The parents and grandparents of 16 children found living in a dilapidated house in southern Ohio were arraigned Wednesday on more than a dozen felony child endangerment charges, officials said.Limited time: Save 25% on NBC News subscriptionGet exclusive reporting, live Q&As and ad-free reading.Vinton County Sheriff Ryan Cain called the home “disgusting,” saying it showed signs of human feces.
He believes the children were being kept in a 12-by-12 room for nearly four years.“Most of our livestock was kept in better conditions than the children,” Cain said at a Wednesday news conference.Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson said he could not get the smell of the home “away from me.”The suspects were identified as Gary Siders Jr., Gary Siders Sr., Christina Siders and Elizabeth Siders.
It’s unclear if they have obtained attorneys.At their arraignment, each was ordered held on $300,000 cash bond and barred from contacting one another or the children.The attorney general said investigators were pursuing a separate case when the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the local sheriff’s office discovered the children in the Hamden home.
They ranged in age from 18 months to 18 years and included both boys and girls.Hamden, a village of fewer than 1,000 people sits about 60 miles southeast of Columbus.The children were taken to the hospital; some have since been examined and released.
One was placed in intensive care at one point, Wilson said, and two were flown to Level One trauma centers because of their injuries.Some of the children can’t communicate at all, and others have “limited” speech, officials said.None were enrolled in school, and the eldest — 18 and described as developmentally disabled — could not spell her own name.“Some of these children couldn’t even speak,” Wilson told reporters.
“It was terrible.They looked like almost feral animals.
It was terrible.” Tessi Siders, a relative of the family, said she had not se...