Teacher's aide suspended after school officials learn she was part of a family who tortured and killed a teenage girl in 1965

Paula Baniszewski, then 17, tortured Sylvia Likens to death with her mother, brother and neighbourhood kids as girl stayed in their Indiana home

After serving jail time, changed her name to Paula Pace and moved to Iowa

Caller told school she had seen Facebook posts revealing Pace's past



Revelation: Teacher's aide Paula Pace has been suspended after a caller phoned her school to reveal she had killed a girl as a teenager

A teacher's aide in Iowa has been suspended after an anonymous caller revealed to the school she was part of an Indianapolis family who tortured and killed a 16-year-old girl in 1965.

Paula Pace, now 64, has worked in Conrad, Iowa since 1998 and was a teacher's aide at the district's high school.

Yet the caller revealed Pace was in fact Paula Baniszewski, who was jailed for killing Sylvia Likens with her mother, siblings and children in the neighborhood after months of beatings and humiliation.



'They wanted to make us aware of it because of the crime that was involved and because she was in the school system,' Grundy County Sheriff Rick Penning said of the caller.

'We turned it over to the school and we're kind of out of it as there's no criminal offense per se.'

Speaking to the Associated Press, he added that the caller said they had learned about her true identity through a post on Facebook.



'Whether it was somebody on a vendetta or somebody just in the public interest started putting it on Facebook, people just started picking up on it,' he said.

The school district said she was suspended for undisclosed reasons. It is not known whether the district carried out a background check when she was hired.

Penning confirmed that Paula Pace and Paula Baniszewski have the same birth date, and said she has no criminal charges pending.

Busted: The caller revealed she was actually Paula Baniszewski, right, who tortured and killed a girl in 1965

The discovery comes nearly five decades after Syvlia Likens and her sister Jenny moved into the Baniszewskis Indiana home for a summer while their parents worked at carnivals.

The Likens, whose three other children stayed with relatives, were put in touch with mother-of-seven Gertrude Baniszewski by a mutual friend and agreed to pay her $20 a week for the childcare.

But when the girls moved into the large home in the summer of 1965, Sylvia began to clash with her 17-year-old daughter Paula and tensions grew through the house.

Gertrude began turning against the girls, despising them for their parents' late payments, using a paddle to beat them and matches to burn their fingers, the Des Moines Register reported.

Cruelty: Sylvia Likens, left, was tortured to death as she stayed at the home of Gertrude Baniszewski, pictured right in her 1965 trial for the girl's murder. She was sentenced to life and paroled after 20 years

In court: Gertrude Baniszewski, 37, sobs beside her attorney, William C. Erbecker, in 1966 as she is convicted of first-degree murder. Her daughter was also sentenced to life before appealing

Children from the neighbourhood started coming by to torture Sylvia by beating and kicking her or putting out their cigarettes on her skin, while others committed sexual acts on her.

Eventually, Gertrude ruled Sylvia could not leave the house and she was locked into a cellar and denied use of the bathroom.

She even carved 'I'm a prostitute and I'm proud of it!' on the young girl's stomach.

Sylvia's malnourished body was found dead in the cellar on October 26, 1965 and it was determined she from brain swelling and internal hemorrhaging of the brain.

In May 1966, Gertrude was found guilty of first degree murder while Paula was found guilty of second degree murder, and they were both sentenced to life in prison.

In 1971, they were retried due to a 'prejudicial atmosphere' but Gertrude was again found guilty. Paula pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to two to 21 years.

Were there checks? Pace works at a school in Conrad, Iowa and has been employed by the district since 1998

She escaped prison in 1971 but was recaptured, and her prison records show an escape charge was added in December 1971.

She was released from prison on Dec. 6, 1972, and discharged from parole in March 1974. It is unclear when she moved to her current home in Marshalltown, Iowa and changed her name.

Her mother was released on parole in 1985 and moved to Iowa, where she died from lung cancer in 1990.