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.