Ohio ‘House of Horrors’: Is Mom ‘Insane’?

And you have to ask yourself, was Elizabeth groomed? Was she isolated? Was she controlled? The attorney for the mother of 16 children removed from a so-called house of horrors is questioning her mental health. Is Elizabeth Siders insane? Is she a victim of abuse herself or a perpetrator? Plus, we have an update on Gary Siders Jr. from his lawyer as questions swirl about images from inside the home circulating online. We’re digging into all of it. I’m Ann Shat Levy and this is Crime Fix.

Elizabeth Siders has been married since she was a teenager. She was just a child, 15 years old, and she gave birth to her first child that same year. And really, she hasn’t stopped giving birth since 2008. She hasn’t had a break. She’s given birth to 18 children since 2008. A set of conjoined twins died the same day they were born back in 2022. Now, Elizabeth, who was booked into jail on June 30th on 16 counts of child endangering along with her mother-in-law Christina Siders and her husband Gary Siders Jr. and his father Gary Sr. are in legal trouble. The child endangering charges are second-degree felonies and carry the possibility of major prison time if they are convicted. All of the Siders family members have pleaded not guilty. Now, giving birth to 18 children over 18 years is no small feat. A lot of people might want a big family, but 18 kids? The decision to do that might lead you to question someone’s sanity or at least what’s going on in their mind.
And the attorney representing Elizabeth Siders has reached that point. He’s requesting a competency evaluation for his client. This comes after mental competency exams were requested and granted for Elizabeth’s husband Gary Jr. and her in-laws, Gary Sr. and Christina. But, the request for an evaluation comes with an added layer for Elizabeth. This is not just about competency, it’s also about possibly laying the groundwork for an insanity defense.
Attorney Tommy Stolly wrote, “Now comes counsel for the defendant, who hereby respectfully moves the court for an order that a formal evaluation be conducted in order to determine whether the defendant is competent at this time to stand trial to the offenses as charged herein. Alternatively, if the defendant is found to be competent, counsel hereby simultaneously requests that the defendant undergo an evaluation to determine if she is not guilty by reason of insanity because she was suffering from a condition which would produce legal insanity at the time of the alleged offenses. Defense counsel makes this motion in good faith to determine defendant’s mental condition at the time of the offenses charged and whether defendant is competent to stand trial on the offenses charged.”
Stolly said, “He’s observed things in his meetings with Elizabeth Sellers that concern him.”
Stolly wrote, “Counsel is prepared to provide a more detailed accounting of his concerns and the specific conduct giving rise to the concerns directly to the court and eventually to the evaluating medical professionals.”
So, Stolly is signaling that he would like to share the information with the judge and not the public. But, he also says he’s still in the dark about much of the case.
Stolly continued, “As of the filing of this motion, the defendant has not been indicted and therefore, counsel does not have all of the facts, evidence, or circumstances of this case or the defendant’s subsequent arrest. However, in the interim, counsel has met with the defendant on numerous occasions and for extended periods. During these interactions, counsel has been able to observe the defendant’s demeanor, conduct, and comprehension. These interactions lead counsel to believe that the defendant may be suffering from significant mental health issues and that competency may be an issue and a clear impediment to the defendant’s ability to assist in her own defense.”
While Elizabeth Siders has not been evaluated by the forensic examiners from District 9, the court-appointed agency conducting the competency evaluations, Stahly says he believes Elizabeth is mentally ill.
He wrote, “At this time, counsel believes that the defendant’s significant mental health issues would not only affect whether she is competent to stand trial, but would also have affected her ability to understand the wrongfulness of her conduct at the time of the alleged offenses, such that the defendant would not have fully understood the consequences of her actions at the time of the alleged offenses, should such actions have actually constituted criminal conduct.”
All of this comes after Elizabeth Siders’ brother, Jeremy Russell, posted on Facebook about Gary Sr., Christina, and Gary Jr. asking for those competency evaluations.
Jeremy Russell wrote, “I don’t think my sister would play dumb. The rest of the family playing goofy. My sister believed she was in good hands. She thought she was doing the right thing due to them. Them people I have nothing good to say about. Playing goofy, collecting welfare. The mother coached my sister to stay away. They have my sister so brainwashed. The mother got the welfare at the end of the year. Buying cars, posting on Facebook. That’s what they just did to my sister.”
