I had to fire up the Wayback Machine for this one. This website has a ton of good stuff, but you’ll need the Wayback Machine for a lot of it, for obvious reasons. It’s called the Reptilian Research Contents Page.
Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20020822011452/http://www.care1.org/articles/a09_ritual_abuse.htm
| ILLINOIS LAW ON RITUAL ABUSE OF CHILDRENnew file: 7/16/96The State of Illinois Public Act #87-1167 Effective January 1, 1993 Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Illinois:RITUALIZED ABUSE OF A CHILD (a) A person is guilty of a felony when he commits any of the following acts with, upon, or in the presence of a child as part of a ceremony, rite, or similar observance: actually or in simulation, tortures, mutilates or sacrifices any warm-blooded animal or human being; forces ingestion, injection or other application of any narcotic drug, hallucinogen or anaesthetic for the purpose of dulling sensitivity, cognition, recollection of, or resistance to any criminal activity;forces ingestion or external application of human or animal urine, feces, flesh, blood, bones, body secretions, non-prescribed drugs or chemical compounds.involves the child in a mock, unauthorized or unlawful marriage ceremony with another person or representation of any force or deity, followed by sexual contact with the child; places a living child into a coffin or open grave containing a human corpse or remains;threatens death or serious harm to a child, his or her parents, family, pets, or friends which instills a well-founded fear in the child that the threat will be carried out; or unlawfully dissects, mutilates or incinerates a human corpse. Several states have enacted laws prohibiting ritual abuse of children. The wording in each state is nearly identical to the Illinois law. |
| Top | YOU DON’T HAVE TO PLAY ME BACKWARDS… SATANIC RITUAL ABUSE: THE EVIDENCE SURFACES Daniel Ryder, CCDC, LSWThe following lyrics are from a song about Satanic ritual abuse off Joan Baez’s latest album, Play Me Backwards. Incidentally, it’s the lead song.“You don’t have to play me backwards To get the meaning of my verse. You don’t have to die and go to hell To feel the devil’s curse.”It’s not only the “devil’s curse” survivors of Satanic ritual abuse have been feeling of late. They have also been feeling the curse of a pronounced societal backlash. In some circles now, the stories of some of the most heinous abuse imaginable – sexual abuse, brainwashing, torture, murder/sacrifice – are being labeled as “patently false.” Therapists are being accused of planting these memories. And, for instance, the FBI has come out debunking the phenomenon, saying, unequivocally, there is no tangible evidence organized Satanic ritual abuse exists at all.However, my research shows it does exist. And indications are we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg of a social phenomenon that, when totally exposed, will rock the core of societal beliefs.For the last four years, I have crises-crossed the country interviewing cult researchers, ritual crime investigators, task force members, therapists, investigative reporters, cult survivors…as part of an in-depth investigation on the issue of Satanic ritual abuse. And, the research has yielded some extremely eye-opening things.The most eye-opening hasn’t been the mutilated backwoods remains of a cult victim’s body in Massachusetts. It wasn’t the bloody pentagram carved into a cult victim’s corpse in San Francisco. The most eye-opening, has been a widely cited Law Enforcement Perspective report out of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Center in Quantico, Virginia.The report was written by supervisory special agent Kenneth Lanning. It has gone out to law enforcement agencies around the country; and has been cited consistently throughout the media the last several years.The report states, in regards to “organized” Satanic ritual abuse homicide (that is, two or more Satanic cult members conspiring to commit murder): “The law enforcement perspective can’t ignore the lack of physical evidence (no bodies, or even hairs, fibers, or fluids left by violent murders.”No bodies?The following is an excerpt from a March 13, 1981, UPI article:“Fitchburg, Mass. — The alleged leader of a devil worship cult was found guilty of first degree murder Friday in the ritual killing of a young Fall River, Mass. prostitute last year. Carl Drew, 26, stood pale and expressionless as the verdict was announced. He was immediately sentenced to life imprisonment by superior court judge Francis W. Keating…Miss Marsden was allegedly killed, mutilated and beheaded by Drew and two others in a blood-soaked night time ritual in a wooded area because she wanted to leave the cult.”In 1993, House Bill 1689 was introduced in the Massachusetts Legislature. It is a bill prohibiting “Certain Ritualistic Acts.” Some of these acts include: ritual mutilation, dismemberment, torture, the sacrifice of animals, humans…(A similar bill was passed in Idaho in 1990).Also, in the 1993 Avon Books release: Raising Hell, author/investigative reporter Michael Newton writes, “While some cult apologists may be forgiven their ignorance of current events, (FBI) Agent Lanning — with access to nationwide police files — should know better. As this volume amply demonstrates, cult related killers stand convicted of murder in 23 states and at least nine foreign countries. Numerous other occultists are now serving time for practicing their “faith” through acts of arson, rape, assault, cruelty to animals, and similar crimes.”The organization, Looking Up, founded initially as a nationwide support/referral program for incest survivors, serves approximately 15,000 people a year, 40% of whom now are reporting they are dealing with ritualistic or cult related abuse. According to a spokesperson for JUSTUS Unlimited in Denver, a non-profit referral and resource center, they are currently receiving more than 7,000 Satanic ritual abuse related calls a year. (What’s more, they are also hearing from all over the world: Australia, New Zealand, England, The Netherlands, Germany, Israel, Canada…)Given the tangible evidence now surfacing, and given the volume of people reporting Satanic cult related abuse, it would seem curious the FBI would come out with such a definitive stance attempting to discredit the increasing phenomenon. Of course, then again, it was the same FBI that for more than the first half of this century consistently said there was no evidence whatsoever of another type of “organized” criminal activity. That is — Mafia related crime.Actually, Satanic cults are somewhat similar to Mafia crime families.There is, for instance, extreme secrecy through code of silence programming. This is usually initiated with the signing of a “blood” contract. Wendell Amstutz, author of Satanism in America, said these contracts are generally signed in the initiate’s own blood. The contract, said Amstutz, usually demands life-long obedience. And breaking it means death.And that’’s exactly what it meant for the four California Satanic cult defectors one fateful night in 1990. The defectors were tracked to an apartment on, of all places, Elm Street in the small town of Salida.The defectors were beaten and stabbed. Finally, they were decapitated.What was left behind rivaled the carnage of the Tate-LaBianca crime scene.The trail led back to five Satanic cult members, and the story began to unfold…The five who were indicted were part of a 55-member Satanic cult that was operating out of a compound in Salida. Cult members stretched across a three-county are, with a number of them holed-up in a Salida compound (homes and trailers), somewhat similar to Waco’s Branch Davidian complex. Except for one thing: What was going on in the Salida compound for the most part made what was going on in Waco seem like a Disney production.Randy Cerny, Director of the Northern Chapter of California’s Ritual Crime Investigator’s Association, had followed the cult closely. And after the indictments, he interviewed several of the cult members and reviewed extensive diaries they’d kept.He said the cult worshipped Satan, followed the teachings of renowned Satanist Aleister Crowley, engaged in sexual abuse, ritual torture including electric shock, child abuse, murder…In other words, many of the same things Satanic ritual abuse survivors have been consistently reporting.Cerny also said it was reported cult members were from all walks of life. This even included a dentist, a minister, and a woman enrolled in a law enforcement class at a local community college. (Satanic cult members aren’t, by any means, always tattooed teen bikers who have listened to one too many Metallica albums, Often, Satanic ritual abuse survivors report their cult perpetrators are respected members of the community: doctors, law enforcement officials, PTA members, little league coaches…This all, apparently, is part of the facade.)One of the Matomoros cult members responsible for some of the 13 grisly murder/sacrifices in Mexico a few years back, was majoring in law enforcement at Texas Southmost College at the time she was arrested.”The California cult was a very secretive, close-knit, sophisticated group,” said Cerny.The Satanic cult was run under the iron fist of charismatic leader, high priest, Gerald Cruz. And, as David Koresh had done in Waco, Cruz used sleep deprivation, brainwashing, torture…to keep members in line. At a trial in Oakland in December, 1992, cult expert and psychologist, Daniel Goldstine, would characterize Cruz as “evil and sadistic.”The jury thought so too. Cruz and two other cult members were sentenced to death for the murders. Two other cult members got life. “Now let’s project this 20 to 25 years down the road,” Cerny continued. “Say someone walks into a police department or therapist’s office and says, ‘I’m starting to have memories that my dad was a leader of this Satanic cult in California. And they would brainwash people, torture them with electric shock, sexually abuse me, sacrifice animals, kill people…’ “Cerny wondered if that would all be passed off as a “false memory.”Nationally syndicated columnist Molly Ivins might well have passed it off as just that. In a May, 1994, column, Ms. Ivins wrote: “…social workers who deal with child abuse have nightmares about the people who come up with patently false recovered memories of Satanic ritual abuse.”Monika Beerle seemed to be nobody’s “false recovered memory.” The following is a February 18, 1992, Newsday article excerpt:New York — Members of a cult here killed ballerina Monika Beerle in August, 1989, and then dismembered her and fed her flesh to the homeless as part of a Satanic ritual, law enforcement sources said yesterday after arresting a cult member in connection with the slaying. “The public isn’t generating enough momentum to get police mobilized around this (Satanic ritual abuse) issue at this point,” explained Akron, Ohio Police Captain Jerry Foys. And John Hunt, Sherman, Texas ritual crime investigator says that “because of the FBI report, the stigma around Satanism and other factors have made it hard to get internal police department support in following up on the ritual aspects of a crime.”Hunt and Foys both said they believe the Satanic ritual abuse is quite widespread — and extremely dangerous.It definitely proved dangerous for an alcoholic drifter known only as John Doe No. 60, whose body was found in San Francisco. According to a May 6, 1988, San Francisco Chronicle article:“The victim had a pentagram carved into his chest, lash marks across his buttocks, a stab wound to his neck, wax in his right eye and hair, and a sliced lip. The naked body was virtually drained of blood.”Clifford St. Joseph, 46, was eventually convicted and sentenced to 34 years to life for the killing.In his book, Raising Hell, Michael Newton writes when police came to St. Joseph’s apartment nine days after the body was found, they found St. Joseph dressed in a black robe, companion Michael Bork, 26, stripped to the waist, his face daubed with cosmetics, and another man, Edward Spela, 26, passed out from drugs. In the middle of the room was a 19-year old man, who was laying on the floor, handcuffed and surrounded by candles.According to the San Francisco Chronicle:”Investigators said that St. Joseph appeared to be part of a Satanic cult that involved men of means in San Francisco’s gay community.”Again, John Doe No. 60’s mutilated body was real. It was nobody’s false memory.A term popular culture has latched onto tightly in the last couple of years is the very clinical sounding, false memory syndrome. It is a term coined by the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania based False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF), which is an advocacy group for people whose children have accused them of either sexual abuse and/or Satanic ritual abuse.Despite its scientific sounding title, there is actually no such thing as a clinically acknowledged category for “false memory syndrome,” reports Judith Herman, an associate clinical professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and author of the book, Trauma and Recovery. “The very name FMSF is prejudicial and misleading,” said Dr. Herman. “There is no such syndrome, and we have no evidence reported memories are false. We only know they are disputed.”Many professionals dealing with Satanic ritual abuse believe we are seeing the beginnings of a phenomenon that might well mushroom into staggering proportions. And they draw a parallel to the amazing evolution of the sexual abuse field.”As recently as the 1970s,” said Herman, “rape was considered rare, and