THE FAMILY FROM OHIO’S HOUSE OF HORR0RS WAS SPOTTED AT A DOLLAR GENERAL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT… AND WHAT THEY WERE THERE TO BUY IS NOW RAISING CHIL-LING QUESTIONS

Sixteen children were rescued from an Ohio home after years of alleged extreme neglect, with Dollar General employees recalling late-night visits from the family to buy essentials.

Police tape surrounds a home and debris is seen on the front lawn, where authorities say they removed 16 children and arrested four adults in Hamden, Ohio, Wednesday, July 1, 2026(Image: WSYX ABC 6)

More details continue to emerge surrounding what many are calling the Ohio House of Horrors.

On June 30, 16 children were rescued from a crumbling house in Hamden, Ohio, where they were “kept in worse conditions than livestock,” according to authorities. Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson said the children ranged from 18 months to 18 years old and “looked like feral animals.” Four adults, Gary Siders Jr., Gary Siders Sr., Christina Siders, and Elizabeth Siders, are now facing criminal charges. They have all pleaded not guilty to child endangerment charges.

Reporters from WBNS 10 interviewed Dollar General staff who had encountered members of the Siders family. According to the employees, the family usually shopped late at night to buy chips and diapers. They also sometimes bought water, vegetable oil, and sometimes sugar.

The workers claim that they sometimes didn’t have the funds to pay and showed signs of poor hygiene, though they noted this was not unusual given the area’s poverty.

Elizabeth Siders mugshot at Ohio Regional Jail on Wednesday, July 1, 2026(Image: Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail)

One employee at the Dollar General, who asked not to be identified, told 10TV he regularly saw Siders Jr. and Elizabeth shopping shortly before the store closed. He also recalled them cycling through multiple payment cards at checkout.

“It makes me question my own actions,” he told 10TV. “Whether or not I should have asked them about it, or seen if they needed anything, or anything I could have done to maybe prevent this in any way, because there were signs.”

Gary Sider Jr. mugshot at Ohio Regional Jail on Wednesday, July 1, 2026(Image: Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail)

Another employee, Ariel Gutierrez, told WSYX ABC 6 that when observing Elizabeth and Gary Jr., “I noticed that he would keep her really close to her and she was not allowed to speak to nobody.”

She added, “When she came in with the kids, the kids were all very thin, very, very thin, ghost white, didn’t have any weight on their bodies, and they had their hair over their face like to block out, you know, the outside world, to not see them.”

Police tape surrounds the home where authorities say they removed 16 children and arrested four adults in Hamden, Ohio(Image: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

The Vinton County Sheriff, Ryan Cain, said he witnessed a “high presence” of bacterial and human feces when he and his team collected evidence from the house. He claimed that the children “were literally about to fall through the floor.”

“Livestock has been kept in better conditions than the children,” he said. “I believe it was typical that even law enforcement has experience with homes in a similar fashion. The children were kept in a 12×12 area in what seems like the last four years.”

During an interview with WBNS 10TV, Elizabeth’s attorney, Tommy Stolly, expressed disagreement with investigators who characterized the household conditions as “pure evil.”

Following a meeting with Elizabeth on Thursday, Stolly relayed that she and Gary Siders Jr. “always wanted a big family” and claimed that all 16 of their children were delivered in hospitals. He also challenged the allegations that the children were restricted to a single 12-by-12-foot room, stating that he has seen no evidence supporting that allegation.

Stolly also claimed that the older children did own cell phones, used social media, and shared “inside jokes,” suggesting they were not completely isolated from the outside world as has been reported.

Gary Siders Sr. and Christina Siders are also facing child endangerment charges(Image: undefined)

Investigators believe the case involves “prolonged and extreme interfamilial neglect and 𝘢bu𝘴e.”