Ohio 'House of Horrors': Bombshell Twists Rock Case

0:00So the findings of the Comments and Evaluation are not surprising to me. They're somewhat expected. A major development in the case of the grandfather accused of neglecting his grandchildren, Gary Cider's senior appears in court as concrete answers about his mental state are revealed. Plus an update on the sex crimes case against Gary's senior son-in-law and the hearing kept secret involving senior's grandson. We have all of the new details. I'm Anchonette Levy and this is Crime Fist. From the very beginning of the child endangerment case involving the 16 Cider's children, questions have been raised about the mental state of one of the family members. Now we know what experts think about the mental condition of Gary Cider's senior. Attorneys for all four Cider's family members, Gary Cider's senior, his wife,

1:00Christina Lynn Ciders, their son Gary Cider's junior and his wife Elizabeth Ciders have raised questions about their mental competency. They've all requested evaluations to determine whether they can understand the charges they face and the court proceedings that they're a part of. Competency questions come up in criminal cases from time to time. Well now the results are in for Gary Cider's senior. His attorney was the first to raise this issue back in July. Without not trying to hide the ball here but I think everyone saw Mr. Cider. Yes. And so I don't think it's a surprise that anyone might be concerned about his competence. I mean he obviously understood a person greeting him but again as I noted in my motion, he definitely had some confusion about the process, about what was going on. He had an inability to discuss with any sort of sophistication, the legal process, whatever one's rules were, which again as I've said in here in elsewhere, competency is a bedrock,

2:01it's a bedrock precondition to be able to move forward to any criminal case. And if you don't have that you just simply can't. I'm going to circle back around to what you already asked also. Is he a danger to the community? I would have suggested he's never been a danger to the community and certainly in his present condition he isn't. He is not dangerous what I would consider him to be as a sad and sympathetic character, primarily because of his general level of confusion and both the mental health and physical issues that I was sort of seeing. Gary Sr. is 73 years old. He's the patriarch of the family found living in the house on Omer Street back on June 30th. In fact, Gary Sr. and his wife Christina Lin Ciders were the legal tenants of this home. Christina Ciders attorney has said she was paying the rent. So we're left to assume that Christina and Gary Sr. welcomed their 16 grandchildren and their son and daughter-in-law into the home as guests. The four adults had lived in this home in Galia County with nine of the children back in 2020. In booking footage from the southeast Ohio

3:06regional jail, we could see that Gary Sr. needed help getting around. When the deputies tried to get him out of the sheriff's van, they had to get a wheelchair for him. When it was time to search him at the wall, a standard procedure, Sr. needed help getting to the wall. Then he spent the entire time he was being booked into the jail in the wheelchair. At one point, he crossed his leg, one over the other. At his first court appearance, the next day, Gary Sr. appeared to not understand what was going on. While his physical appearance has now improved slightly, a family member pushed Gary Sr. into the courtroom as he sat in a wheelchair. He looked much healthier after receiving medical care and hopefully decent meals. And the results of the competency evaluation were revealed. Thank you. You're on at this time. We're going to accept the final leave of the state and the principal stipulating to be reports. It was filed by forensic guide diagnostic center,

4:10District 9, reported to the guardate of Mr. Siders, for data on that summer, where it's received the date. But us, you can be dated on July 29, 2026 at the time of that, the court accepts the report. The court accepted the findings of the report that Mr. Siders gave to the guardate of the court. This time, I'm not going to stand trial on our story. And then you ask the court to pass in and maintain the story. Thank you. State position. Thank you, Your Honor. This time, the state would see the relating to the report as well as the findings. We at this point are looking at our options at this point. We would not object to the court in the bottom until we have an opportunity to see what Stephanie can now take next, once the competency and non-stual ability has been found. Thank you. Anything else to many, hon? Your Honourable, I think we'd ask is we can file some of the written motion necessary to make

