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Sylvia Likens

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Sylvia Marie Likens (January 3 1949—October 26 1965) was a sixteen year old girl who died under questionable circumstances while under the care of one Gertrude Baniszewski. Her case resulted in toughened statutes relating to child abuse, and was at the time of Baniszewski's conviction referred to as "the single worst crime perpetuated against an individual in [Indiana]'s history".

At the time she met Baniszewski, Likens was in charge of caring for her younger sister Jenny Faye Likens, as their mother Betty was serving a prison sentence for shoplifting. They had been raised primarily by their mother, when she abandoned the girls' father Lester, effectively kidknapping her own daughters. Sylvia also had an older sister Diana, who was married and had a family of her own at the time of Sylvia's abuse.

Baniszewski, with the "aid" of some of her own children and neighborhood children such as Richard Hobbs (14), Coy Hubbard (15) and a boyfriend of her daughter Stephanie, put Likens through an ordeal that included beatings in the guise of discipline, repeated kickings to her genital area, burnings with cigarettes and matches, and scalding hot baths. Hubbard repeatedly practiced his judo on Likens by "flipping" her around. As punishment for wetting her bed, Baniszewski had Likens locked in the cellar of her home and denied her use of the toilet. During her basement imprisonment, she was tied up and forced to drink urine and eat excrement. Just days before her death, Baniszewski and Hobbs used a heated needle to burn the words "I'm a prostitute and proud of it!" onto Likens's stomach. Her body was discovered October 26, 1965.

A coroner's report concluded that Likens had been tortured to death, citing the official causes as brain swelling, internal hemorrhaging of the brain, and shock. Despite Baniszewski's frequent accusations that Likens was a prostitute, a post mortem concluded that she had been a virgin at the time of her death.

Contents

Cookie

Born in 1949, Sylvia was the middle child born to Lester and Betty Likens. In his book The Indiana Torture Slaying, Natty Bummppo (née John Dean) quotes an acquaintance of Sylvia's as saying that Sylvia often felt like "the odd one in the family because she was born between two sets of twins." [link] Both sets of twins were fraternal, each consisting of one boy and one girl. Her older siblings, Danny and Diana, were two years older than Sylvia, while Jenny and Benny were one year her junior.

Jenny wore a brace on her leg due to a battle with polio in her youth, and Sylvia was very protective of her younger sister, an attribute that would later be used against both of them. Sometimes the pair would go roller skating together, with Sylvia attaching a skate to Jenny's good leg and then pulling her around the skating rink.

Called "Cookie" by her friends, Sylvia was known for her sense of humor and was missing a tooth from childhood roughhousing with her brother, which often caused her to keep her mouth closed when she smiled. Like many girls of the 1960s, Sylvia was a fan of the Beatles, and she loved to sing.

Sylvia did various odd jobs in an attempt to earn money, including babysitting and ironing, though she and her sister would often rummage through garbage bins for discarded soda bottles to recycle them for money. She would later claim that she had a boyfriend in California, not unlikely due to how often the Likens moved [link].

In her sixteen years of life prior to living with Baniszewski and her children, Sylvia had lived in at least fourteen houses. Her parents relationship was in a constant state of flux, the couple separating and reconciling on several occasions, money constantly being an issue. Sylvia and Jenny were often left with a grandparent or were boarded out when their accompaniment would be at a disadvantage to their parents.

It was this history that led to Sylvia and Jenny coming to stay with Gertrude Baniszewski, "Mrs. Wright."

\"Mrs. Wright\"

To the neighborhood the Likens had recently moved in to, Gertrude Baniszewski was known as "Mrs. Wright," the surname of her youngest child's father. Despite the two never having been married, she took his last name upon his departure so as not to seem like an unwed mother.

She first met Sylvia when the girl, her sister Jenny, and their friend Darlene McGuire, were brought to the Baneszewski home by Gertrude's daughter Paula, who's weight concealed the fact that she was at the time three months pregnant with the child of an older, married man. Paula invited the two sisters to stay the night, and since their parents were once again separated, and since their mother was in jail on a shoplifting charge, it seemed like a fine idea.

