So, the Devil Made Me Do It serial essay, to date I should add, is still awaiting more installments. But the subject of Religious Fanatics led to songs, and the inane attempt to drag bands like Led Zeppelin, and Styx, of all bands, into the little Satanic Tool Shed of Suffering that the Garbage Dump Digger Archaeologist may have found under the Diabolical McMartin Preschool… Wait, he was to busy digging bottles from the 1930s out of the tunnel that he found to explore the Inner Sanctum. So we had Stairway to Heaven played backwards. And if you walk backwards down a Stairway to Heaven far enough, you might find yourself under the McMartin Preschool, or, even worse, under Gertie Wright’s house. Still, the subject of songs led to a search, featured in Full Circle 3: Don’t Tell Me You Love Me, for an appropriate song for Gertie and Dennis Wright. But I thought of another song…Ricky Don’t Lose that Number, which reveals how old I am, although I take some comfort in the fact that I was just a kid when Steely Dan released this song. I hope they don’t mind that I changed Rikki to Ricky.
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Tektonikus: Your Honor! I would like to call a witness.
The Court: Oh, good! The Goat-man! I’ve been looking forward to this!
Tektonikus: Well..Your Honor..I was going to call…
The Court: No Goat-man?
Tektonikus: No Goat-man for now. Someone bricked up the wall in Gertie’s basement, so he’s wandering around in the tunnel system under the McMartin Preschool.
The Court: I see. Who would you like to call to the stand?
Tektonikus: Ricky Hobbs.
Bailiff: Would Richard Hobbs take the stand please.
Tektonikus: So, Ricky…what’s half of six?
Richard Hobbs: Three.
Tektonikus: What’s the square-root of 9?
Richard Hobbs: Three.
Tektonikus: How many spoons are there?
Richard Hobbs: Three.
Tektonikus: If you count the number of Gertie’s seven kids…how many are there?
Richard Hobbs: Three.
Tektonikus: When Jenny Likens tells fibs and makes up artificial periods of time…measured in days of course…how many would you have?
Richard Hobbs: 2-3, or 3-4.
Tektonikus: And what do they have in common?
Richard Hobbs: Three.
Tektonikus: How many pentagrams would a Satanic cult draw on a child’s toy tea-plate?
Richard Hobbs: Obviously…three.
Tektonikus: How many stooges are there?
Richard Hobbs: Well, based on the witnesses in this trial…lots!
Tektonikus: I withdraw the question. How many Little Pigs are there?
Richard Hobbs: Oh…three.
Tektonikus: Now, Ricky…and this is very important…what mark did you make on Sylvia with the eye-hook in the basement?
Richard Hobbs: That’s easy! A Letter S!
Tektonikus: Come on, Ricky! Work with me!
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Yes, that is only hypothetical testimony. Still…the Enigmatic Number 3 was declared solved in a previous essay. I am still convinced, in an uncertain sort of way, that the solution presented in that essay is the correct one…though I could be mistaken. The kids thought the mark on Sylvia’s stomach was a Letter S while Kebel and Ellis insisted it was a Number 3. Strange it is that the kid who supposedly masterminded the branding thought it was a Letter S, whereas Kebel, who gave dimensions for the mark completely at odds with those of the Pathetic Pathologist, nonetheless insisted that the mark was a Number 3. It comes as no surprise to those who stand outside of the Canonical Story that no effort was made to account for such an astounding discrepancy. The pathologist insists, without doing it directly, that the guy who made the mutilation didn’t really know what it was. However, a statement made by one of the attorneys indicated that the mark was actually a Letter S and a Number 3. This hint provided the key to the solution…the OM Symbol, which certainly, depending upon how you make it, but much of the time, contains what looks like a Letter S and a Number 3. What more convincing solution is there? It makes Ricky right, and Marie, and Kebel, and our Favorite Pathologist. We have both marks.