Now, what Jeremy Russell means by the mother got the welfare at the end of the year isn’t clear. The county prosecutor said previously he was only aware of Gary Sr. and Christina receiving government benefits, but this isn’t the first time that Jeremy has posted about his sister. Back on July 5th, Jeremy posted, “Got a lot of Facebook investigators. LOL. You’re in for a ride. I’ve been telling you all. My remorse, I don’t care. I really don’t. That’s sad. I tried many times. Ask my ex, she knows. I was the one harassing. I love my sister. However, everyone knew about it. I told everyone. Welfare supporters to the maximum. So, state knows something. I don’t get it. Just leave me alone.”
And before that, Jeremy Russell posted on the day of the arrests.
Jeremy wrote, “My sister just wrapped her life up due to indoctrination. It is 100% real. 20 kids and younger than me. The math equals immature piece of, you know what, man involved. I met this dude couple of months ago. Shook my hand like a baby would. Super soft hands. Definitely never worked a day in his life. I should have took him out that night. I was thinking about it, but my sister, I was happy to see. Been 15 years. You lost touch with your family, followed another. Look what happened.”
Jeremy Russell also defended his parents. Their allowing Elizabeth to marry at the age of 15 has been questioned endlessly. Jeremy said his parents are good, hard-working people.
In the background of all of this are questions surrounding images and videos posted online that claim to be from inside the Siders’ home on Omer Street. The images have been circulating for weeks. Law enforcement did not release them, and the prosecutor has said the people who took them could be prosecuted for trespassing. We’ve obtained images from inside the home that match the images posted on TikTok. Law enforcement did not release these, and Law&Crime did not take these photos. They were shared with us. They show a kitchen and what appears to be a bedroom area with a dirty mattress and writing on the wall that states, “God protect him.”
All of this makes you wonder, what was going on in that house? The lawyers for Elizabeth and Gary Seniors say it shows extreme poverty. Prosecutors say the Siders were hiding the children and causing them serious physical harm. We have so many questions when it comes to this case. How are the children doing? And the question at hand was Elizabeth Siders a victim? Is she a perpetrator or is she both? Is that even possible? To really dig into this question about whether Elizabeth Siders could be a victim and both a perpetrator, I want to bring in Dr. Daniel Bober. He’s a forensic psychiatrist and he’s been joining me to offer some brilliant commentary on this case. Dr. Bober, thank you so much for coming back on.
“Thank you so much.”
“Dr. Bober, there’s been a lot of talk about Elizabeth Siders potentially being a victim here. She was 15 years old when she was married. She was 7 months pregnant it appears at the time that she was married, gave birth 2 months after she was married in 2008 and then we know what happened after that, all these other pregnancies. Is it Is it possible that Elizabeth Siders is both a victim and somebody who is guilty of child endangerment?”
“So, it’s a very interesting question. I think this case, more than a lot of the others, really shows the interface between mental health and law. And it really demonstrates how when you take the same set of facts, whether you’re the prosecution or the defense, you can tell a very different story. And as you pointed out in the beginning, here we have Elizabeth who marries Gary, herself a child, 15 years old goes through 18 pregnancies. I think she lost two that were conjoined twins.”
“Mhm.”
“And you have to ask yourself, was Elizabeth groomed? Was she isolated? Was she controlled? Was the activities of the family dictated by her husband and the in-laws? She may have been trapped in an environment in what we call coercive control where she was subject to manipulation, uh isolation, and didn’t really have anyone to turn to. And when I said how you can take the same set of facts and tell a very different story, the prosecution would say, ‘Hey, she could have left anytime she wanted to. She could have asked for help.’ But we know uh there is a well-known psychological phenomenon called battered woman syndrome, uh which is not an official diagnosis in the DSM, and obviously I have not examined her personally, but in this particular syndrome, we can see the effects of learned helplessness, believing that there’s no way out, trauma bonding, where you become psychologically dependent on your abuser, and a situation where you’re hypervigilant, you’re always looking for a threats in the environment, and you don’t really feel like you can leave. And this is why a lot of people in the public will say, ‘Well, why didn’t you just leave?’ Well, this is the reason. So, it will ultimately come down to, I believe, a battle of the experts in this case uh to show that Elizabeth may not have had the psychological mechanisms or abilities to leave this relationship, uh and may have had less culpability than the prosecution may believe.”