incest was regarded as a universal taboo. Less than twenty years ago, for example, the Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry estimated the prevalence of all forms of incest at one case per million population. And popular and professional literature [as in the case with SRA survivors now] routinely questioned the character of victims, and disparaged the credibility of women who made claims of assault. Today, however, widespread sexual abuse/incest has been extensively documented.”In the case of false memory allegations, perhaps we should be spending a bit more time actually questioning the character of some of those accusing the “alleged” victims of confabulation. And perhaps we should start at the False Memory Syndrome Foundation itself. The following is an excerpt from a February 29, 1992, FMSF Newsletter where the organization claims it is:”…not in the business of representing pedophiles…We are a good-looking bunch of people: graying hair, well-dressed, healthy, smiling…Just about every person is someone you would likely find interesting and want to count as a friend.” Joan Baez’s song goes on:Let the night begin There’s a pop of skin And a sudden rush of scarlet There’s a little boy riding on a goat’s head And a little girl playing the harlot It’s a sacrifice in an empty church Sweet little baby Rose… A Fall 1989 Cleveland Plain Dealer article excerpt reads: Three Norwalk area residents charged with opening two graves, beheading the corpses and stealing the skulls, were part of a cult that had recently gotten instructions on how to sacrifice babies to Satan, Norwalk police said yesterday. “We’re taking this very seriously,” he [Police Chief Gary Dewalt] said.”Maybe society should take the police chief’s lead, in a lot of different areas regarding this problem. For one, many youth are bombarded with Satanic symbols, images, lyrics…One area where it is probably the most prevalent is in the heavy/black metal music scene. For instance, the heavy metal band Venom sings:“Candles glowing, altars burn Virgin’s death is needed ther Sacrifice to Lucifer my master Bring the chalice, raise the knife Welcome to my sacrifice…”Just a passing phase kids go through? Just lyrics? May 5, 1993 — Three eight year old boys were riding their bikes down a country road in West Memphis, Arkansas. Suddenly they were forced off the road and horribly killed. One of the suspects accused in the murders, Jessie Lloyd Miskelly, Jr., 17 according to wire service reports, told police that the murders were tied to a teen Satanic cult sacrifice. “Miskelly said the children were lured into a wooded area of West Memphis known as Robin Hood Park, choked until they were unconscious, then brutalized in various ways — including rape…” According to a March 8, 1994 article on the trial appearing in the West Memphis The Commercial Appeal: “A witness last week told him Baldwin (one of the accused) told him he sucked the blood from one victim after he mutilated him.”Diaries indicated the Satanic cult in Salida, California, followed the teachings of renowned Satanist Aleister Crowley. In his book, Magick in Theory and Practice, Crowley wrote, “The blood is the life…any living thing is the storehouse of energy…at the death of the animal this energy is liberated suddenly. The animal should therefore be killed within the Circle, or Triangle, so that it’s energy cannot escape…For the highest spiritual working one must accordingly choose that victim which the greatest and purest force. A male child of perfect innocence is the most satisfactory and suitable victim.”There’’s a good bet that seven year old Yvando Caetano, like most seven year olds, was living a life in “perfect innocence” in the small town of Guaratuba, Brazil. This may well have been the precipitating factor in his death. According to a July 28, 1992, Cable News Network (CNN) report/transcript, Yvando was found in a shallow grave. His arms and legs had been dismembered, his internal organs cut out. Ritual implements used during the ceremony were also found near the body.Investigator Jose Moscic Favetti said police believed the mayor’s wife and daughter were involved with a Satanic cult, and that the wife had paid five cult members to sacrifice Yvando to Satan — in return for the mayor having a good political year.”The stories (about different aspects of cult rituals) are very much the same, whether it’s someone reporting about a ceremony in Melbourne, Australia, Vermont, Utah…” said Dr. Judianne Densen-Gerber. “This leads me to believe, not only are the cults all over, but because of the similarities, many are also networked.”Dr. Densen-Gerber is a New York Psychiatrist who has treated a number of SRA survivors since 1980. She also has a law degree, and is the founder of PACT (Protect America’s Children Today).Are American children in danger because of these Satanic cults? Well, the small town in Brazil might provide some clues. Besides the death of 7-year old Yvando in July, 10 other children had come up missing in Guarutuba since January of that year.According to Brandon Perez, initial Development Director of the National Missing Children’s Center, based in Houston, Texas, there are currently some 4000,000 abductions a year in the United States of which, said Perez, almost 50% of the children are never found. Perez added that many of these cases are not adequately tracked.In his book, The Franklin Cover-up: Child Abuse, Satanism and Murder in Nebraska, author and former Nebraska State Senator John DeCamp interviewed 28 year veteran FBI agent Ted Gunderson. Since his retirement from the FBI, Gunderson has been actively investigating reports of Satanic ritual abuse.DeCamp writes:“Evidence from Gunderson’s investigations has convinced him tens of thousands of children or young people disappear from their homes each year, and that many of them are ritualistically sacrificed…nobody knows the true figure because the FBI doesn’t keep count. Gunderson observes, ‘The FBI has an accurate count on the number of automobiles stolen every year. It knows the number of homicides, rapes, and robberies, but the FBI has no idea of the number of children who disappear every year. They simply do not ask for the statistics.’ Gunderson goes onto say he believes they don’t ask for the statistics, simply, because they don’t want to see them. “They would be confronted with an instant public outcry for action, because the figures would show a major social problem that would demand action.’” And it’s not just the tragedy of the missing children that come up dead as a result of this savage cult abuse — there are many children that are “walking wounded.”Pamela Hudson, LCSW, a child therapist with a county health outpatient department in northern California began to identify the symptoms of SRA in several children who had been referred to her in 1985. What was to follow was a most frightening phenomenon. Throughout the remainder of 1985 and into 1986, twenty-four children, all from the same day care center, all exhibiting varying degrees of ritual abuse symptoms, were brought to her by concerned parents. (What was even more amazing, said Hudson, was that the cases came to her individually, without the parents initially talking among each other.)Some of the symptoms included frequent night terrors, night sweats, extreme separation anxiety, uncontrolled vomiting, 3,4, and 5 year olds acting out sexually in bizarre, sadistic manners…all indicators of significant trauma. As Hudson continued to work with the children, the Satanic ritual abuse stories started to surface: the children reported being locked in cages, buried for short periods in coffins, injected with drugs, defecated and urinated on, sexually abused, forced to watch animal and human sacrifice…Hudson took the information to authorities, but the District Attorney’s office decided not to prosecute. A disappointed Hudson said she attributes the decision to the lack of physical evidence, and the children being perceived as too young, and also considered too emotionally traumatized for the stories to appear credible to a jury.However, several years later, a jury in Austin, Texas, did find children’s stories of sexual and Satanic ritual abuse credible enough to put Fran’s Day Care directors, Fran and Dan Keller, in prison for extended sentences. (The Kellers aren’t eligible for parole until 2004.)As with the case in California, the children talked of extreme forms of abuse: being threatened with guns, being buried alive, forced to make pornographic movies, watch an infant sacrifice…In addition, my research has also turned up similar day care and school SRA cases in Florida, several more in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and in Christchurch, New Zealand.The longest trial in American history, California’s McMartin Day School case, was one of the first day care center cases to claim Satanic ritual abuse. There were some 500 separate reports filed at the Manhattan Beach Police Department in connection with the case. The children’s stories matched those of other cases cited. However, there was an additional component to the McMartin case. The children consistently talked of being abused in an underground tunnel below the day care center.A highly qualified archaeologist, hired by the children’s families, talked about a series of what he says were highly questionable incidents in the search for the elusive tunnels.Archeologist Gary Stickle, Ph.D., has worked extensively in the United States and in Europe, including heading the largest underwater archeological sonar survey ever conducted in Europe. In addition, he has been a consultant to Lucas Films in the development of the Indiana Jones movie series. He has also been professor of Archeology at the University of California at Long Beach. Stickle said initially a private investigator went to the day care center site and did some preliminary informal digging. It is reported, said Stickle, that this investigator found some rabbit bones in the soil. (The children talked about rabbits being sacrificed.) However, the day before he was to testify, the private investigator was found dead from a gun shot wound. It was determined to be a suicide. But Stickle said that determination was questioned by more than a few people, given the timing. Eventually, said Stickle, the prosecution hired an archeological firm that dug seven pits clustered outside of the building. (This was curious, said Stickle, because the children were reporting the abuse had gone on in tunnels below the building.) Stickle said a remote sensing device was also used at the time, but it was reported that no tunnels were found. That was 1985.The lack of a tunnel damaged the credibility of the children’s stories tremendously.Stickle’s firm was hired by the parents in 1990. Using a sophisticated ground penetrating radar, Stickle said a tunnel was found, right where some of the children had told his staff it would be.However, even though evidence of the tunnel was found in May of 1990, while the trial was still in progress — the evidence was never introduced in court, said Stickle.”Finding such a tunnel was highly relevant (to the case),” said Stickle. “Because it (prior lack of physical evidence of a tunnel) was a major thing used to discredit the children.”The accused McMartin Day Care Center staff were eventually acquitted. However, some of the McMartin parents haven’t quit fighting. A two hundred page report on the tunnel findings has recently been released by the parents, in an ongoing effort to keep the case before the public.As with these children, it is becoming more and more apparent that there are many adult SRA walking wounded as well. As a result of the trauma, these are people often afflicted with things like severe paranoia, schizophrenia, multiple personalities. They are people almost off the scales in terms of addictions/compulsions, depression, self-mutilating behavior…However, an advancing therapeutic field has developed highly sophisticated techniques to help survivors. And the prognosis for recovery is often good.In addition, parts of society are also rallying around these survivors. The County Commission for Women has a Ritual Abuse Task Force in Los Angeles; there is a state-wide Minnesota Awareness of Ritual Abuse group; Jireh, headquartered in Arlington, Texas, is a national program to create safe-houses for cult survivors breaking away; The International Council on Cultism and Ritual Trauma, in Richardson, Texas, and a number of cult survivor resource and referral organizations; ritual abuse twelve-step programs are evolving.As much as we don’t want to believe it as a society — Satanic ritual abuse is a reality. And, as was done by the parents in the McMartin Day Care Center case, we need to be rolling up our sleeves and digging deeper to get at the whole truth.May 25, 1994 was designated National Missing Children’s Day. Those postcards that come to our homes so very often don’t represent anybody’s “false memories.” Those are real children, with real fates.Daniel Ryder, CCDC, LSW, an investigative journalist and a counselor, is the author of Breaking the Circle of Satanic Ritual Abuse. The above article is based on material from Mr. Ryder’s newest book,/I> Cover-up of the Century (Satanic Ritual Crime and Conspiracy). |
