First thing mother said after 16 kids rescued in Ohio shows she’s ‘not evil’, says lawyer

A lawyer has revealed what the mother of the 16 children who were rescued from a home in Ohio said after she was arrested, and claimed he doesn’t think she’s “evil”.

Authorities found 16 kids aged between one and 18 confined to one 12-foot room in a rural home in Hamden, Ohio, last week, living in what officers described as “third world” conditions. Some were unable to speak, the 18-year-old couldn’t write their name, and they were surrounded by human waste. Attorney General Andy Wilson said it was “pure evil” and they “looked like almost feral animals”.

Seven children were taken to hospitals in Columbus, and two were flown to level one trauma centres by helicopter, one of which was in a critical condition. Nobody knew these kids existed, and the family had kept them hidden from the world.

The children’s parents and two grandparents, Gary Siders Jr, 36, Elizabeth Siders, 33, Gary Siders Sr, 73, Christina Siders, 77, have all been arrested and charged with 16 counts of second-degree felony child endangerment. They have all pleaded not guilty, and their bond was set at $300,000 each.

Credit: Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson

Elizabeth Siders’ attorney, Thomas Stolly, told the Associated Press she was “crying and exhausted” when he met with her on Thursday. The first thing she asked was if her children were ok.

“In fact, my client’s first question to me when I walked into the jail and introduced myself was about her kids. She asked if her children were ok, she asked if I knew where they were, and she asked when she’d be able to see them again,” Stolly said. “I thought it was telling that her first concern was not, ‘When can I get out of jail,’ but was ‘Are my children ok?'”

The lawyer said that “evil requires malice” and he “did not see any malice in Elizabeth”.

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“I think that this is more so a case of isolation than a case of evil, and I think that there’s an important distinction there. Because if that’s all you know – and you have to think someone at 15 years old doesn’t know a whole lot about being an adult, about being a mother, about being a wife – and that’s been your worldview for the past 17 or 18 years, you get shaped by that,” he continued.

Credit: Southern Ohio Regional Jail

Stolly said that Elizabeth didn’t present herself as a victim, but “it may be too early to actually determine what was going on there”.

“While the headlines may be sensational, there’s a real human component to this and so I would ask people to give this process time to play out,” he added.

Elizabeth confirmed to her lawyer that all 16 children are hers and said she married their father, Gary Siders Jr, when she was just 15.

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Featured image credit: Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson and Southern Ohio Regional Jail