Now living in the basement of the home, Sylvia’s lack of access to a toilet, or even to a bucket, leading her to have to urinate and defecate on the floor of the basement. Gertrude created a ‘bathing regime’ for Sylvia, which consisted of tying the girls hands and feet, dunking her into scalding hot water and then rubbing handfuls of rock salt onto her skin.
It was around this time that Gertrude got herself a ‘personal assistant’ for dealing with Sylvia, this assistance came from Ricky Hobbs, a 14 year old honor student from a middle class family nearby, who had never gotten in trouble with the law prior to this. Reportedly, Ricky’s personality changed almost as soon as he met Gertrude and the family, and it was actually rumoured that Gertrude was molesting the young boy, and using this is a way to ‘seduce’ the boy into taking the ‘job’.
It was also around this time that the neighbourhood kids really began to get involved, with the Baniszewski children overseeing and actually profiting off of their involvement. The kids would charge the kids in the neighbourhood in order to get involved, from simply seeing Sylvia naked, since she was forced to remain naked while in the basement, to pushing the young girl down the basement stairs.
As well as being kept naked, Sylvia was very rarely fed, and when she was, it was in strange almost torturous ways, such as having to eat a bowl of soup with her fingers. In place of actual food, Sylvia was fed disgusting things, she was forced by Gertrude and usually by Gertrude’s 12 year old son John Jr to ‘clean’ the basement, which entailed her collecting and being forced to eat her own feces. She would also be forced to urinate in containers and drink it in place of water.
Seeing how severe the abuse was growing by this point, Jenny managed to overcome her fear of Gertrude and actually managed to sneak a letter to the girls older sister Diana, telling her everything that was happening in the home. However, Diana didn’t take the letter seriously, believing Jenny to be exaggerating because she wasn’t happy, and instead wanted to be allowed to live with Diana and her family, and so she was in no rush to go and check on the girls. When she did go to check on the girls however, she was not permitted to enter the home, which naturally made her very suspicious and very concerned, and when Gertrude threatened to call the police, Diana hid just around the corner, hoping that Jenny or Sylvia would leave the home and walk by her. At some point she found Jenny, but the young girl was terrified and shaking and told her older sister that she wasn’t ‘allowed to talk’, before running back to the home. Diana did all she could, contacting social services and expressing her concern about the Baniszewski home. It is not known for sure whether Diana told them or showed them the letter which Jenny had sent her previously. However, when social services paid the family a visit, Gertrude claimed that Sylvia no longer lived in the home. She claimed that Sylvia had been thrown out for being a prostitute, and a bad influence on her own children, and Jenny had already been told that if she told the social worker the truth she would be thrown into the basement to love with Sylvia. Clearly a check of the home either didn’t take place or wasn’t done very thoroughly, since the social worker left the home with no concerns, and wrote a report claiming that no further visits were needed.
This is probably one of the most saddening parts of this case, is the amount of times someone or something could have put an end to this horrific abuse before it was too late.
Besides the Vermillion’s, and this social worker, there were several other people who knew and did nothing. When Judy Duke, who was 12 years old saw the treatment which Sylvia was enduring, she returned home and actually told her mother that “they were beating and kicking Sylvia”. Apparently not concerned, her mother reportedly responded that they were punishing the girl and that it was her own fault for misbehaving.
Another person who spent time in the home and expressed no concern, was Reverend Roy Julian, who visited the home more than once during this time. The first time that he visited, he drank coffee with Gertrude, who complained about Sylvia to him, claiming that she was a prostitute and that she was pregnant despite the fact that it was actually her own daughter, Paula who was pregnant. Gertrude and Reverend Roy Julian reportedly prayed for Sylvia before he left. When he returned to the home a few weeks later, he actually spoke with Paula, who admitted to having hatred in her heart for Sylvia, with Gertrude rushing to try and assure him of the opposite. The unusual behaviour and the state of the home was apparently not enough for him to think anything was wrong, and he said nothing, and reportedly never even spoke to Sylvia.
Police were actually called to the Baniszewski home on the evening of October 20th, but it was not for the crimes against Sylvia, but because a young boy from the neighbourhood, Robert Bruce Hanlon was attempting to break into the home, wanting to take back something that he believed the Baniszewski children had taken from his basement. The police did not check the home, and none of the children said anything about what was happening to Sylvia, likely partially due to how scared they were of Gertrude, especially in Jenny’s case. While the police were parked outside of the home, Phyllis Vermillion came outside and actually spoke to the officers, trying to speak on the young boys behalf, and despite having witnessed some pretty severe abuse against Sylvia and already being in a conversation with the police, she said nothing.
After her time in the basement, Stephanie and John Jr, brought Sylvia upstairs, tying her to one of the beds in the home at Gertrude’s request, The young girl was told that if she made it through the night without wetting the bed, she would once again be allowed to sleep upstairs. However upon waking, Gertrude quickly realised that the mattress was damp, and once again forced the young girl to strip for her sons and neighbourhood boys, forcing her to once again masturbate with a glass bottle, afterwards being allowed to dress once again.
There was reportedly an eerie silence from Gertrude after this, where it seemed as though she was desperately trying to find something else to be angry about. A few moments passed before she began to scream at the young girl, shouting “you have branded my daughters so i will brand you!”
