Behind Closed Doors Part 4

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Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime
podcast. Or I tell stories of real

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crimes with real victims whose cases are
so shocking that many are left wondering how

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is this even real? I use
my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and

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combined with my years as a criminal
justice educator, dig deep into complex cases

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of evil acts, some so evil
many feel they are unspeakable. Warning.

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Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences.
If you are easily offended, then I'm

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not your girl. Listening discretion is
advised. Hey all, kJ here back

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for other episode of Unspeakable. What's
going on? I can tell you one

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thing that's going on. All my
people on patron good Lord, have mercy.

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There are a bunch of people I
have to give a shout out to

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today and let me just get going
because there's a list. Now. What's

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cool about it is it's all girls
and one boy. And I just have

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to say I'm a pretty big fan
of the boy. The man that signed

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up because his last name is Jennings. My own husband signed up, and

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so Blake Jennings. This is your
shout out. Yes he's here. You

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get a shout out from your wife. Thank you so much. For joining

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in, sir. It means so
much that you support me, all right,

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But some other names, I got
to give a shout out to Brittany

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Gosha, Christy Vogel, Sharon Dixon, Sarah Brown, and I also have

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to give a shout out to Cecilia. Now, Cecilia, girlfriend, I

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have butchered your last name. I've
gotten it wrong about one hundred times,

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so I googled your last name check
it out book suitin Book? Am I

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right this time? Cecilia suitin Book? Did I get you right this time?

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I sure hope so. Because you
also were the winner of my merch

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drawing that I did yesterday, we
gave you our told you about your winning

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at the LSU game yesterday, So
you won the merch for doing all the

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shares last week. And I'm gonna
get all that stuff out to you.

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I'll email you too to get your
size so I can send you all your

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stuff that you want. So thank
you so much to everybody that shared.

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That was a lot of fun,
and I'm gonna continue to do that because

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I like giving stuff away. I
think it's fun. But I've also got

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some Julie Rose and Amanda McDonald Becky
Thrift, Janelle Ward, and Missy Bonan.

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How are y'all doing, Ladies.
Missy I know Missy because she is

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dating a family member of mine,
but I'm so glad to have y'all.

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Thank you so much for joining.
And then I've got Jennifer Bro, Hey,

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Jen, how are you? Jen? And I go way back?

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Jennifer bro Miss Leonor Cocher, Rebecca
Klug or Clug. I'm gonna go with

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Klug Rebecca Clug. I hope I
got that right, girl, Farris Sanchez

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and Jennifer Brown. Ladies, thank
y'all so much for joining my Patreon.

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That support means everything. It gives
me opportunities that I normally would not have.

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So I want to just tell y'all
from the bottom of my heart,

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thank you so much. I appreciate
you. And look, miss Amy Biddle,

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I know you reached out to me
because you didn't get your shout out.

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Girl. I've searched for you everywhere
I can't find you, but I'm

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giving you your shout out right now. Miss Amy, thank you so very

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much, and let's get started on
this episode. Now. By the way,

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if you want to join patron,
you can just go to Patreon dot

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com and search for Unspeakable, a
true crime podcast by Kelly Jennings, and

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you can join in. I'm gonna
be recording some bonus episodes really soon for

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y'all and uploading those and some extra
tons of extras and member discounts on some

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merch that I throw out there.
So if I haven't sent you an invoice

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yet for your discounted merch, also, stay tuned. That's come in probably

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this afternoon. Okay, this is
kind of funny, but I wanted to

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tell you all this. So I
was teaching last week and I messed up

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what I was trying to say,
and just out of natural thing, because

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you know, you say boom whenever
you mess up, said Jim when to

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fix it. I was speaking to
my students and I said boom that,

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and they all looked at me.
What And I was like, oh my

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god, it's tried to correct myself
in the middle of class with a boom.

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But Jimithy wasn't there to fix it, so I had to fix it

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myself. But I boomed live in
a class. That's embarrassing, all right,

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So let's get started. This is
going to be the final episode of

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the Sylvia Likens case y'all spoke and
said, hey, girl, finish it

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up. So this is going to
be I got a lot for you,

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so get ready and listen close.
It's a lot of detail. So where

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we left off last time was with
the etching and burning of the words I

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am a prostitute and proud of it
into young Sylvia Likens stomach. And so

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how was this done? Because I
think I just told y'all it was kind

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of burned into her stomach, but
I wanted to let you know exactly what

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happened there to this young girl.
So with a hot needle and jabbing it

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into her skin, that is how
they put this into her body. A

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hot needle and jabbing it. So
think about your stomach and how tender of

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a place that is. I mean, I'm diabetic, okay, and it's

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controlled, no worries, but I'm
diabetic and putting the shot that I have

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to take into my stomach makes me
freaking cringe just thinking about it. So

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I was out and I stick it
in my leg because I just don't like

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the thought of putting it in my
stomach. And it's a tiny needle,

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y'all, but you still feel it
and this reminds me of what's happening to

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her. But more on the lines
of the stick and poke method of tattooing,

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which if you don't know what that
is, I thought i'd tell you

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real quick because it really adds to
what the child went through. And I

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don't know if you've ever heard of
that, But if it's done properly,

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okay, these are the steps that
you would take it was properly done.

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First of all, they would wash
their hands and you would wash your body

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with soap and water. But Sylvia
didn't get that luxury. And then you

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cover any other wound that you may
have with some plastic and you're supposed to

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use medical gloves. Why because this
can get easily infected. But no,

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Sylvia didn't get that luxury either.
And first, you know, you're supposed

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to make sure that the surface that
you're working is clean. She didn't get

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that. She was actually drug upstairs
and slammed down on a kitchen table.

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And then the website that I went
to to kind of explain how stick and

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pok works says that they use a
household bleach solution one part household bleach to

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nine parts water as a disinfectant,
and then they lay out paper towels or

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a medical tray to cover the rest
of you know, your materials, and

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then they have gloves nearby and they
change them constantly to make sure that there's

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no infection and no cross contamination.
But this child did not get that this

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was torture. So where was it
located? On her stomach? So it

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was across her lower abdomen. And
I'm actually looking at a picture of it

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while I'm describing it to you,
and this is what I see. So

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I want you to imagine her belly
button. Okay, this is a sixteen

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girl. I want you to imagine
your belly button. And then it's below

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the belly button, and it's offset
to her left a little bit, and

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it's all capital letters and it says
I'm a prostitute, and then another line

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underneath it and I'm proud of it. And then there's like an extra oh

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after it. So I don't know
if that was supposed to be and I'm

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proud of it too, or what
they were going for, but it's very

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just jagged. And then as you
look at the rest of her little body,

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you start to notice there's more than
just this etching in her skin.

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It's kind of the culmination of the
things that I've been telling you to this

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point. There's also bruising from left
to right in a row across the near

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entirety of her stomach. I mean, it's like bruising all the way across

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her body. And below the bruising, like I just mentioned it, are

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the capital letters I'm a prostitute in
one line, and the below it I'm

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proud of it. And that last
line of I am proud of it ends

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right above where her pubic hair would
start. So so extremely tender of an

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area, and to be held down
and forced to have that just etched into

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your skin with a hot knife,
just such a private and tender area of

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your body. And she's alive and
awake during this entire process. And so

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I kind of took a moment to
review the photo. And I also noticed

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that if you look at her little
arms in the picture, they're kind of

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drawn up, almost like if you
were defending yourself from a punch, almost

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fist closed, and her arms are
kind of up near her breast area,

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and you can just see all the
burns from cigarettes being put out in her

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skin, and the bruising and the
discoloration and all of the trauma that her

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body has been through to this point, and to just be held against her

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will and to be mutilated, and
according to her own abuser's words, Hobb

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stated that she was crying and moaning
through clenched teeth the entire time. Now,

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when questioned later on, he would
say, yeah, I did that,

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but it was just and this is
a quote short light etchings. Okay,

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well, I don't care what adjectives
or time frame you apply to this.

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You mutilated and forcefully branded a human
being for the fun of it.

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Short light, long, deep.
It doesn't make any difference to me.

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You're an asshole, kid. You
know you're an asshole, and you have

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a power complex, pain inflicting piece
of shit asshole. That is the type

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of person that would do this to
someone else if I wasn't clear enough,

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you know. And the fact that
he even tries to justify it or minimize

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it tells me everything I need to
know about what happened to this girl.

