Siders' 14-Year-Old Bride And The Judge Who Forgot

Siders family Gallia County Ohio child marriage judge — in 2002, a Gallia County judge approved a marriage license for a fourteen-year-old pregnant girl and a forty-eight-year-old man named Richard E. Siders, a cousin of Gary Siders Sr. When asked about it years later, that judge said he vaguely remembered and acknowledged that no investigation was ever conducted.

That marriage was the first of at least three involving girls between fourteen and fifteen connected to the Siders family across two Ohio counties and West Virginia. In each case, the law allowed parents and judges to sign off on marriages th...