House of Evil: The Indiana Torture Slaying (St. Martin's True Crime Library) (20 page)

Hobbs took the stand at 3:34 p.m. and told the jury in his deep but boyish voice that he had met the Baniszewski family in late July and thereafter became a frequent visitor at their home. He told the jury how he had gone there “just to visit” on Saturday, October 23, and wound up etching the words “I’m a prostitute and proud of it!” on a girl’s stomach. He told how he stopped in again on Tuesday, October 26, on the way home from school to say “Hi” and returned to the Baniszewskis’ about 5:30 p.m., after he had changed his clothes, had supper and done his homework.

He told of Gertrude’s panic, his rescue attempts, Sylvia’s death and the arrival of police.

“Well, the policeman was chasing everybody out of the house that wasn’t a member of the family,” the boy testified. “I went home and watched the rest of Lloyd Thaxton.” Lloyd Thaxton was a clownish television disc jockey who had a nightly show for teenagers.

“Did you ever strike Sylvia Likens with anything?” the boy’s attorney asked him.

“No, sir,” the boy replied. Nor had he knocked her downstairs, or tied her up, or flipped her, or burned her with anything but the makeshift branding iron, he said. He did admit the tattooing, the branding, and striking her four or five times in the process.

“Gertrude told me to do the things on her abdomen,” he explained. “I don’t know why I hit her.” He said he did not tell his father of his involvement until the day after his arrest. “He didn’t take too much notice himself,” the boy said; “he was too worried about Mom.”

Up to now, the lad had been addressed as “Ricky.” From here on, as Deputy Prosecutor Leroy New took over on cross-examination, he would be addressed contemptuously as “Mr. Hobbs.”

“Now, you stated, Mr. Hobbs,” New began, “that Sylvia Likens never did anything to you: Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

New then had him step down from the witness stand and indicate to the jury, in the picture of Sylvia’s
body, which marks he had inflicted on her. He said that about three-fourths of the bruises in the autopsy photo were already on Sylvia when he began his tattoo.

New was forceful, loud, insinuating. “So in other words, Mr. Hobbs, there were massive cuts and bruises on this body when you were branding her: Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, it was your idea, Mr. Hobbs, to brand and mutilate this girl, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know. It may have been my idea.”

“Now, Gertrude Baniszewski didn’t make you do it, did she?”

“No, sir.”

Hobbs had testified that Sylvia flinched while she was being branded. “Did you ask her if it hurt?” New wanted to know.

“No, sir.”

“What you did is hit her four or five times with the back of your hand, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And she begged you not to do that, didn’t she?”

“No, sir, because I’d remember something like that.”

“Did you smell the flesh when you burned her?”

“No, sir, it wasn’t that hot.” (Just hot enough to leave a big, red “3.”)

“As a matter of fact, you don’t care, do you, Mr. Hobbs?”

“At this time I do.”

“Nobody made you do that, did they?”

“No, sir.”

“Now the fact is, Mr. Hobbs, you’ve remembered only what you want to this afternoon, haven’t you?”

“I imagine—I don’t know.”

“You weren’t remorseful at all, were you? You felt no sorrow or pity?”

“No, sir. Not at the time.”

“You just wanted to be mean to her, didn’t you?”

“I imagine.”

Hobbs’ grizzled father, who had taken time off from a downtown construction project where he was foreman, sat in the gallery, staring at the floor.

“Instead of giving her artificial respiration,” New suggested, “you kept your weight on her so she couldn’t breathe, didn’t you? You were tromping on her!”

“No, sir,” the boy denied. It was 5:09 p.m. and court was adjourned, but New resumed his grilling Monday morning.

Hobbs had denied being at the Baniszewski house on October 25, in his testimony, but his signed confession said he thought Sylvia would be gone Tuesday, the 26th, “because Gertrude told me she was to get rid of Sylvia the night before.”

“Now the fact is,” New said, “you were at 3850 East New York Street the night of Monday the 25th, weren’t you? You planned to get rid of Sylvia Likens.”

“It must have been the truth if I signed it,” the boy conceded. “I don’t remember it now.”

“Were you some particular friend of Gertrude?” New asked.

“I was a friend of the kids, too.”

“Did you ever have sexual relations with Gertrude Baniszewski?”

“No, sir!” It was about the only time Hobbs raised his voice.

