Sylvia - III: Crime and Punishment

The sequence of events started rather abruptly.

Sylvia and Jenny were living in Indianapolis with mother Betty in the early summer of 1965.  They had taken an apartment after Betty and father Lester separated following a few months living in Long Beach, California.  Lester remained with his mother in Lebanon, together with sons Danny and Benny.   (Eldest daughter Dianna was already married and living on her own.)

Lester and Betty Likens had had a turbulent marriage with frequent separations and reunions.  The family moved around a lot; by the time she died Sylvia had lived at fourteen different addresses.  Lester was hard working but was never prosperous.  After his discharge from the Navy in 1946 he had worked at a number of jobs including running a restaurant, which he lost when it was discovered that the man who had leased it to him didn’t actually own the place, laundry route driver, proprietor of a dry cleaners, and factory worker.  At times he and Betty worked as carnival concessionaires, travelling the Midwestern summer fair circuit.

Over 4^th of July weekend Betty was arrested for shoplifting leaving the sisters at loose ends for a couple of days.  While hanging out with a friend from their old neighborhood on East New York Street, they met Paula Baniszewski.  Paula brought the girls home with her where they met Gertrude.  The visit led to an invitation to supper.  (Gertrude actually invited Jenny to the table; she declined unless a place was set for Sylvia.  A first hint of things to come…)

Jenny and Sylvia stopped by again the next day and that visit became a sleepover.  Lester and Danny arrived later that night looking for the girls, having been directed to the Baniszewski house by their old neighbor friend Darlene McGuire.  Sylvia and Jenny told Lester of Betty’s arrest.  Allowed to sleep in the living room overnight, Lester told Gertrude the next day that he had a job offer on the fair circuit and hoped Betty would join him.  Jenny was still in elementary school and Sylvia wanted to return to high school after dropping out the previous year.  Both needed to stay in Indianapolis.  Gertrude offered to board the girls for $20 a week until he and Betty returned.  Lester agreed and advised Gertrude to “straighten out” Sylvia and Jenny if they got out of line.

This is where a lot of people encountering this story for the first time indignantly shake their heads.  Leave my daughters with a total stranger?  Never!  The ever blunt Forrest Bowman, a defense attorney at the 1966 trial who recently published a memoir of the case, describes Lester as a “study in human inadequacy” and wonders whether he was “dumb or indifferent” to his daughters’ wellbeing to have left them with Gertrude.  This is the general consensus of many observers.  But it’s easy to second guess people’s decisions after a tragedy.

While I am not defending Lester’s decision I think we should contemplate the circumstances.  I have two points for you to consider.  The first one is—and I know it’s a cliché—but it was a simpler time.  The other is to put ourselves in Lester’s shoes.  The pressures he was experiencing may have been self-imposed but they were nevertheless real and immediate for him.  He’s been searching for work since giving up his aircraft factory job in California.  He sees a chance to salvage his marriage by going on the fair circuit with Betty.  The daughters need to go to school, and grandma up in Lebanon has her hands full with the boys.  Dianna is married and has her own life.  He has very little time to pull everything together, and Gertie’s offer must have seemed a godsend.

And so a deal was reached.  Betty was already out of jail so she and Lester could hit the road.  It’s true they were remiss not learning more about the household in which they were leaving their daughters, despite making several visits over the ensuing weeks.  The Baniszewski family environment was full of risk factors and short on protective factors.  Gertrude was 37 years old but looked much older.  She had six children with her first husband, ex-police officer John Baniszewski: Paula (17), Stephanie (15), Johnny (12), Marie (10), Shirley (9), and Jimmy (6). 

She also had an infant son, Denny, from a short-lived relationship with 23 year old Dennis Wright, who at this juncture was either with the army in Germany or in prison depending on Gertrude’s telling.  (Gertrude passed herself off as “Mrs. Wright” during the time of the Likens girls’ stay.)  Support payments were often late.  Gertrude’s poor health limited the amount of laundry and ironing work she could take in.  The house was sparsely furnished.  The children shared beds.  There was no stove in the kitchen, only a hot plate.  Kitchen utensils consisted of a few forks and by the end a single spoon.  Meals often consisted of toast for breakfast with soup and crackers for dinner.  There usually wasn’t any lunch.