| Top | Children ‘born for sacrifice to Satan’ by David Taylor Home Affairs Editor CHILDREN are being secretly reared in Britain for sacrifice by Satanists, says a Government-backed expert.Psychotherapist Valerie Sinason, who has been paid by the Department of Health to study adult survivors of alleged organised ritual abuse, said yesterday she was “completely convinced” Satanic abuse does occur.She claimed to have evidence about children whose births were not officially registered being reared for abuse and sacrifice.The scientist, who edited a clinical textbook on Satanist abuse after the controversies in Rochdale, the Orkneys and Nottingham in the early 1990s, has claimed previously to have evidence of at least 100 murders.Her study of cases from nearly 40 psychiatrists, psychologists and mental health experts will claim that she has seen evidence of physical injuries in adult survivors, who tell of seeing people drugged and killed. She said that out of 76 patients she has seen at her London clinic, 46 claimed that they had witnessed the murder of children or adults.The Department of Health yesterday stressed that it stood by the findings of a 1994 report which concluded there was organised abuse but that it was “not helpful or appropriate to call it Satanic”. Scotland Yard is carrying out its own research project into ritual abuse. © Express Newspapers, 2000 |
| When Good People Do Nothing By James Randall Noblitt and Pamela PerskinHistory will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the vitriolic words and violent actions of the “bad” people—but the appalling silence and indifference of the “good” people. Our generation will have to repent, not only for the words and actions of the children of darkness, but also for the fears and apathy of the children of light.Ritual abuse is an ugly label for acts frequently reported but rarely well defined. Reports of ritual abuse permeate the media and the courts, but what do they mean? Are these claims indicative of a conspiracy of evil-worshippers preying upon the most vulnerable members of society? Or are they the consequence of a virtual witch-hunt instigated by an over-reactive mental health industry?Despite sensational media reports depicting a contentious psychotherapeutic community rallying suggestible psychiatric patients to blame their dysfunctional, unsatisfying lives on newly recovered memories of horrendous childhood abuse, there is no sufficient evidence to support such a theory. In all the cases that we have investigated where a therapist was accused of implanting “false memories” we found that the allegations were disputed and the false memory theory was prompted by dubious or questionable motives (e.g., the prospect of financial gain via civil suit). In some cases, we found that the allegations of implanting false memories were patently false, e.g., the client had the memories before ever consulting a therapist. The theory that thousands of therapists are deliberately promoting false memories in their patients is ludicrous and unsupported by data.It comes as no surprise to note that some people’s recollections can be affected by deliberate procedures used in a laboratory for that purpose. However, no study has ever demonstrated that therapists are deliberately or intentionally working to alter the memories of their clients as the researchers have done in the few analog studies available on this subject. Rather, child abuse is an accepted, though regrettable, fact of life.In fact, even though child abuse is recognized as the primary cause of traumatic death among children, experts in the fields of medicine, law enforcement, and social services believe that child abuse is vastly under reported and that fatalities among children are commonly misidentified as being the consequence of natural causes rather than abuse related trauma (U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1995).Some of this abuse is described as “ritual” or “ritualistic” abuse. In a study reported by Finkelhor, Williams, Burns, and Kalinowski, the authors found that 13% of a national sample of 270 cases of child abuse in a day care setting involved allegations of ritual abuse. We have defined ritual abuse as “deliberate abuse carried out in a circumscribed manner in order to cause dissociation or to manipulate already-created dissociated states of mind” (Noblitt & Perskin, 1995, p. 168).But does ritual abuse actually occur? It would be beyond the scope of this article to cite all the evidence we have found that ritual abuse does exist. However, we have summarized our findings in Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America (Noblitt & Perskin, 1995). Furthermore, an excellent scholarly review of the research on ritual abuse has been published in the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children Advisor (Faller, 1994).Suffice it to say, we find there to be a very strong case in the scientific and scholarly literature which shows that ritual abuse is an unfortunate feature of modern life in Western as well as preindustrial cultures. We also find that cases of ritual abuse are often mishandled and victims continue to suffer in the legal system and the labyrinth of social service agencies which are poorly equipped and rarely trained in this area. In spite of the evidence, skepticism and apathy are still prevalent obstacles to the safety and well-being of ritual abuse survivors and their advocates.Almost sixty years ago, a very similar situation evolved in western Europe, and the resulting catastrophe was responsible for the annihilation of six million innocent men, women, and children. These six million people were beaten, starved, tortured and murdered in an area considered to be the heart of European civilization and in the midst of a people proud of their civilized heritage. They died not so much because a few evil people were able to exert control over their countrymen, but because good people failed to speak out or take appropriate action.We are writing as secular individuals, and are puzzled by the reluctance of the Christian fellowship to come to the aid of individuals alleging ritual abuse. Too often, we hear of cases where survivors feel abandoned and alienated from the clergy and the religious community. Instead of embracing survivors, supporting them emotionally and spiritually, and acting as their advocates, the Christian community and its leadership have often turned their backs on victims, even to the extent of supporting individuals alleged to be perpetrators of such abuse. In the case of the Nazi Holocaust, six million Jews as well as many other innocent victims were killed while the world looked on apathetically. Few important church leaders challenged this atrocity. Are we witnessing a similar shameful silence?We are hopeful that the Christian community will not only become the case of current and ongoing ritual abuse? active in confronting ritual abuse, but that they will take a leadership role in eliminating such practices. Consider how much could be accomplished if the clergy would adopt an advocacy role in promoting public awareness and in assisting in the desperately needed fund raising which would support research, treatment and legal assistance for those victimized by ritual abuse.ReferencesFaller, K. (1994, Spring). Ritual abuse: A review of the research. The American Professional Society on the abuse of Children Advisor, pp. 1,19-27. Finkelhor, D., Williams, L. M., Burns, N., & Kalinowski, M. (1988, March). Sexual abuse in day care: A national study, final report. Durham, NH: Family Research Laboratory, University of New Hampshire. Noblitt, J.R., & Perskin, P.S.(1995) Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America. Westport, CT: Praeger. U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect (1995). A nation’s shame: Fatal child abuse and neglect. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. |
| COMING FULL CIRCLE James Randall Noblitt, PH.D. President, ICCRTMany of the helping professionals, particularly those who were trained in the social or behavioral sciences, will recall studying the history of the mental health movement. In reviewing this historical phenomenon we sometimes wonder how people coped with psychological problems before there were mental health professions. If they were fortunate, those who were psychologically troubled may have found a compassionate person, perhaps a village clergyman or an understanding relative in whom they could confide.Or they may have chosen to tell no one about their feelings of fear, sleeplessness, or despair. If they were unlucky, they were identified as a witch or warlock and tortured until they confessed to this “crime” (Kramer & Sprenger 1484/1948). This story is repeated many times, although more eloquently in the various texts and chapters on the history of mental health professions (e.g., Alexander & Selesnick, 1966; Mora, 1985).Additionally, these authors observe that one of the oldest theories about the etiology of mental disorders identifies spirit possession as its causal agent. This notion of spirit possession as an etiologic theory was virtually abandoned within the field of mental health, as we struggled to escape the confines of Medieval explanations for behavior.It is ironic that this religious theory spawned a reprehensible series of crimes against humanity, the witch persecutions of Europe and America. Curiously, a recent book by sociologist, Hans Sebald (1995) attempts to equate the earlier witch persecutions with modern accounts of ritual abuse in an apparent effort to discredit the contemporary allegations of ritual abuse. The author tells the story of the witch-boy of Bamberg, who apparently went in and out of dissociated states while interviewed by the Inquisitors and who also described incidents of sexual abuse in his past. I agree with Sebald’s conclusion that the narrations of the witch-boy are much like those of modern survivors of ritual abuse.However, we part company when Sebald interprets both phenomena as the result of fantasy. Why would the medieval and current accounts necessarily involve both the elements of sexual abuse and dissociation of identity? Is it not more parsimonious to view dissociation as a consequence of trauma? Certainly this hypothesis is consistent with the great majority of contemporary patient reports. Oesterreich’s (1921/1966) exhaustive study of possession also mentions cases of what was then called “dual personality” but is now identified as Dissociative Identity Disorder. Evidently, Oesterreich saw a connection between the two.The obvious similarity between what has been known historically and anthropologically as “possession states” and dissociation of identity is becomingly increasingly clear. According to a contemporary scholar, Begelman, both “possession and MPD are based on the same database” (1993, p. 201).People are sometimes surprised to learn of the extent of Freud’s interest in possession, witchcraft and the occult. On the other hand, Freud is probably better known for his creation and then abandonment of a theory that postulates that neuroses are caused by childhood sexual “seduction.” According to Masson, Freud abandoned his seduction theory as a result of his treatment of Emma Eckstein, a patient who described mental scenes while in therapy with Freud comparable to modern disclosures of ritual abuse. In one such scene the devil “sticks pins into her finger and puts a piece of candy on each drop of blood” (Masson, 1992, p.103).When similar mental images are described by contemporary patients it soon becomes evident that the “devil” is really a person costumed in that manner. In a letter to Freud’s friend and colleague, Wilhelm Fliess, dated January 24, 1897, Freud notes the following: “Imagine, I obtained a scene about the circumcision of a girl. The cutting of a piece of the labia minora (which is still shorter today), sucking up the blood, following which the child was given a piece of the skin to eat” (Masson, 1992, p. 105). Masson says that Freud is still referring to the same patient, Emma Eckstein. Therapists who work with ritual abuse patients often hear of such accounts of genital mutilation along with ingestion of blood and bits of flesh. Freud also wrote, “we may have before us a residue of a primaeval sexual cult which, in the Semitic East (Moloch, Astarte), was once, perhaps still is, a religion” (Freud, 1966, p. 243)Possession states are still with us and now in 1995, possession and possession trance are listed under the diagnosis Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified in the DSM-IV. Rather than adopting the traditional Western religious theory of possession we are now utilizing current anthropological views of this subject. Have we come full circle?The field of anthropology may also have an opportunity to learn more about possession phenomena from developments within the mental health professions.The increasing numbers of psychiatric patients who report histories of childhood trauma and present with symptoms of dissociative disorders may give us a clue to the etiology of possession disorders which are quite widespread among many preindustrial cultures (e.g., Bourguinon, 1973). In researching our current book, Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America (Noblitt & Perskin, 1995), Pamela Perskin and I found evidence that trauma is used in a variety of the initiation ceremonies which are conducted in preindustrial cultures and which may be associated with the development of possession states. Our theory is that ritual trauma is a primary cause of the dissociation of identity which one finds in shamanistic, and sorcery-oriented preindustrial cultures as well as the “occult underground” in modern Euro-America. Perhaps we are approaching a new naturalistic theory of spirit possession applicable not only to mental health but to anthropology and the historical interpretations of European witchcraft as well.References  Alexander, F., Selesnick, S. (1966). The history of psychiatry: An evolution of psychiatric thought and practice from prehisoric times to the present. New York: Harper & Row.Begelman, D. (1993). “Possession: Interdisciplinary roots.” Dissociation, 6, 201-212.Bourguinon, E. (1973). “Introduction: A framework for the comparative study of altered states of consciousness.” In E. Bourguinon (Ed.), Religion, altered states of consciousness, and social change (pp. 3–35). Columbus: Ohio State University Press.Freud, S. (1966). Letter 57. In J. Strachey, A. Freud, A. Strachey & A. Tyson (Eds.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 1 (pp. 242–244). London: Hogarth Press.Kramer, H., & Sprenger, J. (1484/1948). Malleus maleficarum. (M. Summers, Trans.). London: Pushkin.Masson, J.M. (1992). The assault on truth: Freud’’s suppression of the seduction theory. New York: HarperCollins. Mora, G. (1985). “History of psychiatry.” In H.I. Kaplan & B. J. Sadock (Eds.). Comprehensive textbook of psychiatry, vol. 2, 4th ed. (pp. 2034–2054). Baltimore, MD: Williams & Wilkins.Noblitt, J. R., & Perskin, P.S. (1995). Cult and ritual abuse: Its history, anthropology and recent discovery in contemporary America. Westport, CT: Praeger.Oesterreich, T.K. (1921/1966). Possession: Demoniacal and other among primitive races, in antiquity, the middle ages and modern times. New Hyde Park, NY: University Books.Sebald, H. (1995). Witch-children: From Salem witch-hunts to modern courtrooms. Amherst, NY: Prometheus. |
