Who’s to Blame?

It might seem a strange thing to discuss; i.e. the question of blame. Who’s to blame for Sylvia’s death? It’s actually a very good question. Even if you’re sure you know who is to blame, it can only be edifying to investigate different facets of this question. I think that many people are to blame; or at least, share in some of the blame. Even if you end up exactly where you think you will, it is nonetheless an interesting journey to make. As I’ve said before, there is nothing authoritative to be found anywhere on this website. You can be sure of that. But things are more interesting when you see more of them; well, at least parts you haven’t seen before. Knowledge is power…even if you choose to do nothing with it. At any rate, here we go...

In examining the question of blame, I start with what I find to be one of the most disturbing topics in the case. I would start the exploration of the topic with Officer Melvin Dixon. Our dedicated officer said something rather odd:

Q. Did you determine she was dead when you got there, upstairs there?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How?
A. By looking.

It seems to me that pronouncing a person dead takes more than “looking” at them. He didn’t take her pulse. He didn’t say that he checked to see if she was breathing. I would think that a police officer, especially one responding to a call stating that there might be a dead girl in a residence, would know how to do those things. Just looking down at the body on the mattress isn’t enough to proclaim the person dead. What if she weren’t dead? What if she was in a critical condition? Dixon didn’t call for an ambulance. He called for the deputy coroner. This seems odd. If all he did was look at Sylvia, then she could have still been alive, and indeed, able to be saved. Dixon gives the appearance, and that may be all there is to it, as simply having looked at Sylvia and decided that she was dead. This raises concerns in my mind. How could he have been so sure that she was dead based on his description of what happened once he arrived at the scene? It is easy to miss this question when looking back at the case with the benefit of hindsight. Dixon said that the dispatcher gave him this radio run: “a girl may be dead.” And, speaking about Gertrude:

Q. You interrogated her about somebody who was supposed to be dead there at the house?
A. I questioned her.

Further:

Q. You went to that house because you received a call over the radio that possibly there was a dead girl there, is that right?
A. Right.

Moreover:

A. The reason I don't know who the officers were, I was not particularly interested in them. I received the run there, possibly a dead girl. That was my utmost interest.

So herein lies the problem. The call went to the police, who dispatched Dixon to the residence. We’re told that Ricky called the police from the phone at the gas station across the street from Gertrude’s house. Well, that’s what the canonical story and inherited wisdom would tell us. But the call, as relayed by the dispatcher, was that there “may” be a dead girl in the house. Why was an ambulance not dispatched? If Dixon was supposed to determine whether Sylvia was dead or alive, then he would call for the ambulance. Yet in his testimony, he says that he made his determination by simply looking at her. If this were the case then technically, Sylvia could have actually been dying when Dixon got there, and as he dawdled around talking to Gertrude and obtaining the ludicrous first note, Sylvia died. So it seems possible that Sylvia was not dead when he got there, but died while Dixon did nothing. That is indeed a disturbing possibility. What? That Sylvia died because of Dixon’s inaction. There is no question that unless there is massive trauma, or the body is decaying, you can’t determine whether someone is dead by looking at them. But you can tell if a person is dead if a Mystery Cop is at the scene when you get there, and he tells you that the person is dead. So is Dixon to blame?

If what was said about Mystery Cop is true, then that would indicate that Dixon was not responsible for Sylvia’s death. So he’s in the clear. But is there someone else that could, hypothetically of course, be blamed for Sylvia’s death? Dixon was told by Mystery Cop that Sylvia was dead, and there is no reason that I can see to doubt that he was right. I am more than willing to accept that Mystery Cop did more than just look to determine Sylvia’s lamentable condition. Ricky ran across the street, and he stated that Johnny was with him, and made the phone call to the police. As Dixon stated numerous times, and it is reassuring that he found, at least, the call from dispatch to be interesting, the call indicated a girl who might be dead. Yet, the situation is very strange. Not Dixon; he was the closest patrolman to the scene. He got his dispatch at 6:27 and got to Gertrude’s house at 6:30. However, I am puzzled by the fact that dispatch sent a patrolman to the scene. On the surface, this would seem to make sense, assuming that the patrolman who is sent does more than look. A deeper dive raises concerns about the actions of dispatch, or, quite possibly, the canonical story and inherited wisdom. What concerns? Well, when Ricky called the police, assuming a call to emergency services was made rather than looking up the police station phone number in the book….that raises interesting concerns as well. But that’s a digression, and digressions are annoying. The concern here that is not a digression is the fact that Ricky stated that there might be a dead girl in Gertrude’s house. Dixon confirmed that that was indeed the dispatch he received, although after looking at the bigger picture of his testimony, one finds oneself questionning this. But if one could sit beside the dispatcher, pause and observe carefully, one might say to the dispatcher, as soon as she received Ricky’s call, something like: 

“Hey! The guy on the phone said that the girl might be dead. That means she might be alive. And if she is alive, she’s probably in a bad way; or that guy wouldn’t have thought she might be dead. I think we should send an ambulance and a cop, but maybe not Dixon.”

But our dispatcher did not send an ambulance. Could Ricky have lied when he said the girl might be dead? With our cast of characters, that’s always more than possible. Did he lie about having made the call? However, that wouldn’t matter. Let’s sit next to our dispatcher again. One might say something like:

“Hey! I think it would be a good idea to assume that the guy on the phone isn’t qualified to call the code. He sounded like a kid! So I think that the best thing to do would be to send an ambulance and a cop. If the ambulance guys are there, then we can go ahead and send Dixon.”

The point here is that if the canonical story is correct, along with the inherited wisdom, it would, hypothetically at any rate, be possible that it is the dispatcher who’s to blame for Sylvia’s death. An interesting contrast can be pointed out. An ambulance was sent to Gertrude’s on at least one occasion. Indeed, not too long before Dixon arrived at Gertrude’s magically-opening front door. Jenny:

A. I remember Marie Baniszewski got her wrist cut and the police came in an ambulance.
Q. When was that?
A. In October.
Q. Is it a fact that was about the third week in October or the second week?
A. I think it was about the second week.

So apparently, emergency services was called about Marie’s wrist. Gertrude mentioned this as well:

A. Marie ran a wire in an artery and cut it and we had to take her and Stephanie had blood poisoning in her foot and she had to be taken and she got bit by some kind of poisonous spider and her arm got pretty bad and it had to be lanced and taken care of.

A poisonous spider? I wonder what kind. Couldn’t be a Black Widow, or she might have died. Maybe a Brown Recluse. It’s interesting, and I’m sure that’s all it is, that of the three poisonous spiders known to live in people’s houses, Indiana is not in the normal range of any of their habitats. But who knows with arachnids? You can’t be sure you were bit by a spider unless you actually see it. Man! Gertrude’s house was a dangerous place! If you survived her wanton violence, and then attacks launched by her children, and then the onslaught from every neighbor kid who came over…tiny poisonous spiders were roaming the house looking to finish off any survivors. Poor Stephanie! The spider must not have known that she was a Baniszewski! It was probably looking for someone else. But Stephanie said that she and Sylvia were twins, so it wasn’t the spider’s fault. But spiders don’t matter here. Marie ran a wire in an artery? How strange. A wire. Perhaps Marie was re-wiring the electrical system in the house. Marie the amateur electrician. No wonder she got cut. You have to go through training to be an electrician. Not to mention the union! That’s absurd, so I apologize. In a weird way, it reminds me how Shirley was asked if Randy Leppar’s father ever came over to paint her room! How does a little girl run a wire through an artery? What bad luck! I’m glad she gave up on being an electrician. I can say something by way of digression, albeit a short one. By wire, I’ll assume it was copper wire. Now when Officer Harmon was sent back late at night to remove ridiculous things from the basement, stupid things that had nothing to do with the case…I hope that wasn’t an excuse to get down into the basement for another reason..i’m sure it’s wasn’t, one of the stupid pieces of “evidence” was some copper tubing. Maybe Gertrude was building a still down in the basement to make moonshine. Scratch that; Gertrude wasn’t the member of the cast of characters with the drinking problem. Remember that when you watch the movie! Yes, it was someone else who had the drinking problem, among others; perhaps the man whose wife expressed concerns about his attitude toward his children to big, bad Darlene’s mother. As far as Gertrude goes, I don’t know why she needed copper tubing. But for that matter, I don’t know why she needed copper wire either, or what Marie was doing with it. The house was a rental, maybe that junk was already in the basement when they moved in. Hey! Maybe the cruddy box spring and broken chairs were there already as well.

Now I will make a comment that might normally be a prelude to a long and boring digression. Doppelganger. That’s a really cool German word that refers to a bizarre, but very cool, ghost-like being that appears as a double of a particular person. There are so many in this case! Copies of Sylvia. Ah! But Sylvia herself was a copy of someone else! But that’s for later. The one we have here is Marie-Doppelganger. Kebel said this about the girl he supposedly saw:

Q. O.K. What else did you find?
A. On the wrist - the right wrist of the decedent there was a cut. This was pretty deep, through the dermis and epidermis, down to the muscle.
Q. How long?
A. About an inch long

You can see this cut when looking at Photo 1 Girl. My problem is, it looks like it’s on the other side of the wrist. And it is a nasty cut.  If it went into the muscle, it was indeed quite deep. But let’s be careful, Kebel has a tendency to exaggerate. That is the topic of a separate, although highly provocative essay. The cut is also linear, i.e. not a tear, like if she feel down the stairs, and caught the outside of her wrist on a nail sticking out of the railing. Unlike poor Marie, this did not hit an artery. This was no self-inflicted wound. Wait! That depends on how one defines self-inflicted.  It looks like it was done with something like a knife, box knife, or some kind of sharp utility tool. Oh! Unidentified lubricant and a tool! Sorry; more about that another time. This cut may have been made on purpose; part of the much-discussed torture of Sylvia. But none of the witnesses ever describing using a knife on Sylvia. I can’t find another reference to a cut like this one. And if it was done on purpose, what point did it serve? A one inch cut and then..that’s it? I think that the girl did it to herself; not Sylvia, I mean Photo 1 Girl. But I should qualify that. She didn’t do it on purpose. If she were being kept in some abandoned industrial location, maybe one that had a rare lubricant on the floor, a lubricant that couldn’t be identified if it was…say..found under fingernails! and she was tied at the wrists, she might have found a sharp cutting tool. Using her left hand, she attempted to cut through whatever had been used to tie her at the wrists, and then cut herself deeply in the attempt. So given the location of the cut, the comparison to Marie is a little overdone, I must admit. Besides! Gertrude is a much better Doppelganger; indeed, an almost dead ringer. But that is for another time.

