The Numbers Game: The Enigmatic Number 3- Conclusion
It’s time to look briefly at the last Number 3, which is really the first Number 3. In part 1, it was noted that Ellis saw the branded number 3 on the girl lying on his autopsy table. Dr. Kebel described the number 3 that he said he saw on Sylvia Likens, but the dimensions were too big, and disagreed with those provided by Ellis. Kebel gave dimensions consistent with estimating the size of the round end of the, at least on this website, infamous State’s Exhibit No. 11 by estimating the size of the drain in Gertrude’s laundry sink. Kebel saw Sylvia Likens, but not a number 3. It was also argued that an intentional misrepresentation of the EYE-HOOK, ok..I won’t do that anymore, as the iron furnace poker that the canonical story, and in particular one of the most important authors of it, Sgt. Kaiser, had originally attributed to Johnny. The poker was ditched in favor of the eye-hook, and was then put in Ricky’s hand. And Shirley’s hand too, thanks to the inclusion of a “detail of absurdity”. Based on the dimensions of the number 3 provided by Ellis, which are accurate, the eye-hook can not have made the brand. In the dispute between the Lower Rivers Ranch and the cattle-rustlers of the Upper Rivers Ranch, the clarity of the brand was everything. The shape of the eye-hook, given that the round end is not perpendicular to the shaft, would have made nothing more than a terrible burn. Heat the iron..no, poker..wait! an eye-hook is made of steel and not iron, just ask the 10 year old. Yes, a poker allows more flexibility of shape, but that’s only theoretically. The eye-hook, well the end of it, allows for a round number 3, but that’s only theoretically. And! Ellis’ number 3 isn’t round, it looks like two ovals. Oh my, there are some problems. Don’t heat it in the furnace…heat in the sink by lighting lots of paper..and don’t forget to burn your hand, Ricky!
I’m confused. Is it really a number 3? Or does it stand for “Sylvia”? Surely not “Shirley”! Ok, that was bad. Did I say that? No, I never! Is Ricky too stupid that intending to make an S that doesn’t stand for Sylvia and doesn’t stand for Shirley that he ends up making a meaningless 3? Too bad he couldn’t have really wanted to make a meaningless letter S! Could either have any meaning in the canonical story context? No! So Ricky, that long, yet meaning-laden slogan you put on Sylvia in the kitchen..what was incomplete about it? What will the number 3 do? What, Shirley? It’s a letter S? What will the letter S do? “You’re wrong!” Ricky says. “Shirley and I looked around the basement for something to use to be more mean to Sylvia.” Sorry, I forgot. My isn’t Shirley strong! But put back the 3-4 foot long iron poker that is actually made of iron and is actually a poker, and maybe dust it to see if Johnny’s fingerprints are on it. An eye-hook or eye-screw or screw-hook, and that’s a lot of synonyms, is really made of steel, just ask Shirley! It’s odd, but an iron poker is made of iron and is really a poker..unless it’s a steel EYE-HOOK! So! the number 3 or letter S or the letter S that Ricky messed up and became a number 3…has no meaning. Has no meaning? The eye-hook didn’t make the brand, nor did the iron poker. Johnny didn’t make the brand, nor did Ricky or Shirley. It wasn’t made in Gertrude’s house, and it wasn’t made on Sylvia. So Kebel could give his too-large dimensions of the brand, although get the diameter of the laundry sink in Gertrude’s basement exactly right. But there was a number 3. And it was made with something. And it was made somewhere. How can you say it wasn’t on Sylvia? Well, Kebel, first and foremost. And! The Gang of Boys note doesn’t mention it. That’s strange. Very strange. Maybe the writer of the note didn’t know about the number 3. I don’t think so. I think the writer of the Gang of Boys note knew about the number 3, but also knew that it wasn’t on Sylvia. That person also knew about the slogan. But that appeared on 2 girls, one of whom was Sylvia. But with a twist.
