The COURT: Alright, counselor, you may question the witness.
ATTORNEY: Thank you, your Honor.
Q. So, you think you’re clever, don’t you?
A. I thought so.
ATTORNEY: Your Honor, I would like to enter these documents as State’s Exhibit 456.
The COURT: Since you represent yourself, I must ask, do you object?

A. No, at least they aren’t some stupid eye-hook cleverly masquerading as an iron furnace poker with a diameter that matches the diameter of a standard drain pipe like the one in Mrs. Wright’s basement sink.

The COURT: You are close to being held in contempt of this court, although it would appear from those documents that you already are. Proceed counselor.

Q. Do you recognize these?
A. Yes. I wrote them.
Q. And what are they?
A. They were supposed to be the truth.
Q. And are they?
A. No.

Q. Look at the accused sitting over there. You see the attorneys. You see the police, and the deputy coroner, and Dr. Ellis. You see them all. Now tell me, do you know the truth?

A. Maybe.
Q. Very good. And why were you wrong before?
A. Misdirection.
Q. Misdirection?
A. Yes. I looked everywhere except where I should have looked.
Q. What about the canonical story world?
A. I made my own.
Q. Better. Isn’t it true that the simplest explanation is usually the right one?
A. Yes.
Q. Was yours simple?
A. No.
Q. If you were wrong, and they were wrong, what makes you think that you’re right now?
A. Because it’s simple.
Q. What is simple?
A. The answer...the truth...it’s simple.
Q. What is the truth?
A. It never happened.

Q. Never happened? Someone is dead, two “someones” if you’re to be believed. Two girls, a missing Likens sister, and one we know well, one with a slogan written on her, one with a slogan carved into her. That isn’t the truth?

A. No, there was only one girl.
Q. Your mysterious Photo 1 Girl?
A. Well, yes.
Q. And who is she?
A. Sylvia Likens.
Q. Are you now saying that the girl on the mattress is Sylvia Likens?
A. Yes.
Q. You’re sure?
A. I am.
Q. And she died in that house?
A. No, but she was brought there.

Q. Really? You believed that she got into a fight with her sister about wanting to go home, didn’t you? Then Stephanie got involved, Sylvia got knocked down the stairs, hit her head on the wall, and then died upstairs. Wasn’t that your theory?

A. Not any more.
Q. Why?
A. Because of him.

The COURT: let the record show that the witness is pointing to Mr. John Baniszewski Sr.

Q. Him? Why is he important? Your Mystery Cop appears at Mrs. Wright’s house because of him?
A. No. Dixon’s whole cop-sitting-in-the-living-room gimmick was totally fictional. That said; there was a Mystery Cop. Indeed, more than one, but one in particular.
Q. You didn’t answer my question…why is Mr. Baniszewski so important?
A. He lied.
Q. Hah! Everybody has been lying, so of course he lied. Can you explain?
A. I could. But I have a question I would ask him.

ATTORNEY: Your Honor! I am the attorney! Witnesses don’t ask questions, they answer them!
The COURT: Given his change in opinion, I am willing to allow it. What question would you ask him?

A. Where he gets his TV repaired.
The COURT: What kind of question is that? Why would you ask that question?
A. It’s important, very important.
ATTORNEY: Why?
A. Well, I would get my TV repaired at Gales.

That was a strange dream. And when I awoke, I found myself thinking that I had been far too clever. In fact, I had played the game, their game. Any of the characters from the Great Charade that are still alive and saw my postings would have laughed long and loud. And I wouldn’t blame them! My reconstruction fails utterly. Perhaps my greatest mistake was not realizing just how deeply the lies ran. I was far too willing to see kernels of truth. The truth is that the trial of 1966 was a brilliant exercise in Black Ops disinformation. And everyone there was in on it. If you want to hide the truth, you can construct a lie to do so. But you run the risk of some guy who thinks he’s clever picking and poking at your lie until it falls apart. Instead of one lie, create two lies. That would work better. But even better would be to so confuse the lies with a bewildering array of sub-lies and deceptions, so many layers of nonsense, so many sleights of hand, that anyone attempting to find the truth in what is there will prove to be less than clever. Magicians indeed.

