The Gang of Boys Note- Part 1: My How Things get Complicated
This note, the one that Gertrude gave to Dixon and he in turn gave to Kaiser, was entered into evidence as State’s Exhibit 5. Material posted on this website has discussed this note before. In particular, “Are you Sure” deals in detail with it. But there are details left to discuss.
It was suggested, merely as a theoretical possibility, that the note was not written by Gertrude. The story of Gertrude forcing Sylvia to write the note is absurd. Jenny was asked about this note:
Q. When did you see it?
A. Three or four days before she died.
Q. Who wrote the note?
A. Sylvia.
Q. Who was present when it was written?
A. Gertrude, Paula, me and Sylvia.
Q. What was said or done then?
A. She told her what to write.
Q. What was said or done then?
A. She told her to write down that a gang of boys done this to her.
Q. Who told her this?
A. Gertrude.
Q. What else was said?
A. Sylvia said she did not know what else to write.
Q. Then what?
A. So Gertrude told her what to write.
Q. Did you see Sylvia write?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Then what happened, Jenny?
A. I don't know, she was writing down what she said.
So yet again Jenny places herself directly within a context in which apparently logistics leading to the death of her sister are discussed or handled, and she proceeds to do absolutely nothing to save Sylvia. But that isn’t the main thing here. The first thing that is important, is that the story relates an event that is patently absurd. Apparently, Gertrude is already planning to murder Sylvia. One might expect that Gertrude would do something sensible, something tried and true. Plan the murder in such a way that she has an alibi; someway to prove that she couldn’t have committed the murder. That is not what she does. Instead, she does what is probably the stupidest thing she could have done. She forces the victim to write a note that has no connection with an alibi. It offers the police a different perpetrator. In other words, places the blame on someone else. The reason that this is so stupid is the fact that once she has been killed, a note written by the victim will have to be given by Gertrude to the police. So what was Gertrude thinking? The context in which the note could be used is as follows. Sylvia has been gone. She has been off with a gang of men, and in the role of a prostitute. She has suffered horrible abuse. But then she walks home! She walks into the house, and gives someone a note explaining who did this to her. Maybe. But that’s not enough. Included in the note, what can be called part 2, is a list of things that Sylvia supposedly did to anger Gertrude. So the note includes:
Part 1: an explanation for the police that a gang, not Gertrude and her kids…did what? The note says this:
I went with a gang of boys in the middle of the night.
And they said that they would pay me if I said give them something so.
I got in the car and they all got what they wanted and they did 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.
And now part 2:
I have done just about every thing that I could do just to make Gertie mad and cost Gertie more money than she's got.
I've torn up a new mattress and peed on it.
I have also cost Gertie doctor bills that she really can't pay and made Gertie a nervous wreck.
I have broken another wooden chair.
I have been making Gertie a nervous wreck and all her kids.
I cost $35.00 for a hospital in one day
and I wouldn't do nothing around the house.
I have done any thing to do things to make things out of the way to make things worse for them.
Now as to the context in which the note is supposed to operate…the most sensible thing would be this. Sylvia returns home from her ordeal with the gang. She goes upstairs to the bedroom, and she knows she is dying. So, she writes a note explaining who abused her, thereby clearing Gertrude, and then includes a confession. She’s about to meet her Maker, and wants to confess her sins against Gertrude before she dies. I used the word sensible, but I confess to using the wrong word. Perhaps it would be best to say….the least stupidest thing, yet too stupid to be real. If she came home in this condition, she could have told Gertrude, who could get her help. If I were Dixon, or some other cop at the scene, I would have asked her this question. Secondly, if she knew she were dying, she would be in no state to write the note. And if she knew she was dying, including a confession featuring a bunch of silly little offenses against Gertrude would be the furthest thing from her mind. This is all very stupid. But not as stupid as what the canonical story relates. And what is that? That Sylvia came home with the note. She didn’t write it when she got to Gertrude’s house.
What? So some time between the period of captivity during which she was being abused, and the time she staggered into the house, she stopped to write this note. The earlier context was stupid. There are no words to describe this context. But that is the one that will form one of the cornerstones of the canonical story. Wait. That should be qualified. Not that that context is what materialized as reality, but a stupid one created by Gertrude. How much easier it would have been to have simply killed her, called the police, and when they got there, told them that she had been gone. Then she suddenly entered the house and collapsed. Her last words were that a gang of boys had attacked her. But no note. In fact, there is no context that can be constructed where producing a note is anything but the heights of stupidity. Yet, Gertrude is clever enough to make plans in advance. And if you are prepared to accept that Gertrude was the stupidest, though clever, person who ever lived, don’t forget that Paula was present. Nowhere is it ever hinted that she was stupid enough to be part of this. “Hey, Mom! Maybe we shouldn’t do the whole note thing. Maybe just say that….” So the context would require that:
- Gertrude is totally mentally incompetent
- Paula is totally mentally incompetent
- Yet again Jenny knows about her sister's impending murder and does nothing
It’s also interesting that Sylvia writes this note, and Gertrude tucks it away for a later time. There doesn’t seem to be any date for the murder in mind. Just, when I finally do it, I’ll break out the note! But she also does the same thing with a second note. According to Kaiser, after giving the police the first note, she then proceeds to give them a second note. That will discussed another time.