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We have the luxury in the year
of twenty twenty three, knowing that she

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wouldn't have to carry this branding forever, but at that time, she didn't,

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and they didn't either in the time
that they were doing it to Sylvia,

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which means it was one hundred percent
intended to humiliate and mutilate her forever.

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And please don't let his words discount
that this is permanence, as if

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having the words I am a prostitute
and proud of it isn't enough to make

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you just like boil in anger.
The abuse to her stomach and body wasn't

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done. Sylvia would then be forced
to get up and both Hobbs and ten

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year old Shirley Benichetski would lead her
down to the basement, and once there,

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the two teens would begin to treat
Sylvia like a head of cattle and

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brand her skin. They have already
etched this and burned this with a needle

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into her skin, which I don't
even have this written down, but I

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just recall this from my research.
But gert was there. Gertrude actually wrote

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it on a piece of paper and
then went and started etching it. And

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she got so far as I'm a
and then she got tired and told Hobbes

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here, you finish it. So
why do I say, though like cattle?

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Like they led her like cattle well, both physically and symbolically. I

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feel like what they did had more
meaning to it than just what was face

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value. In the photo that I'm
looking at on my sheet of paper while

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describing this to you, there's another
very obvious scarring to her body. It's

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above her navel and under Sylvia's left
breast, and it looks to be like

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the number three burned into her skin. And it's roughly five to six inches

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in length. It's not small,
it's big, and compared to the I'm

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a prostitute words below it, it
looks to be done in a perfect type

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set, almost like from a computer. So I'm like, how is this

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so? How is it so trashly
etched below? But then this three on

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her stomach is so perfect like a
typeset, you know, why is it

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so different from the other markings that
look so uneven and off centered. Well,

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this is explained easily because much of
the method you would think about when

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you're branding cattle. They sear it
into her flesh. But instead of using

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a branding iron, which is perfect
is designed for cattle to be quick,

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they used a metal anchor bolt.
Now I don't claim to be some kind

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of you know, bolt guru and
know everything about you know, building materials

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and all this kind of crap,
so I'm not gonna lie to you.

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I looked it up because I wanted
to be clear of what they meant by

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an anchor bolt. So they come
in a variety of sizes, but I

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want you to imagine a long bolt, and it's it's a couple of inches

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long, right, and it's straight
for a few inches, but on the

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end of it it's curved like the
top half of an S. So it's

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a long straight line and then the
top half of what would look like an

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S. So the top half looks
like half of an S, which means

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she got two separate searing burns into
her skin because they wanted to try to

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make it look like an S for
Sylvia, Right, Sylvia, I am

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a prostitute and I am proud of
it. But the dumbasses when they went

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to see her the second half of
that S into her skin. The application

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they did was backwards, so instead
she had a huge three under her breast

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rather than an S. Not that
either one would be wanted, but they

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couldn't even brand her properly, so
I'd mentioned, you know, branding like

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cattle, and I wanted to add
something here. I also don't claim to

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be an all knowing cattle rancher,
okay, but I have a brain,

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and if anything I do know about
people who do raise cattle is that they

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care for their animals. These animals
are their livelihood, and their care results

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in their income, so they take
steps to ensure that the cattle's discomfort and

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the branding procedure is minimum. The
like in sisters were Gert's income source.

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If you think about that, remember
how excited she was that their daddy was

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going to be paying them to stay
in the house. I feel like knowledge

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is power, So I did a
little research on branding, and I hope

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if I have any cattle ranchers listing
that they'll be proud of my findings.

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But again, I don't claim to
be an expert, but I do have

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the power to sert research. And
I went to agrobeef dot com and this

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is their exact statement on branding and
its purpose. And this is a quote.

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The procedure lasts a split second,
and the handlers are all well trained

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to keep the calf's discomfort to a
minimum. A split second, y'all,

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and it's over. This was not
a split second what this child went through.

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This was slow and torturous of an
experience for this child. The cattle

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I mentioned also the cattle site that
I went to also made a point to

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say that right after that branding,
they released those those calves immediately to their

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mothers to limit the distress. Not
Sylvia, no, she would get more

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torture right. She's not released to
her mother for comfort. She was held

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down and had a burning needle scratched
into her stomach, then drugged downstairs and

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branded like an animal, but not
even given the decency that an animal receives.

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And she's not even allowed to be
released to her mother or her father

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for comfort afterwards. Even more telling
was this statement that I read on why

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farmers brand their cattle? Why do
they do it? So? Tell me

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if this hits you some type of
way, because it hit me some type

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of way quote unquote. Branding is
a method of permanent identification and proof of

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ownership. And that hit me hard
when I read it, because y'all,

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they felt like they owned her a
piece of property rather than a human being

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equal. Once Gert saw what had
been done to Silvia, she then decided

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that emotional trauma would be a great
next step to add to this physical trauma.

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And so she would start taunting Sylvia
in the days to come and mock

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her for this branding that she got
and didn't even want. And she would

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say things to her like, you'll
never get married. Now, what are

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00:16:53.320 --> 00:17:00.320
you going to do now that you're
branded? No man's gonna want you prostitute,

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And reportedly Sylvia would say with sorrow, only one thing to her and

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would say, well, I guess
there's nothing I can do. I guess

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I'm stuck with it. You know. I had major surgery when I was

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twenty seven, twenty seven years old, because I had the beginning stages of

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colon cancer. And at twenty seven
years old, it rocked my world.

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Okay, I had major surgery to
remove eighteen inches of my colon and still

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to this day, a married,
thirty nine year old woman with children,

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I still am self conscious about the
scar on my abdomen and the way that

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it kind of indents in. And
part of being a good human being is

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the ability to empathize with others and
what they're going through. And I'm imagining

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this sixteen year old girl in the
shape of the girls that I teach,

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because I teach sixteen year old girls, seventeen year old girls, And how

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would they react to their body being
damaged in such a way. You know,

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they would be horrified, y'all.
Things that seem so trivial and the

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big picture of life are huge to
them at that age. It's just where

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they are in life, and that's
okay. They don't have the advantage of

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experience under their belts. And the
emotional state of Sylvia at this point had

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to be one of resignation, and
she knew she wasn't going to win in

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this Young Silvia, y'all, was
just a teenager, and she now is

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mutilated, and her body is not
as it should be, and she's going

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through more than most of us will
experience in our lives, both physically and

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emotionally. And it breaks my heart
how alone she must have felt. And

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even worse is that Gert forced Sylvia
to then show these carvings to the neighborhood

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kids and teens that would show up. She would force her to raise her

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shoe up and expose herself as well
as this mutilation to all the kids in

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the neighborhood for fun, right,
So they could gauk at her, and

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then Gertrude would also add to these
claims that Sylvia got the tattooing at a

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sex party. She had attended,
right and sneer and point and laugh,

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00:19:18.680 --> 00:19:21.480
look at the prostitute, Look what
happened to her at her sex parties.

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So weak and wounded, Sylvia would
then have to lay on the mattress in

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the basement. And it was at
this point that Sylvia believed, look,

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I'm actively dying, and how helpless
must Gennya felt too in that time,

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a young girl who can't do much
about the control that they're under. And

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it's at this point that the abuse
had gotten so bad and Sylvia's condition started

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deteriorating to a point that gert actually
started getting kind of nervous, right,

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And so she apparently realized, damn, this may not be able to go

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on forever. And whether she was
afraid that the authorities may find out,

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you know, of Sylvia's condition,
or whether Sylvia may die, either way,

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to save her own ass, she
would start forcing Sylvia to write a

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letter that would justify and explain all
that had happened to her and to her

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00:20:12.039 --> 00:20:18.000
body. So she thrusts a piece
of paper and a pen at her and

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00:20:18.039 --> 00:20:19.960
says, you're going to write this
letter, and she tells her what she

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has to say. So she would
make Sylvia write that she had run away

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from the Banichetsky home. And I
guess in her mind this would obviously be

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to throw off the parents when they
came to look for her. But I

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mean, I guess in her mind
she just thought the parents wouldn't look for

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her after that, like, oh, she ran away, I guess that's

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it. But she then needed a
way to explain all of the damage that

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had been done to Sylvia's body and
her goal and what she came up with

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was that she was going to try
to frame some local boys for everything that

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had happened to Sylvia. The kick
though, was why they mean the teen

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boys supposedly had hurt her. The
letter says it was because she agreed to

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have sex with all of them and
then they abused and hurt her afterwards.

