#261 - The real girl next door

Last post I talked about the great and haunting book, The Girl Next Door. Now I'm going to talk about the real life story that inspired it, and many other books. Her name wasn't Meg and she wasn't 14. It was Sylvia, aged 16. Her little sister was not Susan but Jenny. They were both left in the care of a neighbour, to be paid $20 weekly, because her parents had to go away for a while; carnival business. The parents did not really know the woman, Gertrude Baniszewski. It was a big mistake. And just a few months later, in her "care," Sylvia died alone. A lot happened up until the "fun" began. I won't get into that (you can find the details anywhere). I'll just talk about what she suffered through. Point form, from when it got real bad: - They said Sylvia was fat. They passed her hot dog around the table, each person putting new crap on it. Finally it went back to Sylvia, piled with strange condoments. She ate it as she was ordered, only to throw it up again. They forced her to then eat her own puke. - One day Sylvia mentioned that she let a boy "go under the sheets" with her. Gertrude, pissed off, kicked Sylvia hard in the groin. Being a guy I wouldn't know what that'd feel like but I'd imagine it wasn't pleasant. A later autopsy would reveal that her genitals were horribly damaged, though. (autopsy also revealed that she was in a lot of pain in other ways too: Broken all fingernails backward from clawing/defending and bit her own lip so hard she nearly severed it from attacks. Of course Gertrude and her little lovely troupe did nothing to give her medical attention. She also had over 100 cigarette/match burns all over her body, among other things). - Gertrude got other kids in the neighborhood to beat up on Sylvia. One was a fat 13 year old girl named Anna Siscoe. She attacked Sylvia and Sylvia clutched her stomach exclaiming, "Oh, my baby!" Since everyone was telling her she was a whore and pregnant so much she really believed she was even though she was most likely a virgin. She did not really understand how reproduction worked. - Paula, Gertrude's eldest daughter (who really was pregnant, but Gertrude didn't know because Paula was fat anyway) began hitting Sylvia in the head with anything that was within reach. They even made Sylvia's own sister Jenny hit her at times. - Having no money, it was strange that Sylvia came home from school one day with a gymsuit. Sylvia admitted eventually it was stolen. For this reason Sylvia was forced to quit school. Also, Gertrude kicked and beat upon 16 year old Sylvia, then took out her belt to beat her some more. Gertrude then changed subjects, and began kicking her in the groin for the boy-under-the-sheets issue again. And still upset about the apparent theft of the gymsuit, Gertrude later lit a match and burned Sylvia's fingers for stealing, and whipped her with the belt some more. - Paula hit Sylvia so hard on one occasion that she broke her hand, then later on bashed her with the cast itself. - Upon learning that earlier Sylvia had some extra money she "shouldn't" have had (Sylvia would collect bottles on the street and turn them in for some change, and apparently Gertrude didn't believe the money she had was just from bottle collecting), and thought she might have been whoring herself out or stealing, she made Sylvia strip completely naked in front of a bunch of other teenagers and while crying, made her use a bottle on herself sexually. Stephanie came home from school while this was going on, and unaware that her own mother Gertrude made her do it, she slapped Sylvia in the face for being a "slut," and told her to go to her room. - On a night in October, Sylvia wet her bed. It's known that bedwetting can result from anxiety and stress (a lot more new army recruits pee their bed than you think for said reason), or maybe it was the abuse she had taken below, but Gertrude was not bright enough to understand. They moved her to the basement. They did not allow her to use a toilet like a human being and instead forced her to defacate like an animal on the floor, and on herself. - They forced Sylvia to bathe in scalding hot water. - Paula would literally rub salt into Sylvia's wounds. - They made Sylvia go nude a lot of the time, sometimes for many days in a row. - Kids would push her down the stairs, then bring her back up to the top only to push her back down again. - They played a game once where the starving teenager was made to try to eat soup with only her fingers. She tried her best, but it was taken away. Then she was beaten. - They made her eat shit and drink piss. - One night they tied Sylvia to the bed so she couldn't use the bathroom. Gertrude said, "You can't go to the bathroom until you've learned not to wet the bed." But Sylvia did wet the bed. The next morning, as punishment for this horrible atrocity of peeing herself because she couldn't get up to use the toilet, Gertrude forced her to do another striptease and again use a bottle on herself. - They used a heated sewing needle and tattooed on her belly, while she was pinned down and gagged, "I am a prostitute and proud of it." Once finished, Gertrude asked, "What are you going to do now Sylvia? You can't get married now, you can't undress in front of anyone. What are you going to do now?" Sylvia, crying, said "I guess there's nothing I can do. It's on there." - Later that night, they moved Sylvia back into the basement, where Coy Hubbard threw her against the walls like usual (wasn't the first time). After, Jenny joined with Sylvia and Sylvia said, "I'm going to die. I can tell." Sadly, she was right. - The next day they bathed Sylvia, in normal temperature water this time, then Gertrude forced Sylvia to write the following letter to her own parents, to cover up their crimes: "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..." - Gertrude was about to get her kids to dump Sylvia in a waste lot but before they could, Sylvia made an escape attempt. She almost made it to the porch when Gertrude caught her and dragged her to the kitchen and offered Sylvia some toast. Since Sylvia was very ill from all the ill treatment, the beatings, the starvation, she said she could not swallow. Then Gertrude smashed her across the face with a curtain rod. John, Gertrude's son, then tied Sylvia up in the basement again, and Gertrude came down with some crackers, maybe scared Sylvia would die before she could get far enough away. Sylvia told Gertrude to instead give the crackers to the dog, because "it's hungrier than I am." Gertrude began punching her repeatedly in the stomach for her defiance. - On October 24, 1965, Sylvia's second last day alive, Gertrude and John both beat up the girl. Gertrude was about to hit Sylvia with a chair but it broke in mid air. She attempted to hit Sylvia with a paddle but hit herself instead, giving herself a black eye. Coy Hubbard came around while this was going on and hit Sylvia in the head with a broomstick which knocked her unconscious. - That same night Sylvia banged on the floor of the basement with a shovel all night so loud it disturbed the neighbours, but like everyone else they did nothing about it, like call the cops to complain about the noise and maybe have them notice and thus save the girl before it was too late. - The next day they put Sylvia, still fully clothed, into the tub to bathe her. When they removed her from the tub they noticed she was no longer breathing. They tried to resuscitate the girl but there was no hope. She was dead. She had died from a brain hemmorhage, apparently. She did die alone. In a house of evil. With no one but her little sister around who loved her. What followed was a long trial. The rest is history. Even though Gertrude was sentenced twice in two different trials for first degree murder, it will never bring back the emaciated and battered 16 year old girl that lays just a few feet under the earth, forever frozen at age 16, never to grow older. I just can't help but feel a great sorrow for this girl who would have been 56 this year, a girl I have never known, a girl who died way before I was even born. I just can't fathom someone doing all this to another human being. It makes me sick. It makes me want to...avenge all the victims of things like this.

Sylvia