The murder of Sylvia Likens was a child murder case that occurred in Indianapolis, Indiana in October 1965. Gertrude Baniszewski; her oldest daughter, Paula; her son, John; and two neighborhood youths, Coy Hubbard and Richard Hobbs, were all tried and convicted in May 1966 of neglecting, torturing, and murdering Liken. The case is considered to be one of the worst child abuse and murder cases in the history of the state of Indiana.
About Murder of Sylvia Likens in brief
The murder of Sylvia Likens was a child murder case that occurred in Indianapolis, Indiana in October 1965. Baniszewski; her oldest daughter, Paula; her son, John; and two neighborhood youths, Coy Hubbard and Richard Hobbs, were all tried and convicted in May 1966 of neglecting, torturing, and murdering Liken. The torture and murder is widely regarded by Indiana citizens as the worst crime ever committed in their state and has been described by a senior investigator in the Indianapolis Police Department as the \”most sadistic\” case he had ever investigated in the 35 years he served with the Indianapolis police. The defendants’ trial was described as \”the most diabolical case to ever come before a court or jury\” and Gertrude’s defense attorney, William C. Erbecker, described Likened as having been subjected to acts of \”degradation that you wouldn’t commit on a dog\” prior to her death. The case is considered to be one of the worst child abuse and murder cases in the history of the state of Indiana. The trial was held in front of a jury of seven men and seven women. The jury found the defendants guilty of all three counts of child abuse, torture, and murder, and sentenced them to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The sentence was later reduced to 15 years in prison, and the defendants were sentenced to a total of 20 years in jail. The sentences were suspended for life on each of the four counts of torture, as well as the one of child neglect.
The verdicts were also reduced to 10 years on the one count of child endangerment, and one year on the two counts of aggravated child abuse. The victims were all under the age of 16 and had been abused by their caregivers over a period of almost three months. The children were the children of a working-class Indianapolis woman who had been married three times and suffered from depression and other mental health problems. She was suffering from depression due to the stress of three failed marriages, a failed relationship, and a recent miscarriage. She also suffered from severe financial difficulties and regularly traveled with her sons to help out with their parents’ carnival work. She had seven children: Paula, Stephanie, John, Marie, Shirley, James, James, and Dennis Lee Wright Jr. The family lived in Indianapolis at 3850 East New York Street, where the monthly rent was USD 55. The couple had two sets of fraternal twins—Daniel and Dianna, and Benny and Jenny. Jenny LikENS suffered from polio, causing one of her legs to be weaker than the other. The girls’ parents and brothers traveled with them to carnival stands frequently, moving around Indiana throughout the summer, moving frequently, and regularly experiencing severe financial problems. In her teenage years, Sylvia and Jenny earned money by babysitting and running errands for friends, performing ironing and ironing for their grandmothers—so that their parents would not have to travel with them.
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This page is based on the article Murder of Sylvia Likens published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
