Pod Insights Rotten Mango 16 Kids Kept In 12x12 ft Room Covered In Feces - Why Internet Thinks Mom of 16 Kids Is Also a Victim About this episode By 9:45 PM, the aggressively bright fluorescent lights inside a giant Dollar General are enough to give anybody a headache, especially if you’ve been there all day. Ariel would know. She’s worked there for two years, watching most of the town pass through her register.
But one family stood out. They always came in just before closing, carrying a smell of cat urine, their children clinging close, hair hanging over their eyes, never looking up.
The family always bought the same things: a jug of water… and a large bottle of vegetable oil.
On June 29, Ariel rang them up like usual. The next day, she saw them on the news.
Sixteen children, crammed into a 12-by-12 room, in what’s now called the Ohio “House of Horrors.” And one question lingers: what were they doing with the vegetable oil?
Full show notes available at RottenMangoPodcast.com
Transcript 13,109 words · 3 speakers
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0:58 Speaker 00 By 9:45 PM, the very aggressive, bright fluorescent LED lights are enough to drive anybody insane and give somebody a headache, especially if you've been inside this giant Dollar General store all day long, with all the bright neon-yellow signs, because of course, that is the store's color. Ariel has been working at this specific location for the past two years, which, like a lot of other Dollar General stores and stores with the word "dollar" in its name, most things are not a dollar. The average price of an item at the Dollar General is around $2.50. But it is still cheaper than other stores, and it's one of the very few stores in this entire town of Hamden, Ohio. The population of the town is around 700 people.
1:42 Speaker 00 I wouldn't be surprised if Ariel has seen at least a good chunk of the entire population. Walk in, grab something, check out at her cash register. Since it is one of the few stores, I can also imagine that Ariel gets a lot of regulars. One particular family, the Ciders, they always come in at 9:45 PM, just before closing. You can usually smell them before you see them, and that's not meant to be in an offensive way. Ariel and the Dollar General staff, they have seen families that were struggling, and I think everyone can agree, it is better to buy a bag of rice for the kids than it is to buy shampoo if you really have to choose between the two. And Ariel remembers she and her colleagues would purchase hygiene products with their own money to give to the Cider family.
2:27 Speaker 00 But the next day, they would come in and it didn't smell like they were using any of the hygiene products. So Ariel says they all kind of backed off from that point because they thought maybe the family was getting offended that they were offering them hygiene products. So maybe it's best to just back off and lay off. But Ariel did notice some really odd things about the Ciders. You have the parents, they look to be in their 30s. They do carry with them the very distinct smell of cat urine. Sometimes they would come in alone. Sometimes they would bring along a child or two. The children would always have hair in their face. Like not just messy hair, but their hair would be covering their face and covering their eyes. You could not get a good look at their face. Ariel says the children would also stick very close to the parents, as close to them
3:10 Speaker 00 as possible. And it almost felt like to Ariel that the children were taught to never look up or make eye contact with others. According to Ariel, the family came in and would always buy the same few things. Sometimes they would purchase sugar once in a blue moon. Very rarely, not all the time, but like once in a blue moon, they would purchase diapers. But they're coming in nearly every day. So what are they buying? They would always buy the same two things. A jug of water and a decent sized bottle of vegetable oil. Water and vegetable oil. Water and cooking oil are usually staples in everybody's house. But I don't know how frequently one needs to replenish their oil. Would you need to restock it as frequently as you would a jug of water? Monday, June 29th of this year, Ariel sees the Cider family walk in and purchase their
3:55 Speaker 00 regular items. A jug of water and a decent sized bottle of vegetable oil. The next day, June 30th, Tuesday, she sees them on the news after they are arrested in connection to what has now been dubbed the Ohio House of Horrors case, where 16 children were found cramped in a 12 by 12 room, where there are more questions than answers now. The initial questions were, of course, is this human trafficking? Is this a human trafficking ring in the middle of nowhere, Ohio? Who are the 16 children? Who are their parents? Where were they born? How long were they in that room for? How did nobody notice? And what were they doing with the vegetable oil? This is the case of the Ciders family.
4:58 Speaker 00 We would like to thank today's sponsors who have made it possible for Rotten Mango to support the children in today's episode. All the official donation information will be in the show notes. This episode's partnerships have also made it possible to support Rotten Mango's team of dedicated researchers. We'd also like to thank you for your continued support. As always, full show notes are available at rottenmangopodcast.com. Today's episode involves mentions of underage marriages, potential speculations of incestuous relationships, DVCA deprivation and torture. Please do not prioritize this episode over your mental health. This case is also super current. There are still investigations pending court charges, lots of updates. It's evolving every day. So if there are any updates between now and the posting of this episode, we're going
5:41 Speaker 00 to be sure to add a pinned comment below. Lastly, quote statements, comments, maybe shortened for brevity, and there's going to be a lot of times where in the episode, we're going to talk about people who have come forward to speak about the family. Those are unverified individuals. They are not testifying in the court of law. They are not being subpoenaed. These are not sworn statements of truth. They're just like Facebook posts. So with that being said, I'm going to indicate when any of those we should be a little bit wary of. But with that being said, let's get started. I have never seen a house like this before. It is a big lot with a lot of green trees surrounding it. And it's a small house, like 1,300 square feet, which that sounds nice, like a little plot of land with a lot of green foliage. I mean, it probably could be
6:25 Speaker 00 nice, but it's also sitting directly across from railroad tracks. There's not even a fence, nothing guarding the tracks. Instead of looking out your front door and seeing your neighbor, you just see railroad tracks. And they're working railroad tracks, too. It is considered a Class II track, meaning run as needed. It's not inactive, but it is very low traffic, which is probably for the best. The houses sitting around the railroads, they don't look like they have the best soundproofing, and it could also be very dangerous for pets and kids. Nevertheless, June 30th of this year, 2026, Vinton County Sheriff's Office, they start making their way over to the railroad tracks. They're investigating a case, not on the tracks, but directly across from it in one of those
7:10 Speaker 00 small boarded up houses. Officers from the Sheriff's Office show up alongside Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations. It's unclear if that's how they always operate in tandem, but I will say the Vinton County Sheriff's Office does have 10 sworn officers.