It dawned on me just how odd it was that four mental health experts could examine a woman accused of horrible things and all would agree. Not one of the four would say…she’s crazy! She’s sadistic! She’s paranoid! Maybe even, to please Dr. Kebel, she’s a madwoman! I couldn’t help but find myself thinking that it wasn’t possible. Well, it was possible, if they were in on the whole thing. That led me to face the biggest flaw, among many, in my attempted reconstruction. If the police lied, if the court lied, if all the attorneys lied, if the ME personnel lied, if the matrons at the woman’s county jail lied, the cleric, the nurse, the church lady, the nosy neighbor; in short, how could everyone possibly have been lying? I came up with two answers. The first answer- they had all been threatened. Some very bad people were fixing the whole trial to cover something up, to hide something…or someone. Criminal organizations have fixed trials, that’s true. But that can’t be the answer. There are simply too many people. Surely, at least one of them would stand up for the truth. But an even better objection can be raised; namely, if the trial were being fixed by a criminal organization, then it would have never looked like the trial that took place in 1966. Why? Everyone would have been following a party line. They would agree with one another. Instead, it is clear that the witnesses who testified were intentionally contradicting each other. And while I think the whole thing was orchestrated, the participants in the Great Lie were not doing so under threat. That left the possibility of bribes. That’s happened too. But again, there are simply too many people. Someone, at least one person, would have stood up and proved himself or herself unwilling to be corrupted. And, even though I think they all lied, they were not immoral people per se. So I was stuck again. That was until I woke up again and found myself surrounded by books. Not the things I had written. But books. Big books. Books that I would have said were boring books. But they turned out to be critical to providing an answer.

A phantasm is an illusion, a figment of the imagination. That’s exactly what the Sylvia Likens’ Murder trial was…a phantasm. Only in this case, the Great Phantasm is made up of many figments of the imagination. And before the big books guided me onto a far better path, I found myself meandering as I moved further and further away from what I believed before. Then I found myself at an answer, a possible answer, which was possibly a far more simple answer than anything I had previously imagined. And yet, one far more bizarre than the bizarre possibilities I thought I had seen. And yes, it is very important where you get your TV repaired. Why ask Shirley if Mr. Leppar ever came over to Gertrude’s house to paint her room? Why couldn’t John have painted her room? Not Johnny, but John. John Sr. If I had been a painter for, say, Insley, I could easily paint Shirley’s room. He didn’t answer my question about Gale’s TV, but I think he will. And! I would ask him another apparently stupid question; namely, if I drove a Chrysler, and it was having engine problems, could he fix it for me? No one asked if Mr. Leppar would fix Shirley’s Chrysler, if Shirley weren’t ten years old and actually had a Chrysler. Mr. Leppar was a painter, a wallpaper hanger, and an interior designer, just as his father had been. He knew one calling. John knew more than one.

Personally, I like John’s attempt to play a clever cat-and-mouse game on the stand. He had been over to his wife’s...sorry...ex-wife’s house, many times. But! He never goes inside. I think that’s a lie. But I had to admit that I would have been tempted to lie about that too. After all, by lying about that, I wouldn’t find myself lying about what I saw or didn’t see when I was in that house. The nurse lied, but she also told the truth. She was sent there, not because of an anonymous tip from the not-so-anonymous Mrs. Monroe, about a child with sores. I think she was sent by the school. Why? Because suddenly Sylvia was not at school anymore. Sanders went to the house, and indeed, did not see Sylvia. Why? Sylvia was gone. Where? No one knew. They were looking for her though. Who? The police? Yes and no. Not the Indianapolis police. Why would you have them look for this girl? The thing no one wants to discuss is that in April 1964, one of the biggest police scandals in the history of the IPD exploded when a grand jury issued indictments against 22 police officers. They had been working for two racketeers running the illegal gambling trade in Indianapolis. Treasury agents were involved in uncovering the truth. And! When those racketeers testified, they said something fascinating. The dirty cops? That’s nothing. Keep looking, and you will find much bigger players. They wouldn’t drop names, but I think they were telling the truth. Feds were operating in Indianapolis. Maybe it was feds who were looking for Sylvia. Maybe it was feds who found her. Maybe they had been involved in concocting one of the most bizarre events in American judicial history.

