‘She looked distraught’: Lawyer reveals what mother of 16 Ohio kids was like after arrest

Elizabeth Siders’ lawyer has spoken out about what the Ohio mother was like after being arrested for child endangerment, and claimed she looked completely “distraught”. 16 children, all believed to be hers, were rescued from “sickening” conditions in a home in rural Hamden last week.

While responding to another incident, authorities accidentally found 16 kids aged between one and 18 confined to one 12-foot room, living in what officers described as “third world” conditions. Attorney General Andy Wilson said it was “pure evil” and they “looked like almost feral animals”.

Seven of the children were taken to hospitals in Columbus and two were flown to level one trauma centres by helicopter. The children’s parents and 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 pleaded not guilty.

Credit: Southern Ohio Regional Jail

Thomas Stolly had an hour and a half long meeting with the mother straight after she was arrested and claimed she was “timid,” “exhausted” and “fragile”.

“I had no idea what I was walking into. I saw the same headlines everyone else did. 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,” he told Criminally Obsessed.

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“I met a woman who was timid and who was exhausted. It looked like she had been crying quite a bit. She looked distraught. And she was willing to talk to me. Able to talk to me.

Credit: Criminally Obsessed/YouTube

“We sat down for about an hour and a half to go through the basics of this case. I asked her if she had seen any of the coverage that has been online for the better part of a day now. She hasn’t. She does not know how the home, the conditions, the investgiation is being described.”

He said he chose not to share those details with her because she was so “fragile”. Stolly also claimed the person he met “is not someone who comes across as ‘pure evil’ because evil requires malice”. He confidently said: “The person that I saw there, Elizabeth, she doesn’t have that in her eyes.”

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Featured image credit: Southern Ohio Regional Jail and Criminally Obsessed/YouTube