5:13the wrong motion that this report to be kept on our CO. We know that's a simple role. Standard, this court is a role to such motion or such a evaluation of our CO. We know that's the court's specific identity and the effect. It has been backed to already under-seeing the system. It's in the need of medical action. Thank you, Your Honor. That is our customary procedure for anyone who receives the evaluation and signature. Right. So Gary Cider's senior was then wheeled out of court by a caregiver. I think it's pretty self-evident and in my discussion with him as I've spoken about previously, it's clear to me that I would rarely get direct answers to very basic questions. There were concerns about whether or not he had a grasp of what was going on, his memories clearly and issue and all indications from what I've seen both from the evaluations as well. My interaction

6:19as well as my discussion of family members is that there's been a pretty steep decline over years, so it's not really a surprise to any of us that he's not been found confident with this but guess what? Dorian Bounds involvement in these cases is far from over. If you love digging into details of true crime cases as much as I do, you have to download the Law and Crime Plus app. If you haven't checked it out already, here are three reasons you should jump on board today. Number one, you get complete access. Watch the best shows from both Law and Crime and Court TV completely ad-free. Number two, you get the case files, deep dive access to raw trial evidence, including body camera video, 911 calls, crime scene photos, and more. And finally, binge-worthy true crime. Dive into a huge library of true crime series, documentaries and cases whenever you want to. And right now, we have a special offer with my promo code FixFall. That's FixFall. Get your first three months of Law and Crime Plus for just $2.99 a month.

7:23That's 50% off the regular monthly price. All right, so to discuss this major development in the case of Gary Cider's senior, I'd like to bring in his two lawyers, at least his lawyers for now. Dorian Baum and John Getz and Dorian and John, thank you so much for coming back on. Thank you for having us. Appreciate it. Thank you. Dorian, I'll start with you on this one. Your client, Gary Cider's senior, has been deemed incompetent to stand trial. And it sounds like he cannot be restored to competency. So go through this with us. What did the examiner find? So yeah, once again, thanks for having us back on here to appreciate it. And we can't go into everything that the evaluation found because obviously a lot of that's confidential. There's certain specific medical issues that Mr. Cider suffers from. But as, you know, generally speaking,

8:28when a person's found incompetent and not restorable, it basically means that at this point, they don't understand the proceedings that are going on. And there's no way to restore them to the point where they could potentially understand what's going on right now. So it's probably been obvious to most people who've been following this and who watched Mr. Cider's senior at his initial appearance as we've discussed the multiple occasions here and elsewhere. He clearly seemed to be confused, clear to seem to be a person who was not aware of what was going on, was not aware of the questions being asked, was hard of hearing. He's obviously been discharged for some time on our co-existence bond to address his serious medical issues. So all of that's taken into totality. Basically left you with a person who, as I have said, essentially from the beginning, I had very concerns about his competence. His ability to participate in this hearing or any other hearing, the ability to assistance defense, which is a very definition of whether he is competent. And then once he's found to be incompetent, the next step of the evaluation, of course, is to see

9:32if there's anything they can be done for restoration services. Can he go to an impassion facility and can that facility either prescribe a medication or give him some sort of mental health treatment that would allow him to be restored and the evaluation was quite clear and stating that no, this is a person who cannot be. And as such, there's really nothing left for the state to do because we are not allowed to prosecute, forget reason, those are incompetent. So John, is the prosecutor going to just dismiss this case then? What's going to happen? Well, that would be up to Mr. Archer to decide, but basically he has three options in one of these cases, which would be to ask for a second opinion to either just outright dismiss it or to go to the pro-bay court and ask for a civil commitment. And once that civil commitment is filed, or that paperwork is filed, that relieves this court of its jurisdiction and therefore the case gets dismissed. So it's anticipated that it will be dismissed one way or another, but at that point,

