The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 122

THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1985 4t: tf llliEP 'iii I i ---m afcg--T IJ3 Pallbearers carry Sylvia Likens' casket to a waiting hearse after her funeral as her father, Lester (right), wipes away tears. Jenny Likens, the victim's younger sister, sits in the courtroom during the killers' 1966 trial. 4F Continued From Page 3 tried to help and protect her and pleaded, "Oh, take me home, Stephanie." Suddenly, Sylvia Likens stopped breathing. "She's dead!" Stephanie cried out. POLICE, called by one of the children from a pay phone across the street from the house, were at the scene in two minutes.

They saw a nervous, middle-aged woman who said the dead girl had stumbled into the back yard an hour before, dazed and hurt, with a handwritten note saying she had been beaten by a group of boys. The note, prepared in advance and in Sylvia's handwriting, was handed to Patrolman Melvin D. Dixon. Police saw a pregnant teen-ager, Paula, reading the Bible aloud. They saw a group of neighborhood teenagers, quiet and watching.

The children echoed the story that the middle-aged woman told. Police, thinking the gang wasn't involved in any way, chased them out of the house. Dixon went upstairs. He saw a "mattress on the floor and on the mattress was Sylvia you just about could see everything done to her. "With all the marks, I thought, 'Is this true? Am I seeing what I'm Police looked closer and saw the body of a battered young girl lying half on and half off a dirty mattress.

Every inch of her was covered with sores, cuts, burns, massive bruises or tattoos. The skin on her face, chest, arms and legs had peeled from the scalding water. Police saw the words, "I'M A PROSTITUTE AND PROUD OF IT!" across her belly and what looked like the number "3" branded above it. They saw that the girl, overcome by pain and terror, had bitten her lower lip in two. They saw that her fingernails were broken backward, indicating she had been desperately scratching at the floor.

Detectives knew that they had a homicide. "In all my years of experience," Lt. Spur-geon D. Davenport, the police homicide branch chief and a 35-year veteran, said later, "this is the most sadistic act I ever came across." Police also saw a young girl, with a withered leg from polio, who said she was the victim's sister. They heard Jenny say, quietly but with all the courage and determination she could muster, "You get me out of here, and I'll tell you everything." IT was hard to pinpoint the exact cause of death.

Dr. Charles Ellis, who performed the autopsy, said the cause was brain swelling, internal hemorrhaging of the brain and shock induced by Sylvia's extensive skin damage. He testified that Sylvia was suffering extreme malnutrition, and her body was covered head to toe with cigarette burns. The body also showed evidence of numerous immersion burns from scalding water. He couldn't tell exactly what caused the fatal blow to the child's head.

It could have come when she was thrown down the stairs into the cellar. It could have happened when she was flipped against the walls and concrete floors in judo practice. Or it could have occurred when she was struck repeatedly on the head with a curtain rod and broom handle. In her final days, Sylvia suffered intense pain and disorientation. Prosecutor New says, because she had massive internal head bleeding.

As the blood built up, it pressed against her brain. "That's why she was moaning constantly," he says, and that's why she could not remember the rest of the alphabet. Word of the "most terrible crime ever committed in Indiana." as New calls it, spread quickly and stunned the nation. Lester and Betty Likens were asleep in a hotel room in Jacksonville, when the phone rang. A neighbor from Indianapolis, D.L.

Burton, told them their daughter was dead, the victim of a torture slaying. The phone went dead as Likens passed out. "They were all torn up about it," says the Rev. Lewis Gibson of Charity Tabernacle Church in Indianapolis, the pastor for the Likens family. The couple flew home to claim their daughter's body.

Lester wept at the police station as he read Jenny's signed statement. Four days after her death. Sylvia was buried in Lebanon, her birthplace, in the tree-lined Oak Hill Cemetery. "I tried to comfort the family and told them that we all have a hope beyond this world," said the Rev. Mr.

Gibson, who conducted the funeral. The now-retired minister told the family God was with Sylvia in her final hours. "At the end. she just put her confidence in God. You take anyone in torture, and they're going to pray.

If nothing else, they pray for death. They pray, 'Lord, don't let me suffer no Before the funeral, friends and relatives saw Sylvia laid out in a half open coffin. Jenny was there, weeping loudly, as were Sylvia's two brothers, Danny and Bennic, and her married sister, Diana Shoemaker, who lived within a mile of the Baniszewski home. "Just her face showed; they didn't want the rest to show," the Rev. Mr.

Gibson says of Sylvia's body. "They had too much makeup on her face to hide the marks, but you could tell. You could still tell she had been through hell here on earth." A picture of the pretty teen-ager, taken before she moved to the Baniszewski home, was displayed by the casket. Today, there are very few visitors to the grave, marked with a simple stone that is decorated with flowers cut into its corners. The stone, chosen by the parents who left her behind for the summer, simply says, "Our darling dau.

Sylvia M. Likens 1949-1965." Prosecutor New knew that the jury seated in the packed Marion County Criminal courtroom would be looking for a motive behind this crime. There was none. There was no reason why a woman and a gang of children would torture a young girl to death. "If she was an ugly, mean girl and they wanted to get even but none of that was present," New says today.

