RedHanded - Episode 190 - Sylvia Likens: The Girl in the Basement

Episode Date: March 25, 2021

On 26 October 1965, in the basement of a house in Indianapolis, the police found the body of 16 year old Sylvia Likens. Her remains were covered in over 150 wounds consistent with unspeakable cruelty, torture and sexual abuse. As the truth came out behind just who had been responsible, the nation looked on in disbelief... MERCH out now: redhandedshop.com  Check out our Patreon: patreon.com/redhanded Sources: redhandedpodcast.com   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed. Back, back, back again. Had a week off, kind of. You still got an episode.

You're fine. Oh, yeah. I didn't even remember that we'd taken a week off. Honestly, mate, what even is a week? That's how much that week off was needed, people. Honestly, there's just... We'll talk about it later, but there's a lot that's been going on. Work-wise, good things.

Not like we've been having some sort of drama. Though I did just tell Hannah, I think I got, like, cleaning product in my eye. So they are incredibly irritated. And just feels like they're full of fucking sand. Loose sand just rubbing about on my cornea. That's what it feels like. And if that feels like a painful image,

then it's a good setup for this episode. Oh, God. Yeah. On your own heads, this one. Hundreds of you, and I'm not exaggerating, literally hundreds of you have asked us to do this. It is not going to be fun for anybody involved. If you do find it enjoyable, go and see someone. But you asked for it, so you're going to get it. Because although we're not a total democracy, we like to But you asked for it, so you're going to get it because although we're not a total democracy, we like to make you feel like it is sometimes, like a fascist. Like a flawed democracy. Exactly. We're the House of Lords. And you are like one of the chill ones, like Baroness Lawrence. She's cool. I like her.

Excellent. I'll take that. But before we kick off into this fucking nightmare fuel episode that you have forced us into doing, very quick announcement. If you would like to get some merch, it's only going to be up on the store for like another few weeks. I can't really see very clearly, so I can't see the calendar or check when that is meant to be, but it's soon's soon okay this is my ominous warning to you that the merch shall soon be disappearing so if you would like some go get some it's at redhandedshop.com that's it that's all exactly get your grubby little mitts on our squeaky clean merch because it's new. It's not going to get like a gross jumper in the post. I'm going to stop. Not a lot of sleep or eating is happening at the moment.

So let's crack on because we're just procrastinating because we don't want to do it. Sorry, can I procrastinate with one more thing? Because I know so many people have been asking us. And if you don't follow us on social media, possibly you don't know. And if you're not a patron, then you definitely don't know. Obviously, if you're a patron,

you, a patron, if you are a patron of Red Handed, $5 and up, you have access to what has become essentially a whole nother podcast. Essentially every single week, Hannah and I put out an hour long episode of Under the Duvet now, where we just rant about everything that is

going on in the world. Last week's one was, I want to say popular, sounds like a weird word considering what we spoke about, but lots of people were like it was just really impactful. We spent an hour talking about the horrendous case of Sarah Everard who, if you don't know, was a 33-year-old woman who was murdered here in the UK by a fucking metropolitan police officer. So if you're wondering why we haven't spoken about things like that, like maybe we used to, kind of topical things on the main show, it's because some of you didn't like it and some of you fucking love it. And for those of you who fucking love it, you can come listen to it on Patreon. So if you aren't yet a member, come have a think about signing up because

you get fucking bang for your buck. That's it. Now, enough procrastination. I'm ready. I believe we can do it. I'm rooting for you. Amazing. Let's do it. Okay, so Gertrude Van Fossen was born in Indianapolis in late September of 1929 during, of course, the Great Depression, which was an extremely difficult time for working-class Americans, where thousands died due to poverty. And I'm also assuming that the hemlines were fucking trailing in the gutters. And Gertrude was born to a Polish mother and a Dutch father,

and she was one of six siblings. Now, not too much is known about Gertrude's early life, other than the fact that she was apparently very much a daddy's girl, which is something that the rest of the family absolutely hated her for. Whenever her father was out of the house, her mother would either scold Gertrude or completely ignore her. Her siblings also resented her because of all the extra love and attention that she got from their father. And if you think that's bad, school wasn't any better. Gertrude was bullied and ostracized there too. So she almost never went. Her relationship with her father was the only good thing in Gertrude's life. But it wasn't to last. One night

when 10-year-old Gertrude was reading a story to her father, he had a heart attack and died in front of her, something which her mother irrationally blamed on her. This traumatic experience of course took its toll on Gertrude and she began having daily night terrors. By the time Gertrude was 14, she'd all but given up on having relationships with other women and solely began focusing on getting as much male attention as she could. With the onset of puberty and teenage hormones, it didn't take long for Gertrude to figure out that the more promiscuously she behaved, the more the boys paid attention to her and the better she felt. Possibly trying to fill the father-shaped hole left in her life,

by the time she was 15, Gertrude began sleeping with men as much as eight years older than her. And at the age of 16, not being able to cope with the constant berating from her mum, she eloped with an 18-year-old man-boy. Are they 18? Man-boy. I'll ride that in between, Greyline. That's generous. And this man boy was called John Baniszewski. And they got married just two months after having met each other. But in the olden times, I don't think that's that rogue. That's probably quite long. Yeah, I mean, when is this? This is like, we're talking 1950s now, right?

Yeah, that seems bang on average. Quickie marriage, yes. Happy one, not so much. Despite being a police officer on a humble salary, John managed to secure a loan from the bank and the newlywed couple moved into a modest house on the edge of the suburbs. Like most men at the time, what John was looking for in a wife was essentially a replacement mother that he could also sleep with to cook clean, look after him, obey his every demand, etc, etc. You know, most men at the time, I would hazard a guess that that's not too far off what at least 50% of men these days also would like quite a lot. Yes, on my living in Asia stint, met quite a lot of white men who

lived in Asia specifically so they could marry a quote unquote real woman. Oh yeah. Us Asians, we're the perfect women. We're the real women. We will cook and clean and take a bath. If you have ever met an Asian mother, then you know why they think that. Because it's accurate. Oh God, have you seen all the horrible Asian American attacks that have happened? I'm not going to talk about it now. We'll save it for under the duvet this week. But Jesus. Yeah, I have.

And I'm just exhausted from being so sad. I'm just like, how is this the world? And I know we're like exhausted from being so sad. And then we're like, okay, let's stop talking about that and talk about this horrible case of child abuse. But it's all bad. But anyway, sorry to interrupt I mean you are so welcome interrupt me at any point for the rest of your life please but coming back to the whole male thing there is that fabulous t-shirt which is stop raising him you're not his mother

which I do love yeah yeah that is true I still do it though one of my one of my friends really joined the dots with me the other day and she was like, Hannah, have you noticed that quite a few of the significant boyfriends you've had, their mums abandoned them in their teens? She's right, three of them. You just got to have it pointed out to you. I know. Dots joined, insight made, okay, maybe behaviour changed. And it's such a specific thing to have happened to a person and I somehow have managed to find three consecutive men who that has happened to. Well, that is insightful. I just need to get a dog, don't I?

