House of Evil: The Indiana Torture Slaying - John Dean

Written by John Dean
Read by John Glouchevitch
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc.
Release date: October 25, 2016
Duration: 06:27:43

An earlier edition by Dean:
Dean, John (1999). The Indiana Torture Slaying: Sylvia Likens’ Ordeal and Death.

In the heart of Indianapolis in the mid-1960’s, through a twist of fate and fortune, a pretty young girl came to live with a thirty-seven-year-old mother and her seven children. What began as a temporary childcare arrangement between Sylvia Likens’s parents and Gertrude Baniszewski turned into a crime that would haunt cops, prosecutors, and a community for decades to come . . .

Likens was increasingly neglected, belittled, sexually humiliated, beaten, starved, lacerated, and dehydrated by her tormentors. This abuse incrementally lasted for three months before Likens died from her extensive injuries and malnourishment on October 26, 1965, in Indianapolis, Indiana.

When police found Sylvia’s emaciated body, with a chilling message carved into her flesh, they knew that she had suffered tremendously before her death. Her autopsy showed 150 wounds across her body, including several burns, scald marks and eroded skin. Through intimidation, her younger sister, Jenny, was occasionally forced to participate in her mistreatment. The official cause of her death was determined to be a homicide caused by a combination of subdural hematoma and shock, complicated by severe malnutrition.

Soon they would learn how many others-including some of Baniszewski’s own children-participated in Sylvia’s murder, and just how much torture had been inflicted in one House of Evil. 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 Likens.

At the defendants’ trial, Deputy Prosecutor Leroy New described the case as “the most diabolical case to ever come before a court or jury” and Gertrude’s defense attorney, William C. Erbecker, described Likens as having been subjected to acts of “degradation that you wouldn’t commit on a dog” before her death.

I grew up in Indianapolis and never could understand why Sylvia’s parents, who were itinerant carnival workers, trusted Baniszewski, who had 7 children at home, with their daughters in the first place.

We have our share of evil. The Likens murder is No. 1 of about 10 notable Indiana murders serial killers and criminals.