69 SOUTH
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69 SOUTH
Sylvia's Last Summer: A Neighborhood's Darkest Secret
The horrific torture and murder of Sylvia Likens stands as one of America's most disturbing cases of child abuse—a stark reminder of what happens when an entire community turns a blind eye to suffering.
Summer 1965 in Indianapolis was a time of Beatles records and drive-in movies, but behind the doors of a rundown house on East New York Street, 16-year-old Sylvia was experiencing unimaginable cruelty. After being left with Gertrude Baniszewski while her carnival-worker parents traveled, Sylvia became the target of escalating abuse that transformed from slaps and verbal humiliation into systematic torture over three devastating months.
What makes this case particularly haunting is how Gertrude manipulated not just her own seven children but neighborhood teenagers into participating in the abuse. Sylvia was beaten with paddles, burned with cigarettes, starved, and eventually confined to the basement where she lived on a filthy mattress. The words "I'm a prostitute and proud of it" were carved into her stomach with a heated needle. All while nurses, social workers, and neighbors saw signs but did nothing—assuming it was simply "family business" in an era when child welfare wasn't yet taken seriously.
We explore the psychological dynamics that allowed this horror show to unfold, examining how Gertrude—a 37-year-old single mother struggling with illness and poverty—created a hierarchy where hurting Sylvia became a way to gain approval. The justice system's failure is equally disturbing, with Gertrude receiving life imprisonment but walking free after just 20 years, while teenage participants served minimal sentences.
Sylvia's legacy lives on through the child protection reforms her case helped inspire. But as we honor her memory, we must ask ourselves: have we truly learned to recognize and intervene when children are at risk, or could a similar tragedy happen today? Join us for this powerful, heartbreaking discussion that will change how you think about community responsibility.
Share your thoughts on child protection in your community, and remember the Child Help National Child Abuse Hotline: 1-800-422-4453. Let's ensure no child slips through the cracks again.
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Disclaimer: All defendants are INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY in a court of law. All facts are alleged until a conviction!
Welcome everyone to Podcast 69 South, where we cuss and discuss true crime, cold cases, current events and hot topics, along with our state of society today. This is your trigger warning. Our podcast content is produced for adult listeners, 18 years of age and older. We discuss situations that may be offensive and triggering to some listeners. Sit back, relax and enjoy. Welcome back everybody. We hope you had a good time. Since the last time I'm Chop, your host of 69 South, and with me always is my beautiful co-host, julie. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm good. Hey everybody. We're here to honor the victims and unpack the stories that stick with us long after these episodes are done, and this one is a beast.
Speaker 1:It sure is. This case hits like a sledgehammer to the chest. I've been dreading telling it, but I've been kind of wanting to tell the story to you because it's kind of shady and horrible. But Sylvia Likens' story is heavy as hell. It's going to shake you up. So, listeners, strap in, because this is not an easy one.
Speaker 2:So, before we jump in a serious heads up, this episode covers the torture and murder of a teenager, sylvia Likens, with graphic details of physical and psychological child abuse, including sexual violence. We also talk about the systematic failures and the bystander bullshit physical and psychological child abuse, including sexual violence. We also talk about the systematic failures and the bystander bullshit. It's a rough listen and a big reminder this is an adult podcast and please keep the children's ears away.
Speaker 1:We're telling Sylvia's story to honor her memory and shine a light on one of America's most gut-wrenching crimes and spark some real-ass conversation about what went wrong. So let's get into the life and death of Sylvia Likens.
Speaker 2:Let's start with Sylvia Marie, a girl who deserved a hell of a lot better than what she got. It's the summer of 65 in Indianapolis. The city's humming with life Picture humid nights, cicadas buzzing and the kids cruising Monument Circle, and shiny Ford Mustangs W-I-F-E-A-M is blaring. The Beatles' Help or the Sopranos' Stop in the Name of Love no, just kidding, I can't sing. In the name of love. No, just kidding, I can't sing. Now teens in mod miniskirts and mop top haircuts flock to Broad Ripple Park laughing at the Dick Van Dyke show, swooning over Bewitched or watching the animals rock the Ed Sullivan show. The Indy 500's still fresh, jim Clark's Lotus Ford winning maze got folks bragging and everyone's gearing up for the Indiana State Fair in August. But beneath the neon glow there's tension, civil rights rallies, local churches, news of Vietnam, drafts creeping in and headlines about Mars. Photos from Marina 4 sparking dreams of the stars.