Sylvia was then stripped, tied down and gagged while one of the Baniszewski children, under Gertrude’s orders used matches to heat up a sewing needle until the metal glowed a bi=right orange. Once it was hot enough, Gertrude used the needle to carve and burn the letter I and part of an m on the young girls stomach as the kids held her down. Gertrude then handed the needle to Ricky Hobbs, telling him to carve “I’m a prostitute and proud of it” into her stomach. The young boy carved 23 and a half letters into the stomach of a screaming and sobbing young girl, while all the kids held her down and watched. Part way through the torture, Ricky had to stop, but not because he felt bad, or because he was disgusted, but because he didn’t know how to spell the word prostitution. Gertrude had to actually write out the spelling on a scrap of paper so he could complete the cruel message. The burns and wounds caused to the young girls stomach were reportedly so severe that even modern day plastic surgery would not have been able to correct it and remove the scars.
Gertrude then reportedly left the room, but some of the children, Ricky, Paula, and Shirley, who as just 10 years old, weren’t done with her, deciding that they wanted to brand another message into her skin. Ricky drew the lower half of an ‘S’, which was believed to stand for slave, on her chest, before ordering Jenny to do the rest. However, dispute the threats she endured, Jenny refused, and the needle was instead handed to 10 year old Shirley, but she messed it up, and it ended up saying ‘3’ instead.
After this happened, Gertrude returned to the room, reportedly mocking the girl and saying, “What are you going to do now Sylvia? You can’t get married now, you can’t undress in front of anyone…what are you going to do now?”. Now un-gagged, the string young girl reportedly responded “I guess there’s nothing i can do. It’s on there.”
It was at this point that Ricky, apparently not content with burning and carving 24 letters into he young girl, took Sylvia back down to the basement, and practiced his judo on the young injured girl for a while before leaving her wounded, naked and alone in the basement. When Jenny visited her sister in secret, she recalled Sylvia telling her that “I’m going to die, I can tell”.
Reportedly realising how severe Sylvia’s new wounds were, Gertrude collected Sylvia, allowing her to sleep in one of the beds upstairs instead of the basement, and she was allowed to sleep util noon of October 23rd, at which point she was woken up by Gertrude and Stephanie, who for the first time in quite a while, gave Sylvia a warm soapy bath, and then dressed the young girl in clean clothes, before they sat the young girl down to write a letter to her parents, which was dictated entirely by Gertrude. The letter read:
Dear Mr and Mrs Likens,
I went with a gang of boys in the middle of the night. And they said that they would pay me if i would give them something so I got in the car and they all got what they wanted…and when they got finished they beat me up and left sores on my face and all over my body.
And they also put on my stomach, I am a prostitute and proud of it.
I have done just about everything I could do just to make Gertie mad and cause Gertie more money than she’s got. I’ve tore up a new mattress and peed on it. I have also cost Gertie doctor bills that she can’t really pay and made Gertie a nervous wreck and all her kids.
She was told to not sign the letter.
It was after this that Gertrude, within earshot of Sylvia began to plan what to do with her. She planned to have John Jr and Jenny take Sylvia over to the dump, where she would be left to die. Upon hearing this, Sylvia plucked up the courage to make a run for the door, but in her ill and wounded state, she moved so slowly that Gertrude managed to catch Sylvia as she reached the door, taking her back to the kitchen. For the first time in quite some time, Gertrude made Sylvia some food, cooking her a slice of toast which was laid in front of her. Sadly, Sylvia was unable to swallow by this point, she had grown too weak, leading Gertrude to grab the curtain pole in the kitchen, hitting her right in the mouth with the pole.
Sylvia was then taken back down to the basement and tied up while they essentially waited for her to waste away. While in the basement, Gertrude offered Sylvia a plate of crackers, to which Sylvia reportedly responded “Feed it to the dog. It’s hungrier than I am.” Before she left the basement, Gertrude pinched Sylvia in her wound covered stomach repeatedly before leaving her on her own in the basement.
Apparently tired of waiting for the young girl to simply withering away, and knowing that if Sylvia recovered somehow, that she and her entire families crimes against her would certainly be discovered, On October 24th Gertrude attempted to bludgeon Sarah to death. She first attempted to hit the young girl with a chair, but she missed and ended up breaking the chair to pieces against the wall. She then proceeded to attempt to hit her with the wooden paddle which she had beaten the young girl with so many times before, but somehow ended up hitting herself with the paddle instead, giving herself a black eye. Ricky then hit the girl unconscious and they left her in the basement once again. During the night, and into the early hours of the morning, Sylvia used every ounce of strength that she could muster and hit the floor over and over and over again with the metal part of a scoop that had been left in the basement.
Tragically the neighbour’s, who did hear this noise, decided against contacting the police, and once again no one came to rescue the young girl who was so desperate for help.
On October 26th, when Gertrude said she wanted to give the young girl a warm bath, Ricky and Stephanie went to collect her, carrying her upstairs and putting her in the empty bathtub fully clothed, at which point they realised that the young girl wasn’t breathing. The children removed her from the bath and Stephanie actually tried to give her CPR, but it was tragically too late, and Sylvia was already dead.