I just need to get a dog or a pygmy hedgehog. I don't know. So John wants a cookie cutter, 50s apron wearing wife. He didn't get that. John was not banking on how dominant Gertrude was going to turn out to be. Basically, she didn't stand for any of his shit. But Gertrude, in return, had also not banked on John's violent temper. It's not clear exactly when John started beating Gertrude, but we know that it did happen and we know that it happened a lot. Gertrude spent most of the next

decade pregnant and came out of it with four children. Once she realized that John was never going to be anything like her father, a man who she'd loved dearly, Gertrude focused all of her love and attention on her kids, losing all interest in John. And this, of course, absolutely enraged man,-baby-violent John. And he grew more and more abusive towards Gertrude. But by this point, Gertrude wasn't the naive young girl she had been when she'd first run away from home and married him. And despite the taboo surrounding it in the Christian community in which they lived, Gertrude filed for divorce and won full custody of her children in court.

Just three months after this, Gertrude married another man named Edward Guthrie. And it's likely that she did this as a means to escape the stigma around being a single mother, which at the 60s would have been a very real thing indeed. But if anyone thought that Guthrie would save Gertrude, they were wrong. He was a perpetually unemployed alcoholic who blew his wife's child support checks from John at the pub. And he'd get to these checks before Gertrude even managed to get her hands on them. Like, he's just like waiting by the fucking letterbox or mailbox or whatever Americans use. Yeah, blowing straight through it.

And then straight down the pub. But Gertrude had her ways to steer Guthrie in the right direction. And in a tactic that will probably have incels and manosphere bloggers everywhere screaming, I knew it! She used sex to get her way. And Gertrude used sex to get Guthrie to stop drinking. She used sex to encourage him to get out into the world and to find a job. But all of this eventually backfired

because once Guthrie had cleaned himself up and he had an income of his own and he didn't need to steal all those fucking, like, income support checks, he decided that there were better prospects out there for him than a demanding wife and her four young children he'd never even really liked. And so Edward Guthrie filed for divorce without even telling Gertrude,

and the two parted ways less than a year into their marriage. Gertrude soon found herself getting quite lonely in the evenings when the kids had gone to bed. But she couldn't bring herself to start dating again, not after the bad experience she'd just had. Re-enter husband number one. As fate would have it, Gertrude bumped into the ex-policeman John one night when he was patrolling around her neighbourhood. They got talking and then he came around for dinner, which is something their children were absolutely thrilled about. And the kids were even more thrilled when John was there the next morning

for breakfast, if you know what I mean. And after this, Gertrude and John decided to give everything another shot and they got remarried. Initially, everything was going great. They were both a lot more relaxed this time, but their idyllic home life did not last very long at all. Gertrude got pregnant and miscarried fairly late into her term, a tragedy that sent her into a deep depression to the point where she shut down almost entirely and couldn't bring herself to care for her husband and her children. And John went right back to his violent ways. This cycle of violence, pregnancy, miscarriage, depression and then recovery went on for the duration of their second marriage, which lasted seven years. And by the time it came to an end, Gertrude had two more children with John. It was John who

filed for divorce this time around and Gertrude, who was now 37, was left with full custody of their six children, with only John's child support checks as an income. And after all the abuse and trauma, Gertrude was now left with a severely deteriorated mental state. Struggling to cover the mortgage payments on her house and care for herself and her half a dozen children on such a meagre income, Gertrude found herself another man. This time it was a married man named Dennis Wright and he was 10 years younger than her. She saw him as her potential saviour

and once married Dennis' wife found out about his little affair. She divorced him. So Gertrude, seeing the opportunity, quickly moved in and she brought her kids with her. In the blink of an eye, Dennis Wright's life was turned upside down. No longer was he one half of a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed young couple. He was now a 27-year-old living with his much older mistress and her six screaming kids, who were also tearing his house apart. Gertrude constantly pressured Dennis to marry her, but he wasn't having any of it, and he definitely wasn't thrilled or feeling particularly strongly about taking responsibility for his actions when Gertrude got pregnant.

In fact, Dennis did not take the news well at all, to say the least, and it's reported that he punched Gertrude repeatedly in the stomach, hoping that she'd miscarry. And, of course, it worked. Gertrude realised that she'd lost the baby the following morning. But for whatever reason, the two stayed together after this hideous event, and Gertrude got pregnant once again. But this time she made sure not to tell Dennis about it until it was too late. And when she got home from the hospital after having given birth to their son, Gertrude found that Dennis had packed up his things and vanished into the night without so much as a word.

Gertrude was now 40 years old and she had had seven children and six miscarriages. Gertrude had a hard time accepting her reality which was of course having seven hungry children to feed and one of them was illegitimate which in the black and white times was really quite a large deal. Also every man she had ever known had left her. Know exactly what that feels like, Gertrude? We're on the same page on that one. We're not on the same page about absolutely anything else. Gertrude once again fell into the grips of a deep, dark depression, which led her to stop eating, drinking and even showering. Gertrude was closest to her eldest daughter, Paula, who was 16, which is why it was all the more painful for Gertrude when Paula came home and

told her that she was pregnant with the baby of a middle-aged married man. Gertrude felt like history was repeating itself. But life went on and at around six months pregnant, Paula did quite well in keeping her shameful secret from her siblings even and all of the neighbourhood kids. Gertrude's home had by this point become sort of a hangout for all of the neighborhood teens because they knew that the normal rules bespoke upon them everywhere else didn't apply under Gertrude's roof. She didn't give a shit. They could smoke, drink and do whatever they wanted as long as they were there. She's not a normal mum. Are you going to say it? What's the line? I'm not a normal mum. I'm a fun mum. What is it? Is that it?

I'm a cool mum. I'm a cool mum. Oh, that's it. Cool mum. Yeah, she's a lot of things. I remember, like, I definitely had friends' parents who were like, oh, it's fine for you to smoke only at parties. And I thought that was, like, outrageous.

I don't think I had any friends' parents who were like that. I think all of my friends' parents were quite like, what are you doing? We aren't cool. We're going to fucking tell everybody. I don't know. It was intense childhood, but none of that. But then this is way worse intensity.

This reminds me of the Doss house situation from the Suzanne Capper episode. Yes. And also very similar. Like this case, like giving the game away here, but this case is very similar to Suzanne Kappa and also to Victoria Clibier. Very much so. So be warned. But just with more like olden timey. Yes. More olden timey and less social service-y. Yeah. More polio and less social services. Oh God. I was at one of these kid party situations when one of Paula's friends introduced her to two girls

named Sylvia and Jenny Likens. Paula's mate had found these girls the previous day wandering around town with nowhere to go, and she'd taken them in for the night. Sylvia was 16, the same age as Paula. The first thing everybody noticed about her was how pretty she was, despite missing a front tooth, which was the reason that she always smiled with her mouth closed. Her younger sister Jenny was fifteen and wore a leg brace over her clothes

due to a childhood bout of polio leaving her walking with a limp. Sylvie explained to Paula how their mother Betty had taken her and Jenny out of bed to escape their father in the middle of the night and how they had caught a bus a few towns over, supposedly to start a new life. But when their mother had realised that she'd spent all of their money on bus tickets, she had decided to shoplift food for them from the minimart and wound up getting arrested and sent to jail, leaving the sisters Sylvia and Jenny with nowhere to go.

