Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Ohio 'House of Horrors': Inside Child Sex Abuse Probe

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

Four people in the Siders family are now charged with a number of sex crimes involving children in their family. Gary Siders Jr. and Elizabeth Siders face sexual battery and unlawful sexual conduct charges. And their extended family members, Josh Saunders and Brandon Henderson, also face sex charges involving children. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy traces their relationship in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Mark Weaver https://x.com/MarkRWeaverCRIME 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.

A Benton County grand jury today has issued indictments in three criminal cases involving sexual abuse and child abuse. Gary and Elizabeth Siders accused of sexually abusing a child together as two of their family members also face charges related to sexually abusing children. I'll take you inside the investigation, how these people are related, where the children are now, and what Siders family members are saying. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and this is crime fix. I have new details for you about this incredibly disturbing sexual abuse investigation into Gary Siders Jr. and his wife, Elizabeth Siders, and the investigation that started it all. Gary Jr. and Elizabeth have been in jail since June 30th, and they're not going anywhere anytime soon. I can tell you that. Both are now charged with sex crimes against a minor who was more than 10 years younger

than they were from January to September 22. That's when the alleged abuse took place. At that time, Elizabeth would have been 29 years old and Gary Jr. would have been 32 and Elizabeth was pregnant with twins during part of that time. Those twins died the same day they were born. Gary Jr. and Elizabeth face four felony charges, two counts of sexual battery. Those are felonies in the third degree and two counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, also third degree felonies. The alleged victim in this case is not one of Gary Jr. and Elizabeth's children, but they are related to the victim. And the victim was quite young when the alleged abuse took place over nine months in 2022. Here's the Vinton County prosecutor discussing the charges after the grand jury returned

the indictment. He talks about the reason why law enforcement went to the home on Omer Street on June 30th with a search warrant. These cases began as an investigation into family child sex abuse. Law enforcement, sought the DNA of Gary Siders Jr. related to the child sex abuse case. Once Siders Jr. was located, search warrants were executed to secure his DNA for genetic testing. Upon serving the search warrants for the child sex abuse case, the existence and condition of the 16 children at the Omer Street House became known. The child sex abuse cases involve intra-family relations and do not pose a risk to the general public, public, and I would also add does not involve human trafficking. This case all started with diligent dollar general clerks calling authorities with concerns over children they observed. We asked the

public to be mindful of the circumstances around them, especially involving children. We continue to ask for the public's respect for the rights and privacy of the child victims in this case. I'd like to add a thank you to the Vinton County Sheriff's Office and BCI for their investigative efforts, which have been amazing. This case is going to be prosecuted by myself, Kara Keating, Assistant Attorney General, and Annika Collins, Highland County prosecuting attorney. Thank you. So let's break down what William Archer said. He said they went to the house on Omer Street on June 30th with a warrant for Gary Sider's

Jr.'s DNA. They wanted his DNA so they could conduct genetic testing. Why conduct genetic testing? Did the alleged victim in this case possibly have DNA evidence that she shared with investigation? or was a child possibly born as a result of this abuse? The Attorney General says the investigation into Gary Jr. and Elizabeth started in March of 26. The search warrant on Omer Street wasn't executed until June 30th, nearly four months later. Clearly, they had trouble tracking down Gary Jr. and Elizabeth. They were not easy to find. But when they did, they tracked them to the house

on Omer Street, and that is where they found the 16 Siders children ranging in age from one and a half to 18 in bad shape. Now, I'll get back to the child endangering investigation involving the Siders children in a bit, but first we have to talk about how this entire thing started and the other people who are charged. Here's Vinton County Sheriff Ryan Kane. A grand jury today has issued indictments in three criminal cases involving sexual abuse and child endangerment. These charges stem from criminal investigations. conducted by the Vinton County Sheriff's Office and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations, BCI. The cases are being prosecuted by the Vinton County Prosecutor's Office

with the assistance from the Highland County Prosecutor's Office and the Ohio Attorney General's Special Prosecutions Unit. In December of 2025, at the request of the Vinton County Sheriff's Office, BCI's Special Victims Unit opened an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse involving two children. Information obtained in this investigation prompted BCI in March of 26 to open a second investigation, this one involving allegations of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor. On June 30th, authorities executed a search warrant at a residence in Hamden, Ohio, and Benton County on Omer Street. There have been a lot of speculation and questions regarding the June 30th presence on Omer Street in Hamden.

These indictments provide some insight into the ongoing investigation, however, to preserve the integrity of the ongoing investigation. and to protect the victims, I conclude my statement here. I am thankful for the work of my deputies and our fellow partners at BCI. We will continue to pursue justice in these cases. So in December 2025, the Vitton County Sheriff and BCI started investigating allegations of sexual abuse of two children. And remember, the prosecutor said alert Dollar General clerks called and reported concerns they had over children that they saw.