"This was a child who had not harmed them in any way. That was the part that was so difficult to explain to i the jury." New says that one thing was certain, though. Even if Gertrude did not inflict all of the torture herself, she was at fault. "There was nobody there other than she to say, 'Don't do this, this is wrong, you're hurting the girl, she's dying, she's bleeding, you're scalding her, you're taking hot needles and the little 10-year-old is lighting the There was no one to say, 'That's Gertrude at first told police she was teaching Sylvia "a lesson," but by the time she had come to trial, she steadfastly and stubbornly denied knowledge of the torture. For hours on the witness stand, she refused any knowledge of the torture slaying.

She claimed she was sick, asleep, drugged up, at the doctor's office, out of the house, out of the room or busy ironing while the children were beating Sylvia. "I never fussed and quarreled with Sylvia," Gertrude said. When New asked if she was lying, Gertrude replied, emphatically, "No sir." When asked if she ever touched Sylvia, Gertrude said, "I tried to spank her one time, and I do recall slapping her on the hands." She vehemently denied any suggestions that she had taken a more active role in the beatings. "She never showed any remorse or conscience," says her attorney, William Erbecker, who entered pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity for her. "She said she had done nothing and that everything had been done by the children." Gertrude, on the witness stand, claimed that she knew nothing of the bruises, burns, cuts, tattoos, scalding marks and swollen areas of Sylvia's body.

A chart hanging beside her depicted the abuses in a mass of red, green and purple markings on a female body. "She blamed it on the kids and lied like hell," Erbecker says. TESTIMONY and signed statements from the four accused children Paula and John Baniszewski, Richard Hobbs and Coy Hubbard as well as other children involved contradicted Gertrude, however. They said Gertrude masterminded the torture. The younger children said they thought their mother was just punishing Sylvia.

One child testified that her mother sat nearby and crocheted while Sylvia screamed in pain. Paula told police "I used matches, and Mom used cigarettes" to burn Sylvia. Jenny tried to explain why she did not seek help for her dying sister. "I was scared." Jenny sobbed, in answer to a question from Deputy Prosecutor Marjorie Wessner. "Gertrude just kept beating me.

I guess I just did what she said and I wish I didn't." It was a coroner, though, who condemned Gertrude, in New's mind. "Erbecker asked him, 'What did you think when you saw this There was a pause of at least two minutes as the witness sat in the stand, trying to find the words. The courtroom was silent. "He came back and said, 'Mr. Erbecker, my wife and I cannot have children of our own, unfortunately.

When I looked down and saw the mutilated condition of a young child, I said a little prayer in my mind. I said, 'In the name of God, who would destroy a knowing all the time we could not have children. 'Who in the name of heaven would do New says the eight man, four-woman jury hearing the case all but one parents themselves seemed emotionally involved with the case. For the first time ever, he feared a jury would react violently to a suspect's testimony. "I was truly afraid that they would come over the rail," he says, "and get at her." THE children didn't quite understand how much trouble they were in.

During the trial, attorney Forrest Bowman had to tell John who had just turned 13, to sit still and keep quiet, or he would have to discipline him. George Rice, attorney for Paula, who became the mother of a baby girl named Gertrude during the trial, had to tell the teen ager to quit doing crossword puzzles during testimony. When attorneys asked Ricky Hobbs what he did after seeing Sylvia die, he replied, "I went home and watched the rest of (the television show) Lloyd Thaxton." Randy Lcppcr, a neighborhood child who hit Sylvia many times, was asked what Sylvia said she she was struck. "She said he answered, grinning ear to car. GERTRUDE Baniszewski sighed loudly, then slumped on attorney Erbcckcr's shoulder and sobbed.

It was 1:30 a.m. on May 19, 1966, and the jury had found her guilty of first-degree murder. New had asked the jury for first-degree murder convictions and the electric chair for each of the five defendants, but the panel decided that Paula was guilty of second-degree murder. Gertrude's eldest daughter sat expressionless as that verdict was read. John Baniszewski Richard Hobbs and Coy Hubbard were convicted of manslaughter.

Johnny rushed to embrace his mother. He would declare later, "I still love her." Hobbs took the news stoically, but Hubbard broke down and cried as his mother hugged him. Five days later, Gertrude and Paula were sentenced to life terms at the Indiana Women's Prison in Indianapolis. The three boys were sentenced to 2-21-year terms at the Indiana State Reformatory in Pendleton. Gertrude and Paula were granted a new trial in 1971, when the Indiana Supreme Court decided that a "prejudicial atmosphere" surrounded the first trial in Indianapolis.

A Miami Circuit Court jury in Peru took only Vh hours to again convict Gertrude of first-degree murder on Aug. 5, 1971. Paula pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter during the second trial, and served about two years in prison after that. The three boys were released on parole for good behavior in February of 1968. They had served about two years each of their sentences.