I argued that Photo1Woman, who I originally referred to as Photo1Girl, but the basic situation remains the same…I may just go back to calling her Mattress Girl, except the falsified picture that was run in the Indi Star on October 27th has led me to advance her in years, and so I will call her Mattress Woman. I think the cops thought she was Gertrude Wright. The woman in that picture is not Gertrude Wright, at least not in her Gertrude Baniszewski manifestation, but at the same time…she very much is Gertrude Wright. Even without seeing the face of Indi-Star-October-27th-Dead-Woman, we can nonetheless see that the two women appear to have had the same basic appearance…perhaps height, weight, and build. In the latest installment of Full Circle, it was argued that the picture of the woman in the Indi Star was in fact the body of a dead woman found in the basement of the North Denny side of the Infamous Double-house…the one that had a Dreaded Basement just as eerie as the fictional Inner Sanctum Full of Garbage under the McMartin Preschool…both perhaps reflections of Satan’s Tool Shed that religious kooks managed to find when playing Stairway to Heaven backwards… “there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there’s still time to change the road your on.” Perhaps it is that verse that led Robert Plant, at the beginning of the performance of Stairway to Heaven at Madison Square Garden in 1973, to introduce the song with… “I think this is a song of hope.” So! Religious Fundamentalist Non-thinkers find someone bored enough, and with enough time on his hands, to play the record backwards, and find the Satanic Tool Shed. I wonder, if you were a Religious Fanatic and not particularly the sharpest tool in the Satanic Tool Shed..sorry..what you would hear if you played the verse I just quoted…backwards. A band who placed a non-sensical reference to a Certain Utility Structure tells the listener that you still have time to change the road you’re on? Ah, yes…don’t tell me…he means… “If you’re on the road to Good, you still have time to change the road upon which you walk to…Evil! And that’s a song of hope? Hey…how about listen to the song forwards…not only will you hear the coolest guitar solo in history…you might find out that…the song has nothing to do with the Devil…whatever name you want to give him. Or her, depending upon wardrobe, of course. Satan, perhaps, but Baphomet is not Satan, and Baal-Zebub definitely is not. And I know that this will come as a disappointment to my Non-thinking Fiends…sorry…I was trying to think backwards and misspelled “friends,” Lucifer is not the same guy as Satan…or Baphomet…or Baal-Zebub…or even…Judy Johnson’s Goat-Man. But that is not relevant here, and so I apologize for a boring digression. Still, the slogan was done in the kitchen, but the branding was done in the basement. This was happenstance…the rather unwelcome Randy Leppar bangs on the Front Door of Evil, and Sylvia was taken to the basement. Why? Randy must not see Sylvia unclad. Yet Ricky can? Yet all the kids in the kitchen can? And one witness places Little Jimmy…say it isn’t so! in the kitchen as well. Why not have her get dressed? The ridiculousness of this is finalized when one witness states that after going through all this nonsense to prevent Randy from seeing Sylvia undressed, she is brought upstairs and forced to stand naked in front of Vernal Leppar’s Baby Boy. In fact, the Randy Leppar Nonsense was invented to explain why Sylvia, Ricky, and 10 year-old Shirley went into the basement to begin with. The branding must needs happen there, yet the slogan can be done in front of a kitchen full of kids, in 10 minutes, mind you!
Why Ricky? Why what? Well if he did, indeed, make the temporary OM tattoo on Sylvia’s stomach..although his description of the mark as a Letter S seems to indicate that he didn’t know what the OM symbol was…wait! It may well be that Sylvia didn’t really understand the OM symbol herself; but it is cool, and is a fairly common tattoo, either by itself, or as part of a bigger design. That was done in ink, and as Stephanie-All-The-Stars-in-the-Sky-Baniszewski clearly stated, it was wearing off. But that is a long way from a branding in Gertie Wright’s Diabolical Tool Shed. And the branded Number 3 is interesting in so many ways! First, the Gang of Boys Note doesn’t mention it. How strange is that? The note does seem to be primarily interested in explaining the worst of the injuries to Sylvia:
1. The slogan
2. The sores
3. Bruises and other marks- i.e. the Gang of Boys “beat” her
So how can it be that the Number 3, branded onto the skin, was left out of this note? I think there is a good explanation for that. But first! The second thing! What is that? The article that appeared in the October 27, 1965 edition of the Indi Star, the one with the very strange photo of someone purported to be Gertie Wright, with a hand blocking the face, and wearing a “funny blouse” that is remarkably similar to the one in the Mattress Photo, mentions the slogan, but never mentions the Number 3 either.