Well, that first investigation, involved two men. Those men are 23-year-old Josh Saunders and 40-year-old Brandon Henderson. You might be wondering, who are these two men and how are they connected to the ciders? Well, I'm going to tell you, Josh Saunders is Gary Jr.'s nephew. He's the oldest son of Gary Jr.'s sister, Virginia, who goes by Jenny. And Brandon Henderson is her longtime boyfriend and the father of some of her children. Brandon and Virginia have lived in Gallia County, Vinton County, and Bloomer, Wisconsin. The Vinton County prosecutor had said previously that the Siders had lived for a time in Wisconsin. This may be the reason why. While Virginia Sonders has been with Brandon Henderson for many years,

she is still legally married to Josh Sonder's father. Records show that Joshua Sonders and Virginia Saunders were married in April 2003 in Gallia County, but Joshua Saunders Jr. is actually serving time in an Ohio prison for murder. He's been behind bars since 2009. In 2016, Virginia Saunders described Brandon Henderson on Facebook as her soulmate and her other half. At some point, they moved back to Ohio from Wisconsin. And earlier this year, Brandon Henderson and Joshua Saunders, Jr., were ordered by a court in Gallia County to take part in paternity testing for Virginia's children, so child support could be paid to care for some of the children. Those children are no longer in Virginia's custody. The grand jury indicted 23-year-old Josh Saunders on four counts, three counts of

rape and one count of gross sexual imposition. The indictment claims that Josh Saunders raped a nine-year-old child between January 2020 and December 2020. There's a second rape charge that claims a child between in the ages of 10 and 12 was sexually assaulted between December 2020 and December 2023, a three-year period. And a third rape charge covers an allegation of sexual assault between June 2022 and June 2023. The grand jury indicted Brandon Henderson on 21 counts. One count of endangering children, two counts of endangering children, four counts of gross imposition, four counts of gross sexual imposition, eight counts of sexual battery, two counts of endangering children, and those were misdemeanors.

Brandon Henderson faces charges related to allegations of sex crimes involving a child over a period of many years. If you love digging into the details of crime cases as much as I do, you must download the Law and Crime Plus app. If you haven't checked it out yet, here are three reasons to jump on board today. Number one, you get complete access. Watch the best shows from both law and crime and court TV, completely add for free. Number two, you get case files, deep dive access to raw trial evidence, including body camera video, 911 calls, crime scene photos, and more. And finally, it's free for 30 days.

We are giving all of our viewers a full month to test it out completely risk-free. So head over to law and crimeplus.com, enter the promo code crime fix and start exploring today. So I'd like to bring in Mark Weaver. He sits as a special prosecutor in the state of Ohio, sometimes sits as a judge as well and has prosecuted many sex crimes cases. Mark, thank you so much for coming on. Yeah, this case just gets more complicated and complex all the time. Complicated, complex, and disturbing, more disturbing than we originally thought. I think you and I both suspected when BCI was involved in this. There might be a sex crimes aspect to this. but now we're learning that there are extended family members to the ciders who have now been indicted on sex crimes charges.

Those are Brandon Henderson and Josh Saunders. So they were like investigation number one that started this whole thing. What is your reaction to that? It makes more sense now. There were some people thinking that a misdemeanor public indecency case was what triggered this. We know now that's not true. BCI wouldn't have been involved in something like that. BCI has brought in for serious felony level cases,

like these sex offenses. I do need an organizational chart to know how all these people are related and who's who. It's a little confusing in that respect. But any adult who is either a parent or guardian or someone acting as a parent or guardian does have special responsibilities and can be charged if there's any sexual activity or sexual conduct,

two different things under Ohio law. law with one of those children. And it does appear now in my reading of all of the documents and all of the records and the press releases and piecing this all together that we have three victims here. We have two initial victims in Investigation 1 and then one victim in Investigation 2. And that is the victim involving Gary Siders Jr. and Elizabeth Ciders. And so they went to the house looking for Gary Ciders Jr.'s DNA for genetic testing. Mark, what does that tell you?

I mean, that says to me, I'm wondering if the victim in this case became pregnant. That's possible, although that's not one of the elements of any of these crimes. As I mentioned, one of the elements, certainly for sexual battery, is whether or not you're a parent or acting in the role of a parent of somebody and you would have sexual activity, with that child. That could have been the reason. We now know you mentioned the three victims. Those are in addition to, obviously, the numerous children who were found, 16 children found, who are all their own kind of victims in the first piece of this iceberg that we looked at. And so why else would they go for genetic testing for Gary Jr.?

I mean, they went there on June 30th with a warrant for genetic DNA for genetic testing. testing. Is there any other reason that they would do that for genetic testing in your mind as a prosecutor other than if the person who was sexually abused gave birth to a child? Well, the other angle would be if the victim came forward with some sort of DNA evidence on her clothing or some other body part, and they wanted to test that against somebody else. That's less about genetic testing and more about a DNA match. But if some article of clothing had been maintained that suggested that a male had left his DNA or bodily fluids as part of an attack, then getting that DNA to match it could be a valid use for a search warrant.

So the genetic testing could be, I have physical evidence to prove this. I have an item of clothing or a piece of bedding with, you know, possible DNA evidence on it, or it could be a potential pregnancy. Yeah, it's either wanting to match somebody to DNA. that we already have as part of the investigation or to find a relationship issue so that the element of being a parent could be added to a crime. What's so disturbing about this is the fact that we have family members and they're saying right now that the 16 ciders children that nobody is accused of sexually abusing them.