The young girls body was taken back to the basement and stripped, at which point Ricky went to a nearby payphone to call the police, as there wasn’t a phone within the home, and upon their arrival. However, during the commotion, a terrified Jenny Likens plucked up the courage to whisper to one of the officers, “Get me out of here, and I’ll tell you everything.”
Gertrude, Paula, Stephanie, John Jr, Ricky and Roy were arrested for murder, while Mike Monroe, Randy Lepper, Judy Duke, and Siscoe were arrested for ‘injury to a person. The charges against Siscoe, Monroe, Duke and Lepper were quickly dismissed, but the Baniszewski’s, Roy and Ricky were held in jail without bail.
After some time, the murder charges against Stephanie were also dropped.
During the investigation, the autopsy into Sylvia’s murder revealed the sheer number and severity of the wounds that she had sustained during her time in the Baiszewski residence. It revealed:
Up to one hundred cigarette burns, various second and third degree burns, severe bruising, muscle and nerve damage, her lips were almost severed from biting through them, her vaginal cavity was almost swollen shut (though her hymen was intact, discrediting the ‘reasons’ that Gertrude had given for her abuse), and the official cause of death was discovered to be brain swelling, internal brain hemorrhaging and shock.
Paula was convicted of second degree murder, but after winning an appeal for a new trial, she plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter, for which she served just 3 years before moving to Iowa under a brand new identity.
John Jr, Roy and Ricky were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, and due to their young age they were sentenced to just 18 months. Upon his release at 17, Ricky, who had been very heavily involved in the case, suffered a nervous breakdown when coming to terms with what he had done, and he started to smoke so heavily that within for years, at just 21, he died of lung cancer.
Gertrude was sentenced to 18 years to life. During her sentence, she became a model prisoner who became a caring figure for her fellow inmates and sickeningly earned herself the nickname ‘Mom’. And she was put up for parole.
Jenny Likens actually appeared on TV with her family, begging for her release to be stopped, gaining the support of the Protect The Innocent movement and the League Against Molestation movement, who actually traveled to Indianna to start a sidewalk picket campaign, collecting at least 4500 signatures. However despite all of this, she was granted parole after being deemed not a threat. Her statement upon gaining her parole was “I’m not sure what role I had in it…because i was on drugs.” I never really knew her…I take full responsibility for whatever happened to Sylvia”. She was released on December 4th, 1985 and moved to Iowa under the name, Nadine Van Fossan, where she died of lung cancer in 1990.
Stephanie, who’s charges were dropped, took a new name and actually ended up working as a school teacher, which is completely terrifying to me, though reportedly she hasn’t re-offended since getting away from her mother.
John Jr, changed his name to John Blake, and lived a quiet life, working as a truck driver, before finding work as a real estate agent and lay minister. He never offended again and ended up marrying and having 3 children of his own, living in anonymity until 98, after the ‘Jonesboro Massacre’ when he came forward for the first time to talk about Sylvia. John discussed how he took full responsibility for his heinous actions, expressed deep remorse, and said that he believed a harsher sentence for all those involved, including himself, would have been far more just.
Paula Baniszewski was introduced to 16 year old Sylvia Marie Likens and 15 year old Jenny Likens, who had to use braces when she walked due to surviving polio, by her friend Darlee McGuire in July of 1965. The girls were new in town, and after getting along with Paula, they were welcomed back to the Baniszewski home, 3850 East New York Street so that the girls could drink pop and listen to some records. The girls explained that their mother had left their father and ran away, bringing them with her, and that their mother had actually been arrested for shoplifting and she was being kept in the police station. The girls were invited to spend the night at the Baniszewski home so that they could meet up with their mother the following day, but this is not how this was going to go.
The next day Gertrude was paid a visit by Lester Likens, the girls father, who had been informed by the McGuire’s that his daughters were staying at her home after he traced his wife and children to town. Gertrude, as she was known to do, introduced herself as Mrs Wright, and not as Mrs Baniszewski, and Lester went on to explain the situation, and his an his wife’s new plan. They intended to take the girls and travel the US carnival circuit as Carnies. However, when Gertrude heard this, she saw an opportunity to make some cash, since her house was always so full of kids as it was, it was agreed that she would take in the girls, and allow them to stay with her for $20 a week, though it is not actually known who first suggested this.
Unfortunately, Lester didn’t feel the need to inspect the home, and if he had, he likely would not have agreed. The house had no stove or microwave, the only food kept in the pantry was stale bread and dry crackers, there were only enough plates and utensils for 3 people, not the 10 that would be living there, the home was filthy, and they had only half as many beds as they needed for the family.
Sadly, the girls were moved into the home, while their parents went off to work. The first week reportedly went by without issue, the girls attended school, school functions and church with the family, and were essentially treated just like she treated her own children. This would all change however, when Lester’s payment didn’t arrive on time. The late payment triggered an overwhelming temper tantrum, she screamed at the young girls that, “I took care of you two bitches for nothing,” and forced the girls to lie across their beds on their front with their skirts and underwear around around their ankles, and proceeded to beat the girls with a wooden paddle.
Lester and Betty Likens came to visit their children and give Gertrude the money which they owed her, but due to the fear that Gertrude had already instilled in the girls, they said nothing to their parents.
