The Murder of Sylvia Likens

Lately I have been feeling haunted by the 1965 torture and murder of Sylvia Likens over a period of a few months while she was living along with her younger sister Jenny who had had polio as an infant and wore a leg brace, in the home of Gertrude Baniszewski.  Sylvia's father, Lester Likens paid this woman $20 a week to take care of his daughters so that he and their mother Betty could work the carnival circuit.  This woman had seven children and was a single mother.  Sylvia was sixteen years old and Jenny fifteen.  Their mother had gone to jail for shoplifting and their father had come looking for them.  They had befriended Gertrude's daughter Paula age seventeen through another teenage girl, and had spent the night at the Baniszewski home.  Lester had never met this woman before this day, and yet he entrusted her with the care of his daughters.

It was considered the worst crime in the history of Indiana.  It happened in Indianapolis.  It happened on 3850 E. New York Street in a poor neighborhood.  I will not tell the whole story.  There are books and movies as well as numerous blogs, videos, poems, tributes, etc. on the internet and so forth.  I just cannot get it out of my mind.  Eventually this house that Gertrude Baniszewski rented for $50 a month was torn down due to annoying spectators and replaced by a church parking lot where there is a memorial to Sylvia Likens.

The thing that haunts me most is that Sylvia Likens was not only tortured and beaten, burned with cigarettes, starved, branded and kept in a filthy basement by the so called adult in the home, Gertrude but by her teenage children, mostly Paula and John as well as some neighborhood boys.  No one ever helped Sylvia.  Her sister was threatened by Gertrude and afraid to tell anyone.  Their older sister, Diana who lived in Indianapolis as well, called Social Services but when a social worker came to the house, they were satisfied with the lie they were told that Sylvia had run away.  So the case was closed.  Their parents had come to visit, but Sylvia and Jenny had been threatened and subdued into silence.  A kid told his parents, but Gertrude always had a lying explanation for everything.  Adult neighbors even saw Sylvia with blackened eyes being abused by Paula, Gertrude's teenage daughter, and did nothing.

How could a community do nothing?  Why didn't Jenny try harder to get help for her sister before it was too late?  Why did all these neighborhood teenagers go along with beating, burning and branding Sylvia?   She was kept in a dark, filthy basement, starved, beaten, kicked, and not allowed to use a bathroom.  'I AM A PROSTITUTE AND PROUD OF IT' was carved on Sylvia's stomach with a hot needle.  Fifteen year old Richard Hobbs  did this after Gertrude became too tired to complete it.  He was found guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced along with Gertrude, Paula, and John Baniszewski and Coy Hubbard.

On October 26th, 1965, Sylvia died from her injuries from the abuse that had occurred over the last few months.  The police were called by Richard Hobbs as Gertrude told him to, but Gertrude had made Sylvia write a note saying that she had gone off with some boys who did this to her.  However, Jenny whispered to one of the police, "get me out of here and I'll tell you everything."  Gertrude and her two older children as well as Richard Hobbs and Coy Hubbard were arrested.  Gertrude's daughter Stephanie turned state's evidence against her family in exchange for immunity.  The younger children including an infant were then put into foster care.

According to the autopsy, Sylvia died of systemic shock from these letters being burned into her skin, head trauma and starvation.  She had over one-hundred burns on her skin.  Her lips were barely attached just by some connective tissue.  Her vagina and throat were swollen shut.  Still, the autopsy showed that her hymen was intact.  Still there was severe trauma from being kicked in the genitals.  There are pictures of her body lying on a dirty mattress with her body covered in sores.  She had been sleeping on the basement floor with no bed and much of the time no clothing.  It is chilling the condition this beautiful sixteen year old girl was in at her death.

It was compared to Nazi holocaust victims, the cruel and unusual torture that Sylvia endured by these people if you want to call them that.  In the end, Gertrude was found guilty of first degree murder.  She and Paula who also beat Sylvia often and severely, both received life sentences, although Gertrude was paroled in 1985 and Paula in 1972.  There were protesters about Gertrude's parole, but it went through none the less.  She died five years later of lung cancer.  She was a heavy smoker.  The three teenage boys were tried as minors but they were sentenced for up to twenty-one years, although they did not serve that much time.  None of them seemed to have any remorse.  Richard Hobbs also died of lung cancer at the age of twenty-one.

I read the transcripts of Lester Likens being questioned on the witness stand, because I wanted to know what he was thinking when he and his wife Betty found out that Sylvia was dead.  He did not even know Gertrude and left his daughters in her care.  I did not get much insight from reading it.  I am sure he and Betty were devastated.  She divorced him in 1967 and remarried.  They were carnival workers and moved around a lot.  They had just gotten back together after a marital separation, and this was why he hired Gertrude to keep his daughters.  People speculate about why he did not look around the house and see what the sleeping conditions were or the fact that they had no stove and only one spoon, but he did not.  After the trial Jenny Likens went to live with the prosecutor and his family.

My frustration is how Sylvia did not try sooner to escape.  She did try near the end, but was caught by Gertrude.  This is considered one of the most sadistic crimes ever.  I was only four years old in 1965, but I know that people were not as enlightened about child abuse as they are today.  I wish still that this could be undone, that this girl had not suffered so, and that she could have gotten away or gotten help in time.  We will probably never understand this.  Some say that jealousy was a motivating factor.  Sylvia was a small, thin, pretty girl with shoulder length wavy brown hair and bangs.  There are numerous pictures of her as well as the crime scene photos on the internet.  She liked roller skating and dancing.  Her favorite band was The Beatles and she liked singing along to their records.  She also liked going to church and owned a bible.

I would like to add that there were attempts by the minister from church and the school to inquire on Sylvia's behalf, but again Gertrude would just lie and say she ran off or was sent to juvenile and there was no further inquiry.  Unfortunately, all efforts to inquire failed and were sadly not looked into.