| Top | MORE DOCUMENTATION CONCERNING SATANIC RITUAL ABUSEPublic concern over the undesirable and damaging effects of some cults is not new. The Roman historian, Livy (b. 59 B.C.E., d. 17 C.E.), wrote about the Roman Senate’s investigation of the cult of Bacchus. According to Livy, this cult practiced human sacrifice and sexual rituals which included incest. Subsequently, the cult’s criminal acts eventually led to its dissolution and being outlawed by the Roman senate in 186 B.C.E. (Livy, 1976). The Bible is another document which attests that there were ancient people who believed that some middle-eastern religions engaged in child sacrifice and other abusive ritual acts. In fact throughout recorded history there have been numerous accounts of abusive practices and ceremonies discovered or alleged to exist in a wide variety of cultural contexts (e.g., see Katchen, 1992). More recently, there have been reports that ritual and cult abuse may be occurring as contemporary phenomena in North America (DeCamp, 1992; Friesen, 1991, 1992; Galanter, 1989; Gould, 1992; Greaves, 1992; Hassan, 1988; Johnston, 1989; Ritual Abuse Task Force, 1989; Rose, 1993; Smith & Pazder, 1980; Warnke, 1972, 1991; Young, Sachs, Braun, & Watkins, 1991), South America (Kilduff & Javers, 1978; Tierney, 1989), Europe (Jonker & Jonker-Bakker, 1991), and Africa (Oke, 1989).Most recently the religious cult, the Branch Davidians, shocked the world with the accounts of their abusive practices, violent resistance of arrest and ultimately their mass suicide. |
| Top | RA/SRA/Mind Control Bibliography from New Hope Healing InstituteAndres, R. & Lane, J. R. (1988). Cults and consequences: The definitive handbook. Commission on Cults and Missionaries, Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles, 6505 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90048Angebert, J, M. (1984). The Occult and the third Reich. Macmillan.Anon. (1992). The mystery of the carefully crafted hoax. The Nebraska Leadership Conference, PO Box 30165, Lincoln, NE 69503.Appel, W. (1983). Cults in America: Programmed for Paradise. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Bach, M. (1961). Strange Sects and Curious Cults. New York, NY: Dorset Press.Bain, D. (1976). The control of Candy Jones. Playboy Press.Barton, B. (1990). The secret life of a satanist: The authorized biography of Anton LaVey. Los Angeles, CA: Feral House.Baskin, W. (1972). Satanism. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press.Bass, E. and Davis, L.(1988). 3rd edition. The courage to heal.: A guide for women survivors of sexual abuse. New York: Harper & Row:Becker, R. (1985). The body electric. Morrow.Beckylane (1995). Where the rivers join: A personal account of healing from ritual abuse. Vancouver, BC: Press Gang.Bitz, M. (1990). “The Impact of ritualistic abuse for sexually abused children and their adoptive families.” In Adoption and the sexually abused child. (Ed. McNamara. Joan and McNamara, Bernard H.). Family Resources Adoption Program, 226 North Highland Avenue, Ossining, New York 10562Blood, L. (1994). The new satanists. New York: Warner.Blume, E. Sue. (1991). Secret survivors: Uncovering incest and its after effects in women. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.Bowart, W. Operation mind control I.Bowart, W. Operation mind control II.Bredenberg, A. M. Teenagers and satanism.Bresler, F. (1989). Who killed John Lennon? St. Martin’s Press.Brown, D. (1991). The Treatment of satanic ritual abuse survivors: A Therapist’s handbook. Available from: D. Brown, 800 Grant St., Suite 510, Denver COBrown, R. (1986). He came to set the captives free. Chino, CA: Chick Publications.Bubeck, M. I. (1975). The adversary. Moody Press.Bubeck, M. I. (1984). Overcoming the adversary. Moody PressBubeck, M. I. The satanic revival: Surprising cure. Here’s Life Publishers: P. O. BOX 1576, San Bernardino, CA.Bugliosi, V. & Gentry, C. (1979). Helter-skelter: The true story of the Manson murders. New York, NY: Bantam Books.Burdick, D. (1982) Such things are known. New York, NY: Vantage Press.Burgess, Ann Wolbert(Ed.) (1984). Child pornography and sex rings. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.Burgess, Ann Wolbert and Grant, Christine A. (1988). Children traumatized in sex rings. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 2101 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 550, Arlington, VA 22201-3052Carlson, C., Larue, G. & O’Sullivan, G. (1988) Satanism In America. Gaia PressClay, Colin. (1996) More than a survivor: Memories of satanic ritual abuse and the paths which lead to healing. 1337 College Drive, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada S7N 0W6Cohn, N. (1993) Europe’s inner demons: The demonization of Christians in medieval Christendom. London, UK: Pimlico.Carr, J. (1985) The twisted cross. Huntington House.Cavendish, R. (l967) The black arts. New York, NY: Putnam Publishing Group.Chawkin, S. (1987) The mind stealers. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.Cirlot, J.E. (1962) A dictionary of symbols. Philosophical PressColvin, R. (1992) Evil jarvest: The shocking true story of cult murder in the American heartland. New York, NY: Bantam.Cook, C. (1991)Understanding ritual abuse through a study of thirty-three ritual abuse survivors from thirteen different states. Ritual Abuse Project: Sacramento CA.Corcoran, J. Bitter harvest. Gordon Kahl and the Posse Comitatus: Murder in the heartland. New York, NY: Penguin.Crewdson, J. (1988) By silence betrayed. Boston, MA: Little Brown & Co.Crowley, P. (1990) Not my child. New York, NY: Doubleday.de Camp, John W. (1991). The Franklin cover-up: Child abuse, satanism and murder in Nebraska. A.W.T., Inc., P.O. Box 85461, Lincoln, NE 68501Delgado, J. (1967) Physical control of the mind. Harper and Row.Duncan, C.W. (1994). The Fractured mirror: healing multiple personality disorder. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc.Eberle, P. (1986) The politics of child abuse. Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, Inc.Estabrooks, G. (1957)Hypnotism. Dutton.Feldman, G. C. (1993.)Lessons in evil, lessons from the light: A true story of satanic abuse and spiritual healing. New York, NY: Crown Publishers.Finkelhor, David, Meyer-Williams, Linda and Burns, Nanci (1988). Nursery Crimes: Sexual abuse in day care. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Press.Flowers, E. (1990) Fire & ice: Magical teachings of Germany’s greatest secret occult order. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn.Flynn, K, & Gerhardt, G. (1989) The silent brotherhood: Inside America’s racist underground. New York, NY: Signet.Friesen, J.G. (1991). Uncovering the mystery of MPD. San Bernadino, CA: Here’s Life Publishers.Friesen, J.G. (1992) More than survivors: Conversations with multiple-personality clients. Nashville, TN: Nelson Publishers.Galanter, M. (1989) Cults: Faith, healing and coercion. New York, NY: Oxford University.Greaves, George B. “Alternative hypotheses regarding claims of satanic cult activity: A critical analysis.” In Out of darkness: Exploring satanism and ritual abuse. (Sakheim, David K. and Devine, Susan, Eds.) (1992) New York, NY: Lexington Books/Macmillan, Inc. pp. 45-72.Greven, Philip (1991). Spare the child: The Religious roots of punishment and the psychological impact of physical abuse. Knopf.Gunderson, T.L. (1992) Corruption: The satanic cult drug network and missing children. Vol. I & II. Available from Ted L. Gunderson & Associates, 2210 Wilshire Blvd., #422, Santa Monica, CA 90403Hassan, S. (1989) Combatting cult mind control. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press.Hayden, T. L. (19??) Ghost girl. Boston, MA: Little Brown.Hertenstein, M. & Trott, J. (1993) Selling satan. Cornerstone Press.Hicks, R. D. (1991) In pursuit of satan: The police and the occult. Prometheus Books.Hollingsworth, Jan (1986). Unspeakable acts. Chicago, IL: Congden and Weed.Holmes, R. M. (1989) Profiling violent crimes: An investigative tool. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Hudson, P.S. (1991)Ritual child abuse: discovery, diagnosis and treatment. Saratoga, CA: R&E Publishers.Hutchison, M. (1986) Megabrain. Ballantine.Johnston, J. (1989) The Edge of evil: The rise of satanism in North America. Dallas, TX: Word Publishing.Kahner, L. (1988.) Cults that kill: Probing the world of occult crime. Random HouseKatchen, M. H. (1992). “Satanic beliefs and practices.” In Out of darkness: Exploring satanism and ritual abuse. (Sakheim, David K. and Devine, Susan, Eds.) New York, NY: Lexington Books/Macmillan, Inc., pp.21-43Kendrick, Martyn (1988) Anatomy of a nightmare: The failure of society in dealing with child abuse. MacmillanKendrick, Martyn (1988).Anatomy of a nightmare. Toronto: Gage Publishers.Kent, C. C. “Ritual abuse.” In: Case studies in family violence. (Ammerman, Robert T. Hersen, Michel, Eds.) (1991) New York, NY: Plenum Press, pp.187-207Kinscherff, Robert. “Child forensic evaluation and claims of ritual abuse or satanic cult activity: A critical analysis.” In Out of darkness: Exploring satanism and ritual abuse. (David K. Sakheim, Susan E. Devine, Eds.) New York, NY: Lexington Books/Macmillan, Inc., 1992, pp. 73-107Langone, M. D. & Blood, L. O. (1990.) Satanism and occult-related violence: What you should know. Weston, MA: American Family Foundation.Langone, M. D. (l993) Recovery from cults: Help for victims of psychological and spiritual abuse. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.Lanning, Kenneth V. “A law-enforcement perspective on allegations of ritual abuse.” In Out of darkness: Exploring satanism and ritual abuse. (Sakheim, David K. and Devine, Susan, Eds.) (1992) New York, NY: Lexington Books/Macmillan, Inc., pp. 109-146Larson, B. (1989) Satanism: The seduction of America’s youth. Nashville, TN: Nelson Publishers.Lawrence, L. (1967) Were we controlled? University Books.Lee. M.A. & Shlain, B. (1985) Acid dreams. Grove.Lifton,, R. J. (1986) The Nazi doctors.Lifton, R.J. (1989) Thought reform and the psychology of totalism: A study of “brainwashing” in China. Chapel Hill, NC: Univ. of N.C. Press.Lin, J. C. (1989) Electromagnetic interactions with biological systems. New York, NY: Plenum Press.Linedecker, C. L. (l991) Night stalker. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Paperback.Linedecker, C. L. (1989) Hell ranch: Nightmare of voodoo, drugs, & death in Matamoros. New York, NY: Tom Doherty.Lockwood, C. (1993)Other altars: Roots and realities of cultic and satanic ritual abuse and multiple personality disorder. Minneapolis, MN: Compcare.Lorena, J. M. (1998) Breaking Ritual Silence: An Anthology of Ritual Abuse Survviors Sories. Gardnerville, NV: Trout & Sons.Los Angeles County Commission for Women. Ritual abuse: Definitions, glossary, the use of mind control. Available from: Ritual Abuse Task Force, 383 Hall of Administration, 500 West Temple Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012.Lyons, A. (1988) Satan wants you. New York, NY: Mysterious Books.Mangen, Richard “Psychological testing and ritual abuse.” In Out of darkness: Exploring satanism and ritual abuse. Sakheim, David K. and Devine, Susan, Eds.) (1992) New York, NY: Lexington Books/Macmillan, Inc., pp. 147-173Manshell, Lisa (1990). Nap time: The true story of sexual abuse at a suburban day-care center. New York, NY: William Morrow.Marks, I. M. (1987) Fears, phobias, and rituals. Oxford University Press.Marks, J. (l979.) The Search for the Manchurian candidate: The CIA and mind control. New York: W.W. Norton.Marron, Kevin (1988). Ritual abuse: Canada’s most infamous trial on child abuse. Toronto: Seal Books.Masters, R.E.L. (1962)The Sexual psychopathology of witchcraft. Julian PressMayer, R. S. (1991)Satan’s children. New York, NY: Avon Books.McCrae, R. (1980) Mind wars. St Martin’s Press.Melton, J. G. (1992) Encyclopedic handbook of cults in America. New York, NY: Garland.Mercer, J. (1989) Behind the mask of adolescent satanism. Minneapolis, MN: Deaconness.Michaels, J. (1973) The devil is alive and well and living in America today. New York, NY: Award Books.Michaelson, J. (1989) Like lambs to the slaughter. Eugene, OR: Harvest House.Monk, M. (1836) (sic.) Awful disclosures of Maria Monk as exhibited in a narrative of her sufferings. London, UK.Morgan, R. (1989) The demon lover: On the sexuality of terrorism. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.Moriarty, A. (1992) The psychology of adolescent satanism: A guide for parents, counselors, clergy, and teachers. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers/Greenwood.Newton, M. (1993) Raising hell: An encyclopedia of devil worship and satanic crime. New York, NY: Avon Books.Noblitt, J. R. (1995) Cult and ritual abuse: its history, anthropology, and recent discovery in contemporary America. Praeger Publishing.Noel, B. (1992) You must be dreaming. New York, NY: Poisedon.Nugent, C. (1983) Masks of satan. Sheed & Ward.Ofshe, R. (1994) Making monsters: False memories, psychotherapy, and sexual hysteria. New York, NY: Charles Scribner/Macmillan.O’Hagan, K. (1993) Emotional and psychological abuse of children. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Oke, I. (1991) Blood Secrets: The true story of demon worship and ceremonial murder. New York, NY: The Berkeley Publishing Group.Oksana, C. (1994) Safe passage to healing: A guide for survivors of ritual abuse. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.Opton and Sceflin (1998) The mind manipulators. Paddington Press.Parkin, D, Ed. (1985) The anthropology of evil. OxfordPassantino, B, & Passantino, G. (1991) When the devil dares your kids: Protecting your children from satanism, witchcraft, and the occult. Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Books.Peck, M. S. (1983) People of the Lie. Simon & Schuster.Pendergrast, M. (1995) Victims of memory: Incest accusations and shattered lives. Hinesburg, VT: Upper Access, Inc.Pines, M. (1973) The brain changers. Signet.Provost, G. Across the border: The true story of the satanic cult killings in Matamoros, Mexico. New York, NY: Pocket Books.Pulling, P. (1989). The devil’s web. Huntington House.Raschke, C. A. (1990) Painted black: from drug killings to heavy metal: The alarming true story of how satanism is terrorizing our communities. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row.Reid, Greg. (1993). A professional’s guide to occult crimes. Youthfire Publications, Box 370006, El Paso, TX 79937.Reid, Greg (1995). Orphans in the storm: Male survivors of sexual and ritual abuse. Youthfire Publications, Box 370006, El Paso, TX 79937.Reynolds, M. (1991) The reality – The truths about satanic/ritualistic abuse and multiple personality disorder. Available through: P.O. Box 68l83, Portland OR 97268.Richardson, A. (1997). Double Vision: A Travelogue of Recovery from Ritual Abuse. Pasadena, CA: Trilogy Books.Richardson, J. T., Best, J. & Bromley, D. G. Eds. (1991) The satanism scare. Social institutions and social change. The Satanism scare. New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.Ridgeway, J. (1990) Blood in the face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, Nazi skinheads, and the rise of a new white culture. New York, NY: Thunder’s Mouth Press.Robbins, R.H. (1959). The encyclopedia Of witchcraft and demonology. New York: Bonanza Books.Rogers, Alexandra (1994). For survival’s sake workbook. The Rogers Co., P.O. Box 1102, Lewiston, NY 14092.Rowe G.T. (1976) My undercover years with the Klu Klux Klan. New York, NY: Bantam Books.Russell, J. B. (1986) Mephistopheles: The devil in the modern world. Cornell University PressRyder, D. (1992) Breaking the circle of ritual satanic abuse: Recognizing and recovering from the hidden trauma. Minneapolis, MN: CompCare Publishers.Ryder, Daniel (1994). Cover-up of the century: Satanic ritual crime and conspiracy. Ryder Publishing, 225 CrossRoads, Blvd., #415, Carmel, CA 93923.S., Joe. (1991) Out of hell again: Satanic ritual abuse and recovery. Available from: State of the Art Publishing, 225 Crossroads Blvd #414, Carmel CA 93923.Sachs, R. and Peterson, J. (1994). Processing memories Retrieved by trauma victims and survivors: A primer for therapists. Family Violence and Sexual Assault Institute, 1310 Clinic Drive, Tyler, TX 75701.St Clair, D. (1987) Say you love satan. New York, NY: Dell Publishing.Sakheim, D.K. (1992) Out of darkness: Exploring satanism and ritual abuse. New York, NY: Lexington Books/Macmillan, Inc.Sanders, E. (l990) The family: The Manson group and its aftermath. New York, NY: Signet.Sanford, D. (1990) Don’t make me go back, Mommy: A child’s book about satanic ritual abuse. Portland, OR: Multnomah Press.Sargant, W. (1957) Battle for the mind: A physiology of conversion and brain-washing. New York, NY: Doubleday.Scammell, H (l99l) Mortal remains: A true story of ritual murder. Edward Burlingame Books.Schmidt, J. (1992) Satanismus: Mythos und Wirklichkeit, diagonal-verlag, Marburg, GermanySchutze, J. (1989) Cauldron of blood: The Matamoros cult killings. New York, NY: Avon.Schwitzgebel, R.L. & Schitzgebel, R. K. (1973) Psychotechnology. New York, NY: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston.Seth, R. (1977) In the name of the devil. Harrolds PublishersSinason, V. (1994) Treating survivors of satanic abuse. New York, NY: Routledge.Sklar, D (1977) The Nazis and the occult. New York, NY: Dorset Press.Smith, M. (1993) Ritual abuse: What it is, why it happens, how to help. San Francisco, CA: Harper.Smith, M. (1993) It’s love and unity I want: A healing guide for ritual abuse survivors and the people who support them. Privately printed: Reaching Out, 1296 E. Gibson Road, #128, Woodland CA 95776.Smith, M, & Pazder, L. (1980) Michelle remembers. New York, NY: Pocket Books.Spencer, J. (1989) Suffer the child. New York, NY: Pocket Books.Stardancer, L. J. Returning to herself. Available from Stardancer, P. O. Box 1284, Lakeport, CA 95453. $9.00.Stardancer, L. J. Turtleboy and Jet the Wonderpup: A therapeutic comic for ritual abuse survivors. Available from Stardancer, P. O. Box 1284, Lakeport, CA 95453Stover, E. & Nightingale, E. (1985) The breaking of bodies and minds: Torture, psychiatric abuse, and the health professions. Freeman & Co.Stratford, L. (1988) Satan’s underground. Eugene, OR: Harvest House.Stratford, Lauren (1993). Stripped Naked. Los Angeles, CA: Pelican Publishing.Suedfeld, P. (1990) Psychology and Torture. New York, NY: Hemisphere.Symonds, J. (1951) The great beast. Rider & Co..Tanner, J. and Tanner, S. (1995). Occultic Ritual Abuse: Fact or Fantasy? Salt Lake City, UT: Utah Lighthouse Ministry.Tate, Tim (1991). Children for the devil: Ritual abuse and satanic crime. London: Methuen.Terry, M. (1987) The ultimate evil: An investigation into a dangerous satanic cult. New York, NY: Bantam Books.Thomas, G. (1989). Journey into madness: The true story of secret C.I.A. mind control and medical abuse. New York, NY: Bantam Books.Tierney, P. (1989). The highest altar: Unveiling the mystery of human sacrifice. New Yrok, NY: Penguin Books.Tobias and Lalich (1994). Captive hearts, captive minds: Freedom and recovery from cults and abusive relationships. Hunter House.Valenstein, E. (1973) Brain control. John Wiley & Sons.Vallee, J. (1979) Messengers of deception.Victor, J. S. (1993) The creation of a contemporary legend. Open Court.Victor, J. S. (1993) Satanic panic. Open Court.Warnke, M. (1972) The satan seller. South Plainsfield, NJ: Bridge Publishing, Inc.Warnke, R. H. (1985) The great pretender.Starburst.Waterman, J., Robert J.K., McCord, J., and Oliveri, M. K. (1993). Behind the playground walls: Sexual abuse in preschools. New York, NY: Guilford Publications.Wedge, T. W. (1988) The satan hunter. Canton, OH: Daring Books.Weinstein, H. (1990) Psychiatry and the CIA: Victims of mind control. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.Wilson, C. (1973) The occult. New York, NY: Vintage Books.Wilson, J.P. and B. Raphael (Eds.) (1993). International handbook of traumatic stress syndromes. New York, NY: Plenum Press.Wood, Wendy Ann (1993). Triumph over darkness: Understanding and healing the trauma of childhood sexual abuse. Hillsboro, OR: Beyond Words Publishing.Wright, L. (1994) Remembering satan:Young, Walter C. (1992) “Recognition and treatment of survivors reporting ritual abuse.” In Out of darkness: Exploring satanism and ritual abuse. (Sakheim, David K. and Devine, Susan, Eds.) New York, NY: Lexington Books/Macmillan, Inc. pp. 249-278.Last updated September 1998.**This bibliography is for information purposes only, and does not indicate recommendation by New Hope Healing Institute. Please make sure you are safe when you are choosing books and workbooks to read and work in.This bibliography has been made available by New Hope Healing InstituteMay be reprinted in whole are part with credit to New Hope Healing Institute PO Box 532067 Indianapolis, IN 46253. http://nhhi.net |
| Top | Conviction List: Ritual Child Abuse Copyright © 1997. Believe The ChildrenMany ritual child abuse cases never are prosecuted due to the disbelief of authorities or the unlikelihood that young, severely traumatized children will be able to withstand cross-examination. A 1993 survey by the American Bar Association’s Center on Children and Family Law determined that 26 percent of prosecutors nationwide have handled cases involving “ritualistic or sexual abuse.” (Ross, 1994). The ritualistic aspects of the crimes often are not presented in court but are clearly indicated in the victims’ accounts.* ArkansasWest Memphis Three teenagers were convicted in the cult killings of three 8-year-old boys. Michael Wayne ‘Damien” Echols, 19, and Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, were convicted March 18, 1994, on three counts each of capitol murder. (Chicago Tribune, 1994). A jury recommended the death penalty for Echols and life in prison without pareole for Baldwin. (Sullivan, 1994). A third teenager, Jessie Lloyd Misskelley, Jr., 18, was convicted in February 1994, of one count of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder. He is serving a prison sentence of life plus 40 years. (Beifuss, 1994)Misskelley confessed to his role in the killings, telling police the murders were linked to a cult ritual that included the rape and mutilation of victims. (Chicago Tribune, 1993). West Memphis police detective Bryn Ridge testified that elements in the case pointed to the work of a satanic cult. (Sullivan, 1994).Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore disappeared while riding their bicycles in May 1993. Their nude bodies were found the next day in a drainage ditch. The boys had been bound, raped and beaten. (Chicago Tribune, 1993). One child had been sexually mutilated. One witness testified that one of the defendants drank the victim’s blood. (Sullivan, 1994).During the trial prosecutors presented evidence suggesting that Echols was a satanist. Acquaintances said Echols carried a cat’s skull to school, wrote satanic poems, and claimed to worship the devil. (Chicago Tribune, 1993). During his first police interview Echols told Detective Ridge that his favorite author was Anton LaVey, author of The Satanic Bible. (Sullivan, 1994). Mental health records indicate that Echols’ parents expressed concern about his possible involvement in “satanism or devil worship” when he was hospitalized in 1992. Just four months prior to the murders a clinician noted: “Damien explained that he obtains his powers by drinking blood of others.” (Sullivan, 1994).One item brought to the attention of police was an underground newsletter published by a cousin of Echols’ 16-year-old girlfriend. The 1991 edition of the Secret Order of the Undead or “SOUND” featured a drawing of a winged demon molesting a woman, a list of 13 songs “suitable to accompany any ritualistic murder” and a column instructing children on how to build a homemade land mine. (Perrusquia, 1993).CaliforniaBakersfield Alvin and Deborah McCuan, Scott and Brenda Kniffen, and Rodney and Linda Phelps (parents of Deborah McCuan) were indicted in 1982 on charges of sexually molesting children. The alleged victims included their own children, traded between families and used for group sex, as well as children from the Bluebird troop run by Deborah McCuan and the unlicensed day care facility in her home. The McCuans and Kniffens were convicted on all counts in 1983, drawing aggregate prison terms in excess of 1,000 years. The Phelps fled town and disapeared after being charged with 33 counts.Ritual elements in the case were ignored by authorities at the time. (Newton, 1996).In August 1996, a judge overturned the child molestation convictions of Alvin and Deborah McCuan and Scott and Brenda Kniffen.** (Northwest Herald, August 14, 1996).A second intrafamilial child-sex ring was exposed and prosecuted in Bakersfield, with trials continuing into 1985. Five adult defendants were convicted, including: Richard Cox, 47 (14 counts); Ruth Ann Taylor, 31 (14 counts); Anthony Cox, 25 (7 counts); George Cox, 24 (7 counts); and Theresa Cox, 21 (3 counts). Prison terms ranged from 10 to 41 years. (Newton, 1996).Seven defendants in another Bakersfield child-sex ring were convicted in August 1985, with multiple charges including child molestation and endangerment, assault with a deadly weapon, and production of child pornography. Wayne Forsythe, 28, was convicted on 41 separate counts. Other defendants, each convicted on a minimum of 50 counts, included Forsythe’s wife, Colleen Dill Forsythe, 26; Ricky Pitts, 31, and his wife Marcella Pitts, 29; Wayne Dill, 26 (Colleen Forsythe’s brother); Grace Dill, 50 (mother of Colleen Forsythe and Wayne Dill); and Gina Miller. Cumulative prison sentences in the case came to 2,100 years. (Newton, 1996).Leroy George Stowe III was convicted on 16 counts of child molestation and sentenced to 30 years in March 1985. Shortly after his conviction, victims in the case expanded their disclosures to include graphic descriptions of satanic ritual abuse and murders, involving nine more defendants.In January 1987, Gerardo Gonzales (facing 117 charges) pleaded no contest to one count of molesting a 5-year-old girl, and Rev. Willard Lee Thomas (facing 43 charges) pleaded no contest on two counts, including child endangerment and unlawful sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old girl. Both defendants were released from jail on the basis of time served, and charges against the remaining defendants were dismissed as part of their plea bargain.In February 1987, a California appeals court reversed Leroy Stowe’s conviction on 12 of 16 felony counts, with the grounds cited as a technical insufficiency in the pleadings.