Complementing the menagerie at 3850 East New York was a collection of neighborhood children who came and went throughout the day.  Coy Hubbard, a 15 year old judo enthusiast who would initiate the practice of “flipping” Sylvia, was Stephanie Baniszewski’s boyfriend.   Ricky Hobbs, also 15, lived a couple of doors down.  Randy Lepper, a 12 year old boy with offputting mannerisms, was another frequent habitué, as were Judy Duke (12), Anna Siscoe (13), Mike Monroe (12), and the aforementioned Darlene McGuire.

At first there were halcyon days, if such a thing can be said to have existed under Gertrude’s roof.  The kids would spend their days at the local parks, Brookside, Ellenberger, and Christian.  Sure, it was because Gertie was fed up with having so many kids around the place but it was still summertime with all its pleasures.  The outings must have made up for the increasingly disturbing developments back at the house.

According to Jenny, conditions began to deteriorate around the end of the second week of her and Sylvia’s stay when things became “pretty rough.”  For Sylvia they continued to get rougher.  Viewed in their entirety Sylvia’s abuse and death fit neatly into long-recognized patterns of bullying and domestic violence.  Over the weeks of her stay Sylvia was systematically scapegoated and dehumanized in a textbook case of mobbing, culminating in her branding and being fed human waste before the head beatings which caused her fatal brain hemorrhage.  As the abuse progressed Gertrude and the kids believed they were justified in their actions because they had gradually convinced themselves Sylvia was somehow a lesser being. 

Evidence suggests that the Baniszewski home was a violent place well before Sylvia and Jenny crossed its threshold.  These were not people who used their words.  John, Sr. was a harsh disciplinarian with his kids and may well have been abusive with Gertrude during their relationship.  He had a violent side; a 1968 news photo shows him roughing up a newspaper photographer.  Paula, Stephanie, and Johnny were known to throw hands on slight provocation.  Dennis Wright would beat Gertrude from time to time before he made himself scarce.  A psychiatrist who testified at the trial said Gertrude was a passive individual; this may have affected her ability to leave abusive relationships exacerbating the brutal atmosphere within the household. 

Accustomed to harsh treatment throughout her own life, Gertrude’s brand of discipline was indiscriminate and ruthless.  Sylvia and Jenny are caught collecting discarded soda bottles to return for the deposit money; Gertie beats them.  Sylvia and Jenny find a castoff tennis shoe that fit Jenny’s good foot; Gertie beats them.  Sylvia, not having money to buy a gym suit for school, finds an unwanted gym suit lying about and brings it home; Gertrude beats her.  And so forth.  Sometimes Sylvia was beaten for misconstrued acts: Little Jimmy, who was said to have had kidney trouble, once playfully jumped on Sylvia’s back.  Sylvia, startled, threw him off with Jimmy landing hard on his own back.  He was unhurt, but Sylvia was punished nonetheless.

Throughout the witness testimony a pattern is evident.  Someone, Gertrude or one of the kids would hurt Sylvia in some form or fashion.  Sylvia would cry.  Later she would cry less, then not at all.

A good deal of the abuse, when it wasn’t occasioned by Sylvia’s alleged badmouthing of others, seemed to center around two issues—food and hygiene.  The withholding of food was likely an outgrowth of the scarcity of just about everything in the Baniszewski house.  I mentioned that family meals weren’t exactly bounteous.  When Lester and Betty would visit both daughters complained of being hungry.  By early September, Sylvia was being denied meals by Gertrude though Jenny continued to get as much food as the other residents of the house.  Even before this Sylvia and Jenny got “the board” for eating too much at a church supper. 

While she attended school Sylvia worked in the cafeteria which entitled her to a much needed free lunch, but this ended in October when Gertrude forbade her from further attendance.  Even before this withholding food had become a prime component of Sylvia’s physical and psychological torture.  On one occasion when Jenny came back from a school festival with a lollipop, Gertrude taunted Sylvia about how Sylvia must wish she had one too.  The discovery of a sandwich eaten a couple of weeks previously, the bounty of a chance encounter with sister Dianna at the park, resulted in a thrashing.   A supposed smear of mustard around Sylvia’s mouth which no one but Gertie could see and the odor of hamburger on her breath which only Gertie could smell brought the same. 

