A little over sixteen years ago, about the
span of time Sylvia Marie Likens graced this world, I suddenly found myself
with a lot of time on my hands.
I was in the hospital having survived a
near-fatal accident which left me permanently disabled and irrevocably altered
my life’s trajectory. About midway
through a two month stay, I was moved from the ICU to a room on the surgical
ward. The days dragged by. One can only sleep so long or watch so much
TV, so I went looking for reading material besides the newspaper and months-old
magazines. Fortunately, this hospital
had a small branch of the local public library on the grounds. As soon as I was able to get around on my own
I paid a visit, wheeling myself over to the true crime shelf.
Browsing the stacks I came across a book
titled The Basement. Its subject was the 1965 torture murder of
Sylvia Likens, a crime I had never heard of.
At first glance it looked like a mildly interesting damsel-in-distress
story about an obscure murder from years ago.
What caught my attention was that the book’s author was Kate
Millett. I knew of Millett mostly from
excerpts of Sexual Politics assigned
in a college sociology class. A look at
the jacket blurb confirmed it was indeed the same Ms. Millett. Curious as to why a feminist theorist would
write a crime book and finding it marginally more interesting than the other
titles on offer I checked it out with lukewarm enthusiasm and took it back to
my room.
I got through The Basement in a couple of days.
I was not prepared for what I read.
The book intersperses the factual narrative of the Sylvia Likens murder with
the fictionalized internal monologues of both victim and victimizers. I returned the book to the library as soon as
I finished. I did not want it near me,
and I would not read The Basement again
until this past summer. It left me
deeply unsettled and in a low mood, a feeling which stayed with me for days. I had a room to myself and at night I would
stare at the ceiling in the dark unable to get the mental images to go
away. It came to the point where I would
call the duty nurse claiming I was experiencing breakthrough pain when in fact
I wanted the mental respite morphine would afford me.
The bad thoughts eventually subsided,
replaced by more mundane concerns among the tedium of clinic appointments and
occupational therapy sessions. But for
years, often apropos of nothing I can figure, persistent thoughts of Sylvia
have recurred from time to time. It
becomes a preoccupation where for weeks or sometimes even months I feel driven
to refresh my knowledge of the case and to add to it whenever possible.
I can’t really explain my emotional
investment in the Likens case, or why it resonates with me. I’m not overly fond of kids, least of all the
adolescent subspecies. Nor am I
particularly sensitive. And yet, sometimes
when I revisit the story after a long time the sadness it inspires can bring me
to the edge of tears.
Perhaps a brief introduction is in order, if you
are unfamiliar with the facts. Sylvia
Likens was a sixteen year old girl living in Indianapolis in the summer of
1965. Sylvia’s parents, who worked as
concessionaires with a traveling carnival, needed to board their children while
on the summer fair circuit. Sylvia and her
fifteen year old sister Jenny were left in the care of Gertrude Baniszewski, a
gaunt, asthmatic woman who lived with her seven children, the youngest only a
year old, in a ramshackle Eastside house.
Mrs. Baniszewski agreed to provide room and board for the girls for $20
a week.
Over the ensuing sixteen weeks what began as
an uneventful sojourn in the Baniszewski home became a waking nightmare. Meals were skimpy. Beds were shared. Gertrude was a harsh disciplinarian who would
lash out with little warning. Two weeks
into the sisters' stay she slapped Jenny, a polio victim who wore a leg brace, because
the first $20 weekly payment hadn’t arrived from their parents on time. (It came a day or two later. Subsequent payments arrived as scheduled.)
Gertrude’s ire soon focused on Sylvia. The physical and emotional abuse intensified over the ensuing
weeks. The Baniszewski kids, along with a
few from the neighborhood who hung around the Baniszewski home, joined in as a sort of pastime. After Sylvia died on
October 26th, the 113th day of her stay with the Baniszewski
family, the coroner found a malnourished body, badly bruised, covered in an
estimated 150 cigarette burns, with scalded and scraped patches of skin and a
suppurating sore on her head. Much of
her hair had been roughly cut away. Her
genitals were bruised and swollen (from repeated kicks to the groin
administered by Gertrude as it turned out).