Speaker 1:Damn, that's Indian 65. Hot, restless and caught between small-town pride and a nation shaken at the seams. Families crowd around TVs to watch I Spy and Bill Cosby's Breaking Barriers as the first black lead in a drama, or flip through the Indiana Star talking about the Colts and Johnny Unitas. Now keep in mind back then it was not the Indianapolis Colts folks, they were still in Baltimore. Nationally, shit's intense. The Voting Rights Act gets signed in August a win for civil rights but the Watts riots explode in LA just days later, showing the country still a powder keg. Meanwhile, president Johnson's sending more boys to Vietnam. Troops hit 125,000 by the summer's end. Here in Indy folks watch Walter Cronkite break the news after Bewitched and college kids at Butler are starting to whisper about protest for the war. Sylvia's living in this world and it ain't kind to kids like her.
Speaker 2:Born January 3, 1949, in Lebanon, indiana. Sylvia was the third of five kids in a working-class family. Her parents, lester and Elizabeth Likens, were grinding to keep shit together in a world that didn't give a damn about folks. Barely getting by Boone County, just 20 miles northwest of Indy, was rural, small town gossip, everybody knowing your business. But the 50s and early 60s were brutal.
Speaker 1:Indy was growing factories, car shops, the speedway, but jobs were shaky and the lichens were always one missed paycheck away from disaster we were researching this case, going through newspaper articles and shit, you talk about knowing everybody's business, like you could get the newspaper and it literally had everybody's business. It even had where people like if you got released from the hospital.
Speaker 2:The birth at the hospital, what you were getting released for. I even seen a divorce case where they were talking about somebody had passed away and in the will it listed everything everybody got.
Speaker 1:They didn't leave much out in the newspaper, man. I remember back when I was a kid it wasn't quite back this far, but, man, in the mornings everybody was drinking their coffee freaking glued to the newspaper.
Speaker 2:No wonder they used to sell out all the time. They had everybody's business in there.
Speaker 1:Now getting by is putting it nice. Lester had an eighth-grade education. He was hustling factory jobs, driving a laundry truck or joining traveling carnivals. That's no white picket fence life, not like the families on the Dick Van Dyke show the indie folks watched every week. Elizabeth was raising five kids Diana, danny, benny, sylvia and Jenny. They moved around constantly new towns, new rentals, chasing work or cheaper rent. I remember bouncing around as a kid like that man. It wasn't very fun at all. I went to over 30 different schools just from first grade to ninth grade.
Speaker 2:Wow, I was only in two different school systems the whole time.
Speaker 1:It did have a it had it has an effect on a child man, because you go to school for a little bit and then you finally get in their educational routine. And then you, you know, you make new friends, you were the new guy, so you got to cut all that bullshit to the side, yeah, and then bam, four or five months later you're going to a different school and starting all over again. So it was kind of hard to get in a good routine, or even try to, you know, get established in a school, because you knew damn good and well that you were going to be gone in a few months.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I can imagine I always hated the first day of school, so that would have been like 10, 20 first days for you.
Speaker 1:Huh, yeah it sucked Probably three or four first times a year. I did go to one school one year, the whole school, and that was my seventh grade year. I went to one junior high school the whole year and that was pretty cool it was different. Diana was married and gone. The oldest child and Danny and Benny were teens and Jenny, 15, had polio and she was rocking a leg brace. Sylvia she was kind of the kid that was holding shit together, the glue of the family per se.
Speaker 2:Sylvia had this bright ass smile, a kindness that pulled people in. Friends said that she would share her lunch if you forgot yours. She loved roller skating at ellenberger park, vibing to elvis, or the beatles ticket to ride on her transistor radio, just being a teenager in the city where kids slip sip cherry cokes at dog and suds, caught beach blanket bingo at the twin drive-in or laughed at rob petrie tripping over ottomans on tv. She wasn't perfect nobody is but she had warmth. One classmate said sylvia spent her last dime on a soda for her friend having a shitty day. That's who she was, even in a world where the star ran ads for 19th Sense McDonald's burgers and mom's baked poppin' fresh rolls from the new Pillsbury Doughboy ads.
Speaker 1:Damn that hits. Sounds like she was out here being a pretty good kid you know what I mean, and Speedway and NASA and Mars photos was what the life. She was going around the neighborhood at the time, but the family seems to be barely hanging on. So what's the deal with the carnival and how did she end up in that hellhole where all this torture and shit happened at?
Speaker 2:So by July of 1965, lester and Elizabeth were drowned and the carnival life was a shot at quick cash, slinging hot dogs and popcorn on the road. But carnivals are sketchy as hell. Long hours, constant travel, shady vibes, that's the world that Sylvia's parents were in. Danny and Benny got sent to their grandparents on the other side of Indy, and that left Sylvia and Jenny, who needed a stable spot while their parents were gone.
Speaker 1:And in the story comes Gertrude Baniszewski, and we practiced saying that last name quite a few times.
