Behind Closed Doors Part 2

WEBVTT

1
00:00:06.080 --> 00:00:10.240
Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime
podcast where I tell stories of real crimes

2
00:00:10.320 --> 00:00:14.839
with real victims, whose cases are
so shocking that many are left wondering how

3
00:00:14.919 --> 00:00:25.280
is this even real? I use
my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and

4
00:00:25.359 --> 00:00:30.079
combine with my years as a criminal
justice educator, dig deep into complex cases

5
00:00:30.120 --> 00:00:51.079
of evil acts, some so evil
many feel they are unspeakable. Warning,

6
00:00:51.439 --> 00:00:55.679
Unspeakable is intended for mature audiences.
If you are easily offended, then I'm

7
00:00:55.679 --> 00:00:59.560
not your girl. Listening discretion is
advised. Hey y'all, Kelly Jennings,

8
00:00:59.560 --> 00:01:02.920
you're back for another episode of Unspeakable. What are you doing? Guess what?

9
00:01:03.520 --> 00:01:06.680
I'm getting over this cold? Finally, so I think I'm doing better

10
00:01:07.079 --> 00:01:08.719
and I got a good episode for
you today. But before I start,

11
00:01:10.239 --> 00:01:14.920
I gotta give some shout outs to
some new patron members Patreon. So all

12
00:01:14.920 --> 00:01:18.560
the way from Blue Ridge, Illinois, Miss Donna Graham. Hey, Miss

13
00:01:18.560 --> 00:01:21.959
Donna, thank you so much for
joining. And I've got some people from

14
00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:26.319
Texas, which I like Texas because
my sister lives there, Miss Carla Griffith

15
00:01:26.400 --> 00:01:30.959
all the way in Tyler, Texas, along with Crystal Hill in tom Ball,

16
00:01:32.079 --> 00:01:34.359
Texas. Hey, y'all. Thanks
for holding it down over there and

17
00:01:34.400 --> 00:01:38.480
for listening to my show. And
I've got some people from the great state

18
00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:42.719
right here of Louisiana. Miss Shelby
high Smith from Independence. Hey girl,

19
00:01:42.840 --> 00:01:49.239
what's up? Bella Robo? Bella
Robo? I remember Bella Robo from Walker,

20
00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:53.560
Louisiana. And Caitlin Matrenga from Denham
Springs, Louisiana. This is the

21
00:01:53.640 --> 00:01:57.319
ultimate. Oh my god, y'all. I taught these two kids. I

22
00:01:57.439 --> 00:01:59.959
remember, y'all, and I'm going
to talk about it, but I remember

23
00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:04.120
ember, y'all. And to have
kids join your Patreon after they had to

24
00:02:04.120 --> 00:02:07.319
suffer through your class for a whole
year because they want to keep listening listening

25
00:02:07.319 --> 00:02:10.120
to you, that's just I don't
know. That's awesome and I appreciate it.

26
00:02:10.159 --> 00:02:14.199
And Caitlyn, you remember me calling
you groop to darde? I do

27
00:02:14.759 --> 00:02:19.240
now the world knows. She worked
at a restaurant where they spoke a different

28
00:02:19.319 --> 00:02:22.719
language and she said gooped to darte
meant frog And why I remember that,

29
00:02:22.759 --> 00:02:24.840
I don't know, but I called
her that. So hey, y'all,

30
00:02:24.919 --> 00:02:28.639
all right, And then brook Haven, Mississippi, I've got Peyton Myers,

31
00:02:28.680 --> 00:02:30.759
Hi, Peyton thank you so much. And then I thought this was kind

32
00:02:30.759 --> 00:02:34.800
of neat Hope Kansas. I didn't
even know there was a Hope, Kansas.

33
00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:38.520
But I've got Neetzy is it flore
or Florea, however you say it?

34
00:02:38.599 --> 00:02:43.479
Neetsy welcome, thank you so much
for joining in with me. And

35
00:02:43.520 --> 00:02:46.360
then I've got Dixie Brown. Now
I don't know where Dixie's from because Dixie

36
00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:50.439
didn't put your address in for me. I'm gonna put a post online though,

37
00:02:50.520 --> 00:02:52.840
so that you can. If you
don't know how to put your address

38
00:02:52.840 --> 00:02:53.719
in on Patreon, I need you
to do that because I gotta send you

39
00:02:53.719 --> 00:02:58.319
all y'all's gifts, right if you're
a crime family member, I send out

40
00:02:58.360 --> 00:03:00.639
some quarterly gifts every now and then, so I want to be able to

41
00:03:00.680 --> 00:03:04.840
send that to you. I've got
Summer Testing. She's from Walker two,

42
00:03:04.960 --> 00:03:07.919
Hey girl, Hey summer, how
you're doing. And then Terry Underwood,

43
00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:13.719
also from Denham Springs, So glad
to have you. Holly Queen if that

44
00:03:13.759 --> 00:03:19.759
ain't a name, Holly Queen a
from Ella Bell, Georgia. Hey,

45
00:03:19.840 --> 00:03:22.840
Holly, I like your name.
I like where you live too, La

46
00:03:22.919 --> 00:03:25.840
Belle. That's cute, all right. And then Zachary Louisiana is gonna be

47
00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:32.560
Lindsey Bunch and I am just beyond
stoked to have all of y'all. Thank

48
00:03:32.599 --> 00:03:35.960
you so much for joining. If
you want to join Patreon and you haven't

49
00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:38.599
joined yet, go ahead and go
reach my Facebook page because I have all

50
00:03:38.639 --> 00:03:42.319
the instructions. They are go to
patreon dot com and you can join two.

51
00:03:42.840 --> 00:03:46.319
So I also had some people reach
out. A couple of people reach

52
00:03:46.360 --> 00:03:49.199
out and say, hey, what
about Apple podcast subscriptions? Do you have

53
00:03:49.240 --> 00:03:51.840
those? Well? Guess what.
Thank you Jimmathy for your hard work and

54
00:03:51.919 --> 00:03:54.439
dedication to the podcast because he was
able to get that set up for me.

55
00:03:54.759 --> 00:04:00.039
So there's now the ability to join
through Apple Podcast subscription. So if

56
00:04:00.039 --> 00:04:02.520
you don't want to join Patreon,
you're not. That's not your jam.

57
00:04:02.840 --> 00:04:06.879
Go over there and you can click
and join on Apple Podcast subscriptions. So

58
00:04:06.919 --> 00:04:11.479
that's a good thing. We are
always moving up and getting better day by

59
00:04:11.560 --> 00:04:15.680
day, so I think that's pretty
cool. So did y'all listen to the

60
00:04:15.719 --> 00:04:18.879
podcast Awards that we went out?
I had it on. I was I

61
00:04:18.879 --> 00:04:23.439
wan't even Lodylaw was watching football and
I was watching the Podcast Awards at the

62
00:04:23.439 --> 00:04:28.800
same time because they kick Off started
at the same time, I was dumbfounded

63
00:04:29.439 --> 00:04:31.800
whenever I heard my name come up. I genuinely lose dumbfounded. I know

64
00:04:31.879 --> 00:04:35.160
every time Taylor Swift wins an award, she acts like she's shocked and bothered.

65
00:04:35.240 --> 00:04:38.120
Oh my god, I can't believe
it. And whatever, Taylor,

66
00:04:38.120 --> 00:04:41.560
shut up. You're making billions of
dollars and you know that you're you're fabulous.

67
00:04:41.639 --> 00:04:47.120
Okay, But Kelly Jennen's down in
the swamps and South Louisiana was not

68
00:04:47.240 --> 00:04:50.480
expecting that whatsoever. I could tell
you. We had to pause the television

69
00:04:50.519 --> 00:04:54.160
and go back and look at the
screen again, like, wait a minute,

70
00:04:54.720 --> 00:05:00.879
Oh my god, y'all. The
show one listener influenced of the Year

71
00:05:00.959 --> 00:05:06.839
Award. What I listen, I
worked so incredibly hard to not only tell

72
00:05:06.879 --> 00:05:10.519
these victims stories, but I want
you to know the facts. I want

73
00:05:10.519 --> 00:05:12.839
you to know. I want you
to learn. And a lot of people

74
00:05:12.839 --> 00:05:15.720
tell me that they learn and that
means so much to me. But to

75
00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:20.480
actually have my name, y'all,
I just I cannot even I want thank

76
00:05:20.519 --> 00:05:24.920
you from the bottom of my heart. This show is not even a year

77
00:05:24.959 --> 00:05:28.600
old and it won an award.
Are you kidding me? I'm just so

78
00:05:28.720 --> 00:05:34.199
incredibly touched, genuinely thrilled and humbled
that you would think of me as an

79
00:05:34.199 --> 00:05:39.920
influencer and and I'm just from the
bottom of my heart, I just want

80
00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:43.199
to say thank you, and to
every single victim. I didn't get to

81
00:05:43.199 --> 00:05:46.839
give a thank you or or a
speech or anything, but I'm gonna do

82
00:05:46.839 --> 00:05:49.560
it right now and say to every
victim whose story that I told, this

83
00:05:49.600 --> 00:05:56.319
is one hundred percent for you.
Without you, these stories couldn't be number

84
00:05:56.360 --> 00:06:00.600
one told, but people couldn't learn
from your experiences and we could and benefit

85
00:06:00.680 --> 00:06:03.240
from them, and we do as
a society learn from these. So for

86
00:06:03.279 --> 00:06:08.399
every victim whose stories I told,
this one's for you. But also I

87
00:06:08.439 --> 00:06:11.279
know that I have a lot of
my students, former and current that listen

88
00:06:11.759 --> 00:06:16.240
and to my specific criminal Justice two
students this year, y'all were around when

89
00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:19.920
this started. Y'all were in with
me whenever I was talking about the music

90
00:06:19.959 --> 00:06:23.519
and getting excited and telling y'all to
chase your dreams. And what do you

91
00:06:23.560 --> 00:06:26.959
know, look at this kid.
So to y'all, to all of you,

92
00:06:27.240 --> 00:06:30.240
hey, I'm raising my crystal light
in the camera. Cheers to you.

