Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Child Marriage Twist Rocks Ohio 'House of Horrors' Case

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

Elizabeth Siders was 15 years old and pregnant when she married Gary Siders, Jr., in March 2008 in West Virginia. Gary Jr. was 18 at the time, and the couple had to cross the state line from Ohio in order to be married. Now, 18 years later, the parents of 16 children face 16 counts of child endangering. The arrests came amid a push to end child marriage in Ohio. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at the hot-button issue of forced marriage in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest cases in crime.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guests: Fraidy Reiss https://www.instagram.com/unchainedatlast/State Senator Louis Blessing https://x.com/LBlessing308CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Van DinhGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Child marriage is a human rights abuse that destroys almost every aspect of a girl's life. And it leads in most cases to really heart-breaking and devastating consequences. Elizabeth Sider's 16 children are in foster care as she and her family face charges related to allegations of abuse and neglect. Was Elizabeth forced to get married? We're looking at forced marriages and the push to end child marriage. in Ohio. I'm not voting on it. Is that okay? No!

I'm Ann Janette Levy, and this is Crime Fix. Elizabeth Siders was 15 when she got married. She was just a kid, but she was a kid who was pregnant with her first child back in 2008 when she and Gary Siders Jr., her current husband, traveled from Ohio to Mason County, West Virginia to get married. Gary and Elizabeth were married on March 31, 2008. Elizabeth gave birth to a baby girl two months later and 17 more children followed. I've told you many times that Elizabeth has been pregnant nearly every year since 2008.

Gary and Elizabeth went to West Virginia to get married because legally Elizabeth could not get married in Ohio at the age of 15. Gary was 18. It was illegal for her to get married in Ohio. But in West Virginia in 2008, Elizabeth could get married at 15. 15 if her parents allowed it. Right now in Ohio, a 17-year-old girl can get married if a parent signs off on it and a court approves. There are a number of hoops that a child has to jump through to get hitched in the Buckeye State at age 17, but there are some people who want to change that. State Senator Lewis Blessing will join me here shortly to discuss eliminating child marriage

in Ohio and so will Frady Reese, founder of Unchained at Last. You do not want to miss Frady. She was forced into an arranged marriage, but was able to get out of it finally. But back to Elizabeth and Gary Siders. Gary was 18, as I mentioned, when they got married in West Virginia. Elizabeth was 15. They're both in the Southeast Ohio regional jail charged with 16 counts of child endangering. Gary's parents, Christina Lynn Siders, and Gary Sider, Sr., face the same exact charges. They've all pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.

And the investigation into what was going on in the house on Omer's, Street where 16 children were rescued is well underway. There are so many questions. Why were the children not sent to school? Why were they being hidden, as the county prosecutor has said? And why was Elizabeth marrying at 15 and then giving birth to children one after the other after the other when she should have been in high school and going to prom? Was Elizabeth being abused? Elizabeth appears to have a bruise on her arm in the intake video. We don't know how she got that bruise. Was she a victim and didn't even know it? Her brother has said on Facebook that Elizabeth was indoctrinated into the Ciders family. But what exactly does that mean? And had West Virginia not allowed Elizabeth Ciders to marry at age 15,

would this child in danger in case be unfolding today? Back in 2023, West Virginia changed the state's law on marriage. Prior to that, 16 and 17-year-olds could marry with parental consent and anyone younger than teen could marry if a judge approved. Now you have to be 18 to get married, but the law now allows in West Virginia for a person who has 16 or 17 to get permission from parents, or they have to petition the court and affirm they're entering into a marriage voluntarily. Unchained at last says 33 states allow some form of child marriage, meaning teens under 18 can marry. The states that have banned child marriage are in purple on this map. Other states like Ohio and Orange have strong bills pending. The other states on the map allow some form of child marriage.

