Why did sylvia likens die

Their eldest daughter Diana was married with children of her own and their two boys, Danny and Bennie, were staying with their grandparents so they only needed help with their other two children, Sylvia and Jenny.

They met Gertrude through her daughter Paula. Gertrude's daughter Paula invited the girls to the house and when Lester arrived to collect them, he asked Gertrude to help. An arrangement was made. The girls went to stay there in July and their parents would collect their daughters in November Police began an investigation. Jenny told them everything.

They discovered that Sylvia had sustained the injuries inside of Gertrude's home. They discovered that the first week that Sylvia and Jenny stayed with Gertrude, things were good.

They were not fed well, in fact Gertrude only kept bread and crackers in the house, but they enjoyed going to school and Church and playing outside. She was furious that she had "looked after them for nothing. That was the beginning of the end for Sylvia. Gertrude was underweight, had asthma and was very frail but she ruled by fear and she had two weapons that she used for punishment.

Gertrude had a fraternity style paddle and a thick leather belt that had been owned by her ex-husband, John Baniszewski, an Indianapolis police officer. When Gertrude began beating the girls, Sylvia told her she would take Jenny's punishment too. Jenny had a limp from childhood polio.

Even though she was just slightly younger than Sylvia, she was far more timid and quiet. Sylvia was a popular and attractive girl and was confident and sassy. Gertrude began to focus on Sylvia completely and after that first beating, Sylvia was punished constantly, for things she had no control over and for things she didn't do.

There were a number of things that Gertrude didn't like about her. She was jealous of her popularity and good looks. Gertrude had once been able to get her way by being overtly sexual around men but that was no longer the case. She hated that men liked to look at Sylvia. On one occasion, Sylvia was accused of stealing but she didn't steal anything. She had collected bottles and exchanged them at a grocery store for money.

Gertrude didn't believe her. She used matches and cigarettes to burn her. If Gertrude didn't have the strength to punish Sylvia as much as she wanted to, she made her oldest daughter, seventeen year old Paula do it. Paula did so willingly. Paula punched Sylvia so hard in the face that she broke her wrist. Paula was also jealous of Sylvia and she blamed her for people finding out that she was pregnant with a married man's baby.

They made Sylvia undress and insert an empty bottle into her vagina. The abuse escalated and on one occasion, Gertrude forced Sylvia to lie in a tub of hot water. Gertrude held her hair and slammed her head against the tub. That became another form of punishment.

Sylvia would be forced to get into a tub of scalding hot water whenever Gertrude wanted her to. After a few weeks of beatings and being tortured, Sylvia was forced to remain in the basement. Gertrude said that as Sylvia wet the bed, she would have to remain down in the basement as she could not live with her children. But the reality was that the beatings, torture, the neglect, the stress and getting little to no food or water caused Sylvia to be incontinent.

Gertrude was irate when she was told that Sylvia had spread rumors at school that Paula and Stephanie were prostitutes. The trial, testimony, and indictments were all jarring to everyone who read about the story. Baniszewski and others were punished and jailed for their crimes. In , the Indiana Supreme Court reversed the convictions because the trial court refused motions for a change of venue and separate trial.

A subsequent retrial led to a guilty plea. She was released in , subsequently tried for murder again, and sentenced to life in prison. She changed her name and was paroled in and died five years later in relative obscurity from lung cancer in The uproar of her case, media attention, release, and other crimes led to considerable changes. Prosecutors and police began to understand the investigation of child abuse and neglect more.

Sylvia had lost the ability to speak correctly, and she was delirious. She was now fully incontinent, and in a bid to clean her up, twelve-year-old John Jr.

She tried to escape from the basement, but Gertrude caught her at the bottom of the stairs and stamped on her head. The only one who gave Sylvia any solace in her last hours was Richard Hobbs, her engraver, who gave her a warm bubble bath and dressed her in clean clothes.

Sylvia was laid on a mattress in a bedroom, where she never woke up again. She was just sixteen years old. Days earlier, Gertrude had forced Sylvia to write a letter, knowing that she would die soon. The letter claimed that Sylvia had run away and that boys from the neighbourhood were her torturers. When the police arrived, Gertrude told them that Sylvia had returned home that day in her bloody and dying state, and Gertrude had tried to nurse her. She also told Jenny that she was welcome to continue living with the family.

