In July 1965, Paula Baniszewski met up with a friend of hers, Darlene McGuire, who introduced her to two new neighborhood girls, Sylvia Marie Likens, 16, and Sylvia's younger sister, Jenny, 15, who was required to walk with braces due to polio
In July 1965, Paula Baniszewski met up with a friend of hers, Darlene McGuire, who introduced her to two new neighborhood girls, Sylvia Marie Likens, 16, and Sylvia's younger sister, Jenny, 15, who was required to walk with braces due to polio. Paula took the girls back home to 3850 East New York Street, where they drank soda and listened to records.
The Likens' girls mother, Betty, was at the time in county jail after having been arrested for shoplifting, which left Sylvia to care for her sister; Betty had abandoned Sylvia's father, Lester, and effectively kidnapped their two daughters. When Paula heard of the girls' circumstances, she offered to let Sylvia and Jenny spend the night
The next day, Lester Likens arrived in town, having tracked down his wife. He ran into McGuire, who recognized the description Lester gave of his daughters, and she directed him to the Baniszewski home.When Lester Likens arrived, Baniszewski introduced herself as "Mrs. Wright". The two struck up a conversation, over the course of which the idea came up that Gertrude might take in Sylvia and Jenny as boarders; he had spoken with his wife at the county jail, where they had reconciled and agreed to travel the United States carnival circuit as carnies.No one alive knows whether Baniszewski or Lester suggested that she board the girls; eventually, Lester agreed to leave the children in Baniszewski's care for $20 a week.
Lester did not inspect the home before leaving; had he have done so, he would have discovered that Gertrude's home had no stove or microwave; that there were only enough beds for half the people in the house; that the only things Gertrude kept in her pantry were bread and crackers; that most of the surfaces in the home were caked with thick layers of dirt; and only enough plates and eating utensils for 3 people.
In August of 1965, the vacant house next door to the Baniszewski residence was purchased by a middle-aged couple named Phyllis and Raymond Vermillion. Phyllis, seeing the number of children Baniszewski cared for, believed that Baniszewski would make a good babysitter for her two young children, and that she would also be helping Baniszewski out by paying her for her services.
The Vermillions arranged a backyard barbecue so that the two families could get to know one another. During the course of the barbecue, Phyllis noticed Sylvia wandering around the yard with a pronounced black eye; Paula proudly announced to Phyllis that she was the one who had given it to her. Then, under Baniszewski's supervision, Paula approached Sylvia with a glass of steaming water and threw it in Sylvia's face. Neither of the Vermillions reported this incident to the authorities.
Two months later, Phyllis went to the Baniszewski home to borrow something. Over the course of the few minutes she was there, she noticed Sylvia wandering around as in a daze with swollen lips and a black eye that had swollen shut. To demonstrate how this had happened, Paula took her belt off and began to beat Sylvia with it in front of Phyllis. Phyllis again neglected to report anything to the authorities.
the.creepshow Following the Coke bottle incident, Sylvia became incontinent; as a result, Baniszewski decided that she was no longer fit to live with humans, and locked her in the basement. The lack of a toilet in the basement forced Sylvia to defecate and urinate on the floor. When Baniszewski saw this, she began a "bathing regime" to "cleanse" Sylvia, whom she began calling "dirty girl." The "regime" consisted of filling Gertrude's claw-footed bathtub with scalding water, binding Sylvia's wrists and ankles, and then dunking Sylvia into it. The regime was administered arbitrarily, sometimes once or many times a day, somedays not at all. Following the baths, Paula Baniszewski would rub handfuls of salt over Sylvia's nude body.
During this period Baniszewski took on 14 year old Ricky Hobbs, a neighborhood boy, as her "personal assistant" when dealing with Sylvia. Hobbs, an honor student from a middle class family with no previous legal trouble, experienced a sudden shift in personality upon becoming Baniszewski's assistant, blindly following whatever orders she gave him; crime reporters have since speculated that Hobbs was Baniszewski's lover, and that she had seduced the boy into becoming her henchman.
Baniszewski's children turned Sylvia into a money-making opportunity, charging neighborhood children a nickel to gawk at the nude Sylvia or to push her down the stairs to the basement, where she was now kept when not being bathed or put on display. She was kept constantly naked and rarely fed; when she was allowed to eat, it was in some bizarre fashion (such as the instance in which Baniszewski insisted that she eat soup with her fingers). Often, Baniszewski and her twelve-year-old son John Jr. would make Sylvia "clean" the basement by "allowing" her to eat her own feces, and gave Sylvia a container in which she could collect her urine, which she was then made to drink.
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