The Brutal Murder of Sylvia Likens

The story of Sylvia Likens was popularized in the movie, An American Crime. Sometimes art imitates life, and not in a good way.

Sylvia was born on January 3, 1949 the third child of five to carnival workers Lester Cecil Likens and Elizabeth, “Betty,” Frances. Both her older siblings, Diana and Danny, and her younger siblings, Jenny and Benny, were fraternal twins.

Their family was poor, and her parents marriage was rocky. They had financial problems, often moving from one location to another. It also didn’t help that Jenny had polio. When they had work with a carnival, Lester and Betty would board Sylvia and Jenny out, often having them stay with relatives, such as their grandmother, so they could keep up with their schoolwork, and have some sense of stability. Sylvia would work to earn money, often babysitting or ironing.

In July 1965, Lester and Betty were separated, and Sylvia and Jenny were living with their mother. Being on hard times, their mother chose to shoplift, and was consequently arrested and jailed. A new opportunity had just come up though with a carnival, and Lester took this opportunity to try and work on his marriage with Betty. At this time, Diana had moved on and was married. Their two boys, Danny and Bennie were living with their grandparents. That left them with finding someone new to care for Sylvia and Jenny.

A mutual friend at the time introduced Mr. and Mrs. Likens to Gertrude Baniszewski, who at the time, was using the name Gertrude Wright. Gertrude lived in a large rented house with her 7 children, Paula (17), Stephanie (15), John (12), Marie (11), Shirley (10), James (8), and Dennis Lee Wright Jr, who was only a few months old. She quickly agreed to take in and look after Sylvia and Jenny in exchange for $20 a week. Lester knew Gertrude was also poor, but was thrilled to have someone to watch over his girls, and so he didn’t inquire as to the condition of the home, or how the girls would be living.

Things went well for the first couple of weeks. The girls spent their days outside, at the park, or listening to records. Sylvia helped around the house, doing dishes and tidying up rooms. But after the second week, when their dad’s check for $20 failed to arrive, Gertrude took the girls upstairs and and slapped them, saying, “Well, I took care of you two bitches for a week for nothing!” Their dad’s money order for $20 arrived the next day.

But actions had already been set in motion, and Gertrude, fail and underweight, suffered from depression as well as other ailments. She held a grudge, and Sylvia would bear the weight of her rage.

Whenever Sylvia or Jenny would do something Gertrude did not approve of, such as cashing in glass soda bottles at the grocery store, she would get out her large wooden paddle, or thick leather belt (which had been left behind by an ex-husband, a former police officer), and beat them. When Gertrude felt too weak, she had her daughter, Paula, step in and take over her beatings.

It wasn’t long before she honed in on just one of the girls. Gertrude encouraged not only her own children to beat and abuse Sylvia, but also let in other neighborhood children to participate. The children would take turns practicing their judo on Sylvia, often hurling her against a wall, practicing their choke holds, and even knocking her unconscious with a broom handle. Gertrude started extinguishing her cigarettes on Sylvia’s skin, and soon others joined in, with Gertrude watching on, laughing and urging them to greater levels of abuse. Paula used her as a punching bag, hitting her with enough force to break the bones in her own hand. Once her hand was placed in a plaster cast, she used the heavy cast to beat Sylvia even harder.

Gertrude would make her take a scalding hot bath so she could be “cleansed of her sins.”

Gertrude labeled Sylvia a whore, telling people that Sylvia was highly promiscuous, and told others she was pregnant. She was made to strip naked in the living room and perform lewd acts, including inserting an empty soda bottle into her vagina on at least two different occasions. Her genital area was hit and kicked so often, that medical examiners were shocked by the number of injuries that area had sustained.

The abuse affected her ability to control not only her bladder, but also her bowels. When she slept at night, she would wet her mattress, and Gertrude decided that Sylvia was no longer fit to live with her children. She was tied up and locked in the basement and kept naked. She was denied use of a toilet, until she learned to stop soiling her mattress. Sylvia was only untied or released when Gertrude or some other juvenile, wished to beat her. Both Gertrude’s kids and neighborhood kids enjoyed pushing Sylvia down the stairs, so they would repeatedly force her to climb up, then give her a good shove.