Their parents, Lester Likens and Elizabeth Betty Francis, had quite a tumultuous relationship, and it almost always took precedence over their children's well-being. Hearing the dramatic story, Paula took pity on the sisters and convinced Gertrude to let them spend the night at their house until they could find out what happened to their mother the next day. The following morning, Gertrude woke up to Lester Likens knocking on the front door. He explained that his wife had phoned him from the county jail to post bail for her release,

and then somebody had told him that his daughters were here. He went on to tell her that he and Betty had reconciled, and that they'd landed themselves a big gig running a concession stand at a touring carnival that was just about to head south but that there'd be no room for their children to come along and he said he'd already left jenny's twin brother benny jenny and benny okay i know it's a lot isn't it jenny and benny we're jenny and benny and we live in the 60s just a lot he also said that their older 19 year old son daniel was with his grandparents and daniel's twin sister Diana had already moved out

and was living with her husband. It's a lot of information there. Just going to say, Lester, making yourself look quite suspicious, I would say. But anyway, we don't know whose idea it was, but Gertrude and Lester came to a deal that Sylvia and Jenny would stay with her until the carnival tour finished that November.

In exchange for $20 a week. I feel like that seems like quite a lot of money for then. I have no concept of inflation or time or history. I feel like yes, it probably is quite a lot. It's definitely more than it would take to feed two children. That's what it seems like. But there you go. That's the deal that was struck up. Cue all of the like olden time economists just sending us letters they've written with quills from the past. How dare you? Listen, pasto economists, don't want to hear it. I know I could just bend down and like have a little look at the old inflation calculator, but I'm finding it quite difficult to focus my eyes right now. So I'm not going to do that.

If Lester Likens had bothered to look inside Gertrude's house he would have immediately seen that it was not fit for any children to be living there let alone his own. Every floor and surface in the entire place was filthy. There weren't even enough beds for half of the children already living there and the only food in the kitchen was some bread and some crackers. If one's home truly is a reflection of one's state of mind then it's abundantly clear at a glimpse that Gertrude's mind was hanging by a thread. I shouldn't laugh but when you did say that I did just like catch a glimpse from under the box of what my room currently looks like. And it's generally not like too messy, but there are at least six glasses of half drunk squash just lined up on the floor because that's what I do now. Yeah, I've made a concerted effort to be a more tidy person.

Tidy room, tidy mind. Yes, right. And I've never applied to that rule because my mind has always been a fucking mess. So I've always just been like, oh, this is fine. But we're trying. We're trying to make it not the way it is anymore. Right, moving on. Lester didn't check the house and he made a deal with a stranger that he'd known for less than an hour and trusted his children to her. He said his goodbyes to Sylvia and Jenny and just left them there. Within three months, Sylvia Likens would be dead. The abuse began almost immediately

as Leicester's first check was delayed by the postal service when crossing state lines. As a result, when Sylvia and Jenny came home from their first week of school, Gertrude, with the assistance of Paula, bent them both over a cabinet and spanked them with a wooden paddle until they had welts on their backsides. She made sure to hit Jenny's bad leg extra hard. She screamed at them both. I took care of you bitches for nothing. Your no-good lying rat of a father promised me that he would pay his way. It's been a week and I haven't seen a goddamn cent and if he doesn't pay, you get beat. After the beating, Gertrude

threatened the girls that she would, quote, rent them out as whores if Lester's cheque didn't come, but thankfully it arrived the following morning. As you already know, Gertrude didn't keep much food in the house besides bread and crackers and she spent most of the money she had on cigarettes. So needless to say, Sylvia and Jenny found themselves going hungry quite a lot. They discovered that they could get credit at the corner store for handing in glass cola bottles. So they spent an evening collecting as many as they could find and bought themselves a big bag of sweets, which they ate half of and shared the rest with Gertrude's kids. That turned out to be a mistake because when Gertrude saw the bag of sweets she accused them of having stolen money

from her and then she beat Sylvia again until Jenny admitted that they'd stolen the money just to get her to stop. The worst was yet to come however. During a picnic organised by the church Sylvia and Jenny who were now perpetually malnourished helped themselves to one too many sandwiches in sight of Gertrude's kids, who immediately reported them to their mother. The thing you have to understand is appearances were very important to Gertrude. So when she heard about this, all she could think about was how badly this reflected on her. Basically to her, she felt like the kids stuffing their faces, in her opinion, at this church event would make everybody think that she was starving them, which she was doing.

So that that would be the right thing for them to think. Sounds like a fucking guilty paranoid mind. Yeah, she's not worried about like the consequences of her actions. She's worried that other people will think she's doing what she's doing. She then told Sylvia that it was a shame because she'd actually prepared food for her. Then she dragged Sylvia to the dining table in the kitchen. Gertrude put together a hot dog from a stale old bun

and a tin of expired sausages. She cut it in half and then proceeded to drown it in an entire bottle of ketchup and mustard until the hot dog wasn't even visible and the condiments were pouring over the edge of the plate onto the table. Sylvia just stared at the mess placed in front of her not knowing if it was seriously expected that she should eat it when suddenly Gertrude picked it up and began to force it into Sylvia's mouth. The fumes from the mustard went up Sylvia's nose and made her gag and Gertrude picked it up and began to force it into Sylvia's mouth. The fumes from the mustard went up Sylvia's nose and made her gag and Gertrude took the opportunity to shove the hot

dog yet further down her throat using her fingers. Sylvia vomited up everything she'd eaten at the church picnic along with the hot dog all over the kitchen floor At which point Gertrude told her that if she ate the rest, it'd all be over. Gertrude's kids were all crowded into the kitchen now watching what was going on like some sick game show for their entertainment. Knowing the consequences of defying her would likely be another beating, Sylvia managed to hold her breath and finish the second half of the hot dog and looked up proudly at Gertrude and said I did it but her heart sank when Gertrude pointed at the vomit on the floor and said I meant all of it. Sylvia was then forced to eat her own vomit all of it. Once this ordeal was over Gertrude sat

by Sylvia that night and stroked her hair as she fell asleep on a pile of dirty clothes she was given to use as a bed. It's not even close to being over, I'm afraid, folks. The following week, Jenny and Sylvia's parents came through town to visit their girls. Gertrude made sure to arrange the meeting at a local park and knocked at her pigsty of a house full of smoking children. During the meet, Gertrude told Lester and Betty how amazingly well-behaved their daughters were and how much she loved having them. Obviously, Sylvia and Jenny didn't say a word

and if they even looked like they were even thinking about forming a sentence, Gertrude shoots them a steely glare. When Betty fretted about how much weight her daughters had both lost in such a short amount of time, Gertrude told her that Sylvia and Jenny had started a diet in solidarity with her daughter Paula, who had been getting fat. Which would raise flags now, but you do have to remember that, like,

