House of Evil: The Indiana Torture Slaying (St. Martin's True Crime Library) (16 page)

After the jury left the room for a half-hour recess,
defense attorney Bowman moved for a mistrial on the basis of Erbecker’s long question. Its only purpose, he argued, was to restate to the jury evidence which had been ruled inadmissible as to the children. The motion was denied.

When the jury returned, Erbecker rephrased his hypothetical question numerous times, always meeting with objections, sustained. After more than a half-hour of this futile pursuit, he gave up. The court recessed for lunch.

Under cross-examination by Bowman after lunch, Dr. Ellis went into a minute description of the subdural hematoma (head injury) which he had listed as the principal cause of death. Was there any way to say which blow caused the internal bleeding?

“You could not say with certainty, especially in this case,” the pathologist said. Under further cross-examination later by Richard Hobbs’ attorney, James Nedeff, Dr. Ellis said something Bowman had wanted to hear but had been afraid to ask for. The bruise on the head, he said, was too big to have been caused by a broom handle. That seemed to absolve one of Bowman’s clients, Coy Hubbard, of having struck the fatal blow.

But the bruise could have been caused by a fist, a board, a book, a fall down the stairs, a judo chop, a Coke bottle or a banging against the wall, Dr. Ellis said.

The doctor held to his opinion that the head injury was the ultimate cause of death, with the numerous other injuries, the shock and the malnutrition being
contributing factors. “Given in time,” he added, “medical treatment very well could have helped this patient.”

At 2:30 p.m. the pathologist was permitted to return to his practice at Methodist Hospital. After a short recess the victim’s father was sworn in as the next witness.

Deputy Prosecutor New guided Lester Likens through a recounting of Sylvia’s life, and of his own often inadequate attempts to provide for her and the other children. New handed him a photograph: “Is that the house you lived in on Leland Street?”

Nostalgia swept the genial concessionaire’s face. “I reckon that’s so,” he said. “It sure is.”

Likens told of Mrs. Baniszewski’s offer to care for his daughters and of the moment three months later when he learned of Sylvia’s death. New handed him two more pictures, of his daughter’s body on the slab at the city morgue in Marion County General Hospital. “Objection,” shouted Erbecker. “The sole purpose of this is to inflame and prejudice the jury.”

“—To elicit an emotional response in front of the jury,” chorused Forrest Bowman. “There is no reason to do that.”

The reason, New argued, was for legally positive identification of the victim as Sylvia Likens, the witness’ daughter.

Judge Rabb ruled that one picture would be sufficient for that, and he ordered that the more offensive of the two be withheld. Bowman renewed his
objection. In reply, New quoted the Indiana Supreme Court: “A murderer cannot complain of the mess he makes just because it’s gruesome.”

The jury was out of the courtroom during this argument, and the pictures had been held face down. Bowman asked that the one picture be shown to Likens before the jury returned so that “a purely unnecessary scene will be avoided, I hope.”

New, angry now, said he did not expect a “scene.” The witness had seen the pictures before he came into the courtroom, he said. “We run our case,” New complained to the judge, “and Mr. Bowman does not.”

The jury returned; the picture was turned face up. Was that Lester Likens’ daughter Sylvia? “Yes, sir,” he said, choking back tears. He covered his eyes and rested his forehead on his left palm. New had no further questions.

On cross-examination, defense attorneys browbeat Likens for his failure to investigate Mrs. Baniszewski and her house, and for his shortcomings as a father. “Isn’t it a fact,” sneered Erbecker, “that in your moving from place to place, your family life and environment wasn’t conducive to a wholesome atmosphere for all your children, was it?”

A familiar defense technique is to “put the victim on trial,” to show that the victim invited death in some manner, thereby reducing the guilt of the defendant. In this case, the defense lawyers were putting the victim’s parents on trial, so to speak. But if they were guilty of negligence, did that help convince
the jury that poor Sylvia had her ghastly death coming to her?

Erbecker had questioned the truth of Likens’ contention that he paid Gertrude $20 a week for his daughters’ care. So when Erbecker finished his questioning, New introduced money order receipts totaling $220, and Likens had testified to making at least $80 in cash payments in person. The $300 total averaged out more than $20 a week.

