House of Evil

House of Evil: The Indiana Torture Slaying by John Dean, 231 pages

In July of 1965, Gertrude Baniszewski, a 37 year old mother of seven living in Indianapolis, agreed to care for 16 year old Sylvia Likens and her 15 year old sister Jenny in exchange for 20 dollars a week.  In October, police responding to an emergency call found Sylvia dead, emaciated, her body covered in bruises, burns, and open sores, the words "I'm a prostitute and proud of it!" carved into her stomach beneath a branded "3".

Horrific as it was, Sylvia's torture and death would blend into the background of child abuse if not for the identity of the perpetrators.  As it came out, not only did Gertrude abuse the girl, her children were also encouraged to join in, and their friends participated, too.  It became a neighborhood game to put out cigarettes on Sylvia's body or push her down the stairs.  Her three oldest children were arrested along with six neighbors, Gertrude was ultimately convicted of first degree murder, her eldest daughter of second degree murder, and three boys of manslaughter.

This book tells the story poorly, although how much of this is due to a failure on Dean's part and how much the result of conflicting stories and foggy details is unclear.   It seems as if, in a case with so many witnesses, a better account could have been constructed despite the obvious difficulties, but Dean seems to have relied almost exclusively on courtroom testimony - House of Evil was originally published soon after the trial and it is unclear how much it has been updated.  The children are portrayed more like preteens than the teenagers they were.  There is a natural reluctance to defame the victim, but Dean loses a great deal of credibility when he seemingly accepts the transparent lie that Sylvia found a set of gym clothes lying in the street - important because it ties in with claims by the tormentors that Sylvia had been caught stealing on other occasions.  Worst of all, the chronology is vague and confused, making it extremely difficult to chart the escalation of abuse and the manner in which the abusers fed off each other, which is the key narrative.  Instead, the story is a catalog of seemingly random horrible things that horrible people did to an almost entirely innocent girl.