What Was Home Like for Little Lisa?

By Lynn A. Granata

Michelle Launders gave birth to Lisa on May 14, 1981. When this beautiful little red-haired Irish beauty left the hospital to be put into her new home, she was named Baby Launders.

Someone had dropped off the little infant at the Steinberg residence. There's no confirmed account as to the identity of who the person was.  It's been theorized that the gynecologist who brought Lisa into the world did. Nobody knows for sure whether or not if he knew that Steinberg wasn't going to make the proper arrangements to get Lisa legally adopted. Instead opting to keep her himself to raise? This was more than an illegal adoption. It was more of an infant kidnapping.

Hedda began to take to the baby immediately naming her Elizabeth "Lisa" Steinberg.  Hedda, apparently received too many shots to the head by Joel's fists by this time to understand that Joel's surname didn't have to be the name selected to use for Lisa. Steinberg didn't impregnate Hedda. This wasn't neither his nor her own child in way shape or form. 

And of course, unlike adoption agencies, who dutifully try to match babies given up for adoption right, will always match the parents to children with the same religion, nationality and background. If these two misfits were ever to go to an adoption agency themselves their chances of getting a baby would be 0. The unkempt house, Hedda's battered condition, Joel's shady business dealings, Joel's unhealthy high-strung prone personality, the lack of responsibility of the both of them, the lack of work stability on account of Hedda. Sorry, they wouldn't even be allowed to get passed the door.

At the time of this meeting, Hedda had just gotten released from the hospital. Joel had given her a severe beating. That he ruptured her spleen, and Hedda required emergency surgery to remove it. Who would want an infant in such an environment? To be Continued...

How Lisa Steinberg

Fatefully Crossed The Joel

Steinberg Hedda Nausbaum Path

by Lynn A. Granata

Her name was Michelle Launders. A junior in high school, in the spring of 1981. Who had not yet found her calling in life. She was dating another teenager her own age at the time. His name was Kevin. His surname name is uncertain. We'll just call him Kevin. After a few dates and fun times they spent together, Michelle panicked because she found out she was pregnant and didn't want to have a child at this time in her life. 

However, she did agree to carry the baby for the full term. While she was pregnant, Michelle was working hard, or so she thought she was. To find a good home for her baby and place the child up for adoption. No one knows exactly how and where Michelle found out about Joel Steinberg. But, it has been presumed Steinberg was in the black market baby business. 

Lisa and "her father" Joel Steinberg.

Michelle's gynecologist was a friend of Steinberg. He agreed to discuss the particulars over with Michelle right around the time she was about to give birth to Lisa. Michelle was assured by this doctor that her baby would go to a good loving home. But then a strange twist took place. Steinberg, promised his friend that he could take care of the placement and the adoption himself. To find a decent home for Lisa. Unfortunately, this never did happen. 

Unbeknownst to Michelle Launders, she just gave up her baby right after having her. She handed her infant to the gynecologist who then in turn passed her over to Steinberg, figuring that there was nothing amiss with Steinberg and that he'd do as promised as his fiduciary duty as an attorney. They figured at the time that he could be trusted. Instead of placing Lisa into a decent home, Steinberg only went and took her home to Hedda, who was unable to conceive. Lisa was just one day old. Part 3 to be continued...

Hedda Nausbaum

She Had to Be Joel's 

Pygmalion 

By Lynn A. Granata

Why? You may ask would a supposedly bright, articulate, and attractive young woman like Hedda Nausbaum continue to remain in an abusive relationship with a man?

At first, things weren't out of the ordinary for Joel Steinberg and Hedda Nausbaum. They appeared to be the perfect match within their own circle of friends. The two came together in 1975. Hedda met him at a party thrown by their mutual friends. Joel was a criminal defense lawyer and Hedda was a children's book publisher for Random House.

Galieto sculpting "Pymalion."

The two hit it off nicely. They moved in together into a fashionable Greenwich Village brownstone. Joel was Hedda's coach, mentor, boyfriend and therapist all rolled into one. They would go out to business meetings together, and Joel would "critique" Hedda's performance afterward. Hedda's own account of his critiquing was described as "therapeutic."