7:27 Speaker 00 That's it. So it could be that, like, they always need backup. I don't know. Now, this particular house, the officers are approaching and likely it just hits them like a force field before they even enter. It's like the house is alive. It has a smell distinctly cat urine mixed with who knows what else. Others that have been there before describe it as a foul odor just emanating from the house. When you walk in, the front room, the walls and the doors look really, they look beyond battered. If you don't, it's like, let's say you don't shower for a few days and you've got all this like grime on your arm and you just like rub your arm against the wall on repeat until the walls are oddly stained with grime. It's not like if you were to
8:10 Speaker 00 drag a big dark colored piece of furniture across the wall. It's grimy and it's inconsistent. It's here, it's splotchy. It's not just marks and scratches. It looks like a subway station, like filth on the wall. The house looks abandoned. There's trash on the floor. It piles up around the walls like some sort of mini landfill. And in the front room of this house is this hanging picture frame. It's like a portrait, but it's art. It's of a tiger and it's a very odd placement and a very odd piece of decor, especially in a house that looks so battered that there's not even like a real meaningful piece of furniture or something to sit on. It almost makes the tiger painting hanging on the wall look like some sort of
8:51 Speaker 00 museum level artifact that's just waiting to be discovered. And right under the only piece of artwork in the entire place is a freezer. I don't know if it works. The entire place feels like a dump. There's bags of rice, like a small bag of rice. And right next to it is a can of roach spray, which I can't say is the most appetizing look. It's hard to tell if all the black marks on the ground are cat hair, disintegrated trash, grime, feces, rat droppings, like it could be anything, but it is everywhere. It is the type of house where any movement in your peripheral vision is most likely a roach. And that's if you're lucky. Somehow the air feels thicker in a place like this.
9:36 Speaker 00 It's a small thirteen hundred square foot home, but it feels like it's fit an entire landfill inside of it. The basement is filled with trash. I don't know how to describe it, but the pictures that you see of it, it's, if you've seen any sort of hoarding home situation, you may know the visual, but it's when the trash has been sitting for so long in an unmanaged pile. It looks like it's melting into each other. I don't know how it works. There must be some scientific reason, but if I were to put a plastic trash bag on my kitchen counter for years, years later, it would still be a plastic trash bag. But for some reason, when you pile it together with all these other buckets of unidentifiable substances,
10:15 Speaker 00 cardboard boxes, moldy clothes, it disintegrates to look like it is melting in an oven. As the investigators make their way through each room, they find a little twelve by twelve foot room. And inside that room, that is, it's also trashed. I mean, it's filled with human feces, waste. Inside that room, they find sixteen people, sixteen children, ranging in ages, the youngest being eighteen months old, which is just a year and a half old, to the oldest being eighteen years old. They are covered in human waste with insect bites, scratch marks on them. They're all cramped in a space twelve by twelve.
10:55 Speaker 00 Just to give you an idea, it is smaller than the size of a standard parking spot at your local grocery store, which is typically like a nine by eighteen, sometimes nine by twenty foot space. Twelve by twelve is smaller than that.
11:09 Speaker 01 That's crazy.
11:11 Speaker 00 Investigators, they rush to get all sixteen children out of this house as safely as possible. First to the hospital, some have to be flown by medical helicopters to local level one trauma centers. And it should be noted that authorities have said repeatedly, had they come a day or two later, someone could have died in that house. The Attorney General of Ohio says, "In looking at the evidence, if they had waited another 24 hours, there was a very high probability that we'd be dealing with one or multiple deaths." After safely taking all the 16 children into state care, they arrest every single adult in that house. 73-year-old Gary Siders Sr., 67-year-old Christina Lynn Siders, 36-year-old Gary Siders Jr.,
11:55 Speaker 00 and 33-year-old Elizabeth Siders. Four adults. So just to give you the family tree, Gary Sr. and Christina are married. They have a son, Gary Jr., who marries a woman named Elizabeth Siders. But when they were married, she was not a woman. She was 15 when they got married, but more on that in a second. So all four adults are arrested. They're charged with 16 counts of felony child endangerment. And at first, the speculation online was that this house of horrors, that's what it's been dubbed online, like a lot of previous cases that have similar characteristics, but it must have been some sort of human trafficking ring. Otherwise, why would there be 16 children cramped into this small room? Like, it doesn't make any sense. Ohio authorities have come out to dispel the rumors and ease some of the tension.
12:39 Speaker 00 They state that this is not a case of human trafficking, even in the slightest, that there is no danger to the community or to society at large. So what is happening? Maybe the neighbors have an idea? The next-door neighbor to the Siders says, "Well, first, they were shocked by it because they didn't even know that there were any kids living in there to begin with. They never saw any children near the home, in the home. They thought it was just like four adults living there. Not four adults and 16 children. They thought it was just four adults, not 20 people living inside that tiny little house." The only thing people could find, evidence that there were children indeed living in that house, because people are like, "Well, what if the neighbors are lying? What if the neighbors were complicit and they didn't report this? And now they're trying to cover their ass?" But when you look at drone footage and photos of the house, really the only evidence that
13:24 Speaker 00 you can see from the outside and... Not really is like this abandoned, broken children's bike in the front lawn, but it looks abandoned. And then in like the brush, the grass, there is a children's book called Jonathan James and the What If Monster, which is actually a pretty good book about a little green monster that whispers negative fear-based questions into the main character's ear to hold him back with self-doubt. But it looks, um, brand new. It doesn't even look red. And inside the house, when the door is open, there seems to be a grimy highchair that also doesn't look used at all. But it's grimy.
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16:03 Speaker 00 The investigator says, these folks were pretty good at hiding those kids. The attorney general of Ohio says, I didn't actually go into the room where the kids were. I just looked through the door. That was yesterday. I can still smell. I can't get the smell. I cannot get the smell off of me or away from me right now. The reported ages of the children are 18, 16, 15, 14, 13, 11, 10, 8, 6, 5. Two four-year-olds, a set of twins, two two-year-old twins and two 18-month-old twins. 16 kids.
16:38 Speaker 01 Three twins back to back?
16:39 Speaker 00 Yeah. Back to back in this tiny little room. And people have made these like, kind of like a graphic of 16 children laying in a 12 by 12 foot room. If they all laid down, they wouldn't be able to sleep. It just doesn't make any sense. Another neighbor says, kids, adults, he didn't even know anybody was living in that house, period. He thought the house was abandoned. He says, it's wild that so many people were in that house. I mean, there was no movement or sound. Honestly, the house seemed abandoned and that was a shock because we had never seen or heard anything from that house. To me, it seems like they had them locked in there because I never saw a child in that yard. Or the people that was just in court, like that was the first time I seen them.
17:24 Speaker 00 So if this is not a case of human trafficking, why were the authorities there in this seemingly abandoned looking house anyway? Did someone notice the kids and call the police? Weirdly enough, authorities have been very evasive about this question. No one has confirmed why they were out there in the first place. But it is believed that the police were investigating a case of indecent exposure where Gary Jr., so the younger one. Thirty six years old, was allegedly indecently exposing himself. According to court records, Gary Junior is accused of exposing himself outside of his home to people other than those in his household on May twenty third, May twenty seventh, May twenty ninth, and May thirty first.
17:59 Speaker 01 What?
18:01 Speaker 00 So just to reiterate, as of right now, the authorities won't confirm that that's what they were investigating that day. But the warrant for the indecency charge was issued on June thirtieth, twenty twenty six, which is the day that they go to the house.
18:15 Speaker 01 Oh, okay.
