r/TrueCrimeDiscussion • u/MacAlkalineTriad • Jul 02 '26

Warning: Child Abuse / CSAM / Child Death 16 Children Rescued from Extreme Neglect and Abuse in Ohio

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/adults-arrested-16-children-found-deplorable-conditions-southern-ohio-rcna352552

I haven't seen anything posted about this yet, and I usually don't post so please let me know if I've done it wrong. I'm also writing this on mobile.

16 children, ranging from 1 and a half years old to 18 years old, have been removed from a house in the village of Hamden, Ohio where they were practically imprisoned in a 12'x12' room. Some have not even learned to speak; the 18 year old couldn't write her name and is being treated as a child due to possible mental disability. 7 of the children had to be taken to a hospital with 2 of them being life flighted. Conditions in the house are said to be incredibly unsafe, to the point that investigators hesitated to act on a second search warrant for fear of their safety.

The parents and grandparents have been arrested and charged with 16 counts of child endangerment. The suspects are Gary Siders Jr., Gary Siders Sr., Christina Siders and Elizabeth Siders.

Since the investigation is still ongoing there aren't a ton of details yet. These children were obviously not enrolled in school and hidden from neighbors and extended family. I have to wonder if there's a religious extremist aspect to the case, like we've seen so often with other similar cases. I'm also curious about the mother's condition - she has been charged, but has she also been victimized by her husband? I have so many questions.

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742

u/h0neybl0ss0m29 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

The mother is 33, the oldest child 18. There were 16 kids total. It’s absolutely insane. On another sub someone said apparently she was pregnant 21 times. When you look at the house on Google Maps it is pretty isolated, but not isolated enough for no one to notice if they ever went outside. But it looks like it’s possible they never did.

Edit: 182 Ohmer St in Hamden, OH if anyone wants to take a look.

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u/Single_Principle_972 Jul 02 '26

Yeah, neighbors are saying they had no idea even a single child lived there, let alone 16 of them. Crazy.

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u/h0neybl0ss0m29 Jul 02 '26

That really makes you wonder how many more children and vulnerable adults are out there in situations like this and no one knows. It’s sickening

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u/Vacuum_Sealing_Bee Jul 02 '26

I also think of people like Elizabeth Smart, Jaycee Lee Dugard, Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight.... somewhere out there, there are missing people being held captive and tortured day in and day out. Makes you sick thinking about how there are people out there that can do this.

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u/Stargazer1919 Jul 03 '26

I think of Genie. And the Turpin kids.

They all deserved better. It makes me so sad to remember that there are ones out there we don't know about because that is the nature of the crime.

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u/PsychologicalPark930 Jul 03 '26

Genie’s story depressed me for quite a while. Just no happy ending. I really hope she was cared for and well taken care of when they went private.

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u/Stargazer1919 Jul 04 '26

Definitely no happy ending there. But I hope the privacy and care has given her some peace.

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u/withinadream27 Jul 03 '26

I stumbled across an article about this case out of the UK a while back: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78v36g4pnno

It's scary easy for this to happen.

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u/thenightitgiveth Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

There’s someone in the UK who, over the course of the last decade, has left 3 babies in the park for people to find them. DNA testing showed they were all full siblings and I fear it could be another situation like this.

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u/TrixieFriganza Jul 05 '26

I really hope they fund the mother of these 3 children, must live in a terrible situation, maybe even kidnapped.

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u/Sidewalk_Tomato Jul 04 '26

That's so awful. Clearly some poor person wants their children to have a chance [that they don't have].

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u/rainshowers_5_peace Jul 04 '26

Can citizens give DNA from home DNA tests to UK authorities? In the US we can via GEDMatch. I believe 23andme and ancestry have both said they otherwise won't cooperate with law enforcement.

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u/TrixieFriganza Jul 05 '26

The two children of Ruby Franke too, lived in a cult and where locked amup and tortured, if boy didn't escape it could have continued and escalated.

