16 Children Rescued in Ohio Case, 4 Suspects Arrested: Shocking New Update — Is the Mother Pregnant With Her 17th Child?

16 Children Rescued in Ohio Case, 4 Suspects Arrested: Shocking New Update — Is the Mother Pregnant With Her 17th Child?

Could the mother of 16 children pulled from a house in rural Ohio be pregnant again? This news comes as one of the CERS family members begs to get out of jail. I dig into all of the shocking new details. I’m Yangjanet Levy and this is Crime Fix. Elizabeth Cers, the mother of 16 children pulled from that house in Venton County, Ohio, is in jail facing 16 felony counts of child endangering.

But Elizabeth Cider’s problems don’t end with her criminal case. She has another issue she’s dealing with right now. I’ve learned that 33-year-old Elizabeth Ciders is pregnant again. Right now, as she sits in jail, she’s expecting. And I’ve confirmed CERS hasn’t just given birth to 16 children.

 That number is actually 18. And birth records prove it. Elizabeth Cers gave birth to a set of twins in November 2022. The baby girls were conjoined, meaning their bodies were fused together, and they shared organs. Those babies died the same day they were born in November 2022. There’s actually a grave marker that shows the twins were named Bailey Lee Ciders and Faith Ciders.

 So, right now, it would appear that Elizabeth Ciders is actually pregnant with her 19th child. The children that Elizabeth Ciders shares with her husband Gary Cers Jr. are recovering and at least one of the children is still in the hospital a little more than a week after they were found as deputies and state agents executed a search warrant at the house on Omar Street.

 The four CERS family members, Gary Jr. and Elizabeth Ciders, and Gary Junior’s parents, Gary Cider Senior and Christina Ciders, who goes by Lynn, faced 16 counts of child endangering for the conditions the children were living in and the condition they were in when they were found. When the four were first arrested, they were actually charged with 17 counts of child endangering.

 But now that number 16, I’m wondering if that was because Elizabeth Ciders is pregnant. It could be. The foursiders family members were supposed to appear in Vitten County Court this week for a preliminary hearing. That’s a hearing where a judge determines whether there is probable cause to show that the crimes were committed and the judge would then decide if there’s enough evidence to send the case to trial.

 But the ciders wave their right to that hearing. Here’s Elizabeth Cider’s attorney, Tommy Staly. >> I think it’s important to understand too that while attorney Gory Bell and I are discussing matters together and we an opportunity for uh three of the attorneys to meet uh with the prosecutor and kind of go over some preliminary matters here.

 These matters are all separate things. So while each of our clients have uh separately and independently after consulting with council waiting for their hearing uh we do see some separation uh in these cases there’s obviously three uh distinct attorneys who are here today but four distinct attorneys who are working these cases and after mentioned on a preliminary basis the only thing that we are looking at is problem and ultimately that is something that is going to be presented to the grand jury and the grand jury also had seen the wrong. So

from a procedural standpoint, we are still very early. None of the attorneys have discovered at this point. Um but we have discussed some of the material facts with the prosecutor. We’re not going to get into it. >> Tommy Staly says he will file a motion asking that Elizabeth Cider’s bond be modified. I do want to make a point here that it is my understanding I believe is the prosecution understanding as well that my client Elizabeth has no current.

 So when the court is looking at deciding what the bond is going to be set at there are factors that are removing the law from the court um for them to help to help them make that decision. Ultimately in this case um there’s a lot of attention given the fact that you are all here um and it puts a lot of pressure on the court system and puts a lot of pressure um on the media as well for my client specifically not having to know starts to mitigate some of those factors.

 Some of the things that that courts will look at uh in a case like this is what what does that criminal history look like? Have they ever been charged with failure to appear? Because we’re trying to determine is this person a flightless at this point in time. We are still not sure uh at least in my office whether my client is a victim herself or not.