The next day, Sylvia's father, Lester, having reconciled with his wife once again, showed up at the Baniszewski's door looking for his daughters, having been directed there by Darlene McGuire. It was late in the evening when he showed up, and he was tired, so Gertrude graciously offered him a room. During the course of the night, Lester explained that he had once again reconciled with his wife, and the two were going to travel with a carnival working a concession stand.

The next morning it was decided that while he and his wife were away, Sylvia and Jenny would stay with Gertrude, though it has become unclear whether Baniszewski offered or if Mr. Likens imposed his daughters upon her. With his decision to leave his daughters with this stranger, Lester Likens did not inspect the house and find there were only three spoons, or that it was lacking a stove, with only a hot plate to heat up food, and there were already too few beds for the seven children already living there. Mr. Likens would later say in court, "I didn't want to pry". [link]

It was decided that he would send "Mrs. Wright" twenty dollars a week to board his girls, and left, only adding a remark he would one day regret: "You'll have to take care of these girls with a firm hand because their mother has let them do as they please."[link]

Beginnings of abuse

The first week in their new "home" was fairly uneventful for the girls. Sylvia and Jenny started a new school, attempted to make friends, tried to get to know the other children in the house, and even attended church with the family on Sunday.

The first glimpse into the future horrors that would ensue did not appear until the second week, when the Likens payment hadn't arrived on time. Furious, Baniszewski shouted, "I took care of you two bitches for nothing!" She then had both girls lay across a bed with their skirts and underwear at their ankles so she could spank their bare bottoms with a paddle. [link] The money arrived with the rest of the mail the next day.

Sylvia was the outspoken of the two girls, and many believe it was the fact that she was not docile like her little sister that initially drew some of the rage away from Jenny, who was left relatively unscathed (at least physically) throughout the whole ordeal.

Throughout her stay at the Baniszewski household, three major accusations would be thrown at Sylvia:

After a church dinner, Paula Baniszewski reportedly told her mother she had been "disgusted" by the amount of food Sylvia had consumed. If this was true, it was probably due to the small meals she had to eat at home, mainly consisting of soup, and the fact that, with three spoons, the ten members of the household would have to eat in shifts. As punishment for her improper table manners at church, one night at dinner Sylvia's frankfurter was passed around the table and overloaded with condiments. Sylvia was told to eat her dinner and, not wanting to cause trouble, did as she was told, and promptly vomiting afterward. The girl was then made to eat her vomit as well.

Increasing torment

As the weeks passed, Sylvia's "punishments" increased. Though rarely, if ever, deserved, most of this was controlled and, by the standards of the time, not overly-violent.

In late August, Sylvia let slip that she had done something with her boyfriend from California. Accounts vary, some say she'd been felt up, others simply state she "allowed a boyfriend to get under the bed covers with her" [link], and some say it was simply Gertrude's reaction to finding out Sylvia had a boyfriend at all [link]. Regardless of what the actual trigger was, Baniszewski flipped, and screamed at the girl that she was pregnant because she had been touched by a boy. She began yelling a sea of profanities at Sylvia, repeatedly kicking her in the crotch. These kicks became one of the more common forms of abuse Baniszewski adopted, and autopsy reports show that Sylvia's pelvic area had become horribly bruised and disfigured. The idea that Sylvia was pregnant enraged Paula, who was genuinely pregnant herself. When Sylia attempted to sit in a chair, Paula threw her out of it, reportedly yelling, "you ain't fit to sit in chairs!" [link]

This humiliation led to the first retaliation from Sylvia. At school, Sylvia began to spread rumors that Paula and Stephanie, the two oldest Baniszewski girls, were prostitutes. When Stephanie's boyfriend, fifteen-year-old Coy Hubbard, traced the rumors back to Sylvia, he beat Sylvia for the slander. Hubbard was a handsome young man who was big for his age and had dark, curly hair. He was a student of Judo, and used this against Sylvia as punishment for spreading lies about his girlfriend.[link] When Sylvia came home that afternoon, she was the victim of another paddling from Baniszewski.

