Sylvia Likens - Abuse and Death

Abuse and Death

Baniszewski, described by The Indianapolis Star as a "haggard, underweight asthmatic" suffering from depression and the stress of several failed marriages, began taking her anger out on the Likens girls, beating them with paddles, after payments from their parents failed to arrive on time.

Soon, Baniszewski focused her abuse on Sylvia, accusing her of stealing candy that she had bought from a grocery store, and humiliating her when she admitted that she once had a boyfriend. Paula Baniszewski, who actually was pregnant at the time, kicked Likens in the genitals and accused her of being pregnant, although medical examination proved that Sylvia was not and could not have been.

Likens was later accused of spreading rumors through Arsenal Technical High School that Stephanie and Paula were prostitutes. That supposedly provoked Stephanie's boyfriend, Coy Hubbard, to physically attack Likens. Mrs. Baniszewski encouraged Hubbard and other neighborhood children to torment Likens, including, among other things, putting cigarettes out on her skin and forcing her to remove her clothes and insert a glass Coca-Cola bottle into her vagina on at least two occasions.

After beating Sylvia to force her to confess to stealing a gym suit from school which Baniszewski would not buy for her (and without which she was unable to attend gym class) Baniszewski kept her out of school and did not allow her to leave the house. When Likens urinated in her bed, she was locked in the cellar and forbidden to use the toilet. Later, she was forced to consume her own feces and urine. Shortly before Sylvia died, Baniszewski began to carve the words "I'm a prostitute and proud of it!" into Sylvia's stomach with a heated needle, although Richard Hobbs finished the carving when Baniszewski was unable to do so. Hobbs, with the help of 10-year old Shirley Baniszewski, also used a heated eye bolt to burn the number "3" into Sylvia's chest.

Likens attempted to escape a few days before her death after overhearing Baniszewski's plan to have her dumped in a wooded area nearby, but was caught by Baniszewski as she reached the front door. As punishment, she was tied in the basement and given only crackers to eat. On October 26, 1965, after multiple beatings, burnings, and scalding baths, Likens died of a brain hemorrhage, shock and malnutrition. She was 16 years old.

When Stephanie Baniszewski and Richard Hobbs realized that Sylvia was not breathing, Stephanie attempted to give Sylvia mouth-to-mouth resuscitation before realizing that it was hopeless and that Sylvia was dead.