 Uh, I have previously stated that she does not necessarily characterize herself as a victim, but the investigation from the prosecutor’s office, the investigation from my office is still ongoing. So, with all of that, taking all of that into consideration, um, we anticipate file motion. >> Running a business is tough enough, but why make it harder doing things manually or relying on dozens of apps that don’t talk to each other? That’s where our sponsor, ODO, comes in.

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 One big question surrounding this case was Children’s Services, Ohio’s Department of Children and Youth, aware of the Ciders family? Were they getting health and medical benefits from the state? That is a question I’m working to answer for you. I’ve learned the family likely moved around after Children’s Services in one county paid them a visit and the Ciders didn’t want the children taken away.

 The Four Ciders family members could face even more charges after the case is presented to a grand jury. Right now, they’ve pleaded guilty to the child endangering charges. Remember, there was a search warrant executed at the home for a separate investigation. That’s how the children were discovered. That search warrant and affidavit remain sealed for that investigation.

 But we know that investigation is not related to four misdemeanor public indecency charges that Gary Cers Jr. faces for alleged incidents in May at his home. Another new development in this case, the Vitten County prosecutor, William Archer, has asked the court for help to prosecute the ciders. Archer filed a request with the court asking that the attorney general’s office and an elected prosecutor from another county, Highland County prosecutor, Anakah Collins, be appointed to assist with the case.

 That raises the question, will this Vitten County prosecutor, William Archer, actually stay on the case? The CERS children who’ve been released from the hospital have been placed with foster families. Some of the children remain hospitalized, but some of the older CERS children were actually active on social media.

 They have accounts where they displayed images from anime and even used cats as their profile photos. But the children never posted any photos of themselves, which raises even more questions. Why were the children on social media and given phones to access it? The attorney for the grandfather, Gary Senior, has filed a motion asking that his bail be modified and lowered so he can post some form of bail to be released from jail.

 Attorney Dorian Bal says his client is 73 and will appear at future court dates and comply with GPS monitoring. I mean obviously in nearly any case where your defendant your client is being held in jail and what’s reduced at this point made quite clear that concerns about Mr. C’s confidence whether he is suffering from health issues from diminish capacity etc.

 So to be perfectly blunt, as a person like that in jail, uh that is a bit of an I don’t think he belongs in jail. I think right now to address those medical issues dealing with perfectly fine. If he is not competent, uh he is not the prosecutor at all prosecute in which case now they’re sitting in jail with someone who’s incompetent.

 We now know that Gary Cider Senior was taken to the hospital on July 7th and that motion to modify his bail was granted. He’s in the hospital receiving more specialized care. According to the judge, one CERS family member told a local TV station that his family was not aware of the conditions the children were living in and that Gary Senior and Christina Siders didn’t raise their children this way.

 Last time we heard from them, we gave them a car and it’s probably close to a year ago now, other than them, you know, Lynn calling us and asking for money or, you know, they needed help with the water bill or, you know, I mean, whatever. And if we had it, we sent it. If we didn’t, one of the other daughters did, you know, so we’ve done what we could for that family at the arms length that they was leave keeping us at.

>> So, I’d like to bring in Mark Weaver. We have talked about this case before. He sits as a judge in the state of Ohio. Also works as a prosecutor and as a special prosecutor and has prosecuted cases down in southeast Ohio, but not in Benton County. Uh Mark, you know, since the last time we talked, we’ve confirmed that indeed these 16 children are the offspring of both Elizabeth and Gary Jr.

She’s been pregnant nearly every year since 2008. And they had another set of twins uh that were born, conjoined, and then passed away shortly after birth. So they have a total of 18 children. Uh your thoughts? >> Well, it’s remarkable. We read accounts of earlier American history where frontier families had 10, 12, 15, 20 children, many of whom didn’t survive because the health care system was uh was so dilapidated and weak at the time of the of those of those incidents in American history. But in in modern

times, most hospitals can keep babies alive and and make sure they thrive. And so most of us on both on the air and watching right now would say we just simply don’t know any women who’ve had this many children. Even when you count in twins and and some people have triplets, it’s just nearly unheard of in modern America.

