Aug. 10, 2015

Since I undertook this blog in 2011, I’ve been waiting for a mass-market book that recalls the “satanic ritual abuse” day-care era with authority, insight and thoroughness.

“We Believe the Children: A Moral Panic in the 1980s” comes pretty darn close to meeting that standard. (I do wish author Richard Beck had addressed the significant post-panic contributions of Richard Noll and Allen Frances.)

I’ll be posting excerpts from the book and later an interview with Beck.

Meanwhile, I’ve been pleased to see the reviews in the news media – so far, all largely appreciative.

 “…This book does a devil of a job correcting… all the lies and self-deceptions, so credulously believed in the 1980s….”

– From “Child Abuse Cases Endure as Lessons in Hysteria” by Mark Oppenheimer in The New York Times (Aug. 6)

“ ‘We Believe the Children’ should serve to remind us of the dangers of the ‘we must believe the victim’ mindset in the case of any criminal offense. A faith-based pursuit of justice can lead to a miscarriage of justice.”

 – From  “What Fueled the Child Sex Abuse Scandal That Never Was?” by Lizzie Crocker at the Daily Beast (Aug. 3)

“ ‘We Believe the Children’ reveals the various combinations of ignorance, venality, arrogance and zealotry that characterized the major players who fueled the moral panic.”

– From “A Very Model Moral Panic” by Carol Tavris in the Wall Street Journal  (Aug. 7)

Here also is a radio interview with Beck and – inevitably – a response from witch-hunt denier Ross Cheit.

Aug. 9, 2015

“Suppressing evidence, coddling informants, even outright lying are some of the instances of prosecutorial misconduct that sent away nearly half the 1,621 people convicted for crimes they didn’t commit since 1989, according to the University of Michigan Law School’s National Registry of Exonerations. These are only the cases we know about, surely only a small fraction of the wrongly convicted….

“In a 2011 report on 707 such cases, only six prosecutors (none in “satanic ritual abuse” day-care cases) were disciplined. Almost all still have their licenses, and are still practicing law….

“Prosecutors are granted immunity for most kinds of misconduct. It’s easy to see the reasons for this policy: otherwise, every well-heeled convict would sue, clogging the system and making it impossible for prosecutors to do their jobs. At the same time, that immunity is so absolute that prosecutors simply get off scot-free, even when misconduct is established. Even worse, most states lack any meaningful oversight of prosecutors: no commissions, no review boards, nothing.

“America is the only country in which many prosecutors are elected…. The disciplinary commission that sanctioned Mike Nifong – prosecutor of the Duke lacrosse team on false rape charges – noted his upcoming primary election as a motivating factor for his misconduct. The pressure to produce wins has led to a ‘win-at-all-costs’ mentality in some offices, especially when voters reward such behavior.”

– From “It’s Not Just Bad Cops: Prosecutors Run Wild” by Jay Michaelson at the Daily Beast (Aug. 8)

For whatever reason, voters in the First Judicial District declined to “reward such behavior” by Little Rascals prosecutors H. P. Williams Jr. and Nancy Lamb. District Attorney Williams failed to win re-election in 1994, and Lamb lost her bid for DA in 2014.

Aug. 4, 2015

“Some have drawn parallels between the Salem witch trials of 1692 and the false accusations of sexual abuse that sweptc America in the 1980s. The difference is this:

“Those falsely accused in Salem got public apologies from their accusers and reparations. No such luck for the dozens of day-care workers and others who were falsely accused and imprisoned in modern-day America.

“We should be ashamed.”

– From “How the daycare child abuse hysteria of the 1980s became a witch hunt,” a review of “We Believe the Children,” by Maura Casey in the Washington Post (July 31)

I’ll have more soon on Richard Beck’s important new addition to the “satanic ritual abuse” bookshelf.

July 31, 2015

“Since February, 2008, on Wikipedia’s page on ‘Satanic Ritual Abuse,’ Wikipedia’s staff has been suppressing and deleting credible posts from credible sources (including my posts – I am a licensed California psychologist) that have documented substantial criminal and psychological evidence of criminal ritual abuse, and instead has completely discounted the existence of ritual abuse.

“As of July 27, 2009, Wikipedia’s page on ‘Satanic ritual abuse’ begins as follows: ‘Satanic ritual abuse (SRA, sometimes known as ritual abuse, ritualistic abuse, organised abuse, sadistic abuse and other variants) refers to a moral panic that originated in the United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout the country and eventually to many parts of the world, before subsiding in the late 1990s.’

“Wikipedia has now escalated its censorship of all information supporting the existence of ritual abuse by blacklisting four important websites about ritual abuse on July 18, 2009….”

– From a post by Ellen Lacter at her End Ritual Abuse website in which she recounts her repeated but unsuccessful attempts (cached) to budge Wikipedia editors from their stubborn rationality. (Holocaust deniers are similarly non grata.)

Supposed experts such as Lacter do still command an audience, however shrunken from the giddy days of the moral panic. This recent article quotes her as suggesting the motivation behind the Louisiana theater killings might have been “to gain power, transfer power, and strengthen and share in the power of Satan and demons…”

July 26, 2015

“A look at America’s underbelly indicates more than a ‘random’ killing (at a Lafayette, La., movie theater). Eight signs point to John Russell Houser possibly being subjected to programmed satanic ritual abuse (SRA) mind control…..”

