Add The New York Post on Google The mother of the 16 “almost feral” children rescued from a feces-filled house of horrors once gave birth to conjoined twin girls who died just hours after birth, newly uncovered state records reveal.
Elizabeth Siders, 33, delivered Bailey Lee and Faith Lee Siders at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, on Nov. 20, 2022, according to state vital statistics records obtained by local news outlet WOWK 13.
The girls were born at just 24 weeks’ gestation with thoracopagus – the most common form of conjoined twin cases, which occur when the babies’ faces and chests fuse together inside the womb.
The twins died later that same day from natural causes, according to the records.
Their mother and father, Gary Siders Jr., were arrested alongside grandparents Gary Siders Sr. and Christina Siders inside the family’s Vinton County home last Tuesday, after authorities allegedly found the younger couple’s 16 children, ages 1 to 18, living in squalor and isolation inside a cramped 12-by-12 room.
The children were forced to live inside the cramped room littered with human waste for at least the past four years, according to authorities, who have described the grisly scene as “deplorable” and “third-world” – and even said local livestock lived in better conditions than the kids.
The children, who have never been enrolled in school, can barely communicate – and some cannot speak at all, officials said.
The oldest child, 18, is developmentally disabled and unable to even write her name, according to investigators.
The kids were taken to hospitals across Ohio following the rescue. Some were in serious condition, including two who were airlifted to trauma centers and at least one who had to be intubated, according to officials.
On Monday, the children’s horrified uncle revealed that even family members didn’t know how many kids Elizabeth and Gary Siders Jr. had.
Ronnie Fletcher, who’s married to one of the grandparents’ adult daughters, said he and his wife knew the couple had a large family – but believed there were only around 10 children.
They only learned of the staggering 16 kids and the alleged abuse when news of their relatives’ arrests broke, Fletcher told local news outlet WOWK 13 – and said the revelation left the extended family “horrified” and “worried about the kids.”
“If we would have known that it was like that in that home, we would have done something about it – even if it was just to go there and take the kids ourselves or give them money,” he said.
Fletcher also shed light on Elizabeth’s questionable marriage to Gary Jr. in 2008, when she was just 15 years old and he was 18.
“She did not have a very good home life when they got together, and she escaped to Lynn [Christina] and Gary’s house, which…was back then a normal American home,” he said.
The couple’s oldest child, the 18-year-old girl, was reportedly born two months after they tied the knot.
Court records show the other children’s ages as 16, 15, 14, 13, 11, 10, 8, 6, and 5, along with 4-year-old twins, 2-year-old twins and 1-year-old twins.
The four defendants each pleaded not guilty to 16 counts of child endangerment last Wednesday, when a judge set their bail at $300,000 apiece.
They all waived their preliminary hearings scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
If convicted on all charges, each defendant faces a maximum sentence of up to 192 years in prison.
