MCARTHUR, Ohio — Four members of the same family pleaded not guilty Wednesday to child endangering charges, hours before authorities said 16 children removed from their southern Ohio home had been kept in “third world” conditions and warned that some might have died within a day had they not been rescued.
Gary Siders Sr., 73; Gary Siders II, 36; Christina Siders, 67; and Elizabeth Siders, 33, were each arraigned at 10:30 a.m. on 16 second-degree felony counts of endangering children in Vinton County Court of Common Pleas, prosecutors said. Appearing by video from the county jail, all four had not-guilty pleas entered on their behalf pending the appointment of attorneys.
A judge set bond at $300,000 cash or surety for each defendant and ordered them to have no contact with one another or with the alleged victims, Vinton County Prosecutor William Archer said at an afternoon news conference.
Each count alleges that on or about June 30, 2026, a defendant abused a child under 18 and that the abuse resulted in serious physical harm. Each second-degree felony carries a possible sentence of two to eight years and up to 12 years in prison, plus a maximum $15,000 fine. Because the cases were filed by complaint rather than by grand jury indictment, the defendants are entitled to preliminary hearings.
The charges stem from a child-welfare search warrant that Vinton County sheriff’s deputies and agents from the Ohio attorney general’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation executed Tuesday at a home on Ohmer Street in the village of Hamden, about 60 miles southeast of Columbus.
Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson, who said he viewed the scene and evidence from the case, described conditions that he said were unlike anything he had encountered.
“I’ve been in incredibly poverty-stricken areas in the inner city. I’ve been in poverty-stricken areas in rural Ohio. And I’ve never seen anything like I saw today,” Wilson said. “It really looked third world. It’s the type of thing that we’re not used to seeing here in America.”
Wilson credited investigators with acting quickly, saying the outcome could have been far worse. “I think that if they would have waited another 24 hours, there was a very high probability that we’d be dealing with a death or multiple deaths of these children,” he said.
Sheriff Ryan Cain said the children, who range in age from about 18 months to 18 years, had been confined for most of the past four years to a space of roughly 12 by 12 feet, in a home marked by a heavy presence of bacteria and human feces.
“Most of our livestock was kept in better conditions than the children,” Cain said. He said the discovery brought conflicting emotions for his deputies. “There is joy when we realize that we’re about to change 16 lives for the better. But it’s also hard,” he said.
Wilson said he could not shake what he had witnessed. “I can still smell it. I can’t get the smell off of me or away from me right now,” he said. He said neighbors told investigators they had not realized children were living at the home.
Seven of the 16 children were taken to Columbus hospitals, and at least two were flown by medical helicopter because of the severity of their condition, Wilson said. He said the children’s physical, mental and emotional well-being was authorities’ top priority and declined to detail their medical conditions or to say whether investigators had found evidence of sexual abuse, citing the ongoing investigation.
Archer said abuse, neglect and dependency complaints had been filed in Vinton County juvenile and probate court, and that the county was seeking temporary custody of the children through job and family services. The children have been placed and are safe, he said.
Both Archer and Wilson sought to reassure the community, stressing that the case involved a single, multigenerational family. “This is an intra-family situation. This is not human trafficking,” Archer said. “The children in Vinton County are safe, and they do not have to worry about these defendants.”
Wilson said the family had ties to Gallia County and may have spent time in Pike and Jackson counties and in Wisconsin before returning to the Hamden area about four years ago. He said Gov. Mike DeWine and the state Department of Children and Youth had pledged resources to help place and care for the children, a strain on a county of Vinton’s size.
Wilson also asked anyone with information about the family or the children to contact the attorney general’s office tip line.
Wilson, who noted the defendants are presumed innocent, said the case is being handled by Archer’s office with support from the attorney general’s special prosecutions division.
