Sentence:  For almost two months , the defendant and the world heard from individuals escaped from the grave about fathers and mothers , graybeards , adolescents , babies , starved , <WSD>beaten</WSD> to death , strangled , machine-gunned , gassed , burned . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  give a beating to; subject to a beating, either as a punishment or as an act of aggression