If Kebel’s girl and Ellis’ girl are two different girls, then it was Photo 1 Girl who had the brand on her chest. Where was she found? We have no idea. Why? Because the picture of her is taken is such a way that the location of where the photo was taken is completely indiscernable. She was found in a place with no lights; an abandoned place with no utilities. But I think there was running water. Gertrude’s basement had running water, and it had lights. But if you’re a homicide detective that has troubling find a light switch and doesn’t appear to like the dark…well if the lights are out, then the basement is dark. But there is no way that Photo 1 Girl was found in Gertrude’s basement. How can one be sure of that? One can’t! But, Photo 1 Girl was murdered. This didn’t happen in Gertrude’s house or basement, and she wasn’t found there. What would indicate that? Perhaps the same thing that indicates the kind of place where she was found. For that, one must confront the enigmatic number…no! Not 3! The enigmatic number 10. What? That’s sneaky! Yes, it is. But no sneakier than turning steel eye-hooks into iron furnace pokers, or setting people up for things they didn’t do. It’s no sneakier than replacing Gertrude’s note with your note, and certainly no sneakier than bullying children into signing false confessions. Still, I was sneaky for suddenly dropping in an enigmatic number 10, but that is less sneaky than covering up the significance of the enigmatic number 10. That was done at the trial. The number 10 in question isn’t really so enigmatic, and wouldn’t have been during the trial, if it had been dealt with openly. That didn’t happen. Why not? Because the number 10 proves that the girl in the photo died somewhere else. In fact, she had never been in Gertrude’s house, and didn’t know Gertrude. Did she know one of her daughters? That just might be possible, especially if both girls were seen at the same place..well, at the same house.
So what is all of this about the number 10? I thought that it was the number 3 that was so important. The number 10 is, among other things, proof that there are two different girls, and also provides the important indicator that leads one to posit that photo number 1, which shows Photo 1 Girl in an unknown location, has clearly been altered. That’s interesting! The number 10 is the number of fingers most of us have on our 3..sorry, I just love the number 3,2 hands. And, seeing how each finger has a fingernail, we all have 10 of those as well. It is strange that only one witness was asked about Sylvia’s fingernails:
Q. Did you happen to notice her fingernails?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did you ever notice her fingernails?
A. No, sir.
Was Ricky interested in pedicures anymore than contract killings? Of course not. I wonder what Kebel said about the fingers?
Q. What observation did you make in connection with this examination?
A. The body was in complete rigor, as a matter of fact, when I picked the body up it did not break at the hips, there was pretty complete stiffness. She was a very light person, so this was very possible. Also, I estimated from the differentiation of temperature from the fingers, which would be expected to cool very quickly and come to room temperature, and from the abdomen, which cools rather slowly, they were very near the same, near room temperature.
Q. Have you an opinion, within a reasonable medical certainty, Doctor, as to the estimated time she died?
A. Yes, sir, I do. Now, you must remember, Mr. New, this is a clinical opinion based on only what I knew at the time about the girl and about bodies in general, the lack of differentiation in temperature between the small extremities, the fingers, and the abdomen, the amount of rigor in the body - settling of blood in the body produces rigor mortis - and I estimated the girl had been dead approximately eight to twelve hours, and this is what I gave in my verdict.