The following week, the girls decided that they wanted to get some sweets, and so in order to make a bit of cash for them, they went through rubbish and walked the streets to find bottle caps to sell for petty cash, this was quite a common thing to do for poorer families at the time, but that didn’t stop Gertrude from being angry about it and accusing the two young girls of stealing. Sylvia explained the bottle caps, but that seemingly changed nothing for Gertrude, and they were once again beaten by the woman.
After attending a church social with Sylvia and Jenny, the Baniszewski children reportedly returned home to their mother to complain about Sylvia, disgusted by how much food Sylvia had eaten while there. For some reason, this sent Gertrude into a rage, furious that Sylvia would do anything to risk damaging her appearance, and crafted a cruel and unusual punishment for the teenager. Sylvia was forced to eat a hot dog which was piled high with condiments, making the teenager throw up. The punishment would not end there however, as the young girl was then forced to eat her own vomit. By this time, Sylvia’s fear of Gertrude was heavily ingrained, and when her parents returned to visit them once again, Sylvia said nothing about Gertrude’s despicable behaviour towards her.
The violence against Sylvia really began to intensify in August 1965, when she was reportedly heard talking about the fact that she had once allowed a boy to feel her up, infuriating Gertrude. The older woman began to scream at the 16year old, calling her a prostitute and shouting to the entire house that the teen was pregnant. But it would not end there, as she began to repeatedly kick the young girl in the crotch, leaving her unable to stand, and in desperate need to get off of her shaky feet. When the kicking finally stopped, Sylvia moved to sit on a chair, only to be thrown onto the floor by Gertrude’s eldest daughter, who was actually pregnant at the time herself, shouting in her face that she “aint fit to sit in chairs”. This incident triggered a change in the house, and from this point on, Sylvia had to request the right to sit down every single time.
It was here that the abuse against Sylvia became more and more frequent and more and more aggressive, with Sylvia now reportedly being used as a ‘plaything’ for the older children, she would be beaten and often pushed down the stairs. The young girl was constantly being accused of being a prostitute, mostly by Gertrude, who had begun delivering ‘sermons’ to the family claiming that prostitutes, and in the end that women in general, were filthy.
The day after the beating where she was first accused of being a prostitute, jenny would later claim, her and Sylvia decided to come up with a plan to get vengeance against Paula, deciding to tell their classmates that they had seen Paula and the second oldest Baniszewski child Stephanie, sleeping with boys in the school for money. However, this would soon turn out to be a mistake when 15 year old Roy Hubbard, who was dating Stephanie showed up to the home and proceeded to beat Sylvia up quite badly. From this point on, with Gertrude’s encouragement, Roy Hubbard would come to the home quite often, and he would actually practice his judo moves on the youngster.
In a petty retaliation against Sylvia’s rumours abut her daughters, Gertrude somehow managed to convince Sylvia’s best friend Anna that Sylvia had also been telling people at school that er mother was a whore also, culminating in another violent attack against Sylvia, orchestrated entirely by Gertrude. She did the same to Paula’s friend Judy Duke, also orchestrating her beating of Sylvia. She even forced Jenny to beat her own sister, beating the younger, sickly girl until she agreed.
Also during August of 1965, the house neighbouring the Baniszewskis was purchased by a middle aged couple, Phyllis and Raymond Vermillion and their two children, and when they moved in, they saw the large number of kids next door and thought that it would be a good idea to get to know the family, in the hopes that Gertrude could babysit their two children for them. The Vermillions arranged a barbecue with their neighbours, and the family weren’t exactly on their best behaviour, nor where they really were trying to hide the abuse. Sylvia was walking around the party with a strong black eye, and when questioned by Phyllis about the cause, Paula admitted to, and actually bragged about causing the wound. Not long after this conversation, under Gertrude’s observation, Paula actually walked over to Sylvia, throwing a glass of steaming water into the girl’s face. Phyllis and Raymond Vermillion never reported this to the police, and as far as is known, never told anyone about the concerning behaviour that they had witnessed.
Phyllis also didn’t report some even more concerning behaviour that she would witness two months later, when visiting the Baniszewskis in order to borrow something from Gertrude. Sylvia reportedly walked into the room where Phyllis was waiting, dazed and confused with swollen and cut up lips and a black eye that had swollen shut. Paula, like she had done previously, bragged about how she had been the one to cause the wounds, and even proceeded to remove her belt and begin beating the young girl with it, right in front of their neighbour, and she said and did nothing to stop it.
Not too long after this,Sylvia came home from school and told Gertrude that she had been told to buy a new sweat suit for gym class, and was told that that the family couldn’t afford it. Not wanting to get into trouble with the school, and not knowing what else to do, Sylvia decided to steal a sweat suit from the school. When Gertrude found out however, she was furious, and once again twisted the situation to be about prostitution, and proceeded to kick Sylvia in the crotch over and over just like she had before. But this time, the punishment went even further, with Gertrude taking a lit cigarette and burning each of her fingertips in order to ‘cure’ her ‘sticky fingers’, and beating the 16 year old with a belt. From this point on, smokers in the house started to put out their fags on Sylvia as a reminder of her misbehaviour.
