How could 16 siblings in the Siders family escape the notice of so many officials for so many years?
The case, while extreme, brings to the forefront one family's multi-generational story of poverty, child marriage and attempts to live under the radar.
But what about the larger questions the situation raises: Did the state fail this family? These children? How are child welfare advocates, state officials and others working to respond and repair the cracks in the system?
Guests:
- Laura Bischoff, reporter, The Columbus Dispatch
- Sheridan Hendrix, reporter, The Columbus Dispatch
- Scott Britton, assistant director, Public Children Services Association of Ohio
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. How could 16 siblings from the Siders family escape the notice of so many officials for so many years? That's a question that's been asked since the story broke this summer and quickly grabbed local and national headlines. The case, while extreme, brings to the forefront one family's multi-generational story of poverty, child marriage, and efforts to live under the radar. And raising questions for child welfare advocates, state officials and school leaders. About how one family fell through the cracks and how many others could be at risk. Joining us now are two reporters who have been looking for these answers. Columbus Dispatch State Government reporter, Laura Bischoff. Welcome back to the show, Laura.
Laura Bischoff: Thanks, Amy.
Juravich: And also we have Columbus Disbatch higher education reporter, Sheridan Hendricks. Welcome back, welcome to the Show, Sheridn.
Sheridan Hendrix: Thanks so much.
Juravich: The recent story, an exclusive, is headlined, Siders Family Quietly Dodged Public Scrutiny as family grew to 16 children. And to learn more about the case, they traveled to Vinton County, Galia County and West Virginia. And I wanted to read a paragraph from your story just to start. It says, what emerges is a portrait of a large impoverished multi-generational family that succeeded in keeping out of the public eye. Not only because they chose to, but because state and local officials, schools, neighbors and their own extended family. Didn't seem to notice when they melted into the rural countryside. So that paragraph sums up what we want to talk about today. Laura, tell me about that phrase. They melted into the rural country side, just how isolated was this family?
Bischoff: Well it's interesting, they moved a lot and they lived mostly in Gallia County and more recently in Vinton County. But you know we traveled around to some of the rental properties that we could identify where they lived and you know one of them was knocked down and gone. Another was out on a rural road where the nearest neighbor, other than a local church, the nearest neighbor was like a mile away. The house in Hamden is on a dead-end street, literally across the tracks from the main part of the village, no sidewalk, so you'd only go down there if you lived on that street. And so there is a there is kind of pervasive and extensive isolation that they've lived in.
Juravich: And Sheridan, what made you want to come alongside Laura and do this deep dive into this case? I mean, it's an extreme case, but was it the sheer number of unanswered questions? Like, what brought you to this project?
Hendrix: Yeah, it's a great question. So I before I was covering higher education, I actually covered rural Ohio and the state's Appalachian counties for about two and a half years. So, I had the background, which was nice, but also covering higher education schools were out for the summer. So it really gave some time for Laura and I and some of our other colleagues to really dive deep into trying to figure out all of these questions. We still have a lot of answered unanswered questions. But thankfully, we've been able to have a slightly better picture of what was going on.
Juravich: Laura, what made you want to deep dive? I mean, obviously this case is an extreme case, but there's lots of news all the time, right? What made you wanna do the deep dive into this? Actually travel down there.
Bischoff: Well, I mean, this originated when Andy Wilson, the new attorney general, put out a notice saying that he was going to have remarks from MacArthur, Ohio at 6 o'clock on a weeknight. And I thought, well, that can't be good. And so I hopped on that press conference. And initially I was hearing rumors that there were 16, 18 kids rescued from a basement or whatever. There was like kind of like chatter online. And so we quickly deployed our cops reporter Shahid and one of our photographers to go down there as well. And so it just sort of, you know, sometimes you get started on a story and you don't want to let go because it's so extraordinary. You know, there's so many weird elements to this. You know it's a multi-generational family. There's 16 kids across, you now, so many different pregnancies, four sets of twins. Born at the end. It started with a child marriage. Elizabeth Siders was 15 when she married Gary Siders Jr. And then one of Gary's siblings also married at age 15. And one of Gary Sr.'s cousins was 48 years old when he married his 14-year-old bride in Gallia County.
Juravich: We'll get into a little bit more of this child marriage question in a few minutes. But I wanted to get a few particulars of the case. Sheridan, do we know any updates on the conditions of the 16 children, where they are, you know, any updates on them as of right now?
Hendrix: Yeah, all that we know is that from state officials that the kids are safe, they are being taken care of and that they are all in foster care at the moment. Beyond that, we don't have a lot of details about them, but we do know that they're safe. OK, and then.