I think it was only in the, like, late 80s where Mattel released a Barbie that was, like, sleepover Barbie, and she had a handbook that just said, don't eat. It was, like, girly things, and it was, like, it just said, don't eat inside it. You know, so I can believe that in the 60s, a mum would have been like, oh, okay, that makes sense. After this meeting in the park, Lester handed Gertrude an envelope full of money as payment for next month in advance. He was clearly doing well on the carny route. And then he and his wife

said their goodbyes to their children and left them behind once again. One day after school that week, all of the neighbourhood kids were yet again hanging out in the living room, smoking and drinking like usual at Gertrude's house. And Gertrude was sat in her armchair in the corner overseeing everything. The girls that were there were discussing their love lives. Stephanie, Gertrude's second oldest daughter, yapped on about her boyfriend, Coy Hubbard, who we all get very well acquainted with later on. Absolute fucking shitbag. Only 15 at this stage in the story and he lived just down the road. Paula was always very careful about talking about her flings, although everyone by this point was well aware that she was pregnant. But they dare not mention it in front of Gertrude,

who was in complete denial about the entire situation. But still, the other girls took turns sharing their stories. Jenny admitted that she didn't have much experience with boys on account of her bad leg but she had kissed one once. She told her story and everyone cheered for her. Then came Sylvia's turn. After some prying from the older girls Sylvia admitted that she had had a boyfriend once before she moved into Gertrude's house and that she'd let him feel underneath her sweater once. Everybody cheered for Sylvia as well and laughed but soon the rooms fell silent when Gertrude jumped to her feet and screamed whore and pointed a gnarled finger at Sylvia. It's not even her daughter. This is what I don't understand. I mean obviously there are many things about this that I do not understand and a lot of mind frames that I just can't even approach but why Sylvia cops it so much worse

than everyone else I had no idea the only thing I can think and this is obviously very like subjective but I think to her Jenny isn't really like a threat unfortunately but I think Sylvia being described as being notably beautiful as a child I think she saw her as like some sort of weird threat to her and her like femininity or her sexuality or something I don't know I hadn't thought about that that's a good point I feel like it's maybe that Sylvia reminds her of like all the things she never had as a child you know like all her lost youth all of her lost beauty maybe and I think maybe that's why she hates her so much but I don't know wow thank you for insight insight corner trying to think of a synonym for corner that begins with I. It's not happening. Move on. Gertrude ran up to Sylvia

and slapped her across the face before going into a bizarre rant about how God hated whores and how women were vile creatures and inferior to men, which she will have picked up at church. And then she started accusing Sylvia of being pregnant and a prostitute. Difficult here because, obviously, we usually use the term sex worker on the show. Gertrude is not using it in that context. She's using it as an insult. So that's why we've used that word. Maybe we're right, maybe we're wrong.

I just wanted to address that just in case. Yeah, no, I think that is the word she uses to describe her. So it's like if she'd called her a racial slur, maybe wouldn't say the word, but it'd be very confusing if it were like, she called her the P word. Right, right, right. That to me would mean something else. That's the word she calls her. When Sylvia defended herself, Gertrude hit her again and ordered two of the neighbourhood boys

present to hold Sylvia down and pry her legs apart. And then Gertrude began kicking Sylvia in the crotch repeatedly while she screamed in pain. I think because so much of the torture, it is sexual in a way because Gertrude is always very focused on calling Sylvia a whore and like kicking her in the groin and like all of that but as we'll see later on, she doesn't really let any boys near Sylvia so I think you're probably spot on. It is about sex, it's about how Gertrude feels about sex, but in the most warped way possible, I think. So once the beating was done, Sylvia got to her feet and with her crotch throbbing in agony, she stumbled to a chair in the corner of the room in complete bewilderment as to what had just happened.

But before she sat down, Gertrude kicked the chair out from underneath her and towered over Sylvia as she lay on the floor and screamed, Whores aren't fit for chairs. This all took place with Gertrude's children and the neighbourhood children watching and laughing. From then on, Sylvia wasn't allowed to sit down anywhere in the house. And when she was at school and she did sit down, the pain was unbearable. It was in class the next day that Sylvia saw Stephanie, another one of Gertrude's kids, laughing at her as she winced when she took her seat.

And Sylvia decided then that although she couldn't hurt Gertrude, the second best thing would be to get her kids. So, completely out of character and not thinking about the potential consequences, Sylvia spread a rumor around school that she'd witnessed Stephanie and Paula having sex with men for money. And given the Banaszewski family name had a less than wholesome reputation, people believed it instantly. Coy Hubbard, Stephanie's beloved boyfriend, found out and in a rage left school early to go and tell Gertrude everything. As soon as Sylvia stepped in the house, she was grabbed by Coy in the living room, who screamed in her face,

why have you been telling lies about Stephanie? Gertrude was sat behind him on an armchair and repeated the question before she instructed Coy to teach her a lesson, before questioning what kind of man he was if he let it go. She really is just playing out her own, like, sick fucking psychodrama in this house with these kids. Yeah, yeah. So Coy then punched Sylvia in the face until she fell on the floor. Gertrude then told him to show Sylvia his judo moves, and he proceeded to pick her up and throw Sylvia,

so she landed on her back. On Gertrude's orders, he did it again and again, before dragging her down the basement stairs, where Gertrude told him he'd have more room to practice judo on her. Gertrude took a seat on the stairs and watched as Coy repeatedly smashed Sylvia against the floor and the walls, leaving her lying on the floor gasping for breath with her head ringing and her whole body feeling like she'd been hit by a car.

As Coy left the basement, Gertrude told him that he'd be welcome to come over and practice judo on Sylvia whenever he pleased, because, quote, she deserved it. Gertrude then told Sylvia she had to spend the night on the basement floor before turning the lights out and closing the door. The methods of abuse Gertrude employed on Sylvia weren't all physical. Just most of them were. She also did everything she could to turn everyone around her against Sylvia. By this stage, Sylvia was completely isolated from the friends she had initially made at school.

She was terrified that anything she said would get back to Gertrude and be twisted against her. Sylvia did, however, have one friend, a girl named Anna Sisko, who could never comprehend why Sylvia would refuse to come over to her house or invite her over to Gertrude's. Until one day when Sylvia finally gave in and invited Anna over after school, Gertrude spotted them coming in and wasted no time getting Anna alone. Gertrude told Anna that Sylvia had been telling people that her mother was a whore, her favourite word, and as a result, Anna punched Sylvia in the face before she ran home crying.

Gertrude said the same thing the following evening, but this time to one of Stephanie's friends, who also, in response, assaulted Sylvia with a barrage of kicks and punches before storming out of the house. But Gertrude was still unsatisfied, and in a room full of neighbourhood kids, she ordered Jenny to punch Sylvia. Jenny is Sylvia's sister, let's not forget.

With tears in her eyes, Jenny refused, but Gertrude threatened that she'd get it herself if she didn't do as she was told. After a flurry of punches from her own sister, Sylvia stumbled back to her bedroom, except obviously she didn't have a bedroom, she had a pile of dirty clothes. As the weeks went on, Coy Hubbard took Gertrude up on her offer and started to come around the house almost daily

to take Sylvia down into the basement to practice judo on her. When autumn swung around, Sylvia's class began running outside as a part of their compulsory fitness. And a requirement of this class was that all students had a school tracksuit, which obviously Sylvia did not have. Sylvia knew that Gertrude would refuse to buy her one, even if it was school uniform. But equally, if she turned up without it, the school would phone home. And that would, of course course result in another punishment, so she couldn't win. She came up with a plan anyway. Before class started, Sylvia went to

the changing rooms and stole a tracksuit from a random locker and she got away with it, at school at least. That evening, when Sylvia went to wash the tracksuit and then return it the next day, she was spotted by Gertrude who asked her where she had got it and if she had bought it by quote-unquote whoring herself before accusing her of having stolen it. Gertrude then grabbed Sylvia by the hair and dragged her into the kitchen where she threw her onto the floor and started kicking her, only stopping to light a cigarette. Sylvia was at this point curled up in a ball shivering in pain when Gertrude gently took her hand gently lulling her into a false sense of security

that maybe the punishment was over. But then Gertrude clamped down on her wrist with a vice-like grip and pushed the lit end of her cigarette onto the end of one of Sylvia's fingertips as she screamed in pain. She then went on to do the same to each of Sylvia's fingers and thumbs, telling her that that's what thieves got.