I think the trick with the fingers is clever! So we know that Kebel held Sylvia’s fingers, and he has nothing odd to describe about them. Now! Time to look at Photo 1 Girl:
We’ve seen this picture already! Yes, but perhaps it would help to look at only one part of it:
So look at the left hand. You only really notice it close up. Notice what? The photo has been altered to so as to cover up the left hand. It has been altered so as to look like the “funny looking blouse” she’s wearing. But her hand isn’t under her blouse. The alteration was done in such a way that it looks like she’s wearing a “funny looking glove” that looks like her “funny looking blouse”. Notice her right hand. Notice the lack of definition in the fingers, notice the pattern from the funny blouse passing over the top of her right hand. The image of both hands has been altered. Notice too the bizarre circular pattern that exists just right of her left hand. I think this happened when the picture was altered. This is a falsified picture, and is falsified evidence. When looking at the regular sized photo, it is difficult to see. But the court was not shown a close up. The jurors did not see the alterations. Alterations to what? Well, the photo; specifically, the hands. Why alter the hands? I think the reason for that is clear. Something was being covered up; something that would destroy the whole case. Gertrude, her kids, and the neighborhood boys would walk. Gertrude’s house would not have been a crime scene. And everyone, not just those who might ask…“are you sure?” might conclude that there were two different girls. As for the latter, the number 3 is clear evidence of that. So too the sores, and the slogan. But I haven’t made the point about the slogan yet, so that’s cheating. Ok, but is it really the hands that are being hidden? They are, but so too the fingers, and so too the fingernails. Why hide the fingernails? Ricky said he never noticed them. And! None of the other witnesses were asked about them. Kebel held the fingers as he assessed the time of death. And he didn’t indicate that there was anything wrong with the fingers, much less the fingernails. When you look at the picture, the Photo 1 Girl picture, do you see anything wrong with the fingernails? No. But that’s because the photo has been altered so that you don’t notice them. Why? Let’s ask Dr. Ellis:
On the palm of the right hand, there is a sort of puncture wound which is one approximately one-fourth of an inch in diameter. The left hand, the middle finger, there was some blood present, underlying or in the nail bed and the middlemost portion of the fingernail was broken off. The remainder of the fingernails, when examined, showed that they were all broken, so that the broken portion extended toward the back of the hand. This was on both hands.
Wow! The fingernails were all broken backwards! One should pause on this point. A dead girl with all her fingernails broken backwards is a girl who has been murdered. True, but she has been held somewhere. In trying to climb out of something, or in trying to crawl away using her fingernails to pull herself along, they break backwards. This is extremely painful. But couldn’t she have been pulling herself along the floor of Gertrude’s basement? Maybe clawing at the door? Maybe she got tired of fictionally scraping the basement floor with a shovel, so she started with fingernails? No. Of course, at no point in the canonical story is the basement door described as being locked. The cleric lied about Gertrude having locked Sylvia in the upstairs bedroom. Still, there’s another critical element:
Q. Was there anything under the nails?
A. The fingernails were scraped and this material was sent in for examination, which report was sent back as some greasy, nondescript material, nothing definitely identified.
So! the nails were scraped. That’s standard procedure. The substance under the nails was sent for analysis. That’s standard procedure too. But! The lab is unable to identify the substance under the nails, other than a “greasy, nondescript material”. Time to pause again. We should ask the question… “What kind of goopy, greasy gunk would Gertrude have in her basement?” She’s not running a machine shop down there; she’s not running an automobile repair shop down there. The only things she would have in the basement, or anywhere else in the house, would be the standard things you find in a basement and a house; things you buy at the store, hardware store, or even the service station across the street! There would be nothing in Gertrude’s house that the lab wouldn’t have easily identified. Moreover! You send the substance under the nails to the lab for analysis. Even if the lab guys are lame or just lazy, and they say they can’t identify the substance, there’s great news! Gertrude’s entire house is a crime scene, and is now in the full possession of Indi’s finest. So! Just go down in the basement..ah, well, not if you’re Officer Dixon, and certainly not Kaiser. I know! Send Harmon! He can find the light switch! He removed a bunch of stuff from the basement. Just confiscate all the cans and bottles of greasy gunky stuff, and compare the substance under