Sometime later, Sylvia went out to try and find more bottle caps to sell so that she wouldn’t have to steal again and get hurt so badly, but of course in Gertrude’s mind, Sylvia had been out working as a prostitute. On her arrival home, Sylvia was told by Gertrude that Jenny her younger, more sickly sister, would be beaten if she failed to do as she was told. What she was told to do was the most twisted and severe punishment that Sylvia had been given since moving into the abusive home. She was forced to strip naked in front of Gertrude’s sons, and some of the neighbourhood boys,and was forced to masturbate with a glass coca cola bottle in front of them. Despite being humiliating and traumatising, the damage this caused led to Sylvia becoming pretty much completely incontinent, which is what caused Gertrude to first lock the young girl in the basement of the home, where the abuse would begin to worsen at an alarming rate.
The case of The Papin Sisters is one of the most analysed cases in French history, with intellectuals and playwrights researching and using this case as an inspiration ever since the murders took place in 1933.
Christine and Lea were the two younger of three children born to the troubled Papin family south of Le Mans. Christine was born on the 8th of March 1905 and Lea was born on the 15th of September 1911, and despite the large age gap, they grew extremely close during their childhood, a bond which would continue throughout their entire lives. All three of the girls had extremely difficult childhoods according to the research done on the case, with all three girls being subject to severe neglect and abuse.
Emilia, the oldest of the three girls, was reportedly sexually assaulted by her cruel father, an experience which led to her moving away and becoming a nun, leaving her younger siblings to deal with their parents together. According to reports, their mother cared very little for the children, doing absolutely nothing to protect them, or show them any kind of love or affection.
After Emilia left to become a nun, their parents would divorce, but not because of their fathers crime, or his abuse of all three of his children, but because their mother was apparently jealous of Emilia and her fathers ‘relationship’ believing that he didn’t rape her, but that they actually had had a consensual affair. The difficulties in their childhood is what would lead to Christine and Lea becoming so unusually close, according to researchers, Lea always being protected by her older sister, from abuse and molestation, essentially led Lea to become an extension of her older and smarter sister, causing her t lack any real individual personality whatsoever.
After their parents divorced, the girls reportedly spent a portion of their childhood in a mental institution due to the fact that there was no one around to take the girls in. They had grown very quiet during their youth, so quiet in fact that those who were in the institution with them, and even some of the staff, believed the girls to be telepathic. Some people had never heard them speak at all, but they were always together. Upon their release they began to work as maids, together when they could, in multiple homes south of Le Mans, managing to both find a live in position with the Lancelin family in 1926. The girls working conditions were harsh, they worked 14 hour days 6 days a week for a pedantic mistress who would reportedly use 'mild violence in order to punish the girls, things like pinching them with her nails when they were slacking or that they weren’t doing their jobs well enough.
The attack took place on the night of February 2nd 1933 after they had worked in the home for around 7 years, after a argument reportedly started over Christine plugging in a faulty iron and causing a power outage in the home.
The Lancelin family were due to go to dinner at a friends home, but when Mr Lancelin arrived at their friends home and his wife and daughter failed to show u, he felt as though something was wrong, and decided to return to his home to make sure that his wife and child were okay. When he arrived all of the doors and windows were locked, and the only light in the home was the flicker of a candle in Christine and Leas bedroom. Knowing something was wrong he went and got the police.
Tragically when they entered the home, police found Mrs Lancelin and her daughter Genevieve dead, and beaten to a point that they were almost completelyunrecognizable. Investigators described the scene as looking like a 'blood orgy’, it a an incredibly violent attack which is believed to have lasted around half an hour. Both of the women had had their eyes gouged from their sockets, one of Genevieve’s eyes was found a little way away from her on the floor, and Mrs Lancelin’s eyes were found caught in the folds of the scarf which she was wearing around her neck. The two women also had numerous slash wounds on their legs, so many that they couldn’t be accurately counted and they had been hit around the head with a hammer, and with a pewter pot which had been at the top of the stairs.
The sisters denied nothing when they found wrapped in each others arms as they slept, with the blood Mrs Lancelin ad Genevieve rubbed all over their bodies, confessing to everything that hapenned almost immediately.
For the first time in their lives the girls wereseparated while they awaited trial, and after being found guilty and being sentenced to different prisons, Christine for life, and Lea for just 7 years since they believed that she was manipulated by her smarter, older, ad more dominant sister, Christine couldn’t cope. She suffered an extremely severe mental breakdown leading to her attempting to gouge out her own eyes, just like she had done to her victims, and she died after just 4 years of her sentence because she refused to eat, or to look after herself in any way.
Lea was released in 1941, and according to reports she started a new life under a fake name, found a job and never offended again, which wasn’t surprising to investigators who believed that Lea alone did not prove a threat to society, and that it was with Christine’s influence alone that Lea had committed these awful crimes.
There’s a lot of questions around the demise of Lea Papin, most sources state that the died in 91, however, a documentary filmed by Claude Ventura claims that she actually died in 2001. In Claude’s documentary, he claims to have found Lea in a hospital, post stroke, and unable to talk, however it is not known for sure whether this really was Lea orwhether he was simply trying to make his documentary more exciting, though this 'Lea’ was actually featured in his film.
A woman is going to be wrongfully executed next month for a crime she did not commit. Her case was used as a political ploy, and a false confession was produced by gross police misconduct.
Her name is Melissa Lucio and she’s going to die this April.