Sylvia passed out from the pain and woke up to find herself on the floor of the lounge that was now full of neighbourhood boys smoking and drinking. When Gertrude saw that she'd awoken, she grabbed Sylvia, pulling her to her feet, and with around a dozen boys staring at her, Gertrude ordered Sylvia to strip. Knowing that there was no way out of this situation, Sylvia did as she was told, crying the entire time, with a room full of drunken teenage boys, all chanting, Do it. Do it, do it. Standing there naked, crying her eyes out,

staring at the floor, not daring to look up at anybody, Sylvia was just counting the seconds until the humiliation was over. But Gertrude still wasn't satisfied. Now, on this show, we generally try not to get too graphic, but we also don't sugarcoat what actually happened because this is what this child went through. But some of this is just so horrific. I tried to watch both An American Crime and The Girl Next Door and, or is it A Girl Next Door?

Whichever it is, I couldn't finish either of them. I was just like, I don't need to fucking watch this. And I watch fucking Korean horror dramas like it's nothing, but I just couldn't finish either of them. I was just like, I don't need to fucking watch this. And I watch fucking Korean horror dramas like it's nothing, but I just couldn't stomach it. And we really did go back and forth on this, but we just came to the conclusion that if you personally want to know exactly what happened, you can go and find it, just not on this show. Exactly.

The book that we used, which made up the sort of majority of the research for this episode, is called Torture Mum. I hate saying that word. Me too. Can't stand it. Torture Mum, with an O, by Ryan Green, who also wrote the books that we used in the Leonardo Cianciulli series that we did. So if you really want to know, then I just recommend going and getting that book and giving it a read. But here we are going to give you the bare minimum details about what happened next. So, basically what you need to know is Gertrude forcibly inserted a large cola bottle into Sylvia's body until she was bleeding and passed out again from the pain.

Stephanie and Paula, who were also present during this, then dragged a naked, unconscious Sylvia to her pile of dirty clothes and left her there. The following morning, Sylvia woke up in unbearable pain and found that she'd wet herself. And so, as quietly as possible, she went to wash the pile of dirty urine-soaked clothes that she'd been sleeping on without alerting Gertrude. But of course she was spotted, and Gertrude went berserk, calling her an animal who wasn't fit to live with humans anymore, before kicking Sylvia down the stairs into the basement. Sylvia begged Gertrude to get her a doctor as the pain in her crotch was now agonising, but her pleas fell on deaf ears, and Gertrude locked the door in her crotch was now agonising, but her pleas fell on deaf ears, and Gertrude locked the door behind her.

That night, Gertrude checked on Sylvia and found that she'd wet herself again, so she decided it was time to clean her. So Gertrude called Coy Hubbard and her youngest son John, who was 12, and a 14-year-old neighbourhood boy called Ricky Hobbs to carry Sylvia upstairs to the clawfoot bathtub that had been filled with boiling hot water.

Just a quick side note about Ricky Hobbs. It's widely believed that Gertrude was engaged in a sexual relationship with this 14-year-old, and he is referred to quite a lot as Gertrude's little assistant. She couldn't get any worse, really, could she? The boys, including Ricky Hobbs, dropped Sylvia into scalding hot water, instantly causing her to scream out in pain. Afterwards, Paula scrubbed Sylvia's red raw body with salt,

making sure to get it in all of her open wounds. Sylvia cried through clenched teeth. And after this torture was finished, Gertrude ordered Ricky to take Sylvia back down to the basement and leave her there. From then on, Sylvia was denied access to any toilet and was forced to defecate and urinate on the basement floor. And the only time she would eat is when Gertrude and her 12-year-old son John would come down to scoop up her excrement and force feed it to her. Gertrude gave Sylvia a coffee tin to urinate in and would make Sylvia drink from it every day. Fucking hell. I mean, this is some of the worst stuff we've covered on this show. Fucking hell.

Yeah, I really, I was just about to say, maybe it's because, you know, we're, our emotional buckets are already pretty full this week. So maybe it's just the last straw. But like, I think I could be in the best mood ever and reading this would send me over the edge. No, I mean, this is just completely horrendous and vile. And I think like, I mean, really trying to think about motive. The only thing I can think of is like this word psychodrama just keeps like jumping into my mind this idea that somehow Gertrude was in abusive situations with abusive partners and with her abusive mother her entire sort of adult life and the pregnancies the miscarriages the using sex as a way to like being able to control these men who were incredibly

violent to her just feels like it's all wrapped up and she's projecting it all onto this child in the most violent visceral disgusting way possible the stuff with the cola bottle all of that it just what else can it be it is such a bizarrely thankfully unique case that this kind of thing isn't always happening. But it really does stand out in terms of like, what is the exact reason that this is happening? We'll obviously never understand, but that's the closest I can think about why. The scolding hot baths also became a daily occurrence to wash Sylvia's sins away, as Gertrude put it. And her time in the bath was the only time that Sylvia got a glimpse of daylight. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich,

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You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada,

as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about.

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Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. You're probably wondering how and why nobody ever came to Sylvia's rescue. And you're very right to wonder that. And as always with these cases, people did know they did nothing. Everybody knew what was happening to Sylvia. She wasn't in some secret hidden basement without anyone's knowledge, like Elizabeth Fritzl. She was in the middle of the suburbs. And also, one day she will have just

stopped going to school and nothing happens about that. Everybody knew what was happening to Sylvia, every kid in the neighbourhood, because they were always at Gertrude's house. Every single seven of Gertrude's children knew what was happening and engaged in the torture on a daily basis. And they spoke about it openly. We've rounded up the worst, by no means an extensive list, but the worst missed opportunities to save Sylvia Likens' life. Shortly after Sylvia and Jenny had arrived at Gertrude's, some new neighbours moved in next door, a professional middle-aged couple called Raymond and Phyllis Vermillion. They invited the Baniszewski family over for a barbecue, which seems like an

incredibly civilised thing to invite these people to. I suppose they didn't know what they were doing or hadn't seen the inside of their house. During this barbecue, Phyllis spotted Sylvia had two black eyes and when she asked Paula what had happened, Paula proudly told her that she had given them to Sylvia and then she went to get a mug of boiling water from the kitchen and threw it in Sylvia's face, right in front of Phyllis, and Phyllis did nothing. What's wrong with all these people? I don't know.

And this isn't the only time Phyllis doesn't do anything. Once she went round to Gertrude's to borrow a gardening tool and witnessed Paula beating Sylvia with a leather belt until her lips split in half, Oh, God. Would you like a fun fact to just say anything that isn't child abuse? I would please anything, yes. Did you know what the original name was going to be for Google? I think I do vaguely know this. No, it's gone. It was going to be called Batcrub. Oh, I'll just Batcrub it. Yeah, it was going to be called Backrub. And then it was renamed Google after Google with an O,

which is the number one followed by 100 zeros. So there you go. Wow. Would you like to know something incredibly embarrassing about the way I use the internet? Oh, please. This has now been rectified, but I don't use Google Chrome

because it takes up a lot of space like a lot a lot of space I know it's dumb but it's just like I'm just stubborn about it and I'm like no fuck Chrome which I know is stupid but like I am who I am let me live so I use whatever the new name for Internet Explorer is right like Edge or something is that what it's called Edge yeah right Edge which just makes it sound like a fucking mobile phone from like 2010. Yeah, it sounds like a flip phone. But obviously, Edge is... I can't believe I'm sharing this. It's so embarrassing.