One evening, the Baniszewskis had hot dogs for dinner.  Sylvia was excluded from the repast until Gertrude and the kids bullied her into eating a portion of a hot dog so loaded with condiments it made her vomit.  Soon Gertie and the kids would feed her other things, but the lack of food took its toll.  Coroner Charles Ellis noted at Sylvia’s autopsy that her body had begun storing fat in her liver, a clinical sign of malnutrition.  As her stay with Gertrude went on there were reports from the neighbors Sylvia was scavenging food from garbage cans.

Gertrude’s preoccupation with Sylvia’s cleanliness may have been a facet of her conjectured sexual fixation with her.  Those who knew her said Sylvia was neat and clean in her habits and practiced good personal hygiene.  Gertrude thought otherwise and was determined to prove it.  Gertrude would rip Sylvia’s clothes off her back and prevent her from bathing.  Then she would accuse Sylvia of being dirty and subject her to scalding baths, binding Sylvia hand and foot so she could not get away.  She was assigned her own bowl and spoon because of her dirtiness and was forbidden from taking meals with the family. 

Sylvia’s exile to the basement was also part of Gertrude’s warped logic.  When Sylvia became incontinent from the constant physical punishment, she was tied to the bed and forbidden use of the bathroom.  The inevitable bedwetting would lead to equally inevitable beatings.   The final indignity took place hours before she died.  Sylvia was hosed down with cold water and detergent powder on the basement floor after soiling herself.

It’s difficult to account for the frequency and intensity of the violence inflicted on Sylvia.  Simply cataloguing what was done only heightens my own disbelief.  There are hints, however, of Sylvia being the catalyst which surfaced something already brewing within Gertrude and the Baniszewski family.  Stephanie testified Gertrude did not resort to corporal punishment often.  When asked by her mother’s attorney on cross whether there were discipline problems among the children, Stephanie said Paula and Johnny were responsible for most of the trouble in the Baniszewski household but that Gertrude tended to scapegoat Stephanie.  In an article published just after the trial, Stephanie described her goodbyes with her mother as almost a role reversal with Stephanie as the adult figure.  Stephanie was also quoted as saying that if it hadn’t been for Sylvia she herself might easily have become the target of her mother’s rage.  She thought Sylvia may have resembled someone from Gertrude’s past.  Who knows?  It’s as good an explanation as any for the unexplainable.

Then there is the question raised by every commenter on the Likens case: Why didn’t Sylvia fight back?  Or try to get away?  Why didn’t either sister tell anyone?  Paula claimed she warned Sylvia to leave the house for her own good.  On another occasion Gertrude told Jenny that Johnny had taken Sylvia for a walk at night to “lose” her, but that Sylvia had come back on her own.  If the story is true the reason for Sylvia’s return is self-evident.  She didn’t have anywhere else to go.  Sylvia had run into Dianna a couple of times but didn’t know where she lived.  A grandmother lived a mile or so away, but adults were more apt to believe adults over kids in those days and Sylvia might have feared she wouldn’t be believed leaving her in the end with an even more vindictive Gertrude.

A casual meta-analysis of books and articles suggests a consensus which holds that the Likens children were already used to harsh corporal punishment.  John Dean mentions that Lester once thrashed Danny and Sylvia for staying out all night and that Sylvia and Jenny were spanked on another occasion for dawdling on an errand to the market.  Gertrude’s slaps and paddling probably didn’t seem unusual in the beginning.  Much like frogs in a pan of water brought to boil Sylvia and Jenny did not realize they were in trouble until it was too late.

It’s useful to remind ourselves that childrearing practices were different then.  Corporal punishment was usual and accepted and family matters were considered private.  I was a child in the 1970s.  My father had fashioned a paddle from a slab of inch-thick pine; it hung on a hook on the kitchen wall.  My sisters and I were frequently spanked with the paddle as well as with belts, a wooden spoon when we were smaller, and with an open hand.  I do find it unusual that the Likens kids were being punished this way well into their teens, but it seems to have been acceptable in that time and place.  

