The Ohio House of Horrors mother has requested to be reunited with her 16 children after she and her family members were charged with child endangerment.
Elizabeth Siders has been charged with 16 counts of second-degree child endangerment alongside her husband, Gary Siders, Jr., and his parents, Gary Siders Sr. and Christina Siders.
While Elizabeth, 33, is being detained on a $300,000 bond, her attorney, J. Thomas Stolly, has requested that she be allowed to leave the jail under certain conditions and argued she’s not a threat due to her lack of a criminal history.
“Through conversations with Counsel, the Defendant maintains that her principal desire (is) to reunite with her children; she understands that reunification of any sort is an impossibility if she does not appear before this Court,” a court filing obtained by WOWK 13 stated.
Stolly went on to argue in the filing that Elizabeth would not pose a threat to her children after they’ve been removed from her care. A judge has not yet ruled on the request.
Us previously reported that Elizabeth was arrested on June 30 on child endangerment charges alongside her husband, Gary Jr., 36, Gary Sr., 73, and Christina, 66.
Each defendant was charged with 16 counts of child endangerment and they have all entered not guilty pleas. All of their bonds were initially set at $300,000 each. Gary Sr. was released from jail on July 8 after he was hospitalized for health issues.
When the adult family members were arrested, authorities found the children confined to a small room that contained human feces. None of the children were enrolled in school, while the oldest child – who authorities believe has developmental disabilities – is not able to spell her own name.
Stolly previously appeared on the July 9 episode of NewsNation’s CUOMO, where he insisted Elizabeth “does not come across as pure evil” despite the media’s portrayal of her.
“The person that I met comes across as a mother who has been separated from her children, who is exhausted and who misses her children and is asking me constantly what she needs to do to see her children again, what she needs to do to ultimately be reunited with her children,” he said at the time.
After he claimed that the case had been “absolutely sensationalized by the media,” Stolly told host Chris Cuomo that the public wasn’t open to getting to know the real Elizabeth.
“That does not jive with the prosecutor’s narrative. It doesn’t jive with the attorney general’s narrative,” he continued. “And I think because of that language that was used so early on in this case, we are sitting here now having to defend that on television and in the media instead of in a court of law.”