As time passed, Joel's quirks started becoming more annoying and noticeable.  Steinberg would stay out late many times and picked up some very unsavory characters for clients. There were plenty of drug dealer clients who gravitated toward Attorney Joel Steinberg. 

Free basing cocaine became a regular habit at the Steinberg/Nausbaum residence. Joel and Hedda literally took up FreebaseCoke 101. Later came BDSM. With these two interesting pass times, it was no secret that Steinberg was becoming more psychotic. Nobody more than Hedda recognized this. One winter's day in 1978, Joel punched Hedda across the face with enough force to give her a left black eye. They had been together for 3 years by this time. Despite the act, she refused to hold him accountable.  Furthermore, she failed to leave Steinberg. 

Only after Nausbaum was taken into custody and gained celebrity status did she begin revealing Joel's horrific abuse to the press. Nausbaum claimed that she tried to leave him six times, but always went back. She made allegations of him giving her a more severe beating than before she left each and every time. It's been known that abusers do get more volatile when their victim "tries" to seek refuge by leaving. The abuse escalates and many times these men who beat their girlfriends go too far and kill these women.

However, after Hedda's last unsuccessful attempt at leaving Joel failed did she realize that "she needed him more than ever." Hedda hoped that Joel could keep his promise and "sculpt her into Pygmalion."

Steinberg refused to marry Nausbaum. She didn't care though, "being in any relationship, even a bad one was better than none at all." The couple remained in a tenants in common status until 1987, when they were both taken into custody.

Between 1979-81, Steinberg and Nausbaum began getting serious about starting a family. However, after many, many attempts at trying to conceive and failing, they then started considering adopting children.

The two probably realized they were both unfit as adults, let alone parents in order to legally adopt a child. To be continued...

The Trump Campaign

Must Continue it's Momentum

by Lynn A. Granata

Donald Trump has just three weeks to go before he takes the chance and gets elected. We must take our America back.

There is no doubt that the Democrats have cheapened our greatness as a sovereign nation.

Hillary Clinton will say anything to take trust away from American voters. She already has said too much as it is. She has ingeniously thought up some bogus allegations about the Donald as being a brash womanizing pervert. Totally false.

The Donald hasn't used negativism on Hillary at all. And why should he? He is too presidential to stoop so low.

You must ask yourself, do you want the greatest country in the world to become a third world sheep like North Korea? Where people have no say in the matter when it comes their basic civil liberties.

 Don't give up now, we have come so far, Vote for Donald Trump on November 8th, 2016.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znAJTnQiVyE
Get a look at Graham Nash Prison Song.

Hedda Nausbaum and Joel Steinberg

A Dysfunctional Couple Who

Destroyed 2 Young Lives

by Lynn A. Granata

It was almost 29 years ago that an illegally adopted 6 year old girl was beaten to death. On November 2, 1987, police were summoned to a large Gothic style apartment located in New York City's stylish Greenwich Village.

The sight of Hedda Nausbaum (left) left it's mark on humanity, Joel Steinberg (right) made Hedda's appearance
an atrocity which took years in the making.  Photo courtesy of API (November 2, 1987).

 This place was just not any old place, but a place where story book legend Mark Twain lived.

At the exact same apartment, police knocked on the door at 6:30 am. The large oak doors slowly creaked open, behind it within the unveiled darkness an elderly woman answered it. The small hunched over dark- haired woman with hints of grey strands, appeared much older than her normal age.

She had old injuries healing over new injuries on her pain ridden contorted face. She was frail and emaciated. Behind her was the wafting wailing sound of a man's raspy voice hollering maniacally "Hedda, "she's stopped breathing!"

As law enforcement forced their way through the heavy oak doors and into the squalid apartment what they found was the most heart breaking scene ever.

Inside the apartment, was a disheveled couple wielding the limp, battered, bruised, and unconscious body of a small female child. In the next room, an 18 month old male child was found tethered to a playpen lying in dirt. He was rescued unharmed. And taken by police to Child Protective Custody.

The rescue crew quickly sprang into action and started giving the child, whose name is Lisa Steinberg CPR. The little girl was bruised and had overt signs of regular beatings showing on her pale skin. Old bruises healing over new ones donned her back, trunk, arms and legs.

Lisa was rushed to St.Vincent's Hospital. She had a large fist sized bruise over her right forehead. Upon further examination by medical professionals, she also had numerous other bumps and bruises about her head. She was unable to breathe on her own and was placed on a respirator.

