The term "satanic panic" was invented to put a stop to the victims coming forwards and the satanic pedophile abuse rings being exposed. It was used to discredit the victims and calm the public. I lived In Manhattan beach ca during the mcmartin preschool days. I was a kid, and fortunately I did not go to the preschool but we knew of several families/kids who did and I can attest that something did in fact happen to those children! It has always pissed me off that those victims were discredited and the whole case has been minimized and outright called a hoax! A child we knew very well was extremely traumatized and screwed up from what had happened to him. He had so many problems and it was devastating in his family.

To those who think that stuff like this can't happen or doesn't happen, I understand how it's easier to deny the possibility of such and awful reality and believe that this was all just a bunch of people in a "panic"- but people need to keep in mind that those who are operating in this type of "lifestyle" have a lot to lose if they are ever exposed so they will resort to anything to keep their activities a secret. luckily for them their victims are very young and it's easy to discredit the thing s the children say.

(5/5)

JRM case & "Satanic Panic" continued

Ted Gunderson: Post FBI

After retiring from the FBI, Gunderson set up a private investigation firm, Ted L. Gunderson and Associates, in Santa Monica. In 1980, he became a defense investigator for Green Beret doctor Jeffrey R. MacDonald, who had been convicted of the 1970 murders of his pregnant wife and two daughters. Gunderson obtained affidavits from Helena Stoeckley confessing to her involvement in the murders which she claimed had in actuality been perpetrated by a Satanic cult that she was a member of.[8]

He also investigated a child molestation trial in Manhattan Beach, California. In a 1995 conference in Dallas, Gunderson warned about the supposed proliferation of secret occultist groups, and the danger posed by the New World Order, an alleged shadow government that would be controlling the United States government.[9] He also claimed that a "slave auction" in which children were sold by Saudi agents to men had been held in Las Vegas, that four thousand ritual human sacrifices are performed in New York City every year, and that the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was carried out by the US government.[9] Gunderson believed that in the United States there is a secret widespread network of groups who kidnap children and infants, and subject them to ritual abuse and subsequent human sacrifice.[10][11]

Gunderson had an association with music producer and conspiracy theorist Anthony J. Hilder and was interviewed by him on various occasions. The two men appeared at numerous conferences together.[12] They both said that the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a result of FBI agent provocateurs.[13]

Gunderson was a member of the Constitution Party.

In 2008, Gunderson stated that he had tested positive for arsenic and cyanide poisoning.[14] Gunderson's associate, Dr. Edward Lucidi, treated Gunderson and stated that his fingers were turning black, a characteristic symptom of arsenic poisoning.[15] On July 31, 2011 Gunderson's son reported that his father had died from cancer of the bladder, which has been linked to arsenic poisoning in some studies.[16]

Theory:

Ted Gunderson either willingly or unwittingly contributed to the perpetuation of "Satanic Panic" through his involvement in the JRM case. Some time between this and 1995, Ted appears to have begun spilling the beans on details(albeit some exaggurated) pertaining to the actual perpetrators/enablers of a great many morbid crimes and abuses of human rights; Ted appears to have been poisoned due to some of the revelations he made later in his life.

Why does his death sound so familiar in the context of my research?

Root of Corruption - Part 8: "Debt of blood" | Vindicating the Dragons; Our blood is not for sale!: Vindicating the Báthory Family; Erzsébet Báthory et al.

Prison and death

Báthory was imprisoned in Čachtice Castle and placed in solitary confinement.[27] She was kept bricked in a set of rooms, with only small slits left open for ventilation and the passing of food. She remained there for four years until her death. On the evening of 21 August 1614, Báthory complained to her bodyguard that her hands were cold, whereupon he replied "It's nothing, mistress. Just go lie down." She went to sleep and was found dead the following morning.[28]

Theory:

Erzsébet Báthory's food was likely laced with arsenic, killing her over 4 years, alongside the conditions of solitary confinement(likely pneumonia and/or other infections).

What else stands out?