** (Newton, 1996).San Diego County Robert S. Wilkins, 38, and Lori Elizabeth Bartz, 22, were convicted in July 1987 on 8 counts of sexual abuse involving children from Bartz’s unlicensed day-care center. The original list of charges, dating back to 1984, included 92 counts of sex acts forced upon girls aged 10 to 15. The victims described displays of weapons, threats, and occult rituals in which Bartz pretended to channel the voice of Satan, telling the children “This is the devil; do as I say.” Both defendants received long prison terms. (Newton, 1996).Santa Rosa Darryl Ball and Charlotte Thrailkill plea bargained on molestation charges and were sentenced to substantial prison terms. The prosecutor’s opening statement referred to the ritual aspect of the crimes, and child victims described satanic ceremonies which included ritual murders.ColoradoAkron Philip and Michael Schmidt pleaded guilty to molesting children attending the day care center operated by their grandmother, Hazel Riggs, who was sentenced on a lesser charge. A Denver Post report on the case included ritual allegations by a child victim.Denver William L. Acree, former heroin addict and operator of a halfway house for juvenile delinquents, was convicted in February 1983, on two counts of prostituting children and one count of sexually assaulting a child. Acree was sentenced to 90 days in jail, with 5 years suspended on the condition that he undergo psychiatric counseling for at least 4 years.The victims were male, ages 10 – 17 years old, who displayed satanic tattoos and described themselves as members of Acree’s “coven.” (Newton, 1996).ConnecticutBridgeport Kerri Lynn Patavino, 28, a school bus driver, was convicted in August 1996 of statutory rape for seducing a 14-year-old boy who said she engaged him in strange rituals during sex. (Northwest Herald, 1996).The boy testified that Patavino once cut her arm with a razor blade and forced him to lick her blood. According to police, Patavino sent the boy love letters decorated with occult symbols and signed in her blood. During the trial, Patavino wore a pentagram medallion around her neck. (The News-Times, 1996).Patavino was sentenced to six years in prison. (Northwest Herald, 1996).FloridaDade County Francisco Fuster, 36, was convicted in 1985 on 14 counts of child abuse and sentenced to a minimum of 165 years in prison. Fuster had previously been convicted of lewd and lascivious assault on a 9-year-old girl and had served four years in prison for homicide. More than 50 children accused Fuster and his wife, Iliana, of abuse that included feces-eating, drugging, pornography, animal killings and anal rape with a crucifix. Fuster’s 7-year-old son was treated for gonorrhea of the throat.Iliana Fuster, a 17-year-old native of Honduras, also claimed to have been battered and sexually abused by Fuster. She confessed to her role in the crimes against the children and testified against her husband. Iliana Fuster received a 10-year sentence. (Hollingsworth, 1986).Stuart James Toward, 58, owner of Glendale Montessori School, pleaded guilty to child sexual abuse charges and received a 15-year sentence. His office manager, Brenda Williams, 30, was convicted in 1989 and sentenced to 6 years in prison.Children described being threatened with guns and knives, photographed for pornographic purposes, and forced to participate in sadistic rituals. (The Orlando Sentinel, 1989).GeorgiaHapeville Walter P. West, Jr., a former juvenile officer, pleaded guilty on June 20, 1994, to 33 counts of sexual abuse. West was sentenced to 20 years in prison, 20 years probation, and ordered never to be alone with children.Prosecutors said that West engaged in oral and anal sex with as many as 13 children, fondled them, forced them to engage in sex acts with other children, and filmed the assaults. Most of his victims were pre-adolescent children who had problems at school and with the law. The youngest victim named in the indictment was six years old. (The Atlanta Journal/The Atlanta Constitution, 1994).According to a case overview prepared by a special education teacher who reported the abuse, some of the children said West forced them to engage in bestiality and exposed them to animal killings. Other adults in the community were implicated but no additional arrests were made. (McCullers, 1994).IllinoisDanville Robbie Moore, a self-avowed “warlock,” was convicted on January 30, 1997, of three counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault and one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. Moore, 28, of Danville, Illinois, was arrested in June 1996 when several children, some as young as 4 years old, complained of being sexually abused after joining an informal witchcraft club led by Moore and Kimberly Harris. Harris, 26, pleaded guilty in October 1996 to fondling a 13-year-old girl and is serving a 7-year prison term.Sgt. John Howard, a juvenile officer with the Vermilion County Sheriff’s Department, said that “there appeared to be a connection” between the sexual abuse and what he called “occult activity.” Prosecutors said Moore talked about black magic to both lure and terrorize his victims.Moore was sentenced to 67 years in prison. (Kelley, 1997 and S.O.A.R., 1997).IowaEdgewood Michael Joseph Schildmeyer, 22, was convicted on second-degree sexual abuse of a 4-year-old boy and sentenced to 25 years in prison. The child testified that Schildmeyer abused him at the Sunshine Preschool and Day Care Center operated by Schildmeyer’s wife. The unlicensed center was shut down by the state after children began disclosing ritualistic acts involving stuffed animal decapitations, animal killings, and bondage with ropes and chains. (Hubert, 1989).MassachusettsMalden Gerald Amirault, 32, was convicted in 1986 of 15 counts of child abuse, including rape and indecent assault, and sentenced to 30 to 40 years in prison. Nine children who attended the Fells Acre Day Care Center testified that Amirault sexually assaulted them in a “magic room” while dressed as a clown. One child testified that small animals were killed. (Ross, 1986).His mother, Violet Amirault, 62, owner of the school, and her daughter, Cheryl Amirault LeFave, were given 8- to 20-year sentences.In August 1995, a judge ordered new trials for Violet Amirault and Cheryl Amirault LeFave.** (Rabinowitz, 1995).On March 24, 1997, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled against granting new trials for Violet Amirault, Gerald Amirault and Cheryl LeFave. The court determined that any flaws at trial were outweighed by the evidence presented by the prosecution. (The Survivor Activist, 1997).Pittsfield Bernard Baran, Jr., a 19-year-old teacher’s aide at a day care center, was convicted of child molestation in January 1985. He was sentenced to life, with parole possible in 15 years. Children testified that he threatened to kill their parents if they disclosed the abuse. (Newton, 1996).MichiganNiles Allan Barkman, co-owner of Small World Preschool, was convicted in April, 1985, of molesting a 5-year-old boy and sentenced to 50 to 75 years in prison. Children told authorities they were driven to barns where Barkman photographed them and tore off the head of a chicken. Children said Barkman’s wife, who was not charged, dressed up as a witch. (Ross, 1986). Barkman’s conviction was later reversed on appeal.** (Newton, 1996).Sanilac County On October 20, 1994, Stephen Rogers, 30, and his live-in girlfriend, Trudy O’Connor, 32, were found guilty of first-degree child abuse of a 9-year-old girl. The girl, Roger’s daughter, was found in a dark walk-in closet by Sanilac County sheriff’s deputies. The child was shackled by her ankle to a urine-soaked bed. Her arms had been tied behind her back with a harness made of socks and safety pins. The only other thing in the closet was a large, frightening Halloween mask, which hung directly over the bed.Family members said that Rogers and O’Connor believed the child was “possessed.” The girl’s maternal grandmother reported suspected sexual abuse in 1989 and 1990, after the little girl returned from visiting Rogers. A medical examination confirmed scar tissue. Teachers from the girl’s school testified that she appeared malnourished, had bruises, cuts and burns on her body, and often smelled of urine. (Flint Journal, 1994).MinnesotaJordan James John Rud, a 27-year-old garbage collector with two previous sex abuse convictions, agreed to plead guilty and testify against other defendants accused of abusing children in sex orgies, in exchange for a lighter sentence. Rud gave police a 113-page statement in which he graphically described sadistic assaults on children. (Emmerman, 1984).Children ranging in age from 2 to 17 years old described being molested by their parents, relatives and family friends during ritualistic orgies. The children talked about playing games with adults that culminated in sexual assaults and said they had been drugged with alcohol and pills. Many referred to being photographed nude and of seeing child pornography in Rud’s trailer. (Crewdson, 1984).In addition to Rud, 24 adults were charged with molesting 37 children. (Emmerman, 1984). Two defendants were tried and acquitted when one child witness recanted his accusation of abuse. (Chicago Tribune, 1984). The prosecutor dropped the charges against all other defendants to avoid releasing 126 pages of police notes containing allegations that implicated some of the former defendants in ritualistic child murders. (Ogintz, 1984).In January 1985, Rud was sentenced to 40 years in prison, the maximum sentence allowable by law. (Chicago Tribune, 1985).MississippiOxford Danny Walter Schertz, 48, a self-avowed former satanist, was sentenced to 9 years in prison without parole for selling a 16-year-old girl into prostitution. Schertz pleaded guilty to charges of kidnapping by trickery and transporting a minor across state lines for prosecution.F.B.I. agent Leonardo Floyd of Columbus, Mississippi, said Schertz controlled the girl with stories of his satanic powers and threats of harm to the girl and her family. Schertz forced the girl to have satanic symbols tattooed onto her leg and buttocks and to have body piercings in her private parts without anesthesia. (Kraft, 1996).NevadaCarson City Martha Helen Felix and her nephew, Felix “Paco” Ontiveros, were convicted of crimes against children who were placed in their babysitting service. At a preliminary hearing in 1985, children referred to drinking blood, killing animals, and other rituals. Defendants’ photographs of “mummified children” were produced at the hearing. (Ross, 1986).These convictions were later reversed on appeal.**New JerseyMaplewood Margaret Kelly Michaels, a teacher at the Wee Care Nursery operated by an Episcopal Church was convicted in April 1988 on 115 counts of child sexual abuse and sentenced to 47 years in prison. Nineteen preschool-aged children testified that Michaels sexually abused them and subjected them to rituals involving urine, feces, peanut butter and jelly, bloody tampons and penetration with silverware.Her conviction was overturned in March 1993 by an appeals court on the grounds that Michaels was denied a fair trial because expert testimony was introduced that should not have been allowed and because child witnesses were allowed to testify via closed-circuit TV.** (Chicago Tribune, 1993).In December 1994, prosecutors dropped the charges against Michaels in order to spare the children the ordeal of testifying in a second trial. (Chicago Tribune, 1994).Michaels is suing the prosecutors, seeking $800,000 in attorneys fees. (Chicago Tribune, 1996).New YorkMount Vernon Jeannette Martin, 51, was accused of holding children down while they were raped and sodomized at an unlicensed day care center. Martin was convicted on a misdemeanor child endangerment charge in February 1987, and sentenced to one year in jail.Co-defendant James Watt, 31, was convicted on 11 rape counts, 5 sodomy counts and one count of child endangerment, and sentenced to 55 – 165 years in prison. In January 1992, an appellate court split 3 to 2 in favor of overturning Watts’ conviction on the grounds that the dates of the offenses alleged in the indictment were “too vague.” ** Two dissenting judges voted to uphold the conviction on 6 counts related to a single victim, but were overruled.Three female victims were diagnosed with sexually transmitted diseases. (New York Times and New York Law Journal).North CarolinaEdenton Robert F. Kelly, Jr., co-owner of the Little Rascals Day Care Center, was convicted in 1992 on 99 of 100 counts of sexually abusing children. Kelly was sentenced to 12 consecutive life terms, one for each child who testified against him. (Chicago Tribune, April 23-24, 1992).Twelve children testified that Kelly sexually molested them, forced them to have sex with other children while being photographed, and engaged in sexual acts in the presence of children. The children described being forced to eat feces, threatened with snakes, penetrated with toys, sticks and other objects, hung from trees and tied in bags, and being present while infants were killed. (Allegood, 1991-1992).Kelly’s conviction was overturned on appeal in 1995.