When was the first note written? Jenny says three or four days before Sylvia died. This chronology is absurd. Note that four days before Sylvia died is impossible:
- October 26th –Tuesday-Sylvia dies
- October 25th- Monday- first day before her death
- October 24th- Sunday- second day before her death
- October 23rd- Saturday- third day before her death
- October 22nd- Friday- fourth day before her death
So “four” days before Sylvia’s death is impossible. The slogan wasn’t put on her abdomen until Saturday. So the note can’t have been written before Saturday. That leaves Saturday. And herein we find another impossibility. The note was produced on the same day that the slogan was put on her abdomen. But notice what is missing in part one of the note; i.e., no mention is made of the number 3 branded onto her chest. How can that be? Both were said to have been done on Saturday, one after the other. The writer of the note doesn’t seem to know about the number 3. If Gertrude had the note written on the day it was done, then she would have included it. If not, then the gang of boys didn’t brand her. That leaves Gertrude. So “three” days before Sylvia’s death is also impossible.
But the chronology raises a severe credibility problem. It presupposes that Gertrude’s plan is to murder Sylvia, and then give the note to the police. That presupposes that Sylvia’s body will be found by the police in Gertrude’s house. And that’s what happened. But it should be remembered that Jenny also gives a completely different story of how Gertrude planned to murder Sylvia:
Q. When was this?
A. About three or four days before she died.
Q. Who was present?
A. Me, Sylvia, Gertrude, Paula, Johnny, Stephanie - about everybody.
Q. What was said and done then?
MR. ERBECKER: Same objection. It is rehashing it.
THE COURT: Overruled as to Gertrude Baniszewski. Sustained as to Coy Hubbard and John Stephan Baniszewski.
A. She said she was going to kill her, get rid of her.
Q. What else was said?
A. She said she was going to dump her.
Q. What did Sylvia say, if anything?
A. She did not say nothing but I know she wanted to get out.
I will refrain from suggesting that if she wanted to get out, she should have walked out the door. Oops, sorry. But we encountered this plan in “Forest for the Trees.” So here we have two radically different plans to deal with Sylvia, both being planned at the exact same time. The Gang of Boys note will be useless if they take Sylvia to Ellenberger park to kill her and dump her body. It was pointed out that this latter plan makes no sense, and is impossible, because Gertrude didn’t have a car. She had no way of getting Sylvia there; and it’s two miles out and two miles back. Yet Gertrude is so stupid that she doesn’t remember that she doesn’t have a car. But not only that! Paula, Johnny, and Stephanie are also so stupid that they don’t remember that Mom doesn’t have a car. Then:
Q. Can you tell a particular time when she said this, Jenny?
A. Oh, about two or three days before she died, something like that.
Q. Where did this conversation take place?
A. Sometimes in the kitchen, most of the time in the kitchen.
Q. Who was present?
A. Gertrude, me and Sylvia and Paula and Stephanie and John. I don't know all of them.
Q. What was said, Jenny?
A. She said she was going to get rid of her, dump her out somewhere.
So the same stupid people sit down in the kitchen the very next day and make the same stupid plan. It’s as if they’re intent upon it. Oh, yes they are!
Q. Did you ever hear Mrs. Baniszewski say she was going to take Sylvia anyplace?
A. Yes, she said she was going to blindfold her and dump her, take her to Jimmy's Forest, two miles out.
Q. Jimmy's Forest?
A. Yes.
Q. When did this conversation take place?
A. About the night before she died.
Q. Who was present?
A. Me, Sylvia and Johnny and Gertrude and Shirley. I think that is all.
Q. What was said then, Jenny?
A. Well, I had nightclothes on and Gertrude told me to go upstairs and get dressed, she said me and Johnny were going to go dump Sylvia.
Q. What else was said, if anything?
A. I came back downstairs and went over by the door and she got by the porch and Gertrude dragged her back. She took her by the arm and dragged her onto the floor.
Q. How far did she drag her?
A. Across the floor and she just told her she was not going anywhere.
So now it’s the night before Sylvia actually died. The plan about taking Sylvia out to Ellenberger park has been discussed before, with all involved oblivious to the fact that they don’t have a car. But! Now it’s time to carry out the fiendish plot anyway. And then…Gertrude drags Sylvia back into the house. What? Why did we change our minds? Of course, it’s strange that they were so intent on the Jimmy’s Forest plan, and yet at the same time, Gertrude has forced Sylvia to write a stupid note that clearly envisioned a totally different end-game.
Yet again Jenny knows about her sister’s impending murder and does nothing.
The number 3 is missing from the note. But one thing that is not missing is a reference to the sores. That said, what is missing from that is any explanation as to how this gang managed to get her covered in sores. Kebel started us down the infamous path of 150 cigarette burns. That was his guess? I don’t think so. Maybe. But that’s a digression. If one were making up the note, then Sylvia would had to have been covered in sores. The witness testimony does not bear that out (except Marie’s bizarre and hardly credible statement). Nor do the witnesses describe a systematic process of burning or other injuries being inflicted on Sylvia that would support the idea that she was covered in sores. In fact, Kebel places his 150 punctate cigarette-burn sores, and it should be noted that if these were truly punctate, then they can’t be cigarette burns. A cigarette burn, one that is inflicted by holding it on the skin for some length of time, as opposed to minor burns caused when a cigarette smoker drops his cigarette and it lands on bare skin…well the person receiving these burns would hardly hold still. So the resulting sores would not be punctate. Moreover, Kebel said that these sores were on the extremities. That is approximately 38 cigarette burns per limb. Below is a close up of the arms of the girl in Photo 1. On her left is a very nasty, but also very punctate, sore. It is also rather large. Sores can be seen on the right arm as well. There aren’t 38 of the them. That is, unless the Baniszewskis, oh and neighbor kids, put most of them on the upper arms. Then she so considerately wore a shirt that would cover them…wait, that doesn’t work. We can still see the ones on the lower arms. But there’s a more general problem. This photo has been altered, and considerably so. Looking closely at the right hand, one sees that it has been covered. Notice how the design on the shirt overlaps the hand and wrist. Look closely at the hand. But I digress. Marie said that Sylvia was wearing a “funny blouse.” I think she said that because she never saw it before she was shown this picture. But maybe not.