Speaker 1:Baniszewski. This is where shit takes a nosedive. Gertrude was 37 and, being the mom of seven, living in a rundown house at 3850 East New York Street. This was a working class neighborhood back in that day where folks you know grilled out and hung out at the back fence, talked to neighbors hollering at the other neighbors grilling out, they were watching the Ed Sullivan show and, you know, kind of stayed out of trouble. Now Gertrude was divorced and she was sick with asthma and bronchitis. She was barely scraping by as well. She was taking jobs like ironing the neighbor's clothes and doing people's laundry and shit like that, just to get a quick buck.
Speaker 2:Now let's set Gertrude's world because it is key. She was born in Indy in 1928. She had a rough start. Her dad died young. She dropped out of high school at 16. She had three failed marriages, first to John Banzuski Sr. And by 1965, she's a single mom to her seven kids Paula Stephanie, john Marie, shirley James and baby Dennis Jr. Plus she's dating her teenage boyfriend, dennis Wright, and she's 37 years old. Her house was a damn mess no heat, pill and paint and barely enough food. Right in a city where teens cruised in mod outfits and jukeboxes played the top fours the four tops.
Speaker 1:Just a little insight. Julie was like what's the four tops?
Speaker 1:I know, I didn't know it's a band back in them day. That's a shit show. It sounds like gertrude's life was, you know at the time before she took in the two extra kids. I mean she had seven kids. That means that some of the kids were probably close to their teen years, I mean 15, 16 years old, and then she had a teenage boyfriend at 37 years old. I mean, why would she take in two more kids when she could barely handle what was going on? Cold hard cash Money says it all.
Speaker 2:The Likens met Gertrude through a carnival buddy. She offered to take Sylvia and Jenny for $20 a week, which today that would be like $200 a week. Lester and Elizabeth thought it was a solid plan. Big house, lots of kids, seemed like a family vibe. And then in December where folks were planning state fair trips and you know, they figured Sylvia and Jenny would be safe, go to school, have a roof over their head safe, go to school, have a roof over their head.
Speaker 1:man, were they wrong? At $20 a week, as you said? We researched that and it's like $200 today. So that's even though it's 10 times, the money is valued at 10 times from 1965 until today when we're recording this, which is actually today. But I mean still $200 a week for two kids to be, to take two children in in their teens, feed them, house them, laundry 200 bucks a week ain't shit now no, it's not, and you'd think maybe that would have been the first red flag.
Speaker 1:Like man, she's gonna take care of our kids for 200. I mean, who would leave their kids anyway for just forever?
Speaker 2:Not me.
Speaker 1:Not for 200 bucks a week. That's insane. Safe, that's the last word I'd use for the house. But before we get into the nightmare, let's talk about Sylvia. She was just a regular kid.
Speaker 2:Sylvia was a 16-year-old dreamer in a city where kids swapped Mad Magazine at drugstores.
Speaker 1:Oh, Mad Magazine was the shit back then.
Speaker 1:Ain't that the guy with the smashed up face. Yeah, alfred E Newman was his name, the little red-headed freckle-headed dude on the front of it. Man, my Uncle Dale used to have boxes and boxes of Mad Magazines. Man, I used to read them. They were just like little comics and they had kind of like a whole magazine of the comics in your sunday newspaper. But they had ones that they did every week. They had one called spy versus spy. It was pretty cool every time they had a spy doing something mean to the other spy when it wasn't looking.
Speaker 2:I don't know, it was just a thing back then right now they also would hum bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone and watch Samantha twitch her nose on Bewitched. She went to Arsenal Tech High School and she also helped Jenny with her leg brace and probably dreamed of a life beyond Indy's humid streets maybe college, a job or just a home without chaos. She was tough and always looking out for others.
Speaker 1:I want to focus on Sylvia as a person, because this case gets pretty dark. It's easy to forget who she was. She ain't just some name in a true crime story. She was a kid with dreams.
Speaker 2:You're so right. Sylvia's humanity keeps this grounded. She loves skating. That Ellenberger Probably had a favorite Beatles tune. Like yesterday She'd hum all day, Maybe pass notes in class about the state fair, or who'd be on the Ed Sullivan show that night. That soda story. It's small but it shows her heart. She was generous even when she had jack shit in a city where teens were saving nickels for McDonald's or the twin drive-in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it gets me. I'm picturing racing friends, maybe wearing, you know, the old mod headband. She could have been anybody's niece or your sister. I mean anybody's kid. Makes me wonder what she'd be doing now if this hadn't happened to her. Maybe she was wanting to be a mom, or maybe she would have been a teacher, who knows? What do you think she dreamed about, hon?
Speaker 2:I bet she had big dreams. Maybe she wanted to travel, see beyond Indy's picket fences and speedway lights, or just stability, a home, a family, a chance to be a kid without chaos. It's heartbreaking what was stolen from her. That's why we're here to make sure she's remembered as Sylvia, not just a victim.
