell off of me or away from me right now,” he said.
Wilson said it was a good thing law enforcement discovered the children when they did, calling it an “unimaginable” case of intrafamilial child abuse.
“I think if they would have waited another 24 hours, there was a very high probability that we’d be dealing with a death or multiple deaths of these children,” he said.
The children were taken to hospitals for evaluation and treatment. Two had to be taken by life-flight to a level one trauma center. Steps were being taken Wednesday to get the children placed in the temporary custody of child protective services.
“They are currently in a good situation and are being protected,” said Vinton County Prosecutor William Archer.
Meanwhile, the four adults arrested at the home were arraigned Wednesday morning. Gary Siders Sr., 73, Christina Siders, 67, Gary Siders Jr., 36, and Elizabeth Siders, 33, each face 16 counts of felony child endangerment.
The judge entered a not guilty plea on their behalf while they wait to get assigned an attorney. Bond was set at $300,000 each.
One of the challenges investigators are facing is the children, who range in age from one and a half to 18, appear to have had little formal education.
“They can communicate but it’s extremely limited, and some not at all,” Cain said.
One of the children, an 18-year-old girl who may have developmental disabilities, could not spell her name, Archer said. She is being treated as a minor.
The family has lived in Vinton County for the past four years, but it appears the children old enough to attend school were not enrolled.
Law enforcement were not even aware children were living in the home. They found them while executing a search warrant as part of an investigation in another case.
“We’ve talked to some people who live in the neighborhood who said, ‘I had no idea that kids were even there,’ ” Wilson said.
Conditions in the house were such that law enforcement officers were concerned about their own safety, Wilson said. At one point, he said, they “literally were about to fall through the floor.”
“It was disgusting even where the kids weren’t,” Cain said.
In addition to addressing the children’s physical needs, Wilson said it’s also important to make sure their mental and emotional needs are met, now and moving forward.
“It’s going to take a lot of work to address the emotional harm and some of the issues that are going to result from this,” he said.
Archer reiterated a point made after the arrests Tuesday that this is not a case of human trafficking. The children are all related to the adults arrested, whom Archer described as a grandpa, grandma, father and mother. Law enforcement declined to say whether all the children, including three sets of twins, are Elizabeth’s.
The family has ties to Gallia County. They may have lived in Pike and Jackson counties and in Wisconsin before moving to Vinton County.
Hamden and Vinton County are around 120 miles east of Cincinnati.
Anyone with information about the family can call the attorney general’s office at 855-BCI-OHIO.
WOUB Summer Internship reporters Lena Donatelli and Thomas Billington, and Ohio Statehouse News Bureau reporter Sarah Donaldson contributed to this story.
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