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Because that makes total sense, right, This young girl says, oh,

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yeah, let me have sex with
all these teen boys and then does I

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guess, and then they abuse and
torture her? What? Okay? But

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this is so incredibly calculating by an
evil mind, and in a move that

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screams too little, too late,
Sylvia would be offered some crackers as she

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was tied to a stair rail to
try to I guess improve her condition that

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she was in. Shoving crackers down
her throat was going to help, but

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reportedly Sylvia refused that food, and
so Gert got mad and then went up

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and crammed the food into her mouth
after she had just written this letter that

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wasn't true, And then she and
John Benichetski had a few rounds of beating

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Sylvia all about her stomach at the
end of that day. And I know

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this to be a founded claim because, like I just mentioned to you,

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the photos of Sylvia's stomach with the
etching also shows that bruising across her mid

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section, and it validates what is
argued to have happened there. So,

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after the letter was completed, Gert
began making plans to get rid of Sylvia.

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So she then though, was like, what am I going to do

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with her? I've got this body, right, I've got this girl.

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She's still alive. And then comes
the problem, what about Jenny, Like

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her sister's gonna believe for one second
that her deathly ill sister, you know,

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was wounded and then would be able
to leave on her own and then

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wouldn't take her sister with her.
It's just crazy, and that's what's crazy

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about liars. Okay. They think
that obvious flaws in their plan will just

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00:22:56.839 --> 00:23:00.799
go away and that people will buy
nine. You see this over and over

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00:23:00.839 --> 00:23:07.519
and over again when people start lying
about what's happened. Her grand scheme she

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came up with was she was going
to have John Junior and Jenny blindfold Sylvia

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and then go dump her somewhere in
the woods alive, and then allow her

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to basically die alone in her weakened
and tortured state in the woods. Sylvia

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would try and make an attempt to
save herself after she realizes what the plan

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00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:30.039
was, and she was going to
try to get out of the basement,

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which she did, and she would
make it out of the basement and then

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make a run for the front door, but she was simply just too weak

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and tired to get too far.
Her body was giving out and Gert would

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catch her before she could even get
off the front lawn. She was so

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dehydrated and weak that Gert would then
force Crackers again into her mouth and then

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grab a curtain rod, a thick
metal curtain rod, and start beating Sylvia

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across the head and the face with
it. Coy Hubbard, the neighbor,

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would confirm that happened and even said
that she was hit so hard with the

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curtain rod that it made ninety degree
angles like it bent over Sylvia's head.

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She was struck so hard with the
curtain rod. And then Coy Hubbard would

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take his turn and start striking Sylvia, and he hit her so hard in

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00:24:23.799 --> 00:24:29.559
his final strike that he actually rendered
her completely unconscious and she collapsed on the

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floor. And y'all, you gotta
think about the brain. It's very fragile.

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00:24:36.400 --> 00:24:41.400
You know, it's like made of
entirely blood vessels and nerves. And

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00:24:41.519 --> 00:24:48.640
you're talking about this soft, mushy, massive tissue in this gelatine that controls

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00:24:48.759 --> 00:24:56.000
all neural high function and commands to
a person. But despite how incredible your

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00:24:56.000 --> 00:25:00.200
brain is, there's a few shortcomings. But the brain is act. She

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00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:06.240
really remarkable and resilient at receiving trauma, and so sometimes people will black out,

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but she was knocked out. You
know what I'm saying. A blackout

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in this respect would have helped because
it's kind of like a defense mechanism.

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It stops the brain from processing what's
happening. But she is knocked smooth out

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unconscious, and once unconscious, Gert
would then drag Sylvia to the basement.

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And I don't want to just summarize
it as drag her to the basement.

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It doesn't say she carried her.
She drug her. And I envisioned that

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00:25:32.640 --> 00:25:37.000
bony, sick bitch grabbing her by
the ankles, dragging her to the stairs,

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and then boom boom boom boom boom, dragging her unconscious body down the

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stairs, and then she dumps her
there until the evening, and Sylvia would

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later come too, but she knew
her time was running out, and she

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00:25:52.319 --> 00:25:56.599
knew I've got to do something,
a last ditch effort to try to save

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00:25:56.640 --> 00:26:00.319
myself. But how how can I
do it? I'm down here, I'm

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00:26:00.319 --> 00:26:06.799
desperately sick. So what she does
is she tries to scream for a neighbor's

335
00:26:06.839 --> 00:26:11.119
attention from the basement, and I
can only imagine that those screams were more

336
00:26:11.200 --> 00:26:15.039
like higher pitched talking, you know
what I mean, from her weekend state.

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00:26:15.240 --> 00:26:18.279
And she also would hit and bang
on the walls to the best of

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00:26:18.279 --> 00:26:22.640
her abilities, but to no avail
because nobody would come. And later on

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I did read that a neighbor recounted
hearing it but didn't know where it was

340
00:26:26.519 --> 00:26:30.319
coming from or what it was,
and she kind of dismissed it. And

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00:26:30.400 --> 00:26:34.519
no one would ever be coming to
Sylvia's rescue. She was basically trapped in

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a cell known as a basement,
with no one even reaching out to help.

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Interestingly enough, though I wanted to
tell you all this, the date

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of this episode's release that you're listening
to this is very close to the actual

345
00:26:49.240 --> 00:26:53.440
date of the next section that I'm
about to describe to you, So we're

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00:26:53.480 --> 00:26:59.000
really in the timeframe. If you're
feeling the coolness of the weather outside and

347
00:26:59.039 --> 00:27:03.160
you're seeing the leaves, that's the
tone the temperament of what Sylvia was in.

348
00:27:04.160 --> 00:27:08.279
It's October twenty sixth, nineteen sixty
five. And at this point in

349
00:27:08.319 --> 00:27:15.960
the case, Lichens is now Sylvia
is in an official death spiral, and

350
00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.680
according to documents and testimony, Sylvia
went into a condition where she wasn't even

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00:27:19.720 --> 00:27:26.599
able to speak, and she lacked
all normal coordination, She couldn't walk properly.

352
00:27:26.680 --> 00:27:32.960
She couldn't talk properly, and her
limbs were uncoordinated, and gert would

353
00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:37.519
respond to seeing this by dragging her
out of the basement and up into the

354
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kitchen and as if food would somehow
magically improve the situation, and after weeks

355
00:27:42.720 --> 00:27:48.519
of starving Sylvia, she'd now proper
up against a wall and force feed her

356
00:27:48.559 --> 00:27:52.759
a doughnut and a glass of milk. The problem, though, was that

357
00:27:52.799 --> 00:27:57.160
Sylvia was no longer to able help
herself at all, and she couldn't even

358
00:27:57.200 --> 00:28:03.200
hold the milk or the donut,
which enraged Gertrude. How dare this child

359
00:28:03.240 --> 00:28:06.480
not be able to help herselfs as
she's in the active throes of dying,

360
00:28:06.839 --> 00:28:12.359
and so in frustration that her basic
attempt at quote unquote helping Sylvia wasn't working,

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she responded by throwing Sylvia to the
ground, a sprawled mess of a

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00:28:18.359 --> 00:28:22.519
child that couldn't even fight back at
this point if she even wanted to.

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00:28:23.240 --> 00:28:26.519
It's like kicking a puppy. Man. I just I can't even, I

364
00:28:26.599 --> 00:28:33.680
just can't. So her actions were
so irregular that her communication was now limited

365
00:28:33.680 --> 00:28:38.680
to groans and mumbling, and it
was pretty much incoherent, according to reports

366
00:28:40.200 --> 00:28:45.839
and realizing that things were becoming pretty
serious. Even Paula Benichetski that hoe there

367
00:28:45.920 --> 00:28:51.680
was yelling at her and said,
you better recite the alphabet, because that

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00:28:51.799 --> 00:28:53.599
was what a basic thing anyone should
be able to do, especially if you're

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sixteen years old. But you know, Sylvia wasn't even able to get herself

370
00:28:59.799 --> 00:29:03.599
up off the ground, much less
say the alphabet. She could only spew

371
00:29:03.799 --> 00:29:07.759
like three letters out of her mouth. And Paula became enraged at this and

372
00:29:07.839 --> 00:29:11.359
started yelling at her and said,
if you don't recite the alphabet, then

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I'm gonna run and stomp you.
And she said, like a long jump

374
00:29:15.359 --> 00:29:19.119
attempt, Like a long jump attempt
at a track meet. You ever watched

375
00:29:19.119 --> 00:29:22.759
that when peple run and then they
jump in the air and see how far