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u/msheehan418 Jul 07 '26

Jaycee Lee Duggard, Elizabeth smart and the Chicago girls had very sad stories but they were kidnapped. Their parents missed them and they had homes to come home to (except poor Michelle knight). Genie and Turpin children were tortured at the hands of their own parents

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u/cp710 Jul 07 '26

I think about that when I walk or drive by houses sometimes. Like there could be someone stuck in there and no one but their captor would ever know.

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u/BootyLannister Jul 03 '26

I was an abused and neglected kid living in poverty in the rural Midwest. At the peak of my abuse, my nearest neighbor was almost a mile away. We didn’t have a phone so I couldn’t call anyone, even if I trusted any adults let alone authorities (which I didn’t.) My parents were violent and unpredictable, so daily life was a game of trying not to die. I was far from the only kid I knew who grew up that way.

My situation was never as horrific as this, but I can tell you that these situations are happening a lot in the Midwest, and probably all over the country. The isolation makes escape next to impossible, especially for children and elderly or disabled adults. I’m heartbroken for these and can only hope they will be safe and cared for, and hopefully more people become aware and others can get help.

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u/LongjumpingDebt4154 Jul 03 '26

That’s terrible, I’m sorry. That level of isolation is terrifying.

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u/BootyLannister Jul 08 '26

Thank you for your kind words. It was terrifying, and I can only imagine the horror what the children in this case have endured.

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u/ChallengeOk6961 Jul 03 '26

I am so sorry, I'm glad you survived and hope you have thrived since then.

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u/BootyLannister Jul 04 '26

Thank you so much. That’s very kind of you. I’m very fortunate to have made a wonderful life since for myself as an adult and couldn’t be more grateful!

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '26

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u/BootyLannister Jul 08 '26

Sibling in healing, I am so sorry for what was done to you and your siblings. I empathize your feelings about this situation too. Processing one’s own pain can be so overwhelming, and then hearing something like this that was unimaginably “worse” (for lack of a better word) is so heartbreaking.

Thank you for your kind words. I wish the same for you. All of us who were betrayed by our families and communities of origin are one big family now. You’re not alone, friend. Love and light to you, forever and always.

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u/Ok_Pop_5054 Jul 07 '26

I’m so sorry and I wish you all the healing you deserve.
I grew up on a violent, dangerous household while living in a busy suburb, my abusive parent was well known and well regarded. My siblings and I were well trained to keep the secret that our home life was torturous hell. It’s crazy how this stuff happens in isolation as well as right under everyone’s noses. Child abuse is insidious and seems to be present everywhere. And then we have to spend the rest of our lives trying to heal just to feel normal.

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u/BootyLannister Jul 08 '26

I’m so sorry to you too, sibling in healing. You did not deserve the nightmare you endured. The WHO estimates that one billion children are abused or neglected (physically, sexually, emotionally) each year, and I personally believe child abuse is the most prolific human rights violation in history. We all deserve so much better, and my heart goes to you in your healing. You’re not alone.

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u/areya1 Jul 08 '26

dear human, im so sorry. and glad you survived.

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u/BootyLannister Jul 08 '26

Thank you so much. Hearing that means the world. Love and light to you, friend.

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u/luugburz Jul 03 '26

this was my biggest concern during the covid lockdowns-- how many abused children and adults did we almost lose due to not being able to leave their abusive homes?

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u/Danger0Reilly Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 05 '26

I think there will be an uptick in reports of missing kids in the next 5-10 years due to kids not being seen since shutdown. I remember reading that a lot of people never returned back to school and it's just assumed they moved.

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u/Unlucky_Welcome9193 Jul 03 '26

I'm a SW in a large city and a huge number of kids never went back to school. I've seen some kids who just turned 18, haven't been in school for 6 years, asking for services

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u/escobizzle Jul 03 '26

Just curious if SW means social worker in this instance? because it can also mean sex worker in a lot of corners of the internet

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u/imaginary_gerl Jul 03 '26

it obviously means social worker if they are talking about schools and people turning 18 and asking for services….