Except creepy men who pray on high school girls. And it ends as human rights of use. But legislators are refusing to vote on there. Is that okay? No. So I want to dig in to this entire issue of teenage girls getting married, underage teenage girls to be specific. So to do that, I want to bring in Frady Reese. She is the founder of Unchained at Last. And she was actually forced into a marriage at a young age. So Frady, thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it. Well, thank you. This is such an important conversation to have. Yeah, I agree 100%. Frady, when you heard that Elizabeth Siders had been found in this home in Southeast Ohio,

she had given birth to 18 children, you know, one set of twins passed away and that these children are living in squalor and she was married at 15 because she was seven months pregnant. What was your reaction to that given your background? You know, this is just one more heartbreaking story in my work at Unchained at last where we're working to end force and child marriage in the United States through direct services and systems change. We hear heartbreaking stories on a daily basis. And every once in a while, these heartbreaking stories become national headlines and others become aware of them. This is just one more reminder of what we've always known that child marriage is a human rights abuse that destroys almost every aspect of a girl's life. And it leads in most cases to

really heartbreaking and devastating consequences. You know, I want to talk to you a little bit about the fact that Elizabeth Siders, she was a 15-year-old girl when she got married. She couldn't legally marry in the state of Ohio. So they went over to West Virginia to get it done. She was pregnant. You know, we're waiting to hear that, yes, she wanted this marriage. Like, she wanted Gary Jr. That's what her brother has indicated on Facebook. And he said she would, but she was indoctrinated into this family. We don't exactly know what that means. But even if a 15 year old girl is seven months pregnant and wants to marry somebody, I mean, do you consider that still a forced to be? marriage. It is absolutely a forced marriage. Globally, any marriage in which one, even one party,

or both parties are under the age of 18, is recognized as forced marriage. It doesn't matter how mature or feisty or smart that minor might be. The fact is that you do not have the full rights of adulthood, all the legal rights, until age 18. And before you have, you have a full rights of you have the full rights of adulthood. I'm talking about basic rights, like the right to leave home if your parent is planning an unwanted wedding for you, the right to get into a domestic violence shelter,

retain an attorney, bring a legal action. Before you have these basic legal rights, you cannot say no to a marriage you don't want. You just cannot protect yourself from being forced to marry. That means you cannot give full free consent to marriage. So by definition, that is a forced marriage. And forced marriage, is a form of modern slavery.

So we're talking about a really horrific situation. And it doesn't matter if a minor says yes. It's like statutory rape. We recognize that if a child is too young to consent to sex, even if they say yes, it's rape. Same thing with marriage. If you're too young to consent to marriage because you don't have the legal rights of adults.

Anytime someone is married before the age of 18, it is considered a forced marriage. And that is a form of modern slavery. And that can happen to, so it's any time is before the age of 18, but of course, an adult also can be forced to marry. I was forced to marry at 19. But over there, it's a little bit more of a gray area. Was it forced? Was it not? When there's a child involved, it's just open and shut. We know that that is absolutely 100% considered a forced marriage. Interesting. You are involved in this fight, in the state of Ohio and across the country, to raise the age and to change laws to make it 18. You have to be 18 to marry. So talk to me about why you are so passionate about that. And it's because of your your background. You said you were forced to marry somebody at the age of 19. Yeah. So I was forced in New York City to marry a stranger when I was

19. And he turned out to be violent. And I was trapped for 15 years in this abusive forced marriage. And when I finally managed to escape my family and community, I came from a very fundamentalist, religious community. They retaliated by shunning me and they consider me dead. It's been almost but 20 years now. They still consider me dead. And so out of my traumatic experience, it took a long time for me to rebuild my life and move on. From my experience, I found it unshamed at last. And at first, we were focused on direct services.

as I wanted to be there for other people who are escaping the same nightmare, I had escaped, that their parents are forcing them to marry, not listening when they say no or they're already in a marriage that they did not consent to. And escaping a forced marriage is difficult. So the services that we provide, crucial, comprehensive wraparound services, it's never easy for us to help somebody escape a forced marriage. But when they're an adult,

we often are able to achieve. that goal of helping them escape. More and more girls, though, under age 18, including in Ohio, started reaching out, asking for that same help, help me escape this impending or existing forced marriage. And we realize there's almost nothing we can do for someone who's not 18. It's a crime to leave home before you're 18 in Ohio. We cannot help somebody escape before 18, or we could be charged criminally. They're just, they can't get into it's most like violent shelter, they can't retain an attorney because contracts with minors are voidable. I mean, there's just almost nothing that we can do for someone who's not 18.