Juravich: Laura, the case is in its beginning stages. It'll make its way through the court system. The parents are Elizabeth and Gary Siders Jr. They're charged with multiple counts of child endangerment. So are Gary's parents, Gary Sider Senior and Christina Siders. They've all pleaded not guilty. But can you tell me what does a charge of child endangerment cover?
Bischoff: Well, it's felony child endangerment in which there was injury, and those are the only charges we know. We're waiting on the grand jury to hand down indictments. It only meets, I think, monthly in Vinton County. All four of the ciders have appointed counsel. They've I think three or four of them have asked for competency testing I think all four have asked for release on their own recognizance. Gary Sr., who has health issues, he was released to a hospital and has since been released, I think, on an ankle monitor. So that's kind of the status of the of the case right now. One thing that is kind of hampering our ability to find out what's going on is that the judge issued a gag order and another judge sealed the search warrant material and the Columbus dispatch has been has launched two challenges to both of those elements and those are pending before the Ohio Supreme Court.
Juravich: Yeah, so the gag order is in place. Sheridan, what does a gag order actually mean? Because I know the dispatch is challenging it. I guess double question, like, how long will the challenge take, and then what does the gag order mean?
Hendrix: So the gag order basically means that folks are not allowed to talk about this case. So beyond the really PIOs, the public relations folks that can give a little bit here and there. Like people involved in the case aren't allowed to talk about it. Correct. Like you and I are allowed to talk about. We can chat as much as we want about it, but yes, folks with information about the case are not allowed to speak publicly about it which, as Laura said, has really hampered us being able to do some more deep dive reporting on this. One of the reasons that the dispatch is challenging this in court is because the language in the gag order is quite broad. It says all, I don't have the gag word in front of me, but it basically says like all elected officials are all appointed officials. So like in theory, like a Franklin County commissioner couldn't talk about this, which seems a little broad to what is actually going on.
Juravich: Um, and then, so how, like, what, in your experience, how long would it take for a challenge like this? I mean, are we going to be waiting forever for a, for a ruling on your, um, challenge to the gag order?
Bischoff: Um, there are, there's like a timetable for, you know, different motions and responses to motions. And I think we're in that timetables right now. But then it's really up to the Ohio Supreme Court to make a decision.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking with Columbus Dispatch reporters Laura Bischoff and Sheridan Hendricks about their reporting on the Siders case. The Vinton County family was 16 children. The parents and grandparents have been charged with multiple counts of child endangerment and they've pleaded not guilty. So and I wanted to say we did reach out to the Ohio Department of Children and Youth about joining today's show and their communications officer said that they appreciated the opportunity but they won't be able to participate in the interview. But is that also related to the gag order, or do you think they, I wasn't sure about what a public official means.
Hendrix: I would assume that that's probably why I think a lot of folks, and that's part of the breadth of this gag order, is even folks that might be able to, in theory, don't feel like they can. When Laura and I were down in Vinton County and Gallia County, just trying to talk to folks that this obviously does not pertain to, they were like, well, we can't really get into it. Or, oh, there's the gag order in place. It's like, you actually I can't talk. This. So yes, I think that there is a lot of caution. Some of it totally makes sense. Some of is maybe a little overly protective.
Bischoff: Also, the Department of Children and Youth is conducting a review of any complaints that child welfare agencies may or may not have received about the Siders family in multiple counties where they lived. And that's pretty standard if there's a child fatality or a near fatality, if there is like some very severe conditions like we're seeing in this case. The state will do a review and the local. Officials will do a review as well. And so they're kind of in an investigative stage as well
Juravich: So let's go back to where this all began. Officials went to the Siders' home in Vinton County on June 30th as a part of a separate investigation and confronted a situation beyond their imagining is what they ended up finding, but the original reason for their visit, Sheridan.
Hendrix: What was that? Yeah So the Bureau of Criminal Investigation filed arrest warrants for Gary Siders Jr. For four misdemeanor counts of public indecency, exposing himself to someone outside of the home. They had been doing some kind of surveillance of the homes, witnessed these events, and then went to go serve this arrest warrant. And as you just said, it was during, you know, trying to serve that warrant that they discovered the kids and everything unfolded from there.
Juravich: Yeah, and Laura, I mean, basically they found something that they didn't expect to find something unimaginable, but they also What that I think you wrote something along the lines of that? It was a lot of force for like these misdemeanor charges to it. It's like yeah
Bischoff: Yeah, I mean, I think it's a little bit unusual to show up with BCI agents and the sheriff and the Sheriff's deputies for arresting a flasher or somebody who's accused of flashing. He's pled not guilty to the misdemeanor charges. So it kind of makes me think, well, there must have been, there must've been something else that they were onto or investigating. And again, the search warrants and the arrest warrant material has been sealed. So we don't know what that was.