It was later determined that she had a subdural hematoma exerting too much pressure on her brain. Lisa was technically declared brain dead and taken off life support and died 3 days later.

The police questioned the two unkempt mentally incoherent adults at the New York Police station. Upon further investigation, the police obtained enough evidence to arrest them both on aggravated felony assault and murder of a minor.

I will discuss this case in more depth in later blogs. The new blog is just to give you an introduction into the case and players involved for now. This is a very long and complex saga. And requires more than one posting. To be continued...

The Donald: Why is He Taking Such Abuse?

Donald Trump is the nation's only hope. We as Americans must take our country back. Inflation, recession, and lack of a strong leadership has put us in a gridlock. Come November, remember to vote Trump!


By Lynn A Granata

Elliot Rodger:

Was he Really a Misogynist or Just a Spoiled Man child?

By Lynn A. Granata

I think that the media has it juxtaposed when they call Elliot Rodger a misogynist.  Elliot Rodger can't be considered a misogynist, in fact he is nowhere near the concept of misogyny at all.

He was more a misanthrope than a misogynist.  Why? Because he hated practically all of humanity. He didn't just hate women exclusively, but he hated men probably just as much and even more than he purported to hate women. After all, he did murder more guys than he did girls on that fateful Friday night in Santa Barbara's swanky Isla Vista College town. In his You Tube rants, he has this creepy vibe that he sends out, with fake laughter, almost as though he's rehearsing for the leading part in an arch villain horror film.

Seems so contrived. Rodger's father was a movie director for the infamous film the Hunger Games. Peter Rodger in addition to that was also a photographer.  His most favorite subject of his photographic niche was no other than his second wife, Soumaya Akabourne. He enjoyed taking pictures of her naked fanny. Elliot couldn't stand Soumaya.  He found her to be a much more harsher disciplinarian than his own biological mother could ever hope to be. Soumaya kicked Elliot out of hers and Peter's house once she found out about Elliot's violent rants that he put up on his You Tube network. Naturally, Soumaya was frightened.

However, Elliot's own mother became just as concerned as did Soumaya.  Lin Chin called Elliot's father once she received word from him on what he stated on the You Tube videos about what he was planning on doing. She and Peter then agreed to contact the police. The police responded appropriately, by going to the address of the apartment in which Ellliot shared with 3 other male roommates.  The welfare check proved fruitless because Elliot was able to elude the cops that did show up that there was nothing amiss. When in truth, Elliot had just finished cleaning up what would have been a major crime scene had the police not taken his word for it and searched the apartment instead of brushing it off as harmless. Elliot himself was relieved when they left, because he would have been discovered immediately, and his whole plan of retribution would have gotten stopped dead in its tracks.

Unfortunately, this didn't happen, as innocent lives could have been spared and plus the bodies of the three dead roommates that Elliot butchered to death would have been found.  Elliot would have been arrested and then charged with 3 counts of first degree felony homicide and punished accordingly.

Why in heaven's name did this boy, who appeared from all of those around him to have everything in life to be grateful for, want to kill and maim so many innocent souls? There are so many questions, but not enough answers to come up with a reason. Some believe he was mentally ill, others think that he was autistic and that he lacked empathy and didn't understand how to read social cues. The only good hypothesis would be that Rodgers was a product of his own dysfunctional life patterns.

He couldn't make friends, and the ones he did make friends with later abandoned him. They could pick up on his creepy vibes, by his going on puahate.com and airing out his bottled up feelings about how much he hated women and men that were in better shape than he was. How much he hated that they could get laid and that he couldn't. He complained about how much he felt that blonde women should have been attracted to him, but apparently were not.

Finally, he hated his own kind because he felt that although they were beneath him, they still, despite that were able to score with the opposite sex and he was insanely jealous over it. His own father, Peter was a target of his insane jealousy because he could get a girlfriend right after divorcing his mother.

