Anyone remember a case where a 16-year-old girl was abused and tortured by

[raccoon]

and older woman, and others, until she died? It was maybe 30 years ago, and in Illinois, I think. IIRC the 16-year-old girl was staying with some people she wasn't related to.

A feminist writer wrote a novel about the case.

[lavenderdiva]

1. could it possibly be this case in Indiana that you are thinking of?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Baniszewski

Gertrude Nadine Baniszewski (née van Fossan) (September 19, 1929 – June 16, 1990), also known as Gertrude Wright and Nadine van Fossan, was an Indiana divorcée who, with the aid of some of her own children and neighborhood children, such as Ricky Hobbs and Coy Hubbard, oversaw and facilitated the prolonged torture, mutilation, and eventual murder of Sylvia Likens, a teenage girl she had taken into her home. When she was convicted of first-degree murder in 1966, the case was called "the single worst crime perpetrated against an individual in Indiana's history".

there was a movie made about this case, starring Catherine Keener as Gertrude Baniszewski, entitled 'An American Crime' in 2007.

[whathehell]

2. Yes, a terrible crime in the mid-sixties. Kate Millet wrote about it

in a book called "The Basement".

[raccoon]

3. Thanks to both of you. That was the one. nt

[whathehell]

4. You're welcome...I was a fairly sheltered teenager when that happened

and I remember being chilled to the bone by it. The only other crime of that nature that I recall feeling that freaked by was "The Moors murders" in England, which occured just a few years earlier, I believe...Sixties.

That one was truly demonic. It was a man and a woman.."thrill kills"..horrible.