Sylvia: The Likens Trial

In 1965 Forrest Bowman Jr. was counsel for sixteen-year-old Coy Hubbard and thirteen-year-old John Baniszewski who, along with his mother, his seventeen-year-old and pregnant sister, Paula and fourteen-year-old Richard Hobbs were charged with First Degree Murder in the torture death of sixteen-year-old Sylvia Likens. The trial, which lasted a month, was front page news on a daily basis in Indianapolis and attracted media attention throughtout the country and occasionally internationally. The case has been the subject of a movie, a television production, a play and three books. This is the first and only insider's account of what went on at the trial, both in the courtroom and behind the scenes from the perspective of defense counsel.