Conclusion

Elliot was a spoiled man child. Because he didn't have to earn what he had been given in his short miserable little life. He was wearing Armani shirts and $300 designer sunglasses. He owned a late model BMW. Once he began complaining about how much he was bullied in school, then in college, then later still in his early adulthood, his mother started giving him materialistic things, such as a large allowance and the BMW. Yet, Elliot didn't make any effort to tackle his shortcomings on his own terms. He expected others to do it for him and he thought that others were to blame for his unhappiness. He never made an effort to talk to any girls, despite putting up videos on his You Tube channel and advertising the things he did have, and why girls should pay attention to him. Elliot would instead brood about how much life was so unfair and write a 140 page manuscript detailing why going all the way back to his early childhood. Nowhere does it ever mention in this140 page rambling diatribe that the real fault lies within himself, the true reason why he was miserable.

The Hollies

Blowing in the Wind

Great Classic Dylan Song

uploaded from youtube.com

Play Misty For Me:

Clint Eastwood in One of His Worst Acting Movies

By Lynn A. Granata

Okay, why would a guy like David Garvey want to shoo a female admirer away in the first place? Does he really find her to be that repulsive? Not bad for a guy who has no interest but yet accepts the expensive groceries that she just had the generosity to bring to his empty refrigerator.

My opinion of his character in Play Misty for Me is that Eastwood acts as nothing more than a mindless brute. He ought to be ashamed of himself.  Jessica Walters who plays the admirer is stunning in her acting ability if not outstanding. I feel sorry for her character, Evelyn. Likewise as the movie's arch villain, she tends to become more and more vilified as the film progresses.

But, if you were being treated like her, wouldn't you as well? She was treated worst than a garbage dumpster. "Oh, why did you just come in here traipsing around?" "What if this was a business meeting being conducted?" Or more hurtfully asking her "what if I had had some female company here?" "Now think how that would look, with you coming in here with the grocery bags?"

If Evelyn was mentally unstable as they have portrayed her to be in this film, why would she continue to take his insults and lack of interest as a clue to stay away from him in the first place? Apparently as she draws closer to David Garvey the more he recoils. Her feelings are literally being trampled on with each act of kindness she conjures up toward him. He is a mean and arrogant phony macho fool in this film and makes nothing more than a jerk out of himself. 

Now, I am not saying that he should make believe that she doesn't bother him at all, and become romantically involved with her just so she wouldn't feel bad.  What I am saying is that he should have been less crude and dysfunctional toward her. Evelyn is a borderline personality which means that she can't stand being alone, and feels insecure whenever she is alone. Garvey shouldn't have given Evelyn the come on if he was already involved with another woman in a relationship. So, who's fault was it? His, his and his fault.

Now for Some Twisted Enjoyment

"Play Misty For Me" Scene from the 1971 movie

Starring Clint Eastwood and Jessica Walters

It's probably the best way to put Erotomania into action!

uploaded from youtube.com

By Lynn A. Granata

The Hollies

We're Through

uploaded from youtube.com

The Hollies

Have You Ever Loved Somebody?

This rare classic was recorded live in France, 1967.

uploaded from youtube.com

Susan Atkins:

Bad Girl

Found Love and Bliss

She Never Deserved--EVER

By Lynn A. Granata

Whenever I happen to come across a story such as this one that I am about to tell you, I get a sinking feeling like no other.

Susan Atkins, as many of us in the 50 year old + age category, give or take a few years on/off, knows that she was the witch who massacred Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, and other innocent people in a Hollywood Hills mansion owned by a famous and talented film director at the time, Roman Polanski. Polanski was also married to the beautiful 1960's actress Sharon Tate. 

It's not fair to mention Susan Atkin's association in this grisly crime without also including the infamous Charles Manson as well.

Mansion was the ringleader in this bevy of heinousness.  He ordered several of his followers, the aimless hippy runaway girls especially Susan Atkins as his right hand assistant in carrying out his dirty work. Manson was a born loser. He was the son of a low-life prostitute and had many run-ins with the law as a youth and had spent most of his youth in juvenile detention centers. He was a tinker by trade, meaning that he'd try his hand at anything where he could get something for nothing, where he could take advantage of others-then which led to him getting his cowardly ass-kicked time and time again. He would weasel his way into, for instance, a famous rock star's house (Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys) and pretend that he was looking for a recording contract, then commit armed robbery.

Enter James Whitehouse

Susan Atkins was incarcerated at the Woman's facility of San Quentin State Prison in San Francisco, CA. She had plea-bargained back in 1971 during the Manson trials and received life in prison w/o the possibility of parole in exchange for the death penalty. The murders took place in August of 1969. 