18:15 Speaker 00 But they haven't confirmed it. So there are other rumors like floating around of why the investigators were at the house in the first place. But one forensic psychology researcher does state, when I see indecent exposure, it usually sets off a red flag in my head. In addition to intimate partner violence, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw sexual abuse. Sexual abuse is also a tool to maintain power over a victim in an intimate partner violence relationship. I mean, this case looks like a failure of systems, both for survivor support and offender accountability. Ultimately, the children had to pay the price.
18:49 Speaker 00 One of the big questions in this case is who are the children? Like, who are the parents of the children? Elizabeth Siders' attorney has come out to say that all sixteen children are hers, but there are speculations online, which I'm gonna get into. But he states that all the children are Elizabeth Siders and Gary Junior's, which would make Gary Senior and Christina Lin, the grandparents, Gary Junior and Elizabeth, the parents of all sixteen children. That's what the attorney is saying. November thirtieth of twenty twenty two. So years ago, Elizabeth and Gary Junior do have two extra children, two more children that were not found in the house.
19:31 Speaker 00 At Riverside Hospital, Elizabeth gives birth to twins Bailey Lee and Faith Lee Siders. They were born at twenty four weeks gestation, so they're really premature. And the twins were born with a condition where their faces and their chest are fused together in the womb. And they also share vital organs. Typically, this condition has, they are conjoined, but it's um, that that is the more common way that people are conjoined is chest and face. But typically, that condition has a mortality rate exceeding eighty percent. For cases where the twins are unseparated, there's nearly a hundred percent death rate.
20:11 Speaker 00 They were also born extremely premature and passed the same day of natural causes in the hospital. There were a lot of rumors circulating online that these children ended up dying in the house, or they died under suspicious circumstances. That doesn't necessarily seem to be the case. They did pass in the hospital and their death certificate does list it as natural causes. But the timeline of this is kind of enlightening. I'm not exactly sure what it reveals, but it is shocking. If all sixteen children are Elizabeth, that means she's had four sets of twins, starting from twenty twenty-two to now. There's a lot of children. The longest gap between Elizabeth having children, and again, this is if they are
20:52 Speaker 00 all hers, is about two years in between children, in between pregnancies. The shortest gap is closer to eleven months. We actually have no clue in total how many children Elizabeth has had, because you have the twins that passed away in the hospital, and there are circulating rumors and speculations that Elizabeth had another child when she was thirteen years old that passed away. So we don't know how many times she's given birth, and from then on, has just kept having more children. And that begs the entirely new question of like, why? Literally, why? If these are all Gary Junior and Elizabeth's children, why have more children? If you're not gonna take care of them, why have them? What are the children even living off of? What are they eating? Remember the vegetable oil? There have been a lot of theories about the vegetable oil, that they would purchase
21:37 Speaker 00 frequently, regularly, at the Dollar General store with a jug of water. There are two theories of the alleged repeated purchases. The first theory is that that is what the children were consuming, vegetable oil. I will say that vegetable oil is typically a part of famine relief kits, but there is usually grain included as well. So you're cooking with a lot of the oil. Vegetable oil specifically has high calorie density, and it's fortified with vitamin A, D, E, and K. And it's also softer and easier for malnourished infants and small children to digest compared to soy oil, corn oil, other oils. It's a bit softer on the stomach. So could they have been feeding the children vegetable oil? It's very hard to say.
22:19 Speaker 00 There have been reports that the family also frequented a food bank regularly to pick up food. So maybe they were cooking, although looking at like the alleged photos of the house, I don't think they were really doing any cooking. But maybe they were using the oil to fortify and calorie up some of the other food that they were getting at the food bank. I'm, it's unclear. I do think it would be a hard task to get enough food at the food bank to feed twenty people. So maybe it is food, but maybe it's not. Another theory, or it could maybe be a double use case. Which some people have said vegetable oil is a home remedy for getting rid of lice. Which I could imagine is a problem in the household. Some netizens have pointed out that in the mug shots, Elizabeth's hair looks like it's just caked in oil and grease.
23:04 Speaker 00 Was she using it in her hair to get rid of lice? That seems like a very strange prolonged treatment. Like maybe you buy vegetable oil once to try to get rid of lice and then you go to other tactics if it doesn't work. But to continuously do that for, who knows, weeks, months at a time? And there is a risk, by the way, like please don't do this at home because there is a risk that when you coat your hair with the vegetable oil, it actually coats the lice eggs and preserves them, keeping them safe to hatch.
23:32 Speaker 01 Oh.
23:32 Speaker 00 So ultimately, as of right now, as of filming this, we don't really know what the vegetable oil was for. We also don't know how the children have been living, what they were eating, how they're still alive. In a press conference, the Vinson County Sheriff states, most of our livestock was kept in better conditions than the children. It was an extremely high presence of, I'm sure bacterial um and human feces. It was just a disgusting scene. Investigators are not yet fully able to even go into the house and further investigate due to the deplorable conditions. It hasn't even been deemed safe. The Attorney General of Ohio, I. I don't know what this man was thinking. I will say he said some incredibly problematic
24:14 Speaker 00 things when discussing this case. He says, we didn't know that there were going to be sixteen kids in there. It's the type of thing we're not used to seeing here in America, which is not only deeply offensive, I do think it's also incorrect. He keeps making comparisons to what he calls third world countries, or what we should better call developing nations. And he, I mean, there are loads of people that live in impoverished situations in developing nations who treat their kids to the best of their abilities.
24:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
24:47 Speaker 00 He says, we were talking as a group about some of the evidence that we looked at today, where, you know, the kids and we found the kids and it really is not that different from those old commercials you see of kids in Africa, just where they were covered in bugs and squatting and had distant looks in their eyes. It's terrible. I mean, it's absolutely terrible. And again, we've got to make sure the kids are safe.
25:09 Speaker 01 Wait, I'm sorry, who is talking right now?
25:10 Speaker 00 The Attorney General of Ohio. Yeah.
25:15 Speaker 00 Yeah, I don't know what this man is saying, okay? We got to make sure that they're placed in good, solid therapeutic placements. He says, some of these children couldn't even speak. This is terrible. They really, they looked like almost feral animals. It was terrible. So when we're talking reading, writing, and education, we're talking a whole other level of expectations here. It's hard enough just to get these kids to be able to, the eighteen year olds can't even spell her name. Now, I do think that there is probably an intensity of emotion to try and convey to the general public of what they're dealing with, as well as the residents of Ohio, so that they know that there's going to be a lot of state care that needs to be poured into the sixteen children. But I do think comparing victims to feral animals is
25:59 Speaker 00 Just not the best comparison to make at all. But speaking of heinous conditions, there have been a lot of AI videos and photos circulating of this house. You see cages. Investigators have come out to say there were no cages. You see children being like locked in boxes, in cardboard boxes. Like, there's just a lot of weird AI stuff. But there's also a lot of very realistic videos circulating of people who are filming themselves, technically, if this is real, breaking and entering and trespassing a crime scene. So you can see people who have gone out to the house and they're filming the outside of the house. It does very much look like the Siders residence. They go inside and just based off of the photos that we've seen taken from outside the house,
26:43 Speaker 00 when the doors were open and we can kind of peer inside, it does seem like it is real. I can't verify it. And also, I will note that it is illegal. Law enforcement have not verified or authorized any images of the house. So I don't know how a lot of these people are publishing this type of media, but law enforcement has warned that people entering the property without permission could be committing criminal trespassing. So just be wary of that when you're out there looking online. As of right now, all four adults have been charged, like I said, with 16 counts of felony child endangerment. Bond was initially set at $300,000 for all four individuals, which is not the case anymore. But first, let's get into what we know about the four first.
