16 Kids Kept In 12x12 ft Room Covered In Feces - Why Internet Thinks Mom of 16 Kids Is Also a Victim

27:04Now, 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 16 children. But I do think comparing victims to feral animals is 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.

27:42Like 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 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.

28:16Law 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.

28:47Elizabeth 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.

29:20We 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. 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 Jr.

30:02And I think it's gone viral because it's just so jarring to see the difference in the way she looks. 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 Jr. were married when Elizabeth was just 15 years old and Gary Jr. was 18 years old.

30:38Elizabeth's family have also come out on Facebook to allege that Gary Jr. 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. but it is in the next state over in West Virginia, which is where they went to file their marriage license. That's crazy. 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.

31:13There 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. 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 100 % real. 20 kids and younger than me, the math equals immature piece of shit man involved.

31:49I met this dude a couple 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 15 years, you lost touch with your family, followed another, and look what happened. Oh, he's also bashing the sister, you're saying? Yeah. And he said he met Gary Jr. a couple months ago? Yeah. Like just recently? Mm-hmm. And did he know, did he say he knew or didn't know the kids? 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.

32:25That's a pretty wild statement to say, though. 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 15 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 13. 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?

32:58How 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. 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.

33:45All the defense attorneys have taken a very strong, seemingly a strong disliking towards the prosecutors describing this case as, quote, pure evil. 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 OK? 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.

34:17Usually when people, you know, are in jail, they ask, can you get me out of here? 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 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$300 ,000. The argument being that, quote, the defendant is a 33-year-old mother with no known criminal history.

34:56There'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 16 children have been removed by the state. The attorney continues,

35:27So did Elizabeth's attorney say anything about if she's a victim? Did they point fingers at? 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.

36:05He asks for a reconnaissance bond. So... What is that? It just, like, no bond. Oh. 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? by who 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 yeah like what if she gets pregnant but at the same time like her living condition is yeah pretty yeah dire you know 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 16 children.

37:54They 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 16 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.

38:31Then 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 16 victims that she neglected. 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.

39:04This 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 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.

39:42Okay. 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 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 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.

40:15Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's just a, it's a very tricky situation I think he's finding himself in. Not the best approach. Yeah, and he says, quote, because if that's all you know and you have to think, you know, someone at 15 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 17, 18 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 12 by 12 room.

40:50He says about Elizabeth being pregnant so frequently. So what she's told me repeatedly is that she and Gary Jr. wanted a big family. 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 18 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.

41:42Facts speak differently. 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 jr isolated her and to make things murkier gary jr'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 cider senior so this is gary jr's brother-in-law elizabeth's brother-in-law i guess by marriage so gary jr has a sister and ronnie is married to that sister okay 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.

42:34I 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'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 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 so we've done i'm sorry lynn is christina ciders the grandma they call her lynn christina lynn ciders she calls her okay so we've done what we could for the family at, you know, at the arm's length that they were keeping us at.

43:32Ronnie reportedly states that he knew that they had a large family, but, you know, they thought it was probably closer to 10 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.

44:00Ronnie 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 Sr. and Lynn's home. So he's almost saying like she escaped her rough family life to come here. And no one forced her to stay. 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 Sr.'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.

44:37I 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. 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.

45:10And 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 limp-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 in interviews, but the words don't match with his lips.

45:43I 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 gone country i guess of gone country yeah he like i don't know if that's some he just likes calling something gone country and 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 like right outside the gates of jail like not outside of jail but like in front of the jail but has he say anything specific or is just these random posts 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 she knows or he knows yeah yeah okay so he's not saying anything about the case it's just free elizabeth yeah and maybe more so like emotionally compelling arguments but not so many where i'm like oh okay that makes sense okay but emotionally compelling in the sense of it does make you feel very sympathetic 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 post, they're just immature humans that don't know their asses from holes in the ground.

47:20A 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. 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.

47:58They 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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50:48there has been I think aside from the very 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 the setup of society and enlarged personal anecdotes. So I couldn't find evidence, hard evidence of a lot of the different arguments from all the different camps. 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.

51:37is 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 girls at the age of 15, 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.

52:16And 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 has been a lot of arguments and like both sides of the coin i guess 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 dibojit does who claims to be an ex boyfriend of the eldest daughter of the 16 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 real person with a face and everything or no 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 2008 which is now 2026 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 gets a little bit confusing because the math is not mathing.

53:50This is allegedly the boyfriend of the eldest daughter, but she would have been closer to 10 in 2008. 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 dibo jeet who was allegedly one of the girl's ex-boyfriends and he's like oh here are my screenshots of me dating your niece so that screenshot do we know 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 yeah yeah it's just so unclear 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 yeah also joey has served time for endangering children um resulting in serious physical harm to a child's felony of the third degree so the court sentenced joey russell to a 36 month prison term which was the maximum penalty for his crime to who do we know is that a family member 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.

56:08I'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's 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, her daughter's biological father and Elizabeth's mom or sibling. Anyway, anyway, I think this is where people are alleging that Elizabeth and Gary Jr. 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.

56:50But 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. Oh, I see. 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 Jr. 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.

57:22In 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 underqualified to make. But I feel like this also needs to be said. 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?

57:51Most 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 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 12 by 12 room.

58:23All the rest of this story, 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. 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 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.

59:25And 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 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 16 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 Jr'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 because again the wording children are a gift from God is very specific 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.

1:01:04So 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. 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?

1:01:38Back then, 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 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 attorney general of ohio states or is the system just like not really doing its drop.

1:02:24One 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 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 yeah 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.

1:03:30Elizabeth'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? 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?

1:04:08Were 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 and 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 um it's the fact that july 8th they were scheduled for a preliminary hearing And as they were transporting Gary Sr.

1:04:44to 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 Sr. 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.

1:05:18But he's still an innocent man that has not been convicted yet. 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 that's interesting 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.

1:06:27Which speaking of, a gag order is now in place for the prosecutors, which is not 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 be prejudicing the right to a fair trial. Basically saying it's 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 going to 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.

1:07:24Black mold poisoning can be similar to dementia and cause brain fog, sudden mood swings, depression, anxiety, insomnia, chronic fatigue, headaches. 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 a 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.

1:08:05They 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. but 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.

1:08:48What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments and I will see you in the next one. Be safe.

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