The Sylvia Likens Story

[Moss]

Narrating from the grave after being tortured to death by a whole neighborhood over the period of a couple of months, Sylvia Likens says, "Reverend Billy used to say with every situation God always has a plan. I guess I'm still trying to figure out what that plan is." Those are the final words in the movie, An American Crime (2007), based on the true story of the 1965 murder of a fourteen year old girl in Indiana. The movie is amazing, but brutal and hard to watch. It compels one to want to somehow go through the screen and save the little girl from the beatings, cigarette burns, and branding. It evokes emotions of anger, sadness, and confusion, and while the question of how Sylvia died is all too clear, the "why?" is that which digs at your soul. Why are humans so cruel? Why did no one stop the madness? For what purpose, if there is purpose in life whether ordained by God or some other Creator, did this happen?

The real story of Sylvia Likens as told by the May 6, 1966 edition of Time is that in July 1965 her parents, a part of a traveling circus, put Sylvia and her sister, Jennie, in the care of Gertrude Baniszewski for twenty dollars a week. Time tells the rest of the story:

For two months, things went pleasantly enough. Then one day Paula Baniszewski, now 11, hit Sylvia on the jaw so hard that Paula broke her wrist. Paula's mother took to slapping Sylvia for ever more frequent, if imagined, offenses. She did not complain to her parents when they made a visit in early October. After that, her tormentors became increasingly sadistic. John Baniszewski Jr., now 13, and two neighbor boys, diabetic Richard Dean ("Ricky") Hobbs and Coy Hubbard, both 15, joined the laceration game. Sylvia was burned with matches and cigarettes, whipped with a heavy leather belt, hit on the head with a paddle and broom. A 14-year-old girl who visited the house recalled: "It was 'Sylvia, do this' and 'Sylvia, do that' all the time, and when she didn't do it, they would beat her."

Forbidden to eat at one point, she was seen consuming scraps from a garbage can. Oct. 6 was her last day at school. Concerned by Sylvia's absence from church, the pastor dropped in to inquire about her, was told by the woman that the girl was being kept home because she stole things. At the time, Sylvia was tied to an upstairs bed, forbidden water or the use of the bathroom.

By now, torturing Sylvia had become a neighborhood sport, with at least four other youngsters taking part. Even Shirley Baniszewski, 10, and Sister Marie, 11, joined in. So did Stephanie, 15, whom Sylvia had accused of being a prostitute. In fact, John Jr. told police, at one time or another everyone in the family except Mrs. B.'s 18-month-old baby had burned Sylvia with cigarettes. Polio-crippled Jenny Likens was occasionally forced on pain of beating to join the assault on her sister.

Around mid-October, after Sylvia had wet her bed, Mrs. B. ordered her to sleep thereafter in the basement on a pile of filthy rags, along with the family's two dogs. Later, according to Hobbs, Mrs. B. told Sylvia, "Now I'm going to brand you." A three-inch sewing needle was heated with matches and, Hobbs said, "Gertie started putting words on her, but she got sick and told me to finish it." Etched in two tiers of inch-high block letters across Sylvia's lower abdomen, the words said: "I'm a prostitute and proud of it." Two days later, Hobbs added, he used the hooked end of a 2-ft.-long anchor bolt that had been heated with burning newspapers to brand the numeral 3 on Sylvia's chest.

About 2:30 the next morning, Sylvia, by then in what officials described as a state of "profound apathy," made what was apparently her only effort to get help. Using a coal shovel, she scraped on the basement floor for almost two hours. A woman next door was awakened and on the verge of calling police when the scraping stopped. That afternoon, as Sylvia lay moaning and mumbling incoherently on her pile of rags, Mrs. Baniszewski, Ricky, John B. Jr. and Paula sprinkled a box of soap powder on her, then added hot water. Afterward, John Jr. sprayed her with cold water from a garden hose.

"Only Pretending." Carried upstairs to a bedroom, the girl was given a lukewarm bath, dressed in a pair of white Capri pants, and placed on a mattress on the floor. Mrs. Baniszewski struck Sylvia on each side of the head with a book and told her to get up, that she was only pretending to be sick. Mercifully, Sylvia died.

Called by her keeper, police found Sylvia's body with arms crossed over her breast. Even to hardened cops, the sight was stomach wrenching. Virtually no part of the girl's corpse was unmarked. Her fingernails had been broken upward; there were massive bruises on her temples; much of the skin on her face, chest, arms and legs had peeled from scalding water. Her lower lip had been bitten in two, presumably during her agony. The immediate cause of death was a blow on the skull. In all, Sylvia's body bore an estimated 150 burns, cuts, bruises and other lesions.

Two well-known bible verses come to mind not only in reflecting on this tragedy but on any and all tragedies ranging from the hundreds of years of slavery in America, genocide in Africa, child soldiers, blood diamonds, and the holocaust to murder, rape, pedophilia, and the hatred men can sometimes have for other men. Proverbs 16:4 says "The Lord has made everything for its purpose," and James 1:2-4 states, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance." Young Sylvia went to Church and while we cannot pick her mind, it is fair to assume that she believed in God. As she lay on the floor having the words, "I'm a prostitute and proud of it" carved onto her stomach, what would she have said if someone had told her she should consider this trial a test of faith and she should be joyful? Did her faith in God's purpose for everything grow or wane in those last moments? Did she cry, "God, please save me" or "God, why do you make me suffer?"

There is no doubt that we live in a broken and sinful world. The Christian message is that Christ came to save us from that world and offer us a better life with God in Heaven. The rest of the world is wondering why the hell an all-powerful God created the world so broken and sinful in the first place?

Note: The full Time story can be read here.

If you've never seen the movie, An American Crime, I'd suggest watching it. It's a hard watch, but it sticks with you like hardly any movie I've ever seen.

 

[CivCube]

This sounds like a much better film than The Lovely Bones. I'll have to find this and give a review myself.