93
00:06:30.360 --> 00:06:34.000
Let me take a little gulp that
one's for y'all. I'm thank you

94
00:06:34.040 --> 00:06:40.160
so very much. I'm just touched. As a result of that. I

95
00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:43.319
want to give away some free shit, so let's do it. So I'm

96
00:06:43.319 --> 00:06:46.639
gonna do two contests coming up.
You're gonna have to check Facebook or whatever,

97
00:06:46.879 --> 00:06:48.959
but I'm gonna do two contests coming
up where you can win free shirts

98
00:06:49.160 --> 00:06:54.079
and where you can win free unspeakable
wine glasses, which I think are pretty

99
00:06:54.079 --> 00:06:57.839
freaking cute. So stay tuned.
I don't have it all set up yet,

100
00:06:57.839 --> 00:07:00.560
but it's coming, so keep checking
the Facebook, and I want you

101
00:07:00.600 --> 00:07:01.839
to watch it because I want to
send y'all some stuff, and it won't

102
00:07:01.839 --> 00:07:05.399
be It's not hard. It's easy
stuff that you can do to win you

103
00:07:05.480 --> 00:07:11.839
some merch and some some wine glasses. So so last episode, I started

104
00:07:11.879 --> 00:07:15.240
in on this Sylvia Liken's case where
she was behind closed doors and being really

105
00:07:15.279 --> 00:07:19.199
mistreated by the woman that her parents
trusted to take care of their daughter.

106
00:07:19.240 --> 00:07:24.399
They were going to pay twenty dollars
a week for her to for her and

107
00:07:24.439 --> 00:07:27.560
her sister Jenny to be taken care
of, and things just were not going

108
00:07:27.680 --> 00:07:31.439
like the parents had expected. So
I'm going to pick up where we had

109
00:07:31.480 --> 00:07:35.160
talked about that the kids were,
you know, their mom and dad were

110
00:07:35.160 --> 00:07:40.639
gonna go work at the circuit,
this traveling circus, and that this left

111
00:07:40.839 --> 00:07:44.120
them with their children that would have
to be you know, following with them

112
00:07:44.160 --> 00:07:47.480
their kids, Danny, Benny,
Jenny, and Sylvia. And while the

113
00:07:47.519 --> 00:07:51.639
boys and Sylvia could maximize income helping
the parents work, the issues was that

114
00:07:51.839 --> 00:07:56.360
her, the little sister, Jenny, the workload was just going to be

115
00:07:56.360 --> 00:08:00.360
too demanding for her because she had
disabilities left over from about with folio,

116
00:08:00.519 --> 00:08:03.439
and she had braces on her legs
and she would be standing most of the

117
00:08:03.480 --> 00:08:05.959
time, and that would just be
too hard for Jenny. That's why they

118
00:08:05.959 --> 00:08:11.240
were left with Gertrude Benichetsky. So
at first, like I told you,

119
00:08:11.279 --> 00:08:15.319
things were okay, ish, but
not great. Remember how I told you

120
00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:18.079
that to keep up appearances, that
gert the mom would make the kids go

121
00:08:18.120 --> 00:08:24.000
to church. Well, the church
pastor where the girls would attend church,

122
00:08:24.079 --> 00:08:28.560
commented on, you know, one
day, on Sylvia's wonderful belief in God,

123
00:08:30.040 --> 00:08:33.039
and whenever he was saying how wonderful
it was that she just had this

124
00:08:33.159 --> 00:08:35.720
pure heart and that it was beautiful
how much she believed in God. It

125
00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:43.039
started a chain of horrid, horrid
events. So Gertrude would begin venting her

126
00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:50.360
frustration at this fact upon the Liking
sisters by way of beating their naked bottoms

127
00:08:50.879 --> 00:08:56.440
with multiple items. Okay, so
the fact that the pastor acknowledged how how

128
00:08:56.480 --> 00:09:01.480
great and true her faith was in
God, Gert got mad and wanted to

129
00:09:01.519 --> 00:09:05.480
take retaliation against against her. And
so she, like I said, we

130
00:09:05.960 --> 00:09:07.960
hit him with a multitude of things, but one of them was a quarter

131
00:09:09.039 --> 00:09:13.039
inch thick paddle that she would use
to just beat their bare bottoms with really

132
00:09:13.080 --> 00:09:18.279
no reason as to why. It
was like the kids could not be seen

133
00:09:18.320 --> 00:09:22.360
as good kids since their father's payments
had become late. In the eyes of

134
00:09:22.399 --> 00:09:26.240
Gert. So I remember he was
sending the money twenty dollars a week,

135
00:09:26.279 --> 00:09:28.720
but then it came late, and
from that point forward it was like the

136
00:09:28.799 --> 00:09:33.440
girls had to pay the wrath of
their father's late payment. But I mean,

137
00:09:33.480 --> 00:09:37.240
they're just kids, y'all. There
at the mercy of adults, one

138
00:09:37.279 --> 00:09:41.759
of whom seems to have you know, one of these kids seems to have

139
00:09:41.799 --> 00:09:45.399
her shit together, Sylvia. But
because of that, she's going to pay

140
00:09:45.399 --> 00:09:48.200
the price. So Gert was quoted
as saying things like, well, I

141
00:09:48.240 --> 00:09:52.320
took care of you two little bitches
for a week for nothing, right,

142
00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:56.559
I didn't get paid. And so
she beat both of the Likns girls with

143
00:09:56.639 --> 00:10:01.480
that paddle severely, and Sylvia,
as a result, was like, Okay,

144
00:10:01.480 --> 00:10:03.799
well, if we're gonna get beat
because daddy's payments were laid and because

145
00:10:03.799 --> 00:10:07.679
the pastor is talking nice about me, maybe I need to just try harder.

146
00:10:07.720 --> 00:10:09.840
And so she did. And Sylvia
tried harder to clean and to pick

147
00:10:09.919 --> 00:10:13.519
up after the Banichetsky kids. But
y'all, the harder she tried, the

148
00:10:13.600 --> 00:10:18.080
worse it seemed to get. Doing
the right thing did not provide the results

149
00:10:18.120 --> 00:10:22.519
that one would expect. Right,
you try harder, you do better,

150
00:10:22.519 --> 00:10:24.320
and you want the benefit of that
and the kudos, and she just didn't

151
00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:28.320
get it. Rather than easing up
on the girls, Gert would just get

152
00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:33.759
madder and then become even more abusive. So be damned, it doesn't matter

153
00:10:33.799 --> 00:10:39.159
what they did. The abuse just
would escalate, and eventually Gert Benicheski had

154
00:10:39.200 --> 00:10:46.799
begun to focus her abuse almost exclusively
upon Sylvia. Okay, Sylvia is the

155
00:10:46.799 --> 00:10:50.879
older of the two, and you
know, it just making me wonder,

156
00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:54.879
like why I'm a why person.
I think you'll know that by now if

157
00:10:54.879 --> 00:10:58.159
you've been listening. And even if
it's crazy or just evil, I still

158
00:10:58.279 --> 00:11:03.200
want to understand and why somebody does
things, like what makes you go there?

159
00:11:03.519 --> 00:11:07.399
And so side note, just you
know, this is why I'm terrible

160
00:11:07.399 --> 00:11:11.960
at math, because whenever teachers were
teaching the math, the why never made

161
00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:13.279
sense. And that's why I couldn't
do math. And if I would ask,

162
00:11:13.759 --> 00:11:16.240
the teachers would just be like,
well that's just the way it's done.

163
00:11:16.279 --> 00:11:20.440
Okay, well why, like show
me give me a picture. So

164
00:11:20.600 --> 00:11:24.679
shout out to math teachers. I'm
representing the kids who just don't get it.

165
00:11:24.759 --> 00:11:28.000
Okay, I didn't get the why, and then you started inserting into

166
00:11:28.039 --> 00:11:31.679
math equations like like letters and shit, and I'm like whoa, Like what

167
00:11:31.799 --> 00:11:35.639
is happening here? And then they
pull some devil's magic and start that imaginary

168
00:11:35.720 --> 00:11:39.360
number bullshit and I'm like ready to
just fight somebody because I just don't understand

169
00:11:39.519 --> 00:11:43.960
why and why are numbers imaginary?
I don't know math. Math is math

170
00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:46.000
is crazy. Just get out of
here with that. But but that's why

171
00:11:46.039 --> 00:11:48.600
I do a podcast and I don't
contribute, you know, amazing things to

172
00:11:48.600 --> 00:11:52.399
the world. I just fuck math. I digress. But anyway, I

173
00:11:52.399 --> 00:11:56.399
don't understand the why in math,
and so since I don't understand the why

174
00:11:56.600 --> 00:12:00.399
in math, I want to understand
the why and beatings and nobody body can

175
00:12:00.360 --> 00:12:05.279
seemed to tell me the why.
But her primary motivation, in my opinion,

176
00:12:05.039 --> 00:12:11.639
was self hatred and self loathing of
the fact that Sylvia still had the

177
00:12:11.639 --> 00:12:15.519
potential to be anything that she wanted. She still had a fresh slate,

178
00:12:15.919 --> 00:12:18.480
she was not married, she was
young, she hadn't had children, her

179
00:12:18.519 --> 00:12:22.399
body was still cute, little teenage
body, and I just think she was

180
00:12:22.679 --> 00:12:31.000
jealous of Sylvia's youth and her appearance, her respectability, and just the unbridled

181
00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:37.039
attention that she held still. According
to the National Library of Medicine, I

182
00:12:37.080 --> 00:12:41.159
did a little bit of research on
this, and among all types of social

183
00:12:41.200 --> 00:12:48.200
emotions, envy is both typical and
common, with widespread effects, especially for

184
00:12:48.279 --> 00:12:52.879
individual mental health. Okay, so
I was kind of curious as to like,

185
00:12:54.159 --> 00:12:54.960
you know, people are like,
oh, well, Girt's just crazy.

186
00:12:56.000 --> 00:12:58.559
Okay, Yeah, while she's kind
of a jerk, but a lot

187
00:12:58.600 --> 00:13:01.320
of a jerk, But what's that
about? And envy is defined as a

188
00:13:01.360 --> 00:13:09.480
painful emotion characterized by feelings of inferiority, hostility, and resentment. And I

189
00:13:09.519 --> 00:13:13.240
think that fits the bill perfect for
Girt in this situation, usually caused by

190
00:13:13.960 --> 00:13:22.200
lacking the good qualities, achievements,
or possessions of others in social comparisons.