Speaker 1:And let's talk why that matters, because true crime can feel like a horror show, but it's all about the people. Sylvia's story reminds us to see the person behind the headlines, especially in a time when Indy was wrestling with civil rights and glued to the I Spy show.
Speaker 2:It's July 1965. Sylvia and Jenny Likens move into Gertrude's house on 3850 East New York Street in an Indy neighborhood where people barbecued and watched the Ed Sullivan show. But they stayed out of each other's drama At first. For Sylvia it's bearable crowded, messy, but not a total disaster. The girls share a room with Gertrude's kids Paula 17, stephanie, which is 15, and then there's John 12, marie 11, shirley 10, james 8, and then there's baby Dennis Jr. They go to Arsenal Tech, hit up Sunday school sometimes and try to blend in Right.
Speaker 1:So Paula was 17. They said she had a teenage boyfriend at the time. So I wonder how close in age her oldest daughter and the boyfriend was boyfriend at the time.
Speaker 2:So I wonder how close in age her oldest daughter and the boyfriend was. Actually, I think Paula was 17 when she got convicted, but whenever she moved in to Gertrude's house she was only 15. Sylvia was actually older than Paula.
Speaker 1:But the normal crap in the house didn't last. Gertrude's running a tight ship. Gertrude is stressed out of her mind. I mean she's broke. She's sick Raising the sixth kid that she has, and then she's putting up with her teenage boyfriend, dennis Wright. He's probably a headache. I mean the house is falling apart. She's probably got a short-ass fuse. When the Likens' first $20 payment is late by one day, gertrude loses her shit. She drags Sylvia and her sister Jenny upstairs and slaps the shit out of them, screaming at them I've been taking care of you two for nothing. I bet she was pissed off. I mean the first $20 payment, though. I mean, give the male a chance.
Speaker 2:No joke. One late payment which shows up the next day is the spark Gertrude starts zeroing in on Sylvia, not Jenny, for punishments. You know it starts small spankings with a fraternity paddle for dumb shit like Sylvia trading soda bottles for pocket change. But this is not just discipline, it's personal.
Speaker 1:It sounds personal. I mean soda bottles. The kids in Indy at that time they were trading, you know, the pop bottles for a little bit of candy money and maybe money to spend at the state fair, not getting their asses beat for it. Gertrude's not just mad about cash, she's got a vendetta against Sylvia. Why her and not Jenny? You think I'm thinking because Sylvia was strong. Maybe she pushed back against Gertrude a little bit. What do you read about it?
Speaker 2:You know, I think you're honest Sylvia was older, healthier. I mean she was older than Jenny, healthier, more outspoken, who was quieter because of her polio. Gertrude might have seen Sylvia as a threat to her control, or maybe she was jealous. Sylvia was pretty kind, everything that Gertrude wasn't. Whatever it is, the abuse ramps up quick.
Speaker 1:Quick's saying it lightly. We're going to lay this out because it gets ugly real quick. Over three months, from July to October, in 65, sylvia goes from a guest in Gertrude's home to a prisoner. Gertrude's kids, especially Paula and John, start joining in. Then the neighborhood kids Coy Hubbard, richard Hobbs and others. They all get sucked into this sick-ass game and it's not just slapping around anymore, it turns into torture.
Speaker 2:Now let's walk through the timeline, because it's chilling. In July it's spankings and verbal abuse. Gertrude calls Sylvia names, accuses her of stealing or being a slut. By August it's physical a slut. By August it's physical Gertrude and Paula shove Sylvia down the stairs, burn her with cigarettes, starve her. And this is when the neighbor kids start showing up, which Gertrude is egging them on to punish Sylvia for made-up shit.
Speaker 1:And it's not just random hits, they're damn creative, like they're trying to outdo each other, like it's not just random hits. They're damn creative, like they're trying to outdo each other, like it's a game to them. They rub salt in her wounds, like literally rub salt in her wounds. They force her to eat baby poop out of Dennis Jr's diaper. Gertrude even grabbed a pen or a needle and I can just imagine they were heating this needle up with like an old Zippo or something and they literally burnt and scratched the name on Sylvia's stomach and it said I'm a prostitute and proud of it. I mean, what the F?
Speaker 1:Wow Now that's pretty, pretty quick transition, man I mean from one month to just a few weeks to beating, burning and starving this poor girl had no chance at all, couldn't imagine.
Speaker 2:By September Sylvia is locked in the basement, no light, no bathroom, just a mattress on a concrete floor. She is starved, dehyd, dehydrated, covered in over 150 wounds, cigarette burns, cuts, bruises. Gertrude forces her into scalding hot baths to quote unquote cleanse her, then leaves her downstairs freezing. Neighbor kids pay, pay a nickel to see Sylvia's injuries or take turns hitting her. It's like a freak show at one of those sketchy-ass carnivals.
