The extent of the torture is difficult to understand: the teenager was hurt not only by her guardian, but also by the neighbors of the neighborhood.

His skin had fallen off and some of the open wounds were so deep that the bones were almost visible. She had suffered serious internal injuries, but the most shocking thing was that the abusers had burned the inscription “I am a prostitute and I am proud of it” on her belly.

Before Sylvia, Likens brutally abused a woman who had promised her parents that they would take care of her. However, not only was she involved in the torture of the teenager, the entire community was responsible for the cruel behavior, writes truecrimeedition.com.

Sylvia and her sister Jenny were sent to live with Gertrude Baniszewski in July 1965. Her parents, Leicester and Betty, needed money to cry, so they joined a traveling carnival with no room for children. Sylvia’s siblings stayed to live with their grandparents and Sister Dianna was already married and living separately.

Betty Likens met Mr. Baniszewski at a school that all of her children attended. Baniszewski agreed to babysit the girls for $ 20 a week. She already had seven children, so two more children didn’t make much of a difference to her.

The first two weeks of the sisters’ new life passed without incident. Jenny, 15, had polio and was wearing a leg splint, so Sylvia G. Baniszewski tried to do all the household chores for both of them at home. The girls integrated seamlessly into the family, went to church regularly and attended Sunday with Together with G. Baniszewski’s children: 17-year-old Paula, 15-year-old Stephanie, 12-year-old John, 11-year-old Marie, 10-year-old Shirley, eight-year-old James and one-year-old Dennis Lee Wright Jr.

Anger and violence erupted after the $ 20 payment for the girls’ room and their livelihoods began to fall behind. With less than $ 20 on the agreed day, Mr. Baniszewski began beating his sisters with a paddle. One August, Jenny and Sylvia were beaten with a 15-hit paddle when Paula, G. Baniszewski’s eldest daughter, complained that the girls had eaten too much food that day.

The violence began to escalate and Sylvia soon became the main object of Baniszewski’s ire. The mother of seven was just 36 years old and is believed to be the envy of a teenage girl like her daughter Paula, who was about the same age as Sylvia but was overweight and already expecting a baby.

Sylvia would often starve and then force-feed her so much that she choked. They then forced her to eat vomited food. Once Paula hit Sylvia so hard in the face that she broke her wrist, and when the plaster bandage hardened, she used it as a weapon.

The violence against Sylvia by Mr. Baniszewski and his daughter Paul was appalling, and soon other family members began to treat Sylvia in the same way. Stephanie’s 15-year-old boyfriend, Coy Hubbard, and his friends often wandered around Mr. Baniszewski’s house and also made fun of Sylvia at night. The hostess urged them to beat up Sylvia and use her as a dummy to train in fighting action.

Inspired by the fact that more people joined in the torture, Mr. Baniszewski forced Sylvia to undress naked and masturbate with a bottle in the living room in front of Coy Hubbard and his friends.

Sylvia was soon banned from attending school. They burned her fingers and kicked the girl in the genitals to have sex before marriage, although she never did.

The sisters’ parents knew nothing about the violence against their daughters. When they came to visit the girls, the sisters were threatened not to talk about their lives in this house, otherwise they would be beaten.

In September, just two months after she moved into Baniszewski’s home, Sylvia and Jenny met their older sister, Dianna, in a park. They told her about the violence, but Dianna was convinced that the sisters were exaggerating and taking no action.

They met Dianna for the second time while walking with Marie, Baniszewski’s daughter. They didn’t say anything about torture that time, but Sylvia and Jenny were still punished at home, thrown into a hot bath for eating a sandwich in the park. Sylvia passed out from the heat and Mr. Baniszewski started banging her head in the bathroom to wake her up.

A man who lived nearby finally informed the school that a girl who was being abused lived in Mr. Baniszewski’s home. However, the guardian rejected the accusations, saying that Sylvia was out of control and trying to run away from home. The school did not take any other action either. The other neighbors did not communicate with the police or the school, although they saw a girl beaten.

Due to the constant cruelty she experienced, Sylvia began to hold her urine, which further enraged Mr. Baniszewski. On October 6, Sylvia was tied up and crashed into a basement where she remained until the last days of her life.

