Psychotic People Who Were Keeping Human Captives in Their Homes

Gertrude Baniszewski Held Sylvia Likens Captive and Tortured Her to Death : Gertrude Baniszewski was paid to care for sisters Sylvia and Jenny Likens while their parents were traveling as carnival workers. Little did the Likens family know, Baniszewski was a sick and twisted woman with cruel children of her own. The Baniszewski family physically and verbally abused both of the Likens girls until the focus shifted solely to Sylvia and even her own sister was forced to hit her or endure the same treatment.

Sylvia was pulled out of school and kept locked in the basement, eating only scraps. Everyone was told that she had been prostituting herself and had run off with some men. Baniszewski even forced Sylvia to write a letter to her parents confirming these lies.

With everyone thinking Sylvia was gone, Baniszewski, her daughter Paula, her son John, and even some neighborhood kids, Coy Hubbard and Richard Hobbs, felt they had free rein to do whatever they wanted to the girl. She was tied up, had scalded water thrown on her and salt rubbed into her open wounds, cigarettes were put out on her skin, and she was even forced to eat her own vomit and feces. Twice that her sister could confirm, Sylvia was forced to insert glass Coca-Cola bottles into her vagina and Baniszewski carved “I’m a prostitute and proud of it” into her stomach.

On October 22, 1965, Sylvia Likens died in the basement. Her official cause of death was brain swelling, brain hemorrhaging, and shock from the prolonged damage done to her body. After finding her victim dead, Baniszewski concocted a story for the police claiming that Sylvia had been attacked by a group of young men after she offered to have sex with them for money. However, when the police came to investigate. Jenny took this opportunity to say, “If you get me out of here I’ll tell you everything.”

Gertrude Baniszewski and her daughter were both sentenced to life imprisonment.
Richard Hobbs, Coy Hubbard, and John Baniszewski, Jr. were sentenced from two ro 21 years in prison for the roles they played in the abuse.

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