Now I must state that I found something that I hadn’t seen before. The Indianapolis News, evening edition, for October 27th, also ran a story about the developing Sylvia Likens Saga. And they published a photo too. This photo was taken when Ricky and Gertrude appeared earlier in Municipal Court 6:
Now I must admit that the woman here, who is said to be Gertrude Wright, the name Gertrude Baniszewski never being used, and the same is true of the Indi Star article run that morning, doesn’t look well. But we know that she was strung out on Phenobarbital, was very thin, etc. But it must also be said that this is a crappy photo, and seeing how this is clipped from the microfiche copy of the crappy photo, it’s even crappier…comparatively speaking. I still believe that the woman in this picture is not the woman in the Indi Star article that ran that morning. But something else that both articles have in common, besides the fact that the woman who appeared in court was definitely Mrs. Wright, is that there is no reference to a branded Number 3. And! There is a big difference as to what the slogan said:
“I am a prostitute” Indi Star
“I am a prostitute and proud of it” Indianapolis News
ow that’s interesting. The Indi Star version includes the statement that Ricky had confessed to “detectives” that he had carved the slogan on the body. So how is it that a 4 word slogan became an 8 word slogan in less than a day? And since the Gang of Boys Note contains the version of the slogan in it’s second manifestation (“I am a prostitute and proud of it”), the Gang of Boys Note must have been written sometime late Tuesday night, i.e. after the doctored photo and basic information had been leaked to the press, or anytime during the day on Wednesday, but prior to the publishing of the Indi News story that evening. If Gertrude forced Sylvia to write the note…i.e. the Gang of Boys Note…then it is very strange that the slogan found in it does not match the slogan in the Indi Star, but does match the slogan in the Indi News. And Gertrude said that she did give Dixon a note, just not the Gang of Boys Note.
I’ve said many times that the Gang of Boys Note was not written by Gertrude or Sylvia, and that it was switched out for the original note. In other words, it was written as part of the falsification of the evidence in this case. And I still believe that this is true. But I would speculate on what the original note may have actually said. That’s ‘speculate’ and not ‘assume’, seeing what ‘assuming’ does…something that ‘speculating’ does not. I make the following observations relative to this:
1. Testimony indicated that Sylvia was pregnant
2. Betty Likens and Gertrude discussed terminating the pregnancy on October 15th
3. Testimony, as noted in other postings on this website, clearly presents us with the “Sylvia was gone, but suddenly re-appeared” motif. Randy stated that when he knocked on the door on that Tuesday, Gertrude told him that Sylvia had come back
I believe that all three of these observations are correct. The question as to how seriously Sylvia took school is particularly relevant. An attempt, albeit a clearly unsuccessful one, was made during the trial to indicate that Sylvia was a bright kid, who was, ultimately, planning on graduating from High School. In contrast to Paula, who did finish school, I believe that Sylvia had no intention of finishing school. We know that she dropped out of school while the family was in California, and we know that Sylvia dropped out again when she was living with Mrs. Wright. Betty’s testimony suggested that Sylvia dropped out around October 5th. The following is important:
This appeared in the Indi Star on October 31st. What this indicates is that prior to moving in with Gertrude, Sylvia, presumably in 1964, was failing out of Arsenal Tech. And this was due to repeated absences. A very important question can be asked at this point…where is a high school kid during the day when she is continually not at school? One can’t say for sure, but I do not believe that a constantly truant teenager is hanging around the house, be it the Likens’ house, or even Gertie Wright’s front room. And! Kids skipping school are also not at church, or Sunday School, or volunteering at a Soup Kitchen, or helping cats out of trees. Usually, they are up to quite different things. But we know that Sylvia went back to school in September of 1965, and then dropped out on October 6th, not on October 5th. That is a very short period of time. What was her attendance like?
