Gertrude Baniszewski – An American Crime/The Girl Next Door
These films depicted the torture and murder of a young girl in the 1960s by a woman and her children. Baniszewski took in Sylvia Likens and her sister Jenny in exchange for $20 a week (their parents were traveling carnival workers and could not properly care for their daughters). When the first payment was late, Baniszewski began to torture and mutilate Sylvia (including bathing her in scalding water and pouring salt on the wounds) until she eventually died. Baniszewski stood trial in 1966 and sentenced to life imprisonment, though she was paroled in 1985 and die five years later in 1990.