“We have a lot of nuggets and tidbits coming in, you know, little bits and pieces of information um coming in from her brother, who’s been posting on Facebook, um and then her lawyer, her lawyer Tommy Stolly has said publicly that she does not consider herself a victim. But her brother has been posting on Facebook that things of the like she was indoctrinated. She went with another family. Um you know, one of her other brothers uh said that as children, he and Elizabeth were badly beaten and abused. He said this on a Tik Tok live, and that he suggested she got pregnant to get out of the house, which we we’ve That’s happened many times in the past with other people. All of these little tidbits we’re getting in there even with these little nuggets, there’s still so much we don’t know. Is it possible that she was indoctrinated or or what have you, but also made this choice? It’s like a the strange dichotomy. Also made this choice to to go with this family.”
“Right. So, if we look at her as a perpetrator, what we see is is that no matter what she was going through, she had a fundamental duty to care for her children and not allow 16 children to live in a 12 by foot 12 room in human waste. But, if we see her as a victim, then we say but due to her intense abuse, control, manipulation that as you say, she was indoctrinated. So, maybe the choice wasn’t completely hers. If they’re going to try to use battered woman syndrome, they’re going to need to link it up with expert testimony. And in the state of Ohio, if they’re going for the insanity defense they’re going need to they’re going to need to show that because of a mental illness or mental defect that she did not appreciate the wrongfulness of her actions. And in that situation the the obligation is on the defense to prove it by a preponderance of the evidence. So, it’s going to be I think a high bar if they’re going for the insanity defense, which is usually associated by the way with use of force and not child neglect or endangerment.”
“Mhm. Yeah, and we we still don’t know the nature. We know that there that neglect certainly is a a piece of this puzzle and an allegation in this case. But, whether there was other types whether there was other type of abuse going on, emotional, physical, heaven forbid sexual abuse. We we still don’t”
“No documented evidence of that so far, yeah.”
“Yeah, we don’t have any evidence of that so far and and we don’t know what the investigation has uncovered. We have no clue. Dr. Bober, we have talked about how the other side’s family members have filed these requests for competency evaluations and now Elizabeth’s lawyer has filed the same request with an added layer. Uh he’s he’s saying if she’s not competent or if she is competent, rather, uh if they find her competent uh we want a an an insanity evaluation. So, are you surprised it took this long for Tommy Stalley to file this motion requesting a competency evaluation?”
“I am a little bit surprised given her background. Uh again, some of the factors we had spoken about before, her age when she got married, the fact that uh she was essentially in this household for two decades, the conditions for which the kids were living in. Uh and uh and you know, if we look at the motion, the attorney’s own direct observations of her behavior and his concerns about the fact that she might be suffering from mental illness. So, I think he did so with good reason and I am surprised it took this long.”
“Yeah, and it’s just it seems like one person did it and then somebody else did it and then somebody else did it and now here comes Elizabeth. Really one of the key witnesses in this because she’s the mother of the children. Uh and she’s a defendant as well. Um you know, he’s finally coming around and requesting this. Uh what what could he potentially be seeing um that raises his concern? Do you think maybe she’s just like well, this he has said in the past that she doesn’t consider herself a victim. I wonder if she’s just like, ‘What do you mean? What’s wrong? What’s wrong with what we’re doing?’ And do you think it could be something to that effect? And and she’s just totally okay with the eight having 18 kids?”
“It could be something obvious like she’s hallucinating, she’s talking to herself, she’s disorganized, she’s confused, or it could be something that’s more subtle that after speaking to her he sees that she’s totally disconnected from reality. So, whatever it is, there’s also a tactical side to all this as well, and I think that’s why he’s moving forward.”
“Let’s say Elizabeth is found competent, but they still find mental illness in the competency evaluation. You know, just because you’re mentally ill doesn’t mean that you’re not criminally liable.”