By the 1990's, Susan Atkins was up for release from prison on account of good behavior. James Whitehouse, a Harvard Law School graduate and now criminal defense attorney, became Atkin's lawyer and but then something else very strange and creepy as well, her lover, then husband!

She killed people and yet found love? Doesn't make any sense does it? I had figured her to die in a solitary confinement cell, without never knowing what love truly is. Where's the justice?

Hey Everybody Look At:

The Hollies

"Listen to Me"

This great video simply speaks for itself.

David Letterman Fan

Erotomania:

What is It?

And Who Ever Had It?

By Lynn A. Granata

Margaret Mary Ray. She was an American woman who suffered from both schizophrenia and erotomania. She received media attention in the late 1980's early 90's because she became a "celebrity stalker." Not only did she target the late night TV host David Letterman, but she then targeted retired astronaut Story Musgrave.  She believed that she was married to these guys.

What is erotomania? It is a delusional disorder classed along the paradigm of schizophrenia-like mental health disorders. Erotomaniacs think that the object of their stalking is truly "in love with them." They become so convinced of the delusion that they begin acting it out in very flagrant ways. For instance, they believe falsely that the love object of their desires loves them back from a distance. For an explanation as to how and why they believe the delusion, they think that he sends them messages through the media such as via airwaves through the TV and internet.

These are called delusions of reference. Delusions of reference is when the love object does something such as give a press conference, the erotomaniac construes it as a message or meaning of their love. When in reality, he doesn't even know who the stalker is or has never even met them! Nonetheless, despite all evidence to the contrary she will still believe that they are destined to be together, or are soul mates. She will stop at nothing to prove their love, like sending the target of her affection unwanted cards and gifts. Women are not the only gender that can become afflicted with erotomania, but the known fact is that the disorder itself afflicts just as many men. They are the ones who will make the news, such as what Margaret Mary Ray has done.

They will get arrested and charged with a another crime in progress, such as speeding and or trespassing. That is how Margaret Ray was originally captured. Ray was later sent to an asylum where she received treatment for her illness. She improved and was released back into the community by the late 1990's. Unfortunately, she lost the battle with the disease and committed suicide by standing on railroad tracks with the intention to die by becoming mutilated by an Amtrak train.

Ray would go to the home of David Letterman, break into it, and leave notes and other novelties.  He actually made a joke out of it on a show that he taped back in 1993.

David Letterman did send his condolences to the family of Margaret Mary Ray after she died from committing suicide in 1998.

Far-Fetched Movie The Girl Next Door 

Bears no Relation To Sylvia Likens Case

By Lynn A. Granata

Aunt Ruth is the film's arch villain

I thought that after a fair amount of thinking that it would be a good idea to write about this fictionalized version about the Sylvia Likens Case.

The movie in comparison to An American Crime tears at your heart. It was credited to a famed horror novel author, Jack Ketchum. Released in 2007, it was a box office bomb.

The time setting takes place in the late 1950's, the Dwight Eisenhower years.

 Two adolescent girls, Meghan and Susan are sent to live with their Aunt Ruth in the suburbs. Because they lost both of their parents to a car accident.

Meghan is an attractive 15 year old girl and her sister Susan is 12 years old, and Susan has to wear leg irons on both legs because she broke both of her legs in this accident. Meghan, however escaped with only a couple of minor lacerations. She was very lucky.

The movie opens with the narration of David Moran, who reminisces about that time in his life when he met both helpless sisters. He tells his side of the story about how his life was changed forever after the events which took place in Aunt Ruth's home unraveled.

Young Meg meets David, then 12, on a sandy river bed and strikes up a friendly, if not flirtatious conversation. David is showing Meg the crayfish he caught Meg tries it and she catches the two larger crayfish that Dave tried to catch but couldn't.

Meg tells David that she had just moved in next door with the Chandler's. David exclaims "hey we're neighbors!"

The next day David finds out about Meg and her sister Susan through his best friend and next door neighbor Donny Chandler. He is Meg and Susan's second cousin.