Juravich: You have seen the Siders rental home in the village of Hamden in Vinton County. Sheridan, can you describe it?
Hendrix: Yeah, so to go off of what Laura was saying earlier, it is definitely an isolated property. So if you are driving down the dead end road on Omer Street, it's over to your right and it is a small, you know, about 1300 square foot home. But what's interesting about it other than being on the other side of the train tracks and a little bit lower in elevation, I would say from the rest of the town, is that, you really even on the street feels very isolated from its neighbors. There is a... An empty lot to its left. There is a large tree line to the right. Some of our colleagues spoke with neighbors who live on the street, you know, even though their neighbors are not necessarily close, the neighbors were like, we, you know, maybe saw an old guy out on the on the front porch every now and then, but we didn't see a lot of people coming in and out of this house, which just continues to add more questions of if there were, you know, 20 people living in this home, how could no one see any kind of, you and out, but it is a small phone.
Juravich: Well, and how could there be such an intense flasher case if there's no neighbors? You don't know that because you can't see the warrant, right?
Bischoff: Yeah, we don't know. I mean, it seemed to me like agents were watching the house. So then the question is, well, why were they watching the House? Something was going on there. I would say that the house looked a little worse for wear, but it looks a lot like a lot of houses in southern Ohio.
Juravich: This story made national news and some social media users put their own spin on the situation. Here's Vinton County Prosecutor William Asher at a July press conference talking about that.
William Asher: If you've seen some of the stuff on this media, social media, there were pictures that the kids were in cages that they were taped shut their mouths and whatever. Um, the problem with social media is you don't have to be telling the truth. You don't to be saying thing. It's accurate. I don't understand why people put stuff like this on. It is not truthful. Um it's not accurate, but I can't stop it. And all I can do is shrug my shoulders and say, Why are we doing this to this, particularly to these victims? Because they're going to be tarnished by this for a long part of their lives.
Juravich: Sheridan, to the prosecutor's point, I mean, how do doctored images complicate news coverage of a story like this?
Hendrix: Oh my gosh, so I was at that press conference and was really happy to hear the prosecutor talk about that because I immediately joined a lot of these Facebook groups and Reddit threads about this case and about this family just to see what people were saying. And it did make it very complicated to wade through people who were potentially trying to share valuable and accurate information about this family and about the situation. When you're scrolling through Facebook or TikTok or Reddit, and they are clearly AI images of officers who don't look like they're even in Ohio opening something in the floor, and there's children in cages, and their hands are handcuffed, and their mouths are duct taped. That really starts to spin a completely false narrative of what is actually happening in this case. And we don't know a lot of details about what was happening in that home, but I think it's safe to say that those doctored images are an extreme of an extreme case.
Bischoff: I would just say that if your audience wants to know what's happening with this case, they should read our work at the dispatch because we, you know, spent a lot of time going down to Vinton and Galea counties and we're paying close attention to it and we are not going to make up a bunch of rumors and run with it like we've seen online. We're not posting AI images of children.
Hendrix: Of children that are clearly not the Siders.
Bischoff: Right, I mean, you know, stick with us, we're gonna, we'll stick with the facts. I would also say one of the other problems that they've had with this intense public interest in this case is that there've been break-ins at the house in Hamden and people running in there and taking video and the rest of it. I think that the sheriff's department has had to extra board it up and. Oh wow. I mean there's still police tape up there and you're not supposed to cross police tape line.
Juravich: All right, and I know for your stories about this, the attorneys in the case all declined to comment, but before not talking and before the gag order, the attorney for Elizabeth Siders, his name is Thomas Stolle. He gave some interviews in July after he met with Elizabeth Siders in jail. This is before the gang order was in place. And in an interview with ABC 6, he refuted some of the comments that public officials have made. Let's listen.
Thomas Stolle: At one point, the term pure evil was used to describe Elizabeth and the home, and at another point, there was a comment that livestock had been treated better. So I really didn't know what I was walking into. When I walked in there, I met a woman who was timid and who was exhausted. It looked like she had been crying quite a bit. She looked distraught. The person that I met with though, is not someone who comes across as pury. It's just evil requires malice. And the person that I saw there, Elizabeth, she doesn't have that in her eyes.
Juravich: So there's been a lot of public interest in Elizabeth, the mother. She's 33 years old, 18 pregnancies. Laura, you mentioned earlier four consecutive sets of twins. What kind of portrait has emerged from the people you spoke with about her as a person?
Bischoff: It's really kind of unclear. She, one of the neighbors that we talked to in Hamden who lives on the other side of the tracks, but his back, his backyard kind of faces their house. He said he would see her walking occasionally to like the post office or something downtown, but he never saw any kids in that house. But really the, you know, very isolated kept themselves. We talked to one of the hardware store owners. In Hamden, and she said that Gary Jr., Gary Sr., and Christina would come into the hardware store occasionally, but she never saw Elizabeth.