Sometime in late August, a middle-aged woman named Phyllis Vermillion, her husband Raymond, and their two children moved into the neighborhood. Mrs. Vermillion worked third shift at an RCA plant and had thought about asking "Mrs. Wright" to be her babysitter, logic telling her that a mother of seven who would willingly take in two boarders must be the pinnacle of humanity and a good choice when it came to the care of her two children.

The two arranged a meeting, and soon Phyllis Vermillion sat at Baniszewski's dinner table drinking coffee with the woman as the kids went crazy in the house and the young baby, Dennis, cried. Sometime during this conversation, Sylvia walked into view, sporting a black eye. "That's Sylvia," Baniszewski said, nodding to the slim girl.

Paula filled a glass with hot water and tossed it at Sylvia, then added proudly, "I gave her the black eye!" [link]

Mrs. Vermillion decided to try a different babysitter, and did not report what she saw to anyone. Understand, this was the mid-sixties, when child abuse was not nearly the taboo it is nowadays, especially in a poverty-stricken area such as East New York Street.

The Baniszewski children took their cues from Sylvia and began spreading slander about her, under the approval of their mother. Anna Siscoe was a plump thirteen-year-old girl who Sylvia was actually becoming friends with, until Baniszewski told Anna that Sylvia had called her mother a whore. In defense of her mother, Anna attacked Sylvia, attempting to beat her. Reportedly, Sylvia clutched her stomach at some point during this scrap and was noted to say, "Oh, my baby!" [link] This seems an odd thing for her to do, since autopsy reports show her as a virgin and show there was no chance she was pregnant. Most likely, Sylvia had been convinced by those around her that she was indeed pregnant.

Baniszewski continued to spread these rumors, both to her own children and to others, including a girl named Judy Duke, a girl who had witnessed Sylvia's beatings and complained about them to her mother. "Oh, well, she's just being punished," [link] the girl's mother allegedly told her.

The oldest Baniszewski daughter, Paula, made hitting Sylvia a common habit. Anything she could get her hands on would be turned into a weapon against the other girl, including dishes, bottles, cans, and whatever else she could find. Sometimes, as a torment to both sisters, Paula would insist that Jenny join in on the abuse, often when there were a group there participating. When Jenny initially refused, she was slapped by Baniszewski herself, who demanded that Jenny hit her sister. Jenny did as she was told, but later stated that although she was right-handed, she assaulted her sister with her left in an attempt to reduce the pain.

Almost saved

Sometime in September, the girls had decided they'd had enough, and told someone they thought they could put their faith in. Jenny was able to send a letter to her older sister, Diana Shoemaker, who was married with a family of her own to worry about. Jenny described some of the events that were occurring, stating how Sylvia seemed to be the lightening rod for their abuse. Anytime something turned foul, their caretaker would yell at her oldest daughter, "Paula, get the board!" [link]

Diana didn't believe her younger sister. These sort of things didn't happen, she thought. The girls were probably being punished for something and didn't like it, so they wrote horror stories to their big sis in an effort to be "rescued." She ignored the letter.

Not long after this, the pastor of the local church, Reverend Roy Julian came calling on the Baniszewski household. He attempted to visit all those who came to congregation at some point, and this was merely one of many stops he had to make to accomplish his goals.

Reverend Julian and Baniszewski casually chatted on the old couch in the living room, with Baniszewski complaining about her ex-husband's tardiness with his child support payments, her medical problems, and the stress of looking after so many children. She insisted that Sylvia was the worst of the lot. She said Sylvia skipped school and had attempted to solicit money from men in exchange for sex.

Julian remembered the bright little girl who had come forward one Sunday and confessed her faith...he could hardly believe she could be sinning so regularly. He asked to speak with the girl, in hopes he could help the poor child see the light. Baniszewski simply said, "Ask her sister."[link]

Baniszewski had planted lies in Jenny's head and had threatened her if she ever told the truth. When asked by Reverend Julian of her sister, Jenny responded: "She tells lies. And at night, after all of us go to bed, she slips down and raids the icebox." [link] Jenny left out the lies of promiscuity in hopes of staving off humiliation for both herself and Sylvia. Reverend Julian prayed for the poor child and left.