So yet again, having started school, this time as Stephanie’s twin sister, prior to dropping out…yet again…she wasn’t going to class anyway. All said, there appears to have been no intention of ever finishing school. “Talked her into returning”? Why? What was the point? Of course, a lot of teenagers in Indianapolis at this time weren’t finishing school either. But if Sylvia started school, then didn’t bother to attend…where was she? Locked in the unlocked basement? Locked in the upstairs bedroom? Can we really believe that Sylvia was skipping school and hanging out with Gertie in the front room? Phyllis Vermillion did indicate that Sylvia had been doing “ironings.” This is no doubt true…but only when she was around, and then it is probably the case that, when she was around, she was doing “ironings” for Gertrude, and getting part of the money. I feel compelled to conclude that since 1964, Sylvia had been staying somewhere other than with her parents, and since July 1965, somewhere other than Gertrude’s house. Still, I also believe that, speaking of the period July 1965 – October 1965, Sylvia was coming and going…disappearing, and suddenly returning. So she did stay at Gertrude’s house, but was also staying somewhere else…with someone else. She met her parent son October 15th, when Gertrude told Betty that Sylvia was pregnant, and Betty told Gertrude that, if that was true, the pregnancy should be ended, and on the evening that Robert Handlon was arrested. Jenny stated that while the drama in front of Gertrude’s house played out, Sylvia was in the upstairs bedroom asleep. The October 27th evening Indi News stated that this occurred on October 20th at 1:07 am. That is a very precise time, and is clearly from police records. Jenny is certainly telling the truth. Why? Because she also stated that by this date Sylvia was being totally kept in the basement. That was not the truth, as her obvious gaffe makes clear.
When Betty and Gertrude discussed ending Sylvia’s pregnancy, no indication is given that Sylvia was involved in the conversation. This introduces a very sinister element into the story. And! Sometime after October 20th, and I believe that it was October 23rd, Sylvia left Gertrude’s house. But there is an important point that can be made. Sylvia indicated to Gertrude that she would not be returning and, most importantly, would not go back to live with her parents..ever again. Why? Because although Sylvia’s parents wanted the pregnancy terminated…she did not. And so we encounter the last manifestation of the “Sylvia is gone” motif. Now for a quote from Jenny:
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Q. Sylvia, I will show you - strike that - Jenny, I will show you what is marked State's Exhibit No. 5 and introduced, admitted in evidence, and ask you if you have ever seen that before?
A. Yes.
MR. BOWMAN: I will object to the question on behalf of Coy Hubbard and John Baniszewski for the reason the exhibit is not in evidence.
THE COURT: Overruled. Yes or no.
A. Yes.
Q. When did you see it?
A. Three or four days before she died.
Q. Who wrote the note?
A. Sylvia.
MR. ERBECKER: We object.
THE COURT: Objection sustained. It speaks for itself. The jury will ignore the answer in arriving at a verdict in this case.
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.
MR. BOWMAN: We object.
THE COURT: Objection sustained as to Coy Hubbard and John Stephan Baniszewski. The jury will ignore the question and answer in arriving at a verdict as to John Stephan Baniszewski and Coy Hubbard.
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.