Marie is different though.  It is only speculation, but I have a hard time seeing any explanation other than that she... At any rate, Gertrude said that Marie was taken to Dr. Lindenborg. That makes no sense; Jenny must be right. When you cut an artery, blood starts gushing out all over as the heart continues to do its job by pumping blood through the circulatory system. So too the arteries. When an artery is cut, it continues to do so. So Gertrude is lying, and Jenny is telling the truth. Deliberately? If we accept that Jenny is telling the truth, it is significant that the ambulance and the cops showed up. So why the cops? If this were a household accident, or even a bite by the demonic poisonous spider crawling around Gertrude’s house looking for victims, the cops would not have been dispatched. If, however, someone had done this to Marie, or if Marie intentionally did it to herself, suggesting assault or attempted suicide, the police would have been dispatched. The main thing here is that the police and an ambulance were sent to the house. If it was only the police who were dispatched to Gertrude’s house, and when they got there, even if they followed a Dixonian approach and just looked, they would see that Marie could bleed death. By the time they called an ambulance, Marie could have bled to death. Only hypothetically. Nonetheless, the only responsible thing to do when receiving a call that a girl is bleeding because she cut her wrist is to send an ambulance, then the cops.

I thought of something. Marie was injured during the second week of October. That is strange. Why? The police were dispatched, along with an ambulance, when, according to the canonical story, not long after the full-scale torture was in full-swing. So with the police and ambulance guys in the house, it’s hard to understand why Sylvia didn’t scream, or maybe walk up to them and ask for help.  Nonetheless, it’s rather remarkable that one injured, bleeding girl was found in Gertrude’s house one week in October, only to have another injured girl, this one fatally, to be found in the same house..the following week! Notice that the attorney leaves open the possibility that Marie’s injury occurred in the third week of October, placing it within days of Sylvia’s death! Such a coincidence! Is there a connection between the two events? That is an interesting possibility. It would appear that tension in the house was reaching a dangerous level, and while Sylvia was involved, indeed, may have been at the very center of it, the conflict would appear to have been an emotional one. Of course, I don’t doubt that it would become physically violent before long. It would have taken an adult head of the household to step in and calm things down. But Gertrude was stoned on Phenobarbital all the time. The result was that the simmering conflict would boil over to the point that Gertrude would end being clocked in the eye trying to pull two girls apart. Or three. Coming to, she found them in the basement; one badly injured, the other chanting “She’s faking!” The second week of October has something in common with the third week of October. What? Sylvia has left school, and apparently is around Gertrude’s house all the time. That had to be boring. Well it would have, if Sylvia had been around, as opposed to spending time away from Gertrude’s house with a certain someone; maybe. And! It is the build-up leading to that day, the 26th, and the last possible one for Lester to return. Maybe, the rising tension owed itself to a disagreement between Sylvia and another girl about going home. Sylvia wanted to rejoin her parents, the other did not, and maybe another child was involved who sided with the other girl. Assuming she had a good reason, and that may be linked to the…sorry, I exhausted my allocation of annoying digressions. If there was a fundamental disagreement between Sylvia and her sister about this issue, it may have forced other girls to choose sides.

 Even if all this nonsense about a growing feud that might eventually lead to the death of one girl, one that perhaps drew other girls into it like a black hole, is indeed nonsense, it is quite a contrast. How is that? The two injuries weren’t that far apart at all, and Marie managed to get the police and an ambulance. Sylvia only got…Dixon. I’ll bet that whoever called emergency services about a wire being run through Marie’s wrist didn’t say: “there might be a dead girl in Gertrude’s house.” Of course not. And it is highly likely that someone had staunched the bleeding as they waited for the ambulance. So when dispatch received the call about electrician’s apprentice Marie, they knew they had an injured girl who was very much alive. She was not dead, and if an ambulance was quickly sent to the scene, she’d probably be fine, leaving the issues surrounding how this happened aside. But in Sylvia’s case, dispatch was told that a girl might be dead. So if she weren’t dead, she was in a more precarious situation than Marie, and even Stephanie, the hapless victim of the dreaded 3850 East New York Street Spider.

Wow! It’s hard to avoid the disturbing conclusion that dispatch mishandled the call Ricky made from the gas station. So police dispatch, and not Dixon, is to be blamed for Sylvia’s death. This leaves some interesting people to blame for Sylvia’s death other than Gertrude:

1. A Gang of Boys
2. Police Officer Dixon
3. Dispatch

I feel safe in leaving out of this list the 3850 East New York Street Spider, although I would keep an eye out for it. Maybe the Likens should have considered suing the Indianapolis Police Department. Well, they couldn’t do this because Gertrude murdered Sylvia. She didn’t, but she did. The issue remains that either the police completely mishandled the response to Ricky’s phone call, or Ricky lied about calling the police. In other words, someone else called the police. It seems to me that whoever called the police was qualified to determine that Sylvia was dead, and dispatch knew that that person was qualified to make that determination. Who? Not Gertrude, not the ex-husband, and not the step-mother, although all 3 were present in the house that night. John made a point of stating that whenever he went over to Gertrude’s house, he did not go inside. He claimed to have stopped on the porch. I don’t blame him! But this is hard to believe.  Nonetheless, it would have been a very wise thing to say. Look what happened to the cleric and the Social Services nurse, both of whom had the misfortune of having gone into the house, and that was well documented. On the stand, both had to lie about what they saw. But in John’s case, having assiduously refrained from walking through Gertrude’s magical front door, a portal leading into a small universe in itself that stopped just short of gobbling up anyone unfortunate enough to walk through it, he admitted to being in the basement on the night Sylvia died. Why? His new wife called him there. The basement? That was where he found the badly injured Sylvia Likens, and if Stephanie’s sudden gaff on the stand is correctly interpreted, she and Ricky did not carry Sylvia out of the basement:

Q. Then what did you do?
A. I tried to pick her up. I thought I could pick her up by myself but she was too heavy.
Q. How did you try to pick her up?
A. Like you pick up a baby.
Q. You could not get her up?
A. No, sir.
Q. She was still up off the ground, her shoulders and head?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did she say anything to you?
A. No, sir.
Q. No word you could understand?
A. Not right then.
Q. Were her eyes open?
A. Yes.
Q. Was she still groaning or mumbling?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Then what did you do?
A. Well, I don't know how I got her - Ricky came downstairs.
Q. Who is Ricky?
A. Ricky Hobbs.
Q. Do you see him in the courtroom?
A. Yes.
Q. Is he one of the defendants?
A. Yes.
Q. What did he do then?
A. He said, "Let me help you take her upstairs".
Q. Did he do that?
A. Yes.
Q. How did he do it?
A. Somebody took one end and somebody took the other.
Q. Who is somebody?
A. I don't know.
Q. You don't know? Did you pick her up?
A. As far as I remember, I did.

This is a long quote, but it’s also some of the most important testimony in the entire trial. Stephanie has placed a lot of people in the basement: Gertrude, Paula, Johnny, and Jenny. And yet, when it comes time to carry Sylvia out of the basement, they simply disappear. I call such characters “ghosts”. Witnesses summon characters up and stick them in their stories, and then they are simply gone. Now that Sylvia needs to be taken out of the basement, all these people are gone. Stephanie has to carry Sylvia up the stairs all by herself? But she can’t, surprise surprise, and needs help. Time for another ghost; this time Ricky, who suddenly appears in the basement. And he denied being in the basement. He stated that when he entered the house, Sylvia was lying on a blanket on the floor in the kitchen.

The most important thing in Stephanie’s story is the fact that having stated that she and Ricky carried Sylvia up the stairs, the attorney asks her who took the shoulders and who took the feet, she says that she doesn’t know. Doesn’t know? What? She just said that it was her and Ricky. Two seconds later, she doesn’t know who carried Sylvia out of the basement. I think it’s not hard to explain this. She is lying when she says that she and Ricky carried Sylvia out of the basement. Her claim was meant to protect the two people who did. She suddenly freezes up, and for just a moment, can’t remember what she’s supposed to say. She recovers quickly, thanks to the leading question posed to her, which reminded her of what she was supposed to say. This suggests that the following people did not bring Sylvia out of the basement:

1. Paula
2. Johnny
3. Jenny
4. Gertrude
5. Stephanie
6. Ricky

This leaves two adults who were in the house that night, one of whom admitted to being in the basement on the evening of October 26th, also admitting that it was his new wife who called him over there. This admission is fascinating, given his claim that he had never been in the house before. Suddenly, on the night Sylvia died, he is not only in the house, he’s in the basement. So now we have two other people who were aware of Sylvia’s condition and apparently, if the first call to the police was that which Ricky made, did not get Sylvia any help.

Perhaps one other person can be cited here. Ricky testified that Gertrude, in a panic, said something very odd:

Q. Let's go back upstairs. What was done after she was put in the bathtub?
A. Johnny and Stephanie stayed upstairs with her and I took Gertrude downstairs.
Q. Then what did you do?
A. She kept wanting to get back upstairs and I had to stand in her way so she could not get back up.
Q. Did you have conversation with her - Gertrude?
A. Well, all this time she kept yelling she was faking. I asked Gertrude to call the police because - I don't know why.

I will leave the issue of asking Gertrude to call the police to another essay. But I can’t resist saying here that, within the context of the fictional story Ricky creates, I can think of a great reason to call the police; i.e. Sylvia is dying. Ricky wants the police called but he doesn’t know why? I do! To get an ambulance to save her life! At any rate, Ricky states that Gertrude said that Sylvia was faking. Stephanie says this too:

Q. Did she ever come upstairs?
A. Yes.
Q. What, if anything, did she do when she came upstairs?
A. Got hysterical.
Q. What did she do?
A. Came in and everybody started saying she was faking.
Q. Who said that?
A. Mom and Ricky.
Q. Did she do anything?
A. Not right then.
Q. Did she later do anything?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What did she do?

A. Well, she was upset and screaming and everything and she looked at Sylvia and said she was faking. She had a book in her hand and she hit her twice.

Q. Who had a book in her hand?
A. Mom.
Q. Where did she hit Sylvia?
A. In the face.
Q. Twice?
A. Yes.
Q. What did Sylvia do?
A. She said, "Oh".
Q. What was Sylvia doing at the time she got hit?
A. Laying down.
Q. Where?
A. On the mattress.
Q. After you had redressed her, put on dry clothes?
A. Yes.
Q. Laying with her head down on the mattress?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Your mother hit her with a book?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did she say anything when she hit her in the head with the book?
A. She just said, "Oh".
Q. Your mother or Sylvia?
A. Sylvia.
Q. What did your mother say?
A. She said, "She's faking, she'll be alright". After that she got more hysterical and told somebody to call the doctor and everything.