– From “Eight Louisiana Shooter Satanic Ritual Abuse Links” by Deborah Dupré at Before It’s News (July 24)

Among those “eight signs”:

• “Houser’s Thursday night (July 23) shooting coincides with the (July 20) three-year anniversary of James Holmes opening fire at a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado.
• “Many SRA survivors experience a difference in their normal day-to-day life one to two weeks before any major ritual celebration. These are marked on SRA calendars….. Between July 20-27, SRA-mind-controlled individuals prepare for… a blood sacrifice.”
• “Houser moved to Lafayette in early July, officials say. July 1 on the SRA calendar is designated as ‘Demon Revels Blood (Druids sexual association with demons. Any age. Female).’ The two people Houser murdered were each females…. In SRA, males dominate….”

Hard to believe, isn’t it, that the mainstream media have failed to pursue such an obvious explanation….

July 21, 2015

“When Massachusetts exonerated the Salem victims in 1710 it overlooked six women. They remained missing through the 1940s and 1950s as the commonwealth considered pardons but could not seem to make up its legislative mind.

“One lawyer appearing before a Senate committee objected to ‘fooling with history.’ Some legislators feared expensive suits for damages. Others hinted that a pardon might knock Salem’s witches from their tourist-bewitching brooms. As the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had not existed in 1692, it surely had no jurisdiction over a verdict of Massachusetts Bay.

“On Halloween 2001 – weeks after we began to wonder anew about unseen evils – Massachusetts pardoned the last of the Salem witches….”

– From “The Witches: Salem, 1692” by Stacy Schiff (due Oct. 27) 

July 5, 2015

“In March, A. M. Stroud III, lead prosecutor at trial, wrote a remorseful article in The Shreveport Times, declaring, ‘Glenn Ford was an innocent man,’ taking responsibility for a rush to judgment and arguing for the abolition of the death penalty.

“ ‘I apologize to Glenn Ford for all the misery I have caused him and his family,’ Mr. Stroud wrote. ‘I apologize to the family of (the murder victim) for giving them the false hope of some closure. I apologize to the members of the jury for not having all of the story that should have been disclosed to them. I apologize to the court in not having been more diligent in my duty to ensure that proper disclosures of any exculpatory evidence had been provided to the defense.’

“He concluded: ‘I end with the hope that providence will have more mercy for me than I showed Glenn Ford. But I am also sobered by the realization that I certainly am not deserving of it.’ ”

– From “Glenn Ford, Spared Death Row, Dies at 65” by Bruce Weber in the New York Times (July 2)

By the time Mr. Ford was exonerated and released in 2014, he had served 29 years in Louisiana’s Angola prison. His freedom was short-lived: In less than 16 months he would be dead from lung cancer.

Prosecutor Stroud deserves credit for his humble and agonized apology, however late. His words could just as truthfully have come from the mouths of H.P. Williams, Bill Hart and Nancy Lamb – but of course they haven’t.

July 2, 2015

“The notion of satanic ritual abuse was dismissed as ‘utter nonsense’ by Mrs. Justice Pauffley in care proceedings in the family court at (London’s) Royal Courts of Justice in March. Two children were coerced by their mother and her boyfriend into alleging horrendous sexual abuse and murder of babies by their father and others in a secret satanic cult…. ‘There was no satanic or other cult at which babies were murdered and children sexually abused,’ the judge said. The claims were ‘fabricated’ and ‘baseless.’

“But the total lack of physical evidence does not deter the compensation chasers. At a child abuse training day in London last week run by the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, delegates were told that satanic abuse was a reality. Barrister Lee Moore – a self-proclaimed satanic abuse survivor – and solicitor Peter Garsden, who are respectively the past and current president of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, ‘kept going on about satanic ritual abuse,’ according to a barrister who was present.

“She went on: ‘Peter Garsden told the assembled band of lawyers that SRA was prevalent and would be accepted as such, “given time.” The point is that at a conference of ‘cutting-edge’ personal injury lawyers specialising in child abuse, only one delegate was prepared to challenge these SRA proponents.’ ”

– From “Satanic Panic Ritual Defence” by Rosie Waterhouse in Private Eye (June 26) – hat tip, British False Memory Society

One difference on our side of the pond: The “compensation chasers” in American ritual abuse cases were much less likely to be lawyers than therapists.

June 28, 2015

“Today in Edenton members of John A. Holmes High School’s Class of ’73 will walk across a stage in caps and gowns, receive diplomas and turn tassels on their mortar boards  – 20 years late.

“Their graduation ceremony was cancelled abruptly in 1973. A decision not to renew the contract of a black band leader had caused racial unrest, and school officials feared a disruption…. Diplomas were mailed to the 142 graduates….

“One member who doesn’t plan to attend is Elizabeth Twiddy Kelly…. A condition of her ($400,000) bond prohibits her from going to her hometown.

“ ‘There are a lot of them I would love to just touch base with, but that will have to happen another year,’ Mrs. Kelly said.

“The class committee plans to send her a class T-shirt and a letter.”

– From “Class of ’73” by the Associated Press (June 12, 1993) 

Seven months later Betsy Kelly pleaded no contest to charges of child sex abuse, while maintaining her innocence, and accepted a sentence of seven years in prison. She was paroled in November 1994.