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Exhibit 5 is the Gang of Boys Note. According to Jenny, this was written by Sylvia, at the direction of Gertrude. She also indicates that this would have been on October 23rd or October 24th. I think that Sylvia did indeed write a note at this time. And I think that Gertrude was the one who was behind the writing of the note. If this note was the Gang of Boys Note, why not refer to the Number 3? It’s there…according to the Canonical Story, and if the Gang of Boys Note is actually supposed to have been dictated by Gertrude so as to divert blame from herself when, at some undefined future time, she finally decided to kill Sylvia…something that is clearly absurd, why not refer to the Number 3? The way the note reads, the Number 3 on the body could not be attributed to the Gang of Boys, and, as the story states, the branding occurred immediately after the slogan was completed…so forgetting such an important element simply makes no sense. So if it wasn’t the Gang of Boys Note…what was it? The answer seems somewhat clear; at least a strong possibility does. Sometime between October 20th and October 24th, Sylvia had decided that she would not return to live with her parents, due to the fact that her mother was trying to arrange the termination of her pregnancy. She was involved with someone, i.e. the man who would be the father of the baby, at least since September 1965, but quite possibly for some time before then. Or, perhaps, a man other than the father...which I think is actually the case. That would account for what Sylvia had been doing since 1964, seeing how seldom she was at school. Her intention was, finally, to either live with the father, or, more likely, to flee from the father and live with someone else. When she told Gertrude that she wouldn’t go back to live with her parents, Gertrude instructed her to write a note that Gertrude could then give to Sylvia’s parents, explaining why she had made this decision. Knowing that Betty and Lester would return soon, Gertrude planned to give the note to them. This would make a lot of sense, since it would have the effect of keeping any suspicion away from Gertrude when she told Betty Likens that she and her husband wouldn’t be seeing Sylvia again.
Wow! So we have a possible ‘original’ note. Now I will have to side-step the most critical re-construction of the events of October 26th as far as the Full Circle series goes at this point. But I can say that it was a day that went horribly wrong. A plot to be carried out later that day failed when police were called to the North Denny side of the double after workmen found the body of Gertrude Wright in the basement. That created a panic, to say the least. But when it rains..it pours. Gertrude believed that Sylvia was now permanently gone. She even had the note. Then…it poured…Sylvia suddenly appeared at the backdoor, having been dropped off by someone. Or someones. Walking into the house, an altercation occurred, and Sylvia was knocked down the basement stairs, suffering an ultimately fatal head injury. I think that John arrived, having been contacted by Violet who arrived after Sylvia sustained her injury, and he and Gertrude brought Sylvia out of the basement. And Stephanie was there. Did Sylvia get into it with Gertrude, or Stephanie?
Wow! The Grand Jury sure did seem to think that Stephanie killed her twin sister! And Stephanie was home. If she weren’t, how could she and Ricky put on their comedy routine? And it is more than fascinating that Gertrude Wright was basically a bit-player in the strange and final act of the play put on that evening. She is, in fact, irrelevant as the story goes. It is Stephanie and Ricky who are the key players. Stephanie got a deal because of all the kids, she was the one who had the least evidence against her? Mr. Hammond took that position…but it is clear that the Grand Jury did not! No bond? Why…was she a flight risk? Where would she go? Perhaps the judge could have confiscated her passport. Perhaps he was afraid that Stephanie would descend into the basement of 3850 East New York Street, escape through the wall, make her way through the tunnel system and Inner Sanctum, and then suddenly appear in…California! No wonder she was held on remand.
Then John and Violet left, and as Sylvia lay on the kitchen floor on a blanket, mother and daughter shared a good panic attack together. Then, having gone from a hard rain to a pouring rain, the pouring rain suddenly got even worse. How? Ricky walked in the backdoor, finding Sylvia lying on the floor, and Gertrude and Stephanie panicking. Then what? I’m glad I asked. When Kaiser walked around to Gertrude’s side of the double, and found Sylvia dead upstairs, Gertrude told him that Sylvia had returned that day with a head injury, having been beaten. By whom? The man she had been staying with…he would make a good suspect. And how did Gertrude know about Sylvia’s situation? That’s easy…she had the note…which she gave to the police. That had never been the plan, since she never expected to see Sylvia again. But with the police next-door, which I believe Gertrude was only too well aware of, she had to think on her feet. So use the note. And although Gertrude knew who the father was, she may not have known who Sylvia had been staying with during that time.