376
00:29:22.880 --> 00:29:26.599
they can jump before they slam down
into the sand. Except she was gonna

377
00:29:26.599 --> 00:29:32.799
be slamming down into Sylvia. Later
that day, the Banichetskis would all go

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00:29:32.839 --> 00:29:36.559
down in the basement where Sylvia was
now, and they were just kind of

379
00:29:36.559 --> 00:29:41.920
gulking at her condition, and they
thoughtfully brought her a rotten pair for her

380
00:29:41.960 --> 00:29:45.079
to eat, but she couldn't.
And some things that I read said that

381
00:29:45.119 --> 00:29:48.960
she was complaining about her teeth hurting
too bad, her mouth hurt too bad

382
00:29:49.000 --> 00:29:55.799
to eat. So Sylvia at this
point is covered in feces and urine and

383
00:29:55.799 --> 00:30:00.319
she's laying on a soaked mattress.
When John Banichetski thought he he would do

384
00:30:00.400 --> 00:30:03.559
something that he thought was hilarious,
and he drug a garden hose down to

385
00:30:03.599 --> 00:30:10.799
the basement and began spraying her like
a dog, just spraying her. And

386
00:30:11.279 --> 00:30:14.200
Sylvia at that point would attempt to
get up and try to leave, but

387
00:30:14.240 --> 00:30:17.319
she couldn't even get to the stairs
at this point, and Gert was so

388
00:30:17.480 --> 00:30:22.279
angered by her attempt to leave this
time that she ran over to her and

389
00:30:22.359 --> 00:30:26.519
started stamping her in the head,
stamping a child directly in the head,

390
00:30:26.599 --> 00:30:36.039
curb stomping her until she lay motionless. Around five thirty pm, Richard hobbs

391
00:30:36.079 --> 00:30:38.039
at neighbor. He came to the
Banichetski home and he headed down to the

392
00:30:38.079 --> 00:30:41.720
basement. But while he was going
down, he would fall. He slipped

393
00:30:41.720 --> 00:30:45.519
and he fell down the stairs.
So as he was gathering himself and he

394
00:30:45.599 --> 00:30:51.400
kind of went to get up,
he looks up and he sees Stephanie Banichetski,

395
00:30:51.440 --> 00:30:53.240
who is down in the bottom of
the basement, and when he sees

396
00:30:53.240 --> 00:31:03.599
her, she's crying and she's cuddling
Sylvia's emaciated and destroyed. So Stephanie was

397
00:31:03.640 --> 00:31:07.000
down there because Gert told her get
down there, and I want you to

398
00:31:07.039 --> 00:31:10.960
go clean her up. And when
Stephanie got down there, the sight of

399
00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:18.519
Sylvia scared her, and even she
seemed to realize that this was beyond bad.

400
00:31:18.640 --> 00:31:22.279
This was beyond cleaning her up was
not going to help. And she

401
00:31:22.440 --> 00:31:26.200
cried as she kind of cradled Sylvia. And while I find out to be

402
00:31:26.279 --> 00:31:33.359
one second of humanity, that that
doesn't replace what's happened to her. And

403
00:31:33.400 --> 00:31:37.599
after a little talking Stephanie and Richard
Hobbs, they decide we need to go

404
00:31:37.640 --> 00:31:41.000
bathe Sylvia, and so we should
clean her up and then we should put

405
00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:48.680
her in new clothes. Now,
when they did bathe, Hobbs would say

406
00:31:48.759 --> 00:31:52.400
in a recording that she was cold
when she was downstairs. So they brought

407
00:31:52.400 --> 00:31:53.920
her upstairs and put her a warm
bath to try to, I guess,

408
00:31:55.519 --> 00:32:00.279
make everything better. And then they
put her in these clean clothes. And

409
00:32:00.319 --> 00:32:04.440
then they took her and they put
her on a mattress in another bedroom.

410
00:32:04.440 --> 00:32:07.279
They didn't take her back downstairs to
that mattress they put on another bedroom,

411
00:32:07.480 --> 00:32:15.759
And that's a nonverbal point to me
that they realized this is so bad,

412
00:32:15.799 --> 00:32:19.119
we can't fix it. So we're
going to do the decent thing and put

413
00:32:19.119 --> 00:32:22.279
her on a clean mattress. But
it's just so indecent. It doesn't matter

414
00:32:22.319 --> 00:32:28.359
at this point, and in a
moment of lucidness, Sylvia would come too,

415
00:32:28.640 --> 00:32:32.079
and this is so heartbreaking, but
she started to cry and the last

416
00:32:32.119 --> 00:32:37.759
words that Sylvia would ever speak were, I wish my daddy was here.

417
00:32:42.279 --> 00:32:45.960
A bit later, Stephanie Vanichetski would
realize that Sylvia was no longer breathing,

418
00:32:46.519 --> 00:32:51.279
and she would attempt to give mouth
to mouth resuscitation, but to no avail.

419
00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:54.680
Even Hobbes would claim that he gave
mouth to mouth resuscitation, but it

420
00:32:54.680 --> 00:33:00.160
didn't work. And all Gert would
do is yell at the other children.

421
00:33:00.559 --> 00:33:05.640
That you know, she was pretty
hysterical, and she was just yelling at

422
00:33:05.680 --> 00:33:07.799
the other kids. Oh, she's
faking her death. She's faking her death.

423
00:33:09.240 --> 00:33:13.680
Well maybe Gert was hoping that's the
case, but it wasn't. Sixteen

424
00:33:13.759 --> 00:33:17.160
year old Sylvia Likns would succumb to
her injuries, surrounded by no one that

425
00:33:17.240 --> 00:33:23.599
loved her or cared for her,
but rather the tormentors who caused her death.

426
00:33:23.759 --> 00:33:30.000
And even in death, Gert Benichetski
claimed she was doing something she wasn't.

427
00:33:31.799 --> 00:33:36.920
And once the realization was made that
this was final and that Sylvia was

428
00:33:37.119 --> 00:33:43.960
dead, cold and not faking it, Gert would then complete the final steps

429
00:33:43.960 --> 00:33:49.599
of her evil plan that she had
set out to do, and that would

430
00:33:49.640 --> 00:33:57.000
include trying to save her own skin. Remember, Gert had forced Sylvia to

431
00:33:57.039 --> 00:34:00.680
write that letter about that gang of
boys and all that they had sune to

432
00:34:00.720 --> 00:34:05.160
her. So she would call the
police and summon them to her home,

433
00:34:05.720 --> 00:34:10.920
and once they got there, the
police would find Sylvia Lichen's body clothed,

434
00:34:12.559 --> 00:34:16.079
lying on an upstairs mattress. Of
course, it wasn't the one that she

435
00:34:16.159 --> 00:34:20.840
had just spent weeks lying on in
her own excrement. It was a clean

436
00:34:20.880 --> 00:34:27.519
one and police would almost immediately be
really suspicious of these circumstances surrounding her death,

437
00:34:28.119 --> 00:34:31.199
and they couldn't overlook the fact that
her body was covered in cuts and

438
00:34:31.239 --> 00:34:37.079
severe bruises and a variety of open
sores, and as they looked further at

439
00:34:37.079 --> 00:34:39.519
her body, they were horrified to
start saying, wait a minute, there's

440
00:34:39.920 --> 00:34:45.960
hundreds of cigarette burns, there's peeling, scald marks on her skin, there's

441
00:34:45.159 --> 00:34:51.599
missing skin from her face. She
had two black eyes. Her lips were

442
00:34:51.679 --> 00:34:57.840
literally shredded from her like chewing and
gnawing on them. Her fingernails were broken

443
00:34:57.880 --> 00:35:01.880
backwards. And they were looking closer
at this, and they raised her shirt

444
00:35:02.320 --> 00:35:09.320
and they found the evidence of severe
malnutrition. The three that was branded on

445
00:35:09.400 --> 00:35:15.039
her chest under her breast and the
words I'm a prostitute and proud of it

446
00:35:15.079 --> 00:35:20.880
etched into her stomach. Now they're
taken aback by this, and like trying

447
00:35:20.880 --> 00:35:23.480
to process, wait, how did
this happen to this girl? And Gert,

448
00:35:23.920 --> 00:35:27.840
again trying to save her own skin, would run and retrieve that letter

449
00:35:27.920 --> 00:35:30.320
that Sylvia had written. It's in
her own handwriting, claiming that a gang

450
00:35:30.360 --> 00:35:35.719
of boys had done this to her. But the various stages of healing of

451
00:35:35.760 --> 00:35:40.039
those wounds and the fact that malnutrition
doesn't happen in just a few days was

452
00:35:40.119 --> 00:35:46.159
more than enough to keep the police
asking questions of Gert Manichetski, and much

453
00:35:46.199 --> 00:35:52.280
to her dislike, they weren't buying
what she was trying to sell. This

454
00:35:52.320 --> 00:36:01.239
didn't happen in one instance by a
group of boys. And at that time,

455
00:36:01.760 --> 00:36:06.360
while they're in the house and the
police are looking, Jenny Likens went

456
00:36:06.440 --> 00:36:10.280
up to the police officers and said, I will make a statement, but

457
00:36:10.360 --> 00:36:13.840
you have to promise that you're going
to take me out of this house if

458
00:36:13.880 --> 00:36:16.599
I do it. Well, that's
what we and the BIZ call a clue.

