The barbaric murder of Sylvia Likens

In July 1965 Sylvia Lykens and her sister Jenny were sent to live with Gertrude banaji this was whilst her parents were working which involved travel however Sylvia's parents would never have left aside if they knew the abuse it would soon be inflicted on their daughter Gertrude along with her children tortured and ultimately murdered Sylvia in the most sadistic ways imaginable her body was found Branded with over a 100 cigarette Burns and she had slurs carved into her skin yet despite this her torment has faced almost no justice at all this is a tragic case of

syvia [Applause] [Music] lings [Music] hi guys welcome back to my channel thank you for joining me if you're new to this channel I release my crime content on a Wednesday and a Sunday so if you like crime consistency this is a channel for you if you aren't subscribed why don't you go ahead and do that and you can get your notifications on so you never miss an episode today's case is one that you've requested did countless times and I wasn't going to do it for a long period of time because this has been covered in

every area of the globe because it is such a prolific and disturbing case and therefore I didn't Know whether I'd be able to add any value to it but I've done the research and I do think there are probably parts of this case that could do with being expanded and also my psychological qualifications and experience in this field meaning that I can probably additionaly some information regarding child torture and hopefully even if you've seen this case many many times before you will still go away feeling that I've done Sylvia likings Justice Which is the most

important thing and also that you've got some added value and understanding of why these tragedies play out that being said it's unbelievably heinous it reminds me of junko f case which I've covered if you haven't seen that it's truly terrifying and again gargant horrific to actually read and learn about individuals who find themselves at the hands of monsters and end up losing their lives in such situations also you'll know I am wearing New merch I've had this out not for very long now it's one of my favorite crime and coffee I cannot tell you by

the way how amazing these hoodies are we do keep getting emails off you saying they are literally the best quality hoodies that they've ever had when people have received them so hopefully if you are looking for a new hoodie and you like a crime related one this will be for you right let's get on with today's unbelievable tragic and sad case so Sylvia lyans really beautiful young woman she was born 3rd of January 1945 she was born in Lebanon Indiana in the United States her parents were Lester cesil lyans and Elizabeth Francis who was actually

known as Betty she was the third of five children and she was born in between two sets of fraternal twins so Daniel and Diana who were two years older and Benny and Jenny who was one year younger so relatively large family Jenny lyans who was Sylvia's younger Sister she actually suffered from polio I'm sure that many of you know back in this time period polio was a lethal at times problem within children and often resulted in them ending up in things like iron lungs and it left life limiting injuries for some children even when they

recovered and Jenny lyans had experienced polio one of her legs therefore was weaker than the other so she had this noticeable limp she actually had to wear a steel brace on One of her legs Lester and Betty as parents the way that they got by was that they would sell sweets and beer and drinks at carnival stands and they do this throughout Indiana moving frequently and having worked with traveler communities had a great privilege of doing that for a good few years back in the day I understand that whilst there are some real benefits to

having a more transient lifestyle because you're entertaining yourself in Different environments you're showing your children the world that transience can also lead to stress you're in shall we say quite small environments because you're on the move and you have to be able to pack up quickly and move forward and onwards and that understandably particularly if you've got a bigger family could cause stresses and strains but this is what they're doing and how they're making their money also they have quite an unstable marriage and They're facing really quite severe financial difficulties at the time so that's

a whole heap of stress and problems and possibilities regarding practicalities because like I said big families it's going to be more difficult in these circumstances and the family's Sons they traveled with the parents whilst they worked but Sylvia and Jenny they weren't allowed and the reason that they weren't allowed to travel with the parents is because they were concerned Mainly about their safety which is so ironic when we think about this case the fact that parents were concerned about the girls being safe but also they wanted them have an education now that oldest daughter Diana

she was actually estranged from the family so she wasn't involved although there wasn't a bad relationship between her and the younger sisters both of the sisters ended up because of this setup frequently staying with relatives so mostly with respect Their grandmother which would be a great environment for them and give them a stability and consistency but to some degree when you're staying with a grandparent that can actually become financially problematic and also it can be an age thing that you have brought your own children you're not necessarily wanting to always think about bringing up grandchildren

as well now Sylvia and her siblings would actually live at 19 Different addresses between 1949 and 1965 so if you can just conceive of how many times they are moving it must have been very difficult for the girls to form a secure base and that impacts on Support Network it impacts on peer relationships and I think connections are pivotal in situations that we're going to cover today because if you have long-standing friendships in an area if you have adults who know you because of those long-standing relationships with Their children and then people start to notice

that you don't seem yourself you don't seem well maybe bruises are appearing and so on and so forth they're more likely to talk you about it and to get help equally if you have really invested relationship relationships and people that you've been around for a long period of your life because you've had these consistent relationships you're far more likely to go and have a conversation with one of the adults and Say I'm struggling but because they've done so much moving that isn't something that will be open to Sylvia and her sister now as a teenager

she was working hard Sylvia was earning money she was babysitting she was doing ironing for friends and neighbors she was very capable and people who knew her described to her is a really friendly really confident really Lively girl she's actually known by the nickname cookie to her friends which embodies Something really sweet doesn't it the fact that she's related to a sweet treat like a cookie now one of the things that was I suppose a bit of an idiosyncrasy but came from I would imagine some issues about the way that she fell on a self-esteem

level was that when Sylvia smiled she always kept her mouth closed and the reason for that is because she lost one of her front teeth when she was play fighting with one of her brother Brothers as a child and she was really Aware of it she was also said to really love the Beatles She Loved pop music and she was massively protective of her younger sister Jenny and probably this is to do with the fact that Jenny had her disabilities and also it was said that Jenny was markedly more insecure than Sylvia and when you

have an older sibling often if they're a close relationship that sibling will be very protective but they'll also take responsibility for the younger sibling And that can be so positive in the right circumstances but can equally be really problematic in the wrong circumstances because if you feel that somebody is harming you and that harming of you is protecting your sibling and we see this throughout child abuse the amount of times I've worked on cases where children in the family are being sexually molested or physically abused and as far as they are concerned it is unique

to them and the reason they Aren't saying anything is because they don't want that behavior to affect their siblings so they are basically martyring themselves to some degree to protect all those around them and often they find out down the line that they didn't that the abuse was going on elsewhere with other siblings but that's the mindset that they adopt and I think in this case that's exactly what Sylvia does she takes everything for herself because she knows that if She doesn't there is a chance that Jenny who already has her problems will find herself

in really hot water regard in discipline and abuse now unfortunately lyan's mother ends up getting arrested this is going to be a problem because we already have quite a lot of transients we already have money problems and anything that adds into the mix on a stress level is going to be an issue so this is by June 1965 when Sylvia and Jenny are actually living with the parents in Indianapolis so it's the 3rd of July that the mother's arrested and then she gets jailed for shoplifting and we have to be clear that she's lightly shoplifting

because they don't have enough money to get by and she's probably looking at trying to get clothes or Essentials to make sure that she can provide for her children now Lester liky at this moment in time has a problem he's got to work he needs to Deal with the children and place them somewhere that's safe so that he can go about carrying on whilst his wife is incarcerated so he ends up agreeing to have his daughters boarded with gerud maneski now this is the mother of Paula and Stephanie beneski and they are friends with Sylvia

and Jenny so Sylvia and Jenny have made these friends at Arsenal Technical High School and I suppose for the father what he's thinking is I need a safe place and Space for my children to reside whilst I go off and work and earn money and this is a woman who is willing to open her doors and she has other children and also there are relationships between her children and my children and therefore I'm going to have a bias of security and a myth of security and imagine that because those relationships exist to some degree and

because she's female and bear in mind a lot of people struggle Even now to think of women being abusive therefore he would probably happily ignore any problems or warning signs or concerns because it suits him to place the children with her her whilst he's away now Gertrude bogeski her background is one where I would say she had a great deal of struggles so she was born the 19th of September 1928 she was born in Indianapolis Indiana she's a third of six children she came from quite a Working-class family on the 5th of October 1939 when

she's growing up she was only aged 11 at this point vanny jesi actually sees her 50-year-old father die from a sudden heart attack now that that is highly traumatic you think about being an 11-year-old child and bearing witness to your parent dying in such a way it's going to leave its scars and also when you lose a primary caregiver in such a circumstance at such an early age it can affect attachment Because you're afraid of people leaving you and you're concerned that people can be taken from you in heartbeat literally and the scars from that

can run deep it doesn't mean that you have excuses for violent Behavior down the line but it can mean that you're more likely to be vulnerable it could mean that you're more likely to engage in things that take you away from those feelings such as self-medicating with drugs now six years after this event she drops out of High school this is when she is 16 years of age and this is where she gets her name from because she marries 18-year-old John veski now John to all ints and purposes is becoming an upstanding member of our

Society becomes a policeman so you can imagine she's had quite a difficult early years experience losing her father in such traumatic way and not necessarily having any positive trappings in her life because finances were problematic and then all of a Sudden she's with a guy at 16 when he's 18 who's making his way in this world and he's going to be a police officer they go on and have four children together so from the outside looking in this seems really positive but the problem is is unfortunately what you see on the outside isn't what's going

on in the inside of the home John's got a really volatile temper he often beats his wife but in spite of that they actually stayed together for 10 years Before divorcing now back in the day domestic abuse wasn't even considered a crime we have to actually be able to digest that reality in our modern day experience because it's challenging the idea that domestic affairs were domestic affairs just goes against the grain for anyone who has any understanding of empathy and compassion but that's how it works it just wasn't even illegal to rape your partner if

you were married for a very Very long time until incredibly modern time era I'm talking very very few decades ago until rape became illegal in marriage until then these kind of things were acceptable and it's the same with domestic violence so first of all the community around you isn't necessarily going to be seeing this as a crime secondly leaving a marriage it comes with a hefty price tag on your reputation and as far as people are concerned You're simply someone with a Broken down marriage and now you're a single parent so even though people look

these days at people like that and say well why would you stay for 10 years in this volatile relationship where you're getting beaten regularly well because there aren't many options things have changed dramatically in our modern era but that wasn't the way things were back then so she does divorce him but she will again have gathered her scars and she Will also have started to have an acceptance level of violence to some degree and that's problematic because when you've experienced high levels of violence maybe some of your boundaries when you are being violent will have

been stretched because you got so desensitized to it also when you haven't got a level of control in your life and you feel super helpless then when you suddenly find yourself in a position of control that could potentially lead to It being very alluring and if you have shall we say fractures within your foundations as the kind of personality base that you have as a human being temperament wise and then these opportunities arrive such as suddenly being in a situation of power but it can alert you and Trigger you to certain behavioral traits that should

essentially lies sleeping now following her divorce she actually marries Edward gri The marriage only actually lasts 3 months so let's just say the signatures on the actual license hadn't really dried by the time they end up getting divorced but this is probably impetuous because of the fact that she's now a single mother she's probably worried about how she's going to make ends meet and then somebody comes and lends her a Lifeline by saying that they'll marry her she gets married and then they haven't actually figured that they're Not compatible and there are problems and so

ultimately she then divorces now her reputation is going to be even more tarnished in the public eye and when you're a woman at that time you're fighting that kind of prejudice on a daily level bear in mind none of this is an excuse for what we see down the line I'm just indicating the fractures that exist in this particular woman's experience now shortly afterwards she remarries her first husband and then They have another two children together but you can understand that can't you you can understand that as I said of this time it's not legal

to beat your wife you're not facing the same kind of experience as we are in modern day when you get divorced where people are just like yeah it happens lots of the time in that day and age it's a real blight on your character reputation so after this second marriage she scrambles back to her first husband wants to solidify that By having more children and we know that birth control isn't then what it is like today so getting pregnant is something that's far more common for women in relationships and they don't have the same level

of control control over their bodies as they do today so that imprisons her to some degree even further and she would no doubt be going through the violence again and again but like I said scrabbling back to that relationship makes sense it's almost Like eradicating the Brokenness the problems the reputational damage and healing it and presenting to the world that you are back in that relationship that you were once committed to when you first got married however we get to 1963 they get divorced for a second time and then she ends up starting this relationship

with a 20-year-old welder named Dennis Lee Wright who's also very physically abusive towards her and they have a child together just imagine how That's going to feel for Bowski she's somebody who is now seen as a woman who's had lots of illegitimate children essentially she's an individual who has had broken relationships some going through them very fast and she's got lots of children and financial pressures and sadly but not unsurprisingly in May 1964 Dennis Lee W the welder who's got her pregnant he abandons vanis jfki so essentially she really does have a problem now she's

