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Gertrude Baniszewski
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| This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2007) |
| Gertrude Baniszewski | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1929 Indiana, USA |
| Died | June 16, 1990 Iowa, USA |
| Alias(s) | Gertrude van Fossan (maiden name) Gertrude Wright Nadine van Fossan |
| Charge(s) | First degree murder |
| Conviction(s) | First degree murder |
| Penalty | Life imprisonment |
| Status | Dead |
| Spouse | John Baniszewski Sr. Edward Guthrie |
| Children | Paula Baniszewski Stephanie Baniszewski John Baniszewski Jr. Marie Baniszewski Shirley Baniszewski Dennis Lee Wright Jr. |
Gertrude Baniszewski (née van Fossan) (1929 – June 16, 1990), also known as Gertrude Wright and Nadine van Fossan, was an Indiana divorcee who oversaw and facilitated the prolonged torture, mutilation, and eventual murder of Sylvia Likens, a teenage girl she had taken into her home. When she was convicted of first-degree murder in 1966, the case was called "the single worst crime perpetrated against an individual in Indiana's history".
The case has since been subject to numerous fictional and non-fictional adaptations, one of the most recent being An American Crime, featuring Catherine Keener as Gertrude Baniszewski, which has been scheduled for release nation-wide in 2007.[1]
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Baniszewski was born in 1929, the third of six children. In 1940, Baniszewski watched her father, with whom she was close, die of a sudden heart attack. Five years later, she dropped out of school at the age of 16 to marry 18-year-old deputy John Baniszewski, with whom she had four children.
Although John Baniszewski had a volatile temper, the two stayed together for 10 years before divorcing. After a brief marriage to a man named Edward Guthrie, Gertrude and John Baniszewski remarried and had two more children, before divorcing permanently in 1963.
Baniszewski, then 37, moved in with a 23-year-old Dennis Lee Wright, who abused her. They had a son, Dennis Jr., but after his birth, Wright abandoned Baniszewski and disappeared.
In July 1965, Lester and Betty Likens suggested that she take their two daughters - Sylvia Marie Likens, 16, and Sylvia's younger sister, Jenny, 15 - as boarders in return $20 a week in compensation. Sylvia and Jenny attended high school and social functions with the Baniszewski children, as well as church with Gertrude on Sunday.
However, when Lester's first $20 payment failed to arrive on time, Baniszewski beat the girls. Shortly thereafter the girls were beaten for having candy that Gertrude accused them of stealing (they had, in fact, bought it). Thus began a regular pattern of child abuse.
In August 1965, Baniszewski began to verbally and physically abuse Sylvia, allowing her older children to beat Sylvia, and push her down stairs. Baniszewski also accused Sylvia of being a prostitute, and delivered "sermons" to her children and Sylvia about the filthiness of prostitutes and women in general. After Sylvia and Jenny accused Baniszewski's daughters Paula and Stephanie of being prostitutes, Stephanie's boyfriend Coy Hubbard, and several other classmates and local boys were brought in to assist Baniszewski in beating Sylvia.
In August 1965, Phyllis and Raymond Vermillion moved in next door to the Baniszewski family, and immediately noticed a pattern of abuse and violence towards Sylvia. However, they did not approach the authorities with any concerns. Around this time, Sylvia stole a gym suit from school, but Baniszewski found it and beat a confession out of Sylvia, before burning her with a lit cigarette - a practice which became routine. It was after this that Baniszewski pulled Sylvia out of school. Soon after, Baniszewski again accused Sylvia of prostitution, and forced her to strip and masturbate with a Coca Cola bottle for a group of neighborhood boys.
Following the Coke bottle incident, Sylvia became incontinent; as a result, Baniszewski locked her in the basement. Gertrude 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. would make Sylvia eat her own feces.
Sometime around this period, Jenny managed to send contact to her and Sylvia's older sister, Diana, outlining the horrors that she and Sylvia were experiencing, and asking Diana to contact the police. Diana 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 came by to visit her sisters, but Baniszewski refused to allow her into the home. Diana then hid nearby the house until she spotted Jenny outside, and then approached her. Jenny told her older sister that she was not allowed to talk to her and then ran away. Concerned, Diana contacted social services, who were informed that Sylvia had been kicked out of the house for being physically unclean and a prostitute, and that Sylvia had since run away. Baniszewski threatened Jenny not to tell the social worker the truth, and Jenny then told the social worker that Sylvia had indeed run away. The social worker returned to her office, where she filed a report stating that no more calls needed to be made to the Baniszewski home.