27:23 Speaker 00 Elizabeth Siders, the 33-year-old, the alleged mother, is the one that a lot of people have opinions about online. She is the alleged mother of all 16 children. And netizens have started pinpointing out that her demeanor in the virtual court hearing was not what they were expecting. I guess people going in, they were comparing this case a lot to the Turpin case where the parents were, I don't want to say that these parents are not similar, but I think they were expecting a very evil demeanor. I think they were going in expecting a cruel, heartless mother who wanted to abuse her children, perhaps for fun, perhaps for her own sake of pleasure. We don't know, right? But instead, they see the court hearing and they see a woman who looks a little bit more confused, more than anything. Like, she looks very dejected and confused.
28:06 Speaker 00 And netizens have noticed a mark on her left arm. It looks like a ligature mark. Uh, so the mark on her left arm does seem too high up to be a mark from handcuffs. And it seems like it's prominently on just one arm. I don't see it matching on the other arm. Now, it's unclear if this is a ligature mark or when it was where she got it, like it's just netizens are a little bit skeptical of the mark. People have also further dug deeper into her past. There are pictures of Elizabeth from before she marries Gary Junior. And I think it's gone viral because it's just so jarring to see the difference in the way she looks.
28:47 Speaker 00 She looks like a very normal person. I don't know if that's an offensive word to use, but she looks incredibly normal. She looks well adjusted. She looks like a typical teenager. And then you see her mugshot and yeah, 15 years has passed, but it just doesn't make sense how she got set on this trajectory of life. They look like two completely different people. In addition to that, according to records, Elizabeth and Gary Junior were married when Elizabeth was just 15 years old and Gary Junior was 18 years old. Elizabeth's family have also come out on Facebook to allege that Gary Junior started isolating Elizabeth from them when they got married when she was 15, which it's believed that they had to go out of state to legally get married. Marriage records show that Elizabeth being 15, Gary being 18, that would not be legal in the state of Ohio.
29:31 Speaker 00 But it is in the next state over in West Virginia, which is where they went to file their marriage license.
29:36 Speaker 01 That's crazy.
29:37 Speaker 00 And two months after they give birth to a child. One politician from West Virginia who helped pass a bill banning child marriages in West Virginia states. West Virginia was one of the only states in the country that didn't have a floor for the marriage at all. There were records in the past 20 years, 20 years, like not 100 years ago, not 200 years ago, 20 years of children as low as eight years old being married to like grown adults, people in their 50s, 60s. Allegedly, one of her brothers, Jeremy Russell, this is Elizabeth's brother, alleged brother, has posted on Facebook. My sister just wrapped her life up.
30:13 Speaker 00 I'm not entirely sure what that means. I don't know if it means like her life is over now that she's facing these charges. But he says, due to indoctrination, it is a hundred percent real. Twenty kids and younger than me, the math equals immature piece of shit man involved. I met this dude a couple of months ago, shook my hand like a baby would, super soft hands, definitely never worked a day in his life. I should have took him out that night. It's been fifteen years. You lost touch with your family, followed another, and look what happened.
30:38 Speaker 01 Oh, he's, he's also bashing the sister, you're saying?
30:41 Speaker 00 Yeah.
30:42 Speaker 01 And he said he met Gary Junior a couple of months ago?
30:45 Speaker 00 Yeah.
30:45 Speaker 01 Like just recently?
30:46 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
30:47 Speaker 01 And did he know, did he say he knew or didn't know the kids?
30:51 Speaker 00 It seems like he's insinuating he didn't know that they had that many kids. A lot of the relatives have come out and they've stated that they knew that they had kids, but they didn't know exactly how many.
31:02 Speaker 01 That's a pretty wild statement to say, though.
31:03 Speaker 00 Yeah, how do you not know, like even my relatives that I don't talk to, I have a general idea, pretty firm idea actually of how many children they have. Yeah, it is odd. There is, though, a huge debate on whether or not Elizabeth, because she was married at fifteen years old and had her first child. It's actually alleged that she had her very first child or gave birth to her very first child when she was thirteen. That child did not end up making it. The question is, was she groomed and kept almost as some sort of breeding machine, some sort of breeder? How much is she a victim in all of this? How much is she a perpetrator? Which, side note, all four defendants have been assigned public defenders. Elizabeth's attorney has been incredibly outspoken in this entire case, and some might even say like maybe a little too outspoken.
31:48 Speaker 00 He states in an interview that when he went to go talk to Elizabeth, he didn't really know what he was walking into with this case. Like he just, I'm sure he Googled it and it's bad. But he says that when he walked in there, he doesn't know what he was expecting, but he sees Elizabeth and he describes her as being very timid and exhausted. He says, quote, "I asked her if she had seen any of the coverage that had been online for the better part of the day now. She hasn't. She does not know how the home, the conditions, the investigation is being described, and I chose not to share all those details with her at this point because she does seem so fragile. The person that I met with, though, is not someone that comes across as pure evil. All the defense attorneys have taken a very strong, seemingly a strong disliking towards the prosecutors describing this case as, quote, pure evil."
32:32 Speaker 00 So he's like, she doesn't strike me as pure evil. Evil requires malice. And the person that I saw there, Elizabeth, she doesn't have that in her eyes, at least from this initial meeting. He says the thing that shocked him the most is one of the very first questions that she asked him was, are the kids okay? When can I see the kids? Do you know anything about where they are? He says, that was the first series of questions that she asked, which kind of surprised me. Usually when people, you know, are in jail, they ask, can you get me out of here? Wh- when can I get out? So I think that was telling. Which a lot of people are saying like, well, the bar is so low. Like, that's a little bit of a, people might agree that Elizabeth is a victim in her own sense, and perhaps a perpetrator in a different sense to the children, but I guess, um,
33:18 Speaker 00 I guess that statement was just kind of a little like, what? Elizabeth's attorney has filed a request for the judge to lower Elizabeth's bond, which has initially been set at three hundred thousand dollars. The argument being that, quote, "The defendant is a thirty-three-year-old mother with no known criminal history. There's been no indication that the defendant has been anything but cooperative with law enforcement since the initiation of this case." The attorney argues that she's not a danger to the community, she's not a risk to herself, she's not a risk to the children because all sixteen children have been removed by the state. The attorney continues, "Through conversations with counsel, the defendant maintains that her principal desire is to reunite with her children. She understands that reunification of any sort is an impossibility if she does not appear before this court."