Though Jenny Likens was only fifteen years old, she would be instrumental in getting these monsters arrested. Five children from the neighbourhood were also arrested for their involvement. She had over wounds, including the carving into her stomach. She had a hole in her right wrist that went almost to the bone, likely from a lit cigarette, and her fingernails were broken. If that was the extent of it, this case would likely have been lost to history long ago like so many other long-forgotten murders.

This case was somehow more disturbing than other crimes, perhaps because:. For weeks, even months, the torture of Sylvia Likens was casual entertainment, something to do in the afternoon before dinner and favorite TV shows. At least a dozen children participated or at least watched, and none felt sufficiently disturbed to tell their own parents. None pushed to be sure she was safe.

Neither said a word because, as Jenny would later explain, they thought it would only make things worse. Neither could conceive of the possibility that authorities would move to protect them, remove them from the house or arrest their tormentors. Arrests did come, but only after it was over. On Oct. New York St. Baniszewski told them the girl had been attacked by a gang of boys and she even produced a note written in Sylvia's own hand that seemed to confirm that story.

But the cops could tell by the condition of the victim that this had been no single incident. Sylvia's body was malnourished and covered with sores, burns and bruises, many of them old. She had been branded in one spot by a hot metal object, and the words "I am a prostitute" had been etched on her stomach. Sylvia came from a large, poor family from southern Boone County, just northwest of Indianapolis.

Her father, Lester Likens, had only an eighth grade education and worked a lot of different jobs to make a living. He'd had a laundry route, worked in factories and had even owned a small restaurant, though unsuccessfully. He had also traveled with carnivals selling food from a concession cart, and it was to this work to which he and his wife decided to return in the summer of That meant finding someone to watch four of their children.

The oldest, Diana, was grown and married. The two boys, Danny and Bennie, were placed with their grandparents, and that left the girls, Sylvia and Jenny. Jenny was shy, insecure and limped from childhood polio.

Sylvia was outwardly more confident and went by the nickname "Cookie". She was pretty, but always kept her mouth closed when she smiled because she had a missing front tooth. Gertrude was already caring for seven of her own children -- Paula, 17, John, 12, Stephanie, 15, Marie, 11, Shirley, 10, and James and Dennis , 18 months.

The six oldest children all had the last name Baniszewski because their father was Gertrude's ex-husband John Baniszewski. The youngest child, Dennis, had the last name of his father, Dennis Wright. Gertrude said he was in Germany serving in the Army. From the beginning there was a clash between Sylvia and Gertrude's year-old daughter, Paula, and this was the seed of what grew in that house during the months of July through October, Then one day the money order from Sylvia's parents didn't show up on the day Gertrude was expecting it.

Gertrude was frail and underweight, but she had two weapons she used for corporal punishment -- a fraternity-style paddle and a thick leather belt left behind by her ex-husband, John Baniszewski -- an Indianapolis police officer. Gertrude began using the paddle on Sylvia and Jenny for various offenses such as exchanging soft drink bottles for change at a nearby grocery. When she suspected Sylvia of stealing she used matches to burn the girl's fingers. Sometimes Gertrude felt too weak from her asthma to discipline the girls properly so year-old Paula helped.

Neighborhood children began to crowd the home to participate in the torture. The children took turns practicing their judo on Sylvia, hurling her against a wall. Some began kicking and beating her. Others extinguished their cigarettes on her skin. As Gertrude and a gang of teen-agers watched, Sylvia was forced to undress in the living room and insert an empty Coke bottle into her vagina.

After the beatings, Sylvia was forced into a scalding hot bath so she would be "cleansed of her sins. Near the end, Sylvia was no longer permitted to leave the house. She was thrown down the cellar stairs and locked in, given crackers for food and refused the right to use a bathroom. Gertrude Baniszewski announced to her children that Sylvia was a "prostitute, and she's proud of it; so we'll just put it on her stomach.

Richard Hobbs, a neighbor boy, finished the etching. When Baniszewski realized Sylvia might be dying, she forced her to write a note saying a gang of boys beat her. The plan was to blindfold her and dump her in nearby woods with the note. Sylvia tried to escape but Gertrude and one of the boys stopped her, beating her again and throwing her back into the basement. Sylvia Likens died Oct. Cause of death was determined to be brain swelling, internal hemorrhaging of the brain and shock induced by Sylvia's extensive skin damage.