191
00:13:22.320 --> 00:13:26.799
And I think that Gert is going
back to when she was sixteen and she

192
00:13:26.960 --> 00:13:33.159
is seeing this little girl full of
full of just life and still has a

193
00:13:33.200 --> 00:13:35.360
clean slate, like I said,
and she just resents it and it pisses

194
00:13:35.399 --> 00:13:39.879
her the hell off. And people
who experience envy want to either obtain these

195
00:13:39.919 --> 00:13:43.600
advantages or they want to see others
lose them. And I'm telling you,

196
00:13:43.639 --> 00:13:46.519
I think it fits the bill of
Girt because she doesn't want to see these

197
00:13:46.519 --> 00:13:52.960
lichens kids succeed, specifically Sylvia.
She wants her to suffer because she's everything

198
00:13:52.279 --> 00:13:56.840
that Gert is not. Now it's
bad enough that an adult woman is hateful

199
00:13:56.879 --> 00:14:01.879
towards Sylvia, but enough other jealous
person in the house would be Gert's oldest

200
00:14:03.320 --> 00:14:07.720
daughter, Paula. So Paula is
a problem in Sylvia's life or sure,

201
00:14:09.159 --> 00:14:11.440
as I'm going to lay out for
you. But remember how I mentioned last

202
00:14:11.480 --> 00:14:15.320
episode that Paula was pregnant by a
married, you know, older man.

203
00:14:16.399 --> 00:14:20.399
This is gonna play a role in
the Likings Girls abuse as well. Okay,

204
00:14:20.759 --> 00:14:26.360
so see, you know, Paula
started to gain weight due to her

205
00:14:26.399 --> 00:14:31.320
pregnancy, and she got mad and
she felt like, oh, well,

206
00:14:31.320 --> 00:14:33.720
I'm gaining weight, right, I'm
losing my body and I'm obviously knocked up,

207
00:14:33.759 --> 00:14:37.919
and the guy doesn't want me and
he was with somebody else. And

208
00:14:37.960 --> 00:14:41.879
so she got mad at the Likings
Girls, specifically Sylvia, because she felt

209
00:14:41.919 --> 00:14:46.080
like Sylvia, now this is in
her fucking head, this isn't even real,

210
00:14:46.440 --> 00:14:48.960
but she felt like Sylvia was getting
more attention from the neighborhood boys.

211
00:14:50.600 --> 00:14:56.480
How much that's not even true.
Sylvia is not even getting to be around

212
00:14:56.559 --> 00:15:01.240
other people. She's getting her butt
beat every day at home. So even

213
00:15:01.240 --> 00:15:05.480
though it's not even true, both
Gert and paul I acted as though if

214
00:15:05.559 --> 00:15:09.720
other people's light shine somehow, it's
going to fade their own and as a

215
00:15:09.759 --> 00:15:16.039
result, some things are are gonna
take place. Now, dealing with jealous

216
00:15:16.039 --> 00:15:18.960
teens is hard. Okay, Lord
have mercy. If I've got some moms

217
00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:24.039
on here who don't know the struggle, Okay, jealous teens, that's an

218
00:15:24.039 --> 00:15:26.279
issue. But the best way that
I would think that you would go about

219
00:15:26.320 --> 00:15:30.600
handling this situation if you brought to
other girls into your home and your daughter's

220
00:15:30.639 --> 00:15:33.039
pregnant and she's jealous of them,
is first, why don't you start with

221
00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:39.279
normalizing that emotional experience. We've all
felt jealousy from time to time. It's

222
00:15:39.360 --> 00:15:46.440
natural, right. It's an understandable
and quite honestly normal feeling for girls to

223
00:15:46.519 --> 00:15:50.279
feel that sting of jealousy when someone's
doing better and it's perceived better by others,

224
00:15:50.919 --> 00:15:56.600
even if it's just in that teen's
mind. And it's also understandable that

225
00:15:56.720 --> 00:16:02.519
jealousy is an intensely uncomfortable situation.
It's uncomfortable emotion as well. It just

226
00:16:02.559 --> 00:16:06.879
doesn't feel good. So ideally I
would have expected Gert to reassure Paula that

227
00:16:06.960 --> 00:16:10.840
she's not alone in this feeling,
and she could provide some validation and some

228
00:16:10.919 --> 00:16:15.399
relief and kind of help her daughter
work through it. But that's the issue

229
00:16:15.440 --> 00:16:18.960
here. Gert herself is a hot
ass mess and she doesn't know how to

230
00:16:18.960 --> 00:16:22.720
deal with it appropriately, and she
has her own jealousy issues. So in

231
00:16:22.799 --> 00:16:26.919
essence, we now have an issue
of the blind leading the blind right now,

232
00:16:27.960 --> 00:16:32.320
Paula is the oldest in the home, and she kind of takes over

233
00:16:32.360 --> 00:16:37.320
as the pseudo adult as Gert's life
kind of continues to spiral out of control

234
00:16:37.759 --> 00:16:40.759
and Girt spends a lot of her
time smoking cigarettes and laying in the bed.

235
00:16:41.120 --> 00:16:47.960
So Paula would din start dishing out
punishments and really harsh punishments on Sylvia

236
00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:51.799
in lieu of Gert, because Gert
was too sickly at the time, and

237
00:16:51.840 --> 00:16:56.279
she would get winded considering chain smoking
and asthma don't mix do well together,

238
00:16:56.519 --> 00:17:00.240
and she couldn't she'd get too tired
to try to beat Sylvia, so Paula

239
00:17:00.240 --> 00:17:03.599
would take over. And Paula wouldn't
just mean either, y'all. She was

240
00:17:03.680 --> 00:17:10.440
downright vicious, like just vicious,
and she enjoyed the power that she exerted

241
00:17:11.160 --> 00:17:18.400
over Sylvia. And this was even
experienced by Sylvia. Sylvia when Paula would

242
00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:21.440
hit her on the back of the
head with objects, just come up and

243
00:17:21.480 --> 00:17:25.480
just wail her in the back of
the head with objects, and she got

244
00:17:25.559 --> 00:17:29.400
joy out of punching Sylvia. This
power struggle that she felt she was in.

245
00:17:29.640 --> 00:17:33.359
She would physically overtake Sylvia and she
even punched Sylvia so hard one time

246
00:17:33.359 --> 00:17:41.160
in the face that she broke her
own wrist. She punched a girl that

247
00:17:42.359 --> 00:17:48.359
was not even defending herself so hard
she broke her own wrist. And why

248
00:17:48.359 --> 00:17:52.799
would your wrist break while you're punching
someone. It's because she wasn't punching her

249
00:17:52.799 --> 00:17:57.799
in a soft spot of the body. She was primarily primarily focusing her blows

250
00:17:57.839 --> 00:18:03.359
on Sylvia's teeth and her eyes.
She was smoking her in the eye sockets

251
00:18:03.640 --> 00:18:07.279
and in the mouth. And if
you have ever been hit once, let

252
00:18:07.279 --> 00:18:14.160
alone more in the face, specifically
the mouth, the pain behind that and

253
00:18:14.200 --> 00:18:17.839
then the black eyes and the punching
of the eyes, it's just horrid.

254
00:18:18.799 --> 00:18:22.440
Now, As if that wasn't a
sign that maybe the beatings were a bit

255
00:18:22.519 --> 00:18:26.480
overboard, if breaking your own wrist
on someone else's face is not a sign

256
00:18:26.480 --> 00:18:33.000
that maybe you need to chill out. Even more sick is that Paula had

257
00:18:33.039 --> 00:18:37.519
to go get a wrist a cast
put on her broken wrist, And when

258
00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:42.960
she got home she quickly figured out, I got me a weapon, and

259
00:18:44.200 --> 00:18:49.079
it hurts to punch someone and then
them get hit not just even by a

260
00:18:49.119 --> 00:18:55.960
wrist, but now by a cast, and it hurts Sylvia even more.

261
00:18:56.000 --> 00:19:00.519
In the future beatings, she would
use her cast as a weapon to beat

262
00:19:00.599 --> 00:19:04.200
Sylvia, and Sylvia just had no
choice but to become a punching bag,

263
00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:08.319
and there was no one there to
protect her. I mean, I just

264
00:19:08.400 --> 00:19:12.240
imagine when they were beating her.
Remember they would beat her. Little sister

265
00:19:12.319 --> 00:19:17.200
too, had those casts on her
legs, and one time, you know,

266
00:19:17.200 --> 00:19:19.599
they ripped her pants down to beat
her, and her clothes got tangled

267
00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:23.799
up in her little braces on her
legs, and neither sister could do anything

268
00:19:23.799 --> 00:19:26.640
about it. Just had to take
the wild beatings from these two women.

269
00:19:26.680 --> 00:19:34.599
It's just disgusting. And rather than
ease up once she broke her wrist and

270
00:19:34.599 --> 00:19:37.759
then she did get the best of
Sylvia over and over and over again,

271
00:19:38.160 --> 00:19:44.640
rather than easing up, Paula went
all in and she would go and openly

272
00:19:44.759 --> 00:19:48.559
bragg to people, openly in the
neighborhood and at school of what she had

273
00:19:48.599 --> 00:19:56.720
done. And something that is even
sadder is that no one ever seemed to

274
00:19:56.799 --> 00:20:03.039
intervene, even being told openly,
I'm beating the hell out of this girl

275
00:20:03.079 --> 00:20:06.400
with my cast. I hit her
so hard in the face, I broke

276
00:20:06.480 --> 00:20:12.079
my wrist. No one checked,
they just were like, uh really,

277
00:20:15.240 --> 00:20:18.640
And it was almost like a pack
mentality would go into existence when Gert would

278
00:20:18.640 --> 00:20:22.720
get mad. It just it was
sickening, like like they were like a

279
00:20:22.720 --> 00:20:26.240
bunch of wild animals and they would
just become a pack and attack as a

280
00:20:26.279 --> 00:20:30.440
group. So what do I mean
by a pack mentality? Though? So

281
00:20:30.880 --> 00:20:32.720
real quick, let me tell you
this, and I'm not going to go

282
00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:34.240
into a lot of detail, but
there was a case one time that I

283
00:20:34.319 --> 00:20:37.880
was I was watching and this guy
ends up murdering his wife. Okay,

284
00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:44.279
And what was really interesting at the
crime scene was that they owned big dogs,

285
00:20:45.279 --> 00:20:48.640
and so when the crime scene investigators
got there, they thought it was

286
00:20:48.680 --> 00:20:52.720
bizarre. There was blood everywhere and
the dogs were covered in blood, and

287
00:20:52.759 --> 00:20:56.200
one dog was locked up in a
bath bedroom and you know, and one

288
00:20:56.759 --> 00:21:03.079
one wasn't. And they wouldn't figure
out why would the dogs have attacked each

289
00:21:03.079 --> 00:21:07.279
other when the dogs were the dogs
had clearly attacked each other, and they

290
00:21:07.319 --> 00:21:08.839
couldn't figure out why why are they
attacking each other? These dogs have lived

291
00:21:08.839 --> 00:21:12.440
together forever, the owners raised them
together. It doesn't make sense. But

292
00:21:12.559 --> 00:21:17.000
what they found out was that the
dogs were attacking each other out of a

293
00:21:17.039 --> 00:21:22.599
stress reaction and a redirection of agitation, which is an animal, animalistic type

294
00:21:22.599 --> 00:21:26.319
of instinct. So, you know, I kind of I get that in

295
00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:30.519
that episode, So I know what
you're thinking, though, So where is

296
00:21:30.559 --> 00:21:34.519
everyone's moral compass? How could everyone? How could everyone just turn a blind

297
00:21:34.599 --> 00:21:41.920
eye when there are other teams seeing
this happening as they're partying and they're hanging

298
00:21:41.960 --> 00:21:45.160
out at the house. It's very
obvious to everyone there what's happening. How

299
00:21:47.799 --> 00:21:51.240
is no one saying anything? Is
it that they didn't care? Or was

300
00:21:51.279 --> 00:21:56.640
it something larger at play here?
And I'm inclined to think that some of

301
00:21:56.640 --> 00:22:00.079
them did just choose evil. Okay, they did, Paula was being a

302
00:21:59.839 --> 00:22:03.839
freaking bitch, an evil one at
that, But what about the rest of

303
00:22:03.880 --> 00:22:10.160
them? What about the ones that
kind of watched in silence? You know?