the fingernails to whatever substances you found in Gertie’s house. Then you’ll know exactly what is under the figernails. But none of that mattered. Why? Because Sylvia’s fingernails were fine. True, Ellis described the fingernails. But! Notice how the attorney simply dropped the matter. And notice how the fingernails get buried in a list of all the other trauma and supposed trauma found on the body of Photo 1 Girl. Ellis brings up the fingernails, the broken fingernails that weren’t on the body Kebel saw, buries them in a list of other trauma, the attorney drops the matter, and only one witness is asked about Sylvia’s fingernails. Ricky said he never noticed them. So why did the attorney ask? Why didn’t he make a point out of it? For the same reason they altered photos. To fool the jury. Hide the fact by bringing it up, burying it, and then quickly move on. Sleight of hand..now you see it, now you don’t! Misdirection, right in front of you. A good bit of magic. It’s one thing to bring it up and promptly drop it. But what about the photo? You can sit and stare at that. Take a good look and you will see the fingernails. You will wonder why the substance under them couldn’t be identified. You can ask, why couldn’t you identify the substance? Why couldn’t you compare it to the stuff in Gertrude’s basement? And just how did they all get broken backwards like that? The witnesses don’t say anything about it? The police don’t say anything about it? But if the photo is altered, and the fingernails are hidden by hiding the hands, it’s 1965 after all, and this is a black and white photo..who would have thought that some guy could sit at his computer with free software from the internet and start enlarging parts of your altered, falsified picture? After all, the Beatles first single was released only two years ago! If you’re lucky, and a canonical story is put together, and it becomes almost like a religion, then questioning it would be heresy. It might take 50 years for somebody who’s a heretic to start poking at it. That person might start dissecting the picture. Look at the hands! Pay him no mind. Still, once you’ve seen it…now..now..you wonder about the fingernails. You wonder why the greasy stuff was not identified. That girl didn’t meet her fate in Gertrude’s basement! That girl didn’t die in Gertrude’s house! That girl isn’t Sylvia Likens! Sort of not. And then..that mattress wasn’t in Gertrude’s house. Why? Look at how filthy it is. I think that girl was kept on that mattress for some time, and it is stained with urine and feces…hey! That sounds familiar! Sylvia wet the bed and defecated on it…I remember! But she didn’t! Photo 1 Girl did! But Photo 1 Girl is Sylvia, became Sylvia, Sylvia became Photo 1 Girl. I remember something else..the mattress on the floor in Gertrude’s back bedroom, Jenny slept on it, and Gertrude’s kids slept on it. On that mattress? Ridiculous. Shirley slept on it? Marie slept on it? Jenny slept on it? And! Notice how compromised the mattress is. The girl on it is malnourished, she can’t weigh much! And yet the mattress sags under her weight. Now it’s time for Photo 2! Lights…camera…action
Ah, another lousy photo! In Photo 1, we see the person, but not the location. In Photo 2, we see the location, and it is the back bedroom of Gertrude’s house, but we don’t see the body!
- Photo 1: body; no location
- Photo 2: location; no body
Why can’t a crime scene photographer do what an amateur like myself could do, would know to do…take a picture of an identifiable body in an indefinable location? Perhaps, there was no way to get a picture of Photo 1 Girl in Gertrude’s house, because her body had been in the morgue for some time. There were pictures of Sylvia’s body in the back bedroom. But you can’t use those, because although I think Photo 1 Girl looked a lot like Sylvia, she didn’t look completely like Sylvia. And it would take sometime for the canonical story, the false canonical story, to emerge. Oops..sorry about Johnny and the iron poker. And oh, my! We’re going to have a problem with the pictures. So what about Photo 2? Notice how the body on the mattress seems to float on the mattress. In Photo 1, the mattress was sagging under the body. How different is the situation in Photo 2! It’s not the same mattress, it’s not the same location, and it’s not the same body. In fact, I don’t think that what’s on the mattress in Photo 2 is a body at all. It is a fake. The mattress is not a new one, and there is no box spring under it…the ruined box spring is in the basement, the basement where the ghost-puppy lived, where the non-existent mattress was kept, where the copper tubing was found, where the dirty shorts were found. It was the basement where Photo 1 Girl had never been, and couldn’t possibly have got some kind of rare, hard to identify lubricant under her nails. Maybe have one of the other girls, Gertrude’s girls, pose on the mattress and just obscure her face and head. No wait, they’ve all been removed from the house. What about Jenny? Far more likely, but I’m not convinced. Why take a picture so far away from the body? Maybe because it isn’t a real body at all. But one can’t be sure of course.