459
00:36:17.719 --> 00:36:21.719
What is she afraid of? Why
does she want to be removed from

460
00:36:21.719 --> 00:36:24.920
the home? And it was just
all too much for the police to process

461
00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.239
and believe that this was an acute
case of abuse at the hands of a

462
00:36:29.239 --> 00:36:32.480
gang of boys, as Gert was
claiming. So over the next couple of

463
00:36:32.559 --> 00:36:38.320
days, police would begin to question
everyone in the Banichetski home as well as

464
00:36:38.320 --> 00:36:43.599
neighborhood kids about what had been going
on in that home for the last few

465
00:36:43.599 --> 00:36:49.880
weeks and months, And after the
stories and the lies began mounting, the

466
00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:54.840
police took action and they started making
arrests in the death of sixteen year old

467
00:36:54.880 --> 00:37:02.679
Sylvia Lichens. When questioned, here
is Gert Benichetski, in her own words

468
00:37:04.239 --> 00:37:08.000
and in her own voice, explaining
what she says happened. I had never

469
00:37:08.079 --> 00:37:12.679
beat that girl. Never she was
beat up on by other girls. In

470
00:37:12.679 --> 00:37:16.119
fact, my own daughter, saftening
the job, broke her rest and so

471
00:37:16.480 --> 00:37:21.320
I mean, there you go and
girls around the neighborhood beat her rest,

472
00:37:21.559 --> 00:37:23.000
blood, eat her nose. I
have one girl broker nose. In fact,

473
00:37:23.039 --> 00:37:25.440
I think, were you ever in
contact with the police on any of

474
00:37:25.440 --> 00:37:30.840
these occasis? Well in the last
two weeks. In fact, I think

475
00:37:30.880 --> 00:37:36.320
if you talked to my daughters.
I asked him, the children's father and

476
00:37:36.360 --> 00:37:42.599
I are divorced, and he's a
police in Mietkoger was, and I've asked

477
00:37:42.599 --> 00:37:45.320
the girls repeatedly called their dad and
asked him what to do. And in

478
00:37:45.360 --> 00:37:49.559
fact I asked Danny, I say, Jenny, and I told Silvia,

479
00:37:49.599 --> 00:37:51.599
I said, Jill, Hey,
I'm gonna have to call the police or

480
00:37:51.599 --> 00:37:53.800
somebody because I can't have any responsibility. So how do you like that?

481
00:37:55.519 --> 00:38:04.400
Total denial? And I find it
interesting that a grown woman was so alarmed

482
00:38:04.880 --> 00:38:09.119
by the condition of Sylvia Lichens and
how she was looking and acting, that

483
00:38:09.480 --> 00:38:15.280
she had her children supposedly bear the
responsibility of calling their father to ask what

484
00:38:15.360 --> 00:38:20.159
to do. How ridiculous is this
to put this off on kids. Oh,

485
00:38:20.199 --> 00:38:22.239
I'm so alarmed that I kept telling
the kids, call your dad,

486
00:38:22.280 --> 00:38:27.719
Call your dad, give me a
break. What do you mean, call

487
00:38:27.800 --> 00:38:30.079
your dad? Call the police?
Why would you call the man you divorced

488
00:38:30.920 --> 00:38:35.320
over a child that's not even his
concern. That doesn't even make sense.

489
00:38:36.320 --> 00:38:40.079
And it didn't work right because they
obviously didn't call if that was the truth,

490
00:38:40.159 --> 00:38:45.920
which it's not. And in total, the police would take the entire

491
00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:54.239
Benichetski family and eight additional neighborhood children
into custody from that neighborhood. Anna Cisco

492
00:38:54.440 --> 00:39:00.639
who was thirteen, Michael Monroe who
was eleven, Randy Lepper who was also

493
00:39:00.679 --> 00:39:05.719
eleven, and Judy Duke who was
twelve were charged with injury to a person.

494
00:39:06.519 --> 00:39:12.480
However, all of them would be
released under a subpoena where they would

495
00:39:12.519 --> 00:39:17.239
turn as state witness. That's probably
a good thing in this situation. Even

496
00:39:17.280 --> 00:39:22.280
though they hurt her, hurt Sylvia, their testimony is going to sink the

497
00:39:22.320 --> 00:39:30.559
major perpetrators of the crime. Gert
Benichetski's youngest children, Marie who was eleven,

498
00:39:30.920 --> 00:39:34.960
Shirley who was ten, James who
was eight, and Dennis Wright Junior,

499
00:39:34.960 --> 00:39:38.000
who was one, would all be
taken from Gert and placed into separate

500
00:39:38.039 --> 00:39:43.880
foster homes. They get better treatment
than Sylvia got. Not that you know

501
00:39:43.920 --> 00:39:45.760
their kids, not that don't want
aything to happen to kids, but in

502
00:39:45.840 --> 00:39:52.920
that ironic and in December of nineteen
sixty five, a grand jury would indicte

503
00:39:52.920 --> 00:39:58.440
Gertrude Benichetski, her daughter Paula who
was seventeen, and her daughter Stephanie who

504
00:39:58.440 --> 00:40:01.119
was fifteen, and her son John
Junior, who was twelve, on the

505
00:40:01.159 --> 00:40:07.639
first degree murder of Sylvia Likens.
They would also indict neighbors Cooy Hubbard and

506
00:40:07.719 --> 00:40:10.960
Richard Hobbes, who were both fifteen
years old, on charges of first degree

507
00:40:12.039 --> 00:40:16.800
murder. That trial would take place
soon afterwards, and as you can imagine,

508
00:40:16.800 --> 00:40:21.920
was a complete media circus. And
I have cutouts and articles on a

509
00:40:21.920 --> 00:40:27.360
post online and on Patreon, some
special stuff there, and people were really

510
00:40:27.440 --> 00:40:30.960
horrified by the details that would emerge
through radio and through the newspaper. So

511
00:40:31.320 --> 00:40:35.800
I have some excerpts from the actual
trial transcript and I thought i'd read them

512
00:40:35.840 --> 00:40:37.400
to you just you could kind of
see how it was going. So this

513
00:40:37.559 --> 00:40:40.679
was going to be Jenny Likens,
right, Sylvia's sister asked, being asked

514
00:40:40.760 --> 00:40:45.119
questions and answering She was asked,
did Sylvia eat at the table with you

515
00:40:45.199 --> 00:40:49.639
while you had meals? And she
said not all the time. She was

516
00:40:49.679 --> 00:40:52.800
asked when you first went there,
did she? She answered yes? In

517
00:40:52.880 --> 00:40:58.199
what way? Genny answered, I
don't know. They kept saying she was

518
00:40:58.239 --> 00:41:01.199
not clean and they did not want
her to eat at the table. She

519
00:41:01.280 --> 00:41:07.719
was asked what did you see and
when and what was said? Genny responded,

520
00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:10.159
Gertrude said, come on, Sylvia, try to fight me. When

521
00:41:10.199 --> 00:41:16.159
did this happen? Jenny in September, When did or where did it happen?