304
00:22:10.960 --> 00:22:15.000
How did they not say something or
at least share an eye look with

305
00:22:15.079 --> 00:22:17.799
someone else going damn, like is
this? Why are we doing this?

306
00:22:18.480 --> 00:22:21.839
And my belief here is that I
think they suffered from what's known as the

307
00:22:21.839 --> 00:22:23.880
bystander effect. And if you've if
you've never heard of that and you're like,

308
00:22:23.920 --> 00:22:26.119
so what is that? Let me
let me tell you. You can

309
00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:29.640
find a lot about this online.
You can go look. I know there's

310
00:22:29.640 --> 00:22:32.640
a website Psychology Today dot com and
you can go there and you can look.

311
00:22:32.680 --> 00:22:33.559
But to save you some time,
I'm just going to explain it.

312
00:22:34.119 --> 00:22:41.599
The bystander effect occurs when the presence
of others when the presence of others discourages

313
00:22:41.640 --> 00:22:47.200
an individual from intervening in an emergency
situation, and this happens more often than

314
00:22:47.240 --> 00:22:52.240
you would think. This includes everything
from when when you're trying to stop or

315
00:22:52.279 --> 00:22:56.440
wanting to stop a bully, to
intervening on an assault or something even even

316
00:22:56.480 --> 00:23:00.039
bigger, like a larger crime.
The key to this effect is that the

317
00:23:00.119 --> 00:23:04.559
raider the number of bystanders, the
less likely it is for any one of

318
00:23:04.559 --> 00:23:08.400
them to provide help or assistance to
the person that's in distress. Because there's

319
00:23:08.440 --> 00:23:12.920
a ton of them and the one
individual is less likely to jump out of

320
00:23:12.920 --> 00:23:18.519
the crowd. People are more likely
to take action in a crisis when there

321
00:23:18.519 --> 00:23:25.039
are few are no witnesses present in
that crazy like they're they're more likely to

322
00:23:25.079 --> 00:23:27.720
go at it on their own.
But the reasoning and behind this, y'alls,

323
00:23:27.720 --> 00:23:33.720
there's two factors at play. It's
diffusion of responsibility right, diffusion of

324
00:23:34.279 --> 00:23:38.880
who is responsible, but also social
influence and the factors here have to be

325
00:23:38.920 --> 00:23:42.839
looked at. So it's not like
there's just a whole bunch of evil people

326
00:23:42.839 --> 00:23:45.319
there. There's there are some people
that are being evil, but all those

327
00:23:45.400 --> 00:23:49.200
other kids that are playing around that
aren't saying anything. It's almost, I

328
00:23:49.200 --> 00:23:52.160
don't want to say it's normal,
but it's it's almost a common offense that

329
00:23:52.240 --> 00:23:56.880
happens where people do nothing. That
diffusion of responsibility and that social influence in

330
00:23:56.880 --> 00:24:04.359
the room affects people. The perceived
diffusion of responsibility means that the more onlookers

331
00:24:04.359 --> 00:24:11.920
there are, the less the personal
responsibility individuals will feel to take action.

332
00:24:11.799 --> 00:24:15.599
If you're by yourself and you see
someone in danger, you feel like it's

333
00:24:15.680 --> 00:24:18.759
upon you to go help the person
in danger. But if there's a ton

334
00:24:18.839 --> 00:24:23.519
of people there, then it takes
away that personal value you have to the

335
00:24:23.559 --> 00:24:27.279
scene. Everybody's watching. It's not
me involved, it's all of us watching

336
00:24:27.279 --> 00:24:32.359
this happen. Why am I the
one that goes and does something? And

337
00:24:32.400 --> 00:24:36.920
then that social influence means that individuals
are going to monitor the behavior of those

338
00:24:36.960 --> 00:24:41.920
around them, and that will help
them determine how they should act. If

339
00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:48.200
nobody's doing anything, then nobody's going
to do anything. If everybody's doing something,

340
00:24:48.559 --> 00:24:52.759
then everybody's going to do something.
But that social factor there is huge.

341
00:24:53.519 --> 00:25:00.200
And when the adult of the home
leaves a teenager in charge and the

342
00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:06.039
person that now sets the tone or
the standard of behavior is a teenager who

343
00:25:06.119 --> 00:25:08.720
obviously has hate for the other teenager, I can see how they would rather

344
00:25:08.759 --> 00:25:15.359
be like in the abuser click rather
than receiving the brunt of it. So

345
00:25:18.680 --> 00:25:21.680
I hope that hopes you kind of
understand why people sit back and it's like

346
00:25:21.720 --> 00:25:25.079
everyone in their mama can see what's
happening, but nobody does anything. There's

347
00:25:25.119 --> 00:25:30.880
a psychological component to that, and
basically it's really sick. But once the

348
00:25:30.880 --> 00:25:37.440
Benicheski kids saw that, oh,
I'm in my mom's good graces when they

349
00:25:37.480 --> 00:25:42.599
were being abusive to those likings girls, especially Sylvia, it escalated quickly because

350
00:25:42.640 --> 00:25:48.640
they saw positive response from their mother. So aside from the verbal abuse and

351
00:25:48.640 --> 00:25:52.680
the beatings, there was a social
emotional abuse that was happening as well.

352
00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:57.640
And Gertrude decided that while maybe her
home and everything that's going on in her

353
00:25:57.640 --> 00:26:02.559
life is falling apart on the inside. She wanted to save face in the

354
00:26:02.559 --> 00:26:06.720
eyes of the public, and so
she started forcing the kids to go to

355
00:26:06.839 --> 00:26:10.319
church. And by forcing them to
go, I mean a lot like this

356
00:26:10.359 --> 00:26:15.279
became hyper religiousness that she was forcing
the kids to go to church. And

357
00:26:15.359 --> 00:26:18.480
so at one of the events that
the kids would all go attend, they

358
00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:19.319
were serving a meal. Like you
know, if you go to church,

359
00:26:19.359 --> 00:26:22.240
they'll have meals. People like to
break bread, you know, and talk

360
00:26:22.279 --> 00:26:27.960
and food makes everything easier. I
love food, I love eating. But

361
00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:32.200
the Liking sisters were in a different
boat, right because they're starving, they're

362
00:26:32.279 --> 00:26:36.000
hungry, they were not being fed
consistently, and so as you can imagine,

363
00:26:36.119 --> 00:26:41.000
food was a very welcome sight for
these girls. And hot dogs were

364
00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:45.240
the meal of the day, and
so the girls happily ate their fill while

365
00:26:45.519 --> 00:26:51.559
the food was being served. And
honestly, what an absolute blessing right for

366
00:26:51.599 --> 00:26:53.640
them to have full bellies for once
in a long time. They were hungry,

367
00:26:53.680 --> 00:26:56.400
they got to eat. The church
provided that, and the church looked

368
00:26:56.440 --> 00:27:03.920
lovingly on the girls. Upon return
home from that event, though, Paula

369
00:27:03.160 --> 00:27:07.319
found it appropriate to immediately tattle on
the girls, but it wasn't enough just

370
00:27:07.400 --> 00:27:11.559
to tell the truth okay, that
they were scarfed down the food in response

371
00:27:11.640 --> 00:27:15.440
to like immense hunger. No,
she decided that she needed to beef the

372
00:27:15.480 --> 00:27:18.920
story up right, She need to
really hammer it home, and so she

373
00:27:19.079 --> 00:27:22.839
claimed that they were making a scene
in front of all of the parishioners,

374
00:27:23.240 --> 00:27:29.400
and Paula's chain of events claimed that
the girls were engorging themselves and that she

375
00:27:29.559 --> 00:27:32.720
thought, oh my gosh, this
is going to obviously really reflect badly on

376
00:27:32.799 --> 00:27:34.559
you, mom, because they made
a scene. It looks like you're not

377
00:27:34.640 --> 00:27:40.319
feeding them, which hashtag she wasn't, but god forbid other people should know.

378
00:27:41.720 --> 00:27:45.079
So hearing this, Gert immediately flew
into just a rage and all out

379
00:27:45.119 --> 00:27:49.200
just psychotic moment. And you know, you know, like Kruella de Ville

380
00:27:49.240 --> 00:27:52.759
the old cartoons when we were young, all of us, and when she

381
00:27:52.799 --> 00:27:56.839
would get mad in that cartoon,
that's kind of what I envision whenever I

382
00:27:56.880 --> 00:28:03.799
see Gert flying into this rage.
Just a bony, chain smoking, mean

383
00:28:03.880 --> 00:28:10.039
hearted, selfish bag of flesh,
you know, just raging on two young

384
00:28:10.079 --> 00:28:15.039
girls, and no one is there
to jump in and protect them. So

385
00:28:15.200 --> 00:28:18.799
the initial abuse, you know,
it was the beatings in the starvation.