GERTRUDE, as well, very soon will go free. On Tuesday, she was granted parole by the Indiana Parole Board after more than 20 years of incarceration. The 57-year-old grandmother will be released within three weeks. Upon hearing of her parole, Gertrude, wearing a print blouse and a white skirt she made in the prison sewing room, cried and hugged two prison counselors. Lewis Gregory, chairman of the parole board, said it was the toughest decision the board has had to make.

After three months of talking to prison officials as well as those connected with the crime, the board ruled for freedom. "Baniszewski has spent more than 20 years in prison," a board statement says. "Her conduct has been excellent and prison records reflect her success in overcoming the serious problems that contributed to her involvement in this crime." The board says the decision is "not intended to depreciate the terrible seriousness of this crime. Instead, it is a recognition that, in this case, further imprisonment is unnecessary." Gertrude has spent her years in prison working for the part-time chaplain, the Rev. Rubin Fields, and laboring in the sewing shop, making curtains and handling alterations for inmates and staff, says superintendent Clarence Trigg.

She is well-liked among the inmates, and many of the younger ones call her "Mom." Her son, John, says she is a changed woman. "She's very mild-mannered now, not at all mean or drugged up. She's very far removed from what I remember her being" 20 years ago. John says his mother is a "Christian woman," who cares about her children and grandchildren. He says he brought his three children to visit her several years ago.

"I don't think they really understood that Grandma Baniszewski was in prison." The Likens family was less than pleased with the news. Leroy Likens of Indianapolis, the victim's uncle, says that only God can decide whether his niece's murderers should be forgiven. "He will deal with them," he says. His wife, Helen, says 20 years in prison was not enough for Gertrude. "They should do the same thing to her that they did to Sylvia." A lot can change in 20 years.

In his lay ministry, John Jr. tells his story how he was imprisoned for the torture slaying of a young girl so others will learn. He credits a friend, whom he met at Emmerich Manual High School following his release from prison, with taking an interest in him and helping him straighten out his life. John enrolled at the high school under another name following his prison term, and even went on to play football for the school. "I was in government class one day, and they were talking about capital punishment, and they started discussing whether the people in the Sylvia Likens murder should have gotten capital punishment.

They didn't know that was me sitting there." John's sister Paula, an unhappy and mean youngster 20 years ago, today lives on a farm in Iowa with her husband and three children. Stephanie Baniszewski, living near Roches- ter, N.Y., went to college, teaches school, is married and has a child. Jimmy Baniszewski, who was 8 years old during the summer of 1985, is with the Army in Colorado, his brother John says. Marie Baniszewski still lives in Indianapolis and as her mother once was, is married to a policeman. John Baniszewski Sr.

also still lives in the Indianapolis area and works for a local manufacturing company, his son says. The entire family, except Gertrude, changed their last names to Blake, John Jr. says. Gertrude also has changed her name. Ricky Hobbs died of cancer at the age of 21 four years after being released from the reformatory.

Coy Hubbard, a mechanic, was imprisoned after pleading guilty to an armed robbery charge in 1978. He again was charged, but then acquitted in January 1983, in connection with the shooting deaths of two Putnam County men. Twenty years also have erased some of the pain for the Likens family. "You get over these kinds of things in time," Leroy Likens says. Lester and Betty Likens, Sylvia's parents, have divorced.

Jenny lived with Prosecutor New and his family for several months following the trial because, as he says, "she had nowhere else to go-Later that year, she enrolled in a Women's Job Corps Center at Poland Springs, Maine, to receive electronics training. She came back and worked for awhile in the computer section of American Fletcher National Bank and Trust Co. She now apparently has married and lives somewhere in Texas, her relatives say. She still gets very upset when Gertrude Baniszewski is mentioned. "It just tears Jenny up," says Helen Likens, her aunt.

"She just gets real upset whenever she hears that name." SYLVIA Marie Likens liked the Beatles. She liked to roller skate. Her prized possession was a small jewelry box, where she kept her two favorite pins. She was a normal, happy teen-ager. Prosecutor New drives home that point when he talks to high school classes.

"I tell them, 'You either get in there and help that girl who is suffering, or you'll I tell them, 'When a mob at your party on East Michigan Street gets going, you remember lhat it could result in He tells them that they must have a sense of morality, of basic decency. "What allowed these people to stand by and let the girl scratch on the walls to get out? If you had an injured squirrel that was caged in, you'd open the doors or you'd do something. "I tell them, 'You had better have some basic decency toward your fellow Sylvia's death must serve as a lesson to others, says feminist author Kate Millctt, who wrote a book about the Likens case called The Basement. "Everything that took place (in the Baniszewski case) takes place every day in real life on a smaller scale," she says from her New York home. Millctt says she hopes that her book, which still is so popular that there is a waiting list for it at the Indianapolis Public Library, will help curb child abuse.

The torture silenced Sylvia. She withdrew into a state of "profound apathy," and let her murderers slowly kill her. But the message of her death rings clear. "Sylvia Likens may speak far louder in death," New says, "than she ever did while she lived." STAR STAFF PHOTOS Sylvia Likens' grave lies in a cemetery in Lebanon, where she was born. I 4.