16-year-old Sylvia Likens was the daughter of two carnival workers. Her parents separated, and her mother, Betty, was incarcerated for shoplifting. As a result, Sylvia and her sister, Jenny, were sent to live with Gertrude Baniszwewski and her family, paying them $20 to take care of the two girls. When the payments were late, Baniszwewski would turn on the girls, particularly Sylvia. She would hit the girls with paddles. Being fragile and asthmatic herself, Baniszwewski recruited her children and neighbourhood children to subject Sylvia to horrendous abuse over the period of three months. This abuse included putting cigarettes out on her skin, burning her with scalding water, beating her, rubbing salt in her wounds, forcing her to eat things which would cause her to vomit and on at least two occasions, she was raped with a Coca-Cola bottle. On one occasion, a neighbourhood boy, Coy Hubbard, used her to practice his judo, which as a result, caused her to become incontinent. Baniszwewski responded to this by forcing her to eat her own faeces as well as her 1-year-old sons. Jenny, Sylvia’s sister attempted to get help and contacted their older sister, Diana, who came to the house yet did nothing to help.
Shortly before her death, Baniszewski took a hot needle and carved “I’m a prostitute and proud of it!” on Sylvia’s stomach. A neighbourhood boy, Richard Hobbs, helped. He also helped 10-year-old Shirley Baniszewski burn the number “3” into her chest with an iron poker. The night before Sylvia died, she attempted to escape the house of horrors. She was caught by Baniszewski who threw her down the stairs into the cellar which had become her home. The next day, on October 26, 1965, Sylvia’s body gave up after the countless beatings, burnings, rapes, and lack of food and water. She died of a brain haemorrhage, shock, and malnutrition. She had suffered unimaginable torment. Her body was covered in wounds, bruises, and burns. In her final moments, she had almost completely severed her lips with her teeth from the beatings.
Gertrude received a life sentence while the younger assailants received petty sentences and were all released and went on to lead normal lives, something Sylvia could never do. Disgustingly enough, Gertrude was released for good behaviour after just a measly fourteen years in prison.
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