Jennie Poole was a 24-year-old mother of two living in Dublin. She worked as a healthcare worker. Jennie was described as a great mother who would do anything for her children.
On 17th April at around 2 pm, neighbours heard screaming coming from Jennie’s apartment and saw a man jump from her balcony and run. The police were called and found Jennie dead in her home, she had suffered blood loss from a stab wound to her neck. Jennie’s 4-year-old son had been in the apartment when she had died.
Jennie’s boyfriend, Gavin Murphy, 29, was arrested and charged with murder.
When I first saw Fritz Lang’s BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT (’56), I remember being engrossed by its calculated, improbable plot and twist ending. In re-visiting it recently, however, I found myself struck more so by some modern-day parallels I recognized in the story. While fundamentally a genre exercise that ultimately trivializes the hot button topic it broaches, the film nonetheless raises issues regarding media and criminal justice that continue to resonate.
In BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT, novelist Tom (Dana Andrews) joins forces with his future father-in-law, newspaper publisher Austin (Sidney Blackmer), for an experiment: to prove the fallibility of circumstantial evidence by exposing how an innocent man could be sentenced to death. To do so, they frame Tom for a murder they’ll later prove he didn’t commit. Tom’s fiancée Susan (Joan Fontaine) isn’t in on the scheme; only Austin knows the truth. Sure enough, their carefully laid plan results in the death penalty for Tom, but when Austin dies in a freak accident, destroying the exonerating evidence with him, Tom has to scramble to prove his innocence. The film ends with a twist that I’ll discuss in a moment, so if you dislike spoilers, I suggest you stop reading, watch it and come back!
Heavy on plot and light on character, the film spends most of its 80 minutes mounting Tom as the fall guy. He and Austin deposit pieces of evidence, such as Tom’s personalized cigarette lighter at the murder scene, and photograph each action to corroborate their story. The methodical way they record their every move is analogous to the modern-day practice of digitally capturing evidence to substantiate controversial events. As we’d say today, Tom and Austin were ready to bring the receipts – until the inadvertent destruction of their tangible proof almost derails their experiment.
Austin is a fierce advocate against capital punishment, yet he doesn’t want his paper showing bias. Following his death, though, Susan pressures her father’s associates to “use the newspaper in every way you can” to swing support in Tom’s favor. Many present-day news outlets are charged with similar partiality. When it comes to high-profile trials today, clips and photos, especially those shared on social media (the new court of public opinion), play a huge role in the accused’s perceived innocence or guilt.
Near the end of BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT, evidence finallyverifies Tom and Austin’s story. With a pardon within his reach, Tom unwittingly mentions the victim’s real name to Susan, proving he knew her and actuallydid it, ingeniously taking advantage of Austin’s offer so he could off an estranged wife. Susan turns him in, and we are to assume he will be executed as the film fades to black.
So, what does this say about the experiment? In a way, it could prove Austin’s point, because Tom’s sentence resulted solely from evidence he and Austin planted. We’re to believe that any actual innocent man could have participated in Austin’s ploy and received the same condemnation. Though the guilty party ultimately pays for his crime, the system shouldn’t get credit. In fact, an exhaustive investigation found nothing to link Tom with the victim – if it weren’t for him indicting himself, he’d get off. How’s that for justice?
“My argument against capital punishment is that the law forces some other man to commit murder,” Fritz Lang remarked in a 1969 interview. From the start, Lang disagreed with the script’s convoluted direction and the fact that the audience roots for Tom the whole time, only to reveal – out of nowhere – that he’s despicable at the end. Lang butted heads with producer Bert E. Friedlob, especially over the opening execution scene, which Friedlob wanted to make convincing. Lang agreed that a realistic portrayal was a powerful argument against capital punishment, but he did too good a job; when Friedlob saw the result, he denied his initial directive and rebuked Lang for being so cruel. So contentious was their partnership that the director coldly recalled shooting the movie “under duress” and left Hollywood for good after he helmed his final scene.
The topic of capital punishment has long been contended. Writer Douglas Morrow, who held a master’s degree in law, penned the film’s original story after reading a 1955 Gallup poll that revealed an even divide on the death penalty among Americans. That division may well have stemmed from protests in the 1950s and 1960s, which led to a decline in executions. In the movie, Austin remarks that six states did not have the death penalty in 1956; today, it’s illegal in 23 states.
That progress aside, Austin’s fear that the system could mistakenly put an innocent man to death is genuine. Since 1972, at least 185 death row prisoners have been wrongly convicted and set free, per DealthPenaltyInfo.org. Even more tragically, it’s been concluded that some executed inmates were most likely innocent. While the death penalty may be utilized less today, it’s as clear as it was then that miscarriages of justice persist, something BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT chillingly reminds me of, even if the film is less a statement on capital punishment than Lang perhaps wanted.
Right now, people are being convicted based on evidence analyzed by potentially flawed forensic algorithms. But they can’t challenge this evidence due to the intellectual property rights of software developers. This is unjust and it undermines a defendant’s right to directly confront any evidence that is used against them. To address this injustice and protect our rights to a fair trial, I introduced the Justice in Forensic Algorithms Act. This bill will help ensure that defendants can access source code to challenge evidence used against them. It also sets standards and testing to assess whether forensic algorithms work and are fair enough to be used in the criminal justice system. The trade secrets privileges of software developers should never trump the due process rights of defendants. As technological innovations enter our criminal justice system, we need to ensure that our rights are protected.