In addition to her other injuries Sylvia had
been branded on the abdomen with the words, “I’m a prostitute and proud of it!” Above the tattoo was a burn mark in a figure
3. To cope with the pain, Sylvia had
chewed her lips raw and broken back her fingernails on the concrete floor of
the basement where she had been confined for the previous two weeks. (Sylvia had become incontinent from the
constant abuse and was no longer allowed to live upstairs with the rest of the
household.) The coup de grace, however, came from repeated blows to the head which
caused the brain hemorrhage that ultimately killed her.
Gertrude told police Sylvia had disappeared
for several days, returning the previous night half naked, branded, and
clutching a handwritten note. The note
said she had gone off with a group of boys who then abused and abandoned her. Gertrude said she and her family had
ministered to Sylvia the best they could, but it wasn’t enough. Daughter Stephanie said she had tried to
resuscitate Sylvia while sending neighbor boy Ricky Hobbs to phone for help but
Sylvia died before it could arrive.
Jenny at first stuck to the story offered up
by Gertrude, then told a police officer she would tell them everything if he
would get her away from the Baniszewskis.
By the end of the evening Indianapolis police had arrested Gertrude and
Ricky Hobbs on a preliminary charge of first-degree murder, formalized a few
weeks later by a grand jury. The three
eldest Baniszewski children—Paula, Stephanie, and Johnny, as well as Stephanie’s
boyfriend Coy Hubbard—were held initially on delinquency charges until
indicted by a grand jury for first-degree murder. Several other neighbor children who were
hangers on at the Baniszewski house were also arrested and subsequently charged
with injury to person.
Eventually, Gertrude, Paula, Johnny, Coy, and
Ricky were tried together. The
prosecution delayed Stephanie’s trial presumably in exchange for her testimony;
the charges against her were ultimately dropped as were the charges against the
other children initially taken into custody.
The trial itself was a lurid affair, with
spectators vying for courtroom seats and the newspapers providing detailed
daily coverage. The fact the defendants
were being tried together made the testimony confusing at times. Gertrude blamed the kids for Sylvia’s
death. The kids blamed Gertrude. Jenny Likens’ testimony, among the lengthier in
the trial record if not the lengthiest, provided the most reliable details of her
sister’s ordeal the previous autumn. In
addition to her visible wounds, Sylvia was systematically dehumanized by
Gertrude and company. The humiliations included
Gertrude forcing Sylvia to undress and penetrate herself with an empty Pepsi
bottle in front of the rest of the household on two occasions and making Sylvia
drink urine and eat feces. The
handwritten note Sylvia supposedly carried with her when she returned after her
purported absence from the Baniszewski home, along with a second note handed by Gertrude to
police were actually dictated to Sylvia by Gertrude as part of an abandoned
plan to dump Sylvia in the woods.
And so forth.
Gertrude pled temporary insanity to no avail. She was convicted of first degree
murder. Although the prosecution sought
the death penalty, she was sentenced to life in prison. Paula was convicted of second-degree murder
and also drew a life sentence. Johnny,
Coy, and Ricky each was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to up
to 21 years in prison. Each served two
years and was released on parole. Ricky
died of cancer in 1972 at age 21.
Citing undue publicity in the run up to the
1966 trial, the Indiana Supreme Court overturned Gertrude and Paula’s
convictions. Granted a change of venue,
Gertrude was retried in 1971, convicted, and sentenced again to life
imprisonment. Paula pled guilty to
voluntary manslaughter rather than go to trial and was paroled in 1973.
Gertrude was by all accounts a model prisoner
and a mother figure to the younger inmates.
She was paroled in 1985 amidst public outrage. She changed her name, moved to Iowa, and died
of lung cancer in 1990.
It took me nearly 1,000 words to describe the
essential facts of the Likens murder, and that was a basic summary. I’ve read about it countless times, and I’m
still dumbfounded by the vicious pack mentality which drove Sylvia’s tormentors. Equally baffling was the apathy of the many adult
bystanders who, while they might not have known everything that was going on,
surely knew enough and could have stepped in to stop the abuse or at least gotten
in touch with the authorities.
Sylvia and Jenny were in contact with a
number of adults during the period in question.
