The Torturing Death of Sylvia Marie Likens

Room where Sylvia's body was found.

The Baniszewski home

Sylvia Likens

Sylvia and her younger sister, the 15-year-old disabled Jenny Fay Likens in the care of Mrs. Baniszewski.

Sylvia tortured list:
 -She vomited — and was forced to eat her vomit.
-Paula( Baniszewski. 's daughter) filled a glass with hot water and threw it at Sylvia.
-She was tied up and/or locked in the cellar.
-Baniszewski. kicked the girl hard in the crotch.
-Coy Hubbard (Paula's boyfriend) practiced judo on Sylvia, flipping her against walls and onto the floor
-Baniszewski slapped and kicked the girl, then whipped her with a belt.
-Baniszewski applied a lighted match to Sylvia's  fingers
-Baniszewski put a cigarette out on her neck.
-The favorite pastime of several kids in the area was getting Sylvia: kicking, hitting, flipping her around    through Coy Hubbard's judo tricks or imitations of them, and burning her.
-Sylvia had broken each of her fingernails backward in painful clawing and had bitten her lower lip so deeply  it was partially severed.  
-When Sylvia was fully nude, Mrs.Baniszewski made the weeping girl shove a soft drink bottle up her vagina in front the kids.
-Sylvia wet her bed,because the many cruel blows to her stomach and crotch had weakened control in that area
-Paula Baniszewski rubbed salt into Sylvia's wounds.
-Sylvia was often kept nude or nearly so for days at a time
-She became a game for the neighborhood kids to enjoy, burning, punching, and now pushing her down the stairs to the cellar, then forcing her back up just to throw her back down again.
- They forced the girl to eat shit and drink urine   
- Baniszewski sewing needle and  burned directly onto her stomach: "I'M A PROSTITUTE AND PROUD OF IT!"
-Baniszewski beat her across the mouth with a curtain rod.
- Coy Hubbard stopped by and hit Sylvia in the head with a broomstick, knocking her unconscious. 
- Sylvia repeatedly pounded on the floor of her basement-prison with a shovel

  Baniszewski forced Sylvia to write a letter to her parents before her death:

To Mr. and Mrs. Likens:
I went with a gang of boys in the middle of the night. And they said that they would pay me if I would give them something so I got in the car and they all got what they wanted ... and when they got finished they beat me up and left sores on my face and all over my body.
And they also put on my stomach, I am a prostitute and proud of it.
I have done just about everything that I could do just to make Gertie mad and cause [sic] Gertie more money than she's got. I've tore up a new mattress and peaed [sic] on it. I have also cost Gertie doctor bills that she really can't pay and made Gertie a nervous wreck and all her kids. . . .

Letter from police photo

 But fortunately Jenny Likens told the police the fact that happening to Slyvia.