Enter Aunt Ruth

She is supposed to set the example of the super strict authoritarian disciplinarian who doesn't tolerate any adolescent high jinks' and she most certainly lays down the law to Meg and Susan very early on in their boarding arrangement with herself and her young sons.

The trouble doesn't start until Aunt Ruth discovers that Meg has painted a water color portrait for David. David inappropriately shows up at Ruth's house that evening and tells Ruth that the painting was from Meg and meant for her.

Ruth immediately scoffs at the painting, proudly announcing that she knows that it wasn't meant for her, telling David that she painted it for him.

Ruth stands up and walks over to Meg and tells her to take it back. Ruth then lectures her troupe, and especially Meg about the evils of being a slut and warns Meg that she will not stand for any slutting going on in her house.

Ruth thinks that Meg isn't well you guessed it, unchaste.

About a day later, David goes over to their house and finds his 3 pals upstairs tickling Meg. Meg slaps Ralphie, the youngest boy of the depraved lot across the face because he pinched her in the wrong place. Ralphie runs out of the bedroom to let his mother know. Willie, the eldest and meanest of the trio hollers you b@@*h! at Meg. Willie then pulls Susan out of the closest and throws her seated on the bed. Willie shouts "look what your sister did to Ralphie!"

Ruth comes storming into the bedroom once she hears all the commotion going on and asks, "what in God's name is going on in here.?"

Now to make the rest of this long story short, Susan is punished for being in connivance with Meg. She is paddled with a toilet bowl cleaning brush about 18-20 times. Meg, who is fiercely protective of her sister, tries to stop the corporal punishment but can't because her 3 male cousins hold her back.

 Ruth demands that Meg give her the diamond ring necklace she wears around her neck that was her mother's. When Meg protests, Ruth violently yanks it off her neck.

Later on and from here on out, the abuse of Meg gets worse and worse. She is bound and gagged in the basement. She is refused food and water. She makes a feeble effort to escape, is caught, and then beaten again more severally than ever.

Ruth and company eventually and slowly murder Meg, they rape and brand her, and then finally burn her in her most sensitive part of her body. It is too gruesome for me to tell you what it is, but all I could do is give you a hint, it is a practice that some third world countries do to young women so that they lose their desire for human coitus. The End.

 Meg dies and David tried to save her and Susan's lives, but he ends up only saving his own. Susan is rescued, when the cops come after a fire was set by David earlier to grab the attention of the neighborhood for an SOS.

Conclusion

It is now the present. David is a Wall Street Bigwig. He looks back and remembers that summer in his life and how it changed him forever. He admits that what Meghan taught him was "it's what you do last that matters."

The Hollies

50 Years Since

"On A Carousel"

Was Recorded at Abbey Road Studios

By Lynn A. Granata

In 1966, the British Invasion had produced numerous acts that made this era in music great.  In London, England, at the famous Abbey Road studios is where 2 great English Rock Bands were established, The Hollies, and The Beatles. But the Hollies, unlike the Beatles are a much tighter group of 4-6 good friends who formed the wonderful three part harmony style of vocalese in a popular English Rock and Roll group. The original members consist(ed) of: Graham Nash, Allan Clarke, Tony Hicks, Terry Sylvester, Bern Calvert and Bobby Elliott, respectively. They were from Blackpool, Manchester England UK. that is far north almost near the Welsh border. 

The Hollies pictured in the mid-1960's.
L-R, Bobby Elliott, Graham Nash, Allan Clarke, Tony Hicks, Bern Calvert.

Liverpool, where the Beatles are from is still quite far away from Blackpool. 

Just happened to be finding a lot of videos and information about a group from a much more enchanted time in musical history and I'm really loving it! I wanted to share this with you all, and give Global Criminologist a little break from the "heavy" subject matter to a much lighter note for a change, so hope you enjoy it!

Gertrude Couldn't Get Off On Insanity

By Lynn A. Granata

Mother of Sadism

After her arrest, Gertrude wanted to wipe her hands completely free of the crime.

On an old newscast broad casted from Radio Indy from 1965,

Gertrude blamed some of her minions for what happened to Sylvia Likens.

She was quoted as vehemently denying all charges of assault and battery, which later lead to Sylvia's murder.

She vigorously stated that:

 "I ain't never done anything to that girl, never!"

"I was too sick to know what was going on!"

"My children were the ones beating up on Sylvia."

