Gertrude Nadine Baniszewski
First Woman Convicted of Child Abuse/Murder
September 19, 1929 - June 16, 1990
Gertrude Baniszewski is perhaps most well-known because of the film An American Crime, starring Ellen Page and Catherine Keener. The Indiana housewife was the first person ever accused, tried and convicted of child abuse and murder of that child.
The third of six children, Gertrude grew up in a lower-class neighborhood; her father died of a heart attack when she was eleven. It devestated her. At sixteen, she married John Baniszewski after dropping out of high school; they had four kids over the years, before divorcing after a decade. Not long after the divorce, she married Edward Guthrie- the marriage lasted three months. After her second marriage ended, she again married John; the second time around, they stayed married for seven years, and had two more kids by 1963- when they divorced. Not long after, she had an affair with Dennis Lee Wright, who frequently beat her; she had one miscarriage, and another son before he left her.
When she met the Likens family, she and her kids were living on occasional child support and whatever cash she could scrape up from odd jobs. The Likens would provide a somewhat steady income for her and her family. The Likens- Betty and her daughters, fifteen-year-old Jenny and sixteen-year-old Sylvia, lived in a low down house, since Betty and her husband, Lester, had seperated. Both worked the carnivals.
Gertrude's victim, Sylvia Likens
Sylvia and Jenny, who had polio as a small child and wore leg braces, met Paula Baniszewski- Gertrude's seventeen-year-old pregnant daughter, while walking the street; Paula invited them home. The girls accepted; their mother was current serving a jail sentence. They stayed the night, and after their father canvassed the neighborhood, he found them at the Baniszewski residence. Lester asked Gertrude to board the girls for $20 a week. She agreed. He told her to take care of the girls with a firm hand.
Two weeks after the Likens girls moved in, the check from their father didn't arrive, and Gertrude, feeling she had been cheated and lied too, took the girls into a bedroom, ordered them to lie down, raise their skirts, and then paddled them. Sylvia took Jenny's beatings, not wanting her sister to take them due to her bad leg. The check came the next day. The next week, Sylvia recieved another paddling because Gertrude accused the girl of leading her younger children out at night to steal. Gertrude began accusing Sylvia of neglecting her hygeine, and so beat her frequently.
In late August, Gertrude, having heard about Sylvia once allowing a boyfriend to slip under her bedcovers, accused Sylvia of having a baby and kicked her in the genitals. Gertrude began whispering into the neighborhood children's ears, feeding them rumors; eventually, she managed to convince Sylvia that she was pregnant-even though the girl was a virgin.
In October, Gertrude pulled Sylvia out of school, after the girl confessed to stealing a gym suit she needed for class. Angered by the girl's stealing and lieing, Gertrude sat the girl down on the sofa, and then took a lighted match and burned her "sticky" fingers as punishment. Another incident, after accusing the girl of prostituting, she forced the girl to strip and then handed her an empty soda bottle. Amid an audience of not only her kids, but also the neighborhood kids, she forced Sylvia to shove the bottle up her vagina. Gertrude's second daughter, Stephanie came home at the height of the horror, slapped her, and forced her into her room.
Ricky Hobbs and Gertrude Baniszewski
One night after Sylvia wet the bed, she was forced to live in the basement, saying she was too filthy to live among humans. On occasion, Gertrude and Paula would fill the tub with scalding water and force the girl to take them; they left her nude for days. One one occasion, Gertrude brought her upstairs and forced her to eat soup with her fingers, when she failed, Gertrude forced her to eat shit and drink urine. Later, she pushed her down the stairs.
Gertrude told the priest of their church that Sylvia was causing problems; the priest didn't know whether to believe it or not. The last weekend before Sylvia died, Gertrude let her sleep upstairs; however, she tied the girl to the bed, telling her she couldn't go to the bathroom until she learned not to wet the bed. The girl wet the bed, and the next morning, Gertrude forced her to strip and shove another bottle up her vagina. Not long after that incident, she tied and gagged the girl up, before heating a needle and cared I'M into Sylvia's stomach before gagging.
Unable to finish, she handed the needle to a neighborhood boy, Ricky Hobbs, and forced him to finish. When he asked her how to spell prostitute, she wrote it down and he finished carving it into her skin. Two of the Baniszewski children carved a 3 into her chest. The next afternoon, Gertrude gave Sylvia a warm, normal bath. She forced Sylvia to write a letter to her parents, and when the girl made an attempt to escape, she took her into the kitchen and offered her toast. Unable to swallow, the girl was beat in the mouth with a curtain rod. Taken back down the basement, Sylvia was offered crackers by Gertrude, who kicked her in the stomach when she refused.
On October 26, 1965, Gertrude took the girl upstairs, placed her in the tub clothed, and gave her one final, normal bath. After Stephanie tried to resuscitate her, Gertrude made Ricky call the cops. She handed the cops the letter she'd forced Sylvia to write, in hopes that she wouldn't be blamed for the now deceased girl laying on the matress in the living room. They arrested her for murder.
Gertrude stood trial for first degree murder, with the death penatly sought. Paula had her daughter during court; she named the child Gertrude. Gertrude claimed she was too ill to care for so many kids- having asthma, chronic illness, smoking- and therefore, didn't know the own goings-on in her own home. She testified in her own defense, denying that she abused Sylvia, and said that she did not want to board Sylvia and Jenny, but that Sylvia had demanded to stay. She was convicted of first degree murder, and after a new trial, got life in prison, after a twenty-four day trial. On December 4, 1985, she was granted parole, and left prison, moving to Iowa, and living under the name Nadine Van Fossan. She died of lung cancer on June 16, 1990.
The trailer for the 2007 film An American Crime
The murder of Sylvia Likens spawned many books and articles, including two films- one called The Girl Next Door, and the other An American Crime. Sylvia's death spawned the first child abuse act, and put the spotlight on child abuse. 3850 was demolished in April 2009; a parking lot was put up in its place.
"I'm not sure what role I had in it . . . because I was on drugs. I never really knew her. [But] I take full responsibility for whatever happened to Sylvia." - Gertrude Baniszewski
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