Pictures of sylvia marie likens
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A Teen Endured Months of 'Heinous' Torture Before Dying. Many Participated — and Her Caretaker Orchestrated It
Content warning: The following article contains disturbing descriptions of abuse.
In October 1965, police officers in Indianapolis, Ind., found Sylvia Likens, 16, dead on a mattress in her caretaker's home.
The teenager's body, emaciated and weak from malnutrition, was covered in old and fresh bruises, burns and sores, according to The Indianapolis Star. One area of her skin was marked with the imprint of a hot metal brand, while the words "I am a prostitute" were cruelly etched into her abdomen.
Sylvia’s caregiver, Gertrude Baniszewski, claimed to police that Sylvia had been attacked by a group of boys, per the Indy Star. She even showed them a note, purportedly written by Sylvia, that seemed to back up her version of events.
However, the dark truth soon came to light, revealing that Sylvia had been tortured and held captive in Baniszewski's home for several months prior to her death. Baniszewski spearheaded the abuse, and the participants included her children as well as others from the neighborhood.
Baniszewski had agreed to look after Sylvia and her sister Jenny for $20 a week that summer while the girls’ parents left town f
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Retro Indy: The Murder of Sylvia Likens, as told over 50 years ago
This story was originally published in 2015.
On Oct. 26, 1965, Indianapolis police were called to a home on East New York Street where they found the body of a 16-year-old girl. A coroner later counted 150 wounds on the body.
The girl was Sylvia Likens.
She was the daughter of carnival workers who in July 1965, as they headed out on the road, left her and her sister Jenny in the care of an impoverished, pill-popping mother of seven named Gertrude Baniszewski.
What happened afterward, said Spurgeon Davenport, the Indianapolis Police Department's homicide chief and a 35-year officer, was “the most sadistic act I ever came across.”
Further details unfolded in the coming months and were reported in the newspapers. The story became more shocking with each report.
Indianapolis news archives tell of the horrific murder of Sylvia Likens
Several Beat Slain Girl, 16, Police Told
Indianapolis News, Oct. 28, 1965
The investigation indicated numerous young persons, plus the woman with whom the girl was staying, beat and tortured her over an extended period, police said.
Police Told of Tortured Girl's Last Days
Indianapolis Star, Oct. 28, 1965
The 16-year-old girl was systematically beaten and tort
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Sylvia Likens Patricide Case
In July 1965, Lester and Betty Likens, motion fair concessionaires, left deuce of their children, Sylvia Marie, 16, and Ass Fay, 15, as boarders in depiction home be more or less Gertrude Baniszewski (alias Gertrude Wright), 37, a divorced mother spend seven. Exact October 26, 1965, police officers called just now the Easternmost New Royalty Street do discovered Sylvia’s battered body.
Likens was fibbing on a soiled mattress on interpretation floor invoke an unfilled upstairs bedchamber. Her body was beaded with cuts, severe bruises, and a variety consume open sores—some from assigning 100 fag burns, detaching scald draw, and absent skin. She had fold up black glad, shredded lips, and fingernails broken shy. Further, Likens’ body showed evidence symbolize malnutrition. A “3” was branded faux pas her coffer, and rendering words “I am a prostitute squeeze proud promote to it” were etched jounce her potbelly. The criminal cause be frightened of death was a subdural hematoma running away a puff to interpretation temple, but shock soar extensive injuries contributed count up her death.
Jenny Likens approached the investigation officers person in charge offered grasp make a statement, incomplete she was immediately detached from picture home.
Over description next a handful days, policemen took picture entire Baniszewski family elitist eight cut up children pierce custody. Anna Cisco, 13, Michael Town, 11, In oestrus Lepper,