struggling financially She's struggling on a house level because clearly a lot of children require a lot of space you can imagine the chaos of a big family without any support and she actually files a paternity suit for financial support from him but she seldom gets any money which means that she's having to cope by herself so we get to 1965 and bisesi lives alone with seven children so that's a lot of pressure we've got Paula 17 we've got Stephanie 15 we've got John who's 12 got Marie who's 11 we've got Shirley who's 10 James who's

eight and Dennis Lee right Junior I bet she regretted calling him that name after he abandoned her and didn't give her any Financial Adam been straight down if he wasn't on that birth certificate changing the name by Depot without a doubt at the end of the day who wants a Dennis Lee Wright Jr of a deadbeat dad who's done one but anyway here we are he was called Dennis Lee Wright Jr so she has a lot going on so now at the age of 36 she's clearly War weary she has a big struggle ahead of

her and she's had a pretty big one behind her and B jeski she's described it the this point as a Haggard underweight asthmatic not the most appropriate way to describe anyone not exactly flattering is it I mean we all know that we have a bad days but if somebody was like how would I describe Emma i' describe her as a Haggard Underweight asmatic I mean please just be a little bit more gracious she's very underweight that would do she was also known to be a chain smoker she had clinical depression because she'd had these three

marriages and also a recent miscarriage but she's also a survivor of violent abuse she's also an individual who suffered trauma as she's growing up and at this point with all these kids she's basically relying on these sporadic checks from her first husband Because she needs to financially support her kids and she does odd jobs so she does things like sewing for neighbors or she cleans to her money and at the time she resided in Indianapolis at 385 East New York Street and the monthly rent there was $55 so she has to bring that in on

top of bringing in money for food for clothes for the children and so on and so forth and it's very much on her shoulders now Sylvia and Jenny move in and this should really have been a Little bit of light at the end of the tunnel for her because suddenly she has a new income source so just after the 4th of July holiday 1965 Sylvia and Jenny move in to 3850 East New York Street and this is so the dad later also with the mother to travel along to the East Coast with Carnival so Lester

lanss at this point says well okay if you look after my children if you give them somewhere safe and you make sure they're going to school and you take care of Their needs I will pay you boarding fees of $20 for the care of my daughters and then we'll be back November 1965 to pick them up now Gertrude beneski at this point is desperate and also her children do genuinely have relationships with the two girls so she says okay I'll care for your daughters and she said I will care for them as if they were

my own children so during the initial weeks I would say the Lykan sisters generally were subjected to very little discipline or Abuse in fact it seemed to be going really well Sylvia was regularly singing along of pop songs with the other children in the house like Stephanie and and Sylvia was really happy to help out around the house she got involved with housework and she was one of those young people who would happily do that she was always trying to make money and extra benefits for her family by going out and helping neighbors so on

and so forth so this wouldn't be unusual to her and both Girls also went to Sunday school with banaj jeski children and the pastor genuinely commended Sylvia's religious devotion and that's one thing about Sylvia she was absolutely devoted to her religion she believed strongly in a higher power which gives me Comfort it really does when I think about this story cuz my God she would have needed to believe believe in something better than what she was about to endure but it also speaks of her character because the Way that people try during her horrific experience

in this household to totally decimate who she was we have to bring into sharp Focus the reality that she was a very lovely well behaved and I would say relatively pure child and so it's a complete J toos to how she will be talked about when we look at this case as regards other people's perspectives in their permission based for treating her so horrendously so the abuse begins because Essentially Lester lyans has agreed as I've said to pay this $20 a week but after approximately two weeks his payments basically fail to consistently arrive on time

but bear in mind they don't fail to arrive full stop they just arrive a little bit late but if you think about getting paid you think about the fact that he's is traveling and selling things and probably isn't always getting money on the same day every week it makes sense so sometimes it's a Couple of days late now in response to the checks not turning up on time Gert bki decides that she has a permission base basically to take out her frustration on the sisters and that's where it comes from this is about a woman

feeling psychologically emotionally socially trapped to some degree and she now has the place to vent and she has these individuals who have no caregivers around her they have no people that they can rely on for support And she knows that and so she starts initially by beating them and this would be beating the bear bottoms essentially with various instruments it could be a paddle and she'd say things apparently like well I took care of you two little [ __ ] for a week for nothing but bear in mind we're talking about young people here and

they have no way of making money and the agreement isn't with them and her it's with their father and her so so they are just victims in this Circumstance as she would consider herself a victim in this circumstance but this isn't something she's concerned about cuz this has got nothing to do with the check's not arriving this has got to do with a woman who's so angry and rageful and frustrated and vengeful about her life being as it is that she needs to take it out on somebody now on one occasion this is in August

1965 Sylvia and Jenny were beaten approximately 15 times on the back with A paddle This is after Paula Vani basically accuses his sisters of eating too much food at a church supper again think about that contextually well you didn't take the food to church it's not your church supper it's been provided by the church if they ate loads of food then good on them anybody else listen to this that when they see an all you can eat buffet you see that as a challenge it's something personally I do when I go into an or you

can eat buffet I do feel That it's a personal challenge for me to try to eat the whole Buffet well at least a bit that's vegetarian just throwing it out there I went to a buffet the other day genuinely I nearly had to be rolled out because I had literally stuffed my face with so much pizza it's just that's what you do when there's free food it can't just be me thinking this but the reality is you would usually celebrate that you would usually see that as a joyful thing to see your Children or friends

of your children really enjoying themselves really filling themselves up on food that's been provided for them because it's seen as something positive but again they're looking for any opportunity to amplify the violence and of course Paula BVI it's clear really early on that she has jealousy issues so she is probably annoyed at the fact that there's two girls in the house on top of everybody else she's probably already struggling With the financial limitations of her life and the pressures that she's facing and now now she has a place to project just like her mother and

that's exactly what she does now mid August Gertrude benesi has basically began to focus all of her abuse primarily on Sylvia and the primary motivation that's believed that makes her do this is likely jealousy Sylvia is beautiful she's very youthful of course she's got a real future potential ahead of her she is the Embodiment of everything that ban jeski has lost because she feels imprisoned in a life that she's made for herself and also that the slings and arrows of Outrageous Fortune has meant that she hasn't had an opportunity to escape because of that time

it was very difficult if you were a single parent couldn't abandon your kids on the whole and you can't cope without money and all these things were positioned in her life in a problematic Way so she's angry and then you have this beautiful girl Sylvia with everything ahead of her with all the possibilities and potential and hopes and dreams and she just couldn't stand it it was like holding a mirror to herself and seeing such a broken Haggard reflection as people would have described alike whereas Sylvia is this perfect possibility of everything to come and

so it feels like that enables her more but I also think that her Sister has got an issue her sister's have polio she's more vulnerable and to some degree even though Banes is clearly a very depraved human being a very dangerous human being when it comes down to making choices about who you're going to harm it probably doesn't sit as well with her to really abuse somebody who had a disability cuz that vulnerability almost makes it too much of an easy target and she's not jealous of somebody who's got their own struggles so instead She

directs every bit of it towards Sylvia and when we look at child tortur this isn't unusual anyway when we look at young people who end up in torturous situations sometimes for years is it turns out on the whole that a parent will often select one individual because it means that the others appear fine and that's great because then everybody's looking in and thinking well everybody else is fine it can't possibly be this one individual is just getting the bane Of the aggression and all of those things it must be that this young person is the

reason that they're getting this kind of abuse they must be causing it and so on and so forth so it's a clever tactic as well and the abuse really starts to increase incrementally and this includes beatings they start starving Sylvia as a household not just beneski herself also they're foringer constantly to eat spoiled food out of the bins this is typical of child Torture so it's very distinct to a lot of other abuses one of the things about child torture that is distinct is just it goes on for such a long period of time often

secondly it's the humiliation side of it there seems to be a real joy for the abused user to deride the human being in every way shape or form to dehumanize them in as many ways possible and often doing things like forcing them to eat albins like you would dogs or making them strip or encouraging others To humiliate them take their clothes off do things to them that are just unspeakable these are firstly power obviously orientated but also it's not just about the power it's about the enjoying the humiliation the division of the human being who's

dealing with it so the humiliation of the victim is really key when it comes down to child torture is an added ingredient that really seems to help the abuser thrive in that Arena we get to late August 1965 and the humiliation is getting even worse because it turns out that apparently she's claimed to have had a boyfriend in Long Beach apparently she talked about the fact that she'd met him earlier in the year when her family lived in California well she was old enough to have a boyfriend that shouldn't be an issue if anything that

should be a lovely little conversation that you have amongst friends but bidesi asks her whether she's ever done Anything with a boy now that's really overstepping the Mark if you have children around you and you are their primary caregiver your job is not to ask them about their sex lives certainly not to play detective around what they've got up to with other human beings like I said if she was a friend well it makes sense friends are always pushing those boundaries but this is somebody who's meant to be a maternal figure in their life at

this moment in time now Understandably Sylvia is quite naive she's not somebody who's had lots of experience with boys she didn't really know what she meant now we all know that she was asking her whether she'd got to a certain base with a boy whether she'd have sex with a boy but Sylvia is very naive and innocent so she doesn't know exactly what she's being asked but in the end she confesses to Jenny and to Stephanie that she once laid under the the covers with her boyfriend so Completely innocent now upon hearing this gertrud bajki

tells her and the other girls in the house that whenever they did something with a boy they would definitely have a baby don't get me wrong I understand where she's coming from in her fear she has spent her life at least in the last couple of decades struggling with having lots of children getting pregnant early on and she probably wants better as far as she is concerned but children she wants it Easier so this idea of saying well hey if you literally get under the covers with somebody you'll get pregnant it's a fair tactic that

people will use to prevent people going ahead and doing anything that could get them into hot water but after she said this she actually kicks Sylvia in the genars so that aside from being a gross abuse is also something that is sexually motivated she's actually kicking her in a private parts and if you're dominating Somebody in that way it's something that demonstrates a level of power that is very unusual it means that you have no care consideration or concern about the impact that you're having both psychologically emotionally and also physically on the person that you're

abusing she is giving a direct message to Sylvia and that is there are no boundaries and that must have been absolutely terrifying for her and bear in mind Paula wanted her daughters is Actually 3 months pregnant at this moment in time and she's also really jealous as I said of Sylvia's physical appearance so she then engages in the attack as well she would be very stressed being pregnant with an illegitimate child is pretty terrifying back in the day so she's going to be looking to Heap a whole load of anger and Vengeance on somay when

they have a life that they're not going to be able to experience anymore because of their Behavior and their decisions and so instead of thinking well this is about me I need to acknowledge What I've Done how I've acted and deal with the repercussions and accountability of that instead it's how can I make Sylvia responsible for my psychological pain how can I make Sylvia responsible for the choices that I've made and she actually knocked Sylvia off the chair onto the kitchen floor and she shouted you ain't fit to sit in a chair so this Escalation

is enormous we're talking months you know it's absolutely enormous and what's terrifying about that is we know that Sylvia is going to be in diet danger because there is a huge permission base if there's one person abusing that's terrible enough but if a few people get involved it breaks this barrier the barrier of acceptability the barrier of morality the barrier of Ethics that most of us just have within our lives and if You think about authority figures think about mgram Milgram looked at how people can do unspeakably evil things if they're told to by a

person in Authority well in this case the mother in the house is the authority if she gives a permission based or if she orders other children to go ahead and do things it's usual that in two-thirds of cases the person will go ahead and do what they are ordered to do they shift responsibility and accountability they Say well I'm being directed to do so and also a lot of us just have a tendency naturally to obey so now we have Sylvia in a really dangerous environment and not long after that incident the children actually eat

dinner with a neighbor and this neighbor is called Randy leper and Paula veski and Randy end up Force feeding Sylvia a hot dog at this place so they've overloaded it with mustard with ketchup and with spices and understandably apart from the fact that They have forced Sylvia to eat which as we all know if some is forcing you to eat something it makes you feel sick because you have not got the control over it so Sylvia ends up throwing up as a result and the way they respond to that is they make her eats her

own vomit so now we have a neighbor involved in this abuse a willing participant to continue this so her own neighborhood has become a dangerous environment for her now there is only one act of Retaliation apparently where Sylvia is concerned and it's alleged that she starts spreading a rumor at Arsenal Technical High School that Stephanie and Paula bogeski were actual prostitutes and that she was really upset because the family had been accusing her of the same thing and that's why she had done the same that she'd been falsely accused so she allegedly falsely accused them

but bear in mind Gert beneski was frequently accusing Sylvia of Prostitution and promiscuity she was kicking her in the privates doing that and she was ranting about the filthiness of prostitution and women in general so this is all directed essentially at Sylvia and when you think psychologically about projections and how sometimes we take out on others the way that we feel about ourselves then I think that that's absolutely what she was doing in that moment I think that she felt that as a female she had failed I think that she felt that as a female

some of her behavior was shall we say challenging for the time frame I think that reputationally she was aware that others were looking at her maybe with a level of disrespect she didn't like so she projected all of that internalized negativity about herself onto Sylvia now understandably if the benesis get word of any of this kind of rumor spreading it's going to be really bad for Sylvia and unfortunately to add insult to Injury whilst at school Stephanie one of the children also was jokingly propositioned by a boy and this boy basically says that Sylvia has

started the rumor so at this point Stephanie starts to question Sylvia and she's asking her why what's happened what's been said and in the end Sylvia basically admits to starting it and Stephanie just punches her and at this point syvia doesn't retaliate she just apologizes she's crying and she's upset And it actually means that Stephanie stops which is a normal reaction she's punished her for this actual behavior and even though it was a bit of an extreme punishment the minute that she realizes she's caused harm and that Sylvia is upset she stops however when Stephanie's