Thank goodness if there's a silver lining in this that that that that has not happened according to what we're being told right now. However, there are other children extended family members of the ciders who prosecutors are saying were sexually abused at the hands of Gary and Elizabeth and what appears to be Gary's nephew, Joshua Saunders, and his brother-in-law, you know, like the longtime boyfriend of his sister, Virginia. So this is very disturbing. And we had heard there was this Wisconsin connection, you know, Bloomer, Wisconsin.

When they first arrested them, they said this family had been up in Bloomer, Wisconsin, or Wisconsin at one point in time. And now we're seeing that Virginia and Brandon at one point lived in Bloomer, Wisconsin. So that's where this connection came together, it looks like. Yeah, it's going to require a lot of investigation, a lot of explanation for these connections. you, of course, were a reporter in Wisconsin, so you're well suited to report on this case and knowing Ohio as well as you do. This is a crooked, rotten family tree. And figuring out which branch got involved with which other branch is going to be quite a difficult thing for first investigators and then prosecutors to do.

You know, I don't want to get over my skis here, but is it surprising to you that the mother of the children is not somehow, implicated is it possible that she was just in the dark about all of this that's possible certainly you want to bring as many charges as they possibly can under the rules of ethics you have to have probable cost to believe that a charge is well founded and so prosecutors do have that that bar to clear but typically we want to bring every charge we can bring to use as leverage so we can flip one defendant against another so you would think if the mother had complicity of any sort that she would have been charged in that way. Gary Siders Jr. and Elizabeth

Siders both face sexual battery charges related to a child. They're both charged with that along with unlawful sexual misconduct or conduct with a minor. So does that, if you're a prosecutor, you know, for Elizabeth to be charged with that, does that mean she was an active participant in this sexual misconduct? Or was, you know, was. she's simply aware of it? You have to be more than aware to be guilty of those crimes. If they wanted to charge a complicity charge, they could do that. It's a different way of saying, well, you didn't do it,

but you were involved in helping it happen. But to be guilty of the charge, you have to meet all the elements and simply being aware of it, other than the child endangering piece, which being aware of something that's being done to a child and doing nothing about it, obviously, can be child endangering. But for these sex crimes, you have to be guilty of each of the elements of the sex crime and being aware of it is not one of those elements.

Let's move on now to the child endangering charges involving the 16 Siders children who are now in therapeutic foster care. Those were all second-degree felonies when they were first charged. Now some of those are second-degree felonies, some are third, some are misdemeanor counts, both for Gary and Elizabeth and then Grandma and Grandpa. What do you make of a those charges being reduced in some respects. I mean, they're still charged with it, and they're innocent until proven guilty, but they're not all F2s anymore.

Yeah, the difference in these charges is the damage done to the victim. And so the more damage, the higher potential to get up to the F2, which is up to eight years in prison. There's also a misdemeanor level, child endangerment. I've seen those cases. I've worked on those cases.

Careless parent allows a child to sort of run outside into the street, three-year-old or something. That's typically a misdemeanor child endangerment. Nothing bad happened, but the child, the parent was being careless. So remember, prosecutors have to prove the level of injury, either psychological or physical, to the victim in order to match that level of crime. The Attorney General has said, we're not done yet.

You know, this investigation is still underway. So do you see more charges coming, or do you think this is it, and they're just still kind of dotting their eyes and crossing their teas? I know Attorney General Wilson, he's a career prosecutor. I don't think he would have said that if it were true. This does bring to mind another case that you covered that many of your viewers have watched out of Ohio, out of Southern Ohio, which was the Pike County murder case,

which continues to go on. And that was not immediately apparent as to who was who and who was responsible for several weeks to know all the different implications. And that once again was a large family who were doing horrible things to each other and to children. And so in that case, it took then Attorney General Mike DeWine, who's now the Ohio governor, a long time to help sort through exactly all the possible charges. We could be seeing

that happen in this case as well. Well, we will certainly wait and see what comes of it. Mark Weaver, thank you so much, as always, for your time and your expertise. I appreciate it. Yes, thank you. The wife for Joey Russell, the brother of Elizabeth Ciders, posted on Facebook that if the allegations about Elizabeth are proven true, that they are basically done with Elizabeth, that you cannot harm children. And the attorney for Gary Sider Sr. issued a statement saying, what we do know is that the original complaint filed against Mr. Sider Sr. charged him with 17 felonies of the second degree. The amended complaint filed two days later listed 16 felonies of the second degree, and the indictment just handed down by the grand jury in a process where the defense has no

ability to participate or present evidence whatsoever handed down only 10 felonies of the lesser third degree and six misdemeanor counts. It is certainly interesting that over a span of a month and a half, the number and severity of the charges against Mr. Sider Sr. has already continued to decrease significantly with the state already admitting that further investigation continues to be necessary and ongoing and the defense's investigation still yet to truly begin in earnest. And we're going to continue to follow this case and bring you the latest information as soon as we get it. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.