He said also he had not seen Gertrude make Sylvia drink urine. “Did you tell a reporter, Mr. Bob Hoover, you did?” New asked.

“No, sir,” the boy said. “I don’t remember talking to any reporter.” A few minutes later, Hoover, a newsman for radio station WIBC, appeared in the courtroom; and New stood him in front of Hobbs. The boy said he still did not recall. Later, during presentation of rebuttal evidence, Hoover testified that he talked to Hobbs a few days after the murder. There was no mention of the cup of urine in the interview, however.

New asked the Hobbs boy whether he became sick during the branding.

“Kind of,” he said.

“Kind of sick where?”

“I can’t describe it.”

“Sick with yourself?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But you didn’t stop.”

Although New’s cross-examination showed several inconsistencies in the boy’s testimony, it would be hard to conclude that he lied deliberately. However,
the cross-examination had been effective in making a case for premeditation and malice.

Nedeff’s next witness for Hobbs was George Martin, the ex-cop who lived across the street. Following him was Barbara Jean Hobbs, 18 years old, the boy’s pretty, brown-haired sister. Both were character witnesses. Except for the boy’s minister, to be called as another character witness later in the afternoon, Nedeff rested his case. The minister, the Rev. Willard J. Doyle of the Grace Methodist Church, said, “I have no better family in the church” than the Hobbs family. “Their home is a Christian home.”

It was time for the state’s rebuttal evidence.

Bob Hoover was the first witness. The second was Joseph Relkin, the psychologist who had testified earlier for Mrs. Baniszewski.

Sportily attired in a plaid coat with a carnation in the lapel, he again walked to the stand and affirmed to tell the truth. New recalled his testimony that he had served an internship at Larue D. Carter Memorial State Mental Hospital. “Did you neglect to tell the jury,” New asked, “that you were also a
patient
there in the psychiatric ward?”

“He didn’t ask me that,” the embarrassed psychologist said. But he admitted it was true. As a matter of fact, Relkin and the lawyer who called him, Erbecker, had been patients at Larue Carter at the same time. But Erbecker swore he met Relkin after his release from the hospital.

Other rebuttal witnesses included Anna Siscoe,
Darlene McGuire, and Stephanie Baniszewski, who was still charged with murder. The Siscoe girl said that she had had only the one fight with Sylvia, after Gertrude had told her that Sylvia had impugned her character.

Darlene McGuire denied putting a cigarette out on Sylvia.

Stephanie Baniszewski was on the witness stand a good part of the day and proved to be almost as interesting a witness as Relkin, Marie Baniszewski, or Randy Lepper. She would toss her long hair about and reflect on each question with the eye of a lawyer, which is what she said she wanted to be.

She testified, among other things, that Richard Hobbs had dropped Sylvia’s head on the stair steps as they carried her upstairs on October 26. Hobbs had denied it. Stephanie’s testimony indicated that that could have been an accident, however. Stephanie’s testimony raised a few other contradictions in Ricky’s testimony, and she added a few details and confirmed some others in the already established state’s case.

On cross-examination, Erbecker sought to expose the “deal” he said the state had made with Stephanie. She testified that she had talked with her mother in the jail lunchroom about the possibility of becoming a state’s witness. “I told my mother that if I thought I should, I would,” she said. “She said I must not love her.” Stephanie began crying then, and added, “I’m just here in the hope I can help anybody.”

“Including yourself?” Erbecker sneered.

“I don’t care what happens to me,” she said.

Erbecker asked about the “deal.”

“Sir,” Stephanie replied, “if they had made a deal, I would have refused it.”

She testified that Gertrude was hysterical at many times.

“What does hysterical mean?” Erbecker asked.

“Hysterical means calm,” said Stephanie.

Unlike Marie, Stephanie refused to be led by Erbecker’s questions. When he asked, “As a matter of fact, everybody around the house was accusing Sylvia of doing something, isn’t that right?” she answered, “No, sir.”

“You know what it means to turn state’s evidence, don’t you?” Erbecker asked her.

“Yes,” she said, “it means to go over to the other side.”

“And you’re here to help everybody but yourself, aren’t you?” Erbecker asked sarcastically.

Stephanie sobbed. “They probably think I came in here because I want to hang everybody too, but I don’t,” she cried.

