Where Are the Baniszewski Family Now That Killed Sylvia
It was called the most terrible crime e'er committed in Indiana, and one-half a century subsequently, that title still holds. On October 26, 1965, police found Sylvia Likens's emaciated corpse—covered with more 150 wounds ranging from burns to cuts—sprawled on a filthy mattress in the Indianapolis home of 37-yr-one-time Gertrude Baniszewski, female parent of seven and the architect of the daughter's gruesome expiry.
The details of her demise, revealed at the 1966 trial, defy belief. Sylvia's carnival-worker parents boarded her and her sister Jenny with Baniszewski for $20 a week. Only when one of their checks arrived late, Baniszewski took out her frustration by beating the girls. Weeks of escalating horror followed. The attacks, focused almost exclusively on Sylvia, grew ever more than violent and sadistic. Several of Baniszewski'south children and a gaggle of neighborhood kids, some as young as 10, watched or joined in. None reported what they saw.
"A lot of people have compared this to Lord of the Flies," says attorney Natty Bumppo, a sometime Indianapolis Star reporter who covered the case. "But that was just a bunch of uncontrolled children. In this case, they had an adult supervising what they were doing. Information technology wasn't children going wild. Information technology was children doing what they were told."
What's even more listen-boggling is that the crime'south perpetrators all eventually walked free—some later on absurdly brusk prison sentences. Here's what happened to this tragedy's principal players.
Gertrude Baniszewski
TIME SERVED: 20 YEARS
Originally institute guilty of first-degree murder, Gertrude (or Gertie, equally she was sometimes called) was sentenced to life in prison—a judgment confirmed by a 1971 retrial. During her years at the Indiana Women's Prison, she was considered a model prisoner and earned the nickname of "Mom." In spite of widespread public outcry, she was paroled in 1985. She moved to Iowa, changed her proper noun to Nadine Van Fossan, and died of lung cancer on June 16, 1990. She never took responsibility for her crimes, claiming she "couldn't remember" her actions. "I never thought she was insane," Bumppo says. "I thought she was a downtrodden, mean woman."
Paula Baniszewski
Fourth dimension SERVED: vii YEARS
When Gertrude, a sickly asthmatic, didn't feel up to "disciplining" Sylvia, she relied on her oldest kid, Paula, to assistance out. Which she did, enthusiastically. She was 17 at the fourth dimension, and it was rumored that she and Sylvia disliked each other from the start. In 1966, Paula was bedevilled of second-degree murder, but when her conviction was overturned in 1971 on a technicality, she pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter rather than face up a retrial. She got two-to-21 years but, in spite of attempting a prison intermission, was paroled in March 1972 and released completely in March 1974. She changed her proper name to Paula Pace and wasn't heard from again until 2012, when she was discovered living in the small Iowa hamlet of Marshalltown and working for the school organisation in the neighboring town of Conrad. Stride/Baniszewski, the mother of 2 grown sons, wasn't charged with any additional crimes but was fired from her job for providing imitation information on her employee application. Since then, she has in one case more slipped off the grid.
Stephanie Baniszewski
Fourth dimension SERVED: NONE
The second-oldest of the Baniszewski children, Stephanie was xv at the fourth dimension of the crime. Though she admitted to participating to some caste in Sylvia's abuse, she was granted a special trial so all charges confronting her were dropped, likely because she agreed to turn country's evidence against her family unit. She reportedly inverse her proper name, married, had children, worked as a instructor, and now lives in Florida.
John Baniszewski
TIME SERVED: 2 YEARS
The third-oldest of the Baniszewski children and an active participant in Sylvia's torture, John was 12 when she died. Convicted of manslaughter, he became the Indiana State Reformatory's youngest inmate, serving just two years earlier being released. He changed his name to John Blake and drifted frantically before experiencing a religious epiphany that, he said, helped him see the fault of his ways. Allegedly the only member of the Baniszewski clan to bear witness public remorse for his deeds, he made no attempt to hide his by and even spoke about it publicly on occasion. Reportedly a lay minister and real-estate agent with a married woman and three children, he died of cancer in 2005 at age 52. In a masterpiece of understatement, he once told a reporter that "My mom was a very selfish, cocky-centered adult female."
Marie Baniszewski
TIME SERVED: NONE
4th-oldest of the Baniszewski children, Marie was 11 when the torture took identify. No charges were brought against her. She testified during the trial, becoming the sole member of the Baniszewski family unit to cry on the stand up during questioning. She reportedly withal lives in Indiana.
Shirley Baniszewski
TIME SERVED: NONE
5th-oldest of the Baniszewski children, Shirley was the youngest of the family to actively participate in Sylvia'southward torture. Although the ten-year-old heated a needle that was used to burn down the victim, she was never charged with any offense. Her whereabouts today are unknown.