** The court ruled that parents’ testimony about children’s behavioral symptoms was outside the boundaries of permissible opinion from lay witnesses and that testimony from a victim’s father, who had previously been retained as Kelly’s defense attorney, should not have been allowed. (Richissin, 1995).On May 23, 1997, prosecutors dropped all remaining charges against Robert F. Kelly, Jr. and Kathryn Dawn Wilson. Assistant District Attorney Nancy Lamb said the children’s parents were reluctant to put them through the ordeal of another trial. (Thompson, 1997). Kelly is awaiting trial on eight new counts of sexual abuse unrelated to the day care case. The eight new indictments charge Kelly with raping, abusing and taking indecent liberties with a 9-year-old girl during the summer of 1987. Kelly is free on bond while awaiting trial. (News & Observer, 1996).Kathryn Dawn Wilson, 27, former cook at Little Rascals, was sentenced in 1993 to life in prison after being convicted of one charge of first-degree sex offense and four charges of taking indecent liberties with a minor. Four children testified that Wilson touched their genitals, forced them to participate in sexual acts, and had sex with Kelly in front of children. (Allegood, 1993).Wilson’s appeal for a new trial was granted because information about an “irrelevant” theft and Wilson’s history of drug abuse was prejudicial and should have been excluded.** (Richissin, 1995).Kelly’s wife, Elizabeth T. “Betsy” Kelly, 38, pleaded no contest on January 21, 1994, to 30 charges of abusing 16 children. She was sentenced to seven years in prison. (Allegood, 1994).Willard Scott Privott, 45, a former video store owner, pleaded no contest June 16, 1994, to over 30 charges of sexually abusing children at the Little Rascals Day Care Center. Sixteen children said that Privott sexually fondled them, forced them to commit sexual acts with other children, with him and with day care employees, and photographed and videotaped the assaults. (Quillin, 1994). Some children allege Privott dressed as a pirate and took them on a boat where they said he molested them, and that he killed babies and fed them to sharks in a tank.Smithfield Patrick Figuered, a former electronics firm executive, was sentenced to three consecutive life terms in 1992, after being convicted of sexually abusing three children in 1988. The children, who were between the ages of 2 and 5 years old when the abuse occurred, testified that Figured and his girlfriend, Sonja Hill, molested them at the unlicensed child care center Hill’s mother operated from her home.The children testified that they were drugged and videotaped during sexual assaults, sodomized with a screwdriver, and forced to participate in satanic rituals in which adults wore capes and masks, lit candles, burned Bibles, and forced children to drink urine and blood. (Soloway, 1992).Sonja Hill pleaded no contest to aiding and abetting the taking of indecent liberties with children and was sentenced in July 1993, to 10 years in prison. (Eisley, 1993).Winston-Salem Ricky Martin Vernon, a former Boy Scout volunteer, pleaded guilty in 1989 to taking indecent liberties with 13 teenaged boys from 1981 – 1988, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.Vernon offered to initiate the boys into “The Order of the Circle.” In order to learn the ways of “The Circle,” they had to participate in religious rituals that included sex acts and a service that mimicked Christian communion. (News & Observer, 1989).OhioCanton Estella M. Sexton, 47, mother of 12 children, was convicted April 15, 1994, of sexually, physically and psychologically abusing her daughter. The charges relate to abuse that occurred five years ago when the daughter was eight years old. The girl testified that her mother beat her, stripped her and sexually fondled her. An older brother corroborated her story of abuse and described satanic rituals that took place in the home.Sexton’s older daughter, Estella M. “Pixie” Good, 24, pleaded guilty earlier in 1994 to manslaughter in the death of her baby. She told authorities she smothered the baby after her father complained about the baby’s crying. (Knox, 1994).Mansfield Two teenage babysitters at the First Presbyterian Church were convicted of sexually abusing children while the victims’ parents attended church services. Lawrence Rohde, 19, was convicted in 1992 on 7 counts of gross sexual imposition and sentenced to 14 years in prison. (Boyd, 1992). Scott Butner, 17, pleaded guilty to 5 counts of rape and received a 5 to 10-year prison sentence. (Trexler, 1992).As many as 50 children described being sexually abused and taken from the church to wooded areas where they said they were forced to participate in child pornography, infanticide, and mutilation of corpses. Victims’ parents demanded that charges be filed against adult church members who allegedly were involved, but only Rohde and Butner were indicted. (Hobbs, 1992).OregonRoseburg Ed Gallup, Sr., Mary Lou Gallup and their son, Ed “Chip” Gallup, Jr., who together ran three Gallup Christian Day Care Centers, were accused by over a hundred children of sexual molestation and ritual child abuse. Children described animal killings, pornography, and sexual abuse performed by adults wearing robes.Ed “Chip” Gallup, Jr. was convicted on three charges of child sexual abuse involving two children. Ed Gallup, Sr., a Nazarene minister, was convicted on the testimony of a 5-year-old girl.In November, 1989, Mary Lou Gallup’s conviction was reversed because of a discovery violation.**Ed Gallup, Sr. and Ed “Chip” Gallup, Jr. are serving life terms.TennesseeMemphis Frances Lucindy Ballard, a teacher’s aide at Georgia Hills Early Childhood Center, was convicted in 1987 on one count of aggravated sexual battery and sentenced to five years in prison.Nineteen children had initially accused her of sexual assault in June 1984, with allegations including satanic rituals, death threats, and animal sacrifice.In February 1991, Ballard’s conviction was overturned on grounds that one of several videotapes depicting police interviews with children had been taped over, and thus erased, before it could be viewed by the defense. Her other complaints, including allegations that the children had been brainwashed, were described by the court as “meritless.”** (Newton, 1996).TexasAustin Frances and Daniel Keller, operators of Fran’s Day Care Center, were convicted in 1992 of aggravated sexual assault of a 3-year-old girl. The Kellers were sentenced to 48 years in prison.Three children made allegations of abuse that included references to being buried alive with animals, painting pictures with bones dipped in blood, being shot and resurrected, digging up a body in a cemetary and nailing it together, having giant germs implanted in their bodies, and making pornographic movies at gunpoint. (Gamino, 1992).El Paso Two teachers at the YMCA day-care center were convicted of sexually abusing children in El Paso, Texas. Michelle Noble, 34, was convicted in March 1986 on 18 counts of molestation and sentenced to life plus 311 years in prison. Gayle Stickler Dove, 40, was convicted in October 1986, on 6 counts of child abuse and sentenced to three life terms plus 60 years.Two boys and five girls described abuse that included sexual assault, child pornography, spankings with a plastic tennis racket, and occult-type ritual activities by adults dressed in robes and monster costumes.Noble’s conviction was overturned in 1987 when an appeals court decided that allowing children to testify on videotape violated the defendant’s right to confront her accusers.** Several witnesses withdrew from the case, and without their testimony, Noble was acquitted at her second trial in April 1988.Gayle Dove was granted a new trial in March 1987, after her conviction had been set aside on appeal due to an allegation of jury misconduct.** At her second trial, she was convicted on a single count of aggravated battery and sentenced to 20 years. In 1989, her second conviction was overturned on the grounds that three children should have testified in person, rather than on videotape.** In April 1990, prosecutors declined to try her a third time, citing the reluctance of the victims’ parents to put their children through the ordeal of another trial. (Newton, 1996).UtahLehi Alan B. Hadfield was convicted on seven counts of “sodomizing and sexually molesting” two of his children (Salt Lake Tribune, 1988) in a case in which as many as 40 adults in the community were implicated as perpetrators of satanic ritual abuse (Salt Lake Tribune, 1987). No other charges were filed.VirginiaRichmond In 1984 two children, ages 7 and 5, were removed from their home due to allegations that they had been sexually abused by their mother and her boyfriend. The children said they were forced to witness the murder of a 12-year-old girl during a cult ritual. The mutilated body of 12-year-old Jessica Hatch was discovered in a remote area of Hanover County. She had disappeared on February 5, 1984, while walking to her grandmother’s house.Police found candles and occult paraphernalia, but said the children “would freeze up… we couldn’t tell whether they were telling the truth or fantasizing.” (Ross, 1986). The children were ruled incompetent to testify and the sexual abuse charges were dismissed.Gary Jay Beattie, 28, a convicted “peeping Tom” and friend of the other two suspects, was arrested for making indecent proposals to a 9-year-old girl and two 13-year-old girls. All three girls knew Jessica Hatch and said that Beattie had also propositioned her. Beattie was acquitted of accosting the 9-year-old, but entered a plea bargain on outstanding sex charges involving the 13-year-old victims. His 5-year prison sentence was suspended.In 1988 Beattie was arrested again on multiple charges of voyeurism. At his first trial in July 1988, he was sentenced to 60 days and a $500 fine. He received a 3-year prison term in the second trial. A third trial in October 1988 resulted in a mistrial because one of the jurors was related to a police officer who investigated the case. A retrial was held in December 1988, and Beattie was convicted on a misdemeanor charge, with a 12-month jail term suspended.In September 1991, while still on probation, Beattie was arrested on new voyeurism charges.No one has ever been charged with murdering Jessica Hatch, but local newspapers referred to Beattie as the “closest thing to a suspect.” County authorities cited a “strong possibility” that Jessica Hatch was killed in a satanic ritual. (Times-Dispatch and News Leader, 1988-1991).WashingtonThurston County Paul R. Ingram, a sheriff’s deputy, confessed in 1988 to sexually abusing two of his daughters in the context of satanic rituals. Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of third-degree rape and was sentenced to 220 years in prison.Later, he attempted to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming he had been coerced and had confessed while in a “trance-like state” to crimes he never committed. In September 1992, the Washington State Supreme Court rejected Ingram’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea. (Wright, 1993).Wenatchee Five adults were convicted and 11 pleaded no contest in a child sex-ring investigation involving 48 child victims.Selid Holt, 34, was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison; Michael Rose, 26, was convicted on 5 counts of child rape and molestation and sentenced to 23 years; Doris Green, 34, who confessed and then recanted her statement, was convicted at trial and sentenced to 23 years; Randall Reed, 43, pleaded guilty on two counts of child molestation and was sentenced to 80 months; Meredith Town, 37, an ex-convict who pleaded no contest on 62 counts of child rape and 4 counts of indecent liberties, was sentenced to 18 years and 4 months; Cherie Town (Meredith Town’s wife), also pleaded nolo contendere and was sentenced to 10 years; Harold and Idella Everett both pleaded guilty to molesting their own children, with Harold sentenced to 23 years and Idella to 4 1/2 years. (Newton, 1996).Child victims referred to the offenders as “The Circle” and described being sexually assaulted and “swapped” in orgies that allegedly took place at a Pentecostal Church. (Sunde, 1995).Despite defendants’ criticism of the investigation, a review by the U.S. Justice Department found no evidence that defendants’ civil rights were violated. (Sex Crimes Digest, 1996).CanadaPrescott, Ontario Approximately 50 adults were convicted or pleaded guilty in a child sex ring involving over 100 children.Children described being abused in a basement by adults wearing masks and sheets. They said they were raped, cut with knives, forced to drink blood, and locked in a “dungeon” with a trap door. (Miller, 1995).A multi-disciplinary team of social workers, prosecutors and police investigating the case took the code name “Project Jericho” to honor Joshua, a baby witnesses say was killed. (Steed, 1994).Martensville, Saskatchewan Travis Sterling, 25, was convicted in February, 1994, on eight charges of sexual and physical abuse of children at his parents’ unlicensed day care home. Sterling was sentenced to five years in prison.Travis Sterling and his parents, Ron and Linda Sterling, were among nine people, including five police officers, arrested on more than 150 child abuse