Police tape surrounds a home where authorities say they removed 16 children and arrested four adults in Hamden, Ohio, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster)<\/small><\/p>\n
2026-07-02T20:05:22Z<\/p>\n
HAMDEN, Ohio (AP) \u2014 Just days after authorities removed 16 children from a squalid home and arrested four adult relatives, the question looms over their southern Ohio village: How could this have happened, for years, unnoticed, right here?<\/p>\n
Neighbors of the family in tiny Hamden, employees at local stores where they shopped and even the investigators who responded to the scene have been left to wonder that aloud and to themselves, and the limited information shared by investigators don\u2019t offer a full answer.<\/p>\n
The children weren\u2019t enrolled in school, the family moved around over the past two decades, and neighbors said they\u2019d never spotted the kids. The children remained mostly confined to a small room in the house, investigators said, under deplorable conditions.<\/p>\n
Authorities said they had gone to the home Tuesday on an unrelated investigation and discovered the children \u2014 ages 1 1\/2 to 18 years old \u2014 some of whom were unable to speak.<\/p>\n
Seven were taken to hospitals, including one who was in critical condition, investigators said. Their current conditions weren\u2019t immediately known Thursday. The Ohio Department of Children and Youth has temporary custody of the children.<\/p>\n
A neighbor, Josh Odell, has a view of the backyard but said he had never seen a child. <\/p>\n
\u201cI really hope they all get better. But, I mean, it obviously weighed on my conscience that I wished I could have done something,\u201d Odell told WSYX-TV.<\/p>\n