34:04 Speaker 01 So, did the, did Elizabeth's attorney say anything about if she's a victim? Did they point fingers at?
34:12 Speaker 00 Yes, he said that Elizabeth does not see herself as a victim, but he's still investigating, the prosecutors are still investigating. He's kind of hinting to the fact that he believes that she is. Does that mean that she should get away with no charges? I don't know, right? Like, I don't know if that's what he's insinuating. But he does state that he feels the $300,000 bond is excessive and it violates the Eighth Amendment. So the Eighth Amendment protection is against excessive bail. But it's interesting because he doesn't ask to lower the bond. He asks for a reconnaissance bond. So
34:46 Speaker 01 What is that?
34:47 Speaker 00 It just, like, no bond. Yeah. He argues that the investigators themselves have documented this home being in extreme poverty. So he's like, I mean, how do you expect her to come up with $300,000? That's not even in the realm of possibility. One person comments about Elizabeth and her motion to be released. What if she gets pregnant while she's out on bond?
35:10 Speaker 01 By who?
35:11 Speaker 00 But what if she does? I mean, she's gotten pregnant so many times. It's like, is this something that she feels is her life purpose? Is this something that she's obsessed with? Like, why has she gotten pregnant? We don't know if someone has been forcing it upon her. We don't know if this is a choice that she willingly makes to get pregnant. What if she goes out on bond and gets pregnant? That would be yet another child brought into this world to be neglected and abused. So they're saying, like, we don't, I guess they're arguing, forget everything else.
35:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
35:42 Speaker 00 Like, what if she gets pregnant?
35:43 Speaker 01 But at the same time, like, her living condition is
35:47 Speaker 00 Yeah.
35:48 Speaker 01 Pretty dire, you know?
35:50 Speaker 00 A lot of other people who are a bit more sympathetic to Elizabeth are saying that they don't think that she should be let out on bond just because jail might actually be good for her. Not in the sense of like she needs, well, she probably does need a lot of mental health care as well. But just the facilities is probably an upgrade from the house that they were living in. Others have no sympathy. I will say there are a group of people who genuinely don't think sympathy is warranted in this case. So I would say, I would break it up into a few different camps. I think there is one camp who sees Elizabeth as part of the victims. So they see her kind of As part of the sixteen children.
36:31 Speaker 00 They think that maybe she was restrained and forcibly impregnated all those times. They don't know, but they think that something weird must have happened in order for her to subject herself to this life. They think that she is a victim through and through. Then you have a group in the middle where they think that she was a victim. She was clearly groomed in the beginning, but maybe, maybe somewhere along the way, the lines between victim and perpetrator are getting a little bit blurry and she still had some duty to protect her sixteen children. And there were still moments where she was at a hospital where she could have alerted some authorities if there were any abuse ongoing. Then you have a group of people who say, it doesn't matter if she started as a victim. At the end of the day, there are sixteen victims that she neglected.
37:17 Speaker 00 And they say, quote, "She smelled them every day as they laid near their feces. She heard their hunger cries. She saw the insects and roaches crawling on them. She saw their ignored tears. She didn't care. Her bond should not be revoked." Which, speaking of, there are rumors circulating and some are saying that they have inside sources that have confirmed Elizabeth is pregnant in custody, that when they took her in, she was pregnant. This has not been proven. This has not been confirmed by any authorities. And I don't know how these inside sources would be able to, I mean, is that not like a HIPAA violation? It's kind of crazy, but that's the rumor going on. Elizabeth's attorney states, "At this point, we are still not sure whether my client is a victim herself or not. I've previously stated that she does not characterize herself as a victim, but the
38:00 Speaker 00 investigation from the prosecutor's office, the investigation from my office is still ongoing." He says, "I think this is a case more so of isolation than a case of evil. And I think there's an important distinction here." So this is the part where I feel like maybe the lawyer needs to stop doing some interviews. Just like, maybe, just a little bit, okay? I think dispelling rumors or even advocating for your client are all really great things, but I think some of the arguments he makes is kind of like the Attorney General of Ohio, where it's like, mm, I don't know why you said that. And now you're making people oppose you for no reason. So he's saying things like, He's insinuating this is more of a case of poverty than it is neglect. And it has a lot of people riled up because they're like, no, I grew up impoverished.
38:45 Speaker 00 Or some people are saying, no, I have children and I went through a time where I didn't have any money and I never treated any child like that.
38:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:52 Speaker 00 So it's just a, it's a very um tricky situation. I think he's finding himself in.
38:55 Speaker 01 Not the best approach.
38:56 Speaker 00 Yeah, and he says, quote, because if that's all you know, and you have to think, you know, someone at fifteen years old doesn't have a whole lot, doesn't know a whole lot about being an adult, about being a mother, about being a wife. That's been your worldview for the past seventeen, eighteen years. You get shaped by that. And he continues to emphasize this is maybe more so about isolation than it is about evil. He states, I don't think we've seen any evidence to prove or to suggest that the children were locked or forced to remain in that twelve by twelve room. He says about Elizabeth being pregnant so frequently. So what she's told me repeatedly is that she and Gary Junior wanted a big family.
39:35 Speaker 00 I don't know if she wanted a family this big, but she's repeatedly said to me that she wanted a big family and the kids are a gift from God. He says he was told by Elizabeth that some of the older kids had phones and their own social media. He said that it just doesn't jive with the way the case has been described to the public. He says it's his understanding that the kids can communicate and there's nothing to suggest that they were anything like, quote, feral kids. That term that is being used in the media. To which one netizen comments, the kids had social media, but the oldest couldn't even spell their own name at eighteen. The police literally said these children were feral and if they had arrived a later day, some of them might have not even made it. The math is not mathing here. Others are commenting, well, he's just going off of what his client is telling him. Facts speak differently.
40:21 Speaker 00 Others stand a little bit more in the middle, saying, this is just a lot to unpack. And the lawyer's perspective is definitely something to consider. Inside jokes and social media access don't necessarily disprove confinement, but it does paint a very different picture than what was initially presented. A lot of Elizabeth's family have also come out on Facebook to talk about how she was a normal teenage girl until Gary Junior isolated her. And to make things murkier, Gary Junior's side of the family have also spoken out. So there's a guy named Ronnie Fletcher. He's the son-in-law of Gary Sider Senior. So this is Gary Junior's brother-in-law, Elizabeth's brother-in-law, I guess, by marriage. So Gary Junior has a sister and Ronnie is married to that sister.
41:04 Speaker 01 Okay.
41:04 Speaker 00 He comes out to do an interview where he states it's been awful for the people that had no idea what was going on in that house that are related to this family. I mean, we've had death threats. We've been told that we need to be put in front of an execution line of guns and killed and burned. I mean, it's bad. He says Gary and Lynn, you know, the grandparents did not raise their children that way. The four daughters that got out are successful members of society. We raised our kids. Our children have college degrees or you know what I mean? Whatever. And for us to be put into all of this and there's generational incest and you know what I mean? Like, so there's allegations of incest and stuff. You know, it it's not true. This is all into that one home. The last time we heard from them, we gave them a car and it's probably close to a year now.
