Gertrude Baniszewski

Gertrude Baniszewski

Gertrude Nadine Baniszewski (September 19, 1929 – June 16, 1990), also known as Gertrude Wright and Nadine van Fossan, was an Indiana divorcée who, with the aid of most of her own children and neighborhood children, such as Ricky Hobbs and Coy Hubbard, oversaw and facilitated the prolonged torture, mutilation, and eventual murder of Sylvia Likens, a teenaged 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".