Also missing from the note is any indication of fatal trauma. The most that is said is that this gang “beat me up.” So the note does not even make any statements that would suggest anything other than a long, violent ordeal. There is no cause of death in the note. Maybe, “they beat me on the head with a 2x4” would give something more substantial to the police. So if Gertrude were intending to kill Sylvia when the note was written, she doesn’t seem to have any method in mind. So too with the other little scenario Jenny created. Once she got to Ellenberger Park…how did she plan to dispatch her victim? Oh, that’s right, it doesn’t matter because she doesn’t have a car.
It should also be pointed out that perhaps the stupidest thing about the note is that it is addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Likens. So Sylvia sets out to clear Gertrude as the one who abused her, and throw in a confession as well, and then addressed the note to Mr. and Mrs. Likens. As this subject is explored, Gertrude just seems to get more stupid as we go. But! She also had a second note produced. One with no reference to the gang. One addressed to “Mom and Dad”. Then! Then! She gave the first note to the police, and hours later gave the second note to the police! There is no way that any of this is believable. I think Sylvia wrote the second note, which was actually a letter. Actually, I think she wrote some of the letter. 2 different authors are clearly present in that letter, someone who sounds intelligent, and somehow who doesn’t. At any rate, I think someone else wrote the Gang of Boys note. Gertrude wrote neither. I think the letter was found on the night of October 26th. It was a letter explaining to her parents that there had been trouble, and what caused it; or maybe, who caused it. This trouble forced her to quit school. She was going to send this letter to her parents, but then didn’t. Why? Because they suddenly showed up to visit on October 5th. Sylvia explained what was going on directly to them. There was no need to send the letter. So it sat somewhere. Then, on the night of October 26th, Gertrude’s note was switched out with the Gang of Boys note in order to set her up. All seemed fine. Except for one thing. Soon there were lots of cops at the house. It was now a murder scene. So they did what cops do at a murder scene…they searched the house. And! A cop walks over to another cop and hands him a letter. Sylvia’s letter; the one she never sent. Oh, my! This letter will undo everything. Maybe we went from two, to one, and this letter puts us back at two! I think that’s exactly what it would have done. So just get rid of it. We burned Gertrude’s notes in the basement sink. Wait! We can’t. Another cop, the one who found it, knows it exists. It will have to be entered into evidence. So re-write it. Sure! But how much of it did the other cop read before he turned it over to the other cop? Only the opening? Re-write the letter, but now you have to keep the beginning. And that’s a funny thing. It is the beginning that gives rise to the “two weeks” Shirley keeps mentioning for her chronology; “the two weeks.” This will be discussed in another essay, but the first part actually retains a reference to something that I think could have led to having two again; two girls. I should qualify that. By itself it wouldn’t. But Betty Likens made a gaff on the stand which no one caught. That links up with something in the letter. The problem? Well, Betty actually caught herself mid-sentence. What was that? An address. For what? The residence of someone who had hired Sylvia as a babysitter. And that person, if revealed, could have been a witness. If I’m right about it, she might just give us two again. It’s true, Sylvia got fired because the child she was babysitting was punched in the face. Sylvia didn’t do that. Someone else did. Sylvia was getting blamed for things that she didn’t do, and eventually she couldn’t remain in school anymore. But I digress. The conclusion I would reach at this point is that these two plans to deal with Sylvia, which float side-by-side in a sea of stupidity, are completely fictional.
Still, the note was written to be stupid. Actually, it was written to accomplish two things. First, Gertrude would suddenly identify herself as someone who knew about the gang, i.e. the gang who killed the girl in Photo 1. It would also clearly implicate Gertrude as the one who wrote it. The person who did write it seems to have not known about the number 3 branded on Photo 1 girl’s chest. Then this person switched out Gertrude’s notes for her note. However, this person may have had help. What is that based on? Part 2 of the note. I think two people were involved in producing part 2. The clever person who wrote the note was clever enough to have one of Gertrude’s own daughters hand her mother the note. So it wasn’t her. And! By bringing two others into the production of the note, i.e. in part 2, blame can easily be shared. Don’t testify against me or I’ll tell them you were involved! Actually, that person told Kaiser that one of those involved in the note was involved in….not the note, but in what had been done to Sylvia. Well, really girl 1, but now Sylvia. I think that a tentative identification of these two kids can be made based on what’s in part 2 of the note.
So after writing about the abuse she suffered at the hands of the gang of boys, although neglecting to include the sizeable number 3 seared into her chest and the number 4 carved into her shoulder, Sylvia decides to write down her sins against Gertrude before she dies. Gertrude arranged that? If the idea of the note is to find someone else to blame for Sylvia’s fate, why add a list of silly little things in a stupid little confession at the end of it? What does that accomplish? One thing- it’s so ridiculous that the writer of the note further implicates herself. Actually, the writer of the note included it to further implicate the one who gave it to the police, assuming that the one who handed it to Mom wouldn’t say anymore about it.