A troubling question suddenly came to mind. I imagined a strange scene. There I was, filling up the gas tank of my recently fixed…no, not TV, Chrysler! Or, I was standing in line at McDonald’s to order a Big Mac. And some guy walks up to me.

“Hey, I know you!”
“You got the wrong person.”
“No, I know you! I followed the whole thing.”
“Look, pal, you’re mistaken. Beat it.”
“I have all the newspaper clippings. You’re her! And you’re…supposed to be in jail.”

If I were one of those responsible for giving that person, who is no longer me, but now her, an assumed identity, and having given her a new life…well, maybe it started with the sudden threat to her life years ago. Jail can be the safest place in the world, if you’re not actually there, but the pretense that you are actually there is being carefully maintained, and you take up a new life under a new name...that’s pretty safe. The people who were looking for you...people who want to kill you...aren’t looking for you because they think they know where you are. They think you’re in prison. Why? You were convicted of a bizarre crime during an impossible trial, and promptly sent to jail to begin paying your debt to society. Only, you didn’t commit that crime, and your handlers had to find a way to get those looking to kill you from looking to kill you. Because they think they know where you are. But you’re not there. Instead, your filling the tank of the Chrysler you got John to fix for you, or waiting to order your Big Mac. The trial was a sensation! And you became famous...well, infamous, and the possibility always existed that someone would recognize you. Now I asked myself, if I were that person’s handler, what would I do? I could give her another assumed identity and move her somewhere else. That’s easy. But that guy saw her, and that guy will talk. What if people listen? What if some investigative journalist looking to make a name for herself decided to pursue it? I finally came up with something clever. I decided not to contest what that annoying guy was saying. I decided to say...yes, he saw her. And yes, she was supposed to be in jail. Why was she at the gas station? The McDonald’s? Because she escaped from jail? Yes! So we take her back to jail. Then we lead her out the back gate and set her up with a new identity. And that one lasts for decades, until someone recognizes her again. She’s a low-key person working at a school. Calls are made. Yes, that’s her. Using a name, an identity, which was actually revealed in 2007 in the obituary of her father, an obituary I found on the Internet, an obituary that may have been heavily redacted. So she disappears again...without a trace.

That’s not bad! Yes, the one who is not so clever managed to be clever enough to come up with that little story. Not possible, I’m sure, but clever nonetheless. What about John’s game of cat-and-mouse? How well did he know Mr. McClatchey? Wait, I’m ahead of myself. I’m not at Gale’s yet! It seemed strange to me that John’s more than understandable “I-was-over-there-but-was-strangely-prophetic-enough-to-have-never-gone-in-that-house-except…” was not limited to the Great Black Hole that was 3850 East New York Street. A hole can be something that you accidentally fall into and get hurt. But! A hole can be a great place to hide! Not John, but Gertrude. If I were Gertrude’s handler, and I knew they were coming for her, I would have told her that I would set her up somewhere else under an assumed identity. Simple enough. What if she said…no! Oh come on, Gertrude, or whatever name you have been using prior to the grand jury indictments, this is how it works. Maybe not. Maybe someone important to her, very important to her, someone we had to hide because of a possible threat to her safety, won’t leave. So now Gertie won’t leave. Fine, stay in Indianapolis, but you’ll need an assumed identity. Another clever idea…engineer a divorce, then move her to a different part of town and establish the Gertie Wright assumed identity. Then, move her again. Everybody in the new neighborhood knows her as Mrs. Wright. And Dixon won’t stop calling her that throughout his testimony. But my cleverness didn’t stop there! After all, this is the undercover Black Ops world! What would be almost as good as actually moving her to some other part of the country? I know! Spreading the story into the criminal underworld that she had been moved to another part of the country. Surely they would believe that. Only an idiot would hang around town after the Great Avalance began when the grand jury started tossing indictments around. Maybe they would stop looking for her.