>> It most certainly. So she’s had a total of 18 children. Um there is some talk out there talk and we’re working to confirm this that there may be she may be pregnant right now. Um, we don’t know that for certain, but there is some discussion about that. So, uh, that’s a lot of children, and I’m trying to figure out what the, um, motivation would be to have so many children in this day and age, especially if you can’t afford to take care of them.

>> Yeah. Well, before I talk about that, let’s just point out there are special problems that arise from a pregnant inmate. I’ve both as an acting judge and a magistrate and a prosecutor, I’ve seen situations where we have pregnant inmates and often jails won’t take them. They they present their own unique health problem that most rural jails are simply ill equipped to handle.

 So, she may get bonded on that basis alone. I don’t know. She’s obviously differently situated if in fact she’s pregnant. But the notion of having so many children one after the other suggests these are low IQ people that’s already been raised by one of the defense councils for the elder siders.

 Uh that somehow there’s a an IQ problem here. Some of the social media post from other family members have raised IQ as a problem. So those of us who are more functioning and and educated, understanding the world, recognize that you don’t want to keep having children if you can’t afford to have the children. But it’s possible that somebody with a lower IQ or a lesser understanding of logic and and how the world works might just keep having sex without birth control and having babies.

>> Yeah. Yeah. And you would think in this day and age um when you go to the hospital to have a baby that they would advise you on birth control, but also you don’t know if they would knew the full history. I would assume they would ask how many children have you had when you uh go in to deliver children or babies, but but I don’t I’m not sure about that.

 You mentioned Gary Cider Senior’s motion um to modify the bail. And so his attorney, Dorian Bal, we had him on the other day, said that, you know, he has some concerns about his potential competency. He has mobility issues, but he’s basically saying, “Look, this guy, he’s 73 years old. He is not basically a threat to anybody. He will make all court appearances.

 He’ll wear the GPS bracelet. They’re asking to modify his bail.” But then the question is, where does he go? I’m assuming maybe that he has a family member who will take him in. Um, but what what do you make of his request for bail for Gary Senior? >> I did read the mo the motion for modification of bond.

 Several things popped up. One is early on the attorney, the defense council raises this notion that perhaps Mr. Ciders uh won’t be competent to stand trial. But then later he says he fully, meaning Mr. siders understands all the charges being brought against him trying to use that as a reason for why he ought to be able to be released and he’ll return uh you know for for the different court settings.

 Those two concepts obviously are at odds with one another. You can’t be setting up an incompetency defense and then say but by the way my client knows very well this is a big case he needs to come back. One thing that was not mentioned in that motion, I’m sure the prosecutor will raise to the judge, is one of the things that’s considered when modifying bond is whether or not this defendant is a flight risk.

 Whether or not he has a reason to flee the state, flee the jurisdiction. And somebody that old facing this many seconddegree felonies is essentially looking at life in prison. That is grounds to be worried that this particular defendant might flee. >> Well, it it’s certainly a concern and in a case like this because the the charges are very serious and because these four defendants all waved their right to a preliminary hearing, which um just for viewers who don’t recall what that is, that’s just where the prosecutor puts on

enough evidence to show, look, we have probable cause that this crime was committed. and then the the judge would say yes or no, you’ve met that bar and then it gets passed over to the grand jury. You know, she they’re saying basically there’s enough evidence to go to trial. They all waved their rights to that hearing after it was scheduled to go on and then it didn’t go on.

 Um there are more charges though that could be coming at grand jury. This case will now go to the grand jury. Yes, the grand jury uh people should know that grand juries can be investigating grand juries where they see lots of witnesses and lots of evidence and try to find out what’s happening. Grand jurors can ask for other things to be brought before them before they hand up indictments.

 So, we know that the children, many of them are in area hospitals being treated. as they get treated, those that are verbal and can understand will tell the tale of who did what or who didn’t do what and that information will be bought brought in front of the grand jury. You don’t have to bring the children down to the grand jury.