What of the things that she confesses to in the note? This is where it gets stranger. The second note, actually a letter, and correctly addressed to “Mom and Dad”, lists some significant things such as sexual indiscretions, and losing a babysitting job because the child was punched in the face. This is what Part 2 of the Gang of Boys Note says:
I have done just about everything that I could do just to make Gertie mad and cost Gertie more money than she's got.
I've torn up a new mattress and peed on it.
I have also cost Gertie doctor bills that she really can't pay and made Gertie a nervous wreck.
I have broken another wooden chair.
I have been making Gertie a nervous wreck and all her kids. I cost $35.00 for a hospital in one day
and I wouldn't do nothing around the house.
I have done anything to do things to make things out of the way to make things worse for them.
What makes this part of the note so interesting is that rather than confess to sexual indiscretions, or calling Gertrude’s daughters prostitutes, or anything with some weight to it, we are treated to sins that do not appear in any of the testimony.
One of the themes in Part 2 of the notes is wilful destruction of things belonging to Gertrude:
- Tore up a new mattress and peed on it
- Broken another wooden chair
The word "another" implies that she had already broken one wooden chair. As to peeing on the mattress, this is attested in the witness testimony. But tearing it up? Paula said this on October 27th after being intimidated by her police interrogators and bullied into making a false confession:
A. Yes, upstairs with the girls, until this past week and a half. Sylvia Likens wet and shit on the bed, so Mom made her sleep on the pad down in the basement, and she was kept down in the basement in the daytime.
Johnny, Coy and Ricky (statements made to Kaiser) made no such claims. Gertrude said this when asked about it:
Q. I will ask you if it is not a fact at that time you also were asked by Officer Kaiser why you had kept Sylvia down in the basement and you stated because she wet the bed?
A. I don't recall telling him anything like that either.
Q. I will ask if it is not a fact October 27th, that Officer Kaiser asked you the reason - if the reason she wet the bed was that so many people had hurt her they might have injured her kidneys and you answered you did not know?
A. I don't recall saying anything like that to him.
It has to be said that the claim that Sylvia wet the bed because she was being severely abused and that this injured her kidneys was something that Kaiser said. And he was absolutely wrong. Dr. Ellis:
The kidneys also were normal.
So it would seem that Kaiser invented this explanation for why Sylvia was said to have had a bed-wetting problem. If her kidneys were normal, I doubt that she was wetting the bed. Of course, there was a child in the house whose kidneys were not normal. Little Jimmy had kidney problems. According to Stephanie, he slept in the back bedroom with all the girls (see below). I leave aside the irresponsibility of such a sleeping arrangement. Except that it may have been, in Gertrude’s mind, the lesser of two evils. Nonetheless, if someone was wetting the bed, I would think that it would be the kid with kidney problems, not the one whose kidneys were normal. Paula included defecating in the bed. Why defecation? I think that this may owe it’s existence to Photo 1. Looking at the mattress in the photo, I would speculate that the girl lying on it had been kept forcibly on it for some time, and that urine and feces stained the mattress as a result. Photo 1 would be the main photo, so the mattress in that photo would have to be a mattress in Gertrude’s house. However, the two mattresses are not the same. It should be remembered that the sleeping arrangements in the house would have necessitated Gertrude’s own children sleeping on that mattress as well. It was said that the kids took turns sleeping in the bed and sleeping on the mattress on the floor. But was there a mattress in the basement at all? Paula claimed, in her forced confession, that Sylvia slept on a pad in the basement. This would indicate that there was a mattress in the basement. Ricky supports this claim:
Q. Would you describe the basement in which you said you scorched or burned or tattooed Sylvia to the jury? Describe it at the time you did this.
A. You walked down the stairs heading east and turned to the left and you see two sinks on the north wall, one sink on the east wall and a mattress and springs up against the north wall and some rags. Farther on down there is a coal bin, a coal furnace and some old kitchen chairs down there.
Officer Paul Harmon said the same thing as Ricky:
there was one mattress and spring down there
“Mattress and springs.” It’s interesting just how similar this expression is, coming from the cop who searched the basement and the kid who would have to be fictionally placed in the basement because that is where he fictionally carried out the fictional branding. Well there was a branding. It just involved someone else, and didn’t happen in Gertrude’s basement. This description of the basement is very important relevant to certain details in the Gang of Boys Note. However, as to the existence of a mattress in the basement, Stephanie says this:
Q. Where would she sleep in the basement?
A. I don't know.
Q. Did she have a bed down there?
A. There was springs. I don't think there was a mattress.
Jenny’s account agrees with Stephanie:
Q. You said Sylvia slept in the basement. When did she start sleeping in the basement?
A. I'd say it was about the 10th or 11th or October.
Q. Was there a bed down there?
A. No.
Q. What was in the basement?
A. Clothes and rags were down there.
Q. How long had these clothes or rags been down there, to your knowledge?
A. They was down there for a good while. Somebody put them on the floor and Gertrude kicked them aside and said she was going to sleep on the cement.
Q. Did Sylvia sleep on the cement?
A. Yes, she had to.
However, it is known that there was a box spring down in the basement. Marie was shown the crime scene photo:
Q. Was this bed-spring there?
A. It was against the wall.
Q. It was against the wall? O.K. You can go back. Now, I will hand you, Marie, what is marked State's Exhibit No. 7 and I will ask you to look at that.