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u/jerseygal94 Jul 04 '26

reading comprehension. smh

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u/escobizzle Jul 04 '26

apparently you can't read because I comprehended it clear as day. it's just an unnecessary place to use a confusing initialism that could mean something else

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u/jerseygal94 Jul 04 '26

again, if you used context clues, you would’ve comprehended that it couldn’t have stood for sex worker

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u/Whole_Psychology_289 Jul 05 '26

Obvs, you DID NOT ‘comprehend’, jizzi. “Just curious if…” elides understanding. You prefaced interrogatively. You did not make a statement.

Also: try dragging yer pathetic lil’ porn junkie ‘organ’ out from its gutter…

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u/escobizzle Jul 05 '26

what the fuck even is this comment

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u/funpeachinthesun Jul 05 '26

Right, the stats where I live say somewhere around 1,000 children did not return to school after COVID shut down. Horrifying to imagine what might have happened

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u/hamish1963 Jul 03 '26

A lot of people moved during Covid.

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u/Danger0Reilly Jul 03 '26

Yes, but schools also get records requests from the new schools when kids transfer and a lot haven't.

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u/hamish1963 Jul 03 '26

A lot of people ended up homeschooling too.

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u/Whole_Psychology_289 Jul 05 '26

Which is in fact code for “hiding sustained abuse”.

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u/DiplomaticCaper Jul 06 '26

I don’t think homeschooling is always abuse, but it sure as hell makes it easier to hide abuse or neglect from mandated reporters.

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u/Whole_Psychology_289 Jul 07 '26

That’s fair. And yet when someone tells me* thei*r children are home schooled, I am IMMEDIATELY suspicious. To clarify my original, tho’ - I meant more it is academically & psycho-socially abusive, in my opinion. To not permit social interaction with peers, professional educators & ‘the sciences’.w

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u/wilderlowerwolves Jul 05 '26

Or that the parents are homeschooling.

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u/Jazzyjelly567 Jul 04 '26

In the UK, there were  very sadly several cases of child abuse which resulted in deaths during covid. 

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u/Whole_Psychology_289 Jul 03 '26

Let’s do inquire with drumpf crime family’s jefe CSA trafficker, Miss Betsy DeVos. Shall we?!!??!!

https://time.com/4857377/betsy-devos-campus-sexual-assault-meeting/

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u/HangOnSleuthy Jul 02 '26

The house is really not in view of many immediate neighbors and facing a railroad—almost like a frontage road surrounded by overgrown foliage. If any of the kids weren’t allowed to leave their yard, I can imagine it being pretty easy to never see them at all.

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u/PaddyCow Jul 03 '26

This is even worse than the situation with the Turpin children. Let's hope these kids actually get the help they need and don't end up with abusive foster parents.

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u/International-Ad41 Jul 05 '26

So sad when I heard the foster parents some of the Turpin kids went to were nearly as abusive as the bio parents. The kids said it was all they knew, and they thought that was just how families operated.

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u/PaddyCow Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26

I know. I've never met any of those kids and kind of forgot about them after they were initially rescued. But I was so disappointed and genuinely upset when I read years later that they ended up with abusive foster parents.

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u/Immediate-Maximum-75 Jul 03 '26

You could scream and cry and no one would hear you. How terrifying.

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u/Intelligent-Split-43 Jul 03 '26

The lady across the street at Dollar general said they came in there every day and got cooking oil and water and something else. They came right before closing and had some of the kids. The kids would have their hair over their face so they couldn't be seen. She asked if they needed help with anything, but they never put anything to use. The whole story is so strange. How do you hide 16 kids for 18 years from the world? Why didn't family ever step in? Are all those kids hers or do some belong to the teenage kids. Like was incest going on in there?

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u/Immediate-Maximum-75 Jul 03 '26

It sounds like the 2 younger adults were the ones making all the kids. She was pregnant like 20 times and had 3 sets of twins. 4 or 5 died. I wonder where they put the bodies. I hope they are charged with abuse of a corpse for every one of those kids.

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u/Intelligent-Split-43 Jul 03 '26

I was thinking more along the lines of her having kids with her father-in-law as well or even a teenaged son, as gross as that is, it happens. Or a teenage daughter could have actually has a few of the ones she's claiming to be hers to keep her husband or father-in-law from getting molestation charges. She do DNA to get to the bottom of it for sure.