Edge's search engine is not Google. It is Bing. Right. Don't worry, I don't use Bing. But I couldn't figure out how, because obviously Edge doesn't want you to do it. I couldn't figure out how to make the homepage Google on Edge. So my sister saw like on my laptop that my homepage was Bing and she was like, Hannah,

you do not use Bing. I'm absolutely going to have to disown you for that. I was like, no, I don't. I promise I go to Google. I just don't know how to make it the homepage and it's really complicated. And she was like, oh, have you Binged it? Have you Binged how to solve that problem? That's amazing. Anyway, it is now fixed now fixed yeah that's my embarrassment for the week well you know I think there's something to be said for using bing you're not going to get the best answers but it's not google and you know I do love the little legend that bing stands for because it's not google because google are spying on you all the time. Stop. That's great.

I love that. Yeah, see, I think we all should use Bing. It's just not very good. But it may be better for you security-wise. I mean, philosophically, I'm behind Bing. But to be honest, I am such an internet lud. I mean, I might as well ask Jeeves at this point. Like, it's really quite pathetic.

And it's all because I'm too stubborn to just use Chrome. I approve. Don't worry about it. But yes, there you go, guys. A little internet sidetrack for you there, because it's just not very fun. I guarantee some people will be more upset about that than they are about the child abuse in this episode. Oh, yeah, yeah.

So prepare yourself. And prepare yourself for this as well. Because arguably the worst case of neglect of one's duty to save Sylvia, as if those weren't bad enough, took place when Jenny wrote a letter to their older sister Diana detailing every abuse and torture that they'd faced since arriving at Gertrude's, begging her to come and get them. Diana ignored it at first, thinking that she was being dramatic,

but changed her mind when she realised some of the things Jenny had mentioned were things that a 15-year-old like her sister wouldn't be able to make up. So Diana drove down to the house and knocked on the door. But when she spoke to Gertrude and told her that she was Sylvia and Jenny's older sister, Gertrude refused to let her see them and told her that her father, Lester,

had told her that Diana was not allowed to speak with her sisters before slamming the door in her face. Obviously not believing it for a second, Diana then phoned the social services and request that they check up on Sylvia and Jenny's well-being before getting back in her car and driving home. All right, Diana, do you feel happy that you've done less than the fucking bare minimum? Yeah, right. I've been watching a lot of prison YouTube content, like people who've been in prison in the States

and now have YouTube channels, to which there are fucking loads, by the way. Oh, I bet. One of them was talking about how she witnessed when she was in segregation, nurses walking past cells and just standing at the door for like a minute or whatever, and then moving on and not saying anything. So it would look like on the camera they had spoken to the person in solitary confinement,

but didn't actually speak to them. I'm learning a lot about how we all knew that solitary confinement was pretty awful, but it's illustrative of like people will get sent to segregation if they try and commit suicide and then they put this incredibly depressed person in a room on their own and the nurses don't even speak to them in this woman's experience so yeah on the bare fucking minimum the social worker spoke to gertrude in the front doorway and never stepped inside once she She spoke to Jenny briefly, not on her own obviously, and Gertrude had threatened Jenny beforehand and had fed her a bunch of lies to recite. Together, they told the social worker that Sylvia had run away from home and that they didn't know

where she was, despite Gertrude having done everything she could to save her and get her back. The truth was that Sylvia was lying in the basement naked and barely conscious from malnourishment. She was covered in blood, an excrement and in desperate need of medical attention, which the social worker would have known if she'd just stepped inside. But the social worker didn't do that and so time went on and nothing changed. By now, all the neighbourhood boys who hadn't been present when Gertrude forced Sylvia to strip were dying to get their chance to see the naked girl. So 12-year-old John, the budding sociopathic entrepreneur that he was, began to charge people money to go into the basement and see the semi-conscious naked girl lying on the floor.

This macabre business quickly evolved into John forcing Sylvia to parade around the lounge naked to a full room of boys, with Gertrude watching on, ensuring nobody was being overtly sexual with her. Gertrude did actively encourage everybody to punch and kick Sylvia, however, and she was especially pleased when they burned her with cigarettes. By this point, Sylvia's body was almost completely shut down. She could barely talk, she could barely walk and her bruises and burns had stopped healing. Her reaction to pain was reduced to a quiet groan. She did still cry but her body was too dehydrated to produce actual tears. And now that Sylvia was perpetually naked,

Coy Hubbard's judo practice sessions in the basement lasted longer and longer with him often emerging hours later covered in sweat. Although it was accepted in court later on that Sylvia had not been raped, and they assume that because her hymen was still intact, which means absolutely fucking nothing, but, like, I can understand why in the 60s they thought that it did,

but it's not enough to rule out sexual assault. And given what we know about Coy Hubbard being an absolute scumbag, I really don't think we can rule out sexual assault on his part. On the 21st of October 1965, for reasons unknown, Gertrude brought Sylvia up out of the basement and handcuffed her to one of the beds and told her that if she could go the night without wetting herself then she could come back and quote live with humans again. But of

course this wasn't possible and Sylvia knew it because she'd been rendered permanently incontinent ever since the glass bottle incident. And the following morning when she found Sylvia had wet the bed Gertrude flew into another rage and dragged the naked girl into the lounge which was again full of neighborhood children. After tying her up gagging her and pinning Sylvia to the ground with the help of Coy and John Gertrude ordered her kids to start heating up the ends of needles using matches and then she instructed Ricky Hobbs, her little assistant, to carve the words, I'm a prostitute and proud of it, across Sylvia's pale emaciated stomach. Gertrude told Sylvia that since she had branded Stephanie and Paula as prostitutes it was only right that she should be branded too. She then taunted her that no man would ever want to marry her now,

before exiting the room and leaving Sylvia naked, bound and gagged at the mercy of a room full of sadistic kids. Ricky Hobbs then handed a red hot needle to Shirley, Gertrude's ten-year-old, and told her to carve the word slave into Sylvia's chest. She got us carving the S onto Sylvia's left breast before she stopped, and she did it wrong, so it ended up as a number three. They then took Sylvia back into the basement and left her there. That night, Jenny crept down to check on her sister, and this was when Sylvia whispered to her, Jenny, I know you don't want me to, but I'm gonna die. I can feel it. But there was nothing Jenny could think to do. She was as terrified of Gertrude as any of them were, and so she hugged

her sister and went back upstairs. The following day, Gertrude brought Sylvia up from the basement and sat her down at the dining table, where there was a pen and paper laid out. Gertrude brought Sylvia up from the basement and sat her down at the dining table where there was a pen and paper laid out. Gertrude instructed her to write down exactly what she said and this is what she made her write down. Dear Mr and Mrs Likens, I went with a gang of boys in the middle of the night and they said they would pay me if I would give them something. So I got in the car and they all got what they wanted. When they finished they beat me up and left sores on my face and all over my body and they also put on my stomach I'm a prostitute and proud of it. I have done just about everything I could to make Gertrude mad and cause Gertrude more money than she's got. I've ruined a new mattress and peed on it. I've also cost her