15-year-old boyfriend KY Hubbert finds out he brutally attacks Sylvia so he slaps her he bangs a head on the wall he forces her backwards onto the floor so she's been really high Level assaulted and then of course when the mother finds out and gertude beneski finds out well she gets the paddle and she beats Sylvia and she beats her very badly and then Paula joins it so she beats Sylvia around the face and she beats so hard that she breaks her own wrist just think about that for a moment she breaks her own wrist and

believe me Paula's sadistic she focuses all her punches on Sylvia's teeth and eyes why she knows that Sylvia doesn't smile she Knows that Sylvia is very self-conscious of the tooth that's missing so she wants to add more to her distress she wants to also make her physically less attracted because she isn't as attractive so anything that she can do to damage her physically with that's good for her because then she won't be as jealous as this girl who should to all intents and purposes be able to go on and lead a good future fall in

love have a life ahead of her Paula wants to take that From her and later Paula uses the cast that she has on her broken wrist to further beat Sylvia let me tell you Paula is dangerously sadistic the abuse gets worse Gertrude Benes is forcing Jenny her own sister to hit her and if Jenny doesn't go ahead and do that if she doesn't comply then she gets beaten so now she's pitting Jenny and her own safety against that of her sisters which is deeply confusing deeply distressing and also deeply challenging because no One wants to

feel pain when you're scared of somebody and when you see the damage that they're doing to your sister and the option is well if you want this can happen to you as well rock and a whole place and we all think and we all hope that if we were in that situation we would lie down and die for our sibling but let me tell you it's not as simple as that Jenny is not the most confident person Jenny is terrified of her environment and Jenny is also doing What we see where authorities conscent she is

obeying now Coy Hubbert who's already beaten up Sylvia as I've said and several of his classmates they would frequently visit the maneski house and the reason that they start going around there regularly is to literally physically and verbally torment Sylvia and vany children are often with them and Gertrude's are now bear REM mind Gertrude isn't just being quiet in this moment no she's encouraging the kids so With gertude banes's active encouragement the kids are often beating Sylvia they're Sometimes using her as a practiced dummy in these violent Judo sessions they're cutting her body they're actually

burning her body with cigarettes so they actually did that more than a hundred times just imagine the pain and Agony and helplessness and powerlessness that you're going to go through when somebody is literally burning your skin with a lit cigarette They were also severely and I mean severely injuring her genitals and ger beneski is encouraging this and to entertain beneski and the teenage bullies Sylvia was at one point made to strip naked in the living room and she was made to masturbate with a glass Pepsi bottle in front of them now when we get to

this kind of level of child torture the possibilities for that child escaping are minimal and I mean minimal every single structure of protection has Just been dissolved it's disintegrated not only are the physical punishments increasing we're now seeing a group so a pack mentality we have an authority figure that's very powerful directing and praising those who engage in this kind of abuse and we've gone from the physical abuse now to the actual torture so we're not just talking about one-offs of a loss of control we're talking about an absolute incremental engagement and amplification Of this

kind of high level abuse the cutting the burning and then the stripping and the sexual issues that we're seeing here the sexual abuse that's playing out when you see something get to this point there is very few places for it to escalate elsewhere it is basically unless somebody's going to intervene at this point the fate of that individual has been sealed it really has because Unfortunately they have got to a point Where it's almost impossible to deescalate this abuse and after this horrific Act of sexual abuse and humiliation in front of everyone ger beneski actually

stated to everyone that the act of humiliation was for Sylvia to prove to Jenny what kind of girl you are so she is using every tactive from The torturers Playbook which is make the person who should be protecting the individual feel that somehow they're being done a favor By you in this case Jenny's being educated you don't want this kind of thing to happen to you look at what your sister is dealing with because of what a broken young woman she is and that's a powerful permission base for you a powerful educator for somebody who

should be able to protect you in this circumstance and of course another nail in your coffin in this case in Sylvia's coffin now Gertrude eventually stops Sylvia from actually going to school Because bear in mind she's been going to school in spite of the fact she's got these bruises and burns but the reason that she eventually stops her going to school isn't because she's concerned about the eyes looking in because bear in mind she's dehumanized Sylvia to a point where she's not actually that concerned concerned about repercussions she thinks she can get away with it

she doesn't have any Worth or value for Sylvia so why does she think that Anybody else is going to have any Worth or value for her the actual reason that she stops going to school is because she confesses to stealing a gymsuit and the reason for this is because gertude vesu refuses to buy any clothes for her so she needs something to wear as a punishment for that gerud whips Sylvia with a 3-in wide police belt bear in mind that would be agonizing she then starts lecturing her about the evils of premarital sex which Sylvia

hasn't had Unlike her own daughter before kicking Sylvia again in the genitals then she Burns her fingertips with matches and then she whips her again and after that beating of Sylvia a few days later Jenny gets beaten with the same police Bel and that was because she apparently stole a single tennis shoe from the school to wear on her strong foot but these girls are acting from a place of a need they're not acting from a place of criminality they don't know what to do They need clothes they need Footwear and it's not being provided

so they're desperate but the consequences are they're damned if they do they're damned if they don't VES is going to do whatever to them if she gets even a sniff that they've done anything wrong but she is the chain of causation she is the reason that these girls are in this situation now understandably one of the big problems that we have is that family members have no ideaa idea that this Horrific abuse is happening and Sylvia and Jenny are really afraid of notifying family members because they think if they tell them or they tell the

school teachers it's just going to worsen their situation because they'll be told this will worsen your situ you tell anyone you bet your bottom dollar the beating that I'm giving you now is going to be far worse that's what these kind of abusers do they terrify you in the end you comply because you fear that if you Don't comply it's going to be even more horrific for you now Jenny she particularly struggled against urge to notify the family members because she genuinely felt threatened by Gertrude she said that she knew that if she was to

tell family members in her mind as far as she was concerned she would be tortured to the same degree as a sister and Jenny was also really badly bullied by the girls in the neighborhood so she feels like she hasn't got a support Network and she's actually occasionally ridiculed about her sister's situation because it is common knowledge it's common knowledge that Sylvia is being treated so horrifically and that is blindsiding horrific what an indictment of an area what an indictment of a society that people in the local area are aware that some terrible treatment is

occurring where Sylvia is concerned that she's being beaten up that she's being attacked because it is common Knowledge and I appreciate that times have changed and children and parents probably speak more in different ways than they did back then but there is no way that adults in the neighborhood are not hearing about what is happening and that is devastating to think we're talking about a child that Di a young person that dies and they die not just because of the treatment that I'm talking about because of the willingness for the local people in that area

to be Complicit in the abuse as far as I'm concerned if you have information or if you hear things that indicate that some could be in D stce and you do nothing about it well you are complicit you are part of that problem and you should hang your head in shame no matter what era what generation or whether people are going to keep their noses out no it's disgusting it's disgraceful and in in this case it means a child dies we get to September and this girls at this Point see their older sister Diana Shoemaker

Diana Shoemaker at this time they run into a local park and you would imagine this is the perfect opportunity because Diana is there she knows them they've got a relationship with her obviously she's not want to see them in DIA Straits and at this point Jenny and Sylvia actually tell her about the abuse that they're dealing with and they also say listen it's Sylvia that's getting most of the abuse she's getting the Target of the specific physical abuse far more than Jenny is but Diana really sadly thinks they're exaggerating again maybe it's because Diana is

struggling to come to terms with the fact that anybody could treat her sisters as badly as is being demonstrated through what the girls are saying maybe it's because she doesn't know what to do so she wants to believe that they're making things up a little bit because otherwise she now becomes Responsible and accountable for them and she doesn't know how to manage that that maybe it's because she's not in touch with the wider family because she's arranged from them that she doesn't go and speak to her parents about it but whatever di fails them in

that moment and it's hard to say that because understandably we don't want to blame anybody and I'm not blaming her for the death I'm saying that anybody who fails to act in these situations anyone who Fails to listen to victims and take it seriously they become a part of the problem and in this case it's a fatal problem in the end and what I would say is that there must have been something that Diana was gestating during that meeting in the park because even though initially she thinks to herself hey at the end of the

day they're probably just exaggerating the're young people who just want the parents back and so on and so forth it must have been playing on Her mind because around the 1st of October 1965 Diana actually discovers where her sisters are that they're at the banes's residence and so she decides I'm going to go and visit the house I'm going to try to fix the relationship between Gert beneski and her sisters but what actually happens when Diana arrives is that Gert beneski refuses to let her in and she says that she'd received permission from the lyan's

parents to Stop Diana from seeing the daughters so she now thinks that gertude beneski has got power over this situation that her parents are on side with her and that Diana is being restricted because of the problems in the relationship between her parents and her but in spite of this two weeks later Diana runs into Jenny in the street and then she asks her okay how is Sylvia and Jenny replies I can't tell you or I'll get in trouble and it's such a shame that Diana doesn't just barge in And remove this girl from the

home but again it's difficult it's challenging there are boundaries and it's of a time where potentially like I said you are educated in the local environment to keep your nose out of other people's Affairs and for Diana how would she cope taking in two young people these are all questions that are probably going through her head but nonetheless these opportunities are missed opportunities when it comes down to the survival of Sylvia now both Lester and Betty lyans they did actually return to Indianapolis to visit their daughters whenever the work schedule would allow them so on

the 5th of October 1965 this is actually the last time that the lyans visited their daughters what's stated by the parents is that neither sister exhibited any visible sign of abuse they didn't mention anything to the parents but she was always present with the girls Gerry beneski never allow them to be by Themselves but there is a part of me that just wants to scream at this moment that Jenny and Sylvia just needed to say to the parents this is happening all she needed to do was show her parents the marks but this is what

happens when you you are captive this is what happens when somebody who is so predatory so violent so dangerous when someone has acted out in such unspeakable ways that the power over the individuals who essentially have this opportunity to Tell the truth and to flee they don't need to have Prison Walls around them they are in prisoned psychologically and emotionally they're terrified they don't believe at this point that they have a choice they just have to act as if everything all right because the fear is that should they dare to tell their parents who they've

lightly been told are aware of the way they're being treated bear in mind what Gert B jeski will be doing is saying things like your Parents know your parents are giving me permission your parents have said a b or c if you go back to your parents they say it will ruin their life this is what they do so you have the two girls not sure whether if they say something ultimately their parents will still leave them and they'll have made the situation even worse now almost immediately after Lester and Betty lyans leave gerre beneski

said to Sylvia what are you Going to do now Sylvia now they're gone and that's their last possible Lifeline essentially and can you imagine how that would be for Sylvia to know that gerre beneski was enjoying it she was enjoying torturing her on every single level even getting Sylvia to be complicit in her own imprisonment by staying silent shortly after this happened there was a neighbor named Michael Monroe he actually phoned Arsenal Technical High School because he wanted to anonymously Report that a girl who had open source across her entire body was living at the

