Dec. 7, 2016

“If you do a Google search right now for ‘McMartin preschool tunnels,’ you will be inundated with ‘studies’ and ‘reports’ that ‘prove’ the tunnels did exist, and that the lurid fictions prompted out of the children by ambitious social workers were therefore true. Nothing dies on the Internet, not even the most arrant lunacy….

“One of [Donald Trump’s] primary surrogates, Scottie Nell Hughes, told an NPR panel that ‘There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts.’ But we have not ‘entered’ an age of post-truth politics. We’ve been living in it for years. The Executive Branch of the government just has been slow to catch up. Now, it’s right there with the rest of us, god help the country. We’re all just the children of McMartin now. We’ll say anything we’re told until we come to believe it ourselves.”

– From “America Was Always a Nation of Conspiracy Theorists. Now, They’re Simply More Dangerous: Lessons from Pizzagate” by Charles P. Pierce in Esquire (Dec. 5)

Jan. 4, 2019

In January 1988 the Memphis Commercial Appeal published a 36-page special section recapping its recent series, “Justice Abused: A 1980s Witch Hunt” by Tom Charlier and Shirley Downing.

“Justice Abused” was the first major news coverage to link “satanic ritual abuse” cases across the country and to
characterize them as a witch hunt.

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning criticism of how the news media so often mishandled cases such as McMartin Preschool, David Shaw of the Los Angeles Times credited Charlier and Downing with pointing out “among many other things, the large number of child molestation cases that had resulted in dismissals, acquittals and dropped charges and the startling number of similarities among many of the cases.

Children in both the Memphis and McMartin cases, for example, told of druggings, of animal mutilations, of trips in vans, of bloody rituals, of sacrifices of babies and of being taken on airplanes that resembled those of Federal Express.”

Until now this historically important series has not been available digitally. It is archived in two pieces here and here on our Bookshelf.

April 19, 2014

“Is it possible to so modify child forensic interviewing that the sorts of errors described by Ceci and Bruck are minimized?…

“The primary problem is that most prosecutors and most so-called mental health professionals do not stay current….

“How likely, for instance, is it that a copy of ‘Jeopardy in the Courtroom’ will be found on your favorite prosecutor’s desk?”

– From “A Review of a Review of ‘Jeopardy in the Courtroom’ by Stephen J. Ceci and Maggie Bruck” at falseallegations.com

Feb. 20, 2012

Cynthia Brown, medical director of the Mountain Child Medical Evaluation Program at Mission Children’s Hospital in Asheville, was among the first pediatricians credentialed in the subspecialty of child abuse. I asked her to summarize current medical opinion on ritual-abuse day-care cases. Here are excerpts of her response:

“One criticism common to the day-care cases in the ’80s was the inadequate interviewing process used for those children. Some interviewers reportedly made assumptions that abuse had occurred and used leading questions. As a result of these cases, major changes have been made in interviewing protocols. Interviewers go through extensive training and are expected to participate in peer review to assure they are using the protocols correctly.

“In our clinic we meet with the investigators (DSS and law enforcement) and review the child’s initial disclosure….

“We discuss alternative hypotheses….: Could the child have witnessed adult sexual activity accidentally, or through videos or computers? Could the child have been coached? Has the child been inadvertently contaminated by questions asked by a panicked parent?….

“The interview is videorecorded for review by the investigators. It also allows us to evaluate the
caliber of the disclosure and the questioning….

“Several years ago, I spoke with someone involved in one of the day-care cases who now believes there was a kernel of truth in the allegation but that it was obscured by contamination and leading interviews.

“One last thing: The FBI has looked into cases where ritualistic satanic abuse was alleged (not all were in day cares) and has never been able to validate these claims.”