Of course, one cannot sleep on a box spring. Shirley said this:
Q. When Sylvia slept in the basement, what did she sleep on?
A. Clothes.
Q. On some clothes?
A. Yes.
Q. Was there a bed down there?
A. No, there was not.
The picture of course is of the box spring found in the basement. Obviously, it is all but destroyed, and completely unusable. This is another view of the box spring. This is what was found in the basement. There was no mattress. Ricky is lying, while Stephanie, Jenny, and Shirley are right, as far as what was actually in the basement. Why did Ricky lie? Surely it wasn’t to support Officer Harmon’s claim! That was sarcastic. But it seems plausible that there was no “pad” to sleep on in the basement, and Paula must be thinking of this box spring. One can’t sleep on a box spring generally speaking, but clearly not on the one in the photo to the left in particular. Paula lied in the statement she made on October 27th. Why did Ricky and Officer Harmon say there was a mattress down there? They clearly did not equate the box spring with a “pad” like Paula did. It is only a speculation, but if Ricky was shown the picture with the stained mattress, knowing that there was no such mattress upstairs and that Gertrude and Stephanie were not sleeping on such a horrid mattress, then he had to account for it by claiming that such a mattress as is shown in Photo 1 was to be found in the basement. Why would Officer Harmon make his claim? Probably because an effort was made to convert the basement into a crime scene. If Officer Harmon was right about there being a mattress in the basement, then why is it that the only picture we have from the basement relevant here is a picture of a box spring? Why would they not have taken a photo of the mattress too? They would have. But remember the line from the note: “I’ve torn up a new mattress and peed on it.” What new mattress? There is no testimony about a new mattress. None of the photos of mattresses show new mattresses. The two mattresses in the two crime scene photos are clearly not new either. There was no new mattress. This was added to exaggerate Sylvia’s supposed wrong-doing; i.e. she didn’t just ruin a mattress, she ruined a new mattress. That’s worse! And it’s nonsense. But there may be an explanation for the, totally false of course, claim that Sylvia tore up a mattress; i.e. the statement has as its basis the trashy box spring in the basement (see left). The covering has been torn off. I think that this is what the writer, and I really should say, one of the writers, of the Gang of Boys note had in mind. Who was that? The answer may be given away by something else Sylvia was supposed to have destroyed. Note:
I have broken another wooden chair
More than interesting! There is no reference to Sylvia having broken one wooden chair, much less two wooden chairs. How would she break two wooden chairs? Maybe during a temper tantrum of some kind. Yet there is no indication of Sylvia having broken anything, or behaved in anything approaching a destructive manner. I think that the person responsible for the “torn up mattress” in the note was Ricky. I also think that he was responsible for the claim that Sylvia broke two wooden chairs; he said this:
Q. Would you describe the basement in which you said you scorched or burned or tattooed Sylvia to the jury? Describe it at the time you did this.
A. You walked down the stairs heading east and turned to the left and you see two sinks on the north wall, one sink on the east wall and a mattress and springs up against the north wall and some rags. Farther on down there is a coal bin, a coal furnace and some old kitchen chairs down there.
So Ricky provides an inventory of the basement, and notes that there are some “old kitchen chairs.” Why are they down there? One might be tempted to believe that they were down there because they were broken. No one else mentions old chairs in the basement. So Ricky mentions the torn up mattress and broken chairs.
Another key aspect of the second part of the Gang of Boys note, i.e. that part of the note documenting the charge that Sylvia cost Gertrude money, is the strange accusation involving doctor bills:
I have also cost Gertie doctor bills that she really can't pay and made Gertie a nervous wreck.
I have been making Gertie a nervous wreck and all her kids. I cost $35.00 for a hospital in one day
This is the most interesting part of the note, since it is clear which kid was responsible for it. And the kid responsible was the one kid who might be expected to have had nothing to do with this note. It is true that Gertrude complained about the effects her kids were having on her. In fact, she complains about several kids not minding her, not willing to be disciplined, not watching the baby…etc. But not Paula. Personally, I think that this is the truth. Her children were a headache. But Paula definitely wasn’t. Well, she did run away once. A mother will worry about a child who has run away. Especially if she’s the one child that her mother has no real complaint about. Well, that might not be totally true. I mean, for the most part totally true. But something caused her to run away. That could be any number of things. Still, the sleeping arrangements in the house are strange. And the context in which Gertrude makes the claim about Paula running away is odd. She says it’s in April, 1965:
A. As I said, I lost a baby a year ago this April and did not see a doctor for two days and I was home alone with the children when I miscarried this baby.
Q. April '65?
A. Yes, sir. Subsequently, I only got to see a doctor once, due to my financial difficulties. I did not have money to keep running back and forth to the doctor. At the same time, two days later, my daughter Paula Marie ran away from home and I was having it pretty rough and the house was pretty bad and –
Q. What do you mean - the house was pretty bad?
A. The home we lived in was not a real nice home at all, it was real run down and it was badly heated and damp and truthfully about ready to fall in, but it was all I could afford at the time.
Q. Were you working at the time?
A. No, sir.
Q. Were you doing any domestic work?
A. Well, when Paula ran away from home I realized I had to do something and so something quick if I wanted my children to continue eating and having a decent place to stay. I took on ironings.
So Paula was holding everything together. I believe that is the truth. Whose baby did she lose? Who was the father? We know about a Dennis Wright, the supposed father of baby Denny. And we know that Gertrude made a point of being called Mrs. Wright. In fact, Dixon insists on calling her that, even though she wasn’t married to this guy. Baby Dennis was born in 1964, unless I’m mistaken. Her divorce from John Baniszewski, her second divorce from him…well, I love the fact that John remembers the exact date:
Q. Were you also at one time the husband to the lady seated at the end of the room, Gertrude Baniszewski?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did that marriage terminate?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Tell the court when it terminated?
