Sixteen children, ranging in age from 1 and a half to 18, were living locked in a room of less than 4 square meters in Hamden, a town in Ohio. Almost four years in there, almost mute, surrounded by trash and human waste, while neither their neighbors nor authorities knew they existed.
Officers found them by accident while executing a search warrant for another case on June 30, 2026. Seven ended up hospitalized, two airlifted by helicopter, one in critical condition. An 18-year-old young woman with a developmental disability could not even write her own name.
Gary Siders Sr. (73), Christina Siders (66), Gary Siders Jr. (36), and Elizabeth Siders (33) — two parents and two grandparents — face charges of serious child neglect, with bail set at $300,000 each. Attorney General Andy Wilson was blunt: if they had taken one more day to act, there probably would have been deaths. All four pleaded not guilty.