The Story of Gertrude Baniszewski: The Caregiver From Hell
How a caregiver brutally tortured and murdered 16-year-old Sylvia Likens in cold blood.
Gertrude Baniszewski was born on September 19, 1928, in Indianapolis, Indiana. From the start, Gertrude was a troubled child. She would often get in trouble with her friends. Her family was poor and very working class. She hated being poor and wanted to have wealth and status.
At the age of 16, Gertrude decided to drop out of high school to marry a man named John Baniszewski. John was 18 at the time of their marriage. To say the least the two had a very rocky relationship. During their marriage, Gertrude bore four children. Ten years after their wedding, the two decided to split up.
It was not long before Gertrude married again — this time to a man named Edward. However, the marriage was doomed from the beginning and only lasted about three months. It was then that Gertrude remarried her first husband, John. During their second marriage, she bore two more children. But, it was never meant to be as the couple divorced for the second time in 1963. Shortly thereafter, Gertrude began a relationship with a 22-year-old man named Dennis. The relationship was often described as abusive and terrible. Gertrude bore one son from Dennis and he abandoned Gertrude…