And that's why we started this national movement. When we first started realizing that child marriage was such a big problem in the United States in about 2015, child marriage was legal in all 50 states. But we've been going state by state and to date. We've been able to help ban child marriage in 17 states and D.C. and to U.S. territories. And there is legislation pending now in Ohio so that Ohio can catch up to its neighbors. That Pennsylvania and every state going east, you know, and north of that have banned child marriage. Ohio's being left behind and risks becoming the destination state where parents bring their kids to force them to marry after they've been raped and got pregnant.

Oh, God, yikes. why is this even an issue when you get into the guts of this when you go to these different states like states that are resistant to changing the law? I mean, what what what is the resistance? Because I'm just kind of thinking to myself, why can't you just wait until you're 18? Like, what's the big rush? Especially if you're 16 or 17. I mean, you're just not that mature at those ages. I mean, I was there. I was one of those people once. You know, it's, you're so, were you. So what's the resistance? Why? Yeah, it's so simple. I mean, you have to wait until 18 to enter into pretty much any other contract. Marriage is a contract. So why would this be treated differently?

And as I said, there is legislation pending in Ohio SB 341 would ban child marriage. It would make the marriage age 18, no exceptions. Costs nothing. Harms no one ends what the U.S. State Department calls a human rights abuse because of the devastating. lifelong repercussions that marriage before 18 produces. And yet, legislators in Ohio, specifically senators, have refused to vote on SB 341. This bill has been languishing. It has only support from the public, not a single member of the public in multiple hearings, has opposed SB 341, and dozens have come forward to support it. And what we're seeing is a complete lack of understanding of the issue, legislators saying really ridiculous things,

romanticizing this human rights abuse, turning it into young love. Let's say they want to marry. And in the case of one senator, well, I was married before 18 or my parents were married before a teen and that turned out fine. It doesn't matter that one or two people you know turned out fine. What we know is that marriage before 18 is a human rights abuse that destroys girls' lives almost every aspect of their health, their education, economic opportunities, physical safety, sexual and reproductive rights. It creates this nightmarish legal trap for them because we're entering them into this contract when they don't have the rights of adulthood, the rights that they need to navigate such an important contract. And we know that 70 to 80 percent of these

end up in divorce. So it's, there's no benefit that marriage before 18 brings, even if you know someone that it turned out fine, they were in the 20 to 30 percent where somehow they managed to escape these devastating lifelong repercussions. That doesn't mean that girls in Ohio should be up for sale, that we should allow the trafficking of minors under the guise of marriages, which is what the current laws allow, that we should allow this human rights abuse. to continue just because you know someone that didn't end up, you know, homeless and on the streets and totally abused. What about all the ones that did? What about the fact that girls matter? What about the fact that all the states around us are doing this? Why are we ignoring that?

Why won't legislators stand up for girls? What is the concern? When I was reading on your website and you just mentioned it, what's the concern about this leading to or potentially being like human trafficking when these forced underage marriages occur? Well, the federal government doesn't set a minimum age for spousal or fiancé visas. Instead, it defers to the law in the state where the couple will reside. And the law in Ohio says you can be entered into marriage at 17. So what that means is that girls age 17 in Ohio can legally be trafficked for their citizenship, dragged overseas, forced to marry an adult man who this lucky guy gets a visa and a path to citizenship. And also on the reverse side, men in Ohio can legally import a child bride of age 17 from any

