Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Ohio 'House of Horrors': Pregnant Mom's Desperate Plea

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

Elizabeth Siders, 34, appeared in court for an arraignment on 19 counts of child endangering involving allegations of neglect and abuse involving her own children. She also faces charges of sexual battery and unlawful sexual conduct with other victims who were in her care but are not her children. Siders is visibly pregnant with another child and pleaded not guilty to the charges and her attorney has made a futile argument to have her released on bail. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy goes through the latest twist in the case in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest:Fanon Rucker https://www.instagram.com/fanonrucker/CRIME 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.

Elizabeth Siders is back in court with a baby bump. The mother of 16 children is answering to claims she abused and neglected, her own children and sexually abused another who she was caring for as her own. We began this whole journal by saying she doesn't see herself as a victim, but that does not necessarily mean that she's not a victim. I have all of the details. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and this is crime fix. Elizabeth Siders was back in a Vinton County courtroom for the very first time since a grand jury indicted her, not only on 19 counts of child endangering, which was expected.

And as I was the first to tell you, very early on in this case, she is indeed pregnant. More on that shortly. Those child endangering charges, the grand jury indicted Elizabeth on did not come as a surprise, but what was a bit of a shock to so many following the case, the grand jury indicting Elizabeth Siders on charges of sexual battery and unlawful sexual conduct with a minor. The charges came as a surprise as far as Elizabeth Siders is concerned. She's a mother. She's given birth to 18 children, including several sets of twins. One set died in 2022 shortly after they were born. Since Elizabeth was booked into the Southeast Ohio regional jail looking scared, sad and lonely, her legal situation

has become more serious. Back on June 30th, she was facing 16 counts of child endangering related to allegations she abused and neglected her 16 children ranging in age from 18 years to 18 months. Those were second-degree felonies. After her children were found in the house on Omer Street, and following some investigation, the charges Elizabeth faces were reduced slightly. She now faces 19 counts of child endangering for her 16 children, but 10 counts are misdemeanors. Seven are felonies of the third degree and two. Two, are felonies of the second degree. And now there are those sexual battery charges involving a family member who is not a child of Elizabeth or Gary Jr.'s. But prosecutors say that Elizabeth and Gary Jr.

were acting in place of this child's parent. The Latin phrase is, in loco parentis. So today, a pregnant Elizabeth Siders walked into a Vinton County courtroom with her attorney by her side. Elizabeth has been pregnant, non-stop. For the last 18 years, she was 15 when she had her first child, and she just turned 34. Tommy Stolley spoke on her behalf as she entered pleas on the child endangering and sex crimes charges. Mr. Stolley, did your time? Did your time? My client had received copies to be indictments. Both the original cases, she did, Your Honor. We would waiving the defects in service to the extent that it says, including the 24-hour rule. We would also waive in normal realities.

We would enter general, please, or not as to each channel in both sets. You have your point in rights? I have you got it. Please support in case number 26 CR, 3-0 5-2, the state we simply ask, the litigation bond that was previously said on the plane, and then 26 CR 0-0-0-7-6, she would ask, again, in the same bond,

we asked for Gary Cyrus Jr. Turn and 15,000, I was actually sure we're on under the court standard terms of conditions, including to special conditions, one, and then she is able to close the bond at J.GPS at her expense, and then she had a good contact with Gary Cyrus Jr. And the victim in the Senate. Judge Rogers continued the bail set from the original. child endangering charge over the objection of Elizabeth's lawyer Tommy Stolley. We believe that that bond is due both cases. At this time, we do believe that the bond of the

original set in the five two cases appropriate as two photos. Vinton County prosecutor William Archer argued the bond needed to be raised to a total of $550,000 because the new sex crimes charges involve new victims. facts in the 76 case involved completely different victims and our sex sentences which are in our mind just as serious as the conditions cases that we're dealing with in addition we don't believe that it has a place to know so she's a white risk in that sense in order we already have a confidence in motion pending which i assume council will ask be included in consideration of case, but for all of those reasons you're not attached on school, it's one of those