That’s not bad either! There is a small problem. There’s still a contract out on her. That means that there are still hoods and/or crooked cops who didn’t get indicted in April 1964. They’re still on the loose, and would like to collect. Then a strange thing happens. As Mrs. Wright moves to East New York Street, Robert and Karen Handlon move to North Denny Street. Now I know that name! Raymond Vermillion’s wife, nosy neighbor I-heard-shovel-scraping-in-Gertrude’s-basement that will lead to trolling-fifty-years later Phyllis Vermillion, knows Robert Handlon. Dot-dash-dash-dot…who would have thought you could scrape out an S.O.S with a shovel? What’s that other scraping sound? I can’t make out the Morse code because two quarreling girls are scraping coal off the basement floor to feed the furnace. Pseudo-Professor Moriarty wins the argument but is banished beyond the pale, only to rise again from the ashes like a not so clever Phoenix! Dot-dot-dot-dot...dot...dot-dash-dot-dot...dot-dash-dash-dot! If I were walking by Gertrude’s house, I would know what that means…help! Wait! Dash-dash..dash-dash-dash..dot-dash-dot..dot…dash-dot-dash-dot..dash-dash-dash..dot-dash..dot-dash-dot-dot! Hey, Phyllis, what’s that mean? Are you stupid? “More coal!”

Although it was hard to hear “help!” over “more coal!” I would call the police. Wait, no. Too many leaks. Not the IPD. Maybe I’d tell Phyllis. Maybe I’d tell someone in the canonical story world. Perhaps I’d look for an undercover fed and mention it to him…or her. Wait again! John was in the Navy! I’ll call Gale’s TV and tell him. Surely he knows Morse code. Sorry for the annoying digression, but it’s one of the few things I’m clever enough to do well.

But East New York Street and Denny Street? I thought the Handlons lived in the other side of the double, the other side of Mrs. Wright’s side of the double. The Handlons lived at 304 N. Denny Street. That’s not so strange. Gertrude’s magical front door opened out onto East New York Street. The not-so-magical front door belonging, for a while, to Robert and Karen Handlon, opened onto Denny Street. And we have a baby Denny! The conflict between Robert Handlon and Gertrude Wright may have a quantifiable cause. But the police got involved, and the scandal of 1963-1964 would suggest that the IPD had leaks. Feds don’t like to tell the local LEOs what they’re doing. Especially if what they’re doing is trying to put local LEOs into cages…oh no! More animals! An incredible shrinking 3 foot tall-2 foot tall police dog, a ghost puppy, Stephanie’s spider, giraffes and horses…and I’m guilty of bringing a chickadee and a badger into the eerie zoo that was 3850 East New York Street…and now LEOs! So I have a lion’s share of the blame for...stop that! Well, me and my fellow handlers responsible for trying to protect Mrs. Gutherie…I mean Miss Van Fossan…I mean...who is she now? That’s right…Mrs. Wright! Sorry, that was bad. Still, the local cops can’t know anything, or someone will come looking to cash in on the contract on Mrs. Whoever-she-is-Wright-now...sorry, it’s becoming a bad habit, and will kill her…and her kids. But her conflict with Robert and Karen Handlon brings in the cops, and now things change.

I think I hear the phone! It’s Hollywood, and they want to make a movie! Wishful thinking. Then a horribly tragic thing might happen. What is that? Information leaks that a woman living on East New York Street isn’t who she claims to be. Indeed, there isn’t a Mrs. Wright, rightly or wrongly! This woman is living under an assumed identity. We’re not sure who she is exactly, but we have a suspicion. Come on, the feds relocated her! It can’t be her! But a gang of 5 men seeking to make a lot of money fast…no, not street thugs beating up prostitutes for protection money, but 5 guys working for the racketeers, decide to look into it. Easy money? Sure! But the people they work for may be out for a horrible revenge. They come up with a plan. Look at all that lady’s kids. Let’s grab one, and get the truth out of her. Problem is, they grab the wrong kid, a kid who isn’t Gertrude’s kid. And she can’t tell them what they want to know, because she doesn’t know anything. Wait, that's not exactly true. Baniszewski? Do they know this name? I wonder. Still, she doesn't know much. Sure! But the gang doesn’t believe that. They’ll get it out of her. Well, they’ll try. So she’s gone.