Juravich: I was going to say, did people see Elizabeth pregnant all the time? I did. We did ask.
Bischoff: We did ask the neighbor, and he said, well, not the neighbor.
Juravich: I noticed. Okay. Okay, and interesting, because I mean, she was basically pregnant every 15 months. Is that right, Jared? Just about, yeah. And Laura, what did you learn about the odds of having so many sets of twins, too?
Bischoff: Okay, so just twins in general happen three to four percent of pregnancies. If you get older, the rate goes up, like older as in above thirty-five.
Juravich: Yeah, she's not, she is only 33, but anyway, yeah.
Bischoff: Anyway. Yeah. And twins are more common if your close female relative has had twins like your sister or your mom. Identical twins, the odds don't change. It's one in 250. Conjoined twins, she did have a set of conjoined are always identical. And the odds of conjoint twins is and 50,000. You can't quite just like, you know... Multiply it all together to get like, oh, it's one in blah, blah, blah million. Um, but it is extraordinarily uncommon to have four consecutive sets of twins.
Juravich: And were you able to like find any hospital records? Did she have all these babies in hospitals?
Hendrix: All of the babies were born in hospitals. We were able to get birth certificates for almost all of the children. There's one birth certificate that we haven't been able to track down yet. But yeah, they were all hospital births. Different hospitals? Yes, different hospitals. Most of them were at one in Gallup police when it seemed like they were living in the area. One was at Riverside and then a few were in Athens.
Bischoff: I would say the later ones were in Athens and the conjoined twins were born at Riverside. I mean those are twins and conjoin twins, those are high risk pregnancies.
Juravich: OK, so a doctor somewhere sent her to Riverside, basically, for that, yeah. What it seems. What it seams, yeah, I mean, I don't know how if hospital records are public record or if you can look into, like, would a hospital have noticed that this, like young woman came in and had multiple kids? Like, do they flag?
Hendrix: That? Is that a flaggable thing? So that is one of the areas where the confidentiality laws in the state have made this a little challenging on the reporting side. You know, birth certificates is something that we can get publicly. But beyond that, it is very challenging to get any kind of records because of patient confidentiality. I will say from talking to friends and sources who are nurses, social workers and hospitals who work in this industry, that has been one of the biggest question marks for them. Because they do get training on, hey, if you see something, say something. If you have some kind of red flag. If you feel uncomfortable in a situation, like, run it up the chain of command. So that is definitely a big question mark that I still have. Hmm
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich. We are talking with Columbus Dispatch reporters Laura Bischoff and Sheridan Hendrix. They're staying with us and we'll continue our discussion of the Siders case when All Sids continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. How could 16 siblings in the Siders family escape the notice of so many officials for so many years? The case, while extreme, brings to the forefront one family's multi-generational story of poverty, child marriage, and attempts to live under the radar. But it raises larger questions. Did the state fail this family and these children? How did they all fall through the cracks? The Columbus Spit Dispatch sent a team to Southern Ohio and West Virginia to. Try to answer some of those questions. And their story is headlined, Sider's family quietly dodged public scrutiny as family grew to 16 children. Still with us, we have Columbus Dispatch state government reporter, Laura Bischoff. Thanks again for being here, Laura. Yep. And also with us Columbus Disbatch higher education reporter, Sheridan Hendricks. Thanks for being your Sheridan. Thank you. A lot has been made of how this family stayed hidden. Talk to me about what kind of public records are available and what's not available. I mean, Sheridan, since you have education reporting and Southern reporting background, maybe start with school documents. Are there any school documents?
Hendrix: Yeah, so we were able to pull some school directory records, a lot of like we were talking about before the break, confidentiality records again, here with FERPA, student records are considered private. However, school directory, records are public. So we were able to pool some school director records to see when they were living in Gallia County in this one school district, if they the district that they should have been going to school in. Um, you know, were these 16 children or 10 children at the time going to school? Um, what we were able to find through that is that the children were enrolled for two years, the 2020, 20 to 2021 school year and the 21 to 22 school year, um, 20, to 21, that was the COVID era. A lot of schools were doing online, uh, programs. So the children weren't enrolled, but we don't know, you know, how they fared if they were going to online classes. That's a whole other conversation. Um, but as far as we know for the 21 to 22 school year, the children were enrolled, but they were not going. And the reason that we know that is because of truancy records. Um, there was a case filed in Gallia County Juvenile Court against six of the eldest Siders children who should have been going to school, as well as Elizabeth and Gary Jr. For not compelling their kids to go to school. That was served in, I believe, October of 2021. But In January of 22, the case was actually dropped because the court could not find the family to serve them the papers in the first place. So that is still, you know, in the records there it said, you know, whenever we find this family, basically we'll serve them and pick this back up. So on the school side, there is a lot of confidentiality laws that have made this again challenging to figure out, but we have been able to get somewhat of a picture of their schooling.