Speaker 1:So there's the old money tip again. Gertrude is charging the neighbor kids five cents. So give me five cents and you can come down here and do whatever they were doing to her hit her, take turns, beating her. She's making money all the way around. She was a cruel ass woman.
Speaker 2:It's unreal Neighbors see Sylvia's bruises, her weight loss, but no one calls the cops. A nurse visits for one of Gertrude's kids and sees Sylvia's state, but she doesn't report it. Then Sylvia tries to escape in early October crawling out a window, but Gertrude and Coy Hubbard catch her. They beat her senseless and they drag her back into the basement.
Speaker 1:Man. It just goes to show how different times were back then, some to the good and some to the bad. By mid-October, sylvia is barely hanging on. She is literally just skin and bones. She can't walk, she can't talk. Right On October 26, 1965, she collapses. Now Gertrude tries to shove a donut in her mouth, but Sylvia can't even swallow. That's when the final blow hits. Probably from Coy or John, it was a hit to the head. She dies from brain swelling caused by blunt force trauma. The official cause of her death was brain hemorrhage. Real cause three months of pure evil. Poor 16-year-old girl.
Speaker 2:From slaps to torture, from one person to a whole group. It's horrifying. How does a house in Indy summer of 65, turn into this?
Speaker 1:And her sister was having to stand there and watch all that, just scared to death that it was going to happen to her and Sylvia being the nice big sister that was helping her with her leg breaks and everything, and then having to watch through that, it had to be just as bad for her as it was Sylvia, you would think.
Speaker 2:I bet you it was mentally, just mental torture for her. She was scared to death, and then her and her sister were very close.
Speaker 1:Well, you know they were close.
Speaker 2:Being the only two out of what, was it five that got left there, I feel so bad for Jenny.
Speaker 1:You can only imagine I bet Sylvia was probably almost a point that she was glad that it was over at that, you know.
Speaker 2:You would get to a point where, if you had to live like that, you would be glad that it's over.
Speaker 1:It's like a damn virus. Gertrude is the source spreading this hate, but it's wild how fast it takes over. I mean, you got kids as young as 10, shirley and Marie, joining in, and then you got teens like Coy and Richard acting like they're in a gang. What flips that switch? It's Gertrude's power or something darker in this city that's caught up in its own buzz?
Speaker 2:It's a mix. Psychologically, gertrude's a manipulative bitch. She's got this charisma, this authority that makes her kids and the neighborhood teens want to please her. She normalizes this abuse, saying that Sylvia's bad or that Sylvia deserves it. It's like she's rewriting morality in that house.
Speaker 1:It must have been the cool house in the neighborhood. You know what I mean In neighborhoods in Indianapolis you'd always have like on the street or within a couple blocks you'd have that one where somebody's mom or dad didn't care if you went over and smoked cigarettes or get fucked up.
Speaker 2:I bet this was that house, like in grouping up together I bet this was that house Like in grouping up together, and you know, you add in group thinking and then people start feeding off of each other's actions and then that shit just spirals Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I'm picturing Sylvia in the basement surrounded by kids that used to be her friends for a short amount of time, now treating her like garbage. It's crazy how she drove those kids across that line that quick.
Speaker 2:It's messed up to think about some of its fear. Gertrude was violent with her own kids so they might have felt trapped, but there's also power. Hurt and Sylvia gave them control in a house where they had none the neighborhood they're impressionable chasing a thrill and gertrude's giving them a free pass to be cruel. So I mean, what are they? We would know what you know most kids that age would do. They wouldn't go and torture another kid. But I suppose if you got an adult telling you to do it, they're confused as all get out.
Speaker 1:Adult on a bunch of drugs too. I think she was on, like that, kodamol cough syrup, cough depressant, and one of the newspaper articles said that she was fucked up on phenobarbital.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Gertrude is definitely the puppet master here. Her fingerprints are all over this crap. Let's break down how she turned the house into a torture chamber in an indie neighborhood. I mean, it wasn't the worst neighborhood in the world. People were like grilling out and it was like a working class neighborhood.
Speaker 2:Right. So Gertrude is a textbook toxic leader. She's not just abusive, she is strategic as hell. She reads people's, knows their weaknesses. With her kids it's fear and loyalty. With the neighborhood teens it's like she's what you call it casting them in her messed up play her enforcers. She's building a hierarchy where hurting sylvia is how you level up, while you know the other neighbors and residents are just paying attention to their own life. They don't care what's going on in somebody else's house.
Speaker 1:What about her boyfriend Dennis Wright? He's in and out, but ain't stopping her.