386
00:28:18.839 --> 00:28:22.640
But again, this is going to
escalate. So I guess the animalistic need

387
00:28:22.920 --> 00:28:29.079
to get more of a response from
the girls was fueling inside of Girt and

388
00:28:29.119 --> 00:28:32.920
so she started a new tactic of
abuse to to really get a rise out

389
00:28:32.920 --> 00:28:37.759
of the girls, and this would
center around food. But it wasn't to

390
00:28:37.839 --> 00:28:44.279
limit it. She and Paula would
not allow Sylvia to eat the meals that

391
00:28:44.359 --> 00:28:48.160
they would prepare at the house.
She would make them watch her watch,

392
00:28:48.279 --> 00:28:56.079
but she would not be allowed to
eat. She says, now, Sylvia,

393
00:28:56.359 --> 00:29:00.759
you are only going to be allowed
to eat our leftovers. Everyone is

394
00:29:00.799 --> 00:29:07.039
done. You can pick through the
leftovers. But here's the kicker. It

395
00:29:07.119 --> 00:29:14.839
wasn't just leftovers, No, it
was the leftovers that were in the garbage

396
00:29:15.480 --> 00:29:21.279
can in the bag. So to
make sure that Sylvia knew that she was

397
00:29:21.400 --> 00:29:25.920
lower than a dog to the family, she would have to pull food from

398
00:29:25.960 --> 00:29:32.640
the garbage cans and they would get
specially excited when that food was old and

399
00:29:32.799 --> 00:29:37.640
bad, or if it had spoiled, because rotten food was now going to

400
00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:44.559
be the new weapon of choice.
So, realizing that their situation of hunger

401
00:29:44.680 --> 00:29:48.640
was turning rather dire, the Likns
girls decided to take steps to kind of

402
00:29:48.640 --> 00:29:51.599
help themselves out. They were like, man, let's go, let's go

403
00:29:51.680 --> 00:29:55.000
try to make some money or do
something. We got to eat. So

404
00:29:55.400 --> 00:29:57.920
they did what I would think young
girls of the time, you know,

405
00:29:57.960 --> 00:30:02.359
in the sixties would would do.
And so they go to like a local

406
00:30:02.480 --> 00:30:06.319
park area, and they start collecting
soda cans that they could turn in for

407
00:30:06.440 --> 00:30:11.279
some change. And after doing so, you can still kind of see the

408
00:30:11.480 --> 00:30:15.079
child within, because once they got
that little bit of money and they could

409
00:30:15.119 --> 00:30:18.519
go buy some food, they instead
decided, you know what, let's treat

410
00:30:18.559 --> 00:30:22.759
ourselves. And they went and they
got them some candy. They bought candy

411
00:30:22.839 --> 00:30:26.359
with that little bit of change that
they had earned from the bottles, and

412
00:30:26.400 --> 00:30:33.119
so Sylvia and Jinny ate what they
wanted of the candy, and then they

413
00:30:33.160 --> 00:30:40.519
decided to be kind and that kindness
would be shown through sharing the remaining candy

414
00:30:40.559 --> 00:30:45.279
with the kids in the Banichetsky house, the younger ones. But that's going

415
00:30:45.319 --> 00:30:49.759
to come back to bite them horribly
because when Gert found out that they had

416
00:30:49.839 --> 00:30:55.839
candy number one and that they had
shared it, she immediately turned and accused

417
00:30:55.839 --> 00:30:57.799
them of stealing it. There was
no way that you earned this right,

418
00:30:59.359 --> 00:31:03.880
you stole it. Now, what's
crazy is that there was no basis or

419
00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:10.480
fact to work with. Gert would
simply go with whatever she wanted to be

420
00:31:10.559 --> 00:31:14.240
the truth. Here, the reality
doesn't even matter. It's what she wanted

421
00:31:14.240 --> 00:31:18.359
it to be. And she wanted
the Lichens girls to be horrid human beings

422
00:31:18.480 --> 00:31:22.559
so badly that she would rather make
up things than acknowledge their goodness. And

423
00:31:22.599 --> 00:31:29.079
then she would use her own lies
to fuel the rage that she had to

424
00:31:29.200 --> 00:31:33.240
abuse the girls. It's like the
poor Lichens girls, they just couldn't get

425
00:31:33.240 --> 00:31:37.599
ahead. It didn't matter specifically Sylvia. And at this point now it's gone

426
00:31:37.640 --> 00:31:44.039
way more sinister as lies about the
girls are now considered the truth and they

427
00:31:44.079 --> 00:31:48.880
act as the justification for their abuse. So whatever was claimed was now the

428
00:31:48.920 --> 00:31:53.079
truth. And you go into dangerous
territory. I don't care who you are,

429
00:31:53.119 --> 00:31:57.160
where you are, but whenever whatever
you say becomes the truth and the

430
00:31:57.240 --> 00:32:01.079
lies become the truth, you are
starting to tread now in water that you're

431
00:32:01.119 --> 00:32:06.799
not going to be able to come
back from because there's no sense of reality.

432
00:32:06.920 --> 00:32:12.759
So along with the abuse and the
starvation and now the lies, humiliation

433
00:32:13.440 --> 00:32:17.680
would become the next order of business. So during a conversation within the house,

434
00:32:19.440 --> 00:32:22.599
for some reason, Sylvia was allowed
to participate, and this was kind

435
00:32:22.599 --> 00:32:25.720
of neat right because she had been
ousted from the group and mistreated for so

436
00:32:25.759 --> 00:32:30.039
long. But they were talking a
bunch of the kids in the living room

437
00:32:30.240 --> 00:32:32.720
and Gert was there, and Sylvia
was allowed to participate in the discussions that

438
00:32:32.759 --> 00:32:37.640
they were having, and she made
the mistake of mentioning that she had a

439
00:32:37.720 --> 00:32:43.599
boyfriend back whenever she lived in Long
Beach in California with her family, and

440
00:32:43.640 --> 00:32:46.279
those were obviously happier times and she
clung to them, even if they were

441
00:32:46.319 --> 00:32:52.200
just memories. So the people in
the family had questions right about this boyfriend,

442
00:32:52.200 --> 00:32:58.960
and like a lion leading a lamb
to slaughter, Gert inserted herself in

443
00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:04.400
that conversation and she began to inquire
about this boyfriend, So, what was

444
00:33:04.400 --> 00:33:08.559
he like? What did y'all like
to do? Did y'all ever do anything?

445
00:33:10.640 --> 00:33:15.519
Well, seems like, you know, normal questions, But the reality

446
00:33:15.599 --> 00:33:21.000
is these questions are a bit ambiguous
and it would depend on the experience of

447
00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:24.519
the person being asked as to what
this would mean. After all, we

448
00:33:24.599 --> 00:33:31.359
know perceptions reality, right, Well, Sylvia either misunderstanding the question or unsure

449
00:33:31.359 --> 00:33:37.559
of the exact meaning of what,
quote unquote do something meant? Innocent innocently

450
00:33:37.599 --> 00:33:43.119
replied, I guess so, So, further prodded, she would explain,

451
00:33:43.200 --> 00:33:45.359
yeah, we we did stuff.
And they were like, like, what

452
00:33:45.359 --> 00:33:49.559
what did y'all do? And she
says, well, one time we went

453
00:33:49.599 --> 00:33:52.960
skating and I even got to go
to the beach with him one time.

454
00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:57.519
It was it was fun, right, we got to hang out. Now,

455
00:33:57.680 --> 00:34:00.400
don't forget either, while these questions
are being asked, that these aren't

456
00:34:00.400 --> 00:34:05.519
girls Gert's girls either. These aren't
even her kids. So why she would

457
00:34:05.559 --> 00:34:08.320
have the authority or even the desire
to ask these types of questions is enough

458
00:34:08.360 --> 00:34:12.760
to see that she was wanting to
find something to use against the girls.

459
00:34:12.800 --> 00:34:16.039
But they're young girls, you know, they're they're not seeing at all for

460
00:34:16.079 --> 00:34:22.480
what it is. Now, Remember, whatever was claimed by Gert was regarded

461
00:34:22.519 --> 00:34:27.400
as the god given truth, and
so Gert would begin to claim that the

462
00:34:27.519 --> 00:34:34.519
very girl that she was beating and
refusing to feed was getting fat. So

463
00:34:34.559 --> 00:34:37.679
she starts fussing, there, you're
getting fat, which is how incredibly ludicrous,

464
00:34:37.760 --> 00:34:42.599
Right, they're not even she's starving
them. And supposedly, according to

465
00:34:42.960 --> 00:34:45.960
things that I've read, Sylvia would
assume that Gert was kind of like joking

466
00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:49.760
with her, and she said something
to the effect of, yeah, sure

467
00:34:49.880 --> 00:34:52.440
is getting big big. I guess
I'm gonna have to go on a diet

468
00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:57.320
and you know, like pats her
belly like jokingly because she's so skinny.

469
00:34:57.400 --> 00:35:00.760
But now in her mind, Gert
had all she need to make the assertion

470
00:35:00.840 --> 00:35:07.079
to everyone else that Sylvia was pregnant
from her boyfriend from a previous summer.