Juravich: It would be complete speculation, but one could assume they moved a lot. So did they move to avoid people finding them? Like in this case.
Bischoff: We don't know that for sure, but certainly that the hardware store owner that we talked to, she's also a public school teacher down there in Vinton County. And she said, you know, a lot of families, as soon as child welfare is on them, they pick up and move. We don t know if that's the case here. But I would say that, you now, the schools and the courts, this truancy case, it was kind of like, well, how do they go a whole six kids, a whole school year, they didn't show up. Why wasn't their intervention sooner? Why didn't the court more to try and find the family? What did they do to try to find the family? Why is it that Ohio doesn't have a system in place to track kids when they move to another county to make sure that they're enrolled and okay? You know, these, like we were talking about the hospitals, all these kids were born in hospitals. Where was the well-baby follow-up care? Was it flagged at all? Again, we don't know because of confidentiality. Child welfare, we don't know if there was child welfare reports about this family in multiple counties, again, because of confidentiality laws. You know, it's a double-edged sword because the confidentiality is to protect the children and the families, but, you know, transparency certainly helps with accountability.
Juravich: The idea that like I wanted to ask I guess where they were getting their money from but if they were on Medicaid it can we know that can we can we no anything like that?
Bischoff: We don't know that for certain, but given the circumstances in which they lived, it did not look like they had some big giant bank account somewhere.
Juravich: And some of the reporting you did, the grandmother involved, Christina, seemed to be the provider of the family. Were you able to find out where she worked?
Hendrix: No, we haven't been able to find out really anything about their income. That detail came from a court filing that came out from Christina Sider's attorneys, basically saying that she was the one who was providing for the family, taking care of rent and utilities. Her and her husband welcomed their son, his wife, and their kids into the home. Also, in that filing, it said that, you know, the The home was unsanitary, but is that really a crime? Like, why is that? Why is child endangerment what she's being charged with then? But that is for them to decide in the courts.
Bischoff: The other thing with the case is that the judge just appointed counsel to all of them and said, well, it looks like you're indigent to me. And so, you know, a lot of times when you have to declare that you're an indigent and you have fill out some sort of form that says, like, I don't have any means of income or whatever, and that didn't happen in this case. So the picture of how they, you now, lived and what source of income they have is very cloudy. Okay, and
Juravich: I'm realizing as we're talking that I don't know what are public records and what are not because I'm like learning that from you Like if they paid taxes, can you can do can we know that private private? Okay, so Medicaid's private taxes are private
Hendrix: school records private. Home schooling records too that was in the state of Ohio you have to if you want to you know do homeschooling you have to let your home district know but beyond that the there is no like roster of children in the State of Ohio of like at the state level of here's who's being homeschooled or not but the paperwork that you have to fill out or even just the hey email to the superintendent saying I am planning on homeschooling my children, also confidential.
Juravich: And not that it's their job to flag anything for state officials, but we did get an emailer who asked if there was a mailman or any Amazon delivery drivers or UPS FedEx, anything like that that ever would have noticed something.
Hendrix: That's a great question. If someone was staking out the house and saw mailman coming through, you know, definitely worth asking. I was down at the house with Doral Chenoweth, one of our photographers. There was a, I think a USPS or UPS or Amazon driver turning around realized that she had been on the wrong road, but we did flag her down and say, Hey, you ever deliver packages to this place? She was like, not that I can remember. So, who knows?
Bischoff: Also, Hamden is a small village of about 700 or 800 people. They might have a post office where everybody gets their mail through boxes. Like a PO box instead. I don't know if they have door-to-door delivery there or not.
Juravich: Well, yeah, because that would be a lot of driving if everything is so spread out, too. So some rural communities don't have a mailman who walks up to a porch. Correct. Yeah. You're listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We are talking with Columbus Dispatch reporters Laura Bischoff and Sheridan Hendricks about the reporting on the Siders case. The Vinton County family was 16 children. The parents and grandparents are charged with multiple counts of child endangerment and they pleaded not guilty. I. We have not talked a lot, I mean we touched on it Laura, but I wanted to talk more about the child marriage part of the story. Elizabeth Siders was married at 15 with parental permission. Tell me more about that, and was it in West Virginia or here in Ohio?
