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Social media pages of Ohio 'House of Horrors' children emerge as mom's lawyer fights back against claims they were 'feral'
In the latest update since 16 children, some with severe injuries, were rescued from a squalid home and four people, their parents and grandparents, were charged with 17 counts of child endangerment, a lawyer has claimed the children were not found in a “feral state” as previously reported.
The children, aged between one-and-a-half and 18, were discovered inside a crumbling house by the Vinton County Sheriff's Office in Ohio on June 30, and were described as being "kept in worse conditions than livestock”.
Law enforcement officers described the scene as “pure evil”, while Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson told a news conference they were found in “conditions you cannot even imagine people being in, let alone children being in.”
Tragically, he noted that: “Some of these children couldn’t even speak.”
However, Tommy Stolly, the attorney of the children’s mother Elizabeth Siders, has recently spoken out against claims the children were “feral”, citing the fact that some of them had active social media accounts.
He argued that this “debunked the myth that these kids were almost feral,” on NewsNation’s Crime Time podcast.
He added: “The ones that were of appropriate age had social media pages. There’s evidence of that online now.”
The mother's attorney claims the children were not mute, as previously believed
Disputing original claims from Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson, who described the children as looking “almost [like] feral animals”, Stolly claimed the kids could talk.
In defence of the adults who severely neglected the children, he said: “These kids could talk. They spoke when the police came in.
“If we’re talking about feral children, those are children who do not understand the world.
“If the kids can speak, I think that changes the analysis.”
When the children were found, heartbreakingly, they had suffered such “serious physical harm” that two had to be flown to specialist trauma centers, while another seven were taken to Columbus Hospitals, with one admitted to the ICU and intubated.
The children's father, Gary Siders Jr., 36, mother Elizabeth Siders, 33, and grandparents Gary Siders Sr., 73, and Christina Siders, 77, were arrested and charged with 16 counts of child endangerment. However, they have all since pleaded not guilty.
Prosecuting the adults responsible will not be straight forward
The 16 neglected children are now in county custody and are expected to be put in "therapeutic foster care," according to Joel Potts, the Chief Government and External Affairs Officer for the Ohio Department of Children and Youth.
While a major investigation has been launched into the circumstances surrounding the discovery, it is a complicated case and expected to take some time.
Contrary to Stolly’s argument, the primary reason for the expected delay in prosecution is that the children are believed to have very limited communication skills, with some of the 16 children reportedly being completely mute.
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