country around the world, sex traffic them to the U.S. under the guise of marriage, and it's legal because marriage at 17 is legal in Ohio. And the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee issued a report showing thousands of teens are being trafficked under the guise of marriage because of this loophole in federal law combined with weak state laws like the one in Ohio. And almost all of these teens being trafficked under the guise of marriage are girls married to adult men. And the way that other states have addressed this really just horrific, unconscionable legal loophole is by making the marriage age 18, no exceptions, because then we cannot traffic minors under the

guise of marriage from or to your state if your marriage age is 18. Well, it's a, it's a really kind of a terrifying issue when you really dig into it and look at the layers that come with underage marriage, people getting married under the age of 18. And we really hope that we were able to raise some awareness about this issue with you today, Frady. Thank you so much, Frady Reese, for coming on. Well, Anjanet, thank you for raising awareness. And I hope everyone will contact your legislator in Ohio and let them know you want them to pass SB 341. Let's end child marriage. There's no reason we can't vote on this simple common sense legislation and end this human rights abuse.

So to discuss this whole issue of children, teenagers getting married, I want to bring in Senator Lewis Blessing. He's a state senator from Ohio. And he actually was one of the main proponents of a bill to end child marriage. in the Buckeye State. Senator Blessing, thank you so much for coming on. My pleasure, anytime. You know, I have to ask you, you know, when you heard that Elizabeth Seiders was a woman arrested for child endangering who had gone over to West Virginia, crossed one county over into the state of West Virginia in 2008 to marry at the age of 15 because she was pregnant and then gives birth subsequently to, you know, 18 children. I mean, what were your thoughts?

Same as everybody else in Ohio. Just shock that this could happen, that, you know, it could fly under the radar for so long. You know, my immediate thought at the time talking to the press was how in the world could you have that many children and there be no record of them? There had to have been something, whether it was tax returns, records of live birth, you know, they have to be enrolled in school. And interestingly enough, it wasn't on child marriage. It was, all right, we need to use something like AI to get our various agencies to, you know, flag this sort of thing, these anomalies. So, for example, if they filed a tax return claiming dependents, there were records of live birth, and yet no record of children in Ohio, that's a red flag. And that should be taken to the appropriate authorities, a set of human eyeballs.

But yeah, it's just from the moment that that happened to today, we're trying to figure out what we can do going forward to ensure that something like this never happens again. Yeah, it's so interesting that you bring that up about the agencies communicating with one another because, you know, we've learned, you know, all the children were born in hospitals. They have birth certificates. But what happened after that? You know, that's the big question. Like they were born, taken home from the hospital. And then we had truancy complaints in Gallia County for six of the older children. And then they tried to serve the complaint.

They couldn't find them. And they were gone. And then it was just dismissed. So maybe if agencies were talking more with one another and communicating better, that truancy thing could have been flagged and then been in a database. And maybe these kids would have been found earlier, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And this is where, you know, I'm kind of just speculating with this.

But, but, you know, child protective services. is locally funded. And, you know, we're talking about southern Ohio counties, which are Appalachian, they're poor. And it's not, you know, beyond doubt that they, you know, are very likely underfunded, understaffed. It's a multi-county district from my understanding. And you're right. I mean, they went to, you know, serve the parents, couldn't find them.

And, you know, they have to move on to other things. I just, I view it as an agency that was stretched too thin. And, you know, from my perspective, this is where the state needs to step in and help them out. Again, with the agencies, or the agencies talking, you know, they can flag these things for these folks and say, hey, look, there's something really going on down here. You know, we're putting this out there for you, but we can also help. We can also come down there. And we can also help with, you know, the state's economy of scale, Frank. which should be used for a lot of these local services, CPS being one of them.

Let's talk now just about this issue of teenagers getting married. You know, I've been digging into this topic quite a bit. And, you know, you read back like a century ago and things like that, you know, you read more in Appalachia about teenagers getting married. And usually it was because they were pregnant. But this was 2008. This isn't in the early 1900s, 1800s. This is not what we're dealing with here. So we have a 15-year-old girl who couldn't get married in the state of Ohio because it was against the law.

