Would you save her?
I felt sorry for Sylvia. I felt sorry for humanity.
Browsing through multiple google pages on key words "criminal acts" late last night, I stumbled upon a film based on real life events during the 1960s. Writer and director Tony O'Haver put together court testimonies from the case of Sylvia Likens--the 16 year old girl who suffered cruel treatment and torture from....everyone.
I would not delve much into the details of what happened to Sylvia. There are these snippets of the film (nine-part) in YouTube, which one can conveniently watch. Roughly 90 minutes long, it is a poignant take on Sylvia's story. I googled everything I could find about this story and I was struck by the amount of torment that the poor girl had to suffer. Her torment which people around her had awfully connived at.
It made me furious. It made me cry. It made me sad. It made me want to reach out to her.
It made me question.
How can people just ignore pain? How can people just ignore their evil, wicked ways? How can people claim to take power upon another person's soul and mercilessly push it over?
Jenny, Sylvia's sister, didn't even say a word to authorities while her sister starved, suffered, and was made fun of, at the Baniszewski's basement . She, too, received beatings from the brutal Gertrude, but was spared more than a great deal of the debilitating treatments that her older sister had to endure. (Could Jenny have developed the Stockholm syndrome? Just a theory.)
I think Sylvia died not because of what people were doing, but because of what people were NOT doing. Until now, I ponder on the thought of her death. Could I save her had I been in the same household in 1965? WOULD I?
Go figure.
"...at least people are now talking about things they used to ignore."- An American Crime, 2008
Browsing through multiple google pages on key words "criminal acts" late last night, I stumbled upon a film based on real life events during the 1960s. Writer and director Tony O'Haver put together court testimonies from the case of Sylvia Likens--the 16 year old girl who suffered cruel treatment and torture from....everyone.
I would not delve much into the details of what happened to Sylvia. There are these snippets of the film (nine-part) in YouTube, which one can conveniently watch. Roughly 90 minutes long, it is a poignant take on Sylvia's story. I googled everything I could find about this story and I was struck by the amount of torment that the poor girl had to suffer. Her torment which people around her had awfully connived at.
It made me furious. It made me cry. It made me sad. It made me want to reach out to her.
It made me question.
How can people just ignore pain? How can people just ignore their evil, wicked ways? How can people claim to take power upon another person's soul and mercilessly push it over?
Jenny, Sylvia's sister, didn't even say a word to authorities while her sister starved, suffered, and was made fun of, at the Baniszewski's basement . She, too, received beatings from the brutal Gertrude, but was spared more than a great deal of the debilitating treatments that her older sister had to endure. (Could Jenny have developed the Stockholm syndrome? Just a theory.)
I think Sylvia died not because of what people were doing, but because of what people were NOT doing. Until now, I ponder on the thought of her death. Could I save her had I been in the same household in 1965? WOULD I?
Go figure.
(You'd want to know more: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/young/likens/1.html)
"...at least people are now talking about things they used to ignore."- An American Crime, 2008
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