really in these cases. So Elizabeth Siders will have to post $550,000 to get out of jail as she awaits trial, and we know she can't post the bail. Vinton County is seeking permanent custody of her children, meaning she will likely never see them again, and the county will also seek permanent custody of the child she is carrying, and despite my telling you weeks ago that she was pregnant and you now seeing it with your own eyes, her lawyer doesn't want to talk about it. Is she pregnant? Can't address that at this time. Tommy Stolley said that Elizabeth Snyders is concerned about her 16 children. Elizabeth's concern continues for her children. She asks about them. She asks about them by name. She has specific concerns regarding each child. You know,

these are something that are very natural for a mother to have. She's got concerns for her kids. She wants to, for example, there's children who have birthdays coming up. She wants to get messages to her kids. Obviously, she's restricted in many degrees to what she can do, but she's thinking about these things. Stali has also requested a mental competency exam for Elizabeth Siders, but those results are not back yet. The evaluation will also include an evaluation about whether Elizabeth Siders was insane. At the time, the crimes alleged against her were committed. Some of the things that we're looking at are part of the same reasons that I raise competency concerns.

So we have an individual in Elizabeth who was married at age 15, who has essentially been pregnant for the better part of two decades, who has never fully gone through any postpartum period, who has not been receiving regular medical care that would be appropriate for someone who has had 16, 18 children. So I have concerns about what effects those have had on her, what affected has had on her being married at such a young age, being contained within the environment of the Cider's household, and essentially not knowing any life outside of that. So we began this whole journey by saying she doesn't see herself as a victim, but that does not necessarily mean that she's not a victim. And it doesn't necessarily mean that there are not layers to be peeled back from this, especially as she spends time outside of the home, outside of the purview of this family that she has been with, contained with for the better part of two decades. So yeah, the short answer is yes. If you love digging into the details of crime cases as much as I do, you have to start using the Law and Crime Plus app.

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Get your first three months of Law and Crime Plus for just $2.99 a month. That is 50% off the regular monthly price. All right. So let's talk about what happened in court during Elizabeth Sider's arraignment. I want to bring in Phelan Rucker. He is a former judge, former prosecutor, now a defense attorney with the Cochran law firm in Cincinnati, Ohio. He's done it all. So Phanan, thank you so much for coming back on. Thanks for having me on Internet. Your thoughts on the arraignment today, we have Elizabeth

Siders appearing in court with her lawyer, and he enters not guilty pleas on her behalf, which is to be expected. That's right. You know, there's very rare occasions when people are charged with serious felony charges, which these definitely are, that they accept a plea of guilty or no contest at arraignment. It just doesn't happen. You want to try to make deals. You want to see what the state has by way of presenting discovery. You want to file whatever motions you can. So it was a pretty normal, pretty benign arraignment for purposes of ensuring that she understands what she's charged with and to take a second look at the bond that has been placed on her as a condition of her release. The prosecutor basically says that,

that she's a flight risk, that she, you know, doesn't have anywhere to go. So she shouldn't be released on bail. What are your thoughts on that? Because, you know, her attorney would say, well, no, she's not a flight risk, but this is somebody who has a documented history of taking off with her children at when children's services comes looking for them. Yeah, you know, bond and bail considerations for judges and the independence that we, and I still say we because I did that for more of my career than anything else.

The considerations that we are supposed to use and making decisions, there are best estimates of what is needed to ensure that person of parents. And I have a philosophy. The best predictor of future conduct is past behavior. So if someone has absconded or has taken off or has done things prior to today to keep from being caught or taken off, well, I'm not going to say I know for sure that my crystal ball says that's what they're going to do again, but I'm certainly going to look at my philosophy and say, if I have to predict the possibility of what you're going to do,

I'm going to look at what you already did. And here, her past behavior of leaving the jurisdiction, even if it was with her husband, even if it was with her in-laws, and she was an unwilling participant, which I don't know if she's saying, but it's enough to. raise the flag of the judicial officer to say, I'm going to keep this bond in such a place that she would be less inclined to leave the jurisdiction if somehow she's able to come up with this money. You know, Tommy Stully brought up some interesting things. And maybe we're seeing where this case is going to go.