Ok, the story gets more sinister. And will get more so. Gone? Yes, gone. This was one of the few threads of truth told during the trial. Sylvia had been gone. Gertie told Ricky that, and she told Randy that. She was in Juvenile Detention? Obvious disinformation. But gone. Yes! They had no idea where, or who had her, other than the fact that she had been seen getting into a car with a gang of boys. Not to exchange sexual favors for money. The whole “prostitution theme” was part of the Black Ops. There was no prostitution. Where did that come from? Maybe, the slogan! Yes! So the slogan came first, then the whole prostitution dead-end misinformation. What can one say? Perhaps, when they found Sylvia, she did have something carved into her abdomen. But it didn’t say “I am a prostitute and proud of it.” That is and has always struck me, as absolutely ludicrous. So long and so grammatically correct! Your English teacher would be so proud! And, so totally nonsense. But! Release that to the press, and wow! Maybe what was found on Sylvia was a message, a message to her mother Gertrude. She wasn’t her mother, but you couldn’t convince The Five of that. What did it say? I’m not sure. But the branded Number 3 might have been part of it...they think Gertrude has three more kids, and they’re coming for them. Who are these guys? We don’t know. But we better do something fast. And a tragedy that befell one person might just prove the salvation of many people.

The Big Four will certify me for sure. None of that can be true. And why did the Likens girls end up at Gertrude’s house? Who is right, Lester Likens or Mrs. Wright, as to how Jenny and Sylvia ended up at 3850 East New York Street? I think the answer is that neither story is the truth. It would be a very weird truth if Lester Likens already knew Gertrude. Even weirder still, if they had been working together. How strange is it that Lester and Betty Likens suddenly moved to 2716 East New York Street in 1965 just ahead of Gertrude what’s-her-name? And then, oh yes, then a strange thing happens. In fact, it was something that had been done before. Back in 1955/1956, Mrs. B suddenly runs off to Kansas and…you guessed it…California under an assumed name, Mrs. Gutherie. Then she suddenly arrives back in Indianapolis, gets together with a certain repairman and takes up like nothing happened. Well it did happen, the sudden threat to Gertrude prompted a sudden relocation. When the threat subsided, we bring her back. Again! Lester and Betty, in February of 1965, suddenly leave town. They go to California, and after 3 months, suddenly return. For work? Please! Lester and his family are under threat, relocate, and then return. Sounds familiar! It would be very strange if those who threatened the Likens were the same as those who wanted a piece of Gertrude. The Likens go to Lebanon. That’s true. But Lester and Betty quarrel again, and she takes her daughters and returns to Indianapolis. After all, Wallace and Matilda Grimes are there. This is a problem. Betty is recognized. Lester suddenly appears. They’ve gotta’ leave fast. But they don’t want to take their daughters. Maybe they fear someone catching up to them, and a tragic end would befall their daughters as well. But they’ve gotta’ go fast. I know, let’s leave them with Mrs. Wright. It’s not perfect, but she may be in the best position to protect them. We won’t leave them with the Grimes, since that will put them in danger. Let Gertie handle this. There’s another one, one who took a very attractive picture for her 1963 high school yearbook. She went to California too? I don’t think so. Maybe it was decades later. You and your husband are on the way to a family get-together. Nothing big. You leave the casino and then…someone wants to talk to you. So you turn your cell phones off, and then disappear. Then you reappear two weeks later. Two weeks? Wow. Not Sylvia’s Two Weeks. This is what I’ve been doing for the last two weeks? Maybe this is someone else’s Two Weeks. And what did she do? Eat pie and oranges, drink rainwater, and sit around in her car for two weeks? Someone is dead, and then...a note! Another Likens note. How many notes will there be? A strange shortcut? Not far from the highway as you sit and eat your pie. Then you’re discovered just in time! And one day the truth will be made known! You weren’t a big figment long ago, in fact, possibly a wild card. If you married a guy who got mixed up in stealing cars and went to prison, and you moved around from place to place, it would be hard to find you. That’s actually in your best interest, given your father’s predicament. As Lester and Betty said in court, they didn’t know where she lived. That was also in her best interest. A gang of racketeers can’t get information out of you that you don’t know. Or someone they can't find. Wow! The Grimes are safe, and so is a certain someone else, relatively speaking. Nothing’s perfect. Still, you know the truth, and the truth will be made known. Yes! And the truth will set you free!