Speaker 2:Dennis is a damn wild card. He's in his teens, more into himself than all these kids. You know Gertrude might use him to boost her ego, but he's not running shit. She's calling the shots. Her health asthma, bronchitis, constant pain, addiction might, you know, have made her more unhinged, more desperate to control something instead of, you know, just being nothing. Right, that's no excuse.
Speaker 1:I'm wondering if she saw Sylvia as a mirror, maybe like a picture of her young, pretty self, full of life, and then hated her for it. Was it personal or were you think Sylvia was just an easy target? If you thought it was an easy target, you thought she would have picked on the little one.
Speaker 2:I don't think it was an easy target. I think that you know Sylvia was a pretty girl and I think one her daughter, paula, was extremely jealous of her and you know, and Paula would run back and tell Gertrude stuff and it would just make gertrude hate her, but gertrude seemed to me like she hated everybody. This abuse didn't happen in a bubble. Neighbors on east new york street Street noticed Sylvia's bruises, her weight loss and how she stopped going to school and church. One neighbor her name was Phyllis later said she saw Sylvia looking frail but thought it was you know. Quote unquote family business.
Speaker 1:That's what burns me up. People saw her suffering and just kept on walking. How do you see a kid who's starving, covered in burns, and not think? You know? I think not my problem.
Speaker 2:It's infuriating. Context matters Indy. In 65, it wasn't big on child welfare reform. Child abuse Wasn't a public issue. Spanking Even harsh stuff was seen as a parent's right. If you saw a kid with bruises you might have thought that's normal. Plus, gertrude's house was chaos. Neighbors stayed away from them to avoid the drama. You know they didn't want to be around it.
Speaker 1:I can see that. You know things were different back then with the way people were allowed to and the way people disciplined their child, especially in schools. I mean, I remember getting the big paddle in the school. They don't do that shit no more. My mom, she'd whoop my ass if I messed up. I think you kind of learn quicker that way, to be honest with you. But everybody's got their opinion on that.
Speaker 2:Oh, I definitely got my ass whooped when I was little, but I never got to paddle in school and I never got kicked out of school.
Speaker 1:I was a good kid. We're going to move on with the story from there. But a nurse, a social worker, they're supposed to know better. I mean, Jenny, I feel for her. She's 15, scared to death, she's got polio, but she's watching her sister die. I mean, was there no way she could have gotten help? You think, or you think she was just staying out of Gertrude's way too?
Speaker 2:Well, jenny's situation is gut-wrenching. Gertrude threatened to lock her in the basement too if she talked Jenny. Jenny later said she was terrified and with her disability she felt stuck. She tried telling a neighbor once but they brushed it off.
Speaker 1:This has been a perfect storm of fear and inaction, and that's how she fell through the cracks.
Speaker 2:And you said Sylvia did try to escape right through the cracks. And you said sylvia did try to escape right. Yeah, early october sylvia crawled out a basement window desperate for a phone or a neighbor. She was so weak she barely made it across the yard. That's when gertrude and coy caught. Caught her, beat her to a pop and dragged her back and that was her last shot man, that moment where she almost got free, it's like a knife to the chest.
Speaker 1:I bet Shoot. I bet that sucked when they got her.
Speaker 2:You know it did. She thought. You know, she thought this is it, I'm done.
Speaker 1:We do gotta sit and talk here about the bystanders. I mean, this is messed up to me.
Speaker 2:It's the bystander effect straight up. Everyone thinks someone else will act, so nobody does. In 65, reporting abuse wasn't a thing. You didn't call the cops on a neighbor unless it was blatant. Gertrude's house was intimidating, loud, chaotic, kids everywhere, people automatically. You know I'm not getting involved in that shit.
Speaker 1:That's no excuse. I mean that nurse nurses are trained to see. She sees Sylvia looking like a skeleton and just dips out the social worker. That's their job. I'm trying to understand, but I'm judging these people. Am I judging these people too hard?
Speaker 1:No, I feel you the times were different, though it was the times you know what I mean, and the fact that they were in a big city houses 10 foot apart. I mean it was probably just a thing. You know, don't get in my business, I won't get in your business. I see you whooping your kids' ass. I won't say nothing.
Speaker 2:Well, in 65, indiana, child welfare was underfunded, understaffed and they focused on keeping families together, not investigation, abuse, no mandatory reporting laws like now. A social worker might have seen a messy house and thought this is poverty, not a crime, in a city where poverty was common and folks were distracted by their everyday lives.
Speaker 1:I get that man and Jenny, I can't really blame her either, but it's rough. I mean she was a kid and she was scared, she was stuck. Yeah, I wonder if she could have slipped a note to a teacher or you think that was risky. They probably knew Gertrude and probably would have said something to Gertrude and she knew that.