beneski household now as Sylvia hadn't been attending school at this point and it's quite a long time she haven't been attending school a school nurse ends up visiting the house to investigate the claims and that's where this story should end end cuz the nurse should I don't know I'm just going to throw it out there investigate but geru banes's got an idea She's going to Spin A Yarn and it's going to be effective bizarrely she says oh no Sylvia's not here she's run away and that she's completely unaware of her whereabouts in fact she said

the reason that I don't know where she is is she's out of control and also she said that the open source and this is to a medical professional the open source were because Sylvia refused to maintain her personal hygiene now you don't Need any qualifications medically to know that open sours are not because you're not hygienic we all know those mates who when we were growing up needed to find things like soap we all have them they needed to figure out that doing something about the way those shoes smelt so that your entire home was

not flooded with a scent that was Indescribable was something that needed tending to we've all had mates like that They weren't walking around like it was the Middle Ages with open source it does not happen and the reality is that as a nurse you'd be like what what open source what do you mean there are open source why isn't she maintaining a personal hygiene what's going on for this child and also what do you mean she's just disappeared so that should be enough to spark a real fear for the safety of this child and certainly

to carry on the Investigation but instead the school made no further investigations so apparently it's okay to turn up at a house where somebody is saying listen there's a kid with open source all over the body clearly in a bad State and to knock on that door and to look at the person who potentially could be causing all of those injuries and go how is that person and for that person to say oh well I don't don't know they I have control they' left they've got open Source because they don't look after themselves and to

go okay cool that speaks of a lack of professionalism a lack of understanding and also a lack of care that's the big thing shouldn't be in a job like that if when you hear those kind of harrowing details it doesn't make you think about what needs to happen next now the B's next door neighbors they were actually a couple called Raymond and Phyllis Vermilion now both of these neighbors initially viewed Gert beneski as an ideal caregiver for the Lykan siblings that actually visited the house on two occasions whilst they were there but even though they

had thought that she was an ideal caregiver on both of those occasions the vilans witnessed Paula who's obviously in their age demographic as a young person physically abusing Sylvia so even though they think that the mother in this situation is good enough to take care of the girls they're watching her daughter Beat Sylvia up she actually had a black eye at the time also she was literally boasting to them about the abuse that the family forced Sylvia to enjoy so they're hearing this they're like oh well yes Gertrude's a great caregiver she a fabulous caregiver

what's what's happening over there oh Paula's beating her up well she's a great caregiver nonetheless she's a great what's happening over there oh I think she's bragging about the fact that they're Talk torturing Sylvia yes yes but you know apart from the torture and apart from the physical abuse and the beatings you know at the end of the day even though this is happening in gert's house gert's a fabulous K she's fabulous she's she's great she's I think oh she's she's she's beating her up again honestly I cannot connect with people who choose not to

act in such situations because they see that on the first visit but on the second visit they actually noticed That Sylvia is really Meek and apparently almost zombified but the Vermilion didn't think well maybe we should you know actually speak to the authorities about this and again people will say Well it speaks of a time that's passed no it doesn't it doesn't speak of a time that's passed it speaks of the time that's still present because this happens day in and day out in child torch cases in young people torch cases people just do nothing

but To actually be in a home where you're watching one of the young people beating up another young person who's maybe in the care of the adult and the adult's just letting it happen and to not go and do something about that I mean number one let me tell you if that was something I was seeing the adult in this situation would be dealing with me because if there was one thing that can make me feel very violent and rageful it's watching children and young people Being abused because they are more vulnerable they don't have

the power so you're going to be taking me on and then I'm going to be taking the child with me I'll be dealing with the issues and ramifications after that no one is going to harm a child that I am present to see being harmed no matter whether it's you as the adult or your child doing it to another because you can see the danger and when we're talking about Sylvia this is somebody you know who's a young adult Basically and she's being horribly harmed by another member of this family and it gets worse so

the escalation of abuse continues and I would say that because Gert bajki is now really engaged in the enjoyment and sadism and she's getting a lot of positive feedback for managing her aggression managing her frustration managing her rage by taking it out on Sylvia she's got an opportunity to remove some of those feelings of stress by being so Aggressive towards her and the escalation of abuse towards Sylvia is now increasing which is just staggering when you think about what I've told you so far but we've got to remember gerre beneski is now at a point

where firstly she's getting away with it secondly she's finding a way to man manage all of those difficult emotions all of that anger she's got pent up inside all of that frustration she's got pent up inside she's probably relieving herself By harming this young person so now she's desensitized a little bit because she's been getting away with burning she's getting away with beating she's getting away with sexually abusing so she needs to increase the ferocity to get the same stress release also she's dehumanized Sylvia to such a point where she isn't even human she won't

look like a human she won't smell like a human there'll be all of these injuries and all of these swellings that essentially Mean that geru Benes can just disassociate from the reality of her actions and she also starts to really use the other children in the house to increase these kind of attacks on Sylvia so she tells them that Sylvia's been insulting one of them in the hope it's going to provoke them to attack her and on one occasion Gert beneski actually helds up a knife and challenges Sylvia to fight me back and Sylvia says

I don't know how to Fight so even when Sylvia is in a situation where arguably she could get a weapon and stab Gertrude beneski to death which I'm not saying if I was in Sylvia's situation that would be how I'd respond no one knows but in my head I hope i' be like okay let's do this because if anybody in that moment deserves a taste of her own medicine it's gerre Ben ji but of course Sylvia is ever the compliant ever the Placid ever the sweet girl and she Doesn't want to be violent and she

doesn't know how to fight it's not in her makeup at all which is why it's even worse that she's such a Target because she hasn't got it in her to give back any of what she's receiving so in response to that geru just lightly slashes Sylvia's leg but again it's a b breached it means that the other children can do the same the neighborhood children were actually occasionally charged 5 cents to see the Display of Sylvia's body can you believe that charging so that children can actually come in and Marvel at the abuse that's happening

again now it's like she's a freak Show when you think about how it used to be when people who had disabilities or they had issues that made them slightly different to other human beings people would come and pay and look at them and laugh at them and dehumanize them and not see them as incalculably important human beings Because they were different and that's what's happened to Sylvia Now syvia isn't a human being anymore she's different and that means that they're allowed to humiliate her they're allowed to beat her they're allowed to scold her they're allowed

to burn her they're allowed to mutilate her sexually abuse her they're allowed to do everything everything and anything that they want to this poor girl on one occasion Gertrude veski and her 12-year-old son John Jr actually rub urine and feces from Gert Ben jesi's one-year-old nappy into Sylvia's mouth they then just give her half a cup of water and they said that she wouldn't get anything else for the remainder of the day again in child torture we see this the use of other people's bodily fluids Etc because there is nothing more degrading then have somebody's

[ __ ] shoved in your mouth just think about that it is literally saying you are less than this it's power Play of the highest level it's grotesque it's disgusting it's dangerous but also it says you are not human I'm going to treat you worse than any animal you are less than my [ __ ] and that is torturous because Sylvia is this beautiful young girl girl with everything to live for she's done nothing wrong she hasn't stepped out of line she hasn't put a thought wrong and yet here she is in this situation being

degraded dehumanized attacked on every single Level now of course the frequency and severity of this abuse is very very regular and because of that she's getting really unwell and actually she becomes gradually in continent because there is a lot of attention paid to her genitals she's getting abused down there as well and at this point in spite of this incontinence being caused by the abuse directly she's denied access to the bathroom why well I'll tell you why because again it's an added humiliation Because it takes away your dignity and that's what they're doing they're taking

away Sylvia's dignity and by doing that she wets herself and they're using that as a permission base to further beat her we get to the 6th of October 1965 and as punish ment for her incontinence that they've caused vfi throws silia into the basement and ties her up at this point she's kept there totally vulnerable totally naked she's rarely fed she's mostly deprived water so all of her Human needs go unanswered occasionally she's tied to the railing of the basement stairs and her feet at this point would barely touch the ground and if you consider

the injuries that she's already got imagine the pain that she's in and throughout her captivity in the basement beneski would often restrain her would gag her she'd even Place her in a bath full of scolding water and then she would literally rub salt into her wounds beneski is one of the most Heinous creatures have come across and I'm saying that at this point because do I think justice has been served in this case I just don't I really don't I'm going to caveat that right now we get to the 22nd of October 1965 at this

point John Junior who seems to have a really sadistic pleasure in tormenting Sylvia he really engages in the abuse he offers to give her a bowl of soup bear in mind she's starving she's literally starving I mean she really is physically starving But then he'd hand it over to her then he'd quickly take it away at this point she's extremely malnourished and she's just attempting to get it and he's just removing it from her it's just taking absolute pleasure in her pain now ger benesia eventually allows Sylvia to to sleep upstairs on the condition that

she wouldn't wet herself but she's incontinent the injuries have been so s she's so helpless she's so broken physically she has no control so that Night Sylvia actually says could I have a glass of water to Jenny because she's emaciated she's starving she's dehydrated and she just wants something to drink so Jenny goes and actually gets her that glass of water but sadly because she is in conent on the 23rd of October the following morning she's wet herself so of course what does ger Benes do this child so emaciated so broken in such physical pain

she forces her to insert An Empty Glass Coke bottle into Her vagina again in the presence of everyone and then she's returned to the basement could this woman be any more gross tesque and could these individuals witnessing this abuse be any more flid I know that they're young people but my God it's harrowing to see that none of them spoke out shortly after she's been placed in the basement she actually brings Sylvia back into the kitchen and she says you have to take your clothes off she then says you've Branded my daughters now I'm going

to Brand you bear in mind when she's saying you've branded my daughters is because allegedly she spread these rumors about them being prostitutes Etc and therefore she is seeing that emotional social brand in the same context as a physical brand which gives her permission to carve the words I'm a prostitute and proud of it onto Sylvia's abdomen she does this with a heated needle can you imagine The pain the horror the humiliation and that's no going back from that that is a brand that would remain whether she lived or died now manesa is actually unable

to finish the branding but at this point she instructs one of the neighborhood children who's present 14-year-old Richard Hobbs to finish etching the words into Sylvia's stomach this is a neighbor this is a young person who isn't actually in a scenario where the authority figure even counts And they still do it so now we have her branded physically and it gets worse cuz both Hobbs and 10-year-old Shirley benesi then take Sylvia into the basement and they use an anchor bolt to attempt to burn the letter s under Sylvia's left breast but they apply one section

on the loop backwards so it actually resembles the number three instead but they did this of their own valtion that permission base given by ger beneski is enough for them to them Feel that they have a right to go and do this to Sylvia to their peer ger beneski later taunts Sylvia claiming that she'll never be able to get married due to the words on her stomach and she says Silvia what are you going to do now you can't get married now what are you going to do and Sylvia at this point is apparently crying

and she says I guess there's nothing I can do oh the helplessness in that statement so profound isn't it cuz she's right There is nothing she can do in that moment and her future will seem Bleak and the reality is that the benesis have achieved what theyve set out to achieve they've stolen her physical Beauty the stealing her possibilities of a future full stop that made her feel worthless she has no value anybody can do anything they want she's used Goods as far as they're concerned and she'll be internalizing that this innocent young person who's

done nothing Wrong later that day Sylvia is actually forced to display the carving to the neighborhood children and benki of course can't admit that they were the ones that did it so she claims that she received the inscription at a sex party as if this tortured broken helpless branded imated girl could have even have left the home of her own valtion she was in such a state but yeah apparently she's gone to some sex party got branded there that Night Sylvia said the heartbreaking words to her sister Jenny I know you don't want me to

die but I'm going to die I can tell it so she knows what's coming she absolutely knows what's coming and even though she is a prophet of her own Doom I also think that she's a prophet of her own peace I think that she's had enough I think that she wants it over I think she wants to be in a better place at this point but even then she's Apologizing to her sister for not being able to remain present in this life isn't that devastating that even in a moment where it should be she receiving

Comfort she's sad that she can't be present for her sister she's sad that maybe she'll have no control over remaining in this world and she's apologizing for that following day Gert beneski has obviously been ruminating on what's Happening and what's happened to Sylvia she probably knows that the Injuries are very severe and they're going to have a problem so she's not done with the manipulation at this point she's not done with the torture at this point so she gets Sylvia and she forces her to write a letter this is obviously a letter that she dictates

the contents of and the premise of this is very manipulative and it's very premeditated the whole premise is to mislead Sylvia's parents into believing that the daughters run Away from the Benny Jesy house and it's framed as this group of anonymous local boys have basically taken her and extensively abused and mutilated Sylvia after she's initially agreed to engage in sex with them and apparently after this is all played out Sylvia's had the wherewithal to write this letter which basically exonerates anybody in the beneski household and implicates herself in her own demise that I agreed to

have sex with this group of I agreed to have A gang bang I agreed to have a gang bang and then they basically killed and mutilated me but afterwards I was like oh what I really need to do in this moment of great distress is I need to pen a letter which basically says I'm totally culpable and responsible for what happened to me like anybody in a situation where they've been harrowingly attacked in such a way and were a victim cuz even in the context of a scenario where you had decided that you wanted a

