2026年9月9日 / 美国东部时间晚上7:40 / 哥伦比亚广播公司/美联社
6月底，俄亥俄州南部农村一处住宅内发现16名孙辈生活在肮脏环境中，涉事男子于周三被认定无受审精神能力。
文顿县法官采纳了针对老加里·赛德斯的评估报告结果，文顿县检察官威廉·阿奇尔未对该结果提出异议。
现年73岁的赛德斯坐着轮椅出庭。其辩护律师多里安·鲍姆在庭审结束后表示，赛德斯的心理健康状况多年来持续恶化，且“无法恢复”。
“我们所有人都不意外，他最终被认定不具备受审能力，”鲍姆说道。“他无法完全理解或认清当前状况。”
赛德斯被控16项危害儿童罪，涉案儿童于6月30日在哈姆登的一处住宅中被救出，该住宅位于哥伦布以南约80英里处。
赛德斯的妻子克里斯蒂娜·赛德斯、儿子小加里·赛德斯以及儿媳伊丽莎白·赛德斯（孩子们的母亲）均已提出无罪抗辩。
当局是在执行一起无关调查的搜查令时，于6月30日发现这些孩子的。调查人员表示，孩子们大多被限制在住宅内的一个小房间中，生活条件恶劣。孩子们未在校注册入学，该家庭在过去20年间多次搬迁，邻居们称从未见过这些孩子。
警方警戒线环绕着涉事住宅，当局称在此处救出16名儿童并逮捕了四名成年人，摄于2026年7月1日，俄亥俄州哈姆登。卡罗琳·卡斯特/美联社照片
被发现时，孩子们的年龄从18个月到18岁不等，其中一些被描述为“野性未脱”，无法开口说话。当局表示，他们的健康状况各不相同。
“我们大多数牲畜的生活条件都比这些孩子好，”文顿县警长瑞安·凯恩在7月2日的新闻发布会上说道。“现场肯定存在大量细菌和人类粪便，场景令人作呕。”
“他们看起来几乎像野生动物，情况糟透了，”俄亥俄州总检察长安迪·威尔逊当时表示，并补充说，在住宅内发现的18岁女孩连自己的名字都不会拼写。
“我们必须确保孩子们的安全，将他们安置在优质、可靠的康复环境中，同时必须追究那些胆敢对自己家人做出这种事的人的责任，”威尔逊说道。
威尔逊在新闻发布会上还表示，涉案嫌疑人“极其擅长将这些孩子藏起来，不让调查人员发现”。
根据法庭记录， eldest的孩子出生于2008年5月，也就是小加里·赛德斯当时18岁、伊丽莎白当时15岁，在双方父母同意下前往西弗吉尼亚州梅森县法院结婚后的两个月。记录显示，此后她几乎每年都在怀孕。
Ohio man who was living in squalor with his 16 grandchildren declared mentally incompetent to stand trial
September 9, 2026 / 7:40 PM EDT / CBS/AP
A man whose 16 grandchildren were discovered living in squalid conditions at a rural southern Ohio home in late June was found mentally incompetent to stand trial Wednesday.
A judge in Vinton County accepted the findings of an evaluation report for Gary Siders Sr., and Vinton County Prosecutor William Archer did not object to the findings.
The 73-year-old Siders appeared in court in a wheelchair. His attorney, Dorian Baum, said after the hearing that Siders’ mental health has been declining for years and is “not restorable.”
“It’s not really a surprise to any of us that he’s not been found competent at this point,” Baum said. “He doesn’t fully understand or appreciate what’s going on.”
Siders was charged with 16 counts of child endangerment related to the children, who were rescued June 30 from a home in Hamden about 80 miles south of Columbus.
Siders’ wife, Christina Siders; son Gary Siders Jr., and daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Siders, the children’s mother, have pleaded not guilty.
Authorities found the children on June 30 while carrying out a search warrant in an unrelated investigation. Investigators said the children remained mostly confined to a small room in the house under deplorable conditions. The children weren’t enrolled in school, the family moved around over the past two decades, and neighbors said they’d never spotted the kids.
Police tape surrounds a home where authorities say they removed 16 children and arrested four adults in Hamden, Ohio, July 1, 2026. Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo
At the time they were found, the children ranged in age from 18 months to 18 years, with some described as “feral” and unable to speak. Authorities said their medical conditions varied.
“Most of our livestock was kept in better conditions than the children,” Vinton County Sheriff Ryan Cain said in a July 2 news conference. “It was an extremely high presence, I’m sure, of bacterial and human feces; it was just a disgusting scene.”
“They looked like almost feral animals, it was terrible,” Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson said at the time, adding that the 18-year-old who was found in the home was unable to spell her own name.
“We’ve got to make sure the kids are safe, we’ve got to make sure they’re placed in good, solid, therapeutic placements, and we have to hold accountable the people that are willing to do this to their own family,” Wilson said.
Wilson also said in the news conference that the suspects “were pretty adept at keeping these kids out of sight and out of investigators’ eyes.”
The eldest was born in May 2008, two months after Gary Siders Jr., then 18, and Elizabeth, then 15, crossed into West Virginia to marry at the Mason County Courthouse with her parents’ consent, according to court records. She has been pregnant most years since then, the records show.
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