One of the greatest problems with the branded Number 3 story is that it serves no purpose. It has no significance. The slogan does, and its significance was explained in court. It was packed with meaning. The branding in the basement is simply a random act carried out by Ricky and Shirley.
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Q. Now, sir, I will hand you what is marked for identification State's Exhibit No. 11. Do you see that there, sir?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you ever see that before?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Where did you first see it?
A. Down in the basement.
Q. I can't hear you sir.
A. Down in the basement of the Baniszewski home.
Q. When did you first see it?
A. Saturday, October 23.
Q. You never saw it before that?
A. No, sir.
Q. Where was it when you first saw it?
A. In Shirley Baniszewski's hand, I think.
Q. Was Shirley holding it in her hand first?
A. She is the one that handed it to me.
Q. Did she say anything?
A. Somehow the conversation had gotten around to marking her with it. She was looking for something to do it.
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The exhibit in question is the eye-hook, which was constantly misrepresented to the jury as an “iron” because of the branding. And it was apparently, according to Ricky, Shirley’s idea, and it was the 10 year old who routed around in the basement to find something to “mark” Sylvia with. Of course, Shirley’s role in this is one of those Details of Absurdity.
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Q. How did the conversation get to it?
A. I don't know.
Q. What was said?
A. I don't recall.
Q. Did anybody say anything before Shirley handed you this iron?
A. Something must have been said. I don't recall what it was.
Q. Were they talking to you?
A. We were all talking together.
Q. It was your idea to brand this girl?
A. No, sir.
Q. How do you know that if you don't know how the conversation started?
A. It may have been my idea.
Q. It probably was, wasn't it?
A. I can't say
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Ricky suddenly has considerable trouble remembering anything. Perhaps he had been taking Gertie’s Phenobarbital. The overall gist of what he is saying is that…it was Shirley’s fault. And there is a strange illogicality in the course of events.
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Q. Alright, then what happened after that?
A. Randy Lepper came and knocked on the door.
Q. Where was Sylvia at that time?
A. Sylvia was standing between the entry to the dining room and the entry to the basement.
Q. Did he come in?
A. Gertrude told Sylvia to go down on the landing and told me and Shirley to take her downstairs and stand on the landing because she did not want Randy to see her undressed.
Q. Randy was the boy that lived across the street?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Randy came in?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Then what happened?
A. Well, I was down in the basement. I don't know what happened upstairs. We took her downstairs and about two minutes later Gertrude called us back upstairs and Randy was still there and she showed him what we had done.
Q. Who showed Randy?
A. No one in particular. Sylvia just stood there and let him look.
Q. Now, down in the basement that day, did you do anything to Sylvia Likens?
A. Not at that time.
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Technically, Randy was the boy who lived across the street from the North Denny side of the double. Still. So Sylvia, Shirley, and Ricky go down into the basement because of Randy’s sudden appearance. One might think that it was at that point that the branding took place. We have all three characters down there. But Ricky suddenly adds the twist that he and Shirley did nothing to Sylvia. Then another Detail of Absurdity. They are in the basement because Gertrude didn’t want Randy to see Sylvia, and in spite of this, the “unbranded” Sylvia is brought back upstairs, and Randy is allowed to see her.
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Q. Now, down in the basement that day, did you do anything to Sylvia Likens?
A. Not at that time.
Q. Later on that day?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What?
A. After Randy had been there about fifteen minutes, we took her down in the basement again and I don't know who thought of it. We had an eyehook and we heated it up with matches and branded an S on her stomach.
