Word: baniszewski
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...This," said Prosecutor Leroy New, "has been the most terrible crime ever committed in the state of Indiana." There could be little disagreement from the crowds who had jammed the Indianapolis courtroom for five weeks. What attracted-and repelled-the spectators was the trial of Mrs. Gertrude Baniszewski, 37, two of her children, Paula, 18, and John, 13, and two neighbor youths, Coy Hubbard and Richard Hobbs, both 15. All were charged with the protracted death by torture of pretty Sylvia Marie Likens, 16, who with her younger sister Jenny had boarded in the Baniszewski home...
...That the Indianapolis torture-murder [May 6] was described in agonizing detail, and that I, and millions of others, ate up every gory word, attests to the latent sado-masochism in all of us: everyone is a latent Mrs. Baniszewski, who can experience pleasure in giving pain, or a Sylvia Likens, who can enjoy being burned, beaten and humiliated...
...help. Using a coal shovel, she scraped on the basement floor for almost two hours. A woman next door was awakened and on the verge of calling police when the scraping stopped. That afternoon, as Sylvia lay moaning and mumbling incoherently on her pile of rags, Mrs. Baniszewski, Ricky, John B. Jr. and Paula sprinkled a box of soap powder on her, then added hot water. Afterward, John Jr. sprayed her with cold water from a garden hose...
...Only Pretending." Carried upstairs to a bedroom, the girl was given a lukewarm bath, dressed in a pair of white Capri pants, and placed on a mattress on the floor. Mrs. Baniszewski struck Sylvia on each side of the head with a book and told her to get up, that she was only pretending to be sick. Mercifully, Sylvia died...
...December, a grand jury indicted Gertrude Baniszewski, Paula, Stephanie and John Jr., along with Hubbard and Hobbs, on charges of first-degree murder. (Under Indiana law, minors face the same maximum penalty for murder as adults: the electric chair.) As the trial got under way last week before a jury of eight men and four women, Mrs. Baniszewski, John Jr. and Hubbard pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity; Paula, Stephanie and Ricky pleaded simply not guilty. Upstairs in an anteroom sat Sylvia's parents, still not comprehending how and why it had happened. Sitting sunken-cheeked in court...