Gang bang even in that situation should that consensual act then have fallen into a scenario where you were ravaged and Savaged and all but killed the last thing you're going to be doing is writing a note to your parents going oh it was kind of my fault and kind of the reason this happened it's not the way people work but the thing about beneski is she's not the most shall we say articulate and bright human being she's not sophisticated she's got away with This for a very long time and she likly believes that she can

get away with it for longer so after Sylvia's written this letter which is basically sealing her fate beneski decides that she'll get John Jr and Jenny to blindfold Sylvia and then take her to a nearby Woodland area which is known as Jimmy's Forest and they'll just leave her to die there there so can you imagine being Sylvia this is the last place of torture where you'll just be Left you'll be open to the elements you don't know how to get any help you're too weak and that will be the last experience that you ever endure

the horror of being left to die alone on the 25th of October 1965 silia actually attempts to escape and the reason for that is because she's overheard beneski telling JN of a plan to abandon her to die so she's terrifi so she attempts to flee to the front door but bear in mind she's injured she's weak and so she has No hope she's caught before she can even Escape at this point benesi gives her crackers to eat but she can't eat them she's so dehydrated and these are so dry that there's no way she's going

to be able to consume them so but Jes is angry she starts forcing the crackers into this girl's mouth who is just broken beyond belief and then she's angry cuz she's not able to ingest them so she takes this curtain rod and she just strikes her in the face again and again And she strikes her so hard that there are actual sections of the rod that were bent into right angles and then COI hubbed he takes the curtain Rob and he strikes Sylvia another time and this one renders her totally uncon conscious and then they

just drag her to the basement they're like absolute monsters beasts that evening Sylvia desperately attempts to alert neighbors she's screaming for help although she'd be in a weaken State and she's hitting the Walls of the basement with a spade and that says something about what a warrior Sylvia was because her injuries at this point are just horrific and one later informs the police that she heard the desperate commotion knowing that it was coming from the basement of the Ben Jesus's house she heard it and then she says oh you know I heard this screaming and

banging coming from the basement of the house yeah I heard it but you know it stopped at 3:00 a.m. so I thought Well I won't call the police who in their right mind acts that way sorry I don't care whether that lands badly with people who know this individual I don't care how dare you here anguished cries and banging coming from the basement of home and think that the best course of action is when it stops which would ultimately mean wow maybe something really Terrible's happened now because this person who's in anguish and pain has

stopped banging that the way to deal With that situation is to do nothing to do nothing it's absolutely unbelievable Dreadful Behavior unsurprisingly by the morning of the 26th of October Sylvia can't even speak properly she can't coordinate the movement of her Limbs and at this point veski moves Sylvia into the kitchen she props her back against the wall and she's attempting to feed her a donut She's attempting to give her a glass of milk why I'll tell you why cuz she's getting scared she's realizing the abuse has got to a point where there are real

problems and she's angry again because she is not able to get the items into her mouth so she throws Sylvia to the floor in frustration because she won't get the glass of milk to her lips and at this point she puts her back in the basement but she's starting to get stressed she's starting to realize that Things maybe have gone too far and then Sylvia becomes Delirious of course she does she's literally broken in more ways than any human can survive Paula at this point asked her to rec the alphabet Sylvia can't she can't recall

more than four letters she can't raise herself off the ground and what does Paula do she verbally threatens her in response but it doesn't matter because Sylvia can't fight back even if she wanted to at this point at this point she unfortunately Defecates because she has no control and she's dying and gerud beneski simply tells her to clean herself up that afternoon noon several of Sylvia's abusers get together in the basement Sylvia attempts to point to the people she could recognize but at this point she can't even speak ger beneski shouts shut up you know

who I am Sylvia attempts to eat a rotten peir she's been given to even in this moment they're giving her a rotten peir a Rotten PA but she tries to indicate that she can feel the looseness of her teeth Jenny replies to her don't you remember Sylvia your front tooth was knocked out when you were seven but then Jenny leaves Sylvia in the basement to just go and do gardening chores for Neighbors in the hope of earning some money now bear in mind that Sylvia's body is in a real State at this point and it's

obvious that there's been Abuse and there's blood Etc and there's an issue where she soiled herself and they don't like the way that she's looking bearing in mind that things are looking pretty dicey regarding whether she's going to be okay so they want to make it look like Sylvia's in a better State than she really is so John Junior sprayer with a garden hose brought to the house that afternoon by a neighbor Randy leper this had been brought over by Gertrude's request essentially and Again the dehumanization using a hose Sylvia again attempts to escape but

she collapses before she reaches the stairs and what does Gert beneski do at this point she stamps on on her head but again isn't that just Testament to the Survivor spirit that lived even to those last moments in Sylvia she was desperate even at that point to try to get away even though she didn't have the physical resources she didn't have the ability to Even get herself to a position of Escape she tried now around 5:30 p.m. that day Richard Hobbs comes back to the house and he finds Stephanie Banfi crying in and she's cuddling

Sylvia's am mated body so she's realized that something seriously is wrong Stephanie and Richard at this point think okay clearly something is going wrong here and they decide that they're going to give her a warm bath and they're going to dress her and put her in new clothes why cuz they Know this is really bad and anyone looking in from the outside it's undeniable that something horrific happened to this girl then put her on a mattress in one of the bedrooms and it's at this point that Sylvia literally mutters her final words and her final

words were I wish Daddy was here and that Stephanie would take her home isn't that heartbreaking in those final moments she's just wishing that somebody would Take her home and that she wished her daddy would be present and that's what so many children feel and young people feel isn't it in those final moments whatever situation ation they're in when they're losing their life really they just want that familiar place and space of safety and often that lies in the presence of the parents now when Stephanie realizes to her horror at this point that Sylvia is

not breathing she starts trying mouth to mouth Resusitation but benesi doesn't care she's just shouting that she's faking her death she's saying that she's making it up she's basically telling everybody that even in this moment where it's clear to everybody that Sylvia is dead that she has succumbed to the horrendous treatment still she's being called a faker Sylvia was 16 years of age when she finally died of those horrific injuries 16 now as I've already mentioned ger beneski just doesn't Believe that she's dead she's screaming Faker Faker but then she panics because things aren't happening

she isn't breathing and she's realizing that maybe this has gone too far so then she panics and asks Richard Hobbs to call the police from a nearby pay phone at 6:30 p.m. the police arrive at the house but of course ger benesi isn't going to go down without a fight so she does take them to Silvia's emaciated mutilated broken body also it's lying Upon A Soiled mattress in the bedroom but then she's quick to hand over the letter that she's forced Sylvia to write the day before she also claimed that she'd been doctoring Sylvia for

an hour or more before she died she said that she'd been trying to help her she'd been applying rubbing alcohol to her wounds but it had just been this futile attempt at first aid before she died but obviously she was trying her best to nurse her and the fact that she thinks in any way shape or Form that she could possibly get away with what the police officers are going to be looking at whether she's got this note or otherwise is crazy but she does she also says that Sylvia had run away from home before

she'd run away with several teenage boys and then she turned home bare breasted and cling the note like as if on what planet on what planet did beneski think that she get away with this that she's just come wandering in by Bare breasted you know she's not got Her shirt but she does have this letter she's not got this shirt but at the end of the day she's got this note with her let's just just uh rewind a bit there Benes let's just rewind so let's just go through this again so just tell me what

happened well you will not believe it she's been running away from home regularly with boys often trying to get engaged in gang bangs and we've just lost control of her but today she obviously had a horrible attack and She's turned up bare chested okay so she's be chested so clearly there's been some very violent assault and she's obviously being so badly mutilated and attacked that she's dead now yes it's terrible she's out of control though and at the end of the day I'm just a victim of circumstance I've had nothing to do with this death

but you're saying that she turned up be chested yeah yeah so you're saying she lost her shirt she Did she lost her shirt in this horrific attack that's led to her death that I've had nothing to do with so it would be sensible to assume that it's been chaotic and that she's lost her shirt you know a shirt is not present she hasn't been able to get a shirt yeah obviously she's been through a horrible attack and they either ripped her shirt off or she's lost her shirt it's been misplaced but she's obviously enjoyed something

really terrible right so can You just explain to me how in such a chaotic and horrific situation which has ultimately caused her death that she would find a pen and a paper yeah I do see where you're going with that okay I hadn't necessarily thought about a response to that so I'm going to say say that ultimately she borrowed one on the way home she borrowed one there was somebody maybe a stationers maybe there was a stationers on the way home and she was Just like can I just borrow a pen and and why are

you looking at me with such a suspicious look officer you know literally makes no sense whatsoever so she clutching this note but not actually her top also at this point dramatically Paula beneski who is clutching a Bible at the time yet clutching a Bible said that Sylvia's death was meant to happen seriously this actually happened so during this scenario where the officers are there Paula beneski who we Know is a big antagonist in this she's one of the reasons that Sylvia is dead the response that she manages in the situation is like okay how do

I how do I look innocent I want to look innocent what an innocent person do in this case an innocent person would do oh is that the massive Family Bible just pick that up clutch it to my chest what else would an innocent person do oh they'd say This was meant to happen I'm holding I'm holding this Bible and this Bible which Means I'm very good very good per I'm a great person I'm a Godly I'm a Godly I'm basically Jes I'm basically Jesus and what I'm being told as being basically Jesus is that this

was meant to happen this was meant to happen also she apparently then told Jenny Sylvia's obviously heartbroken terrified sister if you want to live with us Jenny then we'll treat you like our own sister I bet Jenny was thinking yeah brilliant amazing I definitely want to be treated Like your sister particularly if the way you treat your sister is like the way that you've treated Sylvia who's dead at this moment in time but what was possessing Paula just grab a Bible say a few words look like I'm a really nice pro-social Human by bringing Jenny

to a position where she now feels like part of our family in spite of all of this clear chaos going on around us where all I'm doing is implicating myself on a very high level that I'm guilty as hell Now as previously instructed by beneski Jenny does initially recite the rehearsed version of events so she goes on about how Sylvia had died in this horrible attack but then she Whispers to the offices you get me out of here and I'll tell you everything and I bet they were like yeah we're going to get you right

out now and we're going to get the boys and we're going to get the donuts we're going to get ready to hear because we know that they are guilty as hell When Jenny gave her formal statement to detectives the police officers immediately went out and arrested Gert benesi Paula Stephanie John Jr all on suspicion of Sylvia's murder this was within hours of discovering her body so yes the note and the Bible act didn't work very well the same day they arrested Coy hubber and Richard Hobs they were charged with the same offenses now the three

eldest bidesi children and Coy hubard they were placed in custody At nearby Juvenile Detention Center the younger children and Richard Hobbs they were detained at Indianapolis Children's Guardians home all of them were held without bail and rightly so when it came down to the interviews initially Gertrude beneski denied any involvement in Sylvia's death I had no involvement in Sylvia's death no on the 27th of October she actually decided to change that a little bit and she confessed to having known that the kids but I know I Do know now hang on a minute let me

it's coming a bit clearer now it's coming a little bit clearer now I do actually kind of recall the fact that yes the children did get involved in hostilities against Sylvia and in particular I think you'll find it was Paula it was Paula it was my daughter who was responsible for most of the abuse now don't get me wrong Paula was hideous but the fact that her own mother who has incited all of this behavior and enjoyed this abuse and has Praised them all for carrying it out she's really happy to just throw Paul straight

under the bus is that a number 33 is that a Paula is that a number 33 bus yeah oh PES her in front of it because that's exactly what she did in that moment isn't it just pushed her straight in front of that bus she was like take one for the team Paula take one for the team so essentially she's now starting to change your opinion a little bit oh I did know a little bit About the fact that Paula and COI hubard they basically physically and emotionally abused syvia but I'm not responsible she said

