MURDERED: Sylvia Likens

[00:00] Hi, crime junkies. It's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now wherever you get your podcasts. [00:31] Hi, crime junkies. Welcome back to another episode. I'm Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today we have another really famous Indiana case for you that everyone has been requesting. But before we jump in, I want to ask you, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, please go leave us a five-star review. We are dangerously close to having 2,000 five-star reviews, which is insane. So insane. [01:00] our listeners are on Apple Podcasts. And the fact that we don't even have 2000 is crazy. So I'm looking at you guys. I know you're listening and I know you haven't left us a review. So if you like the show, we're on what episode? [01:13] 28 now 29 29 I think [01:16] Yeah, so leave us a five-star review if you like what we're doing. It helps other people find the show. It really helps us out, and it's totally free for you. So please go do that. Show us some love.

[01:46] Brett, I am starting to wonder about our twisted listeners because this case that I'm about to cover today is probably the second most requested one and probably one of the most messed up ones in my opinion. [02:12] Yeah, I've never really dived too deep into this case, so I'm excited to hear all the details because it's [02:19] Probably at least in the top five of Indiana's most notorious cases, right? Right. And this is the case of Sylvia Likens. Sylvia was born to a very large, very poor family. They all lived in Boone County, which is basically northwest of Indianapolis, where I am now. [02:39] Sylvia's dad only had an eighth grade education. So by the time our story begins in 1965, he had held many jobs. He had a laundry route. He worked in factories. And for a while, he even worked with traveling carnivals, selling food from a concession cart. [03:09] back into it. But the carnival life, the traveling carnival life is no life for five children. So they had to find someone to look after their kids.

[03:20] Their oldest daughter was grown and married, so they didn't have to worry about her. And their two boys were going to go stay with their grandparents. So they really just needed a place for the two girls to stay. [03:31] Sylvia and Jenny. Now these two girls, to give you a little bit about them, Jenny is shy. She's the younger one. She's somewhat insecure. She has this lingering limp from a bout of childhood polio. Sylvia, on the other hand, is a very confident 16-year-old girl. She's outgoing. She's beautiful, but she did have a little insecurity about her smile. She would always keep her mouth closed [04:01] family was looking for someone to watch after their girls, a mutual friend introduced the Likens to Gertrude Benichefsky. [04:09] But at the time, for whatever reason, she was going by Gertrude Wright, which was the last name of her most recent baby daddy, who she said lived over in Germany. [04:20] When you say most recent, [04:22] How many baby daddies were there? She had seven kids, and the six oldest all had Gertrude's last name, Benachefsky. But that's because they all had the same father, who was Gertrude's ex-husband. The youngest, though, had the last name of Wright because I assume that's the name of the boyfriend or fling or whatever this guy was. And she said that the dad wasn't with them because he was in Germany serving in the army.

[04:52] in ages from 18 months old to 17 years old. Whoa. I know it's a it's like a wide range but to paint you a picture she's 37 years old she has a house full of kids [05:06] no income. She has some child support coming in from her ex-husband, but it's barely anything in those days. Not enough to actually keep a home with... [05:16] seven kids running and no actual steady job. The only thing that was bringing in money for her is she was earning money ironing, which I would imagine doesn't actually pay a whole lot. They all lived in this very big rented house with enough room to take in two more people. So this connection is made between her and the Likens and she probably needed the extra money. [05:39] money. So she offered to take in the two girls for $20 a week. And also she's got all these kids already and they all are constantly bringing their friends over and their friends, friends and having sleepovers. So she's probably thinking in her mind, like 20 bucks, I'll probably have the same amount of people I always have in my house. I mean, she already had seven. It's like as standard. So at that point, what's two more? [06:03] I always hear people say after three kids, it's pretty much all the same. And I call BS because, I mean, I get after three, you're running a zone defense, but my wallet and my body would for sure know the difference between three and seven. And anyone who says differently is lying to us and lying to themselves.