"One girl from the neighborhood came over and bloodied her nose, I think."

"It was just getting too much for me to handle all the kids plus I have asthma."

"I told these girls it's just getting too much for me to handle, and that they were going to have to call their daddy to come pick them up."

Gertrude obviously didn't have no great command of the English language. She was pure trailer white trash.  Illiterate as well, plus the statements were all orchestrated or fabricated.  Her asthma apparently didn't keep her from exerting paddle and belt punishments on Sylvia, as well as hard kicks to the most delicate parts of her body, which we won't get into.

Gertrude was not declared insane.  She was given a battery of tests while she was awaiting trial. Her psychological evaluation results were that she was suffering from dependent personality disorder, hysterical personality disorder, with psychotic features, and finally anti-social personality disorder with sadistic tendencies. She was asked to draw a self-portrait of herself, as well, it was a very telling image of herself as a large woman with large claw-like hands, it must have been how she perceived herself quite accurately after her conviction for the torture and murder of young Sylvia Likens.

Why didn't Sylvia Just Leave?

By Lynn A. Granata

Sylvia Likens in her class portrait.
This angelic picture was taken long before the Baniszewski's got a hold of her.

The best years of a young woman's life is when they are in their mid-late teens.  Health is at an all time high. I wish I could be sixteen again! The energy that you have at sweet sixteen is monumental. You can get up early in the morning and go to classes that start at 7:30 a.m.  Then go to track meetings after classes and still not be tired.

I am not sure about Sylvia's development, but it appears that she may have had stunted growth. She repeated a grade at school because her parents were constantly moving from place to place. So instead of starting 10th grade, she was only repeating 9th grade over when she started school in September with the Ban Clan.

 Didn't she ever learn how to drive? It's too bad that she never did. When I was her age, high schools had after school driver's ed classes. They required 30 hours of theory training about the rules of the road, etc. How to park, how to drive in bad weather, those types of things. Nonetheless, I don't know if driving would have saved her from her fate.  Her parents appeared to be very dirt poor, and if they had at least one family car, it must have been used solely for that purpose. They would have needed it to get to their carnival engagements.

Another thing, a lot of women didn't learn how to drive until they got married back in this era. Eventually she would have learned how to drive though, but she never got the chance, whatever would have happened in her life, I believe that Sylvia would have been successful in any career or endeavor.  But, only if she didn't get scarred and multilated by the Baniszewski Clan. Once those letters were seared into her delicate flesh that is when all hope was gone for her.  

Even if she had received prompt medical treatment, according her trial transcripts a physician who had examined her post mortem stated that she had suffered from systemic shock from the letters being carved into her skin.

She was branded as well with
 a 3 below her ribcage. She had so many sores, burns and cuts that she lost her will to survive. But, if she did survive she would had to have been cared for in a medical facility long-term. Somewhat like being placed in a veterans hospital for war trauma victims.

Why Did She Stay?

Sylvia may have been mistreated by members of her own immediate family long before she met the Baniszewski family. Her father Lester Likens may have dished out some harsh paddlings to his daughters when they did something that was perceived as wrong. However, those disciplinary measures were never intended to be overkill or life theatening. Back at that time in American history, parents believed in corporal punishment. Today, parents have changed and think that corporal punishment is wrong and emotionally, psychologically, and physically damaging for life. Sylvia  might have felt she deserved the abuse, she came from a sad family situation, where there were  constant fights leading to domestic violence, marital problems, parental discord and poverty. She got too entrenched into becoming a human punching bag, and it flew so far out of control that she couldn't leave.  

She wasn't being fed filet mignon and lobster everyday, thats for sure, or there'd be a possibility that she'd have some physical strength to fight for both herself and Jenny to run away. Her jailors didn't want Sylvia to eat or go to the restroom. They were insanely jealous of her. Jealousy may have been the central motivator in Sylvia's death. She was starved to death, and could have passed for a victim of anorexia. Anorexia is a common eating disorder with young women, but not in Sylvia's situation. Because Sylvia was no queen by no means, being fed good and fattening foods was something Sylvia never had while she was staying with the Baniszewski's. So, she was not worried about losing weight unlike anorexics who deliberately starve themselves because they want to be thin.  They think they are (delusionally) fat when they are not.