471
00:35:09.119 --> 00:35:13.679
Like it's stupid, it doesn't even
make sense, but because Gert claimed it,

472
00:35:14.119 --> 00:35:16.719
the family went with it. So
I mean, I guess she was

473
00:35:16.719 --> 00:35:19.880
showing really late. I mean,
I don't know. Gert should know a

474
00:35:19.880 --> 00:35:22.360
pregnancy by now, she's had about
four hundred of them. Give me a

475
00:35:22.360 --> 00:35:28.199
freaking break. But maybe she should
have been paying a little bit more attention

476
00:35:28.199 --> 00:35:30.400
to her own daughter, Paula,
who actually was pregnant. But no,

477
00:35:30.480 --> 00:35:34.920
she'd rather just accused Sylvia of being
pregnant, But that would make too much

478
00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:37.519
sense, right for her to pay
attention to her own kids who were not

479
00:35:37.559 --> 00:35:40.760
doing what they should have been doing. She instead went on a tirade about

480
00:35:40.840 --> 00:35:45.280
how any girl who quote unquote did
something with a boy was gonna have a

481
00:35:45.360 --> 00:35:50.679
baby, and she obviously had to
do something about this. So she decided,

482
00:35:50.920 --> 00:35:52.800
you know what she needed to do
since Sylvia was acting this way and

483
00:35:52.840 --> 00:35:59.840
acting like a whore, she needed
to stomp Sylvia's genitals. She throws the

484
00:36:00.039 --> 00:36:07.280
girl down and ghetto stomps, I
don't know the other term, but stops

485
00:36:07.320 --> 00:36:12.920
the girl between the legs, throws
her legs open, and stomps her between

486
00:36:13.039 --> 00:36:16.079
the legs. The amount of pain
and force and flicked up on her and

487
00:36:16.119 --> 00:36:21.400
in front of other people. To
make it just as humiliating as possible,

488
00:36:21.440 --> 00:36:25.280
and it doesn't even make sense,
she stomps this girl's crotch, and Paula,

489
00:36:25.639 --> 00:36:30.320
the ho who actually was pregnant,
also decided that she was going to

490
00:36:30.440 --> 00:36:34.679
joinp in. So now we've got
this grown woman and Paula the ho who

491
00:36:34.719 --> 00:36:38.320
actually is pregnant, and they both
decided to join in and just stomp,

492
00:36:38.920 --> 00:36:43.840
just curb stomp this poor child between
her legs in front of everyone, and

493
00:36:43.840 --> 00:36:46.960
while Sylvia is on the ground writhing
in pain, the others just found it

494
00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:51.119
amusing. They thought it was funny. And I don't mean one kick,

495
00:36:51.199 --> 00:37:00.000
y'all, I mean multiple stompings on
the vagina, kicking her in her genitals,

496
00:36:59.679 --> 00:37:02.880
and in Paula would add insult to
injury because Sylvia had gotten herself up

497
00:37:02.920 --> 00:37:07.519
and put herself in a chair,
which was extremely painful, and Paula would

498
00:37:07.559 --> 00:37:12.039
flip the chair over, like kick
her over in it and then bend down

499
00:37:12.039 --> 00:37:15.079
and just sneer in her face that
she wasn't fit for a chair. She

500
00:37:15.199 --> 00:37:19.760
was below, that she didn't even
deserve a chair because of all the made

501
00:37:19.800 --> 00:37:25.360
up shit that they're pretending is real. So Paula and Gert then decided to

502
00:37:25.400 --> 00:37:30.239
tag team Sylvia while she's laying there
just in pain, trying to process what's

503
00:37:30.239 --> 00:37:34.159
happening, and they decided to scream
and spu just obscenities in her face,

504
00:37:34.400 --> 00:37:37.440
and they start calling her a whore
who tells her that she slept with all

505
00:37:37.480 --> 00:37:39.760
the boys in the neighborhood. And
then they started saying, and you're full

506
00:37:39.800 --> 00:37:43.719
of STDs two as a result of
it, you're nothing but a whore.

507
00:37:44.639 --> 00:37:47.800
So they humiliated her and they berated
her in front of all of these other

508
00:37:49.000 --> 00:37:55.400
teens, and they did nothing.
They just watched as she writhed in pain

509
00:37:55.719 --> 00:38:00.519
so much showed that her vaginal area
would swell up like tremendously and she would

510
00:38:00.559 --> 00:38:06.880
be all bruised, I mean hurt. She would not even be able to

511
00:38:06.920 --> 00:38:12.320
walk or sit properly after this beating
that she took. And so you know,

512
00:38:12.360 --> 00:38:14.840
when I listen, I know other
podcasts have done this story before,

513
00:38:14.880 --> 00:38:16.519
and other people have and they kind
are like, oh yeah, and then

514
00:38:16.519 --> 00:38:20.519
she kicked in her crotch and that's
horrible. Ow that hurts. But I

515
00:38:20.559 --> 00:38:22.239
thought, you know, maybe we
got to put this into a legal perspective.

516
00:38:22.280 --> 00:38:27.039
Okay, obviously, teenagers and other
kids in the neighborhood know what's going

517
00:38:27.079 --> 00:38:30.599
on, but the law enforcement isn't
aware at this point. But I found

518
00:38:30.599 --> 00:38:36.639
another instance that I thought was kind
of interesting because it became a huge case.

519
00:38:36.719 --> 00:38:38.719
Okay, so we're kind of sidebar
in here another story, but just

520
00:38:38.920 --> 00:38:43.880
follow me. There was a guard. This was in I think nineteen ninety

521
00:38:43.920 --> 00:38:47.159
nine. There was a prison guard
who got in a hell of a lot

522
00:38:47.199 --> 00:38:53.679
of trouble because he was found guilty
of violating a prisoner's Eighth Amendment rights.

523
00:38:54.000 --> 00:38:57.239
Because this guy, his name was
John Walsh. Okay, he was a

524
00:38:57.239 --> 00:39:00.960
lieutenant in the Orleans County. This
in New York jail, and he weighed

525
00:39:00.960 --> 00:39:05.159
about four hundred pounds and his nickname. He liked to be called hammer Jack.

526
00:39:05.559 --> 00:39:09.400
And so there was an inmate named
Norvin Folks. And Norvin would go

527
00:39:09.400 --> 00:39:12.840
to jail a lot. Okay,
he was a frequent flyer for whatever reason.

528
00:39:13.559 --> 00:39:15.480
He was mentally ill. On top
of his other problems. He had

529
00:39:15.480 --> 00:39:22.119
been housed in a mental hospital at
one point, and he was a huge

530
00:39:22.159 --> 00:39:27.440
smoker, like horribly addicted to smoking. And so around nineteen ninety one is

531
00:39:27.440 --> 00:39:34.960
when this would take take place.
Though Folks heard another guard repeatedly shouting,

532
00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:37.639
big Jack, give me a cigarette. I need a cigarette. I need

533
00:39:37.679 --> 00:39:40.880
a cigarette. And at that time
that inmate was being held naked. That

534
00:39:40.960 --> 00:39:44.599
Folks inmate was, he was naked, and he was in a strip a

535
00:39:44.679 --> 00:39:51.039
strip cell. And so he responded
by saying, Okay, guess what,

536
00:39:51.159 --> 00:39:53.639
Norvin, I'll give you a cigarette, but you know the routine. You

537
00:39:53.679 --> 00:40:00.480
have to put your dick through the
bars. So the mentally ill inmate did

538
00:40:00.519 --> 00:40:06.119
as he was told. He complied, why because the officer is in charge,

539
00:40:06.159 --> 00:40:09.159
and he did what the officer told
him. And that's when Walsh stepped

540
00:40:09.719 --> 00:40:16.119
on his penis. He stepped on
it with such force that the inmate's eyes

541
00:40:16.280 --> 00:40:19.960
like bulged out of his head.
He was in so much pain and he

542
00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:23.039
started shrieking, and then he gave
him a cigarette. And then the following

543
00:40:23.119 --> 00:40:28.440
year, whenever folks came back to
jail, the same kind of thing happened.

544
00:40:28.639 --> 00:40:30.360
He wanted a cigarette, that same
officer said, well, who am

545
00:40:30.400 --> 00:40:32.880
I? Who am I? You
gotta tell me who I am? And

546
00:40:32.920 --> 00:40:37.039
the inmate said, hammer jack,
right, if you want a cigarette,

547
00:40:37.039 --> 00:40:40.000
you gotta put your dick out the
bars. And when he did, he

548
00:40:40.119 --> 00:40:44.719
stomped that inmate on his penis and
he rocked his foot back and forth like

549
00:40:44.719 --> 00:40:49.679
he was putting out a cigarette.
Okay, so that ends up going to

550
00:40:49.880 --> 00:40:53.000
like the Supreme Court. I mean
it was huge, and he was absolutely

551
00:40:53.119 --> 00:41:00.000
slammed in the eyes of the law, and he got a federal indictment on

552
00:41:00.079 --> 00:41:07.800
this and was thrown in prison for
it. So if it's bad enough that

553
00:41:07.840 --> 00:41:10.880
we will recognize that school, you
know, kicking a male or punching,

554
00:41:10.920 --> 00:41:15.760
you know, putting your foot and
grinding it into someone's genital areas is so

555
00:41:15.800 --> 00:41:20.719
horrific that you get a federal indictment
behind it. This young girl should have

556
00:41:20.800 --> 00:41:23.280
had the same justice there. I
don't care that she's a female. You

557
00:41:23.280 --> 00:41:28.920
don't that's horrific that you would even
think to do that to someone, And

558
00:41:28.960 --> 00:41:32.400
even the courts agreed that this is
absurdly horrid. And when you're doing it

559
00:41:32.400 --> 00:41:37.719
to someone who's under your control and
they were powerless and at your mercy,

560
00:41:37.000 --> 00:41:40.880
it makes it even worse. Not
to mention it was based on the lie,

561
00:41:43.559 --> 00:41:46.320
So both Girt and Paula were ate
up with jealousy. And Sylvia,

562
00:41:46.440 --> 00:41:52.920
who was believed to be completely inexperienced
sexually according to the reports she was.

563
00:41:52.480 --> 00:41:55.840
She was not an experienced girl sexually
at all. Would take the wrath of

564
00:41:55.880 --> 00:42:00.599
a mother and her daughter whose own
lives are out of control, and both

565
00:42:00.639 --> 00:42:05.639
of whom attempted to use sex as
an attention tool. But yet they're going

566
00:42:05.679 --> 00:42:08.920
to turn on this young girl who
has no sexual experience and take it out

567
00:42:08.960 --> 00:42:13.760
on her. I think that Sylvia
was everything that Gert and Paula weren't,

568
00:42:13.800 --> 00:42:17.880
but they desperately wished that they were. But the question now becomes why didn't

569
00:42:17.920 --> 00:42:22.519
the Likns girls tell anyone what was
going on? All they do is open

570
00:42:22.559 --> 00:42:23.719
their mouth when they went to school, or when they went to church or

571
00:42:23.719 --> 00:42:29.599
wherever they went. But it's really
simple why they didn't they were trying to

572
00:42:29.639 --> 00:42:34.400
survive, and they were afraid that
if they did tell, it would only

573
00:42:34.440 --> 00:42:37.840
get worse for them. So they
have these people called forensic interviewers, if

574
00:42:37.840 --> 00:42:43.440
you've never heard of that, and
they back up the same sentiment that I'm

575
00:42:43.480 --> 00:42:46.800
telling you. These interviewers, they're
the ones that question children and what are

576
00:42:46.800 --> 00:42:53.079
known as c AC interviews when abuse
has been suspected. That's a child Advocacy

577
00:42:53.119 --> 00:42:58.719
center SAC where they go. And
the thing here is that children cannot adequately

578
00:42:58.760 --> 00:43:04.719
process all that has happening, and
obviously they don't have the maturity to navigate

579
00:43:04.760 --> 00:43:07.639
what will happen to them in the
future. And so when summarizing it up,

