Haunting Post: An eerie Facebook message from the Ohio mother appeared on her husband’s page years before the arr3st that sh0cked the nation
THE mother of the 16 kids rescued from an allegedly deplorable home in Ohio made an eerie post on her husband’s Facebook account years before they were arrested on child endangerment charges.
Elizabeth Siders, 33, was arrested alongside her husband, father-in-law and mother-in-law after her 16 children between the ages of one and 18 were rescued from their home on June 30.
Local officials say the kids were found living in unsanitary conditions, and alleged they were kept in a room no bigger than 12-feet by 12-feet for most of the last four years.
Little information is known about the four adults who were arrested and charged with 16 counts of child endangerment, but records revealed Elizabeth married her husband, Gary Siders Jr., when she was 15 and he was 18.
She gave birth to their eldest a few months after they tied the knot, and continued to give birth nearly every year, including in 2022 when she delivered conjoined twins who died shortly after birth.
An old social media post believed to be written by Elizabeth on Gary Jr.’s Facebook account has revealed an unusual request she made in 2014.
“[sic] this is elizabeth i dont want any one putting pictures of me on facebook every one if you have any pictures of me on here please take them off here !” the post from June 5, 2014 read.
At the time the post was made, Elizabeth would have been about 21 years old.
Soon after her arrest, an old photo of Elizabeth posted by her parents surfaced in reports, showing her smiling with blonde hair, a stark contrast from images of her seen in court.
Gary Jr., 36, was arrested alongside his father Gary Siders Sr., 73, and mother Christina Siders, 66, after police found the 16 children living in conditions that local authorities described as “pure evil,” while executing an unrelated search warrant.
Investigators said the eldest child could not write her name and that some of the children were unable to speak.
“This is very, it was terrible. I mean, it looked like almost feral animals. It was terrible,” Attorney General Andy Wilson said of the case.
Several of the children were hospitalized with injuries after they were rescued, with one intubated in the ICU.
All four of the adults have pleaded not guilty to the child endangerment charges.
Elizabeth recently revealed her “principal desire” through her attorney as she sits behind bars: to reunite with her children.
She asked to be released from jail to be with her kids, which came soon after Gary Sr. was let out after he suffered a fall and medical emergency that left him hospitalization.
Elizabeth’s attorney Thomas Stolly argued Elizabeth has no criminal record and does not pose a flight risk.
Stolly also revealed Elizabeth left high school after 11th grade, and Ronnie Fletcher, one of her relatives on the Siders side, told CBS affiliate WOWK that she had a tough upbringing and “escaped” into the Siders’ family.
“She’s willingly there at the home. She did not have a very good home life when they got together, and she escaped to Lynn [Christina] and Gary’s house, which … was back then a normal American home.”
After the news of their arrests, a Dollar General employee in Hamden, Ohio, said she saw Gary and Elizabeth just one day before they were arrested.
Ariel Gutierrez claimed in an interview with ABC affiliate WSYX that the children were sometimes brought into the discount store with the parents but one of them would be kept close to adults and was not allowed to speak to anyone in the store.
Stolly, Elizabeth’s attorney, has also pushed back on authorities’ claims that the children were forced to stay inside a 12 by 12 room.
“There’s no indication that the kids were not free to move about the home. There’s no indication from my conversations with my client that the kids were not allowed to go outside,” he told CBS affiliate WBNS.
“What she’s told me repeatedly is that she and Gary wanted a big family. I don’t know if they wanted a family that was this big, but they repeatedly said, she’s repeatedly said to me that she wanted a big family.”