Stephanie said she could describe her feelings for her mother and her sister Paula “in three words.” What were those words, asked Paula’s attorney, George Rice? “I love her.” But her mother “doesn’t believe it,” she added.

Stephanie loved her boyfriend, Coy Hubbard, too; and, interestingly, her testimony did not recall
any brutality on his part. How long had he been her boyfriend, New asked?

“He said always,” sighed Stephanie.

Except for one last, ludicrous appearance on the witness stand by Gertrude, that was the end of adversary evidence. But for psychiatrists’ testimony and final argument, the case was ready for the jury.

GERTRUDE BANISZEWSKI
had her handkerchief to her face; she was weeping and complaining of severe shortness of breath. It was shortly after 9 a.m. on Tuesday, May 17, 1966, in the fifth week of her trial for murder. She insisted on going back to the witness stand in rebuttal; her attorney, William Erbecker, said it was against his advice. She barely gasped out her testimony. Was it just another attack of asthma, or was she finally realizing the gravity of her situation? Her testimony varied little from her earlier testimony and added little.

Three court-appointed psychiatrists followed Gertrude to the stand and testified, one after the other, that they believed the woman was sane now and was at the time of the crime. All other defendants had withdrawn their insanity pleas. The doctors stuck to their opinion through a total of more than two hours of prodding cross-examination by Erbecker.

“I don’t believe that she’s ever been psychotic,”
said Dr. Dwight W. Schuster. “She had what is commonly termed nervousness.”

Schuster added on cross-examination that she might even be psychoneurotic, or neurotic, but not out of touch with reality. After about 10 minutes, Gertrude pleaded to the bailiff for help. Court was recessed, and Gertrude was given first aid for her “attack.”

When court reconvened, Erbecker asked the doctor what he thought of the savage torture inflicted on Sylvia. “This does not necessarily mean,” Dr. Schuster said, “that this was sadism. I think these things can occur with a person who is in contact with reality.

“I have not said she does not have some emotional problems,” he added. “I think she knew what she was doing and could have controlled herself.”

“Would you recommend this defendant, Gertrude Baniszewski, for a baby-sitter job?” her attorney asked. Objection sustained.

Dr. Schuster added in response to questions by Leroy New that Gertrude had been vague with him when he interviewed her. He said she told him, “I don’t know the whole story; Mr. Erbecker doesn’t want me to say.”

Dr. Dewitt W. Brown was next. He said he did not use the terms “sane” and “insane”; but he said, “In my opinion, she was not psychotic or mentally ill at that time.”

He said she had some impaired memory, however, possibly through use of “the mental mechanism
of denial, a trick that we all use to control or repress things in the unconscious.”

On cross-examination, Dr. Brown came to the aid of the discredited psychologist, Relkin. “Most of her life,” he said of Mrs. Baniszewski, “she’s been a relatively passive person; she’s been able to keep most of her hostilities repressed.” But such repression, he said, can be broken with temper outbursts.

Dr. Brown finished at 12:42 p.m. Judge Rabb had declined to call a lunch recess at noon. Somewhat tested by Erbecker’s lengthy but futile cross-examination, he said he did not want to keep the doctors waiting. However, Gertrude complained of sickness again, and the judge did grant a five-minute recess. Dr. Ronald H. Hull took the stand at 12:52 p.m. He said he had not found any indication that Gertrude ever was insane. As for her vagueness in relating events leading to Sylvia’s death, he said, “I felt she was feigning it.”

“Did you testify previously, in a habeas corpus hearing, that she had a tendency to paranoid thinking?” asked Erbecker.

“No,” the psychiatrist said. Erbecker confronted him with the habeas corpus transcript, quoting him as saying, “She had some tendencies toward paranoid thinking, but not paranoid delusions.”

“Yes, I was wrong,” the doctor admitted. But he added, “Paranoid thinking is a very common thing.” Erbecker launched into a long series of questions, detailing the horror of the crime, asking the doctor with each detail whether it would change his opinion
of Gertrude’s sanity. The lawyer then launched into along series of questions about sadism and neurosis.

Deputy Prosecutor New had let Erbecker question the first two doctors freely, but now he had had enough. He began objecting to each question as irrelevant and repetitious. Judge Rabb sustained objections to eight consecutive questions by Erbecker. “Am I precluded from cross-examining this witness?” Erbecker asked.