Bischoff: That was in West Virginia and then like I said Gary's we believe Gary's sister Virginia married at age 15 in Gallia County and a cousin married he was 48 and he married a 14 year old who was pregnant and you know I did a story for the Dayton Daily News about child marriage laws in Ohio back in 2017 and we found a lot of instances of you know children under 15 who were getting married with parental consent. The law had been that if you were 16 and you were female, you could get married. If you were 18 and male, you can get married, but I don't know why they had different age thresholds for the two parties. But there was a loophole that said if the girl was pregnant and had parental and judicial consent, then there was no floor for how young they could get married. Um, so we wrote a bunch of stories on that and we actually used, um, the Richard Sider's case, um as like, here's an example of something pretty extreme. A 48 year old marrying a 14 year old. So you were, you had
Juravich: You had like known about the Siders family like before this case.
Bischoff: Tessie Siders got, she got quoted by the New York Times and I was like oh that's the woman who I talked to back in 2017. Wow. So anyway then we started pulling marriage records which are public records and and you know found these other instances. And this kind of fits in with a bill that's pending in the Ohio Senate. It's stalled right now because after when they changed the law after our project ran in 2017 they said okay it's 18 for both parties to I'm Mary. But they left a loophole for a 17-year-old to marry, as long as the age differential between the two parties didn't exceed, I think, five or six years, and as long there was judicial consent, and there was a waiting period of like two weeks or something. And there's a big push by Unchained at Last, which is a national nonprofit that seeks to end child marriage, to end-child marriage laws across the country. And they've... Introduced a bill in Ohio and somebody in the Ohio Senate put the put the kibosh on it. But I think the Siders case may breathe some life into the bill.
Juravich: Bring the bill back after when they come back into session. Yeah. Before we take a break, there was one more part of the story that I wanted to touch on. Here again is Elizabeth Sider's attorney, Tom Stolle, talking with 10TV in early July. And he's giving some more details about what he and his client talked about in his third visit to see her in jail.
Thomas Stolle: You know, what she tells me is that the kids had phones. Some of them had social media, the older kids. I don't know how active they were on that social media but she tells that they had little inside jokes. And I think the big thing with that is it doesn't jive with the way that this case has been characterized in the public. Because when you use language like feral kids, you're imagining people that have been isolated away from human contact.
Juravich: So Sheridan, what about that idea that what he said, the kids, the older kids had phones and social media indicating they're not as isolated as people thought. Were you able to discover whether that was true or not?
Hendrix: I was trying to track that down. This was also a thread on some Reddit thread and some Facebook groups, people claiming that they found the oldest kids' TikTok accounts and they were trying to parse through, oh, what could these videos mean that they liked? I have not been able to independently verify that, so I don't wanna speak too much to that, but I do think that it is always possible that even though they were isolated, they lived quote unquote fairly normal lives. And that at some point in the last few years, something happened, a major life event happened and the wheels came off the bus. That's totally possible. But at some points, things became so untenable that 16 children had to be removed from this home in such a horrible condition. So it's very possible that these kids had cell phones and had lives and were involved online in some ways that they weren't maybe as physically isolated as. It seems in some ways, but I think that's still just a huge question.
Juravich: To wait until the trial for some of these answers, like an answer like that, about whether they had phones or not and that kind of thing.
Bischoff: Yeah, probably if it goes to trial, there's always a chance that there could be some sort of plea bargains that happen with each of the four defendants. And I don't, you know, if they do go to trial it's going to be, it's gonna be well into next year I would predict.
Juravich: Coming up, we are going to continue talking about the Siders case, but it isn't the only case county agencies are dealing with the number of children in state custody tops 14,000 and the cases and the costs keep going up. That is when all sides continues on 89 7 NPR news.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. We're talking this hour about the case in Vinton County involving the Siders family, where 16 children have been removed from the home. Parents Elizabeth Siders and Gary Siders Jr. Have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of child endangerment, along with his parents, Gary Sr. And Christina Siders. The case has drawn considerable attention in Ohio and across the U.S. But theirs is not the only case in the Child Protective Services System. More than 14,000 children were in protective custody last year. And the cost of providing Child Protctive Services exceeds $1 billion. Still with us, we have Columbus Dispatch reporters, Laura Bischoff and Sheridan Hendricks. Thanks again for both of you being here today. Sure thing, thanks. And also joining us now, we've got Scott Britton, Assistant Director of Public Children's Services Association of Ohio. Welcome to All Sides, Scott.
Scott Britton: Thank you, Amy, glad to be here.
Juravich: So, your association is a non-profit made up of member children's service departments in all ADA counties. Do I have that correct? Explain a little bit that.
Britton: That's right. All of the Children's Services Agencies across Ohio are members of PCSAO, and we work very closely with them around issues of public policy advocacy, communications, training, support.
Juravich: Okay. And can, do you have any more details about specifically the CIDRs children, where they are, if they are in Vinton County, if they are all together, anything like that?