So, after literal years of people demanding bodycams, this organization is suddenly complaining about their use?
Also, how is this a “civil rights” issue? “Communities of color” (IE poor black neighbourhoods) are “disproportionately surveilled” because that’s where a lot of crime happens. Black people have a higher chance of being murdered than any other racial group. By other black people.
“ So, after literal years of people demanding bodycams, this organization is suddenly complaining about their use? “
What is “Reducto Ad Absurdum”?
They’re pointing out that the purpose of a Police’s Body Camera is to have an impartial objective record that can contradict a Police’s Written or Spoken statement, which is then used to confirm/deny whether or not that cop’s testimony is credible.
For example. before the police interrogate a prime suspect, they will carefully collect and review multiple forms of camera footage and eyewitness testimony.
They will NOT offer to show said footage or testimony to that suspect before interrogating them. This is so that the suspect freely present their own perspective, and if they then contradict any of said camera footage, then interrogators are then able to call them out on their lies, red-handed, and invalidate their testimony in a court of law.
These Viral videos from JCS are a great example of this technique at work:
When we allow cops free reign to review their own body camera footage before they give any written or spoken statements, we’re giving a dishonest cop the opportunity to cover their ass, and construct an airtight narrative, when they would otherwise provably lie to save their own skin.
I guess the Average Conservative can’t read above an 8th Grade level, and assumes this is some sort of contradiction, instead of basic police procedure… just applied to cops.
Which part of that Gish Gallop makes this a civil or constitutional rights issue? Or a racial one?
…The part where it applies to people’s Fourth Amendment rights to not be unreasonable searched or seized (wherein an arrest constitutes a seizure)? The point of the report mentioned in the Newsweek article is that officer reports oftentimes serve as important evidence during pretrial, trial, appellate and post-conviction legal proceedings. I can actually attest to that. In working with the Innocence Project, I’ve dealt with a ton of official police reports as an evidentiary source for what a reporting officer knew (or claimed to have known) at the time compared to their trial testimony of what they swore under oath that they knew. If an important detail is left out of the officer’s official report, that lack of detail can be used to help impeach the officer’s credibility to the factfinder (i.e. the judge or jury) and to attack the testimony as less-credible.
The issue with body camera footage is that even if an officer did not notice a crucial detail at the time of their action (which is all that matters under the law in terms of police use of force. Whether or not the officer was reasonably in fear for his or her life at the time of the incident) they very well might notice it during the post-action review of body camera footage. If this happens before the officer writes the official report, the officer can add that detail that they observed through the body camera footage to the official report as something that they remembered from the incident itself. There would also be no real way to impeach this addition as the body camera footage would back-up the officer’s “recollection.” Basically, the idea of the report is that because the criminal justice system places such a premium on officer memory and the official reports as a source of evidence, officers should be required to write the official report before reviewing body camera footage in order to preserve the accuracy of the official report as a record of the officer’s recollections. I really don’t think it’s all that complicated to understand.
As for the racial aspect, I mean. It’s probably due to the fact that the current zeitgeist in criminal justice is calling out racial disparity based on disproportionate effects of police policy (e.g. because POC are more likely than white people based on population size to be arrested, any flaw in the criminal justice system is reflected ore substantially in those populations), but there are also studies and statistics that abuse of systems, and bad police practices are more likely to affect POC than white people. However, if you were to push-back and say “doesn’t this police practice affect everyone?” I don’t think that you’d get much of an argument from the authors of this study.
Also, where exactly is the Gish Gallop? There’s one source cited, and the argument itself is a direct response to the incredulity of your original post where you seemed exceptionally surprised that this organization, and other criminal justice reform organizations, aren’t supporting body cameras absent any kind of restrictive or restraining policy. The response is that it’s not the body cameras themselves that are a problem, but rather the policy around body cameras that is the problem. This organization does not want to get rid of body cameras. That would be hypocritical. Rather, this organization is calling attention to the fact that the mere addition of body cameras doesn’t solve all of the problems and can in fact create new problems (or reinforce old problems) if it’s not done correctly. It’s a call for better body camera implementation policy surrounding police reporting.
Pointing out that something that someone still supports has had unintentional consequences and lobbying to change the system to prevent those consequences is not shifting the goalposts in any way, shape, or form. Shifting the goalposts would be if the main goal of implementing body cameras was increased surveillance and the then was to claim “actually, we wanted to reduce discrimination against POC all along!” This is just a redefinition of the goal: The goal remains to provide greater police accountability and address bad police practices. There’s just another step to doing that based on the data from the report.
If you think that’s shifting the goalposts, then you’re either (1) engaging in bad faith here, (2) not understanding the argument, or (3) not understanding the fallacy. Pick your poison. But what you’re not doing is making a good argument. But you know that.
If you are going to say that maybe The Left needs to ease up and increase police funding then for those of us who don’t have the brain of a goldfish you should include some measures to ensure that the police are under civilian control.
We’re way up on murders. Even the Vox article celebrating a reduction in the number of police kills admits that there were way more murders than the police kills were reduced by.