10:37or at this point it is Mr. Archer's decision on how to proceed. Dorian, you have done cases with Bill Archer many times in the past. You've said that. So what do you think that Bill Archer is going to do? Have you had discussions with him about this? Well, as John noted, he could ask for a second evaluation, but having stipulated to both the report and the findings that are reported yesterday, that essentially at that point there's no need for a second evaluation because he's already accepted the fact that Mr. Siders is both not competent and not restorable. And once he's stipulated to that fact and when the court found that to be the case, there's really nothing to be done there. So that avenue is gone, which means literally at this point it's either dismiss outright or file for a civil commitment. As we've talked about on several occasions and again, as I've spoken about elsewhere, based on how this whole thing started and how the media even got involved in the first place, when you had a specific office making statements that were quite incendiary and basically brought to the attention of the media, that made it difficult on

11:41everybody such that now Mr. Archer is in a position where he may otherwise have just simply dismissed for expediency, say he probably needs to take a closer look at what is most appropriate in this case. One way or another Mr. Siders seniors already receiving care, we're all aware of that. Everyone's on the same page with that. The question is just whether or not the probate court needs to step in for what it's worth. Our office is on the back channel kind of trying to get a guardianship process started for him, which might make something of a civil commitment moot or unnecessary because once a guardianship is taken place in which someone takes guardianship over him, there's really no need for a civil commitment because someone has already essentially taken that role over. I know that Mr. Siders is receiving that care. Based on my discussion with Attorney Archer, I know he will be diligent with it, but I think his focus is primarily now moving on to the other co-defense. Sure, of course. Right, because he can't be prosecuted. On a human basic level, it's quite sad that Gary Siders

12:45senior was obviously in a home, in really bad shape. Physically, we now know mentally. He was suffering from a serious medical condition that has not been disclosed. We know there's been a lot of chit chat about that on social media, but we don't know his exact condition because you haven't disclosed it to us. But very sad that he may have just been sitting in this house and just deteriorating for God knows how long. Is there any information you've been able to gather a glean about how long he's been in such a condition mentally to where he doesn't really get what's going on and he's just sitting there? Well, again, Jeanette, I mean, you and I last time we were on here talks specifically about this issue and the fact that if he is in fact deemed incompetent, that really should change the narrative around at least Mr. Siders senior. This is an individual who himself may be a victim of being in a home where he doesn't know what's going on. Now, do I know exactly

13:48how long as I said yesterday, I'm not a medical doctor, so I'm not going to try to prognosticate, you know, oh, it was this time or is that time where he's been for this long, but it's clearly been a decline from my understanding with other family members speaking with them. It's been a years-long process where it's been a slow and significant decline, which has more rapidly, there's been a more rapid decline over the last, I would say, probably year to two years. So, how long has he been there? I don't know. I wasn't inside this house on a day-to-day basis. I don't know whether this house always looked like this. I don't know whether this house has gotten worse in certain amount of time, but clearly, Mr. Siders senior was suffering from both significant issues, as you mentioned, medical, you know, excuse me, mental and physical issues for a significant amount of time, and he was in a location where obviously based on his current diminished mental capacity and obvious physical issues, he really wasn't free to leave on his own. He didn't have the capacity either physically or mentally to leave on his own, so now we're left

14:50in a situation that is at least as a pertains to Mr. Siders senior, extremely sad, which is what I've been saying from the very beginning in this case. But there were able-bodied adults in there who could have been providing care for him, and so it appears that he also was neglected and potentially abused. I don't want to say whether he was being specifically abused or specifically neglected again. I wasn't in the home. It's my understanding that there were efforts, whether those were insignificant or whether those were significant, there were efforts to care for him, but bear in mind again. And I know I've mentioned this, I'm not trying to make this an excuse, but perhaps more an explanation, because they clearly are a very poor family with a biomechanc low educational level, low level of general understanding. I'm not sure what their resources were. Could they have done more? I mean, obviously, certainly there were things that could have been done. Certainly from Mr. Siders senior, there could have been additional attention paid to them, both medical attention, physical

15:52and mental health. But we are where we are, and as everyone who probably saw him yesterday, he certainly looks to be in at least better physical condition than he was in the booking photos and at the initial appearance. So it does appear that he is starting to get the treatment he needs, which is obviously a good thing. Yeah, it certainly looks like he's getting better food. I'm sure in whatever the medical treatment is that he's receiving. Let's pivot now, John, to Brandon Henderson. You and Dorian are now representing Brandon Henderson, one of the subjects of what's been labeled investigation one by the Vinton County prosecutor and the Attorney General's office. And he's facing some serious sex crimes charges. So John, are you able to explain to us how you all are able to step off Gary Siders senior's case or at least beyond there for a little bit longer. And then