[06:24] So the girls go to live with Gertrude and [06:27] her kids, and their parents leave with a plan to basically send money every month for the girls' room and board. [06:35] Almost from the start, there's conflict between Sylvia and Gertrude's 17-year-old daughter, Paula. Nothing severe. Like, they just didn't get along. They were constantly bickering. I mean, the two were almost the same age. So I can see just getting shoved into another girl's house your same age. You can probably step on each other's toes. So this made Gertrude, like Sylvia, less than Jenny. [06:57] She already didn't love them both, like the way she loved her kids. They were very much like had this Cinderella evil stepmother vibe where she treated her kids one way and then she treated Sylvia and Jenny another way. But because of this rift between Paula and Sylvia, this for sure made Gertrude like Sylvia even less. [07:27] payments doesn't arrive on the expected date. And when she doesn't get her money, Gertrude takes the girls upstairs, slaps them, and basically says, and this is a quote from the trial transcripts, is, I've been taking care of you two b**** for a week for nothing. [07:45] Amen. [07:46] The money actually ended up arriving the next day, literally just one day late. But something had shifted. She started using this fraternity style paddle on the girls for even the smallest offenses, like exchanging soft drink bottles for change at the grocery store.

[08:04] I don't get it. Why would exchanging drink bottles at the store be bad? [08:09] Yeah, I don't either. I fully support recycling, but they would get spanked for it. So she would literally just find any reason, anything that she could point to and be like, I hate that you did that. And she would take a paddle to these girls. And one time, this is when it starts to really escalate, Gertrude suspected Sylvia of stealing. So she used matches to burn the tips of her fingers. And when Gertrude's asthma would act up, instead of just, you know, like, [08:37] maybe not torturing the girls that day, she would have her 17-year-old Paula start to punish them instead. [08:45] And I don't know when the transition fully happened. Like for this abuse to start, I guess she didn't get her money, but her kids were never abused. And she really didn't abuse Jenny as much. Again, to me, she just doesn't have this history of it. Something snapped in her. Again, something made her take it out on Sylvia. So now she's passed the baton to Paula. [09:15] to her, like neighborhood kids and her friends at school, or if they just had so many friends over that these friends kind of saw what was going on. But neighborhood kids started coming around to watch Paula, like punish and torment these girls, specifically Sylvia, and then eventually would participate in this. And some would practice their judo on her, literally throwing her against the wall, kicking her, beating her. Some would put cigarettes out

[09:45] though they also all got off on humiliating her one time she had to stand in front of a group of these teenagers boys and girls alike and gertrude made her completely undress and then put a coke bottle into her vagina just for their viewing pleasure this is so messed up [10:07] Who requested this again? [10:09] Probably people like me who only knew like the surface of this story and not the actual awful details because I had known [10:38] Yeah. [10:39] Totally feels like her sins are the problem here. Nice one, Gertrude. I know, I know. So because of this trauma, physically and mentally, Sylvia starts wetting the bed. And it seems kind of a plausible reaction to this. Like she's going through a lot of physical stress. But now because she's wetting the bed, of course, Gertrude flips out. And her reaction is to burn her pretty badly. [11:09] even worth being in the same area as her and her kids. You know, she's basically an animal. She's just wetting the bed. She has no control over herself. So she moves her to the cellar.

[11:20] When she's put in the cellar, Gertrude also decides, you know, meh, you know what? She actually doesn't even need to leave the house ever again. So she locks her in there and just every once in a while throws down some crackers and water. And at this point, she's not even allowed to leave the cellar to go to the bathroom anymore. She's literally defecating on the floors. She's going to the bathroom in corners, not even being treated like a human. [11:48] It's at some point when she's down here, and again, Gertrude is putting all this violence on her. Gertrude has her kids, not just Paula helping, but her son as well. The neighborhood kids are helping, and it's almost like it's feeding her need for this instead of feeling like she's getting her aggression out and maybe backing up a little bit. It's almost the more she does, the more she ends up hating Sylvia. Yeah, it's snowballing. Terribly. [12:18] and apparently proud of it. So to show that, she starts to etch that very saying into Sylvia's stomach. It said, I am a prostitute and proud of it. About halfway through, though, she gets tired. So one of the neighbor boys, like, steps in to finish the job. I'm sorry. Where the F is this neighborhood of monsters? Did you know any kids in middle school who'd be like... [12:42] Yeah, totally. Let's carve up this girl being held prisoner in a basement. Yeah, I have no idea. I have to assume it's some kind of mob mentality. I don't know much about, like, any of these kids that were there and their friends and their home lives.