580
00:43:08.639 --> 00:43:13.440
you know, why don't kids tell? In general? Here's a little

581
00:43:13.480 --> 00:43:16.800
insight from the Alliance for Children as
to what are the common commonalities of kids,

582
00:43:16.880 --> 00:43:19.760
and when we say kids, y'all, we're even talking about teens,

583
00:43:20.039 --> 00:43:23.719
why they don't speak up? The
first one is, oftentimes the victims may

584
00:43:23.840 --> 00:43:30.960
somewhat care for who's abusing them,
and so they may be concerned that if

585
00:43:30.960 --> 00:43:32.920
they speak up, it's going to
get that perpetrator in trouble. I don't

586
00:43:32.920 --> 00:43:37.360
know that that's necessarily the case here, but that is a commonality and amongst

587
00:43:37.880 --> 00:43:43.679
you know abuse cases. The second
one, the fear of the consequences,

588
00:43:44.119 --> 00:43:47.639
not only for the perpetrator but for
the victims themselves and their families, can

589
00:43:47.719 --> 00:43:54.880
make immediate disclosure of what's happening to
them really difficult. Perpetrators oftentimes make threats,

590
00:43:55.119 --> 00:43:58.440
they say I'm going to hurt you, I'm gonna hurt your family,

591
00:43:59.079 --> 00:44:05.079
And when X is involved, there's
a stigma tied to that. So victims

592
00:44:05.239 --> 00:44:08.199
may also believe that they are going
to be looked at shamefully and that maybe

593
00:44:08.199 --> 00:44:13.480
it's their fault and that they are
impure or dirty. And so when they

594
00:44:13.519 --> 00:44:16.079
feel that shame and they're embarrassed about
what happened, and then on top of

595
00:44:16.119 --> 00:44:21.280
that they fear the repercussions, they
don't speak up. They don't say anything

596
00:44:21.880 --> 00:44:25.320
that wouldn't make sense to right,
So in a kid's mind, at least

597
00:44:27.440 --> 00:44:30.639
some victims of sexual abuse live in
homes where they feel a lack of support

598
00:44:30.719 --> 00:44:36.159
due to the dysfunctional family dynamics,
which is pretty much what these girls are

599
00:44:36.199 --> 00:44:42.199
in. And if they're separated from
their parents or you know, their caretakers

600
00:44:42.519 --> 00:44:45.000
aren't going to listen to them.
They're not going to say anything. And

601
00:44:45.039 --> 00:44:49.920
when children feel responsible for their well
being as well as the wellbeing of their

602
00:44:49.960 --> 00:44:54.920
families, they're often afraid of ruining
relationships because the perpetrator, you know,

603
00:44:58.559 --> 00:45:00.840
the perpetrator who's taking care of them. If they report back and then their

604
00:45:00.880 --> 00:45:05.320
family doesn't look like they're taking care
of them, it becomes a problem for

605
00:45:05.360 --> 00:45:08.079
everyone involved, and they're worried about
their own parents, so they just don't

606
00:45:08.079 --> 00:45:12.920
speak up. Remember, though you
can't assess a child or a teen's actions

607
00:45:12.920 --> 00:45:16.039
through a full grown adult's eyes,
their perspective is different and they're going to

608
00:45:16.119 --> 00:45:23.440
respond differently. So after they beat
her in her genitals, Gertrude and Paula

609
00:45:23.480 --> 00:45:30.079
would then proceed to go around town
making false accusations about sylvia likings and making

610
00:45:30.119 --> 00:45:35.400
sure everybody knew it. They were
making claims that she was extremely promiscuous and

611
00:45:35.480 --> 00:45:39.199
very hard to handle, and that
she had actually started making a living as

612
00:45:39.280 --> 00:45:46.079
being a prostitute. And then anybody
who would listen, they would also say,

613
00:45:46.119 --> 00:45:50.480
Oh, and she's pregnant too.
She's just unruly, she's unmanageable,

614
00:45:50.760 --> 00:45:55.000
she's a whore, she's pregnant,
and she's been sleeping with people for money.

615
00:45:55.760 --> 00:46:00.880
Gert would also make things unspeakably difficult
for both of the liking sisters because

616
00:46:00.880 --> 00:46:06.440
then she would start going on these
tangents to them about the filthiness of the

617
00:46:06.480 --> 00:46:12.679
horse Silvia, and then she would
force Jenny to beat Sylvia. She would

618
00:46:12.679 --> 00:46:15.440
turn siblings against each other. And
I don't know that Jenny ever actually turned

619
00:46:15.440 --> 00:46:19.800
on Sylvia, but she would try
to make her turn on Sylvia, and

620
00:46:20.239 --> 00:46:23.760
poor Jenny, if she didn't comply, then she would receive a beating two

621
00:46:24.599 --> 00:46:30.800
And the psychological component of this type
of abuse is honestly just as scary as

622
00:46:30.840 --> 00:46:34.480
the physical part. Now, if
I'm going to give any credit to Girt,

623
00:46:34.639 --> 00:46:39.360
it's going to be this. She
is skilled at war, psychological war

624
00:46:39.480 --> 00:46:45.039
to be specific. Okay, she
has mounted an offensive that none of the

625
00:46:45.079 --> 00:46:50.599
teens in the house are aware of. And it's called triangulation, right if

626
00:46:50.639 --> 00:46:54.800
you've never heard of this, It's
where an adult will pit kids against one

627
00:46:54.800 --> 00:46:59.880
another for their own gain, and
in essence, what ends up happening is

628
00:46:59.880 --> 00:47:06.159
the kids can't bond with the other
kids because you know, they learn through

629
00:47:06.199 --> 00:47:10.039
this trial and error that they've got
to kind of self preserve as well,

630
00:47:10.800 --> 00:47:15.880
and so they're taught basically in this
situation that Gert is the only one who

631
00:47:15.920 --> 00:47:19.519
can make sense of things, and
she calls the shots. And so when

632
00:47:19.559 --> 00:47:22.280
triangulation is explained, it's going to
be kind of like this. The dysfunction

633
00:47:22.360 --> 00:47:25.840
starts when the adult is going to
isolate and discredit the truth teller, and

634
00:47:25.880 --> 00:47:36.480
in this situation it's Sylvia. And
as this goes on, it will it's

635
00:47:36.519 --> 00:47:40.440
going to give credit to Gert's delusions
of what she believes is happening in her

636
00:47:40.440 --> 00:47:46.199
home. So when a child becomes
a scapegoat, it shifts the attention away

637
00:47:46.199 --> 00:47:51.559
from the abuser and it makes everyone
question the integrity of the abused. It's

638
00:47:51.599 --> 00:47:53.920
sad, but it happens. And
so there's usually going to be the scapegoat

639
00:47:53.920 --> 00:47:57.800
and the golden child. And the
golden child in this situation is Paula.

640
00:47:57.840 --> 00:48:00.679
Paula can do no wrong, Paula's
in charge, and Paula and teaming up

641
00:48:00.679 --> 00:48:05.679
on the skategoat scapegoat, which is
Sylvia. So Sylvia, the scapegoat,

642
00:48:05.719 --> 00:48:07.960
is going to take all the blame
for the problems of the home, and

643
00:48:07.039 --> 00:48:12.159
all of the efforts are now going
to go towards isolating and discrediting her in

644
00:48:12.199 --> 00:48:15.800
the home as well as around town, because then it's going to preserve inside

645
00:48:15.840 --> 00:48:19.000
the home when the whole town looks
at this girl as if she's a problematic,

646
00:48:19.400 --> 00:48:22.079
you know, whore. All right, So we've got all this isolation

647
00:48:22.119 --> 00:48:25.519
tactic happening and try to discredit Sylvia
on top of all the abuse that's happening.

648
00:48:25.559 --> 00:48:29.360
So moving forward, I want you
to remember this, there's other neighborhood

649
00:48:29.400 --> 00:48:30.880
children who've been watching and seeing what's
going to happen, and some of them

650
00:48:30.920 --> 00:48:36.360
are even going to participate in further
abuse of Silvia. So the neighborhood kids,

651
00:48:37.239 --> 00:48:37.920
you know, there was a lot
of them, but there were a

652
00:48:37.960 --> 00:48:42.679
few of them that would actually play
a larger role in this. In this

653
00:48:43.039 --> 00:48:49.199
case, their names are Mike Munroe, Randy Lepper, Darlene Maguire, Judy

654
00:48:49.320 --> 00:48:52.840
Duke, and Anna Cisco. Now
you don't have to remember all their names.

655
00:48:52.840 --> 00:48:53.360
I'm going to talk you through it, but I just wanted you to

656
00:48:53.360 --> 00:48:58.519
know there's a couple of them at
play here. So Randy Gordon Lepper is

657
00:48:58.519 --> 00:49:01.320
his last name, and Coi hub
are both fifteen year old boys, and

658
00:49:01.440 --> 00:49:07.559
Coy is the boyfriend of one of
the Benichetski girls named Stephanie. So why

659
00:49:07.599 --> 00:49:10.639
would I be talking about these other
teens in the case. And that's because

660
00:49:12.039 --> 00:49:15.920
what takes place next is is even
worse, so kind of like a game

661
00:49:15.039 --> 00:49:21.280
for sport. One day, they
were having supper at the house and Girt

662
00:49:21.280 --> 00:49:24.039
and Paula were there, as well
as that neighbor Randy Gordon that had just

663
00:49:24.119 --> 00:49:30.960
mentioned, and they thought it would
be fun to force feed the starving Sylvia

664
00:49:30.079 --> 00:49:36.679
a hot dog that they completely overloaded
with condiments. So imagine a hot dog

665
00:49:36.679 --> 00:49:39.880
that is grotesquely overloaded to the point
that you can't even see the hot dog

666
00:49:39.920 --> 00:49:44.760
or the bun. I'm talking like
gobs of mustard and ketchup, all sorts

667
00:49:44.760 --> 00:49:50.000
of spices. And as someone who
doesn't personally like hot dogs, this makes

668
00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:52.559
my stomach turn. I'm not a
fan of those. I can't imagine if

669
00:49:52.559 --> 00:49:55.079
you're starving and then you're being force
fed a ton of this together, how

670
00:49:55.079 --> 00:49:59.480
gross that might be. But as
you can imagine, it made Sylvia sick

671
00:49:59.679 --> 00:50:05.000
and a result, after they force
fed her, she vomited, and then,

672
00:50:05.039 --> 00:50:09.119
thinking it was hilarious, they then
up the ante and they forced Sylvia

673
00:50:09.280 --> 00:50:14.719
to eat her own vomit they got
it all together and they made her eat

674
00:50:14.760 --> 00:50:19.800
it. And hopefully you know me
by now, and you know that I'm

675
00:50:19.800 --> 00:50:23.079
not telling you these things for salaciousness
or anything like that. This is for

676
00:50:23.239 --> 00:50:27.440
Sylvia that I'm telling you because I
want you to understand what this was.