41:48 Speaker 00 Other than Lynn calling us and asking us for money or when they needed help with the water bill or whatever, if we had it, we sent it. If we didn't, you know, one of the other daughters did.
41:55 Speaker 01 Who's Lynn? I'm sorry.
41:57 Speaker 00 Lynn is Christina Siders, the grandma. They call her Lynn.
42:00 Speaker 01 Oh, she caused her, okay.
42:03 Speaker 00 So we've done what we could for the family at, you know, at the arm's length that they were keeping us at. Ronnie reportedly states that he knew that they are a large family, but you know, he they thought it was probably closer to ten children. And he only found out the truth when the news broke online. He says, if we would have known that it was like that in that home, we would have done something about it. Even if it was just go there and take the kids ourselves or give them money. He says his family is terrified for their lives and now they have to live like hermits because everyone's upset with them. He says, quote, how am I supposed to start a business in this community when I'm being stapled to the face of pure evil? Ronnie says about the prospect of Elizabeth being seen as a victim, he says, she's willingly there at the home. She did not have a good home life when they got together, escaped to Gary senior and Lynn's home.
42:49 Speaker 00 So he's almost saying like she escaped her rough family life to come here. And no one forced her to say like, that seems to be what he's insinuating. Elizabeth's family has fought back on some of those statements in their own post. Gary senior's attorney has also chimed in. Who is also another public defender, but he says, I do know that there's been a lot of social media postings and family members or just some family members have sort of wanted to chime in with their two cents. I take some of that in. I take some of that in with a grain of salt. One of the most vocal voices in this case thus far is Elizabeth's alleged brother Joey. Joey posts a lot of videos where he's lip syncing to country songs typically in a very exaggerated fashion and he's kind of like bopping up and down as if. He's riding a horse. I don't, I'm not entirely sure.
43:33 Speaker 00 It's like more akin to when you're practicing being a pop star in your bedroom at 3am than a typical TikTok trend. It's a lot, but also I am the last person to judge considering my very embarrassingly extensive digital footprint. But he does seem like he's been out there for a while. And that is moderately important considering netizens have accused him of trying to use this case to try and get famous. He's been quite vocal about supporting Elizabeth. Joey will post videos on Facebook where he's limping seeking to the words. I don't give a damn about what people think about me anymore. If you want to judge me, do it. It no longer concerns me. I actually have no clue where this audio is from. It does sound like AI Vin Diesel. Pretty sure it's AI Vin Diesel because when I go on TikTok and I look up that sound, it's a bunch of Vin Diesel clips and interviews,
44:16 Speaker 00 but the words don't match with his lips. I think it's AI Vin Diesel, but it could also not be. It could be Vin Diesel, real Vin Diesel. But he writes in the video, pro Elizabeth, king of gon country.
44:30 Speaker 01 King of gon country?
44:31 Speaker 00 Yeah, he like, I don't know if that's some, he just likes calling something gon country and
44:40 Speaker 00 being the king of it, I suppose, right? But one of the top comments reads, praying for her and her children, pro reunification. He's also making AI photos of himself and his sister hugging. Like it's, looks like it's outside of jail.
44:55 Speaker 00 Like right outside the gates of jail, like not outside of jail, but like in front of the jail.
44:59 Speaker 01 But has he said anything specific or is just these random posts?
45:03 Speaker 00 More so random posts and he does, he does lay down some allegations. However, it doesn't appear that he was really present in Elizabeth's life. So it's unclear how much.
45:16 Speaker 01 She knows, or he knows?
45:17 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah.
45:18 Speaker 01 Okay, so he's not saying anything about the case. It's just free Elizabeth.
45:24 Speaker 00 Yeah, maybe more so like emotionally compelling arguments, but not so many where I'm like, oh, okay, that makes sense. But emotionally compelling in the sense of it does make you feel very sympathetic.
45:38 Speaker 00 Right. But he captions things like "family over everything," "blood bonds unbreakable." Joey's also fighting back to internet users who have been posting negative things about him and his family. And he writes in all caps, "Don't worry, guys. I'm not worried about what people say on my posts. They're just immature humans that don't know their asses from holes in the ground. A box of rocks are smarter than half the people saying stuff. And if you don't like me, why are you coming to my page?" He's also reposting a lot of supporters' threads on Facebook that reads, "For those that feel Elizabeth is a human being who fell through the cracks, who spent her entire life in a cycle of abuse, neglect, and trauma. She is housed in Ohio Regional Jail, scared, alone, uneducated, and visibly emotional in a court hearing. She needed help, she still needs help.
46:21 Speaker 00 For those of us who have compassion for her, here's how you can help her now. You can send her a meal through Eye Care and you can add money to her commissary so she can get hygiene, snacks, paper, shower shoes, a hairbrush, things she clearly has done without for decades." They argue that, quote, "If she was uncaring and malicious, she could have left all the babies and ran, but she stayed. She couldn't leave them, and he just kept climbing on top of her for his own gratification."
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49:00 Speaker 00 There has been, I think, aside from the very
49:06 Speaker 00 controversial and quite frankly, in my opinion, should be a legal age of their marriage. I think that a lot of people have been drawing from
49:20 Speaker 00 the setup of society and in large personal anecdotes. So I couldn't find evidence, hard evidence, of a lot of the different arguments from all the different camps.
49:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
49:32 Speaker 00 So I think there is a lot of emotions getting involved with this case. I mean, of course, when you're dealing with 16 children who are found in that type of condition, it makes you try to think of how that happened. Yeah, a lot of people are saying that she was also being used and some people have insinuated that perhaps Gary Jr. is the biggest abuser and even the grandparents have been abused. So there's just a lot of circulating theories out there. Others are posting on Facebook, supporting Joey, saying things like, "I believe she was likely the only thing standing between those children and death." So I think there's a lot of nuance to this case where you do have a large group of people who are arguing that This is a systematic problem where when the system fails women at
50:16 Speaker 00 girls at the age of fifteen allows them to get married, allows them to live in these impoverished conditions with no form of education. Of course, this is how their life is going to turn out. And so there must be some level of sympathy that must be given to these individuals. But then you have another group of people who argue that there have actually been a lot of women in far worse conditions, whether it be in this country or in developing nations, that have the innate internal maternal instinct to protect their kids no matter the cost. Because they believe that is biological in a woman when they become a mother. So there's been a lot of arguments and like both sides of the coin, I guess.
51:00 Speaker 00 It just really depends, right? But but then Joey does start kind of bringing up some weird stuff. Okay, so Joey starts messaging a guy named Debojit Das, who claims to be an ex-boyfriend of the eldest daughter of the sixteen children. I don't know. I I feel like I feel like Joey's getting scammed. I mean, I maybe scammed is not the appropriate word.