So had to go on over to West Virginia. I mean, how serious of an issue and why do you think this is important to not allow somebody who's 15 or 16 or even 17, right now a 17 year old in the state of Ohio can get married with parental consent and they have to jump through some other hoops. But why do you think that's so important from your vantage point to not allow this? Yeah. And I'm sure, you know, you like me, you know, have heard other folks say, well, I know so and so got married at 16, 50 years ago and they're still happily married. and it's like, okay, you know, that's an exception that does not prove the rule. There are very big problems with somebody getting married at 15. And yeah, it's true that Ohio, you know, this was done in West Virginia.

This isn't something that could have easily been caught in Ohio. And frankly, you know, if this had been attempted today, you know, it would have been illegal. But still, you know, when you get married at that age, you can't smoke, you can't drink, you can't rent a a car. You can't vote. You can't do a whole host of things. But when you get married, you're legally emancipated from your parents. I mean, there's nationwide. There's some exceptions and rules to that. But, you know, your parents aren't there to protect you the same way that they once were. And I just, from my perspective, you know, people that age, I have to imagine, are very impressionable. And, you know, there's something deeply unsettling about this particular, you know,

situation because it wasn't, you know, just, you know, this one woman getting married at 15, or I should say girl, getting married at 15. There were other members of that family that were getting married underage. And it's just, it's not good. They should be focused on other things like school, athletics, you know, friends, networks and things like that. And I just don't see it as a good thing at all. And frankly, that's one of the reasons why I signed on to Senate Bill 341, which happened, you know, way before this whole issue came to the forefront is that, no, this needs to be stamped out. This really needs to become a relic of a bygone era. And frankly, if Ohio can stamp it out, and I've got all the confidence in the world that we will,

we can stomp this out in the rest of the country where, frankly, there are states that you might be shocked like California, which, you know, brides itself on being progressive, but they have no age floor in law. They do have some things saying, well, you have to have parental consent, so on and so forth. But but no age minimum. California in 2026, this needs to change. That's shocking. That's shocking. Let's talk now about what you brought up, the fact that there were other 15-year-olds in the Cider's family. maybe not immediate family, but one was like a cousin or something, you know, of Gary Sr. But there are three marriages in that family that we know of that involved 15-year-old girls.

And I think you're right. I mean, in this day and age, I mean, 15-year-old girls, you can't drive. I mean, I think of a 15-year-old girl. I think back when I was 15, and I'm thinking to myself, you know, you're like in ninth grade, 10th grade. You got no business doing anything. You're just not mature enough to do that, even if you're pregnant. So what's the concern with that? Because, I mean, obviously, it's a crime. If you're having sex with a 14 or 15-year-old girl in the state of Ohio, it's a crime. It's unlawful sexual conduct with a minor.

Yeah. That was, you know, extremely shocking to read Laura Bischoff's column about. that where, you know, she's like, oh, I think I had interviewed this person years ago. It was a 48-year-old and a 14-year-old, which you talk to anybody on the street and just ask a reasonable person, do you think that's okay? And their response is absolutely not. And, yeah, she was pregnant at the time. And that was some of the concern, you know, that was, you know, pitched privately. Well, you know, would this avoid abortions if they can get married early. And, you know, admittedly, there's not a lot of cases of underage marriage in Ohio even today. So it's not, this is becoming a vanishingly small problem.

But oddly enough, in California, I had heard that this was the opposite, that it was the, you know, the ACLU in Planned Parenthood saying that, no, this is to keep unwanted pregnancies where I'm like, I don't know how to, you know, make heads or tails of this situation nationwide. But, but, you know, you're right. It's, it's just difficult to think about. And I got married when I was 35 and everything that, you know, took place after that. It was, it was a lot of eye-opening experiences going from, you know, bachelor to husband to father and to think of myself trying to do that at 15, no way.

