A grandfather whose 16 grandchildren were discovered living in squalid conditions inside a rural home in southern Ohio in late June has been ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial.
The decision came Wednesday in Vinton County, where a judge accepted the conclusions of a competency evaluation for Gary Siders Sr. Vinton County Prosecutor William Archer did not challenge the report’s findings.
Siders, 73, appeared for the hearing in a wheelchair. After court, his attorney, Dorian Baum, said Siders’ mental health has been deteriorating for years and described his condition as “not restorable.”
“It’s not really a surprise to any of us that he’s not been found competent at this point,” Baum said. “He doesn’t fully understand or appreciate what’s going on.”
Siders faces 16 counts of child endangerment tied to the children, who were rescued June 30 from a residence in Hamden, roughly 80 miles south of Columbus.
Other family members charged in the case have entered not guilty pleas, including Siders’ wife, Christina Siders; his son, Gary Siders Jr.; and his daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Siders, who is the children’s mother.
Authorities discovered the children while executing a search warrant connected to an unrelated investigation. Investigators said the children had been kept largely confined to a small room in the home and were found in deplorable conditions. Officials also said the children were not enrolled in school, the family had moved repeatedly over the past two decades, and neighbors reported they had never seen the children.
Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo
When they were found, the children ranged from 18 months to 18 years old. Some were described by authorities as “feral” and unable to speak, and officials said their medical conditions varied.
“Most of our livestock was kept in better conditions than the children,” Vinton County Sheriff Ryan Cain said in a July 2 news conference. “It was [an] extremely high presence, I’m sure, of bacterial and human feces; it was just a disgusting scene.”
“They looked like almost feral animals, it was terrible,” Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson said at the time, adding that the 18-year-old who was found in the home was unable to spell her own name.
“We’ve got to make sure the kids are safe, we’ve got to make sure they’re placed in good, solid, therapeutic placements, and we have to hold accountable the people that are willing to do this to their own family,” Wilson said.
Wilson also said in the news conference that the suspects “were pretty adept at keeping these kids out of sight and out of investigators’ eyes.”
The eldest was born in May 2008, two months after Gary Siders Jr., then 18, and Elizabeth, then 15, crossed into West Virginia to marry at the Mason County Courthouse with her parents’ consent, according to court records. She has been pregnant most years since then, the records show.