Sylvia also suffered from extreme malnutrition. She was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Lebanon. The Baniszewski trial - May At her trial the following year, Baniszewski denied any knowledge of the torture, claiming the children must have done it all. She entered pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. On May 19, , a jury found Baniszewski guilty of first-degree murder while Paula Baniszewski was found guilty of second-degree murder.

Hobbs, along with Baniszewski's son John and another neighborhood boy, Coy Hubbard, were convicted of manslaughter. The boys were sentenced to two-toyear terms at the Indiana State Reformatory in Pendleton. In , the Indiana Supreme Court granted Gertrude and Paula Baniszewski a new trial due to "prejudicial atmosphere", but Gertrude was again convicted of first-degree murder on Aug. Paula pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter and served about two years in prison.

The three boys were released on parole for good behavior in , after serving about two years each of their sentences. In September , Gertrude Baniszewski was released on parole.

She changed her name to Nadine Van Fossan and moved to Iowa where she lived in obscurity until her death from lung cancer on June 16, Paula married and moved to a farm in Iowa. John became a lay minister in Texas and counseled children of divorced parents. Hobbs died of cancer at the age of 21, four years after being released from the reformatory.

Hubbard has had several brushes with the law. Lester and Betty Likens divorced. Betty remarried and died in at age Jenny Likens Wade died in at age When she was convicted of first-degree murder in , the case was called "the single worst crime perpetrated against an individual in Indiana's history". In , Baniszewski witnessed her father's death from a sudden heart attack. Five years later, she dropped out of school at the age of 16 to marry year-old deputy John Baniszewski, with whom she had six children.

Although John Baniszewski had a volatile temper, the two stayed together for 10 years before divorcing. Gertrude, then 34, moved in with a year-old Dennis Lee Wright, who abused her. She had one child, Dennis, but after his birth Wright abandoned Gertrude and disappeared. The Likens sisters attended high school and social functions with the Baniszewski children, as well as church with Gertrude Baniszewski on Sunday. Shortly thereafter the girls were beaten for having candy that Baniszewski accused them of stealing.

Thus began a regular pattern of child abuse. In August , Baniszewski began to verbally and physically abuse Sylvia Likens, allowing her older children to beat her, and push her down stairs. Baniszewski also accused Likens of being a prostitute, and delivered "sermons" about the filthiness of prostitutes and women in general. After the Likens sisters reportedly accused Baniszewski's daughters Paula and Stephanie of being prostitutes, Stephanie Baniszewski's boyfriend, Coy Hubbard, and several other classmates and local boys were brought in to assist Baniszewski in beating Sylvia Likens.

Baniszewski even forced Jenny Likens to hit her sister. Likens became incontinent; as a result, Baniszewski locked her in the basement. Baniszewski then began a bathing regime to "cleanse" Sylvia, involving dousing her with scalding water and rubbing salt into the burns. She was often kept naked and rarely fed.

At times, Baniszewski and her twelve-year-old son John Jr. Sometime around this period, Jenny Likens managed to contact her older sister, Diana Likens, outlining the horrors that the two sisters were experiencing, and asking Diana to contact the police. Diana Likens ignored the letter, believing that Jenny was simply displeased with being punished and that she was making up stories so that she could come live with her.

Shortly after this, Diana Likens came by to visit her sisters, but Baniszewski refused to allow her into the home. The elder Likens then hid nearby the house until she spotted Jenny outside, and then approached her. Jenny Likens told her older sister that she was not allowed to talk to her and then ran away.

Concerned, Diana Likens contacted social services and informed them that Baniszewski told her that Sylvia Likens had been kicked out of the house for being physically unclean and a prostitute, and that she had since run away.

When a social worker showed up at the Baniszewski home inquiring about Sylvia, Baniszewski told Jenny Likens to lie to the social worker about Sylvia's whereabouts, threatening her that if she did not, she would get the same treatment as Sylvia.

Terrified of what Baniszewski might do to her if she told the truth, Jenny told the social worker that Sylvia had indeed run away.