Relkin will certainly tell the others that I’m insane! Oh, wait...I know, a girl might be dead. So dispatch sends a cop who will prove immensely entertaining in court. A veritable Dunderhead. She’s dead...I know by looking. No police dispatcher would have refrained for one minute from sending an ambulance. Then we get a stupid subplot. There was a Mystery Cop there. If I were really covering up a cop’s involvement, it would have been so easy to say, “Yes, I was the first cop there! Yes, I was the first cop to see the body! Yes, I did search the basement.” Instead, we get treated to seeing nothing, hearing nothing except about the girl I was there to see. Did you see her? Who? The girl! What girl? Sylvia! Oh, that girl. Excellent stuff. Then slowly build up to the revelation that no one seems to be interested in…a cop sitting in the living room. Hey guys! Just wait and see what some idiot 50 years later does with this one! And that’s well deserved. How about this, Officer Dunderhead…maybe there was no call made at all. No “a girl might be dead.” Nothing you said on the stand was true. That’s well deserved too. So there! If there was a call made, Ricky and Johnny didn’t make it. If I made it, and I was a fed working in the murky underworld that was now surfacing at a shabby house on East New York Street, I would say... “Alright, Melvin, we’re live. Make it good. Just like we said.” But Gertrude supposedly doesn’t have a phone, and I can’t find a nickel to make the call at Kiernan’s Shell Station across the street. Hey, Ricky! Can I borrow a nickel?

Let’s make another call. It’s October 26th. The show has begun at Gertie Wright’s house. What show? The big show. Sylvia has been murdered. They’re coming for Mrs. Wright and her children. And the safest place is…jail! Arrest them all, even the children? Yes! Even the 10 year-old? Of course, all must go into custody, where we can keep them safe from the guys in the car that just circled the block for the third time. I have a clever idea. If we brought Sylvia back to Gertrude’s, you know, after me and my fellow handlers found her, we could engineer the whole…Gertrude killed Sylvia in her house. Now everybody goes into police custody. Someone will have to tell the Likens. Where are they? In Florida. We better call. Who? Well, Lester is asked that on the stand and is not allowed to answer the question. The cops don’t call. Jenny doesn’t call. A friend of Lester’s calls…Delmar Burton calls. A former neighbor? Yes, but that’s strange too. Why is that the Burtons and the Likens, not yet neighbors, suddenly disappear, only to re-appear, living next to each other? That is odd. Then on the night of Sylvia’s death, Mr. Burton knows how to reach Lester? While Lester is crashing in a hotel room in Florida? One might conclude that Lester and Delmar were into the same thing. Lester wasn’t back when he said he would be- 3 weeks from October 5th is October 26th...exactly. Some idiot 50 years later will make much of that. True, but how about this...the whole 3 weeks story was concocted as another thread of misinformation. So no such promise was ever made. And it is impossible, I know, that the “three weeks” theme owes its origination to the Number 3 branded on Sylvia.

Wait, where was I before a long, annoying meandering? Oh yes, a little cat-and-mouse from John. That merits further discussion. And I think that Violet might be able to help. Perhaps it’s time to continue with the not-so-fantastic Phantasm.