Their parents visited the Baniszewski home several times and didn’t
notice anything amiss. Sylvia attended
school from September until the first week of October. A neighbor woman dropped by on two occasions
and noticed Sylvia’s injuries and actually witnessed Paula assaulting Sylvia
during her first visit. She did and said
nothing. The family’s pastor and a
public health nurse visited at various times and were told by Gertrude that
Sylvia had become unmanageable. The
pastor did not insist on seeing Sylvia, and the nurse was told she was in
juvenile detention. Each accepted
Gertrude’s stories and neither thought nothing more of it until after Sylvia
was dead and beyond help. Perhaps most
vexingly of all, Jenny never spoke to anyone about her sister’s mistreatment
until after it was too late.
That’s it, as succinct as I can make it
within the confines of a blog post. As I
wrote earlier I’ve been at a loss to explain my preoccupation with a person whose
existence ended before mine began, someone I could never have known, so I will
give it a try. I believe it is because when
I first read of Sylvia I was very sick as well as physically and emotionally
isolated. I needed to feel sympathy for
another human being. I needed a break from
feeling sorry for myself. How could I
feel bitter over my condition when I had already lived twice as long as Sylvia by
that point and had experienced so much of life that she never had a chance to live? Sylvia’s story resonated with me because I
have an affinity for people who have endured great adversity, particularly
those who have lived through serious illnesses or traumas. I believe Sylvia possessed an uncommon inner
strength which sustained her until her body finally gave out, a strength which
is truly worthy of admiration.
If I had to choose another reason why I’ve
remained partial to Sylvia it would be that my late mother was a Gertrude, a toxic,
manipulative, and destructive person.
She differed from Gertrude only in the magnitude of her sins. I also grew up in a similar milieu as the Likens,
Baniszewskis, and the other kids involved (though I don’t remember anyone ever
using the word “milieu” outside of school…or at school for that matter). My family was always financially strapped due
to my mother’s instability and irresponsible behavior. For a time we even lived in a house without a
stove, just like the Baniszewskis. Like
them we heated our meals on a hotplate. And
as far as discipline was concerned: I came of age in the early 1980s, when
child abuse was only beginning to become a public issue. Parents
still pretty much had carte blanche when it came to how they corrected their
kids.
But there’s even more to it for me. Beyond identifying on a personal level, I
find the setting of the Likens murder at odds with how we portray the Midwest
in popular culture. You know the
stereotype: Norman Rockwell country, populated by hardworking, salt of the
earth folks. You expect strange stuff to
go on in New York City and Los Angeles, not in places like Indianapolis. Indiana in 1965 must have seemed like a
fine, safe place to raise your kids. (Then
again, maybe I’ve read too many Jean Shepherd stories.)
The truth is that Indiana, and the Midwest
itself, has its own dark side. Indiana
was a hotbed for the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.
(The state Grand Dragon, D. C. Stephenson, was convicted of kidnapping
and raping an object of his affections who then took her own life.) The Rev. Jim Jones founded the first
incarnation of Peoples Temple in Indianapolis before decamping first to
California and subsequently to Guyana.
In the years following Sylvia Likens’ death Indiana has seen its share
of brutality, including the 1971 LaSalle Street massacre, the unsolved serial
murders of gay men in late 1970s Indianapolis, and the 1992 killing of
Shanda Sharer in Madison. The
juxtaposition of innocence and evil is hard for me to pass up.
Apparently I’m not alone. In the years since I first read The Basement there has been a resurgence
of interest in Sylvia Likens. Indianapolis Star reporter John Dean’s
account of the murder and first trial, House
of Evil, out of print for decades, was reissued several years ago. The case has also inspired two movies, The Girl Next Door (a treatment of a
novel based on Sylvia’s murder) and An
American Crime (about the case itself).
What surprised me most is how people have used cyberspace to contribute to public
knowledge concerning the murder and its aftermath. A website
dedicated to Sylvia, www.sylvialikens.com, has been up for several years. The site is exceptionally well curated and
contains such treasures as transcripts from the first trial, rare photographs
and news clippings, and a message board where Sylvia’s devotees can
congregate. It is clearly a labor of
love.
So, there it is. I will follow up with a few posts with my
thoughts on the Likens case in the hope that doing so will get Sylvia out of my
system for a little while, though I know she will be back soon enough.
© 2015 The Unassuming Scholar
