April 29, 2025
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!
00:00 - Introduction & Trigger Warning
01:51 - Setting the Scene: Indianapolis 1965
07:10 - Sylvia's Life Before the Nightmare
16:06 - Moving into Gertrude's House
20:48 - The Escalation of Abuse
31:56 - The Bystander Effect
39:59 - Sylvia's Death and Aftermath
45:56 - The Trial and Justice System Failure
48:41 - Legacy and Closing Thoughts
WEBVTT
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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.
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This is your trigger warning.
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Our podcast content is produced for adult listeners, 18 years of age and older.
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We discuss situations that may be offensive and triggering to some listeners.
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Sit back, relax and enjoy.
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Welcome back everybody.
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We hope you had a good time.
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Since the last time I'm Chop, your host of 69 South, and with me always is my beautiful co-host, julie.
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How are you doing today?
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I'm good.
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Hey everybody.
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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.
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It sure is.
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This case hits like a sledgehammer to the chest.
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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.
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But Sylvia Likens' story is heavy as hell.
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It's going to shake you up.
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So, listeners, strap in, because this is not an easy one.
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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.
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We also talk about the systematic failures and the bystander bullshit physical and psychological child abuse, including sexual violence.
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We also talk about the systematic failures and the bystander bullshit.
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It's a rough listen and a big reminder this is an adult podcast and please keep the children's ears away.
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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.
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So let's get into the life and death of Sylvia Likens.
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Let's start with Sylvia Marie, a girl who deserved a hell of a lot better than what she got.
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It's the summer of 65 in Indianapolis.
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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.
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The Beatles' Help or the Sopranos' Stop in the Name of Love no, just kidding, I can't sing.
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In the name of love.
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No, just kidding, I can't sing.
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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.
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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.
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But beneath the neon glow there's tension, civil rights rallies, local churches, news of Vietnam, drafts creeping in and headlines about Mars.
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Photos from Marina 4 sparking dreams of the stars.
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Damn, that's Indian 65.
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Hot, restless and caught between small-town pride and a nation shaken at the seams.
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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.
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Now keep in mind back then it was not the Indianapolis Colts folks, they were still in Baltimore.
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Nationally, shit's intense.
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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.
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Meanwhile, president Johnson's sending more boys to Vietnam.
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Troops hit 125,000 by the summer's end.
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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.
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Sylvia's living in this world and it ain't kind to kids like her.
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Born January 3, 1949, in Lebanon, indiana.
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Sylvia was the third of five kids in a working-class family.
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Her parents, lester and Elizabeth Likens, were grinding to keep shit together in a world that didn't give a damn about folks.
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Barely getting by Boone County, just 20 miles northwest of Indy, was rural, small town gossip, everybody knowing your business.
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But the 50s and early 60s were brutal.
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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.
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It even had where people like if you got released from the hospital.
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The birth at the hospital, what you were getting released for.
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I even seen a divorce case where they were talking about somebody had passed away and in the will it listed everything everybody got.
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They didn't leave much out in the newspaper, man.
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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.
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No wonder they used to sell out all the time.
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They had everybody's business in there.
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Now getting by is putting it nice.
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Lester had an eighth-grade education.
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He was hustling factory jobs, driving a laundry truck or joining traveling carnivals.
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That's no white picket fence life, not like the families on the Dick Van Dyke show the indie folks watched every week.
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Elizabeth was raising five kids Diana, danny, benny, sylvia and Jenny.
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They moved around constantly new towns, new rentals, chasing work or cheaper rent.
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I remember bouncing around as a kid like that man.
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It wasn't very fun at all.
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I went to over 30 different schools just from first grade to ninth grade.
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Wow, I was only in two different school systems the whole time.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Anyway, I can imagine I always hated the first day of school, so that would have been like 10, 20 first days for you.
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Huh, yeah it sucked Probably three or four first times a year.
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I did go to one school one year, the whole school, and that was my seventh grade year.
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I went to one junior high school the whole year and that was pretty cool it was different.
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Diana was married and gone.
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The oldest child and Danny and Benny were teens and Jenny, 15, had polio and she was rocking a leg brace.
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Sylvia she was kind of the kid that was holding shit together, the glue of the family per se.
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Sylvia had this bright ass smile, a kindness that pulled people in.
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Friends said that she would share her lunch if you forgot yours.
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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.
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She wasn't perfect nobody is but she had warmth.
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One classmate said sylvia spent her last dime on a soda for her friend having a shitty day.
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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.
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Damn that hits.
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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.
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She was going around the neighborhood at the time, but the family seems to be barely hanging on.
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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?
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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.