Paula did most of the damage and hubard did a lot of the beating I did never beat that girl never she was beat up on by other girls in fact my own daughter St her in a jaob broke her rest and uh so I mean there you go and and and girls around the neighborhood beat her up blooded her nose one girl broke her nose in fact I Think were you ever in contact with the police on any of these occasion well in the last two weeks I in fact um uh I think if if

he talked to my daughters I asked him that uh the the children's father and I were divorced and he's the police in me was and uh I asked the girls through called her dad and asked them what to do and in fact I asked Jenny I said Jenny and and I told syia I said syia I'm going to have to call the police or somebody because I can't have Any responsibility ger beneski then further admitted to forcing Sylvia to sleep in the basement and according to her three occasions when she W the bed but you

can hear can't you how evasive she is how she's skirting around the reality of the horror that she had bestowed on that girl but she's trying to get away with it by saying well I'll take a little bit of responsibility but I really wasn't the main problem in this situation and she's even more evasive When one Officer says that Sylvia most likely became incontinent due to her mental distress and also an injury to her kidneys so it's getting real serious now she can see that just sitting here and saying I know nothing probably isn't going

to wash in a court of law but let me tell you she's going to give it a best shot at making it wash now Paula who I would say at this moment in time comes across as an absolute psychopath aside from the behavior that we've seen That she inflicted on Sylvia she basically has no remorse she just goes ahead signs a statement admitting to have repeatedly beating Sylvia on the backside with the mother's police Bel she says yep I once broke my wrist on Sylvia's jaw and I did get involved in and other acts of

brutality so I did actually push her down the stairs into the basement two or three times so she just happily acknowledges the level of abuse she's been involved in John junr Who again bear in mind feels he's got permission to have done the things he's done because his mom told him to do it and encouraged him to do it he admits to spanking Silvia on one occasion and he also added that most of the time I used my fists also said that yeah I did burn Sylvia with matches on several occasions but the reason I

did this is because my mother was repeatedly burning her with cigarettes so I just kind of thought why not on the 29th of October five other Children who participated in the abuse so that was Michael monu Randy leopard Darlene Maguire Judy Juke and Anna Cisco they were also arrested all of those were charged with assault and each was subsequently released into the custody of their parents under subpoena to appear as Witnesses in the upcoming trial all I did was right that thing her stomach then I hit her about 10 or 15 times how come most

because ger told me to she Refuse food we try to get her soup every once in a while and stuff like that she wouldn't take it how about these scratch marks on her stomach who put them on her I did why well Gertie just thought of it she said since you branded us we're going to Brand you so she itched in with a pen and I went over it she showed me how to do it and then I went over it I I did it did you ever used any Hot Irons on her no yeah

I that three on her stomach I did half of that surely anded The other half where' the S come from what do you mean there's a big ass branded on her stomach right one of her bre that's what I'm talking about well that's what you're talking about but how about the inscription on there I'm a prostitute and proud of it who put that on I did did you scratch it on there paint it on there how'd you do it well like I said before Gertie roll it down there with pin and I did rest she

showed me how to do it ger abused this girl Yeah she uh I come in in about she come up from the basement and we noticed she's cold and everything so we carried her upstairs give her a warm bath and artificial respiration when well she stopped breathing see we G her a warm bath and then she stopped breathing so I gave her oural respiration for about 10 minutes and then uh where I went and called the police now the results of the postmortem as you can imagine from what I've talked about so far regarding the

injures sustained demonstrated the level of abuse and the horror inflicted on her she had suffered over 150 wounds over her entire body she was also basically starved to death she was extremely emaciated at the time of her death now the wounds themselves they varied in location they varied in nature they varied in severity and they also varied in the stage of healing because obviously it was a protracted time of Abuse it wasn't just one occasion and the injuries included Burns severe bruising extensive muscle and nerve damage her vaginal cavity was almost swollen shut all of

her fingernails have been broken backwards I hate the idea of having my fingernails bent back so that I cannot even begin to imagine how painful and horrific that was to enjoy and also it brings you the sense of what you see when gang glang killings occur and there is this protracted torture of An individual but we're talking about a 16-year-old girl here most of of the external layers of skin on Sylvia's face breast neck and right knee had literally peeled or receded and in a Death Rows syia had actually bitten through her lips and it

had partially severed sections of them from her face the official cause of Sylvia lyan's death was listed by the coroner Dr Arthur keal as a subdural hematoma due to receiving a severe blow to the right Temple but Let me tell you her injuries were numerous beyond belief and the agony she must have been in when she died is almost unspeakable her brain had shrunk she had second and third degree infected bones in various places all over her body multiple bones had fractures some were old some were fresh in total she had nearly 160 wounds some

of which were gaping and penetrating down to the bone various body cavities were basically seeping with blooded puss When they were dissecting her she also had a low red blood cell count because she was internally bleeding bear in mind the amount of blows she'd experienced and when it came down to her actual death of course the subdural hematoma was a contributory and main factor that's by the way pooling of the blood on the brain but she also had shock and malnutrition those 160 injuries had happened over time and she had been tortured to death in

the most horrific And barbaric and in enjoyed form of torture that's the most terrible part of this we're not talking about an accidental death we're talking about people who thrived on her Agony and like I said think about some of those injuries think about them dissecting a body to look at what killed her and blooded puss coming out cuz she was so infected she would have been in unspeakable Agony and pain when she died also riger mortis had fully developed at The time that her body was discovered so this means that it's likely she'd been

deceased for up to eight hours before she was even found Dr keble also noted that Sylvia had been recently bathed but he felt that maybe it was after her death and that that is what had hastened the loss of body temperature so maybe that's why the onset of riger M have happen so she could have been dead for slightly less time but nonetheless they would have known she was dead for quite A long period before they called the authorities and again that was to get the story straight that was to deal with the shock that

all of this horrific abuse had actually resulted in her ding and so on and so forth the funeral took place on the 29th of October 1965 it was held at Russell and hitch Funeral Home in Lebanon Indiana the service was officiated by Reverend LS Gibson over a hundred people attended and Sylvia actually had an open casket so people Could go and look at her and there was this beautiful portrait of her that was taken July 1965 there was adorning her coffin she was so beautiful and her headstone was inscribed with the words our darling daughter

because of course you can imagine that the parents were not prepared for what had happened in any way shape or form now do I feel like they did the right thing with leaving her with a virtual stranger no I don't think anybody should do that do I Believe that they thought they were leaving her with some kind of torturous abusive murderer no so they were doing what they thought was right at the time I think it was very misplaced trust but nonetheless they went ahead and did that because because they needed to earn money now

when it came down to the charges in this case so the 30th of December 1965 Marian County Grand jwelry returned first deegree murder indictments against Gert beneski and two Of her three oldest children that was Paula and John Jr and rightly so also indicted were Richard Hobs and Coy hubard all were charged with having repeatedly struck beaten kicked and otherwise inflicted a culmination of fatal injuries to Sylvia lyans with premeditated malice of course they did it goes with saying now three weeks before this Stephanie benesi had actually been released from custody because her solicitor had

successfully Contended that the state had insufficient evidence to support any type of murder charge and Stephanie basically waved her immunity from any potential impending prosecution whilst agreeing to testify against her family and to other individuals charged with abusing and murdering Sylvia so she basically was like I'm just going to go ahead and tell the truth and that's sensible because argu if you've not been as involved in the abuse and also if You're willing to actually help the state that will be very favorably looked on in court even if you haven't agreed any kind of plea

deal now on the 16th of March 1966 several psychiatrists who were brought in as experts they testified before the judge Saul RAB that all mentally competent to stand trial so on the 18th of April 1966 the trial begins this is a trial of Gert beneski her children Paula and John Richard Hobs and Coy hubard it all gets tried to together prosecution was led by Leroy kuu and marjerie Wesner and they were very clear they wanted the death penalty for all five defendants Gertrude was defended by William herca Paula was defended by George rice Richard Hobs

by James G neder John Jr and Coy hubard defended by for EST Bowman now as we'd expect ger beneski is like I didn't know anything I was completely insane I was insane I was not in control of my own Faculties were you're not in control of your faculties I was not in control of my faculties I did not know what I was doing when you directing the abuse no I was not I was just I was not at all in control of my faculties I was completely outside of my own mind but weren't you manipulating

people to go ahead and actually abuse this girl well you're not giving them a permission base you're not inciting the abuse I don't know what you're talking talking about I remember None of it I was completely insane how if you were insane were you able to get her to write a note indicating that she was responsible for her own death by engaging in a gang bang with a group of guys who then killed her I don't know I can't tell you I was insane honestly it's so annoying when to do this because clearly she was

not insane she was completely aware of what she was doing and she even constructed a Situation where she tried to give them all a get out of jail free card by getting that note written but basically this is what she goes down I was completely insane didn't know what I was doing whereas the rest Al like she did know what she was doing because our defense is that she pressured us into doing it so that was their defense which completely goes against what Gert Benes is saying she's trying to suggest that she's out of her

mind but the young People in this are going hey hang on a minute the only reason we did what we did and it's no excuse by the way to say that you're pressured but that's their argument that this very person who is saying that she was not in control of her own faculties was not just in control of them she was so controlling she actually got other people to be engaged in the abuse that led to the death of Sylvia now when the witnesses give testimony we have Charles Ellis for Example this is the 29th

of April he was a deputy coroner and he was the first witness to testify for the prosecution he goes on about the intense pain syvia had suffered the numerous deep cuts the punctures that covered her body and that essentially her lips were in quote shreds he said that lyans would have been in an acute State of shock for about two to three days prior to her death and that would have meant that she wouldn't have been able to resist the Abusers she couldn't have defended herself and Ellis emphasized that aside from the extensive swelling insideness

outside her genitalia Sylvia's body didn't actually show any evidence of direct sexual molestation but I'll be honest with you just because he couldn't find any evidence of that doesn't mean it didn't happen and certainly being told to insert a glass bottle inside you is sexual molestation whether it is found in that particular Coroner's Report or otherwise it happened it's as simple as that then Jenny lyans is brought in of course Sylvia's sister and she testifies for the State against all five defendants that's on the 2 and third of May she said that every single one

of them repeatedly and extensively abused both physically and emotionally her sister she said that Sylvia did nothing wrong she did nothing to provoke the assaults and she also said that there was absolutely no truth in those Original rumors that she'd been falsely accused of spreading so she wasn't even guilty of that initial issue where she apologized for apparently saying that they were prostitutes that never happened but the slurs that were made against her they happened so again it's the projection they were doing the horrible malicious RoR spreading against Sylvia and Sylvia wasn't doing that against

them she also went on to say that the abuse began about two weeks After they began living there and that Sylvia at points couldn't even produce tears because she was so dehydrated let that sinking so dehydrated she couldn't even cry then Randy lepers brought in as a witness and again sections of Jenny's testimony corroborated by Randy leper he stated that he once saw Sylvia crying it was clear that it was real that she was crying but she was shedding no actual tears he also said that he witnessed Stephanie strike Sylvia quote real hard This was

after benesi had ordered her to remove her clothes in his presence but then he visibly smirked as he confessed having beaten Sylvia himself on anywhere between 10 and 40 separate instances that's utterly sadistic he's smirking when he's talking about and I know that people could say well he's really maybe feeling a level of Shame and embarrassment and he's nervous because of that and therefore it makes him smart but couldn't it just be That he is literally a sadist and so when he's recalling what he did he's proud of it cuz certainly there seems to be

a level of pride in the actions of some of these individuals when they were abusing her then on the 10th of May a Baptist Minister I kid you not a Baptist Minister Roy Julian testifies to knowing a teenage girl was being abused in the BFI household but said I didn't report it to the police because Gert beneski told me that Sylvia had made advances to Men for money so he felt that Sylvia was being punished for soliciting just sorry let me just rewind a minute so just let's go through who you are you're a Baptist

Minister I am a Baptist Minister and as the Baptist Minister what is your job my job is to bring people closer to God and Jesus is your job as a Baptist minister to forgive well that would seem to be a part of my job I think you will find in the Bible it does suggest that we should Forgive and yet you thought it was acceptable because you thought a young girl who was very young was basically having sex with men for money that she deserved to be horrifically abused well even though the Bible does just

tell us that we should forgive if we go to the old Old Testament I think you'll find that there's a little bit more punitive Justice there we're not talking about that are we we're talking about you just ignoring the plight of a Child because you have a bias because you don't think people are deserving of God's love if they happen to be going against what you consider morally and ethically correct I do feel that you may have a point unfortunately I have the card that says that God will forgive me because I am a b

