On Wednesday, a judge in Vinton County, Ohio, determined that Gary Siders Sr. is mentally incompetent to stand trial. The ruling follows the discovery of Siders’ 16 grandchildren living in squalid conditions at a rural home in southern Ohio. Siders, who appeared in court using a wheelchair, has been experiencing a long decline in mental health. His attorney, Dorian Baum, stated that Siders’ condition is ‘not restorable.’
‘It’s not a surprise to any of us that he’s not been found competent at this point,’ Baum commented. Siders did not fully understand or appreciate the legal proceedings, according to his attorney. The evaluation report’s findings were accepted without objection from Vinton County Prosecutor William Archer.
Siders faced 16 counts of child endangerment related to the children. Authorities rescued them on June 30 from a house in Hamden, about 80 miles south of Columbus. They found the children in a small, filthy room where they had lived in deplorable conditions. The children ranged in age from 18 months to 18 years, and some were described as ‘feral’ and unable to speak.
“Most of our livestock was kept in better conditions than the children,” remarked Vinton County Sheriff Ryan Cain during a news conference on July 2. The sheriff described the scene as having a high presence of bacterial and human feces.
Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson noted that the eldest of the children, aged 18, was unable to spell her own name. Authorities discovered the children while executing a search warrant for an unrelated investigation.
Siders’ wife, Christina Siders, his son, Gary Siders Jr., and daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Siders, who is also the children’s mother, have all pleaded not guilty. Authorities noted that the family had moved around frequently over two decades, keeping the children out of sight and not enrolling them in school.
The eldest child was born in May 2008, two months after Gary Siders Jr. and Elizabeth were married in West Virginia. Elizabeth, then 15, and Gary Sr., then 18, wed with her parents’ consent. Court records show she has been frequently pregnant since their marriage. Attorney General Wilson emphasized the importance of placing the children in safe, therapeutic environments and holding those responsible for their conditions accountable.