First responder winces as he details horrifying scenes at home where 16 kids were held captive

This week, after being held in a 12-foot by 12-foot room, 16 kids were rescued from a “deplorable” rural residence in Hamden, Ohio.

Dad Gary Siders Jr, 36, mum Elizabeth Siders, 33, and grandparents Gary Siders Sr and Christina Siders were arrested at the scene and charged with 16 counts of second-degree felony child endangerment.

“I knew little Gary had kids, yeah. I don’t remember meeting any of the kids, though,” a relative of the Siders family has since said. “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.”

Officers who responded to the scene and those dealing with the case have revealed details about the conditions, which they compared to “third world” countries.

Credit: Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson

The Siders family’s kids were like ‘feral animals’

At a press conference earlier this week, Vinton County Sheriff Ryan Cain revealed that some of the kids had very “limited” speech, and some couldn’t communicate at all. He noted how “most of our livestock was kept in better conditions” than the children. He winced as he described the overwhelming smell of the property.

“It was extremely high presence, I’m sure, of bacterial and human faeces. It was just a disgusting scene,” he said.

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Also at the press conference, Ohio’s attorney general, Andy Wilson, said he couldn’t get the smell “away from him” for 24 hours. He theorised that there would have been fatalities if authorities had left it any longer.

“Conditions you cannot even imagine people being in, let alone children being in,” the attorney general added. “It was terrible. They looked like almost feral animals.”

Speaking to ABC6, a different first responder said: “Cockroaches, and stuff like that. Bugs just in general and the conditions, you know, bugs get on the children and stuff and they scratch, and they bite and all that stuff. So, their condition wasn’t the greatest. It was just quiet. Blank expressions.”

This is a developing situation, and more information is to follow.

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Featured image credit: Southern Ohio Regional Jail and Good Morning America