The next day was primary election day in Indiana; there was no court session. In the race for the Republican nomination for judge of Marion Criminal Court, Division 2, Judge Saul I. Rabb crushed his only opponent, Forrest B. Bowman Jr.’s law partner Ferdinand Samper, 46,710 votes to 3,974.

Sylvia’s mother, 38-year-old Betty Likens, was the first witness Wednesday morning. The portly woman, wearing a blue knit dress, was soft-spoken and slow to respond to questions. She related a few tidbits of her daughters’ personal lives, but most of her testimony was repetitious of her husband’s.

Police Sgt. Don R. Campbell followed, with Coy Hubbard’s signed confession. The usual arguments about the “coerced confession” were raised by the boy’s attorney, Bowman. In an intermission hearing out of the presence of the jury, the boy’s mother, Virginia Hubbard, testified that she was called at work about 2 p.m. on October 27, 1965, and notified of her son’s arrest. She said she rushed to police headquarters and “I asked them to let me see my son.” She said she saw him briefly and “I asked to
speak to them; they won’t let me speak to them.” The boy, being held only on a delinquency charge when questioned about the murder, had indicated that he did not want to talk to his parents.

Judge Rabb allowed the statement to be read to the jury, and Hubbard sat through the reading soberly, erect and nearly expressionless as usual.

Campbell testified that he talked to Hubbard for two hours and wrote down everything the boy said on the signed statement. The statement contained only 1½ typewritten pages. “Would it take you two hours to type a page-and-a-half?” Bowman asked. The policeman said yes. Bowman seemed not satisfied that everything was on there. “I’ll ask you,” he said, “if it isn’t a fact he told you Gertrude Wright hit that girl in the head with a broom and he took it from her and broke it up so she could not do that.” Campbell never answered that question; Erbecker objected and was sustained.

After the lunch recess came the witness everyone had been waiting for. Her appearance had been foretold in a prominent article in the city’s morning paper, the
Star.
Tiny Jenny Likens hobbled gingerly to the witness stand.

For the first time in the trial, Deputy Prosecutor Marjorie Wessner conducted the questioning. “State your name to the court and jury,” she said, smiling.

“Jenny Fay Likens,” came the reply in a loud, clear voice.

The girl spoke in a casual, matter-of-fact manner as she related all she knew of the torture that led to
her sister’s death. The dramatic part of her testimony was to come the next day.

There was a brief question as to Jenny’s credibility. When Miss Wessner asked her whether she had seen Mrs. Baniszewski wield a knife, Jenny responded, “They must have done a lot of this while I wasn’t around, because I didn’t see all that.” Defense attorneys got considerable play out of that remark, asking how much of Jenny’s testimony was merely repetition of stories she had heard.

At the close of the day’s session, the jury took a trip on a sheriff’s bus to 3850 East New York Street to view the scene of the crime. The Baniszewski half of the old gray double was vacant, and had been since the discovery of the murder. Magazines and school papers littered the upstairs floors. The furniture had been removed, but the mattress on which Sylvia died still rested on the floor of the back bedroom. In the basement was the coal shovel Mrs. Vermillion had heard the night of October 26; in the basement sink were cinders, remnants of the fire that had heated the makeshift branding iron used on Sylvia’s stomach.

Freshly attired in a red and white checked blouse and gray jumper, Jenny resumed her direct testimony the next morning, in the same brave, straightforward manner, except that her composure slipped when she told the jury how Sylvia had said to her, “Jenny, I know you don’t want me to die, but I’m going to die….” Jenny broke into sobs for the first time in her testimony, and Judge Rabb granted a half-hour recess.

The girl finished her direct testimony before 11:30 a.m., maintaining her composure even when replying to Miss Wessner’s last question, asking why she had not gone for help for her sister.

“I was scared,” Jenny said quietly. “Gertrude just kept beating me. I guess I just did what she said—and I wish I didn’t.”

Defense attorneys did not let Jenny’s negligence go at that. Finished “trying” the victim’s parents, they put her sister on trial.

Mrs. Baniszewski’s attorney, Erbecker, began by trying to show that Jenny was biased and had been coached in her testimony by the deputy prosecutors.

“You have a feeling of hatred for Mrs. Baniszewski, don’t you?” the lawyer asked.

“I sure do,” the girl replied, glaring at the woman.

“You would say or do anything to see her found guilty here, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes—but not unless it was true.”

