16 children freed from suspected "house of horrors" in Ohio – four family members arrested

According to the attorney general, the search was not originally aimed at the children: "The Ohio Attorney General's Office stated that the house was to be searched as part of a different investigation." The 16 children and adolescents were only found in the course of that operation. Wilson said investigators became aware of the house without expecting to find children there. "We didn't know they would be there," he said.

Conditions in the house

The state of the house and the children shocked the officers. Wilson reported that the children had lived in the house under "deplorable" conditions and that some of them could not speak. He himself had been unable to enter one of the rooms and had only looked in through the door: "I couldn't go into that room, I only looked in through the door," Wilson said. One investigator at the press conference described the scene after the rescue in drastic terms: "They looked almost like wild animals," the investigator said of the sight after the rescue. Sheriff Ryan Cain of Vinton County said the conditions had been almost indescribable: "That was yesterday, and I still can't get the smell out of my nose."

Particularly disturbing, according to authorities, were the spatial conditions under which the children were kept. Investigators believe the children spent most of the past four years in a room roughly 3.6 by 3.6 meters in size. They had been kept on just a few square meters for years, amid garbage and feces, according to accounts from the officers. "Much of our livestock was kept under better conditions than these children," Sheriff Ryan Cain said. Cain spoke of a scale that exceeded his entire career to date.

Arrests and charges

According to media reports, the four adults arrested are the children's parents and grandparents. According to the prosecutor's office, Gary Siders Jr., Gary Siders Sr., Christina Siders, and Elizabeth Siders each face 16 counts of severe child endangerment. Bail was set at $300,000 (roughly €263,000) for each of the defendants. A charge of severe child endangerment was filed. "This is not human trafficking, this is an intra-family incident," Wilson said, without providing further details.

Consequences for the children

According to investigators, the physical consequences for the children are severe. They suffered serious physical harm; some cannot speak. An 18-year-old resident with a developmental disability was unable to spell her own name, according to investigators. An 18-year-old resident with a developmental disability was reportedly not even able to write her own name. It remains unclear to this day whether all 16 children are siblings or what their family relationship is to one another. Authorities are now seeking temporary custody of all 16 children.

Wilson called it the worst scene of his entire career and described the conditions as "sheer evil." He expressed his conviction that waiting any longer could have had fatal consequences: "Had we waited another 24 hours, there might well have been a fatality, I'm pretty sure of that," Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson said at the press conference. The attorney general found drastic words for it: it was a matter of "sheer evil."