A. The final hearing was approximately September 17, 1963.
Q. By what means did this marriage terminate?
A. The divorce court.
Maybe someone who is so easily driven crazy by others is capable of driving others crazy. So is the father of the baby lost in April 1965 the same man as the father of Gertrude’s youngest baby? That’s assuming that there was such a man. He ended up in Germany, but maybe he wasn’t the only man who ended up in Germany. You can always tell the hospital that the father’s name is such-and-such and has since disappeared. But that would be creating a cover-story. I have commented elsewhere that certain someones play games in their testimony. Jenny drops hints, such as “Jimmy’s Forest.” And as to idea that there were two girls, not one, there may be a little hint about that too. Now I would cite something here that I would usually hesitate to cite. That’s hesitate. But I will anyway. Stephanie purportedly has posted various odd things on the internet, providing little fictional stories that are reminiscent of what every kid did in court in 1966. I have read one such posting. And I think she plays two little games in her little story. One I found interesting is this:
“Sylvia Likens and I went to kindergarten and, maybe, a few weeks of the 1st grade together in 1956 at Indianapolis Public School #3. Time is such a relative thing when you're 5-7 years old. I also, went to school with two boys Freddy Wright and Douglas Weaver. We were all good friends. Sylvia and I were in kindergarten together with them. That is when we promised each other that we would be the "bestest friends forever." We would go over to Dougie's house to play. We used to pretend that we were married. Dougie "Wuggy" was my husband and Freddy "Weddy" was hers.”
How interesting! Another Mr. Wright! We have Dennis Wright Sr. We have Dennis Wright Jr. And according to Stephanie, Sylvia was “married” to Freddy Wright. Now I don’t believe a word of this. But if she’s made up another fictional story, and provided two little boys for her and Sylvia to be married to, one happens to be named Freddy Wright. He’s fictional? Is he the only fictional Wright? Baby Dennis had that name. And! Paula runs away from home 2 days after Gertrude’s miscarriage. That’s in April, I think. Unless I’m mistaken, Paula was about 6 months pregnant in October 1965. That counts backward to May 1965. Nonetheless, there are a lot of coincidences in this bizarre case! The girls and little Jimmy sleep in one bedroom. Mom and Stephanie sleep in another (odd that the 15 year old, not one of the little girls, sleeps with mom). There’s no boys’ bedroom, which is where one might expect to find Jimmy. No, he sleeps in a room with his sisters, and two completely unrelated teenage girls. Why?
Q. Marie, did you ever see anyone push Sylvia down the stairs?
A. Yes.
Q. Who did you see do that?
A. Paula and Johnny and Richard Hobbs.
Q. What stairs?
A. The stairs leading up to our bedroom.
Q. In other words, the ones that go to the three bedrooms upstairs?
A. Yes, sir.
So Marie agrees, there are three bedrooms upstairs. If there’s no boys’ bedroom, and there wouldn’t be if you had the little boy sleeping with 4 girls (I swear I heard parents gasping), then who’s in the third bedroom? What is the deal with the other bedroom? Mom and Stephanie move down to the dining room, which has been converted into a bedroom. Why? Stephanie said they ran out of room. Upstairs? Well, Johnny came back, and he and Jimmy got a boys’ bedroom. There’s still another upstairs bedroom. Where does Paula sleep? If she has a bedroom, why cram all the other girls into the other bedroom? Can’t she share? It’s impossible to know for sure. Hypothetically, it would be hard to do that, depending on where the baby was sleeping. Stephanie said this:
Q. Who slept in the bedroom with you?
A. My Mom.
Q. Anyone else?
A. Little Denny sometimes when he would get to sleep
Oops! That’s odd. The baby slept with Mom, sometimes. When he could sleep that is. Now babies wake up at all hours of the night. That’s true. But they go back to sleep. I doubt this baby suffered from insomnia. I wonder where else he slept. And if you’ve taken enough Phenobarbital, you could sleep right through his crying. And Gertrude said Stephanie wouldn’t watch the baby! Jenny gives a totally different accounting of the sleeping arrangements. But note how she suddenly gets tripped up as she tries to remember what she was supposed to say:
Q. What were the sleeping arrangements in the house, Jenny?
A. You mean when we first started staying there?
Q. Yes.
A. Upstairs in the bedroom was a mattress. Me and Sylvia slept on it.
Q. Was there a bed?
A. Yes.
Q. Who slept on it?
A. Marie, Paula and Stephanie.
Q. In the other room?
A. Gertrude and Paula.
Q. Where did the others sleep then?
A. Jimmy, he had a bed I imagine - I guess - I think he had a bed and slept by himself till his brother Johnny came.
Jimmy had a bed..she imagines..she guesses. She “thinks” he had a bed and slept by himself. Wow! Guesses; imagines; thinks. If only Jenny wouldn’t be so precise. Uh-oh..Jenny forgot someone. The lovable nurse Shirley, dispenser of nice warm cups of tea to those about to move on to their reward. Where does she sleep? Stephanie said that she herself didn’t sleep back there! That’s another Uh-oh! And oh my! Paula sleeps with Marie and Stephanie, but also with Gertrude! Jenny is having trouble! In reality, I think Paula had a room to herself, and that the baby slept in there too. I think Jimmy may have originally slept with Mom, seeing how that’s preferable to having him sleep with a bunch of girls. Still! I find it utterly fascinating that at the time Jenny and Sylvia moved in, Stephanie was sleeping in the back bedroom. Then, Mom decides to change the arrangements. Maybe Jimmy and Stephanie are swapped out. Then, in September, Johnny, who had been living with Dad, moves in with Mom. Now Mom and Stephanie move downstairs to the dining room. Johnny and Jimmy have a boys’ bedroom, Paula has her own room, and the remaining girls are in the back bedroom. Jenny, trying to remember the right answer, trips up, actually trips over Paula, placing her in two different rooms. And Stephanie is back there in July, but then ends up moving in with Mom. I think Jenny drew a blank, and forgot that Stephanie was not supposed to be sleeping in that room; for the fictional story that is. Tripping over Paula, Jenny stumbled right past Shirley. Jenny gaffed, she was not supposed to put Stephanie in the back bedroom, although I think she was telling the truth.
At any rate, on the subject to getting on Gertrude’s nerves..she was taking Phenobarbital, a dangerous drug used before Valium to control, among other things, anxiety. It is worth taking a look at who among the witnesses was saying what about Gertrude’s nerves. I’ll start with Jenny:
Q. Why did you go to the park all day?
A. Well, I guess she - I don't know, she said all us kids were getting on her nerves, something like that.
Sounds like Gertrude. This is the only time Jenny uses the word “nerves.” She was asked this:
Q. Did she ever tell you to get out of the house, you and your sister, that "you are making a nervous wreck out or me"?
A. That sounds like - I remember her saying something like that.
It is interesting that Jenny wavered, and then gave a rather ambiguous answer. If I could finish her first sentence, then “that sounds like…the note!” Judy Duke:
Q. Did you ever see Gertrude lying down on the bed - sick?
A. One day she did not feel good. It was - she was sick, not feeling good. She was just nervous from all the kids being noisy.
I don’t blame her. I would be too. Is that it? No, there is one more witness. Let’s see:
Q. Did you ever talk with Gertrude about Sylvia?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What did she say?
A. She said that Sylvia was getting on her nerves.
This is promising! This is sounding a little like the note.
A. The last couple of days Mrs. Baniszewski said Sylvia was getting on her nerves too much and she was - I think she asked Richard Hobbs and some of her children to take Sylvia and lose her.
That’s good too.
Q. Did she complain of anything specific wrong with her?
A. She said sometimes it was just nerves but two or three times she said it was because of Sylvia.
A pattern would seem to be developing. Let’s try a synonym:
Q. And on several occasions Gertrude - Mrs. Baniszewski told you that these kids or this girl is driving me crazy or words to that occasion?
A. Pardon?
Q. On several occasions Gertrude said this girl -
A. She said, "This girl is driving me crazy".
Q. Meaning Sylvia?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What - have you any idea - did you ever see the girl do anything that would cause Mrs. Baniszewski to say "this girl is driving me crazy"?
A. No, sir.
Q. How many times did Gertrude say, "This girl is driving me crazy"?
A. Once or twice.
Q. The same day?
A. Not as I know of, sir.
Q. Did you ever hear Gertrude say, "Someone call the police, this girl is driving me crazy"?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. When was that?
A. A few days before Sylvia died.
That one is really interesting. Call the police? Will the police really arrest someone because someone else calls them and tells them that that someone is driving them crazy? For my sake, I certainly hope not.
Q. Was that on a different occasion than what you testified here before?
A. Pardon?
Q. Was that a different time she said that?
A. I think so.
Q. Two or three times Gertrude said "This girl is driving me crazy" - would that be right?
A. Yes.
I think that we’re getting closer to our culprit.
Q. Can you remember the approximate date when Gertrude said, "Someone call the police, this girl is driving me crazy", do you know what month it was?
A. I think the middle of October.
Q. Who was there when she said that?
A. Mrs. Baniszewski said that, sir.
Q. Yes.
A. Let's see, it was me and Mrs. Baniszewski and some of her children.
Q. Was anybody there you see here at the counsel table at that time when Gertrude said for someone to call the police?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Who was there?
A. Paula and I think just Mrs. Baniszewski.
It’s funny that no one else mentioned this.
Q. Where was she?
A. In the kitchen.
Q. Who was there in the kitchen when you hit her?
A. Some of the Baniszewski children and Mrs. Wright and Richard Hobbs.
Q. Why did you hit her that time?
A. Well, Mrs. Baniszewski had just got done saying that she had to pay some money because of Sylvia getting her nerves, she had to go to the doctor's office.
This is definitely our person. Here we go!
Q. One time you hit her was that because - you said something about $35.00 somebody had to pay?
A. Yes, sir, Mrs. Baniszewski.
Q. What did she have to do - what was it about $35.00?
A. Well, I think Mrs. Baniszewski went to the doctor the early part of October. It was because of her nerves.
Q. Did she have to pay $35.00 to the doctor?
A. No, she said - I think it cost around $20.00 and $15.00 for Stephanie to go to the doctor.
Q. This was $20.00 for Gertrude Baniszewski and $15.00 for Stephanie?
A. Yes, rounding out $35.00.
Homerun! Let’s take a second look at the relevant lines in the note:
I have also cost Gertie doctor bills that she really can't pay and made Gertie a nervous wreck
I have been making Gertie a nervous wreck and all her kids. I cost $35.00 for a hospital in one day
So, we have the one responsible for two lines of the note. $35.00, part for Gertrude, part for poor Stephanie, in doctor’s bills because Sylvia was making Gertrude, and, bizarrely, Stephanie, nervous wrecks. “All her kids” is just hyperbole. Now what would make Randy Leppar so obsessed with a harried mother of too many children suffering from nerves? He tells us, and thus reveals a great deal about his own home:
Q. Did you testify a while ago Gertrude was nervous, or said she was nervous?
A. She was nervous.
Q. You saw she was?
A. Yes.
Q. How do you know?
A. Because my Mom had eleven children and I can tell when a person is nervous.
There it is! Mrs. Leppar is the nervous wreck. Why? Too many kids. Not surprising, she had 10. Randy may well have heard repeatedly that he was driving his mother crazy, and that he and his siblings were the cause of her nervous condition. Finally, the end of the note suddenly changes. In fact, the next line shows terrible grammar, and the line after that is garbled:
I wouldn't do nothing around the house. I have done any thing to do things to make things out of the way to make things worse for them.
The grammar of this first sentence is not consistent with the grammar of the two parts that can be traced to Ricky and Randy: “wouldn’t do nothing.” I don’t think that it came from them. But this phrase is similar to the following (individual examples):
A. She was standing by the basement door and she said she could not see nothing, she said everything was turning black.
A. Just standing there, she would not do nothing, just stand there.
A. She did not say nothing but I know she wanted to get out.
A. Yes, she just - I don't know - would not talk or nothing, she just - I mean I could not understand what she was saying.
The following exchange involving the same witness is very informative. In repeating the question, the attorney corrects the witness’s bad grammar:
A. Did she ever punish Sylvia when she did not do nothing?
Q. When Sylvia did not do anything?
The witness in question is Jenny Likens, and her poor grammar in relation to the word “nothing” sounds like the phrase from the end of the note. And the generally poor grammar it reflects is noticeably different than the grammar in the Ricky and Randy portions. However, she isn’t the only who uses this diction. Note:
A. She did not say nothing. She just started crying.
A. She did not do nothing.
A. Sylvia did not know nothing about it.
These are quotes from Stephanie’s testimony. It’s interesting that Jenny and Stephanie sound so much alike when they’re using bad grammar. It is also interesting that one was the star witness for the prosecution, and the other had turned state’s evidence to get a separate trial. Stephanie was taken by Dixon, the lovable and immensely entertaining gendarme who appeared to have walked around with selective amnesia and perpetual sensory deprivation, not mention a great difficulty in finding anything interesting, along with Gertrude to the police station to be interrogated by Kaiser. Wait, Jenny was there too. It’s odd that once getting into the back of Dixon’s car, Stephanie seems to have disappeared. Maybe that’s why Dixon didn’t know who was in the back of his car! I jest. Well Stephanie didn’t disappear, but turning state’s evidence may have lead to her disappearance from the testimony on the part of the cops. Why take her? Could she be the one who gave the note to Gertrude? Remember that Gertrude refused to name the child who gave her the note. Gertrude said something else interesting, something about Stephanie:
Q. Do you remember what happened when you got downtown?
A. I remember being with Stephanie and Stephanie kept asking me to call for an attorney.
That is interesting. Gertrude seemed to be lukewarm on the subject of an attorney, seeing how Kaiser said that she didn’t need one if she didn’t do anything wrong. Gertrude didn’t do anything wrong, but she very much needed one. Why was a 15 year-old girl so intent on getting a lawyer? It’s not a crime to hand your mother a note. Except that note would be critical evidence. If Mom wants to know where you got it, and you won’t say, then Mom, who wants to protect her children, is in a tough spot. She might think she knows where it came from. But if you refuse to tell her, not to mention the court…perhaps she will have to plead not-guilty by reason of insanity; unless she’s willing to give you up, which she wasn’t.
Finally, we get a garbled ending:
I have done any thing to do things to make things out of the way to make things worse for them.
This sounds a lot like:
And they said that they would pay me if I said give them something so. I got in the car and they all got what they wanted and they did
What they have in common is that the writer appears to have a problem with writing. It’s as if she gets confused and trips up when trying to put certain thoughts down in writing. It may be that the person responsible for the Gang of Boys note wrote the whole thing. She wrote the first part. The other two kids told her what to write as far as their contributions went, so the grammar is different while the handwriting is the same. Then the writer composes the last two elements herself.
So why would Ricky and Randy be involved with the note? I think that Sylvia was taken from the basement upstairs to the bedroom. She was badly injured, but alive when this happened. She died upstairs. By the time the police arrived, the house was full of kids. I think Randy and Ricky were there. Gertrude said Randy came over to the house earlier, and she turned him away. Randy says that he was in the house, but had left after Sylvia was taken upstairs and put in the bath. He came over later that evening when he found the non-existent police dog non-existently running around in the front yard. He knocked on the door, and the cop who answered let him put the dog in the house. Gertrude lied about Randy not being there. Randy lied about leaving when he did, since Sylvia was not put in the bathtub. He places himself there later when the cops were there. There was no police dog, and the police would never have let the dog in the house, as it would simply have gotten in the way and contaminated the crime scene. The issue may have been the note Gertrude wrote. The thing that some of the children have in common is that they are all outsiders. They are not Gertrude’s own children. If Ricky and Randy were told that Gertrude was going to blame the death of Sylvia on them, then the only way to save themselves would have been to produce a different note than the one Gertrude was writing. The notes would have to be switched, and Gertrude’s notes destroyed. If she would hand the note to the police without reading it, then things would take a totally different course than planned. And that’s exactly what happened.