And I don't think it should be a culture that is encouraged. There are much, much better things to be focused on than that. And frankly, I don't see it as a big thing. Even for a 17-year-old in Ohio, the fact that they can marry, there's nothing wrong with waiting. And when you look at all the hoops that they have to jump through, I mean, you have to have a guardian ad litem assigned to them. They have to wait 14 days that can't be older.

than four years beyond 17. You know, they have to talk to the probate court as well. I mean, it's why go through all the headache and expense when you could simply wait until you are an adult to get married? I, I, it's frankly badly. What's the rush? What's the rush? That's kind of, you know. 100%.

Yeah. Yeah, it's like, what's your big rush? even at 18 it's like you might think you you think you know it all and um you know you got all the answers and then you find out very quickly uh that you don't uh so i can speak to that from experience uh so your bill uh it's kind of it's kind of not moving right now i mean you guys are in a recess or what have you or but it's not it's it's there opposition to this you know i'm like why would anybody be opposed to this like what's the reason for a 17 year old to get married? Like, why is it not just flying through the state house and through the

legislature and landing on the governor's desk? Yeah, there's a couple things at play here. One, I do think this gets done, this general assembly. Both leaders of the House and the Senate have said, look, we should pass this. You know, it did pass out a committee unanimously, so it's awaiting a floor vote at this point. I will concede that we did get this dropped late. It's a high number for Senate bills at 341. I want to say we dropped this in February or March, which, yeah, I mean, the General Assembly can operate incredibly quickly if it wants to. But to me, I'm willing to give, you know, the General Assembly, certainly the benefit of the doubt with this, despite some of the concerns that were raised. But they really did fall on the lines of, you know, is this going to lead to more abortions?

whose business is it, you know, for the government to trump parental rights, you know, both of which I was like, look, I'm sorry, but I just cannot agree with that. You know, we, you know, there are plenty of times where we trump parental rights for the benefit of children in state law. And given that in 2024, it was something like two to three dozen child marriages in Ohio, the odds that this would impact abortion, in any, I mean, it cannot impact it in any meaningful fashion. And besides, I just don't think if somebody was going to keep a pregnancy, I just don't think marriage is that big of an issue for this. They can certainly wait to do that. And I just don't think the stigma is there that it was maybe 60 or 70 years

ago, where, yeah, if you had a child out of wedlock, it might have been seen differently. And to some degree that's true today, but all of these things I see is is not issues. I think when the rubber meets the road, you know, you're going to see unanimous or near unanimous votes on this. I say near unanimous because I watched what happened in, I believe it was Oklahoma, where it went out of the Senate there, unanimous, and then got to the House and then passed by literally a single vote, which was kind of terrifying to see that. That's wild. Because you're not asking for much.

You're just saying you have to be 18 to get married. Yeah, I didn't listen to all the speeches for that. I don't want to sound uptoos by saying that, but I've already made up my mind that it should be 18. Like nothing is going to, you know, move me off of that. But yeah, I mean, I certainly think there are some folks, that may in fact vote against this when it's on the floor. But by and large, I think it gets done.

I think the leaders of the chambers, you know, support this like this, want to do it. It gets done. No doubt. Well, it's interesting. It's crazy to me that kids can get married in any state that allows it. So, Senator Lewis, blessing. We're going to keep an eye on it. Thank you so much for joining me.

Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks, Anjad. Attorneys for Gary Sr., Christina and Gary Jr., have questioned whether their client are competent to stand trial. Judge Rogers has approved request from their attorneys for competency evaluations, so those will be conducted by an experienced forensic examiner. Now, the impact those examinations and the results will have on the case remains to be seen. But Judge Rogers said the exams needed to be conducted within 30 days. If you want to do a deep dive into the Ciders case, I have just the thing for you.

We have all of the documents related to this case on our app, Law and Crime Plus. We have a lot of other case files there too for the cases that you are following. So check it out. I think you'll like it. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Janette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.