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But carnivals are sketchy as hell.
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Long hours, constant travel, shady vibes, that's the world that Sylvia's parents were in.
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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.
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And in the story comes Gertrude Baniszewski, and we practiced saying that last name quite a few times.
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Baniszewski.
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This is where shit takes a nosedive.
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Gertrude was 37 and, being the mom of seven, living in a rundown house at 3850 East New York Street.
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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.
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Now Gertrude was divorced and she was sick with asthma and bronchitis.
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She was barely scraping by as well.
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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.
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Now let's set Gertrude's world because it is key.
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She was born in Indy in 1928.
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She had a rough start.
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Her dad died young.
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She dropped out of high school at 16.
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She had three failed marriages, first to John Banzuski Sr.
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And by 1965, she's a single mom to her seven kids Paula Stephanie, john Marie, shirley James and baby Dennis Jr.
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Plus she's dating her teenage boyfriend, dennis Wright, and she's 37 years old.
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Her house was a damn mess no heat, pill and paint and barely enough food.
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Right in a city where teens cruised in mod outfits and jukeboxes played the top fours the four tops.
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Just a little insight.
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Julie was like what's the four tops?
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I know, I didn't know it's a band back in them day.
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That's a shit show.
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It sounds like gertrude's life was, you know at the time before she took in the two extra kids.
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I mean she had seven kids.
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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.
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I mean, why would she take in two more kids when she could barely handle what was going on?
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Cold hard cash Money says it all.
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The Likens met Gertrude through a carnival buddy.
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She offered to take Sylvia and Jenny for $20 a week, which today that would be like $200 a week.
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Lester and Elizabeth thought it was a solid plan.
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Big house, lots of kids, seemed like a family vibe.
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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.
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man, were they wrong?
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At $20 a week, as you said?
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We researched that and it's like $200 today.
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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.
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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.
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Like man, she's gonna take care of our kids for 200.
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I mean, who would leave their kids anyway for just forever?
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Not me.
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Not for 200 bucks a week.
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That's insane.
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Safe, that's the last word I'd use for the house.
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But before we get into the nightmare, let's talk about Sylvia.
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She was just a regular kid.
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Sylvia was a 16-year-old dreamer in a city where kids swapped Mad Magazine at drugstores.
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Oh, Mad Magazine was the shit back then.
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Ain't that the guy with the smashed up face.
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Yeah, alfred E Newman was his name, the little red-headed freckle-headed dude on the front of it.
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Man, my Uncle Dale used to have boxes and boxes of Mad Magazines.
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Man, I used to read them.
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They were just like little comics and they had kind of like a whole magazine of the comics in your sunday newspaper.
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But they had ones that they did every week.
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They had one called spy versus spy.
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It was pretty cool every time they had a spy doing something mean to the other spy when it wasn't looking.
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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.
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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.
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She was tough and always looking out for others.
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I want to focus on Sylvia as a person, because this case gets pretty dark.
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It's easy to forget who she was.
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She ain't just some name in a true crime story.
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She was a kid with dreams.
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You're so right.
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Sylvia's humanity keeps this grounded.
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She loves skating.
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That Ellenberger Probably had a favorite Beatles tune.
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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.
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That soda story.
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It's small but it shows her heart.
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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.
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Yeah, it gets me.
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I'm picturing racing friends, maybe wearing, you know, the old mod headband.
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She could have been anybody's niece or your sister.
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I mean anybody's kid.
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Makes me wonder what she'd be doing now if this hadn't happened to her.
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Maybe she was wanting to be a mom, or maybe she would have been a teacher, who knows?
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What do you think she dreamed about, hon?
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I bet she had big dreams.
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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.
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It's heartbreaking what was stolen from her.
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That's why we're here to make sure she's remembered as Sylvia, not just a victim.
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And let's talk why that matters, because true crime can feel like a horror show, but it's all about the people.
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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.
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It's July 1965.
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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.
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But they stayed out of each other's drama At first.
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For Sylvia it's bearable crowded, messy, but not a total disaster.
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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.
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They go to Arsenal Tech, hit up Sunday school sometimes and try to blend in Right.
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So Paula was 17.
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They said she had a teenage boyfriend at the time.
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So I wonder how close in age her oldest daughter and the boyfriend was boyfriend at the time.
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So I wonder how close in age her oldest daughter and the boyfriend was.
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Actually, I think Paula was 17 when she got convicted, but whenever she moved in to Gertrude's house she was only 15.
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Sylvia was actually older than Paula.
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But the normal crap in the house didn't last.
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Gertrude's running a tight ship.
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Gertrude is stressed out of her mind.
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I mean she's broke.
