Ohio House of Horrors Mom's Attorney Says She ‘Doesn't Come Across as Evil'
The attorney representing Ohio mother Elizabeth Siders, who was accused of child endangerment after her 16 children were allegedly found living in squalid conditions, has insisted his client does not "come across as evil."
Us previously reported that Siders, 33, was arrested June 30 on child endangerment charges alongside her husband, Gary Siders Jr., and his parents, Gary Siders and Christina Siders.
Each adult was charged with 16 counts of child endangerment and they have all pleaded not guilty. Their bonds were initially set at $300,000 each, though Vinton County Prosecutor William Archer said that Gary, 73, was hospitalized and would likely be released on his own recognizance so he could receive treatment.
Elizabeth's attorney, Tommy Stolly, appeared on the Thursday, July 9, episode of NewsNation's CUOMO and insisted she "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," Stolly, who has met Elizabeth three times in person, said.
After he claimed that the case has been "absolutely sensationalized by the media," Stolly told host Chris Cuomo that the public doesn't want to view Elizabeth in the way he has gotten to know her.
"That does not jive with the prosecutor's narrative. It doesn't jive with the attorney general's narrative," he said. "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."
At the time of the arrests, authorities said that the children were confined to a small room that contained human feces. None of the children were enrolled in school and the oldest child, an 18-year-old whom authorities believe has developmental disabilities, is not able to spell her own name.
Stolly, who has not seen any of the children and has not been informed of their conditions, also defended how he will represent Elizabeth despite not being aware of what the children have gone through.
"I've been able to meet with my client. I've spoken to Elizabeth. I'm a criminal defense attorney," he said. "I sit across from people in the jail all the time. I can get a sense of what someone is thinking, what someone is feeling."
He continued, "It is very clear that Elizabeth Siders cares about these kids. In the hours and hours that I sat there in the jail, she keeps directing the conversation back to, ‘Are the kids OK?' She's been receiving care packages in the jail, Chris, and today, she tried to give me some of the items from her care package to give to the kids."
The Siders family has reportedly moved around southern Ohio over the past two decades, and investigators said they believe they live a nomadic lifestyle to avoid having medical or governmental paper trails.
Following the arrests, Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson described the conditions of the family's home as "deplorable" during a news conference on Tuesday, July 7.
"Conditions you cannot even imagine people being in, let alone children being in," he said. "Their medical condition was so severe that the number one concern of our law enforcement who were there at the scene was getting them medical treatment, getting them to safety, to the point where literally their lives were in danger at the time."
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This story was originally published July 10, 2026 at 1:49 PM.