Talk:Gertrude Baniszewski

Birth Date

Gertrude Baniszewski was born in 1928. In the murder trial transcript of April and May of 1966, several months before her September birthday, she states that she is 37 years old. I haven't verified yet whether her birthday was September 19 or September 22. Holton Lake (talk) 15:16, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Image

I suggest that there should be a photograph of Baniszewski as I've found many in google and other search engines. Can anyone do this please?

Note

This entire article is essentially a paraphrase of the Crime Library entry as far as I can tell, and it doesn't even read as nice. It needs to be re-written.24.96.242.143

length

this article is incredibly long. if we want to keep such extreme detail about the criminal case, i suggest an article about this itself. Then two shorter biographies Baniszewski and Likens. Any ideas? Amo 10:31, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Length

I agree, this is FAR TOO LONG. The editor that contributed to this should look to find a way to make it concise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chairman Sharif (talk • contribs)

A lot of the length seems to be to imitate the detail found in the Crime Library source. I will edit it down.--Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 08:00, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I had a bunch of edit conflicts while I was cutting it down and it's hard for me to tell what got changed - sorry if any major stuff got lost, if you want to reinstate your own changes go ahead but I think it would be a good idea to work to shorten this even more and not add more trivia and detail to the account. --Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 08:42, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Vagina swollen shut vs Hymen intact

"Meanwhile, an autopsy of Sylvia Likens turned up over burns, bruising, and muscle and nerve damage. In her death throes, Sylvia bit through her lips, nearly severing each of them. Her vaginal cavity was nearly swollen shut, although an examination of the canal determined that her hymen was still intact, largely discrediting Gertrude's assertions that Sylvia was a prostitute and completely disproving her insistence that she was pregnant."

How can these contradictions be possible? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk • contribs) 07:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC).

If you read the Crime Library article on the case you will see that Baniszewski kept kicking Likens in the groin which will cause severe bruising and swelling (shutting the entrance to the vaginal cavity) but no damage to the hymen. Quoting from the Wikipedia hymen article: "It is rare to damage the hymen through accidental injury, such as falling on the top tube of a bicycle." The hymen is primarily affected by penetration. So, no contradiction. DonRuba (talk) 10:20, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Infobox

I added an infobox to this article. It is somewhat incomplete due to the fact that her parents and birth date are unknown but it's a start. I also couldn't find the name of her fifth child with John Baniszewski. Millionsandbillions (talk) 22:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

please fix this error - Hobbs

If you check the text you will see that it mentions "Hobbs" three times, but it never explains who he is. This character is not introduced at all in the text. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Althena (talk • contribs) 07:38, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Seemingly incongruous statements

The article states that a coke bottle was "forcibly" inserted into Likens' vagina on two occasions, and seems to imply that the first incident was by itself traumatic enough to cause her to become incontinent, while at the same time these two incidents left her hymen "intact." --Keith111 (talk) 19:15, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

"Life before Sylvia Likens"

This section is irrelevant and reads like it was meant to induce sympathy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.241.218.107 (talk) 12:36, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Inappropriate External link

John Mathew McCormick - Why do you keep adding the external link to the trial transctript on your site when you are clearly forbidden from posting such a link per: WP:LINKSTOAVOID? You require people to register on your site before allowing them to access the transcript, which clearly qualifies your EL as one of those to avoid. Unless you can provide sufficient justification for adding the link, DO NOT re-add the link again or you will be reported for disruptive editing.Mytvc15 (talk) 03:57, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Polish-American husband?

why are we told that her husband was Polish-American? we aren't even told what ethnicity Gertrude is, and the article is about her. is it because her married name is so obviously Polish?

i'm going to remove it because it singles him out that way, for no good reason.

and if you're wondering, so far as i know, i have not one drop of Polish ancestry.

76.19.63.222 (talk) 04:23, 22 March 2014 (UTC) Michael Christian

It's more possible to him being from Polish descents than her parents. But it is written that her parents are Polish - Dutch origin, when mother is mostly like to be English or American. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.206.120.228 (talk) 22:13, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Gertrude Baniszewski/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

This article seems very ... well, taken. For its length, and only having three references seems rather plagaristic. It needs some serious work for sectioning, cleanup, wikification, and verifiability. — pd_THOR | =/\= | 20:02, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Last edited at 20:02, 10 September 2006 (UTC). Substituted at 16:11, 29 April 2016 (UTC)