A few weeks later, however, he was back. He was concerned with something Paula said, that she harbored hatred for Sylvia. Baniszewski told the priest that it was the other way around, that Sylvia had been spreading rumors that Paula was pregnant, when Baniszewski knew her daughter was innocent and it was Sylvia who was with child. After this, the minister never had cause to return to the Baniszewski house.

When October came, so did Diana Shoemaker. She wanted to see her little sisters. Baniszewski knew she could not see Sylvia in the condition she was in, and refused to admit Diana into her home. She claimed that Mr. and Mrs. Likens had told her to keep Diana away from her sisters. Diana refused to leave without being admitted, until Baniszewski threatened to call the police on her.

In one of the saddest details of all, Diana wound up seeing Jenny only a few days before Sylvia's death. Diana ran up to her sister, but Jenny said, "I cant talk to you or I'll get in trouble," [link] and ran away from her eldest sister.

Not long after Diana's initial visit, a nurse came to the door of 3850 East New York Street, saying the public health organization she worked for had received a report of a girl with running sores living at the home. When the nurse came in, Baniszewski promptly ordered Jenny out of the room. "I know who you're looking for," Baniszewski told the nurse, "Jenny's sister Sylvia. She has sores all over her body. She won't keep herself clean. I finally kicked her out of the house. She's not worthy to stay here. She's a prostitute. I don't know where she would be now." [link] The nurse returned to her office and filed her report, stating there was no need for further investigation.

Shortly after the visit from the nurse, the only accusation against Sylvia that has been proven true was levelled at her. Her physical education class required Sylvia to wear a gym suit, but she did not have one. She approached Mrs. Baniszewski, who refused her the money to purchase one. A few days later, though, she returned home from school with a suit she said she found[link]. After being badgered about it for some time, Sylvia came clean that she had stolen it. In anger, Baniszewski began to beat and kick the girl, and then proceeded to whip her with a belt.

During the beating, Baniszewski segued from her thievery to her promiscuity, and began to repeatedly kick the girl in the crotch again. As Sylvia was recovering from the beating, Baniszewski lit matches and applied the flame to the teenager's fingers, in an attempt to burn off her "sticky fingers," [link] then whipped her again.

Baniszewski used this crime as an excuse to pull the girl out of school. Though she may not have realized it at the time, pulling Sylvia from class is probably what eventually led to her death. The school was more likely to report signs of abuse than neighbors who wished to mind their own business, and as the next phases in Sylvia's torture set in, it would have been obvious to most teachers that all was not right at the place Sylvia called home.

Total humiliation

A common factor in many of the punishments to which Sylvia was subjected seems to be humiliation, particularly of a sexual nature, but not exclusively. After the initial burning of her fingertips, Sylvia became a kind of ashtray for the household, with all the smokers constantly using her flesh to snub out their cigarettes. During her autopsy, over 150 scars were reported to be cigarette burns. [link]

Abusing Sylvia became a pasttime for members of the household. Paula broke her hand once while hitting Sylvia, and after a doctor's visit, beat her with the cast she wore. Many neighborhood kids (reports show at least six) began to watch or participate to some degree, from kicking and punching her, to burning her and throwing her down the basement stairs. Many enjoyed watching as Coy used his Judo skills to throw her into the concrete basement walls.

During her autopsy, two self-inflicted wounds were discovered indicating the severity of the pain the girl had suffered. Probably due to stress during her abuse, she had bitten almost clean through her lower lip, and each of her fingernails had been broken back during some form of clawing, likely at the walls of the basement that would become her prison.

As mentioned earlier, Sylvia and her sister would sometimes peruse trash looking for soda bottles, then recycle the containers and buy candy with their profits. Baniszewski learned that Sylvia had money and became furious. To punish Sylvia, Baniszewski gathered a small crowd of people, including those who lived in the house and other children from the neighborhood, and forced Sylvia to do a lewd, impromptu strip tease. With the last vestiges of clothing and humility literally stripped from her, Sylvia was then told to insert an empty Coca-cola bottle into her vagina. Weeping, the girl did as she was told.[link] Some reports claim she was forced to masturbate with it, as well.