[12:58] But I just can't figure out like how somebody sees that. And not only do you not go home and be like, hey, by the way, our neighbor's keeping a girl. Maybe it's not cool. Should we tell somebody? But for you to actively participate in it just because your friends are or your friend's mom is. It's so... [13:17] incredible, honestly. I can't think of a different word that [13:21] this would just kind of consume everyone, all these kids in the neighborhood, and completely blind them to how wrong it was. Yeah, so I don't know if, like, if they all had, like, a very rough upbringing, which would have contributed to it, and then you have, like, a mob mentality, then you have the fact that they're all very young and impressionable... [13:41] I don't know. Or it could have literally just been the perfect storm of everything, and they were all a bunch of little monsters. [13:48] And this is what happened when they all somehow got together. [13:52] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. [14:12] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [14:19] wherever you get your podcasts. [14:22] Well, it wasn't long after she was moved into the cellar that it became clear to Gertrude that Sylvia was dying. So instead of like getting her help, like any help at all, or even just like taking her out of the cellar and maybe feeding her a meal and letting her take a shower and go to the bathroom in a toilet. She forces Sylvia to write a note basically saying that, hey, I'm dying because a gang of boys beat me.

[14:51] I'm sorry, what gang of boys? [14:53] A gang of boys that broke into the house and beat the crap out of her [14:58] every day, every other day, for like months. - So that's the thing, clearly Gertrude wasn't super smart, because the plan that she had was to blindfold Sylvia, and then dump her in the woods with this note next to her. - That plan makes even less sense. [15:17] The note [15:18] Okay, sure, maybe, but she did that instead of getting herself help? I don't get it. I don't know where this is going. No, like, I don't even get the note part, because even if, like, say a gang of boys did beat you up in the woods, like, you're going to write a note about it instead of taking five seconds to, like, go get yourself help? Or, I don't even know why you write a note, like, oh, sorry, Mom and Dad, a gang of boys beat me up, bye? Bye. [15:43] It just doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense, but clearly she was panicking because this girl is dying in her basement, and she was trying to deflect suspicion. Well, while Gertrude is coming up with her flawless plan, Sylvia tries to escape, which enrages Gertrude, and her and one of the neighbor boys actually end up beating the crap out of her. And not long after this, she passes away right there in the cellar, and they have to end up calling police. [16:13] Dickens' official day of death was on October 26, 1965. And the cause of death was determined to be brain swelling from blunt force trauma, from being kicked and beat over and over. And when they found her body, they said it was completely mutilated. I mean, she had been beaten. She had cigarettes put out on her skin. She had scratch marks. She had cut marks.

[16:43] Amen. [16:43] I am a prostitute and proud of it. None of this says accident. [16:48] at all. And I guess one of the kids I had heard [16:52] is actually the reason why they found out it was the mom. I mean, obviously they knew someone in the house had to do with it, but one of the kids was like, listen, I'll tell you what happened, but you have to promise to get me out of this house. So despite her super sneaky attempt at throwing the police off of her trail, they end up finding out almost immediately that Gertrude and some of her kids had something to do with this. [17:15] So they put Gertrude on trial. [17:19] And this monster gets up there and basically is like, listen, I have no idea what happened. I had no knowledge of it. You know, what probably happened is my kids probably did this, and I just was totally oblivious to it. I feel like that's all we need to know about Gertrude as a mother. She just threw her own kids under the bus. Yes, which don't get me wrong. Like, yes, they partook in it because their mother... [17:48] like started it and was doing it and kind of lured them into it. So they are definitely culpable for, [17:54] But... [17:55] This was not their plan. So really, you're going to try and get up there, pointing your finger at them. Like, are you kidding me? So... [18:03] No one on the jury in 1966 fell for this because they found her guilty of first-degree murder. They also found Paula was guilty of second-degree murder, and they find that two neighborhood boys and one of her sons are also guilty of manslaughter. Gertrude and her daughter got life sentences, and all of the boys got two 21-year life terms.