“100% you can be mentally ill and you can still be competent and you can be mentally ill and you can still be criminally responsible. So, mental illness per se does not mean that you’re incompetent or not guilty by reason of insanity. In Ohio, to be found not guilty by reason of insanity you need to have a mental illness or defect and because of that mental illness or defect you were not able to appreciate the wrongfulness of your conduct.”
“The judge has told the attorneys and the District 9 examiners, that’s what they call them that she wants these evaluations conducted and she wants it done within 30 days, she wants the report, she wants to know, you know, whether these people are deemed competent, all of this stuff. Is that fairly common that you the judge would say 30 days, I want this on my desk and file it and and there it is.”
“Yeah, that’s a pretty common time frame and then if she’s found incompetent and then we start getting into incompetent but restorable or incompetent but not restorable, then that gets into a whole host of other issues. Will she be sent to a hospital, to some other facility where they will try to restore her competency and given the seriousness of these charges, it could be a year or more for them to determine for that it could be a year or more for them to determine that she’s not restorable, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens.”
“Mhm. Um you know, restoring competency, does does that just involve treatment, therapy, medication, or a combination of all of them?”
“So, medication, uh psychotherapy, very often psychoeducation, meaning educating the defendant or the client about the court process, seeing if they’re able to work with their attorney, if they’re able to control their impulses in the courtroom, uh basically teaching them about the court process, and seeing if they retain the information, and and they’re able to work towards those legal objectives.”
“Attorney Stahli wrote in his motion uh that he was willing to write directly to the court uh about what he has observed. Obviously, this is something private that he doesn’t want uh out there”
“Prosecution to know, right?”
“He’s saying that. He’s essentially saying, ‘I’ll I’ll give it to you, judge, but I’m not filing it publicly, so everybody can read it.'”
“Yeah, I I thought that was interesting. Uh I think that happened with uh the husband as well, where they were playing their cards very close to the vest. So, you know, it’s not unusual for there to be an emphasis on privacy because you don’t want obviously your private psychiatric records or history out there uh in the public record, but it seems like there’s more to it. That there must be something tactical about it. There’s There must be something strategic uh in his defense strategy.”
“Elizabeth, you know, as we mentioned, was a child herself uh when she got married and when she gave birth to her first child, and then she had all of these subsequent pregnancies. You know, 2008, that’s when she got married. Then we have this very odd Facebook post from Geary Jr. in 2014. A- and it it it suggests potentially that he was trying to control her. He stated that hey, this is something the effect of this is Elizabeth. If you are putting pictures of me on social media, take them all down. I I think we can infer I mean you and I have been around long enough to know that potentially Elizabeth was not using her husband’s Facebook and saying this is Elizabeth, take all the pictures of me down. Don’t share them anyway. What does that tell you?”
“Yeah, it tells me that there was a high degree of control over her. I mean think about this. What it would take to hide these kids, to fly under the radar for this long. Is it something that Elizabeth did by herself? Hard to believe. It seems like it was more of a system that was designed by the husband and the in-laws. They had it down to a routine. So I find it hard to believe that she herself was the sole motivation behind these activities.”
“Why would you know I’m I’m trying to figure out why would somebody want to keep children isolated like that? We know from the records that the six older children were enrolled in school at some point in time back in like the 2020 you know realm or whatever. Why would you want to keep kids isolated? I mean kids go to school, they play with people. I I’m not understanding the logic here and and we haven’t gotten any information to explain that, but what are your feelings as a forensic psychiatrist about a motivation, a potential motivation for keeping children isolated and as the prosecutor has said hidden from the public.”
“Well, we’ve seen similar cases that could involve the paranoia about government institutions and government control or indoctrination. It could involve a shared delusion about the outside world and being suspicious of their motives and it could just be that they wanted to control these kids that they received some gratification from doing that. So it could be any number of reasons, but again, if there is a psychotic disorder and again, we’ve seen no evidence of that so far that could fall under the category of mental disease or defect.”
“It could, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not criminally liable liable to be charged.”
“she didn’t know it was wrong.”
“In fact, the counter argument to that would be well, but they made attempts to conceal it to fly under the radar. So there’s some consciousness of guilt there that we need to keep this thing under wraps and hide it from society and from the authorities.”
