Sylvia Likens Torture-Murder

    Recently I read about the gut-wrenching true story of Sylvia Likens, a 16-year-old victim of a two-week torture-murder in Indiana in 1965.  Ever since I read the perplexing story I can’t get it out of my head.  If you don’t know the story and you're brave enough, read it here.

    How could someone so innocent be thoroughly abused by so many people and go unnoticed for that long?  It is an absolute failure of parenting, a monstrous pinnacle of neglect, and a travesty in the history of humanity that so many children, apparently without consciences, could inflict that much pain on someone who didn’t do anything wrong.  I know there are other cases like this that have happened, but I think this one stands out for me because Sylvia reminds me of myself in a lot of ways; curly hair, round face, full lips, delicate, attentive, generous, misunderstood, neglected, the older sibling, etc.  That’s not to say my abuse was anywhere near this extreme.  I watched the movie An American Crime, a film that tried to stay accurate yet candy coated the actual events, and she looked eerily similar to who I was in home videos recorded 20 years ago: it felt like I was watching myself.  I guess that’s why I feel for what happened to Sylvia more than other cases.  She was innocent, like me; a saint in an environment of anger, whose glowing grace ignited the jealousy of those she lived around.  She didn't understand why she was being treated that way and neither did I.  Now I am aware that no matter what you do or say people will hate you if you are attractive, generous and intelligent; a combination that seems to make people want to destroy you, something beautiful yet modest, something they can never be, whether they are children or not.  Their failure to be like yourself reminds them of all the rotten things they've done, and if they were abused themselves, they'll use you as a scapegoat and take out their misplaced anger on you physically and emotionally. Gnarlodious solidly explains this phenomenon in an e-mail reply to me called The Twisted Fate Of Angels:

"To watch the TeeVee and other items of propaganda, you would think that an angel on this earth would be adored and revered. In reality it would be just the opposite. Angelic persons have always been ridiculed, tortured and murdered. After that they are slandered, called witches or pagans, and shamed for all eternity. If there are any angels alive and in the flesh, they are hiding out.  Our social norm of nurturing the weak AKA "Liberalism" is a recent evolutionary phenomenon. The vast majority of our history has been marked by rivalry, scapegoating and sacrificing the innocent to absolve the guilty."

    She's right: it is the archetypal story of Jesus echoing through history.  It could even be extended to the sociological realm; in Nazi Germany people made Jews the scapegoat and one of the most atrocious genocides in the history of the world took place.   These deluded and fearful masses, the "collective Judas"*, don't think it's fair that you should go through life without being subjected to the same misfortunes they went through.  But to go overboard like that; to torture and kill someone is sad beyond words.  Sorrow brings wisdom where the soul lay tormented, but Sylvia couldn't escape and she couldn't show us why.

*term borrowed from the Tool song Wings For Marie part 2