Minister honestly should be sacked immediately it's all I'm saying you can see how his Bias regarding his views towards sex and impurity Etc play in to failing to protect Silvia who was completely innocent of those rumors anyway on the same day that he gives that testimony they also bring in Judy juk she's a 13-year-old who witnessed Sylvia having salt literally rubbed into her soes onto her legs until she was screaming she also witnessed a 10-year-old Shirley beneski rip open Sylvia's blouse to which Richard Hobbs remarked everybody Is having fun with Sylvia Richard Hobbs clearly showing

what a deviant horrible human he is now Gert benesi of course she's going slightly down a different route she's going to go for the I didn't know what I was doing I was insane so on the 11th of May she testifies in her own defense because she's a narcissist and she probably believes that by appearing on the stage so to speak and acting in a way where she just looks like she just didn't have any control over her Faculties that people will buy into this believe me this woman's got a distorted idea of reality anyway

because of the way that she acted in trying to get that note written thinking it would get them all off for the horrors that they inflicted on Sylvia so she gets up on the stand denies any responsibility for Sylvia's abuse denies any responsibility for the torment denies any responsibility for the ultimate death and just says that the kids did it the Kids did it and you know what do you know what seriously aside from me not being in charge of my own faculties what I'm going to say is the kids did it did you not

realize that it was happening in your house oh it's a mad house it's a mad house that's what she said it's a mad house I've got no idea what's happening in it I'm pretty sure that any of us you've ever lived in a house big or small we would know if there was someone Emaciated and dying who is being violently assaulted on a daily level we pretty much know it I mean we can all lose things and our we've lost our keys we've lost the occasional item of Cl we all do it we put things

places we don't know but I don't think that any of us have lost an entire human and not found them until the point where they're dead after them going through quite a long period of torture so it's pretty weak isn't it her testimony and her defense It's just a bit weak she also said that I've just been a bit preoccupied with my own ill health and my own depression so I've not been able to control my children now she obviously gets annihilated because they're going to cross-examine her so when she's asked questions about whether she

had physically abused the lyan sister she basically plays it down she says that yes you know I did start to spank Sylvia on one occasion but I just couldn't go Through with it I hadn't ever hit her again because it was too much for me and it affected me emotionally so you can imagine that they have literally everybody else testifying against her and she's still suggesting that she only did it once because she's not that kind of person and she's a bit emotionally unstable yeah you were right there that was that one a bit about

you being emotionally unstable we can all agree with that can't we but she just denies Any knowledge of Sylvia ever having a beating ever being scaled by ever being branded by it ever being burnt by it even though there's a million witnesses to completely contradict that reality and so the cross-examination of her is very easy to destroy her with because they literally have the words from each of these Witnesses corroborating that she has been the main antagonist in this situation then when Richard hops takes the stand in his defense two days later He compounds the

issue for ger beneski because he says that she was called ing Sylvia to the kitchen on the 23rd of October and she stated you've branded my children so now I'm going to Brand you and goes on to say that that's how he ended up getting involved in branding Sylvia's abdomen because she asked him to finish the task and he said look I did do it I did get involved in The Branding and I did bring blood to the surface of Sylvia's flesh and she did Beg me to stop but my area of The Branding was

light sorry Mr Hobs can we just explore that for a minute so what are you saying well I'm saying that I did I did um I did brand Sylvia so you're saying you branded Sylvia why did you do that well because ger beneski told me I should so it was basically enough for somebody who's not even in control of you to tell you just brand this girl for you to go ahead I think you're being a unfair why do you think I'm being unfair because I did bring blood to the surface is but I just

branded her lightly I branded her lightly I'm just going to press this big button now all right what was that for well it's called the elevator and it's going to take you directly to hell but it's bizarre that they can even in this moment minimize their action and that's what he does he minimizes his action by saying well I could have done it more deeply like geru Ben Jesu was but I Didn't as if he's doing sylver a favor by not doing it as her rically as was being done to her by beneski he also

goes on that after Sylvia's death he just went home and watched the rest of the Lloyd facts and so so he was obviously deeply disturbed by the fact that all of these things had led to this poor girl being mercilessly murdered the next up on the stand is Marie Banfi and she literally broke down she admitted that she used the heated needle that Hobs had used to Brand Sylvia she testified to Gertrude B's indifference to Sylvia's evident distress and on one occasion she said that benesi had actually sat on a chair and crocheted as she

watched Ana Cisco attack Sylvia I mean that just takes you back to the French Revolution where they just all you to sit down and have a day out picnicking and knitting whilst people were having their heads chopped off there's that psyche of permission isn't That and that's happening here now although all five defendants had repeatedly physically mentally tortured Sylvia the most most often witnessed were Paula and her mother doing that to Sylvia and I think that's clear from what I've talked about now Grace Sergeant she said that she sat close to Paula on a church

boss and actually heard her openly bragging about breaking her own wrist due to the severity of the beating she inflicted to Sylvia's face On the 1 of August so like I said she unashamedly advertised it and Sergeant actually testified that Paula finished her boasting by stating I tried to kill her so there was an intent there bip Paula from the GetGo another person to appear in court Dwight Schuster on the 16th of may he was the court appointed doctor he said that ger benesi had been really evasive really uncooperative in interviews and assessments with her

and he believed that she was sane she was Fully in control of her actions and that she'd been sane in October 1965 and remained sane to the date of the trial Dr Schuster was subject to over two hours of intense cross-examination by Gertrude Benes solicitor but he remained steadfast that Gertrude was not and never had been psychotic when the prosecution gave the closing arguments it was delivered by Deputy prosecutor marjerie Wesner and each defendant listening to these closing arguments Except Richard Hobs remained impassive there's just no emotions there Wesner actually recounted The Continuous mistreatment Sylvia

injured before her death emphasized that she never provoked any of defendant and that when she was injured she was never given any medical care beyond occasionally having margarine rubed into scaled sections of her face and body and not being weird guys margerine it may have some old wives tail and it can be nice on a Sandwich but it's not what you put into open wounds and scaled sections of people's faces and bodies she described Sylvia's abuse as stomach wrenching and compared it to the severity of Nazi concentration camps and it was without a shadow of

a doubt as bad as those con concentration camps on that girl's individual level now with regards to proving the premeditation in this case Wesner just pointed out the notes that ger beneski forced Sylvia to write on The 24th of October she held up a portrait of Sylvia taken before July 1965 saying I wish she were here today with eyes as in this picture full of Hope and anticipation very powerful way to end now the defense obviously each lawyer for each defendant came in so William Becca for Gertrude the first closing argument attempted to portray Gertrude

as insane thus unable to appreciate the severity of her crimes in fact he said Quote I condemn her for being a murderess that's what I do but I do say she's not responsible because she's not all here if this woman is saying put her in the electric chair she committed acts of degradation that you wouldn't commit on a a dog she has to be crazy you'll have to live with your conscience the rest of your life if you send an insane woman to the electric chair he held up a picture of Sylvia's autopsy to the

jewry saying how sadistic GNA person get the Woman is star mad well again see where you're going I see where you're going but I actually just think what you managed to do in that situation was highlight what a SED IC torturous human being she was you know how to be mad to be bad in fact sadly more often than not you are just bad and Gert beneski in the right circumstances is the person who would happily send people to the gas chamber she has that mindset she's just bad then We had Forest Bowman for John

Jr and Bo hubard they attacked the prosecution's decision to seek the death penalty for juvenile saying I would like to have an hour of your time to explain why 16 year olds and 13 year olds should not be put to death he emphasized his client's age said that they were guilty of assault and battery before seeking a not guilty verdict for both JN and Koy I do understand why he wouldn't want a 13 or 16 year old being put to death I Actually would agree with that I think they're far too young to be put

to death and I do think that where there is youth there is hope when George rised close Ed for his defense of Paula he criticized the fact that Paula and the other defendants have been tried together but also managed to sidestep multiple witness testimony accounts claiming that gerre beneski and Paula beneski have been the most enthusiastic participants in Sylvia's abuse instead claimed that The evidence presented didn't equate to Paul of being guilty of murder and pleaded with the jury for a not guilty verdict for a woman who had gone through the indignity of being tried

in an open court I swear to God what was he thinking oh sorry you're saying that we should feel sorry should we feel sorry for PA that yes she's been given the indignity of being tried in a public forum hasn't she been tried because she basically admitted to enjoying torturing And killing or at least contributing towards killing Sylvia I mean she even went so far as telling people that she enjoyed breaking her her own wrist in beating her up specifically went for her faith cuz she was jealous of her and also said that she wanted

to kill her I'm saying that in spite of that she should have been spared the indignity of a public forum because I have no reason aside from saying that because I literally have no defense I don't know Why I've gone deep I think I've gone Deep South have I gone Deep South I don't know whether I've gone Deep South I heard myself then and was like I don't even think anybody would speak speak like that apart from probably a British person trying to do an accident that fall short of meeting that I apologize I apologize

but can you imagine that somehow Paula is the victim in this not Sylvia absolutely bizarre then James neder the defense for Richard Hobs he Came in and obviously been listening to Paul's council's defense closing notes because he's like listen forget sending this person who's clearly been involved in the vile abuse of this girl to prison forget it and I'll tell you why you should forget it because this boy this young man has actually had the courage in opting to testify in his own defense against Savage and Relentless cross-examination sorry sorry are you saying that you

Think the defendant should be allowed to go free because he coped with a Savage and Relentless cross-examination I am indeed is that not what your job is to do is that not what court is about it is exactly therefore are you saying that if somebody who's guilty as hell can deal with being cross-examined in a Savage and Relentless way we should just say they're not guilty I am exactly saying that that makes no sense I know I'm just clutching at swort here I'm just hoping To God that maybe you've believed what Paul's Council said and

you're just going to leverage me the same kind of opportunity just let him go please I have nothing else to add unbelievable so he attempts to portray Hobs is this follower type person I'm a follower what like all the people who follow the Nazi leadership doesn't give you an excuse in fact deeply troubling because leaders can't get anywhere without followers with Respect the followers tend to be a bit of an issue so he's trying to talk about this follower type personality who acted under Gert bet Jessica's control said that yes he did carve those obscenities

into Sylvia's abdomen but you know if he hadn't done that he'd have actually been a great witness for the state so what this is just word salad the truth is he was in involved in the sadistic abuse and the carving and branding of Sylvia's body forget that if he hadn't happened To have done that and had just seen some stuff he could have been the state's witness that's because he wouldn't have done the stuff that's why he could have been the states witness the fact that he's a defendant is because he's guilty and culpable just

make any sense anyway that's what they did also referred to Jenny's overall failure to notify authorities of her sister's abuse until she'd already died and he also tried to bring into his argument Jenn's Non-action so Sylvia's sister's non-action so he referred to Jenny's overall failure to notify the authorities of a sister's abuse until she'd already died and he said a sister who could limp three and a half miles to a park but couldn't take two or three steps out into a New York Street to beg for help so he requested a not guilty verdict and

said that Hobbs was guilty of immaturity and a gross lack of judgment but not of murder I do Understand why you brought him Jenny it is a powerful point but when you are somebody who's in an abusive situation who also believes that you're going to be abused and actually has been abused it makes it more challenging the other young people weren't in that situation but then we have Leroy new's rebuttal so new rebuts the defense council's arguments by promising to speak through the mangled and shredded lips of Sylvia lyans I see her he says wherever