16:52take on this other case. Sure. So obviously the way it was put in the Attorney General's press release, these are two separate investigations that kind of one led to another, but they are in no way similar crimes that are being alleged. So they are separate enough that there is no conflict there. It's not being alleged that Mr. Henderson is a co-defendant of Mr. Siders senior. So for those reasons and given the limited amount of attorneys that are on the list in Vinton County, our office has been appointed to represent him. Dorian, how can that work? Obviously, these are two very separate investigations. I mean, Brandon Henderson is charged with child endangering, but it's not regarding the 16 children on Omer Street, different addresses, different sets of allegations. So how can you kind of step off one and then jump to the other,

17:54can you go into that a little bit more? Yeah, I mean, it's pretty much exactly as you explained it. So, well done, but basically, you know, as John mentioned, one case specifically involving, not talking about the other charges that Mr. Siders senior's co-defendants may have regarding other individuals, specifically, I know that Elizabeth and Gary Jr. have other charges that are also sexually charged. But Mr. Siders senior was only charged with allegations of endangering children, 16 counts for only the basically condition of the home on Omer Street. Mr. Henderson is charged with crimes having no alleged relation to that house, no alleged relation to anything other than Mr. Henderson is sort of tangentially related to the Siders family just through marriage, having children, etc. But this would be the equivalent of you have an OVI and your uncle has a criminal damaging. I could represent both of you because they have nothing

18:56to do with each other just because your family related. Or even if, you know, the OVI, they followed you home when you were driving drunk and found somebody else allegedly breaking you into someone's home, you know, just because the investigations dovetailer, they sort of have some similarity in time, doesn't mean that they're actually similar in nature. So because of that, we're able to take on the other appointment also not for nothing. I've had to have some discussions with Mr. Henderson directly and specifically brought this up to him and he specifically indicated he did not have any concern about this to not believe there's a conflict and asked us to remain on as his attorney. So unless any specific conflict is raised and I'm not sure who could other than Mr. Henderson, it's in despair that we will continue to represent him. Sure. You haven't received discovery yet. You filed the documents asking for the discovery. But I mean, these are serious charges. He's facing some serious sex crimes charges, also charges of child-indangering related to other children. These are not the 16 CIDERS children. These are serious crimes, Dorian. So what do you have to say

20:02on behalf of your new client? Well, first thing I want to say is you'll recall in some of our other prior discussions. I mentioned specifically how the case that they initially brought in the CIDERS household was not what I conserved to be an unbelievably serious case. It was concerning, obviously, but there were other matters that I was aware of that were sort of also being investigated. This is one of those cases where there are actually fairly significant charges, serious allegations. We've been made aware of these serious allegations. We've had some discussions with the prosecutor about when discovery might be provided to us. But I think it's a bit premature to start talking about whether or not there's any admissions or there's anything of that nature. I have not been made aware of any admissions. In my discussion briefly, Mr. Henderson, it appeared that he denies whatever the allegations are. Again, I haven't seen discovery, so I haven't been able to have a real substantive discussion with him. But generically or generally

21:02speaking, he has denied whatever allegations been made against him. So until we get more information until the prosecutor gives us the discovery, so at least have some of the details that are being alleged. It's hard for me to say one way or another whether the state has a strong case or I think that a weak case, how we expect to proceed, really the next step is reviewing the discovery as it comes in. I've been digging into Brandon Henderson and looking into the case and the allegations. And it appears that he was married for all intents and purposes, not legally, but living as husband and wife with one of the daughters of Gary Sr. and Christina Ciders and they had children together. And it's my understanding that the daughter of Virginia is now in some type of incapacitated state and Brandon is now remarried to another woman. So is all of that true?