Per curiosities outlined here with regards to the JRM case and the use of "Satanic" and "Manson Family" references by defense and prosecution respectively, I am reminded of the death of Kurt Cobain, which itself comes with long-running rumors of both "Satanic" and/or "Manson Family" involvement in said death and/or the lives of those involved with Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love:

For the record, I do not believe a Satanic cult nor The Manson Family were involved in the death of Kurt Cobain - I do believe, however, that plenty of people and media outlets have coasted on these rumors for their own selfish purposes, however nefarious or benign their intent may be. In saying that, I also believe that deliberately-spread false narratives have consistently hindered the public's understanding of Kurt Cobain's life and death.

It also seems highly plausible that Kurt Cobain was himself, aware of corruption within the entertainment industry and abroad; that he may have been giving hints to this through his music and writing and etc. It is possible that Kurt was murdered, but, it is also equally possible that he simply took his own life with a shotgun.

Closing statement

Keeping in mind the curiosities per Jason Moss | Voorhees | Feldman | Stand By Me | Rob Reiner | Rainer Rd. | West Memphis 3 and the miscarriage of justice thereof, alongside curiosities outlined herein with regards to "Satanic Panic" | Ira Reiner | McMartin | Ramirez | etc, it is very apparent to at least myself, that Satanism is not the evil it has been constantly misrepresented to be - indeed, as said earlier - like most any other religion, Satanism has been abused/exploited and used as a scapegoat by the corrupt and the ignorant, but, is not itself inherently evil and absolutely does not condone the abuse of minors.

There is of course, another case in regards to the spread of so-called "Satanic Panic", which I can bring up if need be... I will refrain from doing so for the moment, though, so as to finish up this submission and yes, to keep a proverbial ace up my sleeve...

Updates: _{(space reserved)}

Behemoth - Messe Noire (Live in Cape Town 2016) [HD Multicam]

/micdrop

(4/5)

Jeffrey R. MacDonald

Jeffrey Robert MacDonald (born October 12, 1943) is an American medical doctor and former US Army officer who was convicted in 1979 of murdering his pregnant wife and two daughters in February 1970.

---

The murders

At 3:42 a.m. on February 17, 1970, dispatchers at Fort Bragg received an emergency phone call from MacDonald, who reported a "stabbing." Four responding military police officers arrived at his house located at 544 Castle Drive, initially believing that they were being called to settle a domestic disturbance. They found the front door closed and locked and the house dark inside. When no one answered the door, they circled to the back of the house, where they found the back screen door closed and unlocked and the back door wide open. Upon entering, they found Jeffrey's wife Colette and his daughters Kimberly and Kristen dead in their respective bedrooms.

Five-year-old Kimberly was found in her bed, having been clubbed in the head and stabbed in the neck with a knife between eight and ten times. Two-year-old Kristen was found in her own bed; she had been stabbed 33 times with a knife and 15 times with an ice pick. Colette, who was pregnant with her third child and first son, was lying on the floor of her bedroom. She had been repeatedly clubbed (both her arms were broken) and stabbed 21 times with an ice pick and 16 times with a knife. MacDonald's torn pajama top was draped upon her chest. On the headboard of her bed, the word "pig" was written in blood.[3][4][5]

MacDonald was found next to his wife alive but wounded. His wounds were not as severe nor as numerous as those his family had suffered. He was immediately taken to nearby Womack Hospital. MacDonald suffered cuts and bruises on his face and chest, along with a mild concussion. He also had a stab wound on his left torso in what a staff surgeon referred to as a "clean, small, sharp" incision that caused his left lung to partially collapse. He was released from the hospital after one week.[6]

MacDonald's account

MacDonald told investigators that on the evening of February 16, he had fallen asleep on the living room couch. He told investigators that he did so because Kristen had been in bed with Colette and had wet his side of it. He was later awakened by Colette and Kimberly's screams. As he rose from the couch to go to their aid, he was attacked by three male intruders, one black and two white. A fourth intruder, described as a white female with long blonde hair and wearing high heeled boots and a white floppy hat partially covering her face, stood nearby with a lighted candle and chanted, "Acid is groovy, kill the pigs." The three males attacked him with a club and ice pick. During the struggle, he claimed that his pajama top was pulled over his head to his wrists and he then used it to ward off thrusts from the ice pick. Eventually, he stated that he was overcome by his assailants and was knocked unconscious in the living room end of the hallway leading to the bedrooms.[7]