51:22 Speaker 01 A real person with a face and everything or no?
51:25 Speaker 00 No, they're just like messaging Joey from what I can tell so far. I mean, that could change based on the recording of this episode. And this could very well be a real situation that's occurring, but I feel like Joey is getting bamboozled. Okay, so this guy is talking to Joey and they're just instant messaging and Joey is telling him like, oh, I haven't seen my niece since around two thousand and eight, which is now twenty twenty six. So he hasn't seen his niece since eight years ago. He mentions that because the last time I seen them, they were still under five. So this is where it gets a little bit confusing because the math is not mathing. This is allegedly the boyfriend of the eldest daughter, but she would have been closer to ten in two thousand and eight.
52:06 Speaker 00 I don't know. But also like there is a point of contention that people have of how can family members speak so passionately when they don't really know what's going on? But I can understand the conviction of wanting to defend your family members regardless of how much time has passed. But he writes, I thought my nieces didn't have internet access. Cops and the AG, AG being the Attorney General of Ohio, lied. I just sent this, so something ain't right. So he posts on Facebook the screenshots of him talking to an individual named Debojeet, who was allegedly one of the girl's ex-boyfriends. And he's like, oh, here are my screenshots of me dating your niece.
52:45 Speaker 01 What's the screenshot, do we know?
52:46 Speaker 00 It's just like messages of like, hi. There's like a voice note where she says hello, but I mean, it's very, it's hard to identify if that is even her. These are easily fakeable messages. I'm not saying they are faked. But it wouldn't be difficult to fake them. But he posts on Facebook, Joey is like, I thought my nieces couldn't read or write. These are messages between her and her ex-boyfriend. He says they had to break up because of their neighbor Mike. He sent proof of everything. The lies need to stop. The speculation needs to stop. Clearly, the neighbors knew. Clearly, she could read, write, and speak. We just want the damn truth. Praying night and day for my nieces and nephews. Yeah, so it's just, um.
53:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, it's just so unclear.
53:30 Speaker 00 Yeah, but I also think the argument stands, but not really in the sense of, I don't think the point of contention is if they can read or write. I think just the fact that they were found in those conditions is the point. Also, Joey has served time for endangering children, resulting in serious physical harm to a child, felony of the third degree. So the court sentenced Joey Russell to a thirty-six month prison term, which was the maximum penalty for his crime.
54:03 Speaker 01 To who, do we know? Is that a family member?
54:05 Speaker 00 Seems like it, yeah. Now, a woman named Tiffany Saunders posts on Facebook again, and it's very hard to verify any of these Facebook posts, but she says, I'm making this post for the sake of truth and truth only, but for clarity. I'll go ahead and say this about the situation because I'm moving on because I have to. Lots of you know Lynn, AKA Christina Siders. So this is the grandmother, is my grandma Diana. First cousin. Okay, this is it gets confusing. It's not really necessary, right? She's saying that she's they're related in that way, but she's also related to Elizabeth Siders because her daughter's yeah, her daughter's biological father and Elizabeth's mom or sibling. Anyway, anyway.
54:46 Speaker 00 I think this is where people are alleging that Elizabeth and Gary Junior are distant cousins. I couldn't find proof that they are distant cousins other than rumors and then like some very confusing words of who's related to who, but I did I did sit there and I worked out this little family tree and they are not biologically related. If this is what people are basing off of that allegation from.
55:09 Speaker 01 I see.
55:09 Speaker 00 Right. But I don't know, maybe there's other proof somewhere out there. Tiffany continues to write, these are some of the pictures of Elizabeth that I took right before or right around when her and Gary Junior met. She had her whole life ahead of her. While part of me wonders if she wasn't mentally conditioned to think most of this was okay. The mom in me knows it doesn't matter. There's absolutely no excuse for dragging your kids or any human through your BS to this degree. In my opinion, she's guilty to an extent, simply because she is an adult. The justice system will handle the situation however it sees fit. I'm cool with that because you know what should happen in a situation like this? What does real justice look like here? I don't know, because that's a decision I'm way under qualified to make. But I feel like this also needs to be said.
55:50 Speaker 00 Lots of people failed those babies and they continue to fail lots of others all over and keep the pattern continuing by not intervening when things aren't quite right. People all over the USA right now keep saying, oh, my God, how does this even happen? Most people can't fathom, and I really wish I couldn't either. But here's an idea. Generational poverty, deeply embedded trauma, mental and physical illness, systemic failure by other family and community members all mixed into one big horrible mess. It's nearly impossible to escape any unhealthy situation without the proper tools, without the proper resources. Maybe I'm wrong to believe this, but I think with only a couple of exceptions in this particular case, like the tremendous amount of kids they had, actual living conditions, these poor children were, and in fact, I mean, the children were basically hidden away in a twelve by twelve room. All the rest of this story.
56:36 Speaker 00 There are very similar situations all over the area and most people turn a blind eye to it. From the child marriage to no education, living in unhealthy environments and living in extreme poverty. It's all pretty much normal to a lot of people. I personally think it's almost like it's deeply embedded for people to turn a blind eye because there's already they're already struggling themselves. Or these are uncomfortable situations and topics to think about.
56:59 Speaker 00 That has also been a huge thing where people are saying like, I don't know why Americans are so shocked right now that this is happening in their country when you can just go to West Virginia and see one of the most impoverished states in the entire nation. And see that this is something that's happening out in the open and it's pretty blatant.
57:15 Speaker 01 Interesting.
57:16 Speaker 00 So there, I do think it's a very nuanced conversation of how much does poverty impact one's ability to be able to have autonomy over the amount of children they have, but also how to be able to care for the children. And how much is it malice versus, oh, this is what my parents did to raise me, so I'm going to do the same thing and I don't know anything else or anything better. So I guess that is a very nuanced conversation that's taking place. And I think depending on everybody's socioeconomic backgrounds, people have a lot of different stances. I do think this is a conversation where it is really important to probably
58:02 Speaker 00 face privilege when you feel like you have a very strong negative opinion, right? I guess. See how much that plays into it, which has been, you know, something people have been talking about, but but because still sixteen children seems beyond excessive, even in those conditions, right? It seems like an outlier. People have been trying to find a motive, like was this some sort of obsession? Was having children an obsession for Elizabeth or Gary Junior's or both? Elizabeth's attorney did say that Elizabeth told him, children are a gift from God and she loves having kids. Like, was it that? Was this some sort of like four-person cult, one-person cult, two-person cult? Because again, the wording, children are a gift from God is very specific.
58:42 Speaker 00 And Elizabeth's older brother believes that she was quote indoctrinated, which is again, a very specific word. Or were they getting something else of having the children? Primarily, the big motive question was state care? So the prosecutor responds to a question from a reporter about whether or not the family was receiving state benefits for everyone, which again would answer a very big motive question. But he states, "To my knowledge, only the two elderly, the two oldest, grandma and grandpa, were the only ones I'm aware of that were receiving benefits at the time of this incident." So they're not using the children to get some sort of state-funded assistance. So why do they keep having kids? We really don't know. I mean, none of the children were ever enrolled in schools. And I think that this case has been kind of a reckoning on a lot of state-funded systems.
