R.J. Parker: The Serial Killer Compendium

Gertrude Baniszewski

The Torture Mother

On October 26, 1965, sixteen-year-old Sylvia Likens was found dead. A 911 call was received about a girl who had stopped breathing. When the police arrived at the house, Sylvia was found dead, lying on a mattress. She was half-naked, and lying on a bed soaked with urine. Her body bore scars, burns, and welts, and the words, "I am a prostitute and proud of it," were engraved into her skin. The owner of the house was Gertrude Baniszewski. She claimed that Sylvia had been staying in the house during the summer with her sister, Jenny, and that she had brought the death and torture onto herself by running away. Baniszewski said that she was attacked by a pack of boys, and died shortly after returning home; however, Sylvia’s sister Jenny had a different story to tell.

The actual story was that the Baniszewski had money problems. Gertrude had been trying to keep up the home and feed seven children at the same time. Her income consisted of working at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway selling soda pop, and small child support payments from her ex-husband.

Gertrude was given twenty dollars per week to watch the Likens children who were traveling with the Florida circus, and they had moved in with Baniszewski in July of 1965. When Sylvia and Jenny’s parents were late with the first week’s payment, Gertrude Baniszewski decided to give Sylvia and Jenny a beating, and while beating them she shouted, "I took care of you bitches for nothing!" Even though she was paid the next day, it did not bother Gertrude one bit. Her cruelty escalated over the next few months. The methods went from beatings by hand to paddles, belts, and even wooden boards, and she enforced harder punishment on Sylvia.

Baniszewski also recruited others to help her beat the children. Her first helpers were two of her own children. Then she even used some of the neighborhood children. One of them used her as a human punching bag, flinging her into concrete walls and down flights of stairs as a way to practice his martial arts throws. At Baniszewski’s instruction, they even ground the glowing tips of cigarettes into Sylvia’s flesh, inflicting over one hundred and fifty burns.

Sylvia urinated on the mattress one night, and the basement was made her prison. She was starved of food and forced to eat and drink her own feces and urine. Next, she was forced to insert a coke bottle in her vagina as a part of a bizarre strip tease. With a heated needle, Baniszewski proceeded to etch the words into Sylvia's belly. Sylvia died after being knocked down onto the concrete floor when she was trying to get the attention of the neighbors.

Gertrude was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder. As she was a model prisoner, however, she was up for parole in 1985. The news of Baniszewski's parole hearing sent shockwaves through the Indiana community. Jenny Likens and her family appeared on television to speak out against Baniszewski, as did members of two anti-crime groups, Protect the Innocent, and Society's League against Molestation. They travelled to Indiana to oppose her parole and support the Likens family and began a sidewalk picket campaign. Over the course of two months, the groups collected over forty thousand signatures from the citizens of Indiana demanding that Baniszewski be kept behind bars.

Despite efforts to keep her in prison, Baniszewski walked out December 4, 1985, and traveled to Iowa where she later died from lung cancer in 1990 at the age of sixty.

There is a very beautiful memorial website for Sylvia that you should check out http://www.sylvialikens.com/

She was a beautiful person and was denied the right to live a long and happy life.

Margie Barfield

Marie Bullard was born on October 23, 1932, in Cumberland County, North Carolina, and is an American Serial Killer.

She claims she was molested by her father, starting when she was thirteen. The stories, however, are disputed by seven of her siblings who deny all charges of abuse in any form, by either parent, and it must be granted that Margie's early development seemed normal for the given time and place. She dropped out of high school in her junior year and then eloped with Thomas Burke at the age of seventeen. Settling in Paxton, she bore two children.

The dilemma started after fifteen years of marriage when Thomas Burke's luck turned for the worst overnight. He was discharged from his job and consequently injured in a car crash. He then began to drink heavily in order to drown his sorrows. Marriage became a sort of warfare, with Margie hiding her husband's whiskey – sometimes she would pour it down the sink – and finally committing him to the Dorothea Dix Hospital, in Raleigh, as an alcoholic. She worked at a local mill to support the family and relied on prescription tranquilizers.

Thomas returned from the hospital sober and sullen, bitter at his wife's betrayal. In 1969, after he was burned to death in bed, authorities dismissed the death as accidental, caused by reckless smoking in bed. Later on, however, with the advantage of hindsight, there would be a dark thought of foul play.

Three years later, in 1971, Margie married Jennings Barfield. Only six months after getting married, he died suddenly, and his death was attributed to natural causes. It would take seven years for the authorities to exhume and re-autopsy Barfield, revealing a lethal dose of arsenic in his system. By the time she murdered Barfield, Margie was dependent on prescription drugs, inaccurately mixing her pills, and as a result she was hospitalized four times for overdose. Although she was a drug addict, she maintained an active interest in religion and taught Sunday school at the local Pentecostal church on a regular basis.

Margie had another problem: she was always short on cash, so she started writing bad checks to cover her addiction. She appeared many times in court for this only to receive slaps on the wrists. She continued, however, and in 1974 forged her mother's name for a thousand dollar loan application. Panicking when she realized the bank might try to contact the real Lillie Bullard for verification, she decided to eliminate the problem by feeding her mother a lethal dose of insecticide. Yet again, the death was attributed to natural causes.

Two years later, Margie Barfield was employed by Dollie Edwards as a live-in house cleaner. As a fringe benefit, Dollie's nephew, Stuart Taylor, started dating Margie. Their relationship, however, did not stop the fearless Barfield from poisoning Dollie in February of 1977. Apparently, she had no motives, as there was not anything stolen, and the officials and doctor chalked it up to a sudden death of acute gastroenteritis.

A couple of months later, Barfield next moved in with John Lee, eighty, and his wife Record, seventy-six, to take care of them. “Heaven forbid.” Again, with no motive, she started poisoning John Lee. Before his death, he lost sixty-five pounds. He died on June 4, 1977. She then proceeded to poison Lee’s widow, but gave up her job in October, leaving her frail survivor behind.

Moving right along to a Lumberton rest home, Barfield was twice caught forging checks on her boyfriend’s, Stuart Taylor's account. He forgave her each time, but they argued angrily after her third offense, on January 31, 1978. That night, Margie spiked his beer with poison and kept up the dosage until Taylor died on February 4. Relatives rejected the diagnosis of "acute gastroenteritis" and demanded a full autopsy, resulting in the discovery of arsenic. “Finally!”