Britton: Well, we are a nonprofit. We don't have access to case records or any confidential information. I, I know what I know through reading, uh, reading Laura and Sheridan's work in the dispatch and, and other reports.
Juravich: And what can you tell me about the way Children's Services is made up in Vinton County? I mean, does each county have their own department?
Britton: In most cases, but Vinton County is a little bit different because together with Hawking and Ross counties, they are part of a consolidated job and family services office called South Central Ohio Job and Family Services.
Juravich: Okay. And is that unusual or is that a way to save money? Like tell me about this consolidation thing.
Britton: They consolidated, I think, well more than a decade ago in an effort to support those more rural counties and to save costs and really kind of bring as many resources to as they could on the work that they do.
Juravich: The state in July approved a million dollars in emergency money to go to Vinton County. And it was indicated that more would probably be needed. Can you tell us about the cost of care in a case like this? I know it's an extreme case because it involves 16 children, but talk to me about the money.
Britton: Yeah, well, let me correct a misperception first. That million dollars, which was very, very welcome in this case, was actually already appropriated in part of the Department of Children and Youth's budget. So they made room in their budget to allocate a million dollars to Vinton County for the care of the children. When these 16 children came into care, Vinton county's number of children in custody increased by almost 50 percent overnight and as you can imagine the cost of foster care can be expensive the cost cost of services for these children can be very expensive so the million dollars is very much appreciated but it was not something that the the General Assembly found say in additional revenue from sales tax or something like that it was already appropriated in DC wise budget
Juravich: And the Siders children, there were 16, but looking through a wider lens, child protection agencies had more than 14,000 children in their custody last year. How does that compare to previous years? Is it always in the tens of thousands here?
Britton: The number of children in custody has actually slowly been decreasing since the pandemic. At the end of the kind of the 2010s, 20 teens, there were more than 16,000 children in care on any given day, a lot of that due to the opioid epidemic. But since the epidemic, that number has slowly been declining. I should also say that On any given day, our children's services agencies across the state are serving another 13, 14,000 children in their home. And so they don't only serve children in foster care, they're also able to keep children safely in their homes and provide services to the family.
Juravich: I was surprised to read in Laura's story that Ohio spent $1.88 billion on child protective services last year and that it was a big jump, a 77% increase from a decade ago. Why the huge increase? Was it needed or was the money to make things better? Talk to me about a 77 percent jump from a decades ago in the budget.
Britton: Yeah, that increase can largely be attributed to the cost of placement for children in care. We have seen a really a skyrocketing rise in the cost not just foster care, but also in the costs of residential care for children with more significant needs that has far outpaced inflation.
Juravich: Laura and Sheridan, I was struck by a comment in one of your stories made by Jack Freck, an anti-poverty advocate, former director of the Athens County Job and Family Services, who said that other families are determined to disappear. And he said, quote, there are kids all across the state who are falling through the cracks. This is not unique. What did you think of whenever you talked to him? Either one of you? Yeah, Sheridan. Yeah.
Hendrix: Yeah, Jack and I, I've known him since I was covering rural Ohio, and one thing that I had talked with him about several times over the course of this reporting is, you know, poor people get reported to child protective services, jobs and family services at much higher rates than other folks purely because there is a bias. You know, if you you're more likely to get reported because of that. That doesn't necessarily make it right. I'm sure that there's a lot of kids that do get help and support because of those, you know, cases made and claims made, but there are also a lot people that fear being, you know singled out because of their lifestyle or because of, you now, how they look, you know walking through the grocery store. So there are certainly a lot families. Who might not be in a case that is as extreme as the ciders, but who do want to be off the record. They do want slide into the rural countryside, like we said, melt into the real countryside. Maybe they live in Columbus and they don't want to see. Maybe it's Cleveland or Cincinnati or Dayton. It could be anywhere across the state. But there are certainly people who are determined to stay out of the public eye.
Bischoff: And Ohio allows that under, you know, we have parental rights, but the rights end when there's abuse and neglect. It's not always a bright line, it's not super clear, and that's where the public children's
Juravich: in to play. This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about the Siders family case in Vinton County, along with the challenges confronting those who provide child protective services in the state. We are talking with Scott Britton with Public Children's Services Association of Ohio. Also with us are Columbus Dispatch reporters Laura Bischoff and Sheridan Hendricks. Scott, what do you make of that phrase, falling through the cracks? Because that's kind of been the thesis of this whole show. Like, how did this family fall through the cracks. I think we're asking that question because there were 16 children involved, which makes this case extreme and unique, but there's families with one child, two children, three children who basically were saying, this situation is not unique. People fall through the cracks all the time. What's your take on that?