On October 21, Baniszewski instructed John Jr., Coy, and Stephanie to bring Sylvia up from the basement and tie her to a bed. The next morning, Baniszewski made her masturbate with a coke bottle, before carving phrases into her skin with a hot needle. The next day, Baniszewski woke Sylvia, and then dictated a letter to her, intended to look like a runaway letter to her parents.
After Sylvia finished the letter, Baniszewski began formulating a plan to have John Jr. and Jenny take Sylvia to a nearby garbage dump and leave her there to die. When Sylvia overheard this, she tried to escape, but was stopped.
On October 24, Baniszewski came into the basement and attempted to bludgeon Sylvia with a chair and paddle, but missed her. Coy Hubbard stepped in and beat Sylvia unconscious with a broomstick. On October 26, Baniszewski told the children she would give Sylvia a bath. Stephanie and Ricky brought Sylvia upstairs and laid her in the tub fully clothed; they took her out shortly thereafter when they realized she was not breathing. Stephanie gave Sylvia CPR, but by this time, Sylvia was already dead.
Baniszewski told Hobbs to call the police. When they arrived, Baniszewski gave them the letter she'd made Sylvia dictate; in the midst of the commotion, Jenny Likens whispered to one of the police, "Get me out of here and I'll tell you everything." This statement, combined with the police's discovery of Sylvia's body in the basement, prompted the officers to arrest Baniszewski, Paula, Stephanie, John, Hobbs, and Hubbard for murder. Other neighborhood children present at the time - Mike Monroe, Randy Lepper, Duke, and Siscoe - were arrested for "injury to a person."
Baniszewski, her children, Hobbs, and Hubbard were held without bail pending their trials.
An autopsy of Sylvia Likens turned up burns, bruising, and muscle and nerve damage. In her death throes, Sylvia bit through her lips, nearly severing each of them. Her vaginal cavity was nearly swollen shut, although an examination of the canal determined that her hymen was still intact, largely discrediting Baniszewski's assertions that Sylvia was a prostitute and completely disproving her insistence that she was pregnant. The official cause of death was brain swelling, internal hemorrhaging of the brain, and shock.
Baniszewski was found guilty of murder in the first degree. She was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Baniszewski appealed, was granted a new trial, and was again found guilty, though this time she was sentenced to 18 years to life. Over the course of the next 18 years, Baniszewski became a model prisoner, working in the sewing shop and becoming a den-mother to younger female inmates; by the time she came up for parole in 1985, she had earned the prison nickname "Mom."
The news of Baniszewski's parole hearing sent shockwaves through the Indiana community. Jenny Likens and her family appeared on television to speak out against Baniszewski; the members of two anti-crime groups, Protect the Innocent and Society's League Against Molestation, travelled to Indiana to oppose her parole and support the Likens family, beginning a sidewalk picket campaign. Over the course of two months, the groups collected 4500 signatures from the citizens of Indiana demanding that Baniszewski be kept behind bars. In spite of all this, Baniszewski was granted parole. During the hearing, she gave the following confession:"
I'm not sure what role I had in it... because I was on drugs. I never really knew her... I take full responsibility for whatever happened to Sylvia.
Baniszewski walked out of prison on December 4, 1985, and travelled to Iowa; she died there of lung cancer on June 16, 1990.[2]
- ^ Broeske, Pat H. A Midwest Nightmare, Too Depraved to Ignore. The New York Times. 14 January 2007.
- ^ Library Factfiles: The murder of Sylvia Likens. The Indianapolis Star. Access date: 14 November 2007.
- Dean, John. The Indiana Torture Slaying: Sylvia Likens Torture and Death]]. 1999. ISBN 0-9604894-7-9.
- Crime Library
- New York Times; May 20, 1966, 5 Are Convicted In Torture Death; Mother and 4 Teen-Agers Guilty in Girl's Slaying. Friday; Indianapolis, May 19, 1966 (UPI) A Criminal Court jury today found Mrs. Gertrude Baniszewski, 38-year-old mother of seven, guilty of first degree murder in the torture slaying of Sylvia Likens, 16. Four teenage defendants were convicted on lesser charges.
- New York Times; May 25, 1966, Wednesday; 2 in Torture Death of Girl Are Sentenced for Life. Indianapolis, Indiana, May 24, 1966 (AP) Two defendants in the torture slaying of Sylvia Likens got life sentences today in the Indiana Women's Prison. Three others were sentenced to the Indiana Reformatory for terms of 2 to 21 years.