Aug. 28, 2014

“ASHEVILLE, N.C. – After more than 20 years behind bars, Michael Alan Parker, 57, walked past the barbed wire gates of Craggy Correctional Center and looked out at the mountain skyline on Tuesday morning.

“Convicted of sexually abusing his three children in a 1994 trial charged with allegations of Satanism, Parker was freed after Superior Court Judge Marvin Pope ruled Monday that the medical evidence would no longer be interpreted as proof of sexual abuse. Pope vacated Parker’s sentence and dismissed the charges against him….

“Parker was first jailed in February 1993, when he and several codefendants were accused of abusing Parker’s three children in and near their home in Saluda, N.C.

“At trial in 1994, Parker’s children testified in graphic detail about abuse that prosecutors labeled ritualistic. The 9-year-old girl testified that she had been sexually abused in a garage behind their home. She said a fire was burning inside a circle made of rocks, and she heard people chanting in soft voices.

“In an emotion-charged atmosphere, then-Assistant District Attorney Mike Edwards called the trailer park where the family lived ‘Sodom and Saluda’ and quoted the Bible in his statements to the jury….”

– From “Henderson County man walks free after 20 years in prison“ by Renee Bindewald in the Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald-Journal

Congratulations are in order for Mr. Parker and his appellate lawyer, Sean Devereux, who had labored doggedly (and often pro bono) on his behalf since 1999.

The similarities to Andrew Junior Chandler’s case are obvious, although the “Sodom and Saluda” allegations in the Parker case were rooted in domestic turmoil rather than in the way-too-familiar day-care fantasy. Most notable is Judge Pope’s recognition that the type of medical validation of abuse presented at trial has been persuasively discredited –  see also, the physician’s recantation that set Fran and Dan Keller free.

Will Pope’s decision prove to be an aberration? Or does it presage the breakthrough Junior Chandler has for so long been denied?

May 23, 2014

“….The widespread belief that sexual abuse of children is endemic to society is a relatively new notion. In fact, it can be traced to a particular moment in history: April 17, 1971.

“On that day the New York Radical Feminists, a group that at its height boasted no more than 400 members, held a groundbreaking conference on rape. For two days, women held forth on a subject long considered taboo…. A speech given by Florence Rush (was) the highlight of the event.

“Rush was an unlikely star for such a gathering. A middle-aged social worker, who had never been raped, she outlined statistical studies suggesting that sexual abuse of children, including incest, was a more widespread problem than was generally recognized….

“Before Rush’s speech, feminists had given little thought to incest. Author Andrea Dworkin recalled that before the conference ‘we never had any idea how common it was.’ In the decades following Rush’s talk, feminists more than made up for their earlier unawareness, competing with each other in elevating the number of victims….

“Believe the women. Believe the children. These refrains became the mantra of the incest movement. While the women’s movement would be enormously successful in turning sexual abuse – including incest – into a major public issue, women, ironically, would become the chief victims of the hysteria it generated.

“The obsession with this supposedly rampant sexual abuse played out in two ways: ‘Believe the women’ became the repressed memory hysteria. ‘Believe the children’ turned into the day-care hysteria….”

– From “Sex, Lies, and Audiotapes” by Rael Jean Isaac in the Women’s Quarterly (summer 2001) text cache

The road to the moral panic that would sweep up innocent day-care providers from North Carolina to New Zealand was a long one. If Florence Rush’s 1971 speech was one milestone early on, then perhaps the still-contentious 1988 conference of the International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality and Dissociation could be seen as the beginning of the end – although the allegations against the Edenton Seven weren’t yet even a gleam in a therapist’s eye….

Nov. 19, 2012

Crucial to the moral panic was a wave of ill-conceived academic and professional literature.
I asked Molly C. Dougherty, editor of Nursing Research, whether her journal had ever published a retraction of “Parental Stress Response to Sexual Abuse and Ritualistic Abuse of Children in Day-Care Centers” (January/February 1990). As is obvious in the title, Susan J. Kelley’s article embraces and promotes the existence of ritual abuse in day cares.

Dr. Dougherty told me that no retraction had appeared in the past or would appear in the future: “The authors of the article were careful to provide a thorough sample description without including information that linked participants to any specific location or case. Conditions that would lead to a retraction are not present.”

This is from my reply to her:

“Of course you are correct that Susan J. Kelley didn’t say which day-care cases were the basis for ‘Parental Stress Response to Sexual Abuse and Ritualistic Abuse of Children in Day-Care Centers.’ (Fells Acres seems a likely candidate, since it was Kelley’s own improper interviewing of child-witnesses that led to the overturning of convictions in that case.)

“But the problem here is not specific to Fells Acres, McMartin or Little Rascals. The entire article was founded on a false belief: that satanic ritual abuse occurred at even one day care. No such ‘multiple victim, multiple offender’ allegations were ever validated. In case after bizarre case, charges were eventually dropped and guilty verdicts overturned.

“The decade-long moral panic finally collapsed in the early 1990s. Today you will not find a single respected academic or professional willing to give credence to the claims of the ritual abuse era.

“By contrast, this excerpt from Kelley’s abstract demonstrated her unquestioning advocacy:

“ ‘The purpose of this study was to examine the stress responses of parents to the sexual and ritualistic abuse of their children in day-care centers…. Parents of sexually abused children reported significantly more psychological distress than parents of nonabused children, with parents of ritually abused children displaying the most severe psychological distress.’

“Plainly, this article was guilty of what you lament in your (unrelated) September 11 blog post:
“failure to address legitimate alternative views and evidence.” And what better example of the “pseudo-science in the guise of science” criticized by Eileen Gambrill?

“I will leave you with a final question: Does Nursing Research really want to leave this article as its last word on the subject?”

So far, Dr. Dougherty’s answer seems to be yes.

June 4, 2012

“Drawing upon clinical experience and research, Faller… asserted that false allegations are quite rare and pointed out that children have little motivation for making a false accusation, but offenders have considerable motivation for persuading professionals that children are either lying, mistaken, or crazy.”

– From “Interviewing Children About Sexual Abuse: Controversies and Best Practice” by Kathleen Coulborn Faller (2007)

Yes, that Kathleen Coulborn Faller, whose stubborn belief in day-care ritual abuse was expressed four years earlier in “Understanding and Assessing Child Sexual Maltreatment.”

Although “Interviewing Children…” isn’t specific to ritual abuse cases, Dr. Faller’s casual dismissal of false allegations echoes the “Believe the Children” mantra of that era.

So much wrongheadedness she manages to pack into a single sentence:

■ “Drawing upon clinical experience and research, Faller… asserted that false allegations are quite rare… ” Here she cites not only her own anecdotal impressions, but also the profoundly misguided research conducted during the height of the abuse mania.

■ “… and pointed out that children have little motivation for making a false accusation…” In fact, children who have been coaxed, threatened and worn down have every motivation to please their interrogators.

■ “… but offenders have considerable motivation for persuading professionals that children are either lying, mistaken, or crazy.” Did it occur to Dr. Faller that offenders have not a bit more such motivation than innocent defendants?

■ ■ ■

Ritual abuse: the creationism of social science?