Britton: Well, children's services is primarily a reactive system. Laura is right that parents have the constitutional right to raise their children as they see fit. And we're a country that prides ourselves on our civil liberties. Parents can raise their kids off the grid if they choose to. And we have a lot of ways that they can do that. I think that the issue does come up when abuse or neglect occur. But as a system, we rely on the community. To call and voice a concern. We rely on a network of mandated reporters, teachers, healthcare providers, law enforcement to notify us when there are concerns. And in this case, it seems like this family was fairly successful in staying off the radar.
Bischoff: You don't have to be a mandatory reporter if you see something that that raises an issue or causes you concern You can make a report To the local child to the local authorities And there's a toll-free number eight five five OH child Which is eight five, five six four two four four five three and you can make an anonymous report You don't have to but if they you know, if you if you something that causes alarm, there's no No reason not to. Seek help for the kids.
Juravich: Scott, has the uptick in homeschooling made it harder to track children for some of these agencies? We talked briefly. I mean, we don't know about the Siders family and homeschool records or anything like that. So not the Sider's case, but in general. Has the uptake in homeskilling made it hard for the state or county agencies to know where children are?
Britton: Not something that we've studied. I think it's a good question, but I mean like like Laura said, we do rely on people who have eyes on kids to notice if they look dirty, if they have bruises, to report those concerns. And so with fewer eyes on, kids there can be, you know, less reporting.
Juravich: Sharon, and as an education reporter, what's your take on that question? There has been an uptick in homeschooling, and I mean, I've been told that the paperwork for homeschool, you can even just write on a post to note, I'm homeschool my child, and that can count as saying that you're doing that.
Hendrix: Yeah, you know, mostly cover higher education. So those kids are already, you have graduated hopefully and moved on to post-secondary, but it is an interesting question. And hopefully, you again, we don't know if the Siders were homeschooling, but I think like Laura was saying with child marriage as well, I do believe that there will be more questions and more oversight about this because it's very possible. That got brought up a lot during the pandemic, you know, when everyone was at home and kids were not in schools, there was a lot of concern that, hey, if my teacher, if the teacher isn't going to be able to see if these kids are in potentially dangerous situations at home, you know. Will she be able make a report of potential child abuse if all you're seeing is a kid on a Zoom screen for a few hours a day? So I think that there will be a lot more oversight and a lot questions raised here.
Juravich: And Laura, you reported about the money for Child Protective Services increasing in recent years under Governor DeWine. Was it out of necessity or because Governor De Wine made it a priority? Do you know?
Bischoff: Probably both. I think the the state share doubled under the DeWine administration over the last seven and a half years The system is funded by federal state and local money. The local money is largely from local levies There's 53 counties that have local levys for human services or or child welfare services And so that's kind of how it's funded
Juravich: Scott, what are you hearing from your member counties about, do they have worries about funding, funding changes? I mean, you talked about the numbers being up highest in the COVID era and it's going down, but it's still more than a decade ago. So talk to me about the money worries that counties have.
Britton: Yeah, we're not seeing what you would expect to see with a decline in the number of kids in care. You would expect see costs to go down, but in fact, those costs are soaring largely because of the increase in placement costs. And we're very grateful to Governor DeWine and the General Assembly for increasing the state share of child welfare spending. We are definitely going to need some, and we have worked on, some policy changes to address these out-of-control costs. And we're hopeful that we can start bringing some predictability and some transparency to our costs going forward.
Juravich: We only have a minute left, so I'm sorry to ask you this in one minute, but can you talk about the connection between poverty and child services? Is it a correlation? Being poor doesn't automatically make you a bad parent. Like, yeah.
Britton: I mean, abuse and neglect certainly happen in families of all income levels. But when you have fewer resources, when you have fewer protective factors to put in place, I think you're just more likely to be reported on it. And there is a lot of research out of Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago that shows there's a unique relationship between, you know, concrete and economic supports, safety net services for families. When those are in place, when they're increased, there's less burden on the children's services system. When those are pulled, there is more burden on the children services system
Juravich: We've been talking about the case of the Siders family from Benton County, where 16 children were removed from the home. The parents and grandparents involved have pleaded not guilty to child endangerment. We've talking this hour with two Columbus Dispatch reporters who have been following the story, Laura Bischoff and Sheridan Hendricks. Thank you both for being with us today.
Bischoff: Thank you, Amy. We're going to stay on the story. I'd encourage your listeners to check out our work, and if you subscribe, thank you. If you don't, consider subscribing. I agree with everything Laura said.
Juravich: And I also want to say thank you to Scott Britton, Assistant Director of Public Children's Services Association of Ohio. Thanks for joining us, Scott.
Britton: Thank you, Amy.
Juravich: And you're listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich. Thanks for listening.