James Baniszewski
TIME SERVED: NONE
Because he was only 8 at the time, James was non arrested nor called to evidence, although some reports suggested he played a role in the criminal offense. Of all the Baniszewski offspring, the least is known about him.
Dennis Lee Wright Jr.
NOT CULPABLE
The youngest of the Baniszewski children, Dennis was a newborn when Sylvia met her fate. He was the son of Gertrude's lover, Dennis Lee Wright Sr., who abased the family shortly later on his namesake's birth. Supposedly, he was placed in foster care and was later adopted by the White family, who inverse his proper noun to Denny Lee White. He died in 2012 in California.
Coy Hubbard
TIME SERVED: 2 YEARS
A neighborhood kid and Stephanie Baniszewski'southward beau, Hubbard was a full participant in Sylvia's torture. His "contributions" included using her as a do dummy for judo flips and punches and shoving her down the basement stairs. Convicted of manslaughter, he served simply two years before beingness released. His attorney, Forrest Bowman Jr., remembers running into him in the early on 1970s when he stopped at a almost-downtown gas station where Hubbard happened to work. "He was very effusive and said, 'Come inside, I want to introduce you to my boss,'" Bowman recalls. "I said sure. That was the terminal contact I had with him." Oddly, Hubbard never changed his name and reportedly remained in the Indianapolis area almost of his developed life. He was tried for another murder in 1982 but acquitted. He also reportedly lost his job in 2007 when the movie An American Criminal offence, about the Sylvia Likens example, debuted. He died in June of that yr in Shelbyville.
Richard Hobbs
TIME SERVED: 2 YEARS
Some other neighborhood kid who tortured Sylvia, Hobbs performed the infamous act of helping to cleave the words "I am a prostitute and proud of it" into her stomach with a large needle. The macabre job was begun by Gertrude, just when she became likewise fatigued to finish, Hobbs stepped in. Convicted of manslaughter, he served a short sentence and died of cancer in 1972 at age 21.
Lester C. Likens
Sylvia's father was a carnival worker who decided to leave his kids with a third party while he and his wife, Betty, were on the road. His simply "crime" was that he didn't vet the Baniszewski habitation more thoroughly before leaving two of his daughters in Gertrude'southward custody. "Nosotros [he and Gertrude] got to talking, and she said she would take intendance of the children and care for them similar her own," he recalled at the trial. Lester apparently believed her, because during several subsequent trips to the house—the terminal on October 5, just weeks before his girl'south death—he noticed zero out of order. Not that there was much to see, considering the only portions of the Baniszewski dwelling house he ever entered were the living room and, once, the kitchen. He reportedly died in February 2013 at the age of 86 in Fontana, California.
Betty Likens
Visibly devastated, Sylvia's mother gave merely brusque responses on the witness stand at the trial. She divorced Lester in 1967, remarried, and died on May 29, 1998, at age 71. She was buried in Crown Hill Cemetery, where she shares a headstone with her blood brother.
Dianna Likens
In the midst of the ordeal, Sylvia's sister Jenny—who was also boarded at the Baniszewskis'—reportedly chosen their older sister Dianna for help. Believing that the girls were only grumbling, Dianna initially ignored the plea. Merely her suspicions were raised when Gertrude wouldn't let her in the firm for a visit. She then spotted Jenny, who said she wasn't allowed to talk to her and ran away. Dianna contacted social services, merely when a worker showed up at the Baniszewski residence, Jenny told her (on threat of punishment from Gertrude) that Sylvia had run abroad. No further action was taken. Dianna made headlines recently when she and her husband, Cecil "Paul" Knutson, both diabetics, got lost in the California backcountry and were stranded in their machine for ii weeks with aught to sustain them but rainwater, a pie, and some oranges. Knutson didn't survive the ordeal, dying of a center assail later on the outset week. Dianna, virtually decease, was discovered and rescued past off-roaders.
Jenny Likens
Perchance because she was crippled by polio, Jenny didn't suffer near as much corruption equally her sister Sylvia did. From the commencement, she had opportunities to tell neighbors what was going on, merely she didn't considering she feared she would make things worse. Indeed, one of the enduring mysteries of the case is why neither she nor Sylvia sought help earlier things escalated. "I speculate that there was never any experience in Sylvia's life, upward to the time she went into Gertie's house, when she learned that people would come up to her aid," says Bowman, Hubbard's attorney. "She wasn't conditioned to believe that anyone would help her." Sylvia finally succumbed to her injuries afterward months of torture. Hobbs, the neighborhood kid, contacted the police to study the death. When the police arrived to collect her sister's body, Jenny reportedly told them, "You get me out of here, and I'll tell you everything." A Beech Grove resident, she died in 2004 at the age of 54.
This commodity appeared in the Oct 2015 Issue.
Source: https://www.indianapolismonthly.com/longform/likens-looking-back-indianas-infamous-crime-50-years-later
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