Poor Ricky! Stephanie dings him again. First she puts him in the basement. He denied it. Now she says that Ricky was also making the strange claim that Sylvia was faking. Of course, she begins with “everybody”, which I would think includes more than two people. At any rate, Stephanie adds the comical detail about Gertrude hitting Sylvia in the face with a book. So Sylvia is faking, and Dr. Gertrude has the prescription; i.e. a smack to the face with a book. What kind of book? If it were a dictionary, encyclopedia, or even one of Stephanie’s school books, that would have hurt. But according to Stephanie, Sylvia’s reaction was simply to say “oh.” I noted that this is a comical element. The smack to the face with the book solves the problem of Sylvia faking. But why is Sylvia faking? Faking what? Either faking being injured at all, or faking being badly injured; i.e. she was exaggerating how injured she really was.

So what does the smack to the face accomplish? To exhaust the possibilities, a blow to the head may be intended to account for head trauma. Given Sylvia’s reaction, it must have been a small book, such as a paperback novel, or maybe a Harlequin Romance. The other possibility is that Gertrude hits Sylvia in the face with the intention of bringing her out of her stupor. In other words, instead of slapping her. I think that that is the idea here, although it is a lame one. And although Gertrude declares that, having administered 10ccs of book-smacking, Sylvia will be alright, Stephanie states that Gertrude then got even more hysterical, and wanted someone to call the doctor. Odd, the book to the face wasn’t as effective as Gertrude thought..well, none of this happened, and Stephanie proves to be a bad story-teller at times.

Again one must ask..why faking? If Sylvia is faking, was does it accomplish? By faking her injury, or how badly she is injured, what will this do? In both fictional stories told by Stephanie and Ricky, it doesn’t seem to make sense. However, I feel certain that the claim that Sylvia was faking was made that night. But not by Ricky, or Stephanie, or Gertrude. This is what Gertrude said: 
A. Did I speak to Jenny Likens myself - yes, I did.
Q. Where was she when you spoke to her?
A. Upstairs.
Q. What did you say?
A. I asked what is the matter with your sister and she said, she is just faking.
Q. What made you ask what was the matter with her?

MR. ERBECKER: We object.
THE COURT: Overruled.

A. Because my children said Sylvia was down in the basement and would not come up.
Q. That made you ask Jenny what was the matter with her?
A. Yes.
Q. She said she was faking?
A. Yes.
Q. What else?
A. I asked her to go down and talk to her.
Q. Did you say anything else?
A. I don't remember saying anything else.
Q. Did Jenny say anything else?
A. I don't remember.

ikQ. I will ask you if it is not a fact, Mrs. Baniszewski, under oath December 8, 1965, this question was asked you and you gave this answer under oath to the Marion County Grand Jury?, Q. "Did she do that"?, and you gave this answer, A. "She, I think, said a few words to her and then came up and said, Oh, she always acts like this when she wants her own way, or something to that effect".

A. Yes, sir, I did.

I never made the claim that Gertrude was always telling the truth. She lied plenty, as did the other witnesses who testified. However, I believe that she is telling the truth here. Why? Because she is the only who gives a good reason for the claim that Sylvia was faking. Why is she faking? She wants to get her way. Yes! And here we have Jenny stating the same thing that the person who altered the letter Sylvia wrote to her parents, stated:

I always want Mommie and Daddy to break up, so I could get my way when I live with Mommie

Wow! The person who altered the letter added a confession, just like the person who produced the Gang of Boys note did. But here, Sylvia is said to be confessing to trying to get her parents to break up so she can get her way. Thus there is a connection between one of the writers, actually the re-writer, of the letter and Jenny’s claim on October 26th. Gertrude provides the only context in which the “faking” claim makes sense. Why is Jenny claiming that Sylvia is faking? If she’s trying to get her way, what is it? I think that the answer lies in what may be the last words of Sylvia Likens, or at least some of her last words. These are given by Stephanie, and I believe that she is telling the truth:

Q. Was Sylvia alive at that time?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How do you know that?
A. Because then she started talking.
Q. What did she say?
A. She said, "I wish my dad was here".
Q. Anything else you can recall Sylvia saying?
A. She wanted to go home.
Q. She wanted to go home.
A. Yes.
Q. Did she say anything else?
A. She just told me to take her home.

It is not possible to over-estimate the importance of what Stephanie has said. Now we know why Sylvia was faking, that is to say, why Jenny declared that Sylvia was faking; i.e. she wanted someone to call her father. Why? She wanted to go home. And herein may lie that which led to Sylvia’s death; her accidental death. Sylvia died on the evening of October 26th. So what? Her father had stated that after seeing the girls at Gertrude’s house on October 5th:

Q. Is it correct to say, sir, October 5, 1965 was the last time you saw your daughter alive?
A. Yes, sir.

Further:

Q. When was the last time you were there?
A. October 5.
Q. Where did you go October 5 with reference to going in any other room?
A. We set in the kitchen at the table. That was the only time I was ever in there.

More:

Q. Up to that time, you had no complaints from your two daughters as to their treatment?
A. Not that I could see.
Q. October 5 was the last time you saw your daughters?
A. Yes, sir.

Now:

Q. Did you have any conversation with the defendant here relative to your taking your daughter away from her home, yes or no, did you?
A. No, not that I know of.
Q. Did you have?
A. She knew I was going to return within three weeks. I told her - my kids and her both.
Q. You told Mrs. Baniszewski you would be coming back in three weeks?
A. Yes, sir, I did, yes, sir.
Q. That would make it the 26th for you to come back, would it?

A. Well, I did not mean it in exact words because I had to wait till the fair was over, which would have been three or four days longer, actually.

So Lester Likens said that he would return 21 days from October 5th, which would be October 26th, the day Sylvia died. But he wasn’t being precise! The fair he was at was going on for a few days longer. But did he know that when he told Gertrude, and his daughters, that he would return in 3 weeks? One might suppose that this delay was not communicated to Gertrude or the Likens girls. As Lester notes, Gertrude didn’t have a phone. If this delay was not communicated to his daughters, and Sylvia took this 3 week promise seriously…wait! If he meant within 3 weeks, and the delay wasn’t communicated to his daughters, then he could have returned anytime within that 3 week period. If Sylvia took the “within 3 weeks” seriously, and he hadn’t returned, although Gertrude’s claim that they actually visited on October 15th, which I think she said to create a scenario whereby Lester saw Sylvia later than October 5th so as show that there were no signs of abuse, then on the day of October 26th, since he had not returned in the previous 20 days, he would be there on that day; i.e. October 26th. Stephanie said that Sylvia took a bath on the 25th. Could Sylvia have been expecting her father to return the next day? The open dresser drawer in the staged crime scene photo could suggest that she had packed her things. But on the evening of the 26th, her father had not returned. So now she wanted someone, i.e. Stephanie, to call him. Sylvia was supposed to go home, so she asked someone to call her father. It is simply inescapable that the fact that Sylvia died on October 26th, exactly 21 days from October 5th, cannot be a coincidence. In fact, the question of going home may have been the major factor in Sylvia’s death.
So now we end up with a strange scenario as it relates to Gertrude and her brood of fictional psychopaths, including little Shirley. Why? Gertrude also knew that Lester would return within 21 days. He was delayed. But would Gertrude be able to reach Lester to find out why he hadn’t returned? That is doubtful. That said, did she know that he was in Florida, and had a lunch stand?

Q. Did you have any conversation with Jenny and Sylvia's father and mother?
A. They talked mostly to the girls.
Q. How long were they there?
A. Approximately twenty minutes, somewhere along there.
Q. What was the discussion about?
A. As I recollect, it was about a lunch-stand they had bought and they were going to go somewhere to work.

So it appears that Gertrude did not know about Florida, only about a lunch stand. Lester makes it clear that he also told Gertrude that he would be back in three weeks. And Lester and Betty describe visiting the girls frequently. This does not agree with what Gertrude said:

Q. Who did you call?
A. I did not have anywhere to call. I tried to ask the children who to call. They kept telling me they did not know where this grandparent was or that grandparent.
Q. You said you make a phone call?
A. I called where he gave me a phone to call one time and there was no answer.
Q. When did you do that?
A. I don't remember the specific time.
Q. Do you remember what month?
A. No, sir.
Q. What were you calling about?
A. Trying to find out why the parents had not come back to find out about their children.
Q. Did they ever come back after that?
A. Eventually.
Q. So you found out after they came back where they had been?
A. No, they never told me. They always talked directly to the girls.

I think that’s interesting. Gertrude doesn’t seem to remember all these visits from Sylvia’s parents. In fact, Lester related the following:

Q. When did you next see them, sir?
A. After September, the last of September, you mean?
Q. Whenever the next time was you saw them?
A. Well, you see we came back from Michigan after three weeks and then we was home and I bought a lunchstand of my own. We went to see them frequently.
Q. What was the last time you visited them in the Wright home?
A. October 5 or 6.

Think about that for a moment. The “last of September”? He also said this:

Q. When was the next time you handed her money, physically out there or elsewhere?
A. I will have to think. I came in from Hillsdale, Michigan. I was gone three weeks after the Indiana State Fair and I went over and handed her $20.00.
Q. What date was that, sir?
A. Well, around - I'd say pretty close around the 30th of September.