So Photo 1 Girl isn’t Sylvia Likens. She is a girl who looks like her, but not enough that someone in the police department who is familiar with her case..whose case..Sylvia’s? or Photo 1 Girl’s case? Photo 1 Girl is the girl who dabbled in prostitution. And she used Sylvia’s name. She was paid for sex by a married man whose wife found her way to Gertrude’s house looking for Darlene. And I think that once angry married-lady left, Gertrude quizzed Darlene about this. Do you know this Sylvia Likens, Darlene? Sort of, I know her sister. Is she a prostitute? I don’t know..that lady thinks so. Well Darlene, could you find her? Probably! I think she’s with Jenny and her Mom. They’re in town now. Ok, if you can, bring her over here. Sure.
The girl in Photo 1 was the body on Ellis’ autopsy table. Her fingernails, along with the head trauma, signs of violence, particularly to the vaginal area, clearly indicated that she was murdered. So homicide had the case. But maybe Vice had a similar case. And! How confusing! A little police work, and it wouldn’t take Vice long to know about the prostitute named Sylvia Likens, and a girl living at Gertrude’s house with the same name. They look alike. But there may be problems. The one girl went to school, or at least did, until she disappeared. Maybe they didn’t think the other girl went to school; prostitutes normally aren’t avid school-goers. The girl at Gertrude’s house went to church, and Sunday school..prostitutes aren’t usually big on those things either. And! Maybe there were even reports that it was true that there was a Sylvia Likens at Gertrude’s house. But there were reports that the other one lived somewhere else..only a couple of blocks away. One of those Baniszewski girls may have been seen with both. That would be enough to make anyone corner Jenny and ask “Are you sure?” “Are you sure that the girl in Photo 1 is really Sylvia Likens?” “Are you sure that the girl in Photo 1 is really your sister Sylvia Likens, and not another Sylvia Likens?” I would add, wouldn’t it be something if Jenny knew the other Sylvia Likens too. There are indications that she did know her. But that’s for another essay.
When words and numbers are found on murder victims, you can be sure they have meaning. A very important meaning. Murderers don’t poke around the basement until they chance upon something that might make a letter S, or a number 3, and they don’t doodle. Photo 1 Girl has a number 3 branded on her. One might think that she was the victim of a serial killer. One who had killed before. Maybe, he killed twice before. Maybe there were two other girls; one with a number 1 branded on her chest..and one with a number 2 branded on her chest. Perhaps this was indicative of a cat and mouse game with the police. This is my number 3! Catch me before there is a number 4! Wait, there is already a number 4 on the same girl with the number 3! I almost forgot..there’s a number 4 cut into her shoulder. Cut? Just like the slogan! So much for the numbering theory. Numbers could indicate something else. Something like biblical references, often popular with serial killers. The problem is, get your numbers, then search around for a book in the bible, and find your verse. If you had two number 3’s instead of a number 3 and a number 4, you could find Jeremiah 3:3- “you are a brazen harlot”. The slogan! Tempting, but no. I think that the number 3 has a different meaning. I think that the slogan was not cut onto Photo 1 Girl against her will. I think that the number 3 means: “third child”. Surely that makes no sense. But maybe it does. Maybe, she had it branded on her chest by choice. Why count children? Why brand your place within a family on your chest? No normal person would. But if you had been abandoned by your family, if they refused to acknowledge your existence, if the others in the family were not allowed to talk to you or see you, and if all this resulted from something that wasn’t even your fault, you might get angry. You might develop “Self Harm Disorder”. You might adopt a high-risk lifestyle like prostitution. And that might lead to trouble with a gang of 5 men, a gang who extorted protection money from prostitutes. More high-risk! You won’t pay them, and that could be a problem. So you make an angry statement! You burn it onto your body!
“I am number 3!”