The nature of the spankings show how easily accepting physical punishment as normal can escalate into worse mistreatment.  The methods employed in the Baniszewski home varied.  Sometimes it was with a fraternity-style wooden paddle.  Sometimes it was with a police belt given to Gertrude by John, Sr.  At first it was Gertrude administering the thrashing; when she felt under the weather she would give the job to Paula.  Later, Stephanie was enlisted.  By October, the abuse of Sylvia had turned into a free-for-all involving everyone in the house but Jenny.  (Even Jenny got dragged into it one time.  Gertrude once slapped Jenny until Jenny would slap Sylvia.  Jenny used her left hand to lessen the blow.)  

One element of the punishment is disturbing.  Jenny testified as to how she and Sylvia were told to partially undress before being paddled, adding sexual humiliation to the harm.  Of course, as the abuse against Sylvia escalated to the withholding of food and water, punches, burnings, crotch kicks, judo flips, having random objects thrown at her, strippings, tumbles down the basement steps, scalding, salted wounds, chokings, bindings, branding, shearing, coerced self-violations with a soda bottle, and head blows, perhaps humiliation became moot.

So, again, the question arises as to why the sisters did not ask for help.  I’ve already mentioned one possible answer, reporting the abuse would pit the word of a child against that of a grownup.  But why Sylvia’s growing lassitude?  Sylvia surely became passive for the same reason as her tormentors ramped up their abuse.  The Just World Hypothesis looms large in our cultural worldview.  Gertrude believed Sylvia was somehow getting what she deserved; perhaps as time passed Sylvia began to believe it herself.  I also think there is merit to the theory that Sylvia was taking the abuse for both herself and Jenny.  By all accounts Sylvia was gentle natured and deferential to adult authority, and this undoubtedly inhibited her volition to resist.  As the weeks wore on and her sense of self eroded I think Sylvia, like many victims of domestic violence, fell into the trap of learned helplessness.  When she did try to make a break for it after Gertrude floated her plan to dump Sylvia in the woods, she was too weakened to get past the front door.  The ensuing beating to her head sealed her fate.

For Jenny it was fear of Gertrude and though her critics believe otherwise, fear for Sylvia.  Remember that Jenny wasn’t wholly exempt from the abuse.  Jenny once slipped and mentioned to a church friend that Sylvia was still at home rather than in juvenile hall as instructed.  Gertrude reminded Jenny to stay on script by giving her a black eye.  It did not seem to Jenny that there were any adults in her immediate circle or beyond whom she could trust without landing her or Sylvia in worse trouble.  Her blurted offer to police Sgt. Kaiser to tell all if he would only get her away from Gertrude was a desperate gambit.  Just minutes before Paula was reading the Bible to Jenny and promising to treat her like a sister if she would stay with the Baniszewskis.   Even Jenny’s dry account of this exchange in the trial transcript evokes a sense of dread. 

As with Sylvia, there is no reason to trust Jenny would have been believed if she had spoken up.  I think Jenny was used to being treated condescendingly by adults.  The poor little crippled girl, you know.  Dianna was skeptical when she and Sylvia first mentioned Gertrude was perhaps a little heavy handed.  Lester and Betty suspected nothing during their periodic visits.  When Dianna herself sensed something amiss and went to the house Gertrude ran her off saying Lester and Betty had said not to allow her to see her sisters.  The Baniszewski home was a closed book to adults and an open secret to the neighborhood kids.

I often wonder whether anyone in the house knew the seriousness of what they were doing, or the consequences until the moment they discovered Sylvia had stopped breathing.  During her final hours downstairs, as Sylvia struggled to remain conscious by trying to recite the alphabet and by trying to identify aloud the various people who passed in and out of the basement, the Baniszewski kids went about their day and Gertrude sat in front of the television crocheting. 

We know from the coroner’s testimony that Sylvia died hours before the time her death was reported to the police.  The bathing of the body, dressing it in fresh clothes, laying it half on, half off the dingy mattress, the call to the police from the payphone at the Shell station across the street all hint at a frantic attempt to cover their backs.  After this failed, the statements to the police reflect a curious absence of guilt despite the frankness of the confessions.  Certainly the trial, which took place the following spring, shed little light. 

© 2015 The Unassuming Scholar