[18:34] Gertrude and Paula both got new trials because the Indiana Supreme Court found that they were convicted in, quote, a prejudicial atmosphere. Wow. [18:45] And Britt, do you want to kind of explain what that means? Yeah, sure. In the US, [18:49] Everyone has a right to a trial by an unbiased jury of their peers. The fact that the trial was held in the same area where the Benichevskis lived meant that everyone knew what was going on and everyone already had an idea of who did what and who was guilty. Right. And again, this was 1965. That's not that long ago. Everything was probably pretty heavily publicized in newspapers and there were like news reports. [19:19] Like, that's crazy. So I have to imagine, kind of like we talked about the Scott Peterson case and how the media took over, I'm sure the media reports were just like non-stop here in Indianapolis. [19:34] Sylvia and Paula and probably some of the other kids involved are all minors. Their names wouldn't have even been released nowadays. Right. So... [19:43] Basically, their convictions get overturned. They get a new trial. But when they go back, Gertrude got life again. And this time, Paula didn't risk it. She pled guilty to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. [19:56] and served... [19:57] Are you ready for it? Oh, probably not. She served just two years in prison and then was released. I'm sorry. Two years. What?

[20:07] two years is insane for what she did. At least Gertrude and the boys were sentenced longer. Well, hold your applause for the legal system, because the boys were released on parole for good behavior. After only serving... [20:21] Do you want to guess? [20:23] Please be longer than two years. [20:24] Oh weird, exactly two years. So they got out in 1968 before Gertrude and Paula were even granted their new trial. What? Yes. I get that they were only charged with manslaughter. [20:37] quotes around Only, by the way. But that's ridiculous! They tortured this girl! [20:43] for months. And I know that like people get out on good behavior and I know you can get paroled early and time served and sometimes they'll count like every one year is two years, but they all got two [20:55] 21-year sentences, I don't understand how on earth that equates to two years. I'm not good at math, but I don't think it does. Yeah, no. And, oh, oh, and, even Gertrude got out on parole in 1985. I'm sorry, I didn't know they parole you after you torture a child to death. I didn't either, and it's not even like they let her out when she was on her deathbed. [21:25] and she did. She changed her name to Nadine Van Frossen, I think is how you pronounce it, and moved to Iowa and lived out like an existence kind of in obscurity away from everything else. And she eventually died from lung cancer. And her daughter actually ended up, Paula, the one that like hated Sylvia and would help torture her, ended up getting married and moving to Iowa. I don't know if to be with her mother or if everyone bad moves to Iowa. I think it's an okay state.

[21:55] So you know how I am, I can't not Google something. And while you've been talking, I decided to look up Paula, and I found an article from 2012 that... [22:06] It talks about this girl who was involved with a grisly murder from 1965. And it turns out Paula was a teacher's aide in Iowa. Are you serious? I am. She was a teacher's aide in Iowa. So she had been going by the name Paula Pace. I don't know if that's a married name or a name that she just came up with. And she worked for a school district in Iowa since 1998. [22:36] working as a teacher's aide for special needs students. So do they, do you know, like from the article, did they know she had a criminal wrecker, but they just didn't look into what it was and she was... [22:49] Just got promoted. Because I get why they fired her. That's not quite the person you want around a bunch of kids when you're responsible for them. Be like, oh, don't worry. Parents, leave your kids with us. We're just going to have this child abuser take care of them real quick. So I'm going through the article and it doesn't really say what happened. Only that Pace's true identity started getting circulated around Facebook. [23:19] background. As soon as the police found who she really was, they notified the school and everyone started doing background checks. It doesn't say that they hadn't done background checks before, but if this was an assumed name, not a legal name, it wouldn't have shown up anyway. That is crazy. So she's working with kids. Oh, are you ready to explode? Because I need you to take a deep breath. I have something that might be worse than being a teacher.