59:26 Speaker 00 So the first question was, "A lot of the children seem to have been born in local area hospitals," which is what Elizabeth's attorney has alleged, which means if Elizabeth is going to hospitals and giving birth to these children, was there not any point, any medical intervention should have stepped in? So that seems to be a big question of like, was there failure there? Then there's another question of, "Why is Ohio so relaxed with homeschool laws?" Back then, the law, the law did get changed. A bill was passed. So apparently back then, you would have to tell administrators of a school what you were doing to homeschool your children. Like, you would have to give them like a whole blueprint of your whole plan to educate your kids because they can't just be running around not being able to read and write. That was the whole objective, right? There's a lot of paperwork that gets processed, a lot of people get involved.
1:00:09 Speaker 00 Now, apparently, you can walk in and say, "I'm gonna homeschool my kid," and that's it. That's crazy. You don't have to tell them what you're doing. I guess this is the whole like, "It's my kid." I don't know the fucking argument, okay? I really don't know. Yeah. So the question is like, were they really that good at hiding the children, like the Attorney General of Ohio State's? Or is the system just like, not really doing its job? One resident does recall seeing at least some of the kids once at a local yard sale, and she did in fact notice that they appeared dirty, but she just assumed like the dirt and grime on them was they had been playing outside. The police haven't confirmed that every single child belongs to Elizabeth and Gary Jr. There are DNA tests being done. There are some people out there that believe and are speculating that...
1:00:55 Speaker 00 Older children could have given birth to some of the younger children. This is basically an internet rumor. A lot of that speculation seems to stem from the idea that they believe there is no physical way in which Elizabeth could be able to give birth to four sets of twins back to back. So remember in 2022, she had a set of twins that passed in the hospital, but her last births were allegedly four sets of twins.
1:01:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:01:18 Speaker 00 And so they're just saying like, your body is incapable of doing that. Like, that would be nearly impossible, especially in the malnourished, lack of nutrition state that Elizabeth was probably living in. It just doesn't make sense to them how that's possible. But authorities have not confirmed that the children were essayed or harmed in that way, or that there was any incest going on. So I just do want to make that very clear. Elizabeth's attorney states again that he believes that all 16 children belong to Elizabeth. A reporter did ask the prosecutor, has any testing been done to assure that all 16 children belong to the same person? He responds vaguely, I can't address that. Did the children have birth certificates? The prosecutor takes a moment and responds very carefully. I don't know that we have all their birth certificates. Were they all registered with the state?
1:02:03 Speaker 00 Again, a little beyond what I can tell. I answered you what I know at this point. So things could have changed. It seems like they did locate most of the birth certificates. But one reporter asked the prosecutors, do you have any, like, do you know of any children's services safety checks conducted at that home? Were there any mandatory reportings, especially by hospitals or medical officials? Yeah, I can't answer that, sorry. As of filming this, um, of the four adults, one of them has already been released. Gary Senior, the grandpa, has since pled not guilty by reason of insanity. He is demanding an evaluate, well, I guess his attorney is demanding an evaluation to determine whether or not he's competent to stand trial. Yeah. And the reason that he was released is not even because of his potential incompetency.
1:02:48 Speaker 00 Um, it's the fact that July 8th, they were scheduled for a preliminary hearing. And as they were transporting Gary Senior to the courthouse from the jail, he falls. They take him to the hospital because he fell. They run a bunch of tests on him and they realize, holy shit, he's got so many serious. Medical conditions that require specialized care, which is basically the only reason they let Gary Senior out on bond. The prosecutor on this case says to the community very bluntly, practically, and I don't know if you folks know this or not, but when defendants are housed in county jails, it is the county's responsibility to pay for the medical care. Prisons are for defendants who have been convicted. Then the state of Ohio has to pay for it. But he's still an innocent man that has not been convicted yet.
1:03:31 Speaker 00 So the county was going to be on the hook for his medical care. Vinton County, also one of the smallest rural counties in Ohio. His medical care could potentially bankrupt Vinton County. The prosecutor states, we were not going to put that burden also on our local taxpayers. So it was agreed that we would do a recognizance bond so that he could get the medical treatment that the doctors say that he needs, and it won't cost the county that money. If he's released from the hospital, he will then be equipped with a GPS monitor. The medical care is going to be paid for probably on a federal level, I would imagine. I don't, that's what I think would happen. I'm not too well versed in like the pipeline of medical care for individuals who have no access.
1:04:13 Speaker 01 That's interesting.
1:04:15 Speaker 00 It seems like it would be taken care of on a federal level, but I'm not entirely sure. His attorney states he's entitled to his presumption of innocence and that his guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The state needs to prove that they may, you know, the facts may bear out or they may not, that he may be found not guilty or not competent or himself a victim. So until we all know what's going on, I would ask the viewers to take a breath, take a step back and let the process play out. Which, speaking of, a gag order is now in place for the prosecutors, which is not, um, it's not like entirely uncommon for high profile cases, but essentially the defense attorneys have filed stating that there have been lots of statements made by the prosecution that seem to
1:04:57 Speaker 00 Be prejudicing the fair, right to a fair trial. Basically saying is pure evil, calling it the House of Horrors, calling them just like feral children, all of these things they think is not good. We are just gonna have to wait to see how this plays out in court, which by the way, I do think maybe the Attorney General of Ohio should stop talking about this case because of some of the problematic remarks that he's made, but that's an opinion, right? I guess we will just have to see how this plays out in court, whether all of them are going to. I don't know what's gonna happen, honestly. There is maybe an argument that potentially black mold is in the house. That seems to be an angle that could be played. Black mold poisoning can be similar to dementia and cause brain fog, sudden mood swings, depression, anxiety, insomnia, chronic fatigue, headaches.
1:05:44 Speaker 00 I don't know. Some people believe that the grandma was taking care of the kids and when her health declined, it caused this entire thing to go down. But all we know right now is each charge carries a minimum sentence of two to eight years in prison with a maximum sentence of 12 years. So potential maximum sentence on all 16 counts could end up being 192 years for each defendant. State social workers say they've received dozens of calls from local residents in the county, offering donations, offering to help with long-term care for the children. They just passed, um, they just approved $1 million to support the children. They're estimating the care to be around $100 to $250 per day, per child for the rest of this fiscal year.
1:06:29 Speaker 00 But I, I just don't know, like, how much that will impact. I think that there probably will need to be a lot more resources poured into the 16 children if the conditions are as bad and as extreme as the prosecutors are describing them to be, which I tend to agree with just based off the pictures that I saw of the outside of the house looking in. But what are your thoughts on this case? That is so far what we have on the 16 children's case in Ohio, the House of Horrors. What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments and I will see you in the next one. Be safe.
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