I look Very powerful bring the deceased into the room in response to the defense's closing arguments new added all we hear is whining appeal anything but blame where the blame belongs emphasize that the defendants Unison in the collective mistreatment of Sylvia asked the jury to dismiss defense arguments about who may have inflicted the Fatal blow to Sylvia's head he said every mark on that girl's body contributed directly to her death this is the most hiest thing Indiana has ever seen and I hope will'll ever see again requested the death penalty for each of the defendant

said the issue here is not about the electric chair or a hospital but about Law and Order if you go below the death penalty in this case you will be lowering the value of human life by that much for each defendant the blood of this girl will forever more be on their souls powerful powerful closing statement and rebuttal so the trial in Total lasted 17 days before the jury retired to consider its verdict and on the 19th of May 1966 the jury deliberated for only 8 hours Gertrude benesi she was found guilty of first-degree murder

she was recommended for a life sentence so not the electric chair Paula beneski guilty of second deegree murder Hobs hubard and John Jr were guilty of manslaughter so on the 25th of May 1966 Gertrude and Paul were formally sentenced to life imprisonment Richard Hobs Ki hub bird and John Jr each received a sentence of 2 to 21 years to be served in the Indiana Reformatory however in 1970 there were retrials so Indiana Supreme Court reversed Gertrude and Paula bis's convictions because judge Rob had apparently repeatedly denied motion submitted by the defense at the original trial

for both a change of venue and separate trials they stated that extensive news publicity Surrounding the case created a prejudicial atmosphere and it impeded any chance of receiving a fair trial did it CU they could have got the death penalty just throwing it out there you know if they'd all got the death penalty we might have been like a bit biased there all putting kids to death but they didn't none of them got the death penalty some got two to 21 years so arguably you could say that there wasn't a bias and that the jury

had been quite Diligent and judicious in that decision so Paula when it came down to the retrial didn't want to face a new one so she basically pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter rather than face it she was sentenced to serve a term of between two and 20 years imprisonment despite I kid you not I can't believe I'm going to let these words fall from my mouth despite two unsuccessful Escape attempts in 197 two she tried to escape twice guys this is Somebody who men have taken responsibility and accountability she she tried to escape twice right

so we're going to get some years added on right no she gets released from prison in December 1972 oh well she's tried hard to escape we should probably just Let It Go just Let It Go I kid you not where is the justice for Sylvia lyans in that unbelievable she's still acting criminally by trying to escape prison but let's just let her go Free but when it comes down to Gert Ben JY she gets convicted of first-degree murder once again of course she does and then again she's sentenced to life in prison of course she

is a model prisoner 14 years pass she becomes known as this real role model at the Indiana women's prison she works in the prison sewing shop she's known as The Den mother to these younger female inmates some of them even calling Kum cuz they have absolutely no taste and have had no Role Models before but understandably this bodess well for her if there's going to be a parole hearing should there be a parole hearing for this kind of case no but anyway it goes ahead so in 1985 gert's up for parole so of course when

news of Gertrude benad Jesus's impending parole gets out there's upro in Indiana you've got Jenny lyans and other family members absolutely devastated so they start protesting against this and my God they do a good job also there's members Of two anti-me groups they travel to Indiana to oppose ger Ben's potential parole and they're publicly supporting the lyans family and they even initiated a sidewalk picket campaign over two months the groups collected over 40,000 signatures which bear in mind back then that is no easy feat to actually get 40,000 signatures and this is all demanding that

ger beneski remains in prison for the rest of her life and it causes a real feror because obviously You have to take seriously the discontent and unrest in the general public and because of this they actually make her parole hearing public now within that hearing Gertrude states that she wished Sylvia's death could be undone I mean what I would like to do in these parole hearings is not legal but it just feels so empty to hear somebody who's meant to have recognized the sins that she has carried out and it's had all These years to

do so but instead is all very timid and I can't undo it you murdered this innocent girl you tortured her beyond belief you degraded and humiliated her but it can't be undone all she did throughout was minimize the responsibility for her actions she said I'm not sure what role I had in Sylvia's death because I was on drugs I never really knew her I take full responsibility for whatever happened to Sylvia no you don't you just minimized What you did you said you didn't know what you were doing you didn't really know what happened you

were on drugs it's not your fault and now it's a in my opinion add insult to injury at the proboard she says that she's a born again Christian so not only does she not really remember any of the crimes not only does she not have the power to bring this poor child back not only does she minimize herself massiv by saying that she was on drugs and can't remember Anything she then's like and also I'm a born again Christian drum roll might drop like what so what well I'm born again Christian and well I'm born

again so basically the person that you see in this room isn't actually me well it looks like me but it isn't me cuz she isn't here anymore I'm born again so everything that she did I'm not responsible for that's not how it works yes it is and also I'm totally forgiven because the big God that's what he does I'm not sure it is because I think that there are some things that mean that you're going to go down the elevator to help no I'm born again it wasn't me I didn't do it also I've heard

that Paula tried to escape twice and she got let out so if I just get up now and leave because I'm a born again person who's not the person you used to know before is it okay I look can can can we just please just send it back to the stocks are there any stocks any no apparently That's illegal as well anyway I kid you not she's born again Christian so they're all going to explore this new person essentially and so the parole board decide that they're going to take into account all this Good Conduct

and they vote in favor of granting her parole and one of the prole boards said this oh and I find this insulting they said the bottom line is that you cannot bring someone who is dead and gone back to life and I wouldn't be a member of This parole board if I didn't believe people could change really so your thing is well you know what this person who's murdered they can't be risen from the dead so what are we going to do let's just let the people responsible out if that were the way it worked

we'd be screwed there'd be serial killers everywhere wouldn't there because at the end of the day you'd be like oh well all those victims are dead what can we do about that let's just let this person Out screw it so she ends up getting released from prison on the 4th of December 1985 bear in mind she was given a new identity she had a job waiting for her she changed her name to Nadine van fsen apparently that was a combination of a middle and maiden name and of course she now described herself as a devout

Christian in the aftermath of this case she relocated at Iowa never accepted full responsibility for Sylvia's abuth and death she primarily Blamed the medication she said that she was prescribed this medication for her asthma and that was the issue she then lived in relative obscurity in Laurel Iowa and then on the 16th of June 1990 she died of lung cancer age 61 so maybe the big God wasn't quite as forgiving of her as she thought he may be Paul leeski also assumed a new identity after a release she changed her name to Paula Pace worked

as an aid to a school counselor of course she did did that for 14 years at the Beaman Conrad Union witon Community School in Conrad Iowa apparently concealed the truth about a criminal history when applying for the job so it's unsurprising that in 2012 she was fired when the school discovered her true identity pretty horrific to realize that somebody who was meant to help the school counselor was actually a torturous sadist Paula went on to marry had two children and the baby daughter that she actually had when she was Awaiting trial in 1966 was adopted

and that makes sense because she wouldn't have been able to take care of her Stephanie benasi her charges were actually dropped but the prosecutors did resubmit the case Cas before a grand jury on the 26th of May 1966 but TR never materialized and she actually assumed a new name Stephanie CK's Dad she moved to Florida became a school teacher what's not to worry about with those kind of things Happening nice new nice new school teacher do you know anything about her past um I think she was a torturous sadist oh great yeah seems to be

something that happens more often than it should so she later married had several children and as regards the other children after the mother's arrest Marie Shirley and James they were all placed into the care of separate Foster families that must have been difficult they were all separated and their Surnames were legally changed to Blake in the late 1960s after the father regained custody which is something that I hope led to lives of success because certainly things are not in their favor at this point Dennis Lee Wright junr he was later adopted and his name was

changed to Denny Lee White Richard Hobs and Coy hubard and John Jr they all served less than two years let that sink him less than two years for contributing to the brutal Murder of that poor girl and they were granted parole on the 27th of February 1968 then the 2 of January 1972 that's less than four years after its release Hobbs died of lung cancer he was 21 and in the years after his release and before his death he's actually known to have suffer at least one nervous breakdown when you think about stress coping and

disease and the psychological ramifications of those things that can contribute to your health demise I Genuinely think that happened I think that out of all of them he genuinely felt a level of guilt and I think that that manifested in ending his life so early I think he couldn't cope with knowing the torture he put that poor girl through and knowing that he contributed to her death I think he almost slowly killed himself that's my personal take on that COI hubber he remained in Indiana he didn't attempt to change his name repeatedly in prison for

Various criminal offenses and in 1977 he was charged with the murders of two men it was later acquitted that was largely due to the fact that the chief witness of the case was the convicted criminal acquaintance of hubber who was present at the murders so not being funny probably shouldn't have been acquitted but the 23rd of June 2007 he died of a heart attack in Shelbyville Indiana John Jr he changed his name to John Blake became a lay Minister I kid you not a Lay Minister hosted counseling sessions for children of divorced parents and several

decades after his release John released a statement acknowledging the fact that he and his codefendants should have been handed more severe punishments spoke publicly about his past and also admitted that he enjoyed the attention Sylvia's murder brought upon Him claim to only ever have hit Sylvia once but we all know that's a massive pile of steaming BS on the 19th of May 2005 he Died of diabetes aged 52 at Lancaster General Hospital now injury to person charges against other children involved Ana Cisco Judy Duke Michael Monro darling Maguire and Randy leper all of those were

dropped leper who be in mind had visibly smirked as he testified to hitting Silvia on 40 occasions well he died at the age of 56 on the 14th of November 2010 so not a very long l again these things can eat you up you have a shred of conscience now Sylvia's family Because they were all horrifically affected Jenny lyans she actually married a man named Leonard Wade they had two children she apparently remained traumatized by sylv's abuse for the rest of her life and she was actually dependent upon anxiety medication Elizabeth and Lester lyans they

died in 1998 and 2013 respectively and in the Years prior to the death Jenny repeatedly emphasized that no blame should be put on either one of her Parents for placing heren Sylvia in gert's care so she obviously saw the anguish and pain that caused the parents and she didn't feel it was due the house at 385 East New York Street it actually St vacant for many years after Sylvia's death and the arrest of her abusers and discussions were held about what they could do with it maybe rehabilitating the house converting it into a women's shelter

but the funds were actually never raised and on the 23rd of April 2009 they actually demolished it so the SES a church car park now let's talk about Sylvia's Legacy so in June 2001 first of all a six foot tour Memorial formerly dedicated to Sylvia's Life and Legacy was placed in Willard Park Indianapolis which is beautiful she deserves to have her memory heard her memory known her Legacy lived it was attended by several hundred people that's many more than attended her funeral her death is also credited with Indiana's mandated report of Law and with an

increased understanding of the investigation recognition of abuse so the law states that should a member of the public such as the neighbors suspect a child is suffering abuse and neglect they have a legal obligation to report the abuse to authorities which is so important on the 26th of October 2015 numerous Indianapolis citizens this is including Sylvia's older sister Diana gathered in Lebanon Indiana to honor Sylvia on her 50th anniversary of a death so still she's in the hearts and minds of so many it's so sad that somebody who was so invisible during her short years

has now become so unbelievably visible after her death Sylvia's Child Advocacy Center is officially dedicated to the memory of Sylvia lykans it was founded in 2010 it's originally named The Boon County Child Advocacy Center but it's renamed in Sylvia's honor in 2016 and the Executive director said the most important thing that we can do is tell kids they are hurt and we are listening something no one did for young Sylvia she did not die in vain she died died a horrific death because of that we are hoping that another child can be saved and they

will numerous children will be saved because of the sacrifice of that poor girl so this organization has been formed to assist victims of child abuse neglect and to make sure that they Prevent child abuse in the area professionals work with both law enforcement and local Department of Child Services they do forensic interviews and they assist with legal procedures as well as mental and medical health referrals this case still today the Sylvia likings case still today Remains the most researched true time case in Indiana so even aside from the Legacy I've just talked about the Legacy

comes with the horror because people Like me continue and will continue to always look at this case because it demonstrates the depraved potential of certain human beings and also the lack of Justice with this victim as far as I'm concerned the main perpetrator and instigators in this Paula and her mother Gert they should have stayed in prison for the rest of their natural life if they were even given the opportunity to live that life because I said the death sentence was on the table it's a poor Indictment of our society that they walked free as

you will tell from the amount of time this has taken this video has been one of those that is Mammoth and it's Mammoth for a good reason there is so much information to dissect and explore I hope that you feel if you've watched this all the way through that you have taken some knowledge that you didn't know then I will have done my job as ever it is blindsiding to me that we're talking about the sadistic abuse Torture and murder of a young girl and yet the perpetrators got off so unbelievably lightly Sylvia lyan's death

was protracted over a long period of time she would have been in agonizing pain for a long period of time and yet those who killed her got off on the whole with a slap on the wrist we really are talking about that in the context of crime and sentencing it's harrowing to imagine that in spite of the very strong prosecution ultimately every single Person walked free in the end and yet most of them died young and that's the something doesn't it maybe it's them punishing them elves being eaten up inside their rottenness decaying who they

are maybe ultimately it's an intervention from a higher power who knows I hope that you've like I said felt an empathy for Sylvia likings and not just seen her as a victim she was a whole human being who was very well loved and should to all intents and Purposes have lived a really good positive life and she had that denied but the one thing that can't be denied is her Legacy and that her name will be long remembered for many many decades if not hundreds of years to come as all of her perpetrators names will

long be forgotten take care guys let me know your thoughts on this case leave me a comment below I'll see you again next time and as ever be [Music] Safe [Music]