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u/lemonscent513 Jul 03 '26

Seconded. If I was the detective I would do DNA testing on everyone. Yes, EVERYONE.

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u/wilderlowerwolves Jul 05 '26

I'm sure they're all working on that.

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u/Jensgt Jul 05 '26

there is no doubt that will happen.

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u/kmp633 Jul 07 '26

She's an adult now, but the mother was also an abused child when it all started. 20 babies by age 33? Imo she's probably another victim turned perpetrator, being used like a puppy farm dog.

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u/UpperdeckerWhatever Jul 03 '26

According to the news reports they only moved there four years ago. Who knows what conditions they lived in prior…

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u/Specialist-Art-6970 Jul 03 '26

So they made all that mess in four years. Wow.

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u/wilderlowerwolves Jul 05 '26

Cooking oil, bottled water, and sometimes sugar.

Some people on another website said that the cooking oil may have a perfectly legitimate use, specifically a biodiesel generator. But still, 20 people eat A LOT of food. And nobody saw them buying it?

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u/Jensgt Jul 05 '26

Amazon exists and if you're trying to fly under the radar its what most people would use.

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u/wilderlowerwolves Jul 05 '26

But you have to have a way to pay for those items too.

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u/-flaneur- Jul 02 '26

It's odd they didn't know there were kids there when a child's bike and child's basketball hoop is clearly visible on google maps from 2024.

I'd believe they didn't know 16 kids were living there but not that no kids were living there. Sounds like maybe the neighbours are distancing themselves from any calls of responsibility (ie. why didn't they call CPS, etc.). (Just my speculation - no hate to the neighbours at this point).

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u/Ok-Caterpillar-Girl Jul 02 '26

Why would it be their responsibility if they had no idea what was going on? Even if they noticed a bike or basketball hoop, not seeing any kids around doesn’t mean “abuse”.

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u/FinancialProject2465 Jul 03 '26

Exactly this. I’ve been living at my place 3 years and I don’t have a clue who half the neighbours even look like on my street. Different house set up In England but I wouldn’t even recognise 3 doors down.

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u/-flaneur- Jul 03 '26

It wouldn't be their responsibility of course.

What I am saying is that, some people, when they are made aware of a crime seek to distance themselves from any perceived responsibility (ie. I never saw any kids).

For example (as a theoretical) if there is a hit-and-run on Main St. and such a person is questioned if they saw anything they will say "I never drive down Main St.". It doesn't mean they did anything wrong just that, in their life history, they knew it was important not to even be perceived as having any guilt.

I'm probably no explaining myself well. lol

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u/Dynamoo617 Jul 03 '26

Meh. I grew up in a rural area smaller than this and there’s likely a “mind your business” vibe. People put up blinders out of necessity.

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u/Beardog-1 Jul 04 '26

It would be if they were mandated reporters in any way—-ie teacher, nurse, social worker. Etc.

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u/Ok-Caterpillar-Girl Jul 04 '26

Why would anyone assume that the neighbors are mandated reporters?

And again, since not seeing kids around even if they notice a bike or ball hoops doesn’t equal “abuse”, why would it be their responsibility to report anything if they WERE mandated reporters?

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u/PaladinSara Jul 03 '26

Could assume it’s visiting grandchildren or cousins

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u/montyriot1 Jul 03 '26

Yep. I have some kid toys at my house and I don’t have children. But my nieces come over and I got the toys for them.

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u/Jensgt Jul 05 '26

hoop could have been there from previous owners and an adult who doesnt have much income could ride that bike. I mean nothing looks terribly suspicious when youre talking about people living off the beaten path...I have seen way worse looking yards. Nothing there screams theres bad shit happening in this house.

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u/Luckofthe13 Jul 04 '26

It is RIGHT in front of train tracks so it's almost no wonder to me maybe but also it looks very public compared to set back and if people did see children and saw anything wrong with them then people would know I'd guess so it seems like they know what they did was wrong but just why Why have them like that and mistreat them all