22:04What I would say is, I don't know how I would characterize the relationship, but I think you're right. They probably at least held themselves out as a couple. They certainly had children together. It's my understanding that the daughter of the elder Ciders is in some sort of care facility. My understanding and speaking, Mr. Henderson, is that he still has some communication with, if not that facility or not heard directly, some understand that because again, that is the mother of his children. So he is still keeping aware of that. But yes, my understanding is that he has, he is in a different relationship now, which is not terribly unusual and it's also not any any part of this case. That would just be I suppose some superfluous detail. As far as this case goes, obviously, it's really just the allegations. But my understanding is that yes, that is how he's connected to the Ciders family. But you're saying Brandon Henderson, who's pleaded not guilty. He

23:05remains in jail that he denies these sex crimes allegations and allegations of child endangering. Because it sounds like children were discovered in a dollar general sometime in 2025, the fall of 2025. And that's how this investigation unfolded. If that's how the investigation unfolded, you may know more about than I do at this point. I mean, yes, to be clear, Mr. Henderson to this point, he's pleaded not guilty. He denies the allegations against him. Obviously, as we get discovery and we discuss things with him, it's hard for me to say how things are going to progress from there. But at this point, to date, in my discussion with him, he has denied any of the allegations against him. And that's why he pleaded not guilty. How these allegations came about, again, my understanding is that the investigation sort of relates to the allegations against, I believe, Mr. Ciders Jr. And that's how they sort of, again, dovetail in some way. And that's how they're quasi-connected. But they are

24:06in my understanding entirely separate investigations, entirely separate alleged victims. And so until we get more information, and I don't really want to do guesswork, you know, I don't know. I don't know. Yes, what's going to happen. I'd rather have the actual heart facts in front of me. John, I know that you don't represent Josh Saunders. However, you do practice in Bitten County. Josh Saunders was scheduled for a pretrial in Bitten County on the same day as his grandfather, Gary Ciders Sr. Keeping all these relationships, you know, together is often difficult, but we're doing it. But he was scheduled for a pretrial and the media and the public were not allowed inside for that. Joshua Saunders is pursuing an insanity defense according to paperwork filed by his lawyer. Explain to me how that pretrial process happens in unfolds in Bitten County because I think people in the public and in the media were surprised they weren't allowed in for this pretrial hearing.

25:10Sure. So it's really up to the individual court and could be on a case-to-case basis as to how they proceed with the pretrial. Some courts go on the record for everything and some just have a pretrial conference in chambers. I obviously wasn't present for this hearing, but my guess would be that they held the pretrial conference back in chambers between the attorneys and the judge. So there was no real need or anyone in the courtroom that would be present for anyone to view. So moving forward, you'll be representing Brandon Henderson, representing, you know, basically whatever happens with Gary Ciders Sr. and just awaiting discovery, right John? That's correct. All right. Well, we are going to keep a close eye on it. I appreciate both of you coming on. Again, appreciate your time. Thank you so much and we hope you'll come back. Thanks for having us. Certainly. Thank you, astronaut. Gary Sr. remains free on bond either in the care of a family member

26:16or a health care facility. His wife, Christina Linsiders, has a bail hearing this month where her attorney will argue that she should be released. She faces 19 counts of child endangering related to her 16 grandchildren. Those are a mix of felonies and misdemeanors. Gary Jr. has pleaded not guilty to the sex crimes charges he faces related to allegations he abused a family member who was not his child. His wife, Elizabeth Ciders, has not yet entered a plea on the child endangering and sex crimes charges she now faces both remained in the southeast Ohio Regional jail. As does Brandon Henderson, the de facto brother-in-law of Gary Jr. and son-in-law of Gary Sr. and Christina. And of course, those 16 children ranging an age from 18 to 1.5 who were found in the house on Omer Street, they remain in therapeutic foster care. We just we don't have an update for you on how they are doing. We can only help. They're getting the care and the help that they so greatly need.

27:16We'll keep an eye on all of this and let you know what happens as it unfolds. That's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I mentioned that leavey. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.