My paper is over the torture and death of Sylvia Likens. She was 16 years old when she died on October 26, 1965. Her parents were Betty and Lester Likens. Sylvia was one out of five children. Her two oldest siblings, Diana and Daniel, were fraternal twins and her two younger siblings, Jenny and Benny, were also fraternal twins. Her and Gertrude Baniszewski, the woman she would soon live with, had common hobbies (Higgins). They both enjoyed ironing and baby-sitting. Sylvia also liked The Beatles. Her parents were carnival workers so her and her siblings often stayed at their relatives houses while their parents were at work. During the year 1965, Sylvia and Jenny were living with their mother in Indianapolis. Their mother was arrested and put in jail for shoplifting. Their father had the girls live with Gertrude Baniszewski. Their father said in trial that he told Mrs. Baniszewski that she should straighten out his children (Miller). In order for them to stay with her, Mr. Likens agreed to pay Gertrude $20 a week. Mrs. Baniszewski was described as a crazy person by the town. While the girls were living with her, Gertrude began to take her anger out on them. One of the first …show more content…
Baniszewski for a while, she began focusing the punishments on Sylvia (Miller). Gertrude had falsely accused Sylvia of stealing candy that belonged to her and she embarrassed Sylvia for previously having a boyfriend. Gertrude also kicked Sylvia in the groin because she thought that Sylvia was pregnant. One of Gertrude’s children, Paula, was actually pregnant at this time. Word reached Paula, so she shoved Sylvia down (Higgins). Medical examinations proved that Sylvia was not and could not be pregnant. Another incident where Sylvia was falsely accused was when people said that she was spreading rumors around saying that Stephanie and Paula were prostitutes (Bleier). This supposedly upset Stephanie’s boyfriend, Coy Hubbard, so he physically attacked