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She's sick Raising the sixth kid that she has, and then she's putting up with her teenage boyfriend, dennis Wright.
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He's probably a headache.
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I mean the house is falling apart.
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She's probably got a short-ass fuse.
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When the Likens' first $20 payment is late by one day, gertrude loses her shit.
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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.
00:17:54.128 --> 00:17:55.766
I bet she was pissed off.
00:17:55.766 --> 00:17:58.467
I mean the first $20 payment, though.
00:17:58.467 --> 00:17:59.869
I mean, give the male a chance.
00:18:00.330 --> 00:18:00.932
No joke.
00:18:00.932 --> 00:18:11.332
One late payment which shows up the next day is the spark Gertrude starts zeroing in on Sylvia, not Jenny, for punishments.
00:18:11.332 --> 00:18:21.954
You know it starts small spankings with a fraternity paddle for dumb shit like Sylvia trading soda bottles for pocket change.
00:18:21.954 --> 00:18:25.790
But this is not just discipline, it's personal.
00:18:26.260 --> 00:18:27.262
It sounds personal.
00:18:27.262 --> 00:18:28.605
I mean soda bottles.
00:18:28.605 --> 00:18:39.385
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.
00:18:39.385 --> 00:18:43.923
Gertrude's not just mad about cash, she's got a vendetta against Sylvia.
00:18:43.923 --> 00:18:45.588
Why her and not Jenny?
00:18:45.588 --> 00:18:48.228
You think I'm thinking because Sylvia was strong.
00:18:48.228 --> 00:18:50.669
Maybe she pushed back against Gertrude a little bit.
00:18:50.669 --> 00:18:52.326
What do you read about it?
00:18:53.102 --> 00:18:57.249
You know, I think you're honest Sylvia was older, healthier.
00:18:57.249 --> 00:19:06.811
I mean she was older than Jenny, healthier, more outspoken, who was quieter because of her polio.
00:19:06.811 --> 00:19:12.792
Gertrude might have seen Sylvia as a threat to her control, or maybe she was jealous.
00:19:12.792 --> 00:19:17.692
Sylvia was pretty kind, everything that Gertrude wasn't.
00:19:17.692 --> 00:19:20.869
Whatever it is, the abuse ramps up quick.
00:19:21.401 --> 00:19:22.988
Quick's saying it lightly.
00:19:22.988 --> 00:19:26.130
We're going to lay this out because it gets ugly real quick.
00:19:26.130 --> 00:19:33.790
Over three months, from July to October, in 65, sylvia goes from a guest in Gertrude's home to a prisoner.
00:19:33.790 --> 00:19:37.971
Gertrude's kids, especially Paula and John, start joining in.
00:19:37.971 --> 00:19:42.270
Then the neighborhood kids Coy Hubbard, richard Hobbs and others.
00:19:42.270 --> 00:19:48.125
They all get sucked into this sick-ass game and it's not just slapping around anymore, it turns into torture.
00:19:49.462 --> 00:19:51.819
Now let's walk through the timeline, because it's chilling.
00:19:51.819 --> 00:19:54.648
In July it's spankings and verbal abuse.
00:19:54.648 --> 00:20:01.192
Gertrude calls Sylvia names, accuses her of stealing or being a slut.
00:20:01.192 --> 00:20:03.911
By August it's physical a slut.
00:20:03.911 --> 00:20:12.250
By August it's physical Gertrude and Paula shove Sylvia down the stairs, burn her with cigarettes, starve her.
00:20:12.250 --> 00:20:20.708
And this is when the neighbor kids start showing up, which Gertrude is egging them on to punish Sylvia for made-up shit.
00:20:21.625 --> 00:20:26.825
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.
00:20:26.825 --> 00:20:28.773
They're damn creative, like they're trying to outdo each other, like it's a game to them.
00:20:28.773 --> 00:20:32.691
They rub salt in her wounds, like literally rub salt in her wounds.
00:20:32.691 --> 00:20:37.291
They force her to eat baby poop out of Dennis Jr's diaper.
00:20:37.291 --> 00:20:56.227
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.
00:20:56.227 --> 00:20:57.590
I mean, what the F?
00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:13.200
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.
00:21:13.862 --> 00:21:23.053
By September Sylvia is locked in the basement, no light, no bathroom, just a mattress on a concrete floor.
00:21:23.053 --> 00:21:33.144
She is starved, dehyd, dehydrated, covered in over 150 wounds, cigarette burns, cuts, bruises.
00:21:33.144 --> 00:21:44.585
Gertrude forces her into scalding hot baths to quote unquote cleanse her, then leaves her downstairs freezing.
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