To further torture and humiliate her, Gertrude solicited the help of a neighborhood boy, Ricky Hobbs. She wrote out the words, “I am a prostitute and proud of it” on Sylvia’s stomach. Then she heated needles and began to burn the words into her flesh. Then, she ordered Ricky to finish the job. Later, Gertrude would taunt her, telling her that she would never marry, because of the words on her body. She forced Sylvia to write a letter to her parents, “confessing” to performing sexual favors for a gang of boys, and blaming them for all her injuries, including the message on her stomach.

When a social worker called to investigate an anonymous report of a “girl with running sores on her body,” she was told that Sylvia did have sores all over her body, a result of poor personal hygiene. She was also told that Sylvia had been thrown out of the house because she had become a prostitute. Neighbors later reported hearing banging on the basement walls, from what they believed was a shovel, yet they did not report it until after Sylvia’s death.

Gertrude was developing a plan to rid herself of Sylvia for good. She was preparing to dump her body in some remote rural area, using the letter as evidence of her innocence. She had an alibi prepared, and taught it to all the children.

It was at this time that she began to be treated with an unnerving kindness in between bouts of sadistic brutality. Gertrude would offer her sandwiches and crackers, while another would make her drink her own urine and eat her own feces. She was allowed to return to the upstairs to sleep in a bed, yet she remained tied to the bedposts, and was still denied use of a toilet. She continued to wet the bed, and again, was beaten for it.

Overhearing Gertrude’s plan to get rid of her, Sylvia realized that her days were numbered. On October 25, 1965, she made a desperate attempt to escape, but failed and was beaten with a  curtain rod in the face and then thrown down the stairs into the basement. There, she was once again tied up and beaten into unconsciousness. When she came to, she wasn’t able to speak intelligibly, or move properly. She wanted to escape the basement, but collapsed into the floor before she even made it to the stairs. When Gertrude found her, she crushed her head with her feet and just stood there, watching her.

October 26, 1965, Sylvia finally submitted to her injuries and died. She was only 16 years old. Stephanie Baniszewski and Richard Hobbs found her body. Stephanie tried to give her mouth to mouth resuscitation, but Gertrude shouted at them, telling them Sylvia was just “faking it.” But she wasn’t faking it, and when Gertrude realized this, she sent Richard to call the police from a nearby pay phone.

Quickly, they put Sylvia in the bath and washed her up before redressing her and placing her back on her mattress. When police arrived, she handed them the letter that she had forced Sylvia to write while she and the children related the story they had created. Sylvia was uncontrollable and promiscuous. She stated that Sylvia returned to the house after a sex session with a gang of boys, who then followed her back to the house, mutilated and killed her.

Shocked by the story and Sylvia’s body, the police were ready to leave when Jenny approached them and said, “Get me out of here and I’ll tell you everything.” Her statement, as well as the appearance of Sylvia’s body, prompted them to arrest Gertrude, Paula, Stephanie, John, Richard Hobbs, and Coy Hubbard for murder. Later, Mike Monroe, Randy Lepper, Darlene McGuire, Judy Duke, and Anna Siscoe were arrested for “injury to person.”

On May 19, 1966, Gertrude Baniszewski was convicted of first degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison. She gained a new appeal, but was once again convicted and sent back to prison. She never expressed any genuine remorse, and when anyone inquired about her reasons, she would say, “I had to teach her a lesson.” In 1985, Gertrude was released on parole, and lived peacefully under an assumed name. She died five years later of lung cancer.

Paula Baniszewski was convicted of second degree murder and was also sentenced to life in prison.

Richard Hobbs, Coy Hubbard, and John Baniszewski Jr. were all convicted of manslaughter, and were given 2 -21 year prison sentences.

Sylvia Marie Likens was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, in Lebanon, Indiana. In June 2001, a six-foot tall block of granite was dedicated as a memorial to Sylvia in Willard Park (1700 E. Washington Street).

You may be interested in this story, about another tortured woman, Kelly Anne Bates.