Investigation

The Army's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) did not believe MacDonald's version of events. Also, as Army investigators studied the physical evidence, they found that it did not seem to support the story told by MacDonald. The living room, where MacDonald had supposedly fought for his life against three armed assailants, showed little signs of a struggle apart from an overturned coffee table and knocked over flower plant.[8] In addition to the lack of damage to the inside of the house, fibers from MacDonald's torn pajama top were not found in the living room, where he claimed it was torn. Instead, fibers from the pajama top were found under Colette's body and in both Kimberly and Kristen's bedrooms. One fiber was found under Kristen's fingernail.[9] The murder weapons were found outside the back door. They were a kitchen knife, an ice pick, and a 3-foot long piece of lumber; all three were determined to have come from the MacDonald house. The tips of surgical gloves were found beneath the headboard where "pig" was written in blood; they were identical in composition to a supply MacDonald kept in the kitchen.

The MacDonald family all had different blood types — a statistical anomaly that was used to theorize what had happened in their house. Starting with the assumption that they were the only four people bleeding in there, investigators theorized that a fight began in the master bedroom between MacDonald and Colette, who possibly argued over Kristen wetting his side of the bed while sleeping there. Investigators speculated that the argument turned physical as she probably hit him on the forehead with a hairbrush, which resulted in his head wound concussion. As he retaliated by hitting her, first with his fists and then beating her with a piece of lumber, Kimberly, whose blood and brain serum was found in the doorway, may have walked in after hearing the commotion and was struck at least once on the head, possibly by accident. Believing Colette dead, MacDonald carried the mortally wounded Kimberly back to her bedroom. After stabbing her (whose blood was discovered on his pajama top which he said he had not been wearing while in her room), he went to Kristen's room, intent on disposing of the last remaining potential witness. Before he could do so, Colette, whose blood was found on Kristen's bed covers and on one wall of the room, apparently regained consciousness, stumbled in, and threw herself over Kristen. After killing both of them, he wrapped Colette's body in a sheet and carried it back to the master bedroom, leaving a smudged footprint of her blood on his way out of Kristen's room.[10]

CID investigators then theorized that MacDonald attempted to cover up the murders, using articles on the Manson Family murders that he'd found in an issue of Esquire in the living room. Putting on surgical gloves from a medical supply in the hallway closet, he went to the master bedroom, where he used Colette's blood to write "pig" on the headboard. He laid his torn pajama top over her dead body and repeatedly stabbed her in the chest with an ice pick. He then took a scalpel blade from the supply closet, went to the adjacent bathroom, and stabbed himself once. Finally, he used the telephone to summon an ambulance, discarded the weapons out the back door, disposed of the surgical gloves and scalpel blade, and lay by Colette's body while he waited for the military police to arrive.

On April 6, 1970, Army investigators interrogated MacDonald. Less than a month later, on May 1, the Army formally charged him with the murder of his family.[11]

The wiki entry then goes in to lengthy detail about the rest of the of this case; please read all...

I will pull up some pertinent details then move on:

• During the first day of the trial, Dupree allowed the prosecution to admit into evidence the 1970 copy of Esquire magazine, found in the MacDonald house, part of which contained the lengthy article of the Manson Family murders of August 1969. Prosecutors James Blackburn and Brian Murtagh wanted to introduce the magazine and suggest that this is where MacDonald got the idea of blaming a hippie gang for the murders.
• During the defense stage of the trial, Segal called Helena Stoeckley to the witness stand, intent on extracting a confession from her that she had been one of the intruders MacDonald claimed had entered his house, murdered them, and attacked him. During the nine years after the murders had been committed, she had made several contradictory statements regarding them, sometimes saying she was present when the murders happened, other times stating she had no recollection of her whereabouts the evening they occurred. Just prior to her testimony, separate interviews had been conducted by the defense and the prosecution, during which she denied ever being in the MacDonald house or ever seeing him before that very day in court. Afterwards, Segal argued for the introduction of testimony from other witnesses to whom Stoeckley had confessed. Dupree refused, in the absence of any evidence to connect Stoeckley to the scene, citing her history of long-term drug abuse.