charges. Seven child witnesses testified to abuse that included sexual assault, unlawful confinement and anal intercourse. Weapons, a vibrator and pornographic magazines were found in the Sterling home.In addition to Travis Sterling, a 22-year-old woman who can not be identified because she was a minor at the time of her offenses, was convicted in 1993 on seven child abuse counts. (Wattie, 1994).EnglandNottingham Twenty-five children were removed from an extended family and taken into foster care following disclosures of incest and ritual child abuse. In February, 1989, nine adults were sentenced for up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to 53 charges of incest, cruelty and indecent assault. The children described being abused by adults wearing costumes, being forced to eat excrement and drink blood, and witnessing the killing of animals and babies. (Tate, 1991).The NetherlandsAmsterdam Rene Osterwalder, 38, and his girlfriend, Agostina Schonenberger, 21, were convicted in February 1994 of illegal weapons charges and attempted child abduction. Schonenberger testified that Osterwalder had planned to abduct children, torture them to death in his apartment, and dump their bodies into an aquarium filled with piranhas.Because the abductions apparently had not been carried out, Osterwalder was sentenced to only 2 years in prison; Schonenberger was sentenced to 6 months. However, they were ordered to serve their sentences in Switzerland, where they face more serious charges of child torture and sexual abuse.Police found the following evidence in a search of the couple’s residences: Six videotapes showing Osterwalder abusing three children ranging in age from 6 months to 12 years old. The children were given electric shocks, held under water and resuscitated, and abused with feces and needles;Two tanks of hydrochloric acid in Switzerland and an aquarium with piranhas in Amsterdam. (Osterwalder owned two homes in Amsterdam; one was a former satanic church);A fully equipped torture chamber in Switzerland;Gynecological equipment, including a culposcope, speculum and extractor;Professional video equipment;An Uzi rifle with laser visor, hundreds of bullets, two wristweapons and a shooting pen; and luggage with air openings, hand cuffs, and gags.Osterwalder admitted he was a pedophile but insisted he had no plan to kidnap children. (Jonker, 1993 and Newton, 1996)New ZealandChristchurchPeter Hugh McGregor Ellis, 35, a former day care employee, was convicted June 5, 1993, on 16 counts of sexual abuse relating to seven children. Ellis was sentenced to 10 years in prison.Children who attended Christchurch Civic Creche described bizarre sexual abuse with references to frightening rituals. The children allege they were removed from the day care facility and transported to other locations, including a cemetary and a Masonic lodge, where they were abused by adults dressed in black and white and wearing masks. In addition to their reports of being used for pornographic purposes, the children described being abused within a circle; chanting and participating in mock marriages; being tied up and confined in cages and boxes buried beneath the ground; being penetrated with needles and sticks; witnessing the torture and killing of animals; being drugged; being forced to hurt other children; having blood poured over their heads; and consuming what they believed was human flesh.Other Evidence In addition to convictions other evidence has surfaced verifying the existence of ritual abuse of children. Several case examples are given below:New Hampshire On March 1, 1991, FBI agents arrested three men suspected of running a major child pornography ring. The three men charged were Wayne H. Bailey, 56, of Fairhaven, RI, an audio technician for a Providence, RI television station; Brian K. Schultz, 44, a Barrington, NH man who allegedly reproduced child pornography under the name “New England Video Exchange”; and Mark Colen, 44, from Brooklyn, CT, who headed a company that reproduced and distributed alleged pornographic films.Law enforcement officials said videotapes recovered in searches of the men’s homes and businesses depicted pregnant women being tortured, children being molested by adults, young women engaged in sexual activities with animals, children urinating on each other and ingesting human feces, and various bizarre sex acts with “satanic” overtones. Some of the children were as young as six years old. (Ford, 1991 and Gaines, 1991).District of Columbia A police raid of a home and warehouse connected to the commune known as “The Finders” resulted in the seizure of “several bags of evidence reportedly containing photographs, computer records and other documents.” (Cawley, 1987). A customs agent investigating the case noted that the documents “revealed detailed instructions for obtaining children for unspecified purposes.” (Tamarkin, 1994).The customs agent’s report listed the following evidence:”One telex specifically ordered the purchase of two children in Hong Kong. Other files referred to The Finders activities and members in foreign countries. And there was a large amount of data collected on various childcare organizations.””In one area of the warehouse, according to the investigator’s report, there appeared to be an altar. Jars of urine and feces were located nearby. The search warrants also turned up nude photos of children with their genital areas accented and ‘on display.’ An album cotained a series of photos of adults and children dressed in white sheets and participating in the execution, disembowelment, skinning and dismemberment of goats. One photo showed the testes of a male goat being removed. Another showed a crying child looking at a decapitated goat. In fact, the goat’s head and goat skins were removed by Virginia state police during a search of a farm belonging to The Finders group.” (Tamarkin, 1994).Despite the urgings of the customs agent and several U.S. Representatives, The Finders case was dropped “like a hot rock.” (Wilkin, 1993).Belgium Authorities are investigating a possible link between Belgium’s child sex and murder scandal and a self-styled Satanic Order of Abrasax. Police seized 500 video cassettes believed to show hard-core child pornography, computer discs, two human skulls and jars of animal blood. (Sunday Express, 1997 and Sunday Times, 1996)Finland Police in Finland discovered a “massive computer library of child pornography that included pictures of torture, mutilation, and cannibalism.” The owner of the child pornography was not arrested because distributing hard-core child pornography is a minor offense in Finland. (World, 1996.)ReferencesAllegood, J. (1991). “Abuse trial opens.” The News & Observer, August 20. “Child, 5, alleges more abuse at trial.” The News & Observer, August 27. “Mother says son told her of satanic chants at center.” The News & Observer, Sept. 11.Allegood, J. (1993). “Jurors convict Rascals cook.” The News & Observer, Jan. 27.Allegood, J. (1994). “No contest plea in Little Rascals child-sex case.” The News & Observer, January 22.”Arkansas teen faces death sentence in murder of 3 boys.” Chicago Tribune, March 20, 1994.Beifuss, J. (1994). “Misskelley guilty in boys’ slayings.” The Commercial Appeal, February 5.Boyd, B. (1992). “Rohde guilty on 7 counts.” News Journal, March 18.Cawley, Janet. (1987) “2 cult children show signs of sex abuse,” Chicago Tribune, February 9.”Child abuser gets 12 life sentences.” (1992). Chicago Tribune, April 24.”Child Exploitation,” World (USA Today), September 7, 1996, p. 10.”Child molester gets 40 years in Minnesota case.” (1985), Chicago Tribune, January 19.Crewdson, J., Emmerman, L. and Ogintz, E. (1984) “Sexual abuse case continues to haunt town in Minnesota.” Chicago Tribune, December 16.”Dad says girl was chained to restrict her self-abuse.” Flint Journal, March 21, 1994.”Day-care owner guilty on 99 child abuse counts.” (1992). Chicago Tribune. April 23.”Discovery of bound girl confirms many suspicions.” Flint Journal, February 19, 1994.Eisley, M. (1993). “Woman loses gamble in sex abuse plea bargain.” The News & Observer, July 6.Emmerman, L. (1984). “Charges of child sex-abuse ring rock town.” Chicago Tribune, August 27.Emmerman, L. (1984). “Witness recants sex-ring story.” Chicago Tribune.”Fells Acre Day-Care: Amiraults May Return to Prison.” The Survivor Activist (14), Vol. 5, No. 1, Spring, 1997.Ford, Beverly. (1991). “Parents eye porn-ring link.” The Boston Herald, March 11.Ford, Beverly. (1991). “Cape parents want porn case reopened.” The Boston Herald, March 18.”Former Critic Reverses, Says ‘The System Worked,'” Sex Crimes Digest, 1996.Gaines, Judith. (1991). “Three Men Charged With Running N.E. Child Pornography Ring.” The Boston Globe, March 2.Gamino, D. and P. Ward. (1992). “Garden of horror.” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dec. 20.Hobbs, M.A. (1992). “Tales of satanism divide Mansfield.” The Plain Dealer, November 29.Hollingsworth, J. (1986). Unspeakable Acts. Chicago: Congden and Weed.Hubert, C. (1989). “Day-care abuse stuns Iowa town.” Daily Herald, December 4.Jonker, F. and Jonker-Bakker, P. (1993). “Actuality in the Netherlands,” European Network for Backlash Research Newsletter Number 2, December.”Judge orders couple to trial on charges of child abuse.” Flint Journal, 1994.Kelley, M. “Ritual child-abuse allegations draw attention to Danville case.” The Associated Press, January 27, 1997.Knox, D. (1994). “Sexton mother guilty of abuse.” Akron Beacon Journal, April 15.Kraft, B. P.. (1996). “Ex-Satanist to Serve 9 Years on Sex Charges.” Clarion-Ledger.”Little Rascals case reopened.” (1996). The News & Observer, April 30.”Man convicted of luring boys to sex rituals.” (1989). The News & Observer, August 27.McCullers, L.C. (1994). “Case overview.” July 14.Miller, J. (1995). “Walls came a’ tumbling.” Winnipeg Free Press, April 3.”Molestation case,” Northwest Herald, August 14, 1996.”Murder suspect linked to Satanism.” Chicago Tribune, June 6, 1993.”Murders of 8-year-olds reportedly a cult ritual.” Chicago Tribune, June 8, 1993.New York Law Journal. (1992). January 16.New York Times. ( 1985 – 1987).News Leader, May, 1988 – September 1991.Newton, M. (1996) Guilty As Charged. Presentation at the International Council on Cultism and Ritual Trauma Conference, April 12-14, Dallas, Texas.”No contest plea in Little Rascals child-sex case.” (1994). The News & Observer, Jan. 22.Ogintz, E. (1984). “Dropping of sex cases investigated,” Chicago Tribune, October 17.”Pair guilty of abuse in chaining girl to bed.” Flint Journal, October 21, 1994.”Parole denied for Little Rascals co-owner.” (1994). The News & Observer, April 16.Perrusquia, M. and B. Sullivan. (1993). “Occult publications draw scrutiny in triple slayings.” The Commercial Appeal, September 29.”Prosecutors sued.” (1996), Chicago Tribune, June 16.Quillin, M. (1994). “Little Rascals defendant pleads no contest, will go free.” The News & Observer, June 17.Richissin, Todd. (1995). “Rascals convictions overturned.” The News & Observer, May 3.Ross, A.S. (1994). “Blame it on the Devil.” Redbook, June, 86-89, 110, 114, 116.Ross, A.S. (1986). “Sensational cases across the country.” San Francisco Examiner, September 29.Salt Lake Tribune, January 13, 1988.Salt Lake Tribune, December 16, 1987.”Satanic Link Feared in the search for young victims.” Sunday Express, January 12, 1997.”Satanic Links to Belgian Murder Trail.” Sunday Times, December 29, 1996.”Sentencing ends child abuse ordeal.” (1994). The Atlanta Journal/The Atlanta Constitution, June 21.S.O.A.R. Newsletter, Vol. 6, No. 6, May/June, 1997.Soloway, C. (1992). “Raleigh man sentenced to 3 life terms for abuse.” The News & Observer, October.”Son comes to parents’ defense in child-sex trial.” (1984), Chicago Tribune.Steed, J. (1994). Our Little Secret: Comfronting Child Sexual Abuse in Canada. Toronto: Random House.Sullivan, B. (1994). “Prosecutors seek to link occult in 3 boys’ deaths.” The Commercial Appeal, March 8.Sullivan, B. (1994). “Witness: Baldwin said he tasted boy’s blood.” The Commercial Appeal, February 5.Sullivan, B. (1994). “Echols gets death; Baldwin spared.” The Commercial Appeal, March 20.Tamarkin, Civia (1994). “Investigative Issues in Ritual Abuse Cases, Part II.” Treating Abuse Today, 4(5), 5-9.Tate, T. (1991). Children for the Devil: Ritual Abuse and Satanic Crime. London: Methuen.”Teacher’s molestation conviction overturned.” (1993), Chicago Tribune, March 27.Thompson, E. “Charges dropped in massive sex case.” The Associated Press, May 24, 1997.Times-Dispatch, May 1988 – September 1991.Trexler, P. (1992). “Butner pleads guilty.” News Journal, February 21.”2 teens convicted in slayings of 3 Arkansas boys.” Chicago Tribune, March 19, 1994.”21 to tell of abuse at school.” (1989). The Orlando Sentinel, April 5.Wattie, C. (1994). “Child-abuser gets bail in Martensville case.” The Gazette (Montreal), February 10.”Witch charged with sexually assaulting boy.” The News-Times, August 2, 1996.”Witch trial.” Northwest Herald, August 22, 1996 and October 13, 1996.Witkin, Gordon and Peter Cary. (1993). “Through a glass, very darkly.” U.S. News & World Report, December 27.Wright, L. (1993). “Remembering Satan.” The New Yorker.* Because ritual abuse allegations often are not disclosed in courtroom proceedings, this list represents only a portion of convictions where ritual child abuse is a factor.** A conviction is overturned on appeal when the appellate court finds that the defendant was denied a fair trial due to a legal error. Granting an appeal for a new trial does not constitute a ruling that the crime for which the defendant was originally tried could not have been committed. |
