Aahana Swrup
‘An American Crime,’ Tommy O’Haver’s 2007 true-story-based film, charts a devastating journey about a young girl who faces vehement abuse over the course of a few weeks in 1965. When the Likens’ have to leave town for work, Gertrude Baniszewski, a single mother of multiple kids, offers to look after their daughters, Sylvia and Jenny Likens, in exchange for some money. Initially, the girls face no issue at the Baniszewski residence, making friends with Gertrude’s numerous kids. However, as their stay extends, Sylvia finds herself getting targeted by the matriarch, who routinely vents her frustration on the girl through various methods of abuse.
Eventually, the woman’s abuse of the young girl takes an unthinkable turn, severely endangering the latter’s life. Thus, as the audience witnesses Sylvia’s torture and torment, they’re left anticipating her escape from the monstrous situation. SPOILERS AHEAD!
The Beginning of Sylvia’s Abuse at Baniszewski Residence
Sylvia and Jenny’s parents worked in the carnival circuit, which hindered their ability to stay in one place for a long time. Nevertheless, since the same was essential for their daughter’s education, the father, Lester, finds himself forced to consider options. As a result, after his daughters find themselves at the Baniszewski residence one day after Church to hang out with Gertrude’s kids, their father finds an unexpected solution.
Gertrude, a divorced mother of seven kids, struggled financially to keep her family afloat. As such, she offers to board Sylvia and Jenny for some money. Lester naively takes in her family, with multiple girls, one young boy, and a newborn—and agrees to the deal, deeming her a safe option for his children’s care. Nonetheless, what starts as a pleasant stay with numerous newfound friends becomes a nightmare for the girls. Gertrude’s general negligence toward some of her kids and her tendency to invite trouble through her young lover, Dennis, is already worrisome enough.
However, the true abuse arrives when Lester’s cheque falls behind in transit by a few days. Gertrude, who is clearly struggling financially, doesn’t take well to the delay and decides to take out her frustration on Sylvia and Jenny, whom she whips with a belt as punishment. Thus, an opportunity opens for Gertrude, who realizes she can take her anger out on Sylvia—who takes her sister’s beatings to spare her the pain—without any real repercussions. Therefore, the next time she does something that irks the woman, the latter resorts to violence again.
Paula’s Part in Escalating Sylvia’s Abusive Situation
Paula Baniszewski, Gertrude’s oldest daughter, had a knack for getting herself in trouble. She had a boyfriend who was older than her and married to another woman. Consequently, once the affair results in a pregnancy, the seventeen-year-old finds herself entirely lost. Unable to share her secret with anyone else, Paula tells her predicament to Sylvia, who promises to keep her secret. Nonetheless, she ends up revealing the information after Paula’s boyfriend—who attempts to discard her—gets violent at her in a back alley. Since one other kid, Ricky Hobbs— overhears the conversation, Paula realizes her secret will soon be out to everyone.
Therefore, misplacing her fury on Sylvia, Paula decides to tell Gertrude that the young girl has been spreading lies about her. As a result, the mother makes her son help her oldest daughter beat Sylvia up in another violent punishment. Once the pattern is set, it keeps repeating itself. Whenever Gertrude feels out of control in a situation, she takes out her anger on Sylvia. After the Likens sisters attempt to contact their parents through a payphone, the woman insists they stole money from her to do so and burns them with a cigarette.
For their part, none of the Baniszewski kids try to intervene in their mother’s punishments. In some ways, the more Gertrude targets Sylvia, the more everyone else escapes her wrath. For the same reason, even Jennie, terrified of her situation, stays quiet when the older woman’s actions take a truly devious turn. Gertrude begins projecting her own faults on the young girl, accusing her of promiscuity and lying. As such, after she sees Sylvia innocently hanging out with a boy, the woman doubles down on her accusations. Thus, Gertrude sexually assaults Sylvia and locks her up in the basement.
Gertrude’s Hellish Basement
Once Sylvia gets locked up in the basement, all pretenses of punishment drop, and the girl’s outright torture begins. Gertrude becomes obsessed with inflicting pain upon the girl and begins encouraging others to do so as well. As such, the other Baniszewski—even the youngest kids, begin abusing the girl as she remains helplessly trapped in the basement. Furthermore, they even bring other neighborhood kids to torment Sylvia, allowing them free reign to hit the girl.
Sylvia gains new bruises and scars every day, but no one comes to her rescue. Instead, others begin to gleam glee from her pain, entirely dehumanizing her. Even though the kids know about her state and the neighbors can hear her cries—no one inserts themselves into the situation to help her. In turn, Gertrude makes up lies about Sylvia’s send-off to a juvenile detention facility to explain her absence at school and Church. However, the magnitude of the girl’s abusive treatment finally breaks Paula.
Even so, Paula feels powerless in front of her mother and remains aware of her own responsibility in Sylvia’s current predicament. Still, her consciousness grows heavy, compelling her to seek help from the Reverand. As a result, the Reverand arrives at the Baniszewski residence, seeking answers. Although Gertrude lies her way out of the situation, it reignites her anger and reminds her of her loss of control. As such, she takes it out on Sylvia again—using a hot needle to carve insults onto her torso.
Sylvia’s Imagined Escape
During Sylvia’s entrapment in the basement, one kid, Ricky, remains oblivious to the reality of her situation. Ricky had a crush on her and constantly sought her out. However, the same only furthered Gertrude’s hatred of the young girl. Therefore, once Ricky finds Sylvia while Gertrude is marring her body with the needle, the woman compels Ricky to finish branding the insult on her skin. The abhorrent act becomes the last straw for Paula, who decides to help Sylvia escape that very night. Afterward, she gets help from an extremely apologetic Ricky, who wants to help her escape her situation.
As such, Ricky drives an injured Sylvia to her parents, who are at the carnival. Consequently, she returns to Gertrude’s horror-filled house to save her sister, choosing to face her abusers one last time. Nonetheless, a different reality awaits her inside the house. As it would turn out, Sylvia’s entire escape had been a dream. Since she viewed Paula as a true friend, she imagined the older girl would come to her rescue and aid in her escape from the house. Likewise, she also thought of Ricky as a friend and imagined he would drive her out to her parents—the only people she trusted to keep her safe.
Yet, despite the ease of such an escape—which would have only required some basic human empathy from people who claimed to be Sylvia’s friends—it never became a reality for the girl. Instead, she dies in Gertrude’s kitchen, where the older woman sits in a manic stupor, insisting Sylvia isn’t dead and is only lying about it. After days of abuse and unimaginable torture, Gertrude, her kids, and the others’ actions kill Sylvia. In the aftermath, trials are held, and convictions are handed out. Nonetheless, the fact remains that every testimony would have helped save her life if only someone spoke up sooner. In the end, Sylvia’s spirit returns to the carnival’s merry-go-round ride—the one place she had always felt safe when alive.
Read More: The Baniszewski Kids: What Happened to Them?