awildernessoferror.com - Archive of reference material for A Wilderness of Error by Errol Morris _{https://archive.is/miNBw}

2005

• 2005.11.03 Jimmy Britt, affidavit (pdf)

---

2007

• 2007.04.16 Helena Stoeckley, affidavit (pdf)

From Jimmy Britt affidavit:

1. What I shared with Mr. Smith is that during the Jeffery MacDonald trial, in my capacity as a United States Marshal, assigned to the District Court where MacDonald was tried, I was assigned to travel to Greenville, South Carolina to assume custody of a witness by the name of Helena Stoeckley. I picked Ms. Stoeckley up at the County Jail in Greenville, South Carolina and drover her back to Raleigh.

2. During the course of the travel from Greenville, South Carolina to Raleigh, without any prompting from me whatsoever, Ms. Stoeckley brought up the matter of the trial of MacDonald. She told me, in the presence of Jerry Holden, about a hobby horse in the MacDonald home, and that she, in fact, along with others, was in Jeffrey MacDonald's home on the night of the MacDonald murders.

Note: Neither Jimmy Britt's nor Helena Stoeckley's(mother of accused suspect, Helena Stoeckley - both shared the same first name) affidavits contain any mention of anything to do with Satanism or "Satanic" elements.

To be continued...

Avatar - Smells Like a Freakshow

(3/5)

Richard Ramirez

Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramírez, known as Richard Ramirez (February 29, 1960 – June 7, 2013), was an American serial killer, rapist, and burglar. His highly publicized home invasion crime spree terrorized the residents of the greater Los Angeles area, and later the residents of the San Francisco area, from June 1984 until August 1985. Prior to his capture, Ramirez was dubbed the "Night Stalker" by the news media. He used a wide variety of weapons, including handguns, knives, a machete, a tire iron, and a hammer. Ramirez, who was an avowed Satanist, never expressed any remorse for his crimes. The judge who upheld his thirteen death sentences remarked that Ramirez's deeds exhibited "cruelty, callousness, and viciousness beyond any human understanding".[1] Ramirez died of complications from B-cell lymphoma while awaiting execution on California's death row.

What went wrong?

Theory:

Satanism is not the defining/root element of RLMR's crimes; I believe that his early life/upbringing and the combined effects of mainstream-media-fueled "Satanic Panic" hysteria/cognitive dissonance surrounding gruesome crimes of that time period + the Hollywood meta(running themes and deeper curiosities of popular/cult-following movies) + his looking into Satanism with the aforementioned as a backdrop, led to severe psychological issues culminating in a spree of murders.

Ultimately, I believe the media and courts and indeed, RLMR's own actions, led the masses to excessively attribute his crimes as being a product of Satanism alone.

Early life and education

Ramirez was born in El Paso, Texas, on February 29, 1960, the youngest of Julian and Mercedes Ramirez's five children.[2] His father, a Mexican national and former Juarez policeman who later became a laborer on the Santa Fe railroad,[3] was a hard-working man prone to fits of anger that often resulted in physical abuse.[4]

As a child, Ramirez sustained two serious head injuries. When he was two years old a dresser fell on top of him, causing a forehead laceration requiring 30 stitches to close.[5] When he was five years old he was knocked unconscious by a swing at a park,[6] after which he experienced frequent epileptic seizures that persisted into his early teens.[7]

As a 12-year-old he was strongly influenced by his older cousin, Miguel ("Mike"),[8] a decorated U.S. Army Green Beret combat veteran who often boasted of his gruesome exploits during the Vietnam War. He shared Polaroid photos of his victims, including Vietnamese women he had raped.[9] In some of the photos Mike posed with the severed head of a woman he had abused.[10]

Ramirez, who had smoked marijuana since the age of 10, bonded with Mike over many joints and gory war stories.[11] Mike taught his young cousin some of his military skills, such as killing with stealth and surety.[12] Around this time, Ramirez began to seek escape from his father's violent temper by sleeping in a local cemetery.[12]