That’s interesting. 5 days after September 30, 1965 was the last time Lester saw Sylvia before she died. So how could they have visited their daughters frequently? How many times a day for 5 days? Remember Sylvia’s last words as given by Stephanie. I’m inclined to not believe the Likens, and am inclined to believe Gertrude on this point. This suggests that when Lester Likens did the responsible thing of leaving Gertrude with emergency contact numbers, it was apparently the phone numbers of the two sets of grandparents, one in Lebanon, and one in Indianapolis. But he also did the puzzling thing of leaving wrong numbers. According to Gertrude, she then checked with the children, who claimed that they didn’t know how to contact the grandparents. Wow! The Grimes lived a few blocks over. Jenny said that she never went over to visit, but that Sylvia had, taking Stephanie with her. So why would Sylvia and Jenny tell Gertrude that they didn’t know where their grandparents were? Jenny admitted to not contacting either set of grandparents about the abuse Sylvia was supposedly suffering. If one were not careful, one might think that a very odd family situation existed in Indianapolis. The parents don’t know that Dianna lives so close that you could stand on Gertrude’s porch, throw a rock and break her front window. When the two girls need a place to stay, they apparently can’t stay with their grandparents, who are also close enough to risk a broken window. Sylvia’s parents tell Gertrude not to let Dianna have any contact with her younger sisters, and then later tell Gertrude not to let the girls hang around Danny and Benny, who, by the way, frequented Gertrude’s house. And of course, Jenny sees nothing wrong with sitting around and watching her sister be slowly destroyed (canonical story), as long as it meant not going to her grandaprents’ house and telling them. If Sylvia took Stephanie to her grandparents house like Jenny said, then why in the world would she tell Gertrude that she didn’t know where her grandparents were? I think it possible that Sylvia never went to her grandparents’ house. Indeed, when “mommie” was in jail, neither Jenny nor Sylvia headed over to their grandarents’ house. I think that it’s interesting that Sylvia took Stephanie over there, according to Jenny. Why? Because Stephanie said that she and Sylvia were twins. I think Stephanie is playing a game much like Jenny does. Could it be that Stephanie did go over to Sylvia’s grandparents’ house? Maybe the girl she was with wasn’t Syliva Likens. Maybe they couldn’t go to their grandparents’ house because they were NOT supposed to go there. Maybe somebody else lived there who they weren’t allowed to see. I think of the bizarre situation of Lester Likens enumerating the different places his family lived over the years in Indianapolis, only to have the prosecutor request to enter a picture of one of those houses into evidence. Why? There is no explanation given. And that is the house the family lived in before moving to 3838 East New York Street. Maybe something happened in that house. Maybe something happened to somebody. Maybe that somebody was.. Of course, maybe something happened to someone at 3838 East New York. Or! Maybe something happened sometime to someone before a mysterious move to California that lasted a whole few months. Suddenly go all the way to California, uproot the whole family, or almost the whole family, and be there for a few months. Be there for Easter too! Then uproot everyone again, travel back to the Midwest, come all the way back to Indiana and take up where you left off a few months before; like nothing ever happened. Sometimes you have to get a way quickly. Or maybe you were in Indianapolis for Easter, and a picture was taken that would one day be a problem. It would be shown in court..that's me and Sylvia. It's hard to argue with that...until you see the other one. But that’s a digression. If Gertrude is right, then the Likens’ parents did not maintain the contact that they said they did. In fact, one wonders just how much blame Lester and Betty should accept for what ended up happening. I truly hope that Gertrude wasn’t telling the truth when she basically said that Lester and Betty dumped the girls at her house. And of course, Lester hadn’t come back to get them when he said he would. 

To re-trace my steps, I can once again point to the apparent disregard for the girl who was possibly dead on the part of the police. No ambulance. No paramedics, no doctors, and no nurses. But! How different it was with the children! And it is amazing. What they said they did, and what they said they didn’t do. Such as Ricky:

Q. Yet you were concerned to the effect you were giving artificial respiration and did not check to see if she was dead or if she needed help?
A. My first thought was to call the police.
Q. This came after you heard she was dead?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Your thought was you wanted her dead?
A. No.
Q. Did it occur to you - you could call for a doctor the minute you found the girl on the floor?
A. It may have.
Q. Did Stephanie tell somebody to go to the neighbors and call for a doctor?
A. Not that I recall.
Q. Did she tell you to go next door to the neighbor, you or Shirley or Marie, and get a doctor immediately for the girl before you carried her upstairs?
A. Not that I recall.
Q. Are you stating she did not say it?
A. No, sir.

The thought “may have” occurred to Ricky to call for a doctor instead of the police? Nonetheless, I absolve Ricky of any responsibility for the way the call was handled. If emergency services was told that there might have been a dead girl at Gertrude’s house, then it was the fault of dispatch that they sent Dixon, and not an ambulance. In my mind, calling the police was the right decision. It was mishandled from there. Of course, we know from witness testimony that, in their opinion, she was dead before Dixon arrived. Jenny says that she and Marie arrived at the house only to be told by Stephanie that Sylvia was dead. For her part, Marie follows Jenny’s story. So who was the person to actually declare that Sylvia was dead? Ricky confirms that Stephanie was the one who insisted Sylvia was dead:

A. Gertrude was over on the east wall by the basement door and she was crying. She was scared and Stephanie was kneeling down beside Sylvia.
Q. Alright, what did you do at that time?
A. I asked what was the matter and Stephanie started crying that she was dead.

Further:

A. After a while I heard Stephanie crying that she was dead. Johnny came running downstairs and said she was dead.

Again:

Q. You said you called the police dispatcher?
A. Yes.
Q. Did Johnny go with you?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you actually make the call?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What did you say?
A. I don't recall exactly.
Q. What do you recall at all?
A. I believe I said "There may be a dead girl at a house" and I gave the address.
Q. You knew there was a dead girl at that time?
A. No, sir.
Q. Had you waited till she was dead?
A. As soon as Johnny came running downstairs saying she was dead, I went and called the police.
Q. Did anyone else say she was dead?
A. Stephanie was kneeling upstairs and crying.
Q. What did she say?
A. She said she was dead.

It’s fascinating how Ricky describes his call to the police in very similar terms that Dixon says he got the dispatch. Ricky specifically states that he did not know whether Sylvia was actually dead or not. Johnny knew. But only because Stephanie had made the pronouncement. Gertrude had much to say on this subject that points to a rather disturbing possible conclusion. We’ll start with this:

Q. Now then, do you recall Sylvia dying that day?
A. I know Stephanie told me she was dead.
Q. Stephanie told you she was dead?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know what time that was?
A. No, sir, I don't know what time it was.
Q. What did you do when Stephanie told you she was dead?
A. Well, before Stephanie told me, she had fainted, or something to that effect, because I had about a half dozen different children telling me a half dozen different things at the same time and I do remember being pretty upset and I asked the children to call for help or do something. I kept asking what is the matter with her.
Q. Who were these half dozen different children who were telling you a half dozen different stories?
A. Paula, Stephanie, Richard, Johnny - I don't know who all was there, really, I don't.
Q. What did you do? What did Stephanie do after she told you the girl was dead?
A. What did Stephanie do?
Q. Yes.
A. Stephanie was upstairs with her and they would not let me up those stairs.

Then she back-pedals a bit:

A. Stephanie was upstairs with her and they would not let me up those stairs.
Q. Who?
A. Stephanie, Richard, or Johnny, so I don't know what actually did go on up there till after we had called the police.

Then she clarifies:

Q. Did you testify in answer to Mr. Erbecker's question that you did not go upstairs where this dead girl was?
A. I believe I tried going up there several times, yes.
Q. My question was, did you go up there?
A. After the police came, I believe.
Q. Did you go up there before?
A. I tried to, yes, sir.
Q. How far did you go?
A. As far as Ricky or Stephanie would let me.
Q. Where was that?
A. Not quite upstairs.
Q. Were they standing on the stairs?
A. Ricky was part of the time.
Q. What did he say?
A. For me to get back downstairs.
Q. Did you do that?
A. With a little encouragement.
Q. What kind of encouragement?
A. A little pushing.

Why does Gertrude want to get upstairs? The answer is obvious. She’s just been told that Sylvia was dead. Yet as she attempts to get upstairs to check on Sylvia, she is blocked by some of the kids. According to Gertrude, while she was not being allowed upstairs, Stephanie was up there with Sylvia. Gertrude specifically says that Ricky was on the stairs pushing her back. Ricky said that Sylvia had been pronounced dead in the kitchen:

Q. When you went over there then at 5:30 or so, who was there?
A. As far as I remember right now, Gertrude and Stephanie was there.
Q. And how did you go into that house?
A. Through the back door.
Q. Where was Sylvia at that time?
A. She was laying on the kitchen floor on the blanket.
Q. Who was in the kitchen with her?
A. Gertrude and Stephanie.
Q. Where were they at in relation to Sylvia?
A. Gertrude was over on the east wall by the basement door and she was crying. She was scared and Stephanie was kneeling down beside Sylvia.
Q. Alright, what did you do at that time?
A. I asked what was the matter and Stephanie started crying that she was dead.

While this was happening in the kitchen, where was Gertrude?

Q. Alright, what did you do at that time?
A. I asked what was the matter and Stephanie started crying that she was dead.
Q. Where was Gertrude?
A. Still at the east wall.

Wow! Gertrude was crying. Odd thing for Sylvia’s torturer to be doing..crying about the apparent death of her young victim. That’s a subject for another time. What is important is that the only 2 people in the kitchen with Sylvia were Gertrude and Stephanie. Stephanie is the one who stated that Sylvia was dead. Then Ricky says that he discovered that Sylvia was still breathing:

Q. Then what happened?
A. I went over beside Sylvia and she was breathing labored.
Q. What do you mean by that?
A. Well, like she had something stuck in her throat or just anything - she was having trouble inhaling and exhaling.
Q. What did you do next?
A. I knelt down beside her and started - first I pushed under her, you know, with the flat of my hands and tried to get her breathing easier. That did not help any and I gave her mouth to mouth resuscitation. That did not do much better, but she started breathing a little easier.
Q. Did she any time say anything?
A. No, sir.

So deputy coroner Stephanie stated that Sylvia was dead, whereas paramedic Ricky has determined that she has labored breathing. But Ricky notices something else:

Q. Then what did you do after you tried artificial respiration?
A. Stephanie - first I noticed her skin was cold. I thought a warm bath might help some and Stephanie ran upstairs and turned the warm water on and came back down and her and I carried her upstairs.
Q. You and Stephanie carried Sylvia upstairs?
A. Yes.

Wow! Stephanie has pronounced Sylvia dead. Ricky finds that Stephanie is wrong. Sylvia has labored breathing and her skin was cold. I’m no coroner like Stephanie apparently was, and I’m no paramedic like Ricky apparently was, so I’m out of my element to be sure. But in my mind, the two symptoms just presented indicate to me that Sylvia is dying. So what should be done? Call a doctor? No. Call an ambulance? No. Call the police? No. Give her a bath? Yes. Do that, and all will be well.

Q. Then what did you do?
A. Johnny was there. We laid her down outside the kitchen door and Johnny was in there watching the water and when it got high enough he turned if off and told us it was alright. Stephanie started to undress her and Gertrude said to put her in with her clothes on.
Q. Did you feel the water in the tub?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was it hot or warm or what?
A. It was lukewarm.
Q. Then what happened?
A. Johnny and Stephanie laid her in the bathtub.
Q. Then what happened?
A. Stephanie told me to get Gertrude downstairs because she was too frantic. I had my time taken up keeping her downstairs.
Q. Before you took Sylvia upstairs to the bathroom, had you had a conversation with Gertrude?
A. Not much.
Q. Was there any conversation about you saying to her to call the police or hospital?
A. No, sir.

So the situation becomes muddled. Johnny has suddenly appeared. Ricky specifically says that only Stephanie and Gertrude were in the kitchen. There is no reference to Johnny being present. He suddenly appears out of thin air. Ricky decided, while doing his paramedic act that a warm bath would fix everything. He and Stephanie take Sylvia upstairs for her nice warm bath, and Johnny is up there running the water. It was as if Johnny were already up there when Ricky walked into the kitchen. Perhaps just waiting around. He then read Ricky’s mind, and started the water running. Perhaps it was clairvoyance? We also find out that Gertrude had accompanied them upstairs. Then Stephanie declared that Ricky should make her mother go back downstairs because she was “too frantic.”