522
00:41:16.800 --> 00:41:21.840
Jenny says in the dining room.
She's asked what did you see and

523
00:41:21.880 --> 00:41:24.400
what was said? And Genny says, well, Gertrude just doubled up her

524
00:41:24.400 --> 00:41:31.199
fist and kept hitting her, and
Sylvia would not fight back. Marie Banichetski,

525
00:41:31.239 --> 00:41:36.519
who was eleven, testified in court
as well about Sylvia. She was

526
00:41:36.559 --> 00:41:40.320
asked tell the jury what happened.
Marie says, Mom had scalding hot water

527
00:41:40.400 --> 00:41:44.760
running, and she told Sylvia to
come up from the basement, and Mom

528
00:41:44.840 --> 00:41:49.280
put her head under the hot water. How did she hold her head,

529
00:41:50.360 --> 00:41:53.679
Marie answers, by the neck,
They clarified, by the neck. She

530
00:41:53.679 --> 00:41:57.719
says, yes, sir. Was
there any soap on her head at the

531
00:41:57.760 --> 00:42:00.920
time, No, sir. How
long did she hold her under the fawcet?

532
00:42:01.960 --> 00:42:06.440
Marie answers, Mom did not get
to hold her head under there very

533
00:42:06.480 --> 00:42:13.000
long because Sylvia was hysterical and trying
to get away. There was further testimony

534
00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:15.440
from Marie. What kind of girl
was she before she was beaten up?

535
00:42:16.360 --> 00:42:21.159
Marie says, a real nice girl. Was she nice to you, yes,

536
00:42:21.239 --> 00:42:24.599
sir. Was she nice to the
other children in your family? Yes,

537
00:42:24.639 --> 00:42:30.880
sir. Was she nice to your
mother, yes, sir. Did

538
00:42:30.920 --> 00:42:34.559
she work or help around the house. She always got home before us kids

539
00:42:34.599 --> 00:42:37.119
and would straighten up our bedrooms and
the downstairs. I mean, are you

540
00:42:37.199 --> 00:42:43.079
really getting a gist of how sweet
little Sylvia was and that what she endured

541
00:42:44.199 --> 00:42:51.519
was in no way fitting no way. Jenny Likins testified further, and it's

542
00:42:51.519 --> 00:42:54.480
almost like they were accusing Jenny,
you know, but they said you were

543
00:42:54.480 --> 00:42:58.840
perfectly free to go and tell anybody
you saw, weren't you. Yes,

544
00:42:59.599 --> 00:43:00.719
you could have. I've told the
neighbors about this if you wanted to,

545
00:43:00.760 --> 00:43:05.719
couldn't you? I could have.
That don't mean I wanted to die though,

546
00:43:07.519 --> 00:43:12.880
when Sylvia's dead and the police officers
arrive at the house. What did

547
00:43:12.960 --> 00:43:19.199
ginny whisper Get me out of here, and I'll tell you everything. During

548
00:43:19.239 --> 00:43:22.400
the trial, Gertrude was asked about
the child traffic, like all the kids

549
00:43:22.440 --> 00:43:28.400
coming in and out of her home
by her defense lawyer, and she's asked,

550
00:43:28.599 --> 00:43:31.760
did you ever tell them to stay
away? And Gertrude answers, yes,

551
00:43:31.800 --> 00:43:35.639
I did. Many times. I
would try and lock the doors and

552
00:43:35.719 --> 00:43:38.199
Paula, would you know, chase
them out or chase them away, because

553
00:43:38.400 --> 00:43:42.199
I mean, I was to the
point where I could not stand noise or

554
00:43:42.239 --> 00:43:45.360
anything anymore. It was I just
could not take it anymore. I had

555
00:43:45.480 --> 00:43:51.119
everybody's children. Okay, well,
you can try and feel sorry for gert

556
00:43:51.159 --> 00:43:54.679
if you want to. But Sylvia
was the only child forced to deal with

557
00:43:54.719 --> 00:43:59.760
the family's demons, so she's trying
to make herself out to be the victim

558
00:43:59.760 --> 00:44:02.119
here. She tried to lock the
door, y'all. I'm a grown ass

559
00:44:02.159 --> 00:44:06.440
woman. I'm a whole thirty nine
years old. If I don't want kids

560
00:44:06.440 --> 00:44:08.639
in my house, they're getting the
hell out my house. What do you

561
00:44:08.639 --> 00:44:15.320
mean you tried get out of my
house? Ridiculous? Absolutely ridiculous. During

562
00:44:15.360 --> 00:44:20.440
the trial, the deputy coroner of
Indianapolis, his name was doctor Arthur Keble.

563
00:44:21.480 --> 00:44:23.159
He was the one who had examined
Sylvia's corpse at the house. He

564
00:44:23.320 --> 00:44:28.079
testified in court that when he had
first seen her body, he had guessed

565
00:44:28.119 --> 00:44:30.519
the damage was the work of and
this is a direct quote a madman.

566
00:44:31.880 --> 00:44:37.320
After pursuing the photographs of the dead
girl in court, he said, if

567
00:44:37.320 --> 00:44:40.719
I had nothing to see except these
pictures, I would say only a person

568
00:44:40.800 --> 00:44:46.000
completely out of contact with reality would
be capable of inflicting this type of agony

569
00:44:46.320 --> 00:44:51.760
on another human being. Like even
the coroner was shocked. And that's what

570
00:44:51.800 --> 00:44:53.559
he does for a living, is
a look at dead people, and even

571
00:44:53.599 --> 00:45:00.800
he was horrified. Now upon further
testimony, it was also very clear made

572
00:45:00.920 --> 00:45:07.079
that Sylvia had not been officially or
technically raped in the sense of someone comes

573
00:45:07.079 --> 00:45:10.840
in and attacks and holds you down
and forcefully penetrate to you. According to

574
00:45:10.880 --> 00:45:15.920
the coroner, her labia and her
vagina were swollen from external assaults, but

575
00:45:16.079 --> 00:45:22.960
her hymen was intact. Now,
since she wasn't technically raped, this was

576
00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:25.920
not a charge the family would face. But I'm gonna tell you something in

577
00:45:25.920 --> 00:45:30.679
today's times, that was gonna that
would go differently. It's funny to me

578
00:45:31.079 --> 00:45:36.320
that the girl who was branded a
prostitute and a whore by the family supposed

579
00:45:36.599 --> 00:45:40.559
you know, supposedly caring for her, had an absolute virgin on their hands.

580
00:45:42.960 --> 00:45:50.280
The only sexual inclination that that child
had was when they forced her to

581
00:45:50.360 --> 00:45:52.760
behave in a sexual manner and parade
her in front of other children with a

582
00:45:52.760 --> 00:46:00.039
coke bottle or other horrid sexually driven
actions. She never did any herself.

583
00:46:00.800 --> 00:46:06.199
She was a virgin, y'all.
They wouldn't be able to say that for

584
00:46:06.239 --> 00:46:09.079
Paula Bannichetski though, the oldest daughter
of Gert, who, if you remember,

585
00:46:09.159 --> 00:46:14.079
was pregnant after her adventures with a
married man. You remember her because

586
00:46:14.119 --> 00:46:17.800
while on trial, Paula gave birth
to a baby girl. And guess what

587
00:46:17.880 --> 00:46:29.559
she named her. You're gonna love
this, Gertrude. Wow. Gert would

588
00:46:29.599 --> 00:46:34.599
take to court and she would claim
that she had taken so many pills on

589
00:46:34.679 --> 00:46:39.360
the day Sylvia died that this is
her quote. I couldn't remember what happened

590
00:46:39.960 --> 00:46:45.280
in Sylvia slaying. She said the
drugs included feno, barbaital and other medication.

591
00:46:45.440 --> 00:46:47.880
Well guess what, by chance,
y'all, my little weenie dog,

592
00:46:47.960 --> 00:46:51.639
my heart and soul. I need
to post him because I've just spoken about

593
00:46:51.679 --> 00:46:52.639
him, and y'all can all just
tell me how great he is with his

594
00:46:52.719 --> 00:46:58.360
underbite. But my dog Toby bones, he takes peno barbital. He has

595
00:46:58.400 --> 00:47:01.320
a seizure disorder, and even when
he takes his medicine, which he takes

596
00:47:01.400 --> 00:47:07.039
every day, twice a day,
he still remembers just fine. Even his

597
00:47:07.159 --> 00:47:09.480
arch nemesis, the squirrels in my
trees that run around, not my beloved

598
00:47:09.519 --> 00:47:13.639
Joe Burrow squirrel, my pet,
but the ones that run amongst the trees.