"Richie", as he was known to his family, was present on May 4, 1973, when Mike fatally shot his wife Jessie in the face with a .38 caliber revolver, during a domestic argument.[13] After the shooting Richie became sullen and withdrawn from his family and peers. Later that year, he moved in with his older sister Ruth and her husband Roberto, an obsessive "peeping Tom" who took Richie along on his nocturnal exploits.[14] Ramirez also began using LSD and cultivated an interest in Satanism.[15]

Mike was found not guilty of Jessie's murder by reason of insanity (with his combat record as a mitigating factor) and was released in 1977, after four years of incarceration at the Texas State Mental Hospital. His influence over Richard continued.[16][17]

The adolescent Ramirez began to meld his burgeoning sexual fantasies with violence, including forced bondage and rape.[18] While still in school, he took a job at a local Holiday Inn, where he used his passkey to rob sleeping patrons.[19] His employment ended abruptly after a hotel guest returned to his room to find Ramirez attempting to rape his wife.[20] Though the husband beat Ramirez senseless at the scene, criminal charges were dropped when the couple, who lived out of state, declined to return to testify against him.[21]

Ramirez dropped out of Jefferson High School in the ninth grade.[22][23] At the age of 22 he moved to California, where he settled permanently.[24]

Interestingly enough, elements of RLMR's upbringing, partially mirror that of Ed Gein in some ways, albeit somewhat abstract.

Ed Gein:

Early life

Ed Gein was born in La Crosse County, Wisconsin, USA, on August 27, 1906,[2] the second of two boys of George Philip Gein (1873–1940[4]) and Augusta Wilhelmine (née Lehrke) Gein (1878–1945[5]). Gein had an older brother, Henry George Gein (1901–1944[6]). Augusta despised her husband, an alcoholic who was unable to keep a job; he had worked at various times as a carpenter, tanner, and insurance salesman. George owned a local grocery shop for a few years, but sold the business, and the family left the city to live in isolation on a 155-acre farm in the Town of Plainfield in Waushara County, Wisconsin,[7] which became the Gein family's permanent residence.[8]

Augusta took advantage of the farm's isolation by turning away outsiders who could have influenced her sons.[8] Edward left the farm only to attend school. Outside of school, he spent most of his time doing chores on the farm. Augusta was fervently religious, and nominally Lutheran. She preached to her boys about the innate immorality of the world, the evil of drinking, and her belief that all women were naturally prostitutes and instruments of the devil. She reserved time every afternoon to read to them from the Bible, usually selecting graphic verses from the Old Testament concerning death, murder, and divine retribution.[9]

Edward was shy, and classmates and teachers remembered him as having strange mannerisms, such as seemingly random laughter, as if he were laughing at his own personal jokes. To make matters worse, his mother punished him whenever he tried to make friends. Despite his poor social development, he did fairly well in school, particularly in reading.[8]

Deaths in immediate family

• On April 1, 1940, Ed's father George died of heart failure caused by his alcoholism; he was 66 years old.
• Henry began dating a divorced, single mother of two and planned on moving in with her; Henry worried about his brother's attachment to their mother and often spoke ill of her around Ed, who responded with shock and hurt.

On May 16, 1944, Henry and Ed were burning away marsh vegetation on the property;[10] the fire got out of control, drawing the attention of the local fire department. By the end of the day – the fire having been extinguished and the firefighters gone – Ed reported his brother missing. With lanterns and flashlights, a search party searched for Henry, whose dead body was found lying face down.[11] Apparently, he had been dead for some time, and it appeared that the cause of death was heart failure, since he had not been burned or injured otherwise.[11] It was later reported, in Harold Schechter's biography of Gein, Deviant, that Henry had bruises on his head.[12][13] The police dismissed the possibility of foul play and the county coroner later officially listed asphyxiation as the cause of death.[8][13] The authorities accepted the accident theory, but no official investigation was conducted and an autopsy was not performed.[14] Some suspected that Ed Gein killed his brother. Questioning Gein about the death of Bernice Worden in 1957, state investigator Joe Wilimovsky brought up questions about Henry's death.[10] Dr. George W. Arndt, who studied the case, wrote that, in retrospect, it was "possible and likely" that Henry's death was "the "Cain and Abel" aspect of this case".[15]

• Augusta had a paralyzing stroke shortly after Henry's death, and Gein devoted