In response to further questioning, she admitted she had gone over her testimony with New and Miss Wessner the day before. “But,” she said, “all anybody ever told me to do was to tell the truth.”

Erbecker hit at the theme of the alleged “deal” with Stephanie. Jenny said she knew more about what Stephanie had done than she had testified about. “What did you leave out?” Erbecker asked.

New objected, and was sustained. Stephanie was not on trial. After Erbecker tried several more times, New asked that the jury be excused momentarily; and he asked the judge to admonish Erbecker.

Judge Rabb did not want to have to admonish anyone, but he did ask the lawyer to “refrain from objectionable questions.”

Erbecker moved for a mistrial on the basis of New’s request, and was denied. He made another motion for mistrial later in the day when he learned that a juror had been in a courthouse elevator in which Stephanie’s lawyer, John Hammond, was making sarcastic remarks about Erbecker. Bowman also had stepped onto the elevator, and Hammond goaded him, “Is Erbecker still cross-examining? Why don’t you get a separate trial and get out of there like I did?”

Judge Rabb overruled the motion for mistrial, but he again admonished the jurors, when they returned to the courtroom, not to be influenced by remarks made outside the courtroom.

The wretched Jenny was brought to tears again in the afternoon as Erbecker and other lawyers battered her with questions of why she failed to help her sister.

“You were perfectly free to go and tell anybody you saw, weren’t you?” asked Erbecker.

“Yes,” said Jenny.

“You could’ve told neighbors about this if you wanted to, couldn’t you?” he continued.

“I could’ve,” she answered, her voice breaking. “That don’t mean
I
wanted to die, though.” She wiped tears away with her sleeve.

“But you didn’t, did you, Miss Likens?”

“No.”

Forrest Bowman, attorney for Coy and Johnny, came to Jenny’s rescue. Seeking to throw the blame onto the mother, Bowman asked Jenny: “Were you afraid of Gertrude Wright?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Was it your fear of Gertrude Wright that prevented you from telling anyone what happened to your sister?” Bowman asked.

“Yes,” the girl sighed.

But then James Nedeff, attorney for Richard Hobbs, took over and bore down once more. “Who would have done anything in the world to you if you had said one word?” he asked. An objection to the question was sustained, but he persisted.

“Why didn’t you go to a policeman?” he asked.

“Gertrude threatened me that if I told anyone,” Jenny said, “I’d get the same treatment.”

“Why didn’t you ask your sister Dianna?” asked Nedeff.

“I didn’t see her then,” said Jenny.

“Why didn’t you call your grandmother, your grandfather?”

Jenny, brushing away a tear, did not answer.

“Did you know Lester Leak, a guard at Brookside Park?” Nedeff persisted. “Why didn’t you tell him your sister was sick?”

Jenny bit her lip. Nedeff asked her why she had not told John Baniszewski Sr. when he brought the police dog on October 23. Jenny wiped her tears away with her sleeve, not having been given a chance to
explain that she had never even been introduced to Baniszewski and that he had never even come inside his ex-wife’s home.

“Your sister was moaning in agony,” Nedeff insisted. “Why didn’t you tell him?”

The dam broke, and Jenny’s tears gushed forth. “I told you why I didn’t tell,” she sobbed. Court was recessed for the day. As the lawyers and defendants left the room, Jenny’s bent-over head still lay buried in her arm.

CROSS-EXAMINATION CONTINUED
the morning of Friday, May 6. Erbecker delved into the teenage party the Likens children had thrown in California.

Jenny admitted telling Mrs. Baniszewski about the party. “Did you tell her it was a sex party?” the lawyer asked.

“I didn’t tell her—we had a party, but I don’t know about sex.”

As Mrs. Baniszewski’s lawyer pressed for details, Jenny hung her head, either in shame or from humiliation at Erbecker’s insinuating questions. Most of the questions went unanswered, as Judge Rabb sustained objections that they were irrelevant. Finally, after a grueling total of nearly two days on the witness stand, Jenny was allowed to step down.

Next, Sgt. Leo Gentry, of the Police Department’s juvenile branch, was called on for introduction of the signed confessions of Paula and Johnny Baniszewski. Attorneys objected strenuously that they were
juveniles being held on juvenile delinquency charges and that use of the statements later in a murder trial against them violated their rights. Even Gentry admitted he thought he was questioning them for the possibility of filing delinquency charges.