 An investigator who spoke to the children can testify to the grand jury. So very likely there will be separate additional charges brought because every day you don’t feed a child is another count seconddegree felony child endangerment. Every day that you don’t care for a child is a new count. And so the prosecutors, if they wanted to, could stack the charges against the four of these adults and any other adults who may have mistreated or endangered these children.

Let’s move on now to this new request from the prosecutor, Bill Archer. He filed motions basically asking for filed requests with the court asking for the appointment of special prosecutors. Now, we understand that this of course is a huge case. Venton County is a small county, the poorest county in Ohio, the least populous county in Ohio, or at least it’s one of the poorest counties.

He’s asking that the actual county prosecutor of Highland County be appointed as a special prosecutor. Also asking that the attorney general’s office and some of their assistants be added as special prosecutors. And this is raising a lot of questions. He’s he’s saying they need to be able to assist in the investigation and prosecution of this case.

 But this raises a lot of questions. Is it is it possible that the Venton County prosecutor is going to simply ask that another county handle this? Because there are a lot of questions surrounding were these people getting benefits? You know, were they getting any type of welfare benefits? Was jobs and job and family services involved? I actually spoke to somebody who told me that job and family services in another county had actually visited this family some time ago and they they had concerns and that’s why these people picked up and left.

>> Yes, I’m I’m familiar with these these statutes and these appointments although I’ve not talked directly to the prosecutor to find out what his thinking was. I certainly know Attorney General Annie Wilson and I know one of the new prosecuting attorneys Anakah Collins. She’s the prosecuting attorney in Highland County, which is southwest Ohio. I’ve been a special prosecutor.

She’s appointed me to help her in the past. The statutory language is what you said, which is appointing someone to assist with the prosecution. But normally, if you simply needed litigation power, more people, more litigators, more prosecutors to work up the case, you would go to a larger county and you’d ask for assistance or you’d assistant prosecutors or you’d go to the attorney general’s office and ask for more assistant attorneys general.

The notion of appointing the elected prosecutor of Highland County, Anakah Collins, as the prosecuting as a special prosecutor, suggests that perhaps the Venton County prosecutor is going to step aside from the entire matter, fearing the appearance of a conflict because in Ohio, the prosecuting attorney represents the county agencies and civil actions.

 So if there’s a concern that there might be a civil action against the children’s services department and workers in Vitten County, it would be the job of the Vitten County prosecuting attorney to represent them and give them legal advice which could present a partial conflict. So I that would be my best guess not having spoken to either Anakah or Andy about why in fact this request for appointment was made.

>> Yeah, it’s a it’s an interesting request to be made. I can understand wanting, you know, some reinforcements and some help. Um, the assistance of course because these are this is a big case with 16 u potential victims and, you know, there may be more more victims. We just don’t know.

 Um, but it is it is a complex case. Uh, another thing we’ve got going on. Let me just make one point that I think we that we ought to touch on. We’re not sure that this will be one trial or four trials, which would make it much more difficult if it’s four different trials. It’s not a guarantee that all defend antants would be tried together.

 It’s possible that they may have interests diverging and their rights diverge and they might need to have separate trials which would make it very complicated and many different assistant prosecutors would have to be involved. So your right is complicated. It could get even more complicated depending how many trials there would be. >> Mark, there are all these questions now about what actually led the investigators to this house.

 There’s a search warrant that was executed for a so-called parallel investigation. Um it’s it doesn’t sound like this has anything to do with drugs from what I’m the little bit I’m able to gather from this and glean from this. Um that it’s not related to drugs. You and I wondered about that early on if there was some type of drug component to this.

 Uh but we know that Gary Jr. was, you know, charged with four misdemeanor counts of public indecency at the home. The warrants not related to that either. the the original warrant that is sealed. So, what on earth could this parallel investigation be about? >> Yeah, it’s if it’s not drugs, and it’s certainly not going to be the public indecency. Those are misdemeanors.

