Sylvia Likens - Depictions

Depictions

The case has since been the subject of numerous fictional and non-fictional adaptations.

• Author John Dean wrote an account of the murder, House of Evil: The Indiana Torture Slaying.
• Patte Wheat's By Sanction of the Victim is a fictional story based on the incident, set in the 1970s.
• The artist and feminist author Kate Millett dealt with the subject in a number of works. She wrote a semi-fictional book relating to the incident, The Basement: Meditations on a Human Sacrifice. Millett later stated her belief that "Gertrude seems to have wanted to administer some terrible truthful justice to this girl: that this was what it was to be a woman." Her 1967 installation Trap, in a New York loft basement, was influenced by Likens' murder. Millett created another art installation in 1978, The Trial of Sylvia Likens, that depicts a courtroom scene with the five defendants.
• Mendal Johnson's only novel, Let's Go Play at the Adams', was based on this case.
• Jack Ketchum's novel The Girl Next Door is loosely based on the murder; a movie based on the book was released in 2007, with Blythe Auffarth in the main role.
• The film An American Crime starring Catherine Keener as Baniszewski, Ellen Page as Likens and Jeremy Sumpter as Coy Hubbard premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, in 2007.
• The Sylvia Likens case was documented on the “Born Bad” episode of Deadly Women on the Investigation Discovery channel.
• A play called Hey, Rube written by Janet McReynolds, was produced but never published.
• The Pain Teens made a music video entitled "Basement" based on the torture of Sylvia Likens.
• Author Paul Donnelly documented the case in his book 501 Most Notorious Crimes.
• Author Lavinia Jewel wrote a crime novel in the first person of Sylvia Likens and Jenny Likens (alternating between chapters) documenting the murder in 'The Punishment Game'