599
00:47:13.840 --> 00:47:16.679
He doesn't forget to harass them.
He knows exactly where he hides his

600
00:47:16.719 --> 00:47:21.039
bone every time, he knows where
his water bowl is, and he knows

601
00:47:21.079 --> 00:47:23.360
where to go lay down. So
it's funny to me that Gert just can't

602
00:47:23.400 --> 00:47:27.599
remember anything. But my dog,
who's on high doses of this, does

603
00:47:27.719 --> 00:47:31.280
just fine throughout the day. He
doesn't bump into walls or forget. So

604
00:47:31.480 --> 00:47:35.719
let's talk about Gert's lawyer for a
little while. And y'all, there's so

605
00:47:35.840 --> 00:47:37.400
much to this case. I could
even do another episode on it. I'm

606
00:47:37.440 --> 00:47:42.400
not I may do one may for
my Patreon members if y'all want me to,

607
00:47:42.559 --> 00:47:45.239
and we could kind of discuss or
maybe have a live and talk about

608
00:47:45.599 --> 00:47:47.840
the trial and some of the other
things, if y'all are interested. But

609
00:47:49.800 --> 00:47:55.199
the attorney here, his name is
William Erbecker. That's her defense attorney.

610
00:47:55.440 --> 00:48:00.119
This is the quote that he said
in court. No sane person could do

611
00:48:00.239 --> 00:48:05.400
such a thing. He said,
she's not responsible because she's not all there,

612
00:48:05.679 --> 00:48:08.159
and then he like tapped the side
of his forehead with his index finger,

613
00:48:08.320 --> 00:48:10.760
kind of like emphasizing the problem was
in her head. You know,

614
00:48:10.840 --> 00:48:17.280
she's not all there. He then, inappropriately, in my opinion, put

615
00:48:17.320 --> 00:48:22.199
the guilt mindset on the jurors of
that case, because then he said another

616
00:48:22.239 --> 00:48:24.559
direct quote, you'll have to live
with your conscience for the rest of your

617
00:48:24.599 --> 00:48:30.079
life if you send an insane woman
to the electric chair, right, because

618
00:48:30.119 --> 00:48:31.039
I don't know if even said this, I should have, but she was

619
00:48:31.039 --> 00:48:39.519
claiming insanity, all right, bull
shit, this woman's not insane. So

620
00:48:40.119 --> 00:48:44.719
in my opinion, it seems like
if you're thinking about the lone gunman who

621
00:48:44.800 --> 00:48:50.199
quote unquote snaps and begins firing his
weapon in a church or a school or

622
00:48:50.400 --> 00:48:55.000
the sadistic psychopath who secretly like stalks
his prey. You know those people,

623
00:48:55.320 --> 00:49:00.280
it's easier for me to look at
them and distance myself from them, say

624
00:49:00.320 --> 00:49:05.559
they are suffering from some frickin mental
illness. Then a woman who sat there

625
00:49:05.960 --> 00:49:13.079
turned on a teenager and encouraged her
own children to help abuse her over a

626
00:49:13.239 --> 00:49:16.719
long period of time. If you
snap, you snap right then, and

627
00:49:16.760 --> 00:49:22.760
you act right then. This was
chronic. This was not acute what happened

628
00:49:22.800 --> 00:49:29.519
to this girl. So I can't
buy. I just can't buy whatever they're

629
00:49:29.559 --> 00:49:30.719
trying to claim, and then to
put it off on the jury like it's

630
00:49:30.760 --> 00:49:34.719
their fault. If this woman gets
the electric chair, she deserved the electric

631
00:49:34.800 --> 00:49:37.519
chair, she also deserves a swept
kick in the ass and a paunch in

632
00:49:37.519 --> 00:49:43.480
the face prior to the electric chair. Other than my opinion of Gert,

633
00:49:43.480 --> 00:49:47.599
though, science has even jumped in
in further studies and tried to offer their

634
00:49:47.719 --> 00:49:52.559
explanation of her actions and her children's
actions. And this is something that I

635
00:49:52.559 --> 00:49:54.800
took from a scientific website. I'm
gonna be honest. I forgot to I

636
00:49:54.880 --> 00:50:00.360
forgot to give them their dues here
I can post it, though, butentists

637
00:50:00.440 --> 00:50:04.480
have weighed in on this case in
more recent years, and their explanation was

638
00:50:04.519 --> 00:50:07.880
actually pretty thought provoking for me.
Okay, when the scientists lay out their

639
00:50:07.920 --> 00:50:12.800
facts, it all comes down to
the fact they say that human beings imitate.

640
00:50:12.880 --> 00:50:16.760
When it's all said and done,
we imitate and they converge emotionally,

641
00:50:17.760 --> 00:50:24.559
so they called it traveling emotion or
information transit. They said, violence is

642
00:50:24.599 --> 00:50:30.639
not like a disease. It is
a disease. The biological mechanism, the

643
00:50:30.679 --> 00:50:35.920
brain machinery underneath it all, may
be a kind of neuron, but it

644
00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:42.719
can't be at work between violent attacker
and a victim because if the victim is

645
00:50:42.920 --> 00:50:46.360
like me, if the victim feels
like me and I can put myself in

646
00:50:46.400 --> 00:50:52.079
their shoes, right, how can
I torture and murder her? Therefore,

647
00:50:52.559 --> 00:50:57.360
the victim has to be outside of
that imitation loop. So basically, what

648
00:50:57.480 --> 00:51:02.760
science was arguing is that the children
mirrored girl but not Sylvia by what they

649
00:51:02.800 --> 00:51:08.360
called a biological mirror mechanism called an
unconscious contagion. I hope that makes sense

650
00:51:08.400 --> 00:51:10.960
to you, but I kind of
get it. They have to make Silvia

651
00:51:12.039 --> 00:51:15.199
a thing, not a person,
because if they start to empathize with her.

652
00:51:15.440 --> 00:51:19.000
Then it won't work, and so
they attach themselves to their mother and

653
00:51:19.039 --> 00:51:23.039
they imitate what their mother does and
carry it forward. That's science, that's

654
00:51:23.079 --> 00:51:28.239
their argument. But regardless of the
why, the saddest thing to me is

655
00:51:28.239 --> 00:51:32.840
that even after torture that leads to
the death of this young girl, Sylvia

656
00:51:32.960 --> 00:51:37.599
still doesn't win the war. I
got to tell you the outcome of the

657
00:51:37.639 --> 00:51:44.039
trial. Stephanie Banichetski, who voluntarily
testified for the state. She was not

658
00:51:44.159 --> 00:51:46.000
forced, and she was not given
a deal or anything. The one who

659
00:51:46.079 --> 00:51:51.679
had cradled Sylvia, she testified for
the state, and they gave her a

660
00:51:51.800 --> 00:51:54.960
separate trial. She was found not
guilty, and she was ultimately released.

661
00:51:57.519 --> 00:52:02.679
Gertrude Banichetski pleaded not guilty by reasons
of insanity. I personally don't find evil

662
00:52:02.679 --> 00:52:07.840
and insane to be the same thing, but they allowed it. I also,

663
00:52:07.920 --> 00:52:10.239
I'm going to say that I'm pretty
sure she had the benefit of the

664
00:52:10.280 --> 00:52:14.559
times, if that makes sense,
because people weren't quite aware of the realities

665
00:52:14.599 --> 00:52:16.159
that some people are actually just evil
and mean. Right, We're in the

666
00:52:16.199 --> 00:52:22.440
sixties here, and she went to
trial. She was found guilty of first

667
00:52:22.440 --> 00:52:27.000
degree murder, and she was sentenced
to life in prison. Now did that

668
00:52:27.000 --> 00:52:30.440
make you smile a little bit?
Well, I'm about to ruin that for

669
00:52:30.519 --> 00:52:36.400
you, because the judgment was later
reversed on an appeal that Gert filed in

670
00:52:36.480 --> 00:52:40.000
nineteen seventy and she was granted a
brand new trial, and they gave her

671
00:52:40.039 --> 00:52:43.760
a change of venue, right,
so she's not in the same area where

672
00:52:43.760 --> 00:52:47.519
everyone's been dealing with the case.
In that nineteen seventy one re trial,

673
00:52:47.920 --> 00:52:52.400
again they found her guilty of first
degree murder, which is great and all,

674
00:52:52.800 --> 00:53:00.920
but then she was granted parole in
nineteen eighty five. She literally got

675
00:53:00.960 --> 00:53:06.599
like twenty years and was let go. In my humble opinion, this should

676
00:53:06.599 --> 00:53:10.480
have resulted in an execution, but
that didn't happen, and I'm not in

677
00:53:10.559 --> 00:53:15.760
charge of anything. So they also
reported in the media. You may want

678
00:53:15.760 --> 00:53:19.239
to know this, but it was
reported that while she was incarcerated, she

679
00:53:19.400 --> 00:53:24.239
was called a model prisoner and she
was even called mom by her fellow inmates.