“Let’s say the prosecutor comes to the conclusion in his evaluation of the evidence in consultation with the two special prosecutors he’s appointed. That that Elizabeth in some respect was the victim. Um but still has criminal liability. Um I mean it you still charge her maybe with some with some crimes and pursue those crimes. Um do you make a deal? I mean what what do you think happens”
“So with that decision. So you can make a deal or that psychological evidence could be used as mitigation during sentencing. In other words, this crime occurred. I committed this crime, but due to these factors, due to deep-seated psychological abuse, trauma, control, manipulation, learned helplessness, you know, that I you know, don’t have as much culpability and that can serve as mitigation during sentencing.”
“Another part of this, you know, Elizabeth has said that if through her attorney that she wants to get out of jail on bail and be reunited with her children, but the the county is seeking permanent custody of these children. Uh they’re this they’re not saying this is temporary. They’re saying these are This is permanent. We’re going to seek to get these children um, into foster homes and potentially have them adopted out. That That severs the root the relationship legally.”
“Yeah, as a child and adolescent psychiatrist, I’ve been involved in a lot of these cases and the state is very leery about taking away parental rights completely. You know, we look at obviously the the standard of what is in the best interest of the child. So, when you terminate parental rights, uh, that has to rise to a very high level where you feel like the children are really in imminent danger. Uh, but I have to say, you know, given what we know so far, uh, I don’t think they’re completely unjustified in taking that position.”
“I think it’ll be interesting to see how it that plays out because uh, permanent custody, if the state is taking permanent custody, they will eventually try to find people to adopt those children. That’s how it’s going to work. And that flags to me, Dr. Bober, that what they’re seeing in this investigation is so egregious that there is potentially no going back. Would you agree with that?”
“I think so. So far what we’ve seen, obviously we don’t know everything that they know, but it would seem like that’s the posture that they’re taking for that reason.”
“And what’s so crazy to me about this as well is that somebody registered those kids in school. So, I would have to think that Elizabeth Siders was the one who registered those kids for school. I mean, they were in registered for school. They were truant. They So, somebody tried to get them into school at some point. Does that have any type of mitigating effect?”
“Yeah, it’s actually surprising to me because to me that would put them on the radar more. That would make someone know that they weren’t where they were supposed to be. So, you would almost think that they wouldn’t register them and they would, you know, and I quote, ‘homeschool’ them uh, because they don’t want to be on the radar of authorities uh, or people that could potentially expose what’s going on.”
“Yeah. Well, it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out and how sometime in a jail cell by yourself without interacting with the other family members, what that kind of does. Um, in your experience, does that offer some clarity for people as they’re sitting in a jail cell and they have time to be by themselves and think by themselves?”
“It does, uh, but sometimes it can make it worse because if there is a perverse psychological dependence on some of these other family members, that may cause her to have tremendous anxiety. We may be dealing with someone who you know, is unable to make decisions on her own uh, and is so used to deferring to her husband, to her in-laws, uh, that she may completely fall apart without their support and I use support in quotes.”
“Yeah. It’ll be interesting to see how how it plays out and who was quote unquote in charge uh, when all of the facts reveal themselves. Thank you, Dr. Daniel Bober. I appreciate it.”
“Thank you so much.”
Gary Ciders Sr. is out of the hospital and his attorney, Dorian Baum, he tells me that Sr. was able to be transported to the courthouse to sign his signature bond earlier this week, but Baum says nothing has really changed with the case and he continues to accuse the attorney general of exaggerating when it comes to this case.
Baum told me in a statement, “The Siders family and their extended family have all received threats of violence, including death threats from various corners of the internet for a case that in no way deserved this sort of attention or anger based on the facts as I’ve seen them. As a result of this, I have had to be extremely careful about providing any more details than necessary regarding the specific care and or location of Mr. Siders Sr. Particularly given the fragile health and mental condition of Mr. Siders Sr. Therefore, I am unable to provide you any further information beyond that.”
Now, if you want to read more about this case, download our new app. It’s called Law & Crime Plus. It’s great. Head over to the Siders family case file. We have every document related to the case posted there. And that’s it for this episode of Crime Fix. I’m Andrea Jeanette Leahy. Thanks so much for being with me. I’ll see you back here next time.