Seated on folding chairs in a packed Indianapolis courtroom last week was the largest array of defendants to stand trial for a single murder in Indiana his tory. It was also one of the most bizarre: a wispy-haired 90-lb. woman, three of her children and two teen-age neighbor boys. As outlined by police, their story seemed almost unbelievably ugly.
It started last July, when 16-year-old Sylvia Marie Likens was left with her sister, Jenny, 15, in the care of Mrs.
Gertrude Baniszewski, 31, a divorced mother of six. Mrs. Baniszewski had offered to board the Likens girls, whom her children had met at a neighbor's house, for $20 a week while their par ents traveled the Midwest fair circuit.
A pretty lass who liked the Beatles and roller skating, Sylvia was nicknamed Cookie and described by a girl friend as "a sweet nut." With her few possessions — her most treasured was a jewelry box in which she kept two favorite pins —Sylvia moved into Mrs. B.'s rundown house in an Indianapolis blue-collar neighborhood.
Slaps & Punches. For two months, things went pleasantly enough. Then one day Paula Baniszewski, now 11, hit Sylvia on the jaw so hard that Paula broke her wrist. Paula's mother took to slapping Sylvia for ever more frequent, if imagined, offenses. She did not complain to her parents when they made a visit in early October. After that, her tormentors became increasingly sadistic. John Baniszewski Jr., now 13, and two neighbor boys, diabetic Richard Dean ("Ricky") Hobbs and Coy Hubbard, both 15, joined the laceration game. Sylvia was burned with matches and cigarettes, whipped with a heavy leather belt, hit on the head with a paddle and broom. A 14-year-old girl who visited the house recalled: "It was 'Sylvia, do this' and 'Sylvia, do that' all the time, and when she didn't do it, they would beat her."
Forbidden to eat at one point, she was seen consuming scraps from a garbage can. Oct. 6 was her last day at school. Concerned by Sylvia's absence from church, the pastor dropped in to inquire about her, was told by the woman that the girl was being kept home because she stole things. At the time, Sylvia was tied to an upstairs bed, forbidden water or the use of the bathroom.
By now, torturing Sylvia had become a neighborhood sport, with at least four other youngsters taking part. Even Shirley Baniszewski, 10, and Sister Marie, 11, joined in. So did Stephanie, 15, whom Sylvia had accused of being a prostitute. In fact, John Jr. told police, at one time or another everyone in the family except Mrs. B.'s 18-month-old baby had burned Sylvia with cigarettes. Polio-crippled Jenny Likens was occasionally forced on pain of beating to join the assault on her sister.