[23:43] I'm already like... [23:44] boiling over her teaching in Iowa. [23:46] Okay, one of Gertrude's sons, one of the older ones that actually would help torture, became a minister in Texas. Yes, and focused a lot of his time on counseling children of divorce. Okay. [24:01] Like a minister? That's taking it like 10 steps further than teacher, in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, you want to talk, I guess like those two years in prison must have been really reformative. And one of the neighbor boys actually that got convicted as well, he ends up dying really young at like 21 of cancer. So this is where Sylvia's story ends. But in kind of a random twist, Sylvia's older sister was in the news recently. [24:31] with her husband at the time all this went down? Yeah. In 2015, her older sister and her husband went missing in California for like two weeks. And I remember following this story because of course, every news article about them linked, like linked back to her sister and they always mentioned it. So it became a big story here in Indiana, even though they went missing in Southern California. Well, one Sunday they went to a casino in California where they were seen leaving around [25:01] Then they were expected at their son's house for a Mother's Day celebration, but never showed up. So we're getting all these articles. No one can find them. Of course, there's always this crazy speculation and somehow they're trying to like track it back to their sister. But of course, it has nothing to do with Sylvia's story. But after the two weeks that they reported missing, their car was found in a remote area of San Diego County.

[25:31] over in the driver's seat. Both were unconscious and they found out he had actually passed away of what they later found to be a heart attack. But Diana was alive and just barely. And I think even Diana thought that she was going to die in that passenger seat because they found a note of the couple describing what had happened after they left the casino on May 10th. And it was on this clipboard inside their car that they were going to die in that passenger [25:57] And their car was like off of the road, like three quarters of a mile down this steep, rugged dirt road. And they basically had this whole note kind of explaining they had gotten lost. They were trying a new route and they were on this, [26:12] dirt road that really you couldn't even fit two cars down. So they realize they're going the wrong way and they try and turn around and their car got stuck on a rock. [26:24] And they just [26:25] stayed there and died. Oh my god. [26:28] I know. So I have no idea like why you wouldn't get out of the car and go walk or whatever. But so she she ended up being fine. Her husband did pass away from this. But it was something really strange that brought Sylvia's case back up just in 2015. And there's still like all this speculation about what caused Gertrude to do this. And some of like the psychology behind it, I really recommend people look into there's a little bit out there about Gertrude. I don't know how much they actually [26:58] There was one guy who had her do this self-portrait of herself. And when she drew herself, she had these, like, giant hands with long fingers. And at the end of the fingers, they looked like little claws. And apparently, this guy says it's suggestive of some kind of sadism and wanting to hurt people. So...

[27:22] She clearly had some kind of mental instability. At trial, she claimed that she was insane. I don't think we can buy that she was insane because all of her acts were very deliberate. And again, what a... [27:33] about Sylvia made her want to do this? Because she was around kids, gosh, almost her whole life. And something in Sylvia brought it out in her. [27:44] But if people want to all draw their own self-portraits and send them to us, I would kind of be into it. I'm terrified of that. We'll find a murderer in our fans. Goals. So if you want to go to our Facebook discussion group and share your self-portrait, you can search that at Crime Junkie Podcast Discussion Group on Facebook. And I guess you can tweet them at us at Crime Junkie Pod or post them on Instagram. Crime Junkie Podcast. Make sure you tag us. [28:14] story. This episode of Crime Junkie was written and hosted by me, edited by David Flowers, [28:44] comes from Justin Daniel. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

[28:55] Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? [29:14] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now and I've been listening for years. [29:18] I think you'll love it too. [29:19] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.