 The charge gets brought, you hear the case, it’s a rather quick matter. Um, we’re speculating, of course, it could be some level of Medicaid fraud, some kind of fraud relating to welfare. uh somebody with this many children is almost certainly collecting benefits for these children to be able to feed them. Whether they’re feeding them or not is a different question.

 So uh we’re speculating, but it’s certainly not going to be high level organized crime with people who have low IQs. You simply don’t see that. People can’t function well enough to be able to maintain a giant conspiracy. So we’ll find out sooner as we get closer. Uh the fact that the defense wants to wave preliminary hearings suggests that they don’t want the evidence to come out now because they know all eyes, including the eyes of the jury pool are on this case.

>> Elizabeth’s brother, one of her brothers, her older brothers, has indicated that he kind of ratted somebody out. Like there are all these posts on Facebook coming to light and he talked about Elizabeth being possibly indoctrinated. What do you what do you make of that? because it sounds like she didn’t really have a lot of contact with her family until, you know, recently.

>> Often in these cases, other relatives will have tried to solve a problem or feel mad about some other issue, some longstanding family dispute and now they come out and say, “Look, I told them I know what’s going on here.” And it’s on social media and we all know how careful we have to be with what’s being said on social media.

 This continues to be an odd tip of an odd iceberg. We all know there’s something under the water. We just don’t know what it is and how far down it goes. >> Also, what’s very interesting is that one of the relatives of Christina Ciders, Ronnie Fletcher, told a local TV station, you know, they’re horrified by this.

 They they were kept at arms length. They would get a call asking for money sometimes to pay a utility bill. They they gave them a car like a year ago, things of that nature. So it sounds like the family, extended family had contact with them, but maybe just not as much contact to know that these kids were living in such squalor. Yeah.

 Uh if if this group of adults was able to hide the children’s living conditions from neighbors who see the house every day, it certainly wouldn’t be hard to hide it from relatives who live far away. Um here’s hoping that there will be other family members who will be able to take these children in um so they don’t all have to go into the foster system.

 But with every abused child, the first need is to make sure that they are taken care of physically and medically getting them into a school system where they can begin learning with their peers. And that process and it starts right away for all of them, including the 18-year-old. >> Most certainly. Um, it’s a it’s a crazy case.

 These kids have social media profiles, which is another weird part of this. Apparently, they have phones um and they were able to post on social media. That’s my understanding. Uh, I’m very confounded as to how these kids are kept in squalor, but yet they have access to phones to post on social media. Yeah, I have been I have been in houses in Appalachia and I have looked at lots of crime scene photos and although the majority of houses there are nicely kept and people doing all the right things by their children, I’ve been in some really

squalored houses and the people live there for years. They feed their kids right next to where they feed their dogs and there’s stuff everywhere and it’s not all that unusual. I mentioned earlier the number of children born to this woman is shockingly unusual, but squalid conditions in very poor areas happens more more often than we’d like.

And so they were doing something. We’re going to find out more. We don’t know how verbal these children are. Prosecutors need to have witnesses. That’s the next big step for the prosecution team. Interview the witnesses. >> Yeah, it there are more questions right now than answers. And really the most important thing is these children getting the care that they need.

 Uh Mark Weaver, thank you so much as always. >> Yes, thank you. >> Now, after I recorded that interview with Mark Weaver, we learned that Gary Cider Senior’s bail has been modified to a $300,000 recgnissance bond. This comes after he was taken to the hospital on July 7th, as I mentioned earlier, and transported to another hospital for more specialized care.

 The state is now going to pay for his GPS monitoring once he’s released from the hospital. The remaining CERS family members remain in jail on those $300,000 bonds. We’ll of course continue to follow this case for you and bring you the latest information. That’s it for this episode of Crime Fix. I’m Anget Levy. Thanks so much for being with me.

 I’ll see you back here next time.