Sixteen children were rescued after being locked in a single room in Ohio for four years, several international media reported on Wednesday.
The children, who are all from the same family, were found in a dilapidated house in a rural area of the US state. They were in “deplorable conditions”, according to local authorities.
« [C’était] just a disgusting scene,” Vinton County Sheriff Ryan Cain told the media The Guardian.
The children, aged 1 to 18, lived in squalid conditions, surrounded by human excrement, he said. Some of them were even unable to speak; one of them, an 18-year-old girl with a developmental disorder, did not know how to spell her name.
“They looked like almost wild animals. It was terrible,” Andy Wilson, attorney general of Ohio, told the British media.
A dilapidated home in rural Ohio where 16 children were found in deplorable conditions.
Screenshot / CNN
Sheriff Cain said it appeared the children spent most of their time in a room measuring approximately 12 feet by 12 feet (3.6 m by 3.6 m). He did not say how they were kept inside the house, but said authorities did not find any cages in the house.
“Most of our animals were raised in better conditions than children,” the sheriff said.
Seven of the children were transported to hospitals and two were evacuated by helicopter to Level 1 trauma centers. One child was in critical condition Tuesday and had to be intubated, Wilson said.
“Pure evil”
The children’s parents and two grandparents were arrested. They each faced 16 counts of child endangerment.
Vinton County Prosecutor William Archer also emphasized The Guardian that it was not a case of human trafficking, but an “intra-family situation”.
Authorities discovered the children while executing a search warrant as part of another investigation, the Ohio attorney general said.
“We didn’t know there were going to be sixteen kids there,” said Mr. Wilson, who called what he saw in that house “pure evil.”
Gary Siders Jr., Gary Siders Sr., Christina Siders and Elizabeth Siders appeared in court Wednesday. The judge entered “not guilty” pleas on their behalf, with bail set at US$300,000 each.