Speaker 2:Right, and then all the kids were probably on the same class, so she didn't have it. It was too risky. Jenny was vulnerable, you know. Gertrude had her on lockdown too. She did what she could after Sylvia's death, spilling everything to the cops, you know that took guts Hell.
Speaker 1:back then there wasn't even a system to be messed up.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Just so different to sit and think about how the times were in that era.
Speaker 2:Well, let's zoom out to Indy 1965. This case happened in a city, you know, that's proud of its speedway and dreaming of the stars, but blind to child abuse. Why was the system so broken back then, In that time?
Speaker 1:it's got to be how people saw kids. Parents were basically kings of their house. You know what I mean. You could discipline your kid however you wanted, but nobody gave a damn, whether you were in Indy or anywhere else.
Speaker 2:You know that's spot on right there. Child abuse as a societal problem was not on the radar. It wasn't until the later 60s that doctors started talking about battered child syndrome and even then it was controversial. In Indiana there were no laws making teachers, doctors or neighbors report abuse. Compare that to now when mandatory reporting standards in most states you know have been brought forth.
Speaker 1:That's wild though. So Gertrude's beaten Sylvia and legally it's just parenting. No wonder nobody did shit. I mean, what about poverty? And I ain't saying being broke means you're dirty. Plenty of folks keep a clean house on a budget, but Gertrude's house was. It was a slum, From the reports. It was crumbling, overcrowded, no stove. The basement was where they just threw bags of trash down there. That's where Sylvia was stuck on the dirt floor in her own waste. There wasn't even a restroom down there, surrounded by unwashed dishes, barely any food and a violent, neglectful vibe under Gertrude's abusive-ass control. That must have played a role in all of it too, the whole scene.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and back then East New York Street was a working-class area but it was hit hard by economic shifts in 65. Hit hard by economic shifts in 65. Indianapolis was growing but the urban renewal projects, like medical center expansion, were displaced in families and poverty could mask abuse. Social workers might have seen hunger or filth and thought, oh, just a poor family. This is not a crime scene. It's a systematic blind spot in a city that's distracted by everything.
Speaker 1:It makes me think about today versus then, we got better laws, but there's still kids following through.
Speaker 2:And if you're in child welfare, law enforcement or education, can you go to our facebook page maybe and tell us how you're trained to spot abuse? We'd love to share that with our community. Sylvia's death on october 26, 1965 finally breaks the silence. Jenny lichen, scared, shitless but brave, spills everything to the cops when they show up she points at Gertrude, her kids and the neighborhood teens. Arrest hit quick. Gertrude, first degree murder. Paula, first degree murder. Stephanie, injury to a person, an accessory. John, first degree murder. Coy Hubbard, first degree murder. Richard Hobbs first degree murder. Coy Hubbard, first degree murder. Richard Hobbs, first degree murder. Marie Shirley, judy Duke and Randy Leppard they all get investigated but face lesser charges or juvenile proceedings.
Speaker 1:The trial in May of 66, it's just a circus show. Indianapolis Star headlines scream about the torture slayings. It was actually, in fact, bigger news than the Indy 500. And from being up there, that's saying a lot. The courtroom's packed showing graphic photos of Sylvia's body Over 150 wounds, the cigarette burns, cuts. Jenny testifies crying and laying out the details, every detail, and it's brutal.
Speaker 2:Gertrude tries to play the victim card, says she was too sick with asthma and bronchitis to control the kids. She claims that Sylvia was a troublemaker, spreading lies about her daughters, even saying Sylvia asked for it. Some sources, like an American Crime, suggest Paula sparked the abuse by crying to Gertrude that Sylvia called her a slut. Supposedly Paula was arguing with her married boyfriend at a liquor store. He got rough and Sylvia stepped in, yelling stop, she's pregnant. Paula turned on Sylvia, but Sylvia was just trying to help. She never did shit to hurt anyone.
Speaker 1:Gertrude even told the cops. Sylvia stumbled and collapsed in the backyard after a gang of boys beat her. But Richard Hobbs told Detective Kaiser that that was bullshit. He spilled the rest of the story, the real story of what really went down.
Speaker 2:The autopsy said Sylvia was dead about eight hours before the cops were called. It laid out the torture beaten with a fire poker and a curtain rod, baby's dirty diapers rubbed in her face, sexually abused with a glass bottle forced inside of her.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Bound and gagged for over a week, not just by Gertrude but the kids and the neighbors.
Speaker 1:And all while Gertrude just sat there high as hell directing the kids to keep torturing Sylvia. She was starved, gang beaten throat in scalding water. She had the blisters on her body to prove it. This went on for two months and it got worse, they said until the final week when she was locked in the basement and killed.
Speaker 2:Pure evil. Thank God the jury didn't buy Gertrude's act. The evidence was airtight Sylvia's body, jenny's testimony. Even some of Gertrude's kids turned on her.