 This is priceless. The only adult in the house is frantic. I would have been too. Nonetheless, get the adult away from the scene to allow Stephanie, who is 15 years old, and convinced that Sylvia was dead while still in the kitchen, and 14 year old Ricky, CPR master, and 12 year old Johnny, who is also able to materialize and de-materialize at will, take care of the whole thing. Just give her a bath, and she'll be right as Indiana rain. So why call the police? Or ambulance? That would actually be the wrong thing to do. After all, such amateurs that dispatch would send out to possibly save Sylvia would only get in the way of the real professionals. We have our top medical people already on this case! Paramedics might feel that our group of medical savants are wrong in prescribing a nice warm bath!

Q. Let's go back upstairs. What was done after she was put in the bathtub?
A. Johnny and Stephanie stayed upstairs with her and I took Gertrude downstairs.
Q. Then what did you do?
A. She kept wanting to get back upstairs and I had to stand in her way so she could not get back up.
Q. Did you have conversation with her - Gertrude?
A. Well, all this time she kept yelling she was faking. I asked Gertrude to call the police because - I don't know why.

Call the police? “I don’t know why”? I know why! Because Sylvia is, if not already, dead due to the meddling of a group of children. They don’t think so. Sylvia is fine now that she is in the bathtub. Oh no! Ricky is suddenly not so self-assured as he was a moment ago. Dr. Hobbs questioning his just prescribed cure? Now call the police! What has changed? Nothing. So why call the police? One can’t be sure, but one would be justified in suspecting that Ricky, or someone advising him, realizes that if he were found in court to have been restraining the only adult in his story and keeping her from getting to a dying girl, then Sylvia’s death is his fault. But not now! He tells Gertrude to call the police. And she doesn’t. So it’s her fault.

Q. Then what was said by you?
A. Well, I heard Stephanie upstairs taking her out of the water and I could hear this - I did not see it. I could hear Johnny and Stephanie carrying her from the bathroom to the bedroom.
Q. Alright, then what did you do?
A. I was still downstairs keeping Gertrude down there.
Q. Did you hear anything?
A. After a while I heard Stephanie crying that she was dead. Johnny came running downstairs and said she was dead.
Q. What did you do?
A. Johnny and I went to call the police.
Q. Where did you go?
A. We headed southeast to the Shell Filling Station to the pay phone in front of that station.
Q. Then what did you do? Did you make the call yourself?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Then what did you do?
A. Johnny and I ran back across the street and waited on the front porch till the police car came.
Q. How long before the first police car arrived was it?
A. Two minutes. It was there fast.

So despite Dr. Hobbs’ best intentions, Stephanie re-confirms that Sylvia is dead. Dr. Johnny concurs. So Johnny and Ricky go across the street and call the police. Then they hang out on the front porch. Why not relax? Sylvia is dead, and in spite of the advance life-saving technique of a warm bath so impressively applied by the medical savants. Notice how Ricky changes his statement about who was present in the kitchen when he arrived:

Q. What did you see when you went in the house?
A. Sylvia was on the floor. Stephanie, Gertrude and Johnny were there.

Here’s.... Johnny! Now let’s hear Ricky say that when he saw Sylvia lying on the kitchen floor, he knew she was dying:

Q. Your occupation was to help her?
A. That was my thoughts.
Q. Why did you want to help her?
A. If I see a person dying, naturally I want to help.
Q. You did not want to help her on Saturday before?
A. She was not dying.
Q. You knew she was dying then?
A. She was breathing labored.

And if you’re a 14 year old child and deduce that someone is dying, what should you do? Administer CPR, and give that person a warm bath. Be sure to keep the police and medical authorities out of the picture. It would helpful to follow this through:

Q. You knew she was dying?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How did you know that?
A. I figured it because she was breathing heavy.
Q. Anything else?
A. Not that I recall.
Q. Just heavy breathing?
A. She had sores all over her body.
Q. You knew she was beaten, gouged, scalded, branded and you had done part of it, you knew you had contributed to her condition?
A. Yes.

He re-affirms that he knew Sylvia was dying. Why? Labored breathing. But that’s not all! She had sores all over her body. And he helped put them there! I was unaware that a person is dying if they have labored breathing, cold skin, but a third criterion is necessary- i.e. sores. Suddenly Ricky knows that she has sores! Or suddenly he admits that he knew she had sores. Sores have nothing to do with Sylvia dying.

Q. Now, which end did you take when you carried Sylvia's body upstairs?
A. Her shoulders.
Q. Which end did Stephanie take?
A. Her feet.
Q. Now, then, when you were carrying the girl upstairs, did you let go of her?
A. No, sir.
Q. You did not let go so her head dropped down and hit the stairway?
A. No, sir.
Q. You hung on to her all way upstairs?
A. Yes.
Q. Where did you take her?
A. In front of the bathroom door.
Q. What did you do?
A. Laid her down.
Q. Did you stay there?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How long did you stay there?
A. Till Johnny and Stephanie had her in the bath tub.
Q. How long was that?
A. Maybe two minutes.

What was Gertrude doing?

Q. Where was Gertrude?
A. In the kitchen crying.
Q. Crying what?
A. Just crying.
Q. Crying out she was a faker?
A. She was doing that when we carried her upstairs.
Q. Before that she was just crying?
A. Yes, sir

So the only adult was hysterical and crying. But!

Q. You told Mr. Nedeff they put her in with what clothes she had on?
A. They did.
Q. Whose idea was that?
A. Gertrude's.

Gertrude is temporarily calm and rational, seeing how nakedness just entered into the picture. Why put Sylvia in the tub with her clothes on? Obviously- modesty, the same thing that Ricky tried to fall back on when describing the slogan scene. Gertrude is concerned that Johnny, and possibly Ricky, will see Sylvia undressed.

"Oh my God! What are we gonna do? It's the end of the world as...hey, you two! I don't want anything inappropriate going on up there! Make sure her clothes stay on! Now, where was I? Oh, yes.. Oh my God! What are we gonna do?"

Wow! that was close! No nakedness. Now Gertrude can return to being hysterical:

Q. Now, did you testify, Mr. Hobbs, that after you helped Stephanie carry Sylvia upstairs that you went back downstairs and restrained Gertrude, leaving John and Stephanie upstairs with Sylvia?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Is that the truth?
A. To the best of my knowledge, it is.
Q. Where downstairs did you stay with Gertrude?
A. In the living room.
Q. What was she doing?
A. Walking around yelling about Sylvia.
Q. What did she yell?
A. She kept repeating she was faking.
Q. Did she continue to walk?
A. She would stop every once in a while.
Q. Why would she do that?
A. She would stand in front of the stairs.
Q. Were you in front of them?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What did you do?
A. I just stood there.
Q. Did you take hold of her?
A. Not unless she tried to get up the stairs.
Q. Did she?
A. She may have once or twice. I don't recall exactly.
Q. You restrained her?
A. By putting my arm out, yes, sir.
Q. Why did you do that?
A. Because Stephanie thought it best to keep her downstairs.

Now a serious flaw becomes apparent. Ricky has described himself as having taken Sylvia upstairs, where Stephanie and Johnny give Sylvia a nice warm bath; oh, dressed of course so that Johnny doesn’t see Sylvia naked. Let’s see the flaw:

Q. Were you upstairs when Sylvia was laying on the mattress?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you see Gertrude hit her?
A. The police were there when I seen her laying on the mattress.
Q. You did not see her before that?
A. No, sir.

Q. Did you see her hit Sylvia on the head twice with a book? - I will ask if it is not a fact you stated to Sgt. Kaiser, "We, me and Stephanie carried her upstairs and laid her on the mattress on the bedroom floor, and she was cold, and I gave her artificial respiration, and then Stephanie took over then, and she did too," Why do you say now you did not see her on the mattress till the police came?

A. I don't recall laying her on a mattress.
Q. Are you trying to protect somebody with your testimony this morning?
A. No, sir.
Q. Where was Sylvia lying when you stated you gave her artificial respiration?
A. Down in the kitchen.
Q. Are you sure about that?
A. Yes, sir.

Wow! No Johnny! There’s just Ricky and Stephanie. Now Stephanie and Ricky take Sylvia directly upstairs to the bedroom, without stopping for a bath. This is a serious problem. Why? Because the bath was prescribed by Dr. Ricky when he deduced that Sylvia was suffering from labored breathing and cold skin. This occurred in the kitchen, and having noted these symptoms, he prescribed the warm bath. But he said at another time that Sylvia was taken directly upstairs to the bedroom. Then it was noted that her breathing was labored. Then it was noted that she felt cold. Then CPR was performed. I think that is very important. Why? Because it clearly shows that Sylvia was never put into the bathtub on the evening of October 26th. Ricky’s claim that Sylvia was put into the bathtub was based on the ridiculous claim that she felt cold. Really, he has brought in the element of the bath to account for what Kebel testified to, i.e. that the body had been bathed. Yes! But scrubbed with an acidic chemical! Ricky doesn’t mention that. What Kebel is describing is the condition that Photo 1 Girl was found in. In fact, I think that most of the cuts, scrapes, abrasions, chemical burns, scalding, and denuded patches were actually the result of 5 men frantically trying to scrub trace evidence off of their victim. Ricky’s story is intended to link up with Kebel’s story, but fails miserably as Ricky fails to describe dumping toilet-bowl cleaner or some other such chemical unto Sylvia. Why? Because the warm bath is meant to help Sylvia, not scrub evidence away. And! Why would you scrub the body to remove trace evidence? If Sylvia died in the house in which she had been living, then you wouldn’t. Why? Because everyone has all kinds of stuff all over them that will match up to what is in the house in which they live. And since no one in the story claims to have not been there, then they would be cleansing the body of trace evidence relevant to their presence in the house. So what Kebel says cannot possibly be true…of Sylvia. If Photo 1 Girl were killed by the gang…they would scrub the body. So! No bath in Gertrude’s house. Sylvia was taken out of the basement, then upstairs to the bedroom, and laid on a mattress. Where she died.

Q. You went back downstairs, is that correct?
A. Pardon?
Q. You went back downstairs after you carried Sylvia upstairs?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You denied Friday that you dropped her head and banged it on the stairs as you went up?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Who went back downstairs with you, if anyone did?
A. Gertrude.
Q. Did anyone go back downstairs?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Who?
A. Gertrude.
Q. She stayed down there?
A. Yes, sir.

Gertrude doesn’t seem so hysterical suddenly. And now, she will seem even less so:

Q. Did you tell Sgt. Kaiser, when you made Exhibit No, 18 that "Johnny and I went downstairs while Gertie and Stephanie put some dry clothes on her"?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Is that the truth or is that false?
A. It must be the truth.
Q. How did Gertrude do that upstairs if you stated you were downstairs with her, restraining her?
A. I don't know, sir.

So do we have the bath story again? It would seem so, but not necessarily. It should be remembered that Sylvia was being hosed off in the basement because she had defecated on herself. So it could be that it was the clothes she was wearing in the basement that were wet. But Gertrude stays upstairs with Stephanie in order to dress Sylvia in dry clothes. And I find that interesting, based on a detail noted by Ellis:

A. The body was clothed with a pair of - essentially peddle pusher type of pants, approximately ankle in length, slightly above the ankles, and a blouse which was yellow white and orange in color. The sleeve length was about elbow length. No undergarments.

It may be nothing, but I would think that a 37 year old woman and a 15 year old girl who are dressing the body of another female would remember to include underwear when selecting her wardrobe. Kebel said this:

She had on an upper garment that looked like a blouse to me and a lower garment of slacks of some sort.

Dixon said this:

Q. How was the girl dressed?
A. What girl was that, sir?
Q. The girl you found there.
A. Sylvia?
Q. Yes.
A. She had on a pullover sweater and a pair of slacks.

Who couldn’t love Dixon! After spending so much time telling us that he didn’t notice the cop that was there when he arrived, or the children in the house, or even the child in the backseat of his own car because he was only interested in the girl he was there to see, he doesn’t remember what girl that was! I think it is odd given the fact that the description of her clothing given by Ellis, Kebel, and especially Dixon accords with what Gertrude said about the way Sylvia usually dressed:

Q. Did Sylvia's father talk to her?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did Sylvia's mother talk to her?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And where did this conversation take place?
A. In the kitchen.
Q. They stayed there fifteen or twenty minutes?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How was Sylvia dressed at that time?
A. She had a pair of slacks and a sweatshirt on, something she wore mostly all the time.

This sounds a lot like how Sylvia was dressed when they found her body. But she wasn’t dressed that way when Ricky found her in the kitchen:

A. I believe she had a pair of shorts on.

Stephanie:

Q. How was she dressed?
A. She had a blouse and shorts on.

If her shorts and blouse were removed, and Gertrude and Stephanie dressed her in clothes that Gertrude would claim was Sylvia's normal manner of attire, I find it odd that putting underwear on her was missed. That would be a whole different matter if a gang of men were dressing the dead body of a girl they had killed, especially if they were in a terrible hurry. If you had just killed her, and were cleaning the body, and the member of your gang you left on watch-duty out front of the place where you had been keeping her comes running in, and he’s yelling that the police had just pulled up into the parking lot, well, you’re in a real hurry! Maybe you’re in such a hurry that you don’t wash her feet. Scrub away and then dress her in the clothes she had on when you forced her into your car. What’s that noise? That’s the police stumbling around in the hall as they make their way toward the room where the body is. Cut and run! Out the back! But that’s purely hypothetical, of course. At any rate, let’s pick up Ricky’s testimony again:

Q. On the 26th when Gertrude was upstairs, what was she doing upstairs?
A. Just watching.
Q. She did not do anything at all, did she?
A. Not that I recall.
Q. What did she do then, what did Gertrude do then?
A. When?
Q. When she was upstairs. Did she stay upstairs?
A. No, sir.
Q. What did she do?
A. Stephanie told me to keep her downstairs so I took her downstairs and kept her downstairs.
Q. You took her downstairs and kept her downstairs?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you testify she kept wanting to get upstairs?
A. Not constantly, not all the time.
Q. Did you testify you had a hard time keeping Gertrude downstairs?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What was she doing?
A. Every once in a while she would walk around and make a dive for the stairs and I would stop her.
Q. What were Gertrude and Stephanie doing at 5:30 when you went back to the house?
A. Gertrude was standing over by the wall crying.
Q. Gertrude was crying?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What was Stephanie doing?
A. Kneeling down by Sylvia crying.

Not surprisingly, we get a different story from Stephanie:

Q. Then what did you do?
A. Well, I don't know how I got her - Ricky came downstairs.
Q. Who is Ricky?
A. Ricky Hobbs.
Q. Do you see him in the courtroom?
A. Yes.
Q. Is he one of the defendants?
A. Yes.
Q. What did he do then?
A. He said, "Let me help you take her upstairs".
Q. Did he do that?
A. Yes.
Q. How did he do it?
A. Somebody took one end and somebody took the other.
Q. Who is somebody?
A. I don't know.
Q. You don't know? Did you pick her up?
A. As far as I remember, I did.
Q. What end did you pick up?
A. The bottom.
Q. You mean the feet?
A. Well halfway between the feet and the trunk.
Q. What end did Ricky take?
A. The front part.
Q. You mean her head and shoulders?
A. Yes.
Q. How did he hold her?
A. Under the arms.
Q. You started upstairs with her?
A. Yes.
Q. Then what happened?
A. We took her all the way upstairs. When we got to the kitchen somebody went to get a blanket. I think Johnny did. We wrapped her up and took her the rest of the way upstairs.

So despite the fact that she says that Paula, Jenny, Johnny and Gertrude are in the basement, it suddenly falls to Stephanie to carry Sylvia out of the basement. In fact, she says that she was left having to do it all by herself, and treats us to the farcical scene of her trying to carry a 16 year old girl out of the basement like you would a baby. Then, naturally, she can’t do it. But that’s fine, there are plenty of people in the basement to help her. And who does? Johnny? No. Jenny? No. Paula? No. Gertrude? No. Ricky suddenly walks through the wall into the basement to help her. This makes no sense, unless of course, Jenny, Paula, Johnny, and Gertrude weren’t in the basement. Indeed, Johnny, Jenny, and Paula weren’t even in the house. Not yet. But Ricky says that he wasn’t there until Sylvia was already in the kitchen. If that is true, then Stephanie is there alone. But not alone. Claiming that she and Ricky were taking Sylvia out of the basement, she suddenly forgets that it was her and Ricky:

A. He said, "Let me help you take her upstairs".
Q. Did he do that?
A. Yes.
Q. How did he do it?
A. Somebody took one end and somebody took the other.
Q. Who is somebody?
A. I don't know.
Q. You don't know? Did you pick her up?
A. As far as I remember, I did.

As far as she can remember it was her; except for the anonymous two people who were really doing it.

A. We took her all the way upstairs. When we got to the kitchen somebody went to get a blanket. I think Johnny did. We wrapped her up and took her the rest of the way upstairs.
Q. The first time Ricky Hobbs saw Sylvia was down in the basement, was it?
A. Yes.
Q. You took her up and laid her on the kitchen floor and got a blanket?
A. Yes.
Q. How long did you leave her there?
A. Long enough to put the blanket around her.
Q. Did you ask anybody to call a doctor?
A. I screamed for somebody to get a doctor.
Q. When was that?
A. The time that we took her upstairs.
Q. The time you took her to the kitchen?
A. Yes.

Wow! Stephanie yelled out that someone should call a doctor! Sensible enough; but no one did. Ricky says that Stephanie made no such demand, but that he told Gertrude to call the police. But she didn't do it. So both Ricky and Stephanie seek to dump the blame on someone else, since they both demanded that someone do the right thing, but no one did. Why couldn’t Ricky have simply let Gertrude back up the stairs, and then he could have walked across the street and called the police? Who cares if Gertrude is hysterical? Why couldn’t Stephanie have gone across the street and made the call? She simply couldn’t because who then would drag Sylvia around the house? How about Paula? How about Johnny? How about Jenny? Clearly, both Ricky and Stephanie are trying to divert attention from themselves. They didn’t call the police or a doctor. Actually, this may have just been part of their lying stories, since they were not directing the action. It would seem that there may have been three adults in the house at the time; Gertrude, and the two anonymous somebodies who carried Sylvia out of the basement. Now comes the most important detail, the cause of the sub-dermal hematoma that caused Sylvia’s death:

Q. After you got a blanket, what did you do?
A. Took her upstairs.
Q. Who carried her?
A. Me and Ricky.
Q. You and Ricky Hobbs? Did you still have her feet?
A. Yes.
Q. Did he have her head and shoulders?
A. Yes.
Q. Did he drop her?
A. Yes.
Q. What happened?
A. He said something.
Q. What did he say?
A. A slang word.
Q. A slang word?
A. Yes.
Q. Did her head hit the steps?
A. Yes.
Q. Then what happened?
A. He was mad at himself.
Q. He was mad?
A. Yes.
Q. He went back down?
A. No.
Q. I am sorry, I could not hear you.
A. He got mad at himself.
Q. At himself?

By ‘slang word’ we can probably understand ‘swear word.’ And according to Stephanie, it was Ricky’s fault that Sylvia died. Sort of. She will later claim that she dropped Sylvia too. It seems unlikely that simply dropping Sylvia and her head hitting one of the steps caused her death. That would change dramatically if one were to posit that what actually happened is that they slipped, and fell down the stairs from the top of the staircase.

Q. Where did you take her?
A. To the bathroom.
Q. What did you do with her?
A. I made some water.
Q. Was it warm or cold?
A. I'd say warm.
Q. Did Ricky stay up there?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did he go back down?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did he ever try to give her artificial respiration?
A. That all depends.
Q. Mouth to mouth?
A. No, not mouth to mouth.
Q. How did he do it?
A. Along after she took the bath -
Q. After she took the bath? Not down in the kitchen on the floor?
A. No.
Q. He went back down and you gave her a bath?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you undress her?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you put her in the water with her clothes on or off?
A. I'd say she - her clothes were off.
Q. Off?
A. Yes.
Q. Did anybody help you?
A. I am not sure, I think Johnny did.
Q. Johnny helped you - that is your brother John?
A. Yes.

So much for Sylvia’s modesty; a 12 year old boy gets to see Sylvia undressed. I don’t think so. Stephanie does another one of her “I’m not sure” moments. She hesitated when she was asked whether Sylvia was naked, when she just stated that she had taken Sylvia’s clothes off. Did someone help her?

A. I am not sure, I think Johnny did.
Q. Johnny helped you - that is your brother John?
A. Yes.

She isn’t sure if anyone helped her? But if someone did, she thinks it was Johnny?

Q. Was Sylvia alive at that time?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How do you know that?
A. Because then she started talking.
Q. What did she say?
A. She said, "I wish my dad was here".
Q. Anything else you can recall Sylvia saying?
A. She wanted to go home.
Q. She wanted to go home.
A. Yes.
Q. Did she say anything else?
A. She just told me to take her home.
Q. What did you do?

This I think has much truth in it. But if Sylvia fell down the stairs, hitting her head numerous times, then stories about her speaking incoherently would make sense.

Q. Did she say anything else?
A. She just told me to take her home.
Q. What did you do?
A. Well, I think Johnny helped me take her out of the bathtub and I got a towel and wiped her off and then I changed her clothes.
Q. What did you put on her?
A. A pair of pink stretch slacks and a funny looking blouse.
Q. Did anyone help you dress her?
A. I don't remember.
Q. Where was your mother?
A. She was downstairs.
Q. Did she ever come upstairs?
A. Yes.
Q. What, if anything, did she do when she came upstairs?
A. Got hysterical.
Q. What did she do?
A. Came in and everybody started saying she was faking.
Q. Who said that?
A. Mom and Ricky.
Q. Did she do anything?
A. Not right then.
Q. Did she later do anything?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What did she do?
A. Well, she was upset and screaming and everything and she looked at Sylvia and said she was faking. She had a book in her hand and she hit her twice.

A funny-looking blouse? Apparently one Stephanie hadn’t seen before? Gertrude became hysterical. But apparently she was walking around hysterically with a book in her hand. And what does she do with it? Eventually she decides that the dying girl will be fine if she hits Sylvia with it. If that caused the head trauma, it was no paperback book! It wasn’t a phone-book, since Gertrude didn’t have a phone. I wonder if Gertrude was much of a reader. Was she walking around with Stephanie’s high school text book? If Paula is there, why isn’t she doing anything? Paula seems to be the most mature and responsible person in that household. Indeed, the virtual head of the household. She was in the basement, where is she now? Why is Gertrude hysterical? Could it be that she was worried that Sylvia was dying? Smacking Sylvia with a book certainly wouldn’t be a good prescription. Why doesn’t Stephanie give a reason for putting Sylvia in the bathtub? Could it be that she doesn’t know the real reason? Does she know the real reason but has committed to not tell it? If so, she offers no explanation. Ricky did; a pathetically stupid one. Sylvia felt cold, so after stabilizing her by using his CPR skills to get her breathing better, it would help to warm her up by putting her in the bath. I can think of two better reasons:

1. Put Sylvia in a bath full of cold water to revive her. Especially if she had just plunged down the stairs when they dropped her.
2. Finding her dead at the base of the stairs, now the authorities will have to be called. Suddenly! Oh, yes! Ricky put that stupid slogan on her. Some of it had worn off, but not all of it. So scrub the body down with an acidic compound, like Kebel said, in an effort to get the rest of it off. If so, it didn’t work.

And while these are two good reasons, far better than Ricky’s reason, they are completely fictional. I believe that the body of Photo 1 Girl was vigorously scrubbed with scrub brushes as scalding hot water and an acidic chemical was dumped over her. Sylvia, dying on the mattress in the upstairs back bedroom, was not put into the bathtub. Well, that’s one theory anyway. Still, one does not want to over-analyze such things, or be overly pessimistic, I suppose. So all this makes sense. Yes, in a strange parallel universe far, far away. One where matter and anti-matter can be poured into a jar together and shaken up, without blowing a whole in the cosmos. Perhaps Gertrude’s house is the gateway into that parallel universe. After all, a hypothetical parallel universe is not burdened with the sobering rules of reality. So it is only appropriate that we throw out the sobering rules of reality when peaking into the bizarre place on the other side of Gertrude’s magically-opening front door.

Sylvia is faking it. Faking what? Faking dying? She’s just been talking about wanting to see her father, about going home. That’s enough. Gertrude will prove Sylvia is faking by getting her to say something. How? Shake her? Say something like… “Sylvia! Sylvia! Can you hear me?” Why do that when you can do something far more logical…like smack her in the face with a book? The previous head trauma, blamed on Ricky, isn’t enough. But she’s not trying to finish Sylvia off. She utilizes her book to prove that Sylvia is alive. How? Hold it over her and ask her to read page 42 aloud? That’s absurd. Do something that is not absurd, smack her in the face with it, elicit a verbal response, and then declare: “she’ll be alright.” Stephanie is a terrible story-teller. Having her mother just declare that Sylvia will be alright, I would think that everybody can take a deep breath and relax. No more doctor Ricky! No more doctor Stephanie! Doctor Stephanie? She said this:

A. I don't know. I am not a doctor.

Stephanie was far too modest! Still, no more doctor Johnny…who seems to have vanished again. No more Paula..who seems to have never made it out of the basement, perhaps being too busy not being in the basement. And no more Jenny…apparently hanging out in the basement with Paula with nothing better to do. We have Dr. Gertrude! She has prescribed a good smack in the face with a book! Always a reliable cure. It worked! Sylvia said, “Oh.” That’s all…”Oh”? Doesn’t matter! But we can all relax, Sylvia’s fine. No wait, we can’t relax? Why not? I’m not sure, since Sylvia will be alright. Inexplicably, Gertrude goes back to her previous panic attack, and demands that someone call a doctor..and everything. Everything? Why didn’t Gertrude want to call a doctor before she cured Sylvia by whacking her in the face with a book? Stephanie said that earlier, she herself called out for someone to call a doctor. No one did. Then clumsy Ricky dropped Sylvia so that her head hit one of the stairs. Gertrude still sees no need for a doctor. Then Sylvia begins to panic, pleading desperately for her father. Still no doctor needed. But now that Gertrude has declared that Sylvia will be alright, now we need the doctor? Stephanie is terrible at telling stories, unlike her friend; and it seems to me to be a tremendous insult to anyone listening to her if they are expected to believe any of this..well, most of this. Still, I get the feeling that we’re missing something. Yes! And missing someone. We have plenty of competent doctors on hand. And what do competent doctors need? That’s obvious; a good nurse.

Q. You saw him try to keep her from coming upstairs?
A. Yes.
Q. Was this after you seen her hit Sylvia in the head or before?
A. Afterwards.
Q. Your mother went downstairs?
A. Mom wanted everybody to go downstairs. She came up again and said she was faking and would be alright. Somebody brought me warm tea for her.

Just when you think it couldn’t get better! Gertrude stays upstairs, and Ricky is with her. But if we go by what Stephanie said previously, Gertrude is having her panic attack again. Where is her book? Maybe Ricky should whack Gertrude in the face with the book. That might calm her down! That’s absurd! But the book has disappeared. So Gertrude is still panicking, and Ricky forces her back downstairs. But Gertrude seems to have recovered her wits. Everybody but Stephanie should go downstairs. So why does Ricky have to keep her from coming upstairs? Sylvia is fine. What does Gertrude intend to do now? I just hope she hasn’t found another book! If a good book-smacking is the cure, maybe a bigger and heavier book will help Sylvia all the more. Then…my favorite! What should be done now? Answer, give Sylvia warm tea! Whose idea would that be? I would assume, Gertrude’s. So according to Stephanie, Gertrude panicked, and became exceedingly annoyed that Sylvia was pretending to be dying. It’s irrelevant that Sylvia now has head trauma when unreliable Ricky dropped her on the stairs. Into the bath she goes (with her clothes on young man!), and she’s talking. But she’s still faking..and I must sympathize, if I found someone who was pretending to be dying, and had the nerve of talking at the same time, I would go in search of a good book myself! But seriously, Gertrude declares Sylvia alright, then panics again. Ricky forces her down the stairs, when she suddenly makes it clear that she thinks it prudent for everybody else to go downstairs. After all, Sylvia could use some rest. So now our mother brings everyone else downstairs, apparently giving up her anxiety attack again. And then she sends warm tea upstairs for Sylvia. Warm tea; which, with a little honey, is good for a sore throat, and tea is also good for a cold. And it can be very relaxing while reading a good book, or while getting smacked in the face with a good book. The only way this could get any better is if motherly Gertrude sent some chicken soup up to Sylvia along with the tea. Who brings the tea upstairs? Not Gertrude, Ricky is on guard-duty, and he won’t let Gertrude by. Maybe she doesn’t know the password. I know someone who does, and I was wondering when she would appear. And here’s….

Q. Who brought the tea?
A. I think Shirley. She asked if it was alright. I said "She will be alright". She said, "I will stay up here with her". She went back downstairs and I fed her some tea.

Shirley! I was wondering where she was. Stephanie, after going upstairs and using the bathroom, comes downstairs just in time for Shirley and all the kids, a group that apparently appointed, for some reason, Shirley as their leader, rushes into the house to declare that someone is swearing at someone. And then….poof! She’s gone. Good news! She’s back, and brought tea.

Q. Did she take it?
A. Yes.
Q. That was on the mattress after you bathed her?
A. Yes.
Q. Did she sit up?
A. She needed help.
Q. You held her?
A. Yes.
Q. Was anyone else up there?
A. No, sir.

I’m actually glad that Shirley left. Not that I don’t like Shirley, because I do. But after providing the amazingly funny kitchen scene in her testimony, in which Sylvia throws two glasses of milk, one glass of water, and a perfectly good do-nut on the floor, I would expect Sylvia to suddenly throw the cup of tea on the floor. But it is worth making a few comments about Shirley at this point.
Shirley claimed to have been home all day with a cold. So she was able to give us the funny story about the dreadful mess Sylvia made in the kitchen. Not surprisingly, Sylvia was sent to the basement. She claims that Paula entered the house and disappeared into the basement. Then Stephanie went into the basement and threw hot water on Sylvia. Then Gertrude threw cold water on Sylvia. This was done to clean Sylvia up because she had a bowel movement in her clothes. And this takes us to an example of the kind of lunacy that was being accepted in this courtroom. Most witnesses testify that Sylvia, by this time, was completely disoriented, and making no sense when she spoke. They described this in different ways. Shirley’s is the best:

Q. Who got - what was Sylvia doing?
A. Laying on the floor.
Q. Had she had a bowel movement?
A. Yes.
Q. What did she say, if anything?
A. A, B, C, D.
Q. How many times did she say that?
A. She just kept saying it over and over.

What Shirley is trying to tell us is that Sylvia, who is close to dying, is in the basement practicing the ABCs. Oh, and can’t get past the letter D. Anybody studying this case should spend some time contemplating this. This, combined with any number of other laughable pieces of testimony, although it really isn’t funny given the fact that people’s lives were in the balance, should show just what a judicial disaster happened in this case. Shirley then relates that Sylvia was taken to the kitchen, then upstairs for a bath. Who gave her a bath? Gertrude and Paula. This flies in the face of what Ricky and Stephanie say. Shirley admits to going into the bedroom after Sylvia’s bath, and saw Stephanie trying to help her. And no! She was not trying to help Sylvia with the ABCs, even though, according to Shirley, Sylvia needed help getting past the letter D. Of course, Shirley doesn’t have a cup of tea with her. As I said, that would probably have ended up on the floor. But Shirley claims to have watched Stephanie perform lifesaving CPR. Her description of this is hilarious:

Q. When you went in the bedroom, what happened?
A. This last time I went in there Stephanie was trying to help her.
Q. What was Stephanie doing?
A. Holding her tongue and breathing in her mouth.
Q. Tell the Ladies and Gentlemen what Stephanie did then?
A. Well, Stephanie held her tongue and breathed in her mouth but she could not hold on to her tongue any more. It slipped and she gave a death gargle and Stephanie started crying after she died.
Q. Is that when Sylvia died?
A. Yes, it was.

So CPR is done by holding the person’s tongue! And of course, it isn’t easy to hold onto someone’s tongue..make no mistake about that. I don’t know if that’s because it is slippery, or too heavy; you would have to ask Nurse Shirley. But alas! Stephanie couldn’t hold onto Sylvia’s tongue anymore. She had done everything she could! And then, Sylvia gave a death gargle. And I find that amazing. I don’t know what a death gargle is. Some odd sound? Like gargling with Listerine? According to Shirley, that’s how you could tell someone dies; you listen for the death gargle. What do you expect from a 10 year old? And one who saw nothing? So I’m relieved that Shirley, like so many others in Stephanie’s story, de-materializes.

Q. You were alone?
A. Yes.
Q. Then what happened?
A. I put the tea down and raised her up again and I was brushing back her hair off her face. She looked kind of foggy.
Q. Were her eyes open?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Could you understand her words?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What did she say?
A. Just the same thing, just "Take me home, Stephanie".

She looked kind of foggy. I’m not sure what that means. A person might say they that feel foggy, which of course means dazed, confused, disoriented, and with definite alphabet problems. So I’m not sure what a person who looks foggy actually looks like. No matter, Stephanie does. Alas! Gertrude was wrong. The blow to the face with the book didn’t work! And who would have thought that the tea wouldn’t work either? 

Q. Then what happened?
A. Well, I started to lay her back down and I dropped her.
Q. On the mattress?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Alright, then what happened?

A. I was mad at myself and I started - and then all of a sudden she did not seem to be breathing anymore and I called - somebody came upstairs - I forgot who came upstairs - and I told them to go get a doctor that she had stopped breathing. Then Ricky came in and he listened to her heart. It was still beating but she was not breathing. First he took his hands and pushed in on her stomach and it out and then he went, downstairs. He asked if I knew to give mouth to mouth resuscitation, I said, "Yes". He said, "O.K. Give it to her", and I did.

Q. Did you do that?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you put your mouth to her mouth?
A. Yes.
Q. Breathe into it?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Ricky Hobbs did not do that?
A. No, sir.
Q. Then what happened?
A. Everybody seemed all upset and everything. Mom seemed to act like she was really sick so she started screaming and everything and I told her to stop screaming and get out.
Q. Your mother had come back up?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did she get out?
A. No, sir.
Q. She stayed?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did she do anything else to Sylvia?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did you continue resuscitation?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. With your mouth?
A. Yes, sir.

So here we go! Another duplicate. Ricky dropped Sylvia on the stairs. But everything was alright again, except clumsy Stephanie, just like Ricky, drops Sylvia. But she lands on the mattress, so everything’s fine. If someone were to drop me, and if I was merely sitting up, I don’t think I would fall far, I would want to land on something soft. I wonder what that would be. I know, a mattress! And that’s what happened, so I feel relieved. Oh no! Landing on a mattress from a sitting position causes you to stop breathing. Who knew? What to do? First, panic! Somebody call a doctor! If I were there, I would look at Stephanie and say: “I will not! Every time you and your mother want someone to call a doctor, one isn’t needed! We have a bathtub, books, and tea. Maybe try the book again!” No wait! Dr. Ricky is back. And now what does indispensable Dr. Hobbs do? Listens to her heart! What does a beating heart sound like? I bet you would know if you had a device like a…stethoscope! Who needs something so superfluous, when you can simply listen to the heart with your ear? All those stupid doctors walking around hospitals with unnecessary devices allowing one to hear the human heart strapped around their necks. Can you tell if a heartbeat is normal by putting your ear to someone’s chest? Can you tell if it’s too fast? Can you tell if it’s too slow? How many heartbeats has Ricky heard? Ricky truly missed his calling. How relieved I was to hear that Sylvia’s heart was still beating. Alas! She isn’t breathing. So Dr. Ricky pushes on Sylvia’s stomach. Stomach? Is she trying to describe chest compressions? He does this, and then leaves. Then the little scene goes from absurd to laughable. He’s listened to Sylvia’s heart, and he pushed on her stomach. Then he goes to leave. But wait! Hey Steph, do you know CPR? You do? Cool! You minus well go ahead and do it. Can’t hurt. Anyway, I started her breathing by pushing on her stomach. If only Ricky could train the nation’s paramedics and emergency room doctors! Now Ricky vanishes, and Stephanie does CPR. Then Gertrude and everybody suddenly appear! Gertrude does what she seems to do best in Stephanie’s little story, she panics! So does everybody else. Stephanie tells her to leave, but she won’t. Oh that Ricky were there! He could force poor Gertrude back downstairs. By the way, now would be a good time for a few Phenobarbitals!

Q. What happened?
A. Well, she started breathing again and then somebody said that somebody had gone to call the police or something and I was hoping they would get there so - because I was figuring whenever the policeman came that he is supposed to try everything he could to bring them back. I was hoping they would get there so they could give her oxygen.
Q. Did they get there?
A. They got there and did not do anything.
Q. Was she dead?
A. He said she was.
Q. Did you stay with her till she died?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. When they came there who was upstairs with Sylvia?
A. Just me.
Q. You were the only one?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Have you told the jury everything?
A. Yes, sir.

Hah! I knew it! Dr. Stephanie got Sylvia breathing again. Somebody should call the police! I wish I had a dime for every time someone yells for a doctor or the police. Why call the police? She’s better again! She’s breathing, but this time there’s a twist. First, her heart was beating, but she wasn’t breathing. Dr. Ricky and Dr. Stephanie took care of that. Now for the twist…Sylvia is breathing, and her heart is beating, but she’s dead! Stephanie desperately wants a policeman to arrive because he is “supposed to try everything he could to bring them back. I was hoping they would get there so they could give her oxygen.” The only reason you have to bring Sylvia back, is if she is dead. But she’s breathing, and her heart is beating, which are sure signs that she’s…alive. And by the way, I would agree in principle that the police are supposed to do that. But Stephanie says that they arrived, and didn’t do that. And here, she’s telling the truth. Officer Dixon does not indicate that he did anything to save Sylvia. Of course, if she’s breathing and her heart is beating..what’s there to do? Call an ambulance of course. But Dixon didn’t do that. No need, she’s dead. How does he know? By looking, of course. At least Ricky listened to her heart. One look by officer Dixon…
I could say that a major lawsuit could be in the offing at this point. And the Likens could use the money! Who proclaimed Sylvia dead? How long did the buffoons in these stories spend bumbling around the house? Then the cop arrives, and he admits on the stand that all he did was look. What if, despite what a brood of children said they did, Sylvia was alive when Dixon arrived? The time of death given by Kebel and Ellis clearly indicated that Sylvia was dead by the time Dixon arrived. But he did not know that! If you receive a call about a person who might be dead, and you arrive at the scene to determine whether that is the case, you should do something more than look at the person. At least, I would think so. It would be a disgrace if the person who actually declared Sylvia dead was Stephanie. But she couldn’t decide if a beating heart and breathing meant you were alive, or dead! She said the police did nothing, and that’s what Dixon said he did…nothing. Did Stephanie tell him Sylvia was dead? If so, that would be good enough for me. Did Shirley tell the police officer that Sylvia was dead because she gave a death gargle? That too would be good enough for me. The reality here is that Dixon did look, and Stephanie and others probably did tell him that Sylvia was dead. But I don’t think that Dixon went by that. There is a far better explanation why Dixon could take it for granted that Sylvia was dead. Another police officer told him.

 Still, Jenny insisted that Sylvia was faking the extent of her injuries. Why? To get her way. What was that? To contact their father and find out why he wasn’t there. He was supposed to be. Instead, he was crashing in a hotel room in Florida. Does this place blame with Jenny? Not on this point. She was a kid, Gertrude and the other 3 adults (John; his new wife; Mystery Cop) did not do what any adult should have known to do. What was that? Call an ambulance. They did not do this, although someone did when Marie cut her wrist. But Marie was a Baniszewski, and Sylvia was not. And what of the kid Sylvia was fighting with that night? In the kitchen. The one who may have accidentally knocked Sylvia down the basement steps during that fight. Then Sylvia smashed her head against the wall. That was an accident, but if it happened, it would have been a hard thing to live with. Easier to let Gertrude take the blame. Nonetheless, the decisions that were made in the house that night by the adults present resulted in Sylvia’s death. Who cares about what some kids say? “She’s faking! “She’s faking!” Shut up, Jenny, and run across the street to call an ambulance! Your sister is hurt! Gertrude slowly reneged on her role as a parent, dumping most of it on her 17 year old, pregnant daughter. Gertrude complained about all the others, and when you’re stoned all the time, well…such people make poor decisions. Johnny was unmanageable? Not when he was with his father. Yes! And not in a place where I would think an unmanageable child would be at his most unmanageable…juvenile lock up! Shirley throws her milk on the kitchen floor? Stephanie is seen at the Likens girls’ grandparents’ house with a girl that looks a lot like Sylvia? Marie cut her wrist? Paula runs away? Tempting, especially when a self-absorbed mother living on an “oh woe is me” trip forces adult responsibilities on a 17 year old. I’m too sick to do ironings! Then she complains about all the neighborhood kids in and out of her house. Really? Gertrude had a “that house”. What is a “that house”? Well, the one house in the neighborhood where all the kids congregate and cause trouble because there is little to no adult supervision going on. Place the girl with the head injury on the mattress in the upstairs bedroom as you decide what to do? Maybe as you try to find out what actually happened after you got knocked out trying to break up a fight in the kitchen. Oh, my! How did Sylvia end up in the basement? What’s wrong with her? Why won’t she come upstairs? It looks bad. If my kid didn't do it, and it's the other one…I’ll give her up in a heartbeat. But my kid’s down there too, and she’s not offering any explanations either. Really, John, I don’t know what happened. Did anyone hit her? I’m not sure, I got knocked into the kitchen table. When I came around, your new wife was here. You don’t know what happened, Gertie? Hurry up and call your father, Johnny! Was it what’s-her-name? I’m not sure. So, officer, who was the head of the household? Who was in charge? I didn’t notice, but if I did notice, I would have to say it was Mrs. Wright. Of all the people who could have, but didn’t bear ultimate responsibility for Sylvia’s death, it was actually…it’s strange. What is? That you can end up tossing out almost all of the canonical story and inherited wisdom; re-tell the story after rejecting all the lies, and find yourself coming to the same conclusion. Hypothetically, of course. But it’s not the only possible conclusion.