Episode 8: 924 North 25th Street

Indianapolis, 1965.
Sixteen-year-old Sylvia Likens was left in the care of a woman her parents barely knew. Over the next three months, she was isolated, beaten, burned, starved, humiliated, and ultimately killed inside a crumbling two-story house on North 25th Street. The perpetrators weren’t strangers or masked intruders. They were a mother, her children, and a group of neighborhood kids. And no one stopped it.

This episode explores not only the events that led to Sylvia’s death, but the psychology of group cruelty, moral collapse, and how fear, neglect, and silence turned ordinary people into willing participants. We examine the backgrounds of both Sylvia and Gertrude Baniszewski, the warped family dynamics at play, and the systemic failures that let the abuse continue unchecked. From the first red flags to the staged confession letter… to the moment Sylvia dragged herself to the front door in a last, failed attempt to escape — this is a story of every warning unheeded.

Even after arrests were made, and the trials began, the justice that followed never felt complete. Many of those involved were released. Some changed their names and tried to disappear. And yet the house, the story, and the failure echo far beyond that final basement night.

Sylvia Likens never left that house alive. But she should have. And remembering that truth may be the only justice we have left.

📍 Featured Address: 924 North 25th Street, Indianapolis, Indiana
⚠️ Content Warning: Descriptions of prolonged child abuse, psychological trauma, and murder. Listener discretion is strongly advised.