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And there is the illogicality. Rather than the branding happening when they were in the basement following the arrival of Randy, all three descend into Gertie Wright’s Diabolical Metaphorical Tool Shed beneath the preschool…I mean…the basement, for no reason whatsoever. The first time the metaphorical three stooges head for the basement, they had a reason. And no branding. The second time…they had no reason for another visit to the Subterranean Tool Shed, and the stairway leading into a place of such importance that if the Garbage Dump Digging Archaeologist had been wandering around 3850 East New York Street, he would probably have decided that there simply wasn’t enough time to visit the Inner Sanctum, was definitely not the Stairway to Heaven. Unless you walk down it backwards. So Ricky is essentially building a nonsensical story, which is complete with his sudden inability to remember anything.
Thus it is clear that, certainly as far as Ricky is concerned, there is nothing symbolic about the branding, and it has nothing to do with the slogan that preceded it by only 15 minutes. And speaking of minutes, there is a chronological problem with Ricky’s story. It begins upon his arrival:
Q. Now, going back to that Saturday, October 23, can you tell the court about what time of day it was?
A. Around 1:00 o'clock or 12:30.
Then the slogan is carved onto Sylvia’s stomach. Ricky doesn’t say how long it took to do that, but he implies that it wasn’t long:
Q. Did you pierce her skin with that needle?
A. No, sir.
Q. How did you do it?
A. I etched little short strokes, short like strokes.
Q. And you finished it?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Now, had you heated the needle any more after that first time?
A. I believe I did one or two times.
Q. Then you heated it no more than once or twice?
A. No, sir.
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This implies a very short period of time. And Ricky’s 10-year-old co-conspirator in the branding was asked the following:
Q. How long were they in the kitchen doing this carving like you say?
A. About five minutes.
Q. What did you see done in that five minutes?
A. My mother started it out and Richard finished it.
That didn’t take long at all! More on the chronology:
Q. Then what happened?
A. Well, I was down in the basement. I don't know what happened upstairs. We took her downstairs and about two minutes later Gertrude called us back upstairs and Randy was still there and she showed him what we had done.
And:
A. After Randy had been there about fifteen minutes, we took her down in the basement again and I don't know who thought of it. We had an eyehook and we heated it up with matches and branded an S on her stomach.
Q. What did you do then?
A. After that I took her upstairs and showed Gertrude and it was getting kind of late and I went home.
Q. What time was it?
A. About fifteen after 4:00.
*************************
Ricky wasn’t sure whether he arrived at 12:30 or 1:00, and despite a spate of memory issues…and who can forget Gertrude saying: Amnesia? I don’t remember any loss of memory…he remembers 4:15 quite well. So Ricky states that from the beginning of the mutilation in the kitchen, to the time he left after branding Sylvia, he had been in Gertrude’s house for a whopping 3 hours and 45 minutes, or 3 hours and 15 minutes.
12:30 Ricky arrives at Gertrude’s house
12:30 – 12:45 Ricky completes the slogan
12:45 Randy Leppar arrives; Sylvia, Ricky, and Shirley head for the basement
12:47 Sylvia is brought back upstairs
1:00 Randy Leppar leaves after being there 15 minutes; Ricky, Sylvia, and Shirley go back down into the basement
4:15 Ricky goes back to the kitchen, and then leaves
So it took 3 hours and 15 minutes to heat the eye-hook, touch Sylvia’s stomach with it two times, and then go back upstairs to the kitchen!
The chronological structure created by Ricky is a Detail of Absurdity with a flashing neon light attached to it; what he describes would obviously not have taken anywhere near as long as Ricky tells us.
The one witness who attempted to actually connect the slogan with what happened in the basement was Shirley, who appears to have realized that the planned, symbolic event suddenly followed by a random, meaningless event, was a problem. But she then completely changed the narrative…or did she?
Q. Was it all done in the kitchen?
A. No.
Q. What happened, did they leave the kitchen?
A. Yes, they did.
Q. Where did they go when they left the kitchen?
A. Down to the basement.
Q. Who went in the basement?
A. Richard.
Q. Did you go in the basement then?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. What happened down in the basement?