It was at that time that Stephanie Baniszewski returned home from school, to discover Sylvia nude, with the Coke bottle inside her. Thinking this was of Sylvia's own free will, and quite possibly one of her "whorish" acts, the girl rushed up to her and slapped her, then ordered Sylvia to her room. It is quite possible that Stephanie unknowingly saved Sylvia much more embarrassment and possible rape.

It should be noted, however, that no signs of rape or molestation were found when Sylvia was examined post-mortem. Testimony led most to believe she was never forced to do anything sexual with a member of the household. Rather, there seemed to be a few other things that caused this form of degradation:

Most likely, it was a combination of the two. Perhaps the children simply felt it was a new, unexplored realm of torture, while Baniszewski was of the mind that it was an ironic punishment.

Shortly after this incident, and quite possibly because of it (in conjunction with the frequent kicks to her genitals and the high levels of stress she was under), Sylvia wet her bed one night while she was sleeping. Upon discovering this, the family determined she was not fit to live upstairs with human beings, and forced her to remain in the basement with the dog.

As one of Baniszewski's bizarre ironies, Sylvia's bedwetting was punished not only by a move to the basement, but also a complete ban from using the toilet. Sylvia was forced to defecate and urinate on the basement floor, and would later be forced by Baniszewski and her twelve-year-old son John to clean up both types of messes by eating them. She was later given a container in which to collect her urine for later consumption. [link]

Curtain drawing closed

Shortly after she was exiled to the basement, the family began to bathe Sylvia in an attempt to "cleanse" her. Scalding water would be run until Baniszewski's claw-foot tub was filled, then Sylvia was bound and held under the water's surface. Baniszewski and Paula did this often, and often fourteen year-old Ricky Hobbs would be there to assist. Ricky often hung out at the Baniszewski house; he had blonde hair parted to the side, and wore thick, horn-rimmed eyeglasses. Some authors have speculated that he and Baniszewski were lovers, or that Baniszewski seduced him into becoming her "pet." Sometimes after the "cleansings," Paula would rub salt all over Sylvia's body, and into her wounds.

Sylvia was rarely clothed anymore, usually kept nude or nearly so when she was kept in the cellar, which she almost always was, except when allowed out for beatings and humiliation.

Once, as a prank, Sylvia was allowed a bowl of soup under the condition that she eat it with her fingers. Famished, the girl made an honest go at it, but John Baniszewski grabbed the bowl away before she had a chance to enjoy it. Later that day, he and Baniszewski forced Sylvia to eat her own excrement and drink her own urine.

Aftermath - the torturers

Aftermath - the Likens family

What if...?

Though Sylvia Likens died on October 26th, 1965, some ideas have been put forth as to what would have happened had the girl lived.

Wikipedia aside, the two most readily-available sources for information on Likens' ordeal are her Crimelibary article, written by Denise Noe, and the book The Indiana Torture Slaying by Natty Bumppo (this book is, in fact, the only completely non-fictionalized recounting of Likens' slaying in print, Kate Millet's book relating to the incident, The Basement: Meditations on a Human Sacrifice being heavily-fictionalized). Starting in fall 2002, the two authors got into a discussion online, stemming from what Bumppo felt was Noe's inadequet covering of the relationship between Ricky Hobbs and Gertrude Baneszewski.

As the discussion draws to its inevitable conclusion (which occurred in early 2004), Noe puts forth the idea that had Sylvia survived her ordeal, she would have been a frequent victim of violent relationships and could possibly have wound up in an asylum. A response made from neither of the authors suggests abusive relationships would have been on the horizon for Sylvia even if she hadn't been tortured by Baniszewski, citing what the poster calls her "acceptance of abuse." [link]

It is Bumppo's remark that is the most surprising. He very bluntly states that he feels Sylvia would have gone on to become a stripper in a carnival, with her dad as the barker. Though first thought by readers, including Noe, as a joke, Bumppo says it's "just a guess"[link] and claims that her scars (referencing her "I'm a prostitute and proud of it" burn/tattoo) would likely turn on some men, and might lead to a side show.

The full discussion can be found [here].

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