doctor's bills that she really can't afford to pay and made Gertrude a trying to solve her Sylvia problem. Yeah, I think Gertrude's figured out that she's in real trouble here because sooner or later she's going to have a dead body on her hands and she's trying to pre-empt that. But she makes an enormous mistake. After the letter was finished, Sylvia overheard Gertrude explaining her plans to Paula. And the plan was to leave Sylvia in some nearby woods overnight and hope that she died of exposure. Then the letter would be evidence to show to Sylvia's parents that she had actually just run away in the middle of the night

with a group of violent sex-crazed boys. Gertrude was too stupid to clock that Sylvia would never address her own parents as Mr and Mrs Likens. Come on. And also, like, if she's run off and she's, like, been attacked and left for dead in the woods, when did she write this letter and fucking post it about the attack that had already happened? It doesn't make any fucking sense. Gertrude was well aware how close Sylvia was to death and she had absolutely no intention of taking the blame for it. So the plan was to leave her to die on the 25th of October and Sylvia knew it. So she gathered all of her remaining strength and attempted to escape through the front door. She barely made it into the

hallway before Gertrude dragged her into the kitchen. Here, Gertrude tried to feed Sylvia some toast, but she was too dehydrated and her throat was too swollen shut from being choked and she couldn't swallow. Gertrude then attempted to ram the toast down Sylvia's throat using a curtain rod, which she then handed to Coy Hubbard, shitbag extraordinaire, who used it to beat Sylvia unconscious before throwing her back down into the basement. That night when Sylvia woke up, she knew that it was probably her last night ever, so she made yet another attempt to try and alert anybody that could hear her that she needed help. She found a spade in the basement and she banged on the walls and the ceiling for as long as she could. Phyllis and Raymond Vermillion later told the police that they had heard the banging

and screaming all night and it had stopped about 3am, but because they were so used to hearing strange noises from Gertrude's house, they hadn't thought anything of it. Fuck you, Phyllis and Raymond. I fucking hate you. Like, shut up. On the morning of the 26th of October, Sylvia was totally delirious and she couldn't even recognise people around her. But she still made one more attempt to make it to the front door.

Again, Gertrude stopped her and, in a fit of rage, stomped on Sylvia's head repeatedly and then threw her back into the basement. Later that day, Ricky Hobbs found Stephanie crying, crouched over Sylvia on the basement floor. Stephanie could tell something was terribly wrong, and the two of them carried Sylvia's motionless body upstairs and gave her a warm bath before dressing her in

clean clothes. This is when they realised Sylvia wasn't breathing, and Stephanie attempted CPR and then began screaming for help. Sat in the front room, Gertrude just kept yelling out that Sylvia was a liar and that she was probably faking it. Sylvia Likens was 16 years old when she died from her injuries. Gertrude beat Sylvia's lifeless body with a book, calling her a faker before she realized that she was indeed dead. And then she panicked. She moved Sylvia's body back into the basement and told Ricky Hobbs to phone the police.

Gertrude instructed everyone on what lies they were to tell the police when they arrived. And once the two police officers were at the house, she told them that Sylvia had run away the night before and then had just turned up an hour ago, clutching the letter, which she now handed them. Oh my fucking god, how she thinks that that is, like, a story that makes any fucking sense. I don't know, but okay, it's not the most deranged thing she's done, I suppose. The police were, of course, baffled by the letter, and by Gertrude's story. But then Jenny Likens whispered to one of the officers, If you get me out of here, I'll tell you everything.

The formal statement provided by Jenny and the subsequent individual questioning of all of the family members and the neighbourhood kids led the police to arresting the entire Banaszewski family, Coy Hubbard and Richard Hobbs, on charges of murder and assault. The autopsy that was carried out on Sylvia's body corroborated all of the stories that were told, except for Gertrude's and Paula's. They found over a hundred cigarette burns on Sylvia's body,

along with second and third degree burns, severe bruising and both nerve and muscular damage. The cause of death seemed to have been multiple brain hemorrhages and a culmination of all of her other injuries. Before dying, Sylvia had bitten through her own lips, which were hanging off her face by just a few threads of tissue. All of her fingernails were broken backwards and the top layers of skin on her face, breasts, neck and knees had either peeled back or had completely receded. The doctor found that she had been dead for up to eight hours before she had been found by the police and that she had been bathed after death.

The trial for the murder of Sylvia Likens, murder just doesn't really seem to cover it, does it? No, it doesn't. For the torture and execution. I don't know what is the right word. Fucking hell. This stuff. And this is the watered down version that we're giving you. Oh, yeah. If this was in a horror movie, I'd be like, all right, fucking hell. Like, can we just have like a grip on reality or ground this story in some form of reality? This is real. I just, I don't know. It's like you said, maybe I'm just on an emotional edge,

an emotional cusp, if you will, right now. But fuck. Yeah. It makes me feel awful for like fucking complaining all morning that my eyes hurt. So the trial for Sylvia Likens' murder started on the 18th of April, 1966. Murder charges were upheld against Gertrude, Paula, John, Richard Hobbs and Coy Hubbards. Stephanie got away with it because she agreed to testify against her family and her boyfriend. And her mum's boyfriend, her mum's child bride.

The trial began with Paula being rushed dramatically out of the courtroom so she could give birth to her daughter. For me, this is the worst detail of this entire thing. This has really got to me. She named the daughter that she gave birth to Gertrude. Fuck off. All of the people involved, younger than 18, including John, Coy and Richard, pled that they were just coerced accomplices of Gertrude's insanity in the torture of Sylvia.

Gertrude pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and that her children had done whatever they wanted in the madhouse because of lack of supervision. OK. Yeah, fine. Halfway through the trial, Gertrude suddenly proclaimed that Sylvia was the neighbourhood whore before insisting that she was three months pregnant. Sylvia was 100% not pregnant, as evidenced by her autopsy. So her insanity defence didn't pay off. Gertrude was deemed sane and found guilty of first-degree murder. Paula was convicted of second-degree murder,

but was granted a second trial after she appealed and made a plea bargain admitting to voluntary manslaughter. She served three years of that charge and then was paroled. She moved to Iowa under an assumed identity, but she was exposed on Facebook in 2012, so, like, not very long ago at all. I think we spent the first half of this talking about how long ago it was, but the people who are involved in it are still very much alive. After she was

exposed, Paula lost her job as a teacher's aide. Just like Carla Homolka, she had been allowed to work with children because she wasn't a sex offender. She wasn't on a sex offence list and nobody had any idea who she was. John, Coy and Ricky were all convicted of voluntary manslaughter and were sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile detention facility. Coy Hubbard, arguably one of Sylvia's most sadistic tormentors, showed absolutely no remorse and later on went on to be accused of a double murder during a home invasion, which he was tried and acquitted for.