A. Richard finished carving on her.
Q. And did he do anything else to her down in the basement?
A. No, I don't think so, not that I saw.
Q. Did you ever see anyone put a figure three on her stomach?
A. No.
Q. Did they put anything else on her stomach besides the hot needle?
A. Not that I know of.
So what happened in the basement wasn’t a branding; it was Ricky simply finishing “carving” the slogan onto Sylvia. My how the Pathetic Pathologist must have felt vindicated! Why? Apparently it is as hard to tell wounds made by cutting from wounds made by burning as the Pathologist said it was…Ricky says that the basement event involved branding, but Shirley says it was cutting. So for Shirley, there is no branding. Was a “figure three” put on Sylvia’s stomach? No. Of course, Ricky will continually refer to the mark as a Letter S, and I think that Shirley was following along the same lines. So she naturally said…no…to the question about a figure three. The attorney then fails to ask her what was actually “carved” on Sylvia in the basement. That comes as no surprise, seeing how Shirley was ruining the Great Lie with her answers. It may be the case that Shirley conceived of the “carved” Letter S as the completion of the slogan. That wasn’t what the Canonical Story was aiming for, but her version of the events, or so I think, shows the inherent stupidity of putting the slogan and the branding in such close proximity to each other.
Now I must double back and look at the question of the Number 3. Sylvia had the OM symbol tattooed on her abdomen; Kebel mentioned the tattooing, but he couldn’t tell what it was. Stephanie provided the reason for this. Ellis carefully omitted mentioning the tattooing. If the remainder of the OM symbol could be taken to be a Number 3, then why convert this from a tattoo into a brand, and then, strangely, convert the cutting of the slogan into Sylvia’s stomach into a sort of tattoo? Of course, Kebel would mention tattooing, in addition to the Number 3, so the full version of the Canonical Story would have to work “tattoo” into it, even though it technically makes no sense in the form of the story provided by Ricky. I originally believed that there was no Number 3 on Photo1Girl, who I have now taken to calling Photo1woman based on the doctored photo of “Gertrude Wright” that appeared in the Indi Star on October 27th. I still believe that…but! I also believe that I have found the reason why the Number 3 was not allowed to remain a tattoo. And unfortunately, Dr. Ellis will come out looking a lot like the McMartin Preschool Indiana Jones as a result. By October 29th, the full strangeness of the Canonical Story was beginning to take shape, but it still had several problems with it. William Kaiser added ridiculous elements to the story. The whole idea of ‘Sylvia wet the bed because she had kidney damage due to the beatings’ is owed to him, and Dr. Ellis promptly nixed this by saying that Sylvia’s kidneys were fine. It appears that Kaiser should not have dabbled in physiological speculations:
So let me get this straight…the Homicide Detective turned Pathologist believed that Sylvia Likens had been in a coma for as much as three days? A three day coma? We are actually supposed to believe that a 16 year old girl was lying on the floor of the metaphorical Gertie Wright-type Diabolical Tool Shed for three days? And did they stop torturing her at that time? Or did they continue torturing a 16 year old girl who was lying on the floor in a three-day coma, and managed not to…die. It is interesting in an interesting way, although I doubt that Kaiser intended this. Intended what? Why was Sylvia lying on the floor of the basement mumbling incoherently on October 26th? None of those who testified provided an answer for this. If we pick up Kaiser’s Strange Football and run with it, one might say that it was on October 26th that Sylvia awoke from her coma, and was trying to communicate. Fascinating! But wrong. We know that Sylvia died as a result of head trauma…something that witnesses were never able to account for…broom sticks, books, curtain rods, the stairs…aside. But a three day coma? If I were Kaiser, I would stick to police lies…and leave the pathologist lies to the Pathologist. And Officer Kaiser! Don’t you dare tell lies about basement artifacts…leave that to the Archaeologist! Or Officer Harmon…or both. It would be strange if they were really the same guy!