677
00:50:27.719 --> 00:50:31.760
It wasn't just eat until you puke. Okay, there's a medical data on

678
00:50:31.800 --> 00:50:36.840
the effects of force feeding somebody when
they're actually starving, and so let's just

679
00:50:36.840 --> 00:50:39.679
get real with it real quick.
Through the National Library of Medicine, where

680
00:50:39.679 --> 00:50:45.079
a look, they've covered this,
and force feeding is something they look at

681
00:50:45.119 --> 00:50:52.559
almost as a as a method of
war, and they consider it formal torture

682
00:50:52.639 --> 00:50:59.840
to do that to someone, and
force feeding, you know, is some

683
00:51:00.239 --> 00:51:04.519
that's even looked at now on like
a human rights level. The argument is

684
00:51:04.519 --> 00:51:09.360
that it breaches your civil liberties and
it's the excesses of power over somebody.

685
00:51:09.559 --> 00:51:15.440
And so there was this pamphlet that
was published that was talking about force feeding,

686
00:51:15.639 --> 00:51:19.480
and they say, when you force
feed somebody who is hungry or starving,

687
00:51:19.760 --> 00:51:22.280
that it's considered and this is a
direct quote a Nazi style torture.

688
00:51:23.480 --> 00:51:30.440
And so they didn't excerpt in there
from someone who survived force feeding after they

689
00:51:30.440 --> 00:51:36.119
had starved. And this is a
quote from them, but they said,

690
00:51:36.280 --> 00:51:40.679
as at last it happened today.
On my nineteenth day of hunger, I

691
00:51:40.800 --> 00:51:46.320
was forcibly fed. It was unpleasant
in the extreme. Actually, what led

692
00:51:46.400 --> 00:51:52.119
up to the force feeding was that
on Saturday, after I took a bath,

693
00:51:52.239 --> 00:51:54.760
I fainted and my blood pressure dropped
a bit, which I promise you

694
00:51:54.800 --> 00:52:00.960
Sylvia was experiencing as well if she's
starving, so forcible feeding was the next

695
00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.639
step. I really panicked as I
thought I was suffocating. It only takes

696
00:52:04.679 --> 00:52:07.360
a few minutes, but it's like
an eternity to crown matters. I was

697
00:52:07.519 --> 00:52:13.039
violently sick afterwards, and it brought
everything up in my stomach. I feel

698
00:52:13.039 --> 00:52:15.199
a wee bit better now, but
I'm dreading going through it again tomorrow.

699
00:52:15.599 --> 00:52:21.239
It's only to be expected that after
nineteen days without food, my stomach would

700
00:52:20.800 --> 00:52:23.519
reject anything that you try to feed
it. Now, that was not Sylvia,

701
00:52:23.559 --> 00:52:28.400
that was another person's experience. But
even they're telling you how horrible it

702
00:52:28.519 --> 00:52:32.440
was. And during another event,
an Irish civil rights demonstration, there was

703
00:52:32.480 --> 00:52:37.360
a psychiatrist there named Brian Lavery,
and he asserted that the psychological effects of

704
00:52:37.440 --> 00:52:44.480
force feeding someone who has been starving
is similar to the psychological effects of someone

705
00:52:44.519 --> 00:52:51.679
who has been raped multiple times.
I'm not comparing starvation to rape. I'm

706
00:52:51.679 --> 00:52:57.280
not, but if you had to
equate it, it's that horrific. But

707
00:52:57.440 --> 00:53:00.719
what it does, what seems clear
about it altogether is the manner by which

708
00:53:00.760 --> 00:53:07.239
force feeding was performed against Sylvia.
It was done with the purpose of loss

709
00:53:07.239 --> 00:53:12.800
of her dignity and to grade her. So at one point after that happened,

710
00:53:12.800 --> 00:53:16.800
and just some semblance of trying to
show her retaliation in any small way

711
00:53:16.840 --> 00:53:20.920
that she could, Sylvia was actually
still going to school at this point,

712
00:53:21.079 --> 00:53:23.679
so she decided that she was going
to say something ugly about the Bannichetski girls.

713
00:53:25.400 --> 00:53:30.079
So she went to school that was
at Arsenal Technical High School, and

714
00:53:31.559 --> 00:53:37.199
she told a kid at the school
that Stephanie and Paula Panajetski were prostitutes.

715
00:53:37.039 --> 00:53:42.239
And she did that just because she
was upset because they were they were singling

716
00:53:42.280 --> 00:53:44.880
her out just for the similar things. Right, They're going around school saying

717
00:53:44.880 --> 00:53:46.440
she's a whore, and she's a
prostitute and all this stuff, and Sylvia's

718
00:53:46.639 --> 00:53:51.559
not even sexually experienced. So after
she says it, to this classmate,

719
00:53:52.239 --> 00:53:58.199
Stephanie Banichetsky was jokingly propositioned by a
boy later that day, and so when

720
00:53:58.199 --> 00:54:00.719
she asked that boy, why,
why would you say that to me?

721
00:54:02.639 --> 00:54:06.320
He says, well, Sylvia said
it. Sylvia said you're a prostitute.

722
00:54:06.320 --> 00:54:07.840
And I could see that happening,
right, kids being stupid and saying what

723
00:54:07.920 --> 00:54:14.039
kids say. Well, in typical
teenage fashion. When they got home after

724
00:54:14.039 --> 00:54:17.119
school, Stephanie went up to Sylvia
and asked her about the rumor, and,

725
00:54:17.159 --> 00:54:21.719
being the bold teen that Sylvia was
and continued to try to be,

726
00:54:22.280 --> 00:54:25.400
she owned up to it. She
told the truth. She said, yeah,

727
00:54:25.400 --> 00:54:30.559
I did say it. Okay,
I said it, and Stephanie reacted

728
00:54:30.559 --> 00:54:35.199
inappropriately and swiftly punched Sylvia in the
face. Now, something that was kind

729
00:54:35.239 --> 00:54:39.119
of interesting about that exchange to me
was that Sylvia did immediately apologize and through

730
00:54:39.159 --> 00:54:45.719
tears and pain, she was crying
because it hurt. But then Stephanie responded

731
00:54:45.719 --> 00:54:52.000
back by starting to cry as well, and I almost felt like they both

732
00:54:52.119 --> 00:54:54.639
knew they had done something that was
kind of not representative of who maybe they

733
00:54:54.679 --> 00:55:00.639
really were or who they wanted to
be. And so while this change seemed

734
00:55:00.639 --> 00:55:06.039
to be almost out of like a
sweet broken heartedness in a weird way.

735
00:55:06.159 --> 00:55:10.440
There was someone watching it wasn't gonna
have one second of it, and that

736
00:55:10.480 --> 00:55:16.119
would be Stephanie's fifteen year old boyfriend
I previously mentioned named Coy Randolph Hubbard.

737
00:55:17.679 --> 00:55:22.440
So when he heard the rumor,
he lost his ever loving shit and he

738
00:55:22.480 --> 00:55:27.559
didn't sit back and think about what
Sylvia was going through and try to assess

739
00:55:27.599 --> 00:55:30.159
everything he knew to be happening in
that home because he knew it and he

740
00:55:30.280 --> 00:55:36.000
knew that Sylvia was being abused.
No, instead, he decided that he

741
00:55:36.039 --> 00:55:40.119
would brutally attack Sylvia, and I
mean brutally slapping her across the face.

742
00:55:40.159 --> 00:55:45.000
He continuously was banging her head into
the walls, and he eventually flipped her

743
00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:50.679
body backwards onto the ground like a
wrestler, you know how they throw their

744
00:55:50.719 --> 00:55:53.920
opponents down. He flipped this girl
back and slammed her down on the ground.

745
00:55:55.039 --> 00:55:59.519
But no one talks about what that
must have felt like. Anytime I

746
00:55:59.559 --> 00:56:00.679
hear someone tell this story, they
just talk about, oh, he did

747
00:56:00.679 --> 00:56:06.079
these horrible things. What do you
think it felt like? I mean,

748
00:56:07.440 --> 00:56:13.199
think about it. You know,
a boy is beating up a girl in

749
00:56:13.239 --> 00:56:16.000
the freaking nineteen sixties, and this
is when girls are still supposed to be

750
00:56:16.039 --> 00:56:19.559
girls back then, if you know
what I mean, they're still wearing dresses,

751
00:56:19.599 --> 00:56:22.559
and you know, ladylike is the
way you're supposed to be. And

752
00:56:22.599 --> 00:56:28.039
here's a boy beating up a girl
who had no defensive training, who couldn't

753
00:56:28.079 --> 00:56:34.599
defend herself, and gert Trude saw
it and felt when she found out about

754
00:56:34.599 --> 00:56:40.440
it, she did something about it. She took a paddle and beat the

755
00:56:40.440 --> 00:56:46.760
ship out of Sylvia. Again.
I think I've had enough for the day.

756
00:56:46.840 --> 00:56:51.480
It's been a long episode. There's
a lot left, so we're gonna

757
00:56:51.599 --> 00:56:54.199
have to go into a part three. But as you can see, this

758
00:56:54.199 --> 00:57:00.400
little girl is going through a lot. She's being mistreated physically, a motionally,

759
00:57:00.320 --> 00:57:04.199
and anyway I think that you could, you could abuse somebody. And

760
00:57:04.199 --> 00:57:07.280
we've got all these other kids seeing
it and people watching it and nobody really

761
00:57:07.320 --> 00:57:13.880
saying anything, and I don't know, it infuriates me. It really makes

762
00:57:13.880 --> 00:57:16.360
me mad. And the fact that
gart would even let a one of her

763
00:57:16.559 --> 00:57:21.360
teenagers be in charge of a household, that paul A bitch makes me even

764
00:57:21.400 --> 00:57:23.639
madder. But I mean, all
I would have to say to her at

765
00:57:23.639 --> 00:57:25.840
this point is shut up, slept. The only test you could pass was

766
00:57:25.880 --> 00:57:27.719
a pregnancy test.