In the mid-1960s, a 20-year-old girl nicknamed "Babydoll" (whose real name is never revealed) is institutionalized by her stepfather at the Lennox House for the Mentally Insane. After the death of Babydoll's mother, Babydoll's stepfather discovers from their mother's will that his wife left everything to her two daughters. Apparently enraged that he worked so hard to marry the woman (and perhaps engineered her death) only to be left nothing, he gets a bottle of Paradise rum and drinks. And drinks some more. He gets so drunk he attacks and possibly tries to rape Babydoll as she emerges from her sleeping sister's room. She escapes him, but he still manages to lock Babydoll in her room as he then advances on his youngest stepdaughter. Babydoll, panic-stricken, escapes her temporary "holding cell" by climbing out her window and finds her stepfather's .45 caliber pistol. Babydoll stops her stepfather as he is trying to break into the closet where her sister has locked herself. Scared at seeing Babydoll with a gun, he tries to reason with her, but she fires one round that barely clips his left arm. However the bullet ricochets off his arm, hits a steam pipe, shatters a lightbulb, and then fatally strikes her little sister.