Speaker 1:Oh, and three months after Gertrude and Paul's arrest, paula gave birth, so she was pregnant. She was three months pregnant when Sylvia got there, 15 and knocked up by her married boyfriend. Gertrude knew, but acted like Sylvia had started rumors about her and her girls. Neighbors already called them whores, so it wasn't big news when Sylvia got there, obviously.
Speaker 2:Now Gertrude gets convicted of first-degree murder, life in prison. Paula gets a life for second degree murder, john Coy and Richard get two to 21 years since their minors. Stephanie cuts a deal, testifies against her mom and walks but the sentences people were pissed off. Two years for torture, they said.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the public was furious, especially about the kids. John and Koi smirked in court, acting like it was a funny game. Richard Hobbs seemed more shaken, but still two years. The judge says they're young, swayed by Gertrude, but it feels like a slap in the face to Sylvia's family, I bet.
Speaker 2:Oh, it gets worse. Gertrude and Paula get paroled, paula in 72, gertrude in 85. Now Gertrude and Paula get paroled, paula in 72, gertrude in 85. Now Gertrude moves to Iowa, lives quietly, dies in 1990 of lung cancer. Paula changes her name, starts over John Coy Richard. They blend back into society, get jobs, have families. Meanwhile Jenny carries the trauma till her death in 2004.
Speaker 1:Jenny did fight to keep Sylvia's memory alive, though. There's a small monument to Sylvia in Willard Park, Indy, near the house, put up by locals who wanted to honor her. The case left a mark. There's books about it, like the Basement by Katie Millett. There's movies like An American Crime with Ellen Page and podcasts like ours. But it's more than a story. It was a wake-up call back then.
Speaker 2:That's right. Sylvia's case with others in the 60s pushed for mandatory reporting laws and better child welfare systems. By the 70s, Indiana and other states had stronger protections, but gaps still exist. Kids like the Stafford children today show we're not done. Sylvia's legacy is a reminder to keep fighting.
Speaker 1:It seems like it went from one extreme to the other extreme.
Speaker 2:Between those two cases, between those two cases.
Speaker 1:And also between the system and how it worked then and how it works now. All right, let's talk about the justice or the lack of it. I mean, gertrude got life, but she's out in 1985. The kids got two years, some got even less than that. I mean, did Sylvia get justice or did the system screw her over again?
Speaker 2:It's all a failure. Gertrude's life sentence was supposed to mean life, but parole boards bought her rehabilitated bullshit. She never owned her role, just made excuses. Paula's out even sooner, living free. The kids' sentences two to 21 years were a damn joke. They helped kill a girl and they're back on the streets by their 20s.
Speaker 1:That's what pisses me off, John and Coy smirking in the court. They knew what they were doing. I get that they were young and under Gertrude's thumb, but two years isn't exactly accountability and parole. How do you think they let Gertrude walk? I mean, the system was just too soft or was it broken?
Speaker 2:Both. The 60s justice system wasn't ready for a case. This wild Group abuse minors, a manipulative adult. Judges went easy on kids. Thinking they'd reform Parole boards in the 80s got suckered by good behavior, not the crime's horror. Compare that to today, where life without parole is more common for heinous crap. Sylvia's case exposed the cracks even in a city proud of its Speedway and TV culture.
Speaker 1:And let's talk legacy. Sylvia's case forced people to see child abuse and demanded change. It's why we have hotlines, it's why teachers report stuff but we're not done. Folks, if you're in Morgan County or beyond, how is your community protecting kids? Share your stories and we'll listen.
Speaker 2:This case was a hell of a journey. Sylvia Likens was a bright, kind teenager who deserved a life, a full life, where kids danced to Motown, watched the Dick Van Dyke show and dreamed under the stars. Her story begs us to notice, to act to protect the vulnerable. We can't change 65, but we can make sure her legacy lives on.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah, If you see something, say something. Let's not let another Sylvia slip through the cracks. Thanks for riding with us today through Sylvia Likens' story. It was a rough one, but it's why we do this. Check the show notes for resources like the Child Help National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453. If you're struggling, hit them up. They're there 24-7. All right, everybody. That's a wrap for this episode of the 69 South Podcast. Thanks for tuning in as we dug into the chaos of our true crime and mystery with our signature deep dives. Big shout out to our amazing listeners. You guys keep us going. We're stoked to announce our brand new Patreon, where you can get exclusive content behind the scenes, goodies and more from your host, Chop and Julie. Head over to patreoncom slash 69 South and type the number 69 in South to join the crew and support the show With the two of us bringing the heat. You know it's going to be a wild ride. Catch you next time, Stay curious, stay safe. Until then, have a good day, get easy. Whatever. We'll see you next time.