He went on to work at a gas station in the same town without changing his name, and it's reported that he did lose that job after the movie An American Crime came out in 2007. He died the same year of a heart attack at the age of 56. Ricky Hobbs left the detention facility so full of guilt about what he had done to Sylvia that he suffered a nervous breakdown before he died four years later at the age of 21 from lung cancer. John went on to become a lay minister counselling children of divorce before he died of diabetes in 2005 at the age of 52. Jenny Likens was adopted by the prosecutor's family after the trial and

she went on to marry and have two children. She was of course completely traumatised for the rest of her life about what she'd witnessed happen to her sister and she died from a heart attack at the age of 54 in 2004. Gertrude appealed against her conviction, saying that it was a prejudicial atmosphere in Indianapolis at the time, and she was granted a retrial. This time she was given 18 years in prison and released on parole in 1985. She changed her name to Nadine Van Fossen and went to live with her daughter Paula, but she only survived for five years and died of lung cancer in 1990 at the age of 61. In June 2001, a six-foot-tall granite memorial was dedicated to Sylvia Likens in Willard Park,

Indianapolis. Several hundred people attended, including members of the Likens family, and the memorial is inscribed with the following words. This memorial is a memory of a young child who died a tragic death. As a result, laws changed and awareness increased. This is a commitment to our children that the Indianapolis Police Department is working to make this a safe city for our children. And because of Sylvia's death

and all of the people who could have saved her but didn't, people in Indiana who now suspect that a child is suffering abuse or neglect are legally obligated to report it to authorities. And this is actually quite a controversial topic. So I have talked about it before. I used to work in like child protection events that I used to produce for schools and councils etc. And in countries like Australia you have mandatory reporting. So if you're a teacher or anything like that, and you suspect that a child is being abused or neglected, you have to report it or you could face jail time. They were talking about bringing that into the UK because it's not the case here. And there's arguments for and against it. things based on maybe even the slightest concerns and it will overwhelm an already you know over

pressured and underfunded and under-resourced social services which I completely understand that argument but then when you hear about a case like this and so many people who didn't care enough to do the right thing because it was the morally right thing to do had there been a law that they would have had to or they would have been punished for not having done something it's hard to feel that that wouldn't have been helpful in this situation and how do you prove a suspicion i think it would be you should have reasonably known that this was happening ah right okay okay that makes much more sense then you didn't report it so therefore get in the fucking bin yeah phyllis definitely straight in the bin.

Would you like to finish on some facts about Indiana that I dug up for some light relief? Yes. I mean, I was wondering why at the bottom of the script it says something I won't spoil, but I was like, what's that about? Tell me. Well, that's why I didn't write it out properly, because I wanted to surprise you, because I felt like you'd probably need a bit of a lift at the end. Oh, thank you. It says, for anyone who would like to be spoiled, it says America slash Batman. Double slash, no less. It says crossroads of America slash slash

Batman. Listen, you like your WW dots and I like my double slashes. Absolutely. I'm not here to judge. I'm here to listen and learn. The state motto of Indiana is the crossroads of America, which I think is hilarious because it's like nothing actually happens here. Everyone just passes through. It's where you come to make difficult choices. Or if you are a Britney film that came out like 15 years ago. Michael Jackson's from Indiana. Gary, Indiana.

No, it's me. Well, and the rest of the Jackson 5, which makes sense because they were all born in the same place. Presumably. One would assume. Just him. My next and only remaining Indiana fact

because it was hard to dig them up. Indiana is home to the largest collection of Batman memorabilia in the world. That is interesting. That is interesting. That is interesting. I don't know whose it is. I know it's in India. We don't need to know that. Let's not get carried away with our facts. So yeah, that is it, guys. Hopefully you're not too traumatized. I think probably most of you already knew that story anyway. It's obviously a very, very famous story. Doesn't make it any easier to record though that was tough so thank you for

putting up with us taking a week off last week we appreciate it we're drowning in work but it's all going to be good and it'll all be great when you find out what the secret project is I don't know how long we're keeping this farce up like I don't know but I sort of feel like married to the farce now like call me mrs farce because I'm literally just taking this to the grave. But we're working incredibly hard. It will be worth it in the end. And watch this space probably in the next couple of weeks. We'll be able to tell you.

We hope. We think. We'll let you know. We'll let you know. But until then, if you will like, I'd like some more content. Particularly that extra podcast that we're essentially now doing every single week called under the duvet which you can listen to immediately after this episode you can basically sign up to become a patron we also do once a month in the news episodes where we talk about

as the name suggests stories that are in the news this month's one is particularly interesting come check that out we're also going to be doing bonus episodes like we always do every single month for $10 and up patrons. This month's one is on the Kunz family, which was highly, highly requested. I made that sound like it was organic. We did a poll and you all voted for it, so we're going to do it. So come check that out. And here are some lovely people who need to be said thanks to. So So, thank you. Miriam Bisbee, Laura Leach, Roxanne Steele, Brenna Smith, Eddie Callaghan, Mackenzie McDaniel, Jessica Hallett, Jeremy Raymond, Cosmo Collision, Snadis Valstotter, Gina Leslie Cole, Jessica Adams, Kelsey Cole even, Aether Bunny, Alex Minigan, Raquel Cohen, Jennifer Harney, Sydney, Courtney Mulcock, Miriam Bisbee, Emma Hutton, Katerina Vogeli, Tricia, Victoria, Paige Bay, Kira Price, Ellie Barton, Holly,

Ollie, Ollie, Francesca Groom, Osha Kondori, Lisbeth Trevoni, Leslie, Jason Keogh, Amanda Hill, Green for Snow, Kayu, I feel like that's an Irish name. I don't know how to say that. Yeah, and I should know. Kayu. I should know so hard. Kofi. Keefa, maybe.

I don't know. I'm sorry. Coim. That's not how I say it. I know. Ashley Marie Martinez, Claire Pancers. Nick Martinez. Elizabeth Mosley.

Claire Gall. Edgewood? Elizabeth Price. Cass. Abby Miles. Tony Martland. Molly Mason. Laura Kay.

Katie Miller. Jasmine Dillon. Steph. Cassandra Rosales. Courtney McGregor. Alicia. Nathalie Smith. Chris Eswain. Randolph. Jen. Keith, Georgie Morley, Bup Goodman,

Carrie Brown, Cindy Gould, Abby Clifton, Ellie Salkinen, Amy Shuva, Deb Taylor, Charlotte Furness-Wrighter, Katrina Milazzo, Christy Ellison, Sienna, Juliet Mitchell, Leona McGlinky. Anyone wondering where we are up to in our Patreon announcements? These are all people from August. So I'm sorry, we're trying. Luna, Bree Newman, Tanya, Jennifer Holdren, Melanie Fleeman, Aoife Byrne, Jessica Polagesco.

So wrong. Joanna Durrant. I've scrolled away from it now. I can't even help you. Ash Menon. Thank you for your support. Kelly Grace, Margaret Churchill, Amy McKenney.

It's easier not to look. Kate Lilly. Peddleston. Emma Self. Brandon Skosnik. Kristen Purvis. Kendra See. Brenna Smith.

Skylar Price. Cheyenne.ess singleton oh fuck me i've been attacked by my kindle jamie fox hillary land don't buy a kindle they're fucking trash hannah katie mackie flibber to gibbet giselle morales louise wilkinson rose cass and ovi sterling laura lawton courtney gladonii, Courtney Hobson, Casey Mass, Jessica Morantes. Thank you ever so much for joining us for the show. If you made it all the way to the end, congratulations. And thank you to all of our wonderful patrons for keeping us

going. And we will see you very soon for something else that's not child abuse. Yes, please. That would be delightful. See you then. Goodbye. Bye. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come.

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