If I make no change to the police rules and simply get rid of the Progressive DAs who let so many violent guys roam the streets that they had to invent #StopAsianHate to cover it up and conflate 55 incidents of Trump being rude with violent assault, then I’ll come out ahead on the total number of deaths.
And we could change the police rules, but the problem is that it won’t change the underlying difference in the crime rates. And since it won’t change the underlying difference in crime rates, and it’s impossible to get perfect police performance, we’ll still have left-wing claims that police are “racist” and pressure regardless.
“But burglary is down!“
Yes, because burglary in 2019 is called home invasion in 2021.
This is, quite explicitly, “Omelas is the best we can get.”
Complaints about the circumstances of the death of, say, Breonna Taylor are fundamentally incomprehensible; her death, and the vague lack of accountability that surround it, are the necessary price we pay to lower the murder rate.
A concrete reaction to an individual injustice is fundamentally insane. “What could have been done to prevent the death of Breonna Taylor? What can be done to prevent such things in the future?” are irrational questions.
The only rational questions are “What can be done to lower the overall death rate of a given race of people?” and “Are police systemically racist?”
When you say, “What happened to Taylor was an injustice that never should have happened” you obviously mean“American policing is systemically racist” and obviously I can counter that by simply explaining to you that on net police cause fewer black deaths than the complete absence of any kind of institutional support.
“As long as the police department causes a netreduction in deaths in the black community when compared to the mass resignation of the entire force, they are beneficial to your race and you should recognize that.”
The whole thing is deeply rotten and relies on bad faith and really really poor and manipulative utilitarian reasoning.
Like, I absolutely don’t accept the underlying moral reasoning here but it also bothers me a lot how much of a non sequitur response this is to collapsed squid.
“Any given instance of institutional corruption or lack of accountability needs to be understood as a necessary evil given how utterly important the institution is”
That’s how you get insanely corrupt and inept organizations.
Didn’t Breonna Taylor die right after her boyfriend shot a cop?
That’s not a rhetorical question. That’s the version of the story I heard. If you heard differently, please tell me.
If the version I heard is accurate, I’m having trouble imagining what policy could have saved her. Whatever the law says, I think the cops would probably shoot back anyway. Human nature. You can arrest the cop afterwards, but she’d still be dead.
Seriously, what could have been done to save Breonna Taylor? Sleeping with a guy whose response to having his door knocked down with a battering ram is to open fire without asking questions is like having an alligator for a pet - you’re in a a dangerous situation and the government can’t realistically protect you if it goes south.
You could make the cops personally liable if they shoot a bystander
Yeah they’ll still shoot back if they get shot at
But they’ll be more careful not to get into that situation in the first place, by e.g. making sure they’re not raiding the wrong address.
I both agree and disagree with this take. The issue here is that what are we requiring of police in this situation?
If we put police in a situation in which people are obviously going to be shooting at them (such as a no-knock raid) and then say “you’re fine if you shoot back, unless you’re going to the wrong place in which case you’re going to be liable for whatever happens.” Then we’re essentially discouraging police not to shoot back. That’s dangerous.
Let’s take a hypothetical. The address on the arrest warrant authorizing a no-knock raid is wrong through no fault of the officers involved in the raid. In fact, it’s wrong in the police computer system altogether, the magistrate has it wrong in his records, it was recorded wrong by the initial officer making the observations (who is not involved in the raid), etc. Police burst in without knocking at 3 AM. The occupants are terrified and open fire. Police return fire, killing one of the occupants. They realize that they are in the wrong house.
Who should be held liable in that situation? Probably not the officers participating the raid right? Then the person who made the mistake? But, in the Breonna Taylor situation, assuming that the grant of the warrant was legitimate, there really wasn’t a mistake minus the fact that a bystander was killed. That’s why the death of Breonna Taylor is such an indictment against no-knock raids (just like the death of Philando Castile was an indictment against the use of force criteria police use).
Far better to just stop the practice of no-knock raids then to start changing liability in these kinds of situations. Though, we absolutely do need to address qualified immunity in general.
“But like so many American institutions, debt forgiveness—and the social mobility it enabled—applied almost exclusively to native-born white men. Nonwhite populations faced land divestment, chattel slavery, and disproportionate incarceration, followed by a subsequent regime of debt peonage and forced labor.” Read the full essay.
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It is sadly not a shock that Trump called for police to assault suspects this week. Due process, presumption of innocence, basic rights of the accused mean nothing to a fascist like him. One can only hope when all the evidence of his numerous crimes is piled up, he will receive only the rights he has fought to protect. But this is only the tip of a very disturbing iceberg shown by the fact…
If you really care about preventing government tyranny, your #1 priority must be making sure criminals have rights.
And that’s not a joke or an exaggeration.
If criminals don’t have rights, then all the government has to do is find some excuse to label people as criminals, and those people will no longer have rights. It’s what literally every tyrannical government in all of history has done.
If you believe that people who break the law should forfeit their rights, you’re literally as pro-tyranny as a person can get.
New from Picador, Good Kids, Bad City: A Story of Race and Wrongful Conviction in America. In his new book, The Washington Post’s Kyle Swenson examines the wrongful conviction of three black Cleveland men and the flawed justice system that imprisoned them. (Read the Kirkus review here.)