In the basement, Sylvia received little food or water. They forced her to urinate and defecate in the corners of the basement. The children of the trimester paid a nickel each to look at Sylvia. The image of beaten, burned and scarred teenagers lying on the basement floor attracted curious children.

Because Ms. Baniszewski herself was small, she often enlisted the help of neighborhood children, who helped her control Sylvia and immerse her in a hot bath where her wounds were still rubbed with salt.

On October 23, the inscription “I am a prostitute and I am proud of it” was burned on a needle heated by a flame on Sylvia’s body. Baniszewski herself was unable to complete the horrible job, but her 14-year-old neighbor, Richard Hobbs, helped her.

After burning the inscription, he and G. Baniszewski’s 10-year-old daughter, Shirley, heated the bolt and attempted to burn the letter “S” on Sylvia’s left breast. The wound was deep and resembled autopsy number 3. They then led Sylvia around the block and G. Baniszewski claimed to everyone that these marks had been burned during a sex party.

Sylvia felt like she was dying. Due to internal bleeding, dehydration, hunger and shock, she was severely weakened and told her sister that she had little to live. On October 25, he was still trying to escape from G. Baniszewski’s house, but the hostess got in his way.

The next and last day of Sylvia’s life was a little different from the last few months. Sylvia had a disturbed speech, she began to wander. He could no longer hold down urine or feces, and John, the hostess’s 12-year-old son, began to pour water from his intestines, laughing to wash it off. Sylvia was still trying to escape from the basement, but Mr. Baniszewski grabbed her and hit her on the head again.

The only person who showed Sylvia at least a little pity in the last few hours was Richard Hobbs, who helped burn a humiliating note on her belly. He prepared a warm foam bath for her and dressed her in clean clothes. Sylvia was lying on a mattress in the room, but she was no longer getting up. She was only 16 years old.

Feeling that Sylvia would not survive, Baniszewski had forced the teenager to write a letter earlier saying that she had run away from home and that she had been tortured by the neighborhood boys. When the police arrived, Ms Baniszewski told authorities that Sylvia had returned home in blood and survived while trying to breastfeed her. Police interviewed everyone around him, including Paul, who said Sylvia’s death was “to be expected.” He also told Jenny that she could stay at his house.

Although Jenny Likens was only 15 years old, she played a huge role in the capture of her sister’s torturers. She told police officers that “they will tell her everything if they get her out of here.”

After extensive testimony from Jenny, police arrested G. Baniszewski, Paul, Stephanie, Coy Hubbard, Richard Hobbs, and John, as well as five other youths from the neighborhood, for the murder of Sylvia.

The true extent of the violence came to light during Sylvia’s autopsy. More than 150 wounds were found on his body, including a burned inscription on his abdomen. The findings indicate that the cause of death was a subdural hematoma in the right incisor, as well as shock, injury and exhaustion due to malnutrition.

On May 25, 1966, Gertrude and Paula Baniszewski were sentenced to life imprisonment. Richard Hobbs, Coy Hubbard and John Baniszewski were sentenced to between two and 21 years in prison for their age.

However, a new trial of G. Baniszewski and Paula took place in 1971, when it was determined that the previous court was unfair. This time, Paula pleaded guilty to the murder and was finally released in December 1972. She changed her last name and got a job as a teaching assistant in Iowa. In 2012, she was fired when her true identity became clear.

Ms. Baniszewski was again convicted of first degree murder and spent 14 years in the Indiana Women’s Prison, where she earned a good reputation. Despite the protests and more than 40 thousand. In 1985, Mr. Baniszewski was pardoned for the signatures collected in opposition to his release. She also changed her name to Nadine Van Fossan and moved to Iowa. She died in 1990 of lung cancer at the age of 61.

Stephanie, 15, avoided murder charges. She became a witness for the state and was released. He moved to Florida, changed his last name, and had several children. The other children of Mr. Baniszewski were taken into temporary custody and later settled with their father.

Jenny Likens married and had two children. He had been taking medication for anxiety for many years, caused by horrible experiences. But for what happened, he didn’t blame his parents. He died in 2004 at the age of 51.