680
00:53:24.960 --> 00:53:30.840
Freaking disgusting. Sylvia is going to
be dead forever and she basically gets

681
00:53:30.920 --> 00:53:36.159
nothing in comparison to what she did
to this girl. Awesome way to go

682
00:53:36.320 --> 00:53:40.159
justice system on that one. Now, Paula Banichetski, who was also found

683
00:53:40.199 --> 00:53:44.840
guilty, but of second degree murder
and was sentenced to life in prison.

684
00:53:44.960 --> 00:53:47.440
Another smile comes across your pa,
your face, good lock that bitch up

685
00:53:47.519 --> 00:53:52.840
right. But she too was granted
a new trial on an appeal in nineteen

686
00:53:52.920 --> 00:53:58.440
seventy and she pled guilty. And
I want you to sit on this for

687
00:53:58.519 --> 00:54:10.280
one second. We pled guilty too, in voluntary manslaughter. Involuntary what that's

688
00:54:10.440 --> 00:54:15.480
voluntary, that's murder what she did
and was a part of. But they

689
00:54:15.559 --> 00:54:22.599
allowed her to plead to involuntary manslaughter. That is such a miscarriage of justice

690
00:54:22.679 --> 00:54:27.039
because she was That happened in the
nineteen seventy one retrial. And you know

691
00:54:27.079 --> 00:54:34.039
what, her new sentencing was two
to twenty one years, two to twenty

692
00:54:34.039 --> 00:54:39.360
one years. And she learned so
much during her incarceration of her supposed two

693
00:54:39.400 --> 00:54:45.800
to twenty one years that she even
twice escaped from prison. She got out,

694
00:54:46.760 --> 00:54:52.239
and the cherry on top, the
absolute cherry on top, she too

695
00:54:52.440 --> 00:55:04.440
was granted parole after just two years. That's sick. Coy Hubbard, Richard

696
00:55:04.480 --> 00:55:08.639
Hobbes, and John Benichetski Junior were
all convicted of manslaughter and They were all

697
00:55:08.679 --> 00:55:15.039
sentenced to two to twenty one years
as well, but they all served eighteen

698
00:55:15.119 --> 00:55:24.920
months and then were released on parole
in nineteen sixty seven. Basically, they

699
00:55:24.960 --> 00:55:28.480
got away with it. In my
opinion, they did all of this to

700
00:55:28.519 --> 00:55:31.440
this young girl. They enjoyed every
minute of it. They lied through their

701
00:55:31.480 --> 00:55:38.719
teeth and got a slap on the
wrist. And Sylvia is still dead.

702
00:55:42.119 --> 00:55:44.760
So what happened after all of their
release? I thought I'd go even a

703
00:55:44.760 --> 00:55:47.800
bit further on this and let you
know what happened after they were released.

704
00:55:50.159 --> 00:55:53.719
After the three Benichetski's were released from
prison, they all were afforded new names.

705
00:55:54.199 --> 00:55:58.320
They all changed their names. Fun
fact, so did their father,

706
00:55:58.480 --> 00:56:01.920
Officer Banichetski, because he was He
didn't take part in me of the torture,

707
00:56:01.960 --> 00:56:05.199
but his name was drug into it, and so everybody hated him because

708
00:56:05.199 --> 00:56:07.559
of his name too. So they
all changed their names because they couldn't.

709
00:56:07.880 --> 00:56:10.079
They couldn't live up to everything they
had done, so they just had to

710
00:56:10.159 --> 00:56:15.000
change their name. Cooy Hubbard died
in June of two thousand and seven from

711
00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:21.199
a heart attack, and I'm not
mad about it. Richard Hobbes. He

712
00:56:21.280 --> 00:56:24.239
died of lung cancer on January second, nineteen seventy two, at the age

713
00:56:24.239 --> 00:56:29.000
of twenty one, and it's good
for him. He didn't make it past

714
00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:31.519
twenty one. Well, Sylvia didn't
make it past sixteen, so again I

715
00:56:31.559 --> 00:56:37.360
ain't mad about it, unlike Sylvia
who never aged past sixteen years old.

716
00:56:37.760 --> 00:56:43.719
John Benichetski Junior lived in relative obscurity
under an alias name and he went by

717
00:56:43.800 --> 00:56:50.559
John Blake. And guess what he
became later in life, a minister.

718
00:56:51.960 --> 00:56:58.280
He became a minister and he was
frequently hosting counseling sessions for children of divorced

719
00:56:58.320 --> 00:57:02.239
parents, and he died of diabetes
in two thousand and five. He lived

720
00:57:02.280 --> 00:57:08.440
to be aged fifty two. Paula
Banichetski was released from prison December sixth,

721
00:57:08.519 --> 00:57:14.840
nineteen seventy two, and she quickly
changed her name to Paula Pace and she

722
00:57:15.000 --> 00:57:20.400
too drifted off into obscurity as well. But that was until October of twenty

723
00:57:20.440 --> 00:57:25.119
twelve, when a school district in
Conrad, Iowa, received a tip,

724
00:57:25.280 --> 00:57:30.239
an anonymous tip that they may want
to look into one of their teacher's aides,

725
00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:35.480
a fourteen year veteran of the school
district who was described as a quiet

726
00:57:35.559 --> 00:57:42.119
and friendly woman who often helped her
students was identified as being the Paula Benichetski

727
00:57:42.480 --> 00:57:49.960
working in a school system with children, so the Consolidated School District's board unanimously

728
00:57:50.039 --> 00:57:53.440
voted to fire her she was sixty
four years old, for falsifying information on

729
00:57:53.519 --> 00:58:00.679
her job application. Gertrude changed her
name to Nadine van Fawsen, and she

730
00:58:00.800 --> 00:58:05.639
too moved to Iowa, where she
died of lung cancer in nineteen ninety.

731
00:58:06.119 --> 00:58:09.440
Jennykeens and Sylvia's older sister remember her. She tried to find them and save

732
00:58:09.480 --> 00:58:14.239
them. Her name was Diana.
She would just continue on with her life

733
00:58:14.400 --> 00:58:17.440
and have to live with the tragic
loss of her sister, and she would

734
00:58:17.480 --> 00:58:22.920
actually make news later on. I
found because she was on a drive with

735
00:58:22.000 --> 00:58:25.599
her husband his name was Cecil,
when they got lost in a remote area

736
00:58:25.679 --> 00:58:31.159
of California, and she was lost
for two weeks until she was finally found.

737
00:58:31.440 --> 00:58:35.079
She ended up being hospitalized, but
her husband wasn't so lucky. He

738
00:58:35.119 --> 00:58:39.840
died of a heart attack while they
were awaiting their rescue. Jenny Likens would

739
00:58:39.920 --> 00:58:44.840
grow up and eventually marry her husband. His name would be Leonard Wade,

740
00:58:45.159 --> 00:58:47.360
and together they would have two children. They named them Tammy and Bob,

741
00:58:49.000 --> 00:58:52.719
and she died of cardiovascular failure on
June twenty third, two thousand and four,

742
00:58:53.159 --> 00:58:59.000
at fifty four years old. And
sweet Sylvia, right, the main

743
00:58:59.039 --> 00:59:05.360
purpose of this store will be forever
sixteen. She was never afforded a life,

744
00:59:05.639 --> 00:59:08.639
or to marry or to have kids, and she was robbed of any

745
00:59:08.800 --> 00:59:15.760
semblance of normalcy and decency. In
her final months of life. She was

746
00:59:15.840 --> 00:59:24.719
degraded and dehumanized and humiliated and murdered
by a group of evil, jealous assholes.

747
00:59:25.960 --> 00:59:30.360
But hey, in the end,
I love this. It's kind of

748
00:59:30.360 --> 00:59:35.639
poetic. But Sylvia's honor has been
vindicated, and the world knows the truth

749
00:59:35.800 --> 00:59:39.880
about a sweet young girl who no
matter the torture she endured, no matter

750
00:59:39.960 --> 00:59:45.679
the branding applied to her body,
she still left this earth a virgin with

751
00:59:45.760 --> 00:59:52.960
a kind heart. So basically,
the Banichetskis thought that they would win by

752
00:59:52.960 --> 00:59:58.920
throwing dirt on her name, but
instead flowers grew. I'd be mad too, bitches,