He's already having Elizabeth evaluated for competency and a potential insanity defense. And so those are affirmative defenses where you basically are saying, yeah, I did it. I committed the crime, but that I'm not legally responsible. And here are the reasons. Those results are not yet back in. However, he did bring up in his comments after court that this is his client who's essentially been pregnant nonstop for 18 years. And despite his denial or his unwillingness to confirm or deny her pregnancy, we can see quite clearly she's pregnant. You know, he says she's never had like an appropriate potential postpartum period to recover from a pregnancy because she's been constantly pregnant. So that is an interesting point he's bringing up. Could we be seeing

where he's going to go with this case, that this is a woman who is somehow almost like addicted to being pregnant? Novel idea. But, you know, what we've been seeing with a couple of actually nationally attended trials recently or nationally attended cases that involve mothers and postpartum and medications. It seems that right now, whether it happens more frequently than we're aware of, or it's happening more frequently now because of the attention that was given to some other cases where that was raised as an issue, I would not be surprised if a new novel theory that this attorney is raising is not only that my client at the time that these offenses happened was suffering from a bout or from the long-term impacts of having the pregnancies and the

mental effect that had on him, but that she does have some type of addiction to that condition and the postpartum is a permanent condition that she can't escape from, including the mental degradating impact of being in that position. And I wouldn't also be surprised if at some point her or her lawyer raised the idea that she was an unwilling victim of this family and was being used, not being the perpetrator of these offenses. I wouldn't be surprised to hear something like that or that defense specifically. Yeah, and that's where I wonder if it's going in that direction as well.

that, you know, this was somebody who was 15 when she got married. You're a kid. Even if you're pregnant and biologically, you can conceive a child. It doesn't mean that you're not still a child in your mind. And my God, look at her. Like, I look at her in court. In her face, she still looks like a child in some ways. Now let's move on to something incredibly serious here, though. We are talking about Elizabeth Siders, a mother of 18 children, two of them, of course, were a set of twins who died shortly after birth. Let's talk about this part of it. She is accused, along with her husband, Gary Siders, of sexually abusing, sexually battering a minor who was in their care, you know, acting in loco parentis to this child. So that is very very, very, very, very, you know,

startling and stunning. When you look at her and you see that that is what she's accused of doing, we don't know any of the fine details of this abuse other than it's alleged to have occurred between January of 2022 and September of 2022. She has pleaded not guilty to those charges, but she's essentially being accused of being a sexual predator along with her husband. That's right. And the idea that it was a a, a mind, that they had some contact with in their home. But you have to believe with the number of victims that we've already identified that were their children, that if there were others that into the home that were of like age or of like vulnerable circumstances,

that if they were left alone with them, I don't know who would have left them alone with them, you know, understanding what the conditions were at that home. But it's not a leap, a great leap, to have. have suspicions that while they were living in these conditions and subjecting their own children to what they were going through, that some other children wouldn't also have been exposed or victimized by individuals who were committing crimes against their own children who were around the same age. It's not a leap to believe that.

Obviously, we don't know the facts, but I can understand why there would be some connection made in these allegations from four years ago that something else. was going on other than just with their own children. And it's really startling and really stunning. And I kind of think to myself, the in loco parentis part of this, it makes you wonder, my God, yeah, what was going on that a child to be in a home with so many other children? And if the home was as filthy as the other home on Omer Street was and the other house in Gallia County, my God, what on earth was happening? Who would put their child with these people and let them care for the child? I mean, yikes.

Yikes. So what we've been seeing in this case are the various bouts of not guilty by reason of insanity, please. And we're seeing incompetency questions being raised at the time that these people were being arraigned. So I don't know if it's, you know, I don't know if there's something in the water or something in the blood. but there could be a consistency of some type of mental incapacity that's being alleged that would have led some of these things to occur, either by individuals in the home, individuals outside of the home, who they were connected to somehow, and that there was a continuity by all of these folks of some type of mental instability or mental lapses that made

the judgment that we all hope to exercise in a good and decent and reasonable way was something that escaped them because of their mental capacity or something. Well, we're going to wait and see where this case goes and hopefully we find out whether it's something in the water or something in the blood or just something up here. Phelan Rucker, thank you so much for your time and your expertise. Appreciate it. Thank you. So right now, Elizabeth Siders has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges she faces.

She remains in jail on a $550,000 bond. And that competency evaluation, it is still pending. so we're going to keep a close eye on this case and let you know what happens. That's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanet Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.