Addenda to De Sade

Seated on folding chairs in a packed Indianapolis courtroom last week was the largest array of defendants to stand trial for a single murder in Indiana his tory. It was also one of the most bizarre: a wispy-haired 90-lb. woman, three of her children and two teen-age neighbor boys. As outlined by police, their story seemed almost unbelievably ugly.

It started last July, when 16-year-old Sylvia Marie Likens was left with her sister, Jenny, 15, in the care of Mrs.

Gertrude Baniszewski, 31, a divorced mother of six. Mrs. Baniszewski had offered to board the Likens girls, whom her children had met at a neighbor's house, for $20 a week while their par ents traveled the Midwest fair circuit.

A pretty lass who liked the Beatles and roller skating, Sylvia was nicknamed Cookie and described by a girl friend as "a sweet nut." With her few possessions -- her most treasured was a jewelry box in which she kept two favorite pins --Sylvia moved into Mrs. B.'s rundown house in an Indianapolis blue-collar neighborhood.

Slaps & Punches. For two months, things went pleasantly enough. Then one day Paula Baniszewski, now 11, hit Sylvia on the jaw so hard that Paula broke her wrist. Paula's mother took to slapping Sylvia for ever more frequent, if imagined, offenses. She did not complain to her parents when they made a visit in early October. After that, her tormentors became increasingly sadistic. John Baniszewski Jr., now 13, and two neighbor boys, diabetic Richard Dean ("Ricky") Hobbs and Coy Hubbard, both 15, joined the laceration game. Sylvia was burned with matches and cigarettes, whipped with a heavy leather belt, hit on the head with a paddle and broom. A 14-year-old girl who visited the house recalled: "It was 'Sylvia, do this' and 'Sylvia, do that' all the time, and when she didn't do it, they would beat her."

Forbidden to eat at one point, she was seen consuming scraps from a garbage can. Oct. 6 was her last day at school. Concerned by Sylvia's absence from church, the pastor dropped in to inquire about her, was told by the woman that the girl was being kept home because she stole things. At the time, Sylvia was tied to an upstairs bed, forbidden water or the use of the bathroom.

By now, torturing Sylvia had become a neighborhood sport, with at least four other youngsters taking part. Even Shirley Baniszewski, 10, and Sister Marie, 11, joined in. So did Stephanie, 15, whom Sylvia had accused of being a prostitute. In fact, John Jr. told police, at one time or another everyone in the family except Mrs. B.'s 18-month-old baby had burned Sylvia with cigarettes. Polio-crippled Jenny Likens was occasionally forced on pain of beating to join the assault on her sister.

Brands & Salt. Around mid-October, after Sylvia had wet her bed, Mrs. B. ordered her to sleep thereafter in the basement on a pile of filthy rags, along with the family's two dogs. Later, according to Hobbs, Mrs. B. told Sylvia, "Now I'm going to brand you." A three-inch sewing needle was heated with matches and, Hobbs said, "Gertie started putting words on her, but she got sick and told me to finish it." Etched in two tiers of inch-high block letters across Sylvia's lower abdomen, the words said: "I'm a prostitute and proud of it." Two days later, Hobbs added, he used the hooked end of a 2-ft.-long anchor bolt that had been heated with burning newspapers to brand the numeral 3 on Sylvia's chest.

About 2:30 the next morning, Sylvia, by then in what officials described as a state of "profound apathy," made what was apparently her only effort to get help. Using a coal shovel, she scraped on the basement floor for almost two hours. A woman next door was awakened and on the verge of calling police when the scraping stopped. That afternoon, as Sylvia lay moaning and mumbling incoherently on her pile of rags, Mrs. Baniszewski, Ricky, John B. Jr. and Paula sprinkled a box of soap powder on her, then added hot water. Afterward, John Jr. sprayed her with cold water from a garden hose.

"Only Pretending." Carried upstairs to a bedroom, the girl was given a lukewarm bath, dressed in a pair of white Capri pants, and placed on a mattress on the floor. Mrs. Baniszewski struck Sylvia on each side of the head with a book and told her to get up, that she was only pretending to be sick. Mercifully, Sylvia died.

Called by her keeper, police found Sylvia's body with arms crossed over her breast. Even to hardened cops, the sight was stomach wrenching. Virtually no part of the girl's corpse was unmarked. Her fingernails had been broken upward; there were massive bruises on her temples; much of the skin on her face, chest, arms and legs had peeled from scalding water. Her lower lip had been bitten in two, presumably during her agony. The immediate cause of death was a blow on the skull. In all, Sylvia's body bore an estimated 150 burns, cuts, bruises and other lesions. Said one veteran of more than 35 years on the force: "In all my years of experience, this is the most sadistic act I ever came across."

In December, a grand jury indicted Gertrude Baniszewski, Paula, Stephanie and John Jr., along with Hubbard and Hobbs, on charges of first-degree murder. (Under Indiana law, minors face the same maximum penalty for murder as adults: the electric chair.) As the trial got under way last week before a jury of eight men and four women, Mrs. Baniszewski, John Jr. and Hubbard pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity; Paula, Stephanie and Ricky pleaded simply not guilty. Upstairs in an anteroom sat Sylvia's parents, still not comprehending how and why it had happened. Sitting sunken-cheeked in court, her blue-veined legs crossed and swinging silver-stitched black slippers, Mrs. Baniszewski also looked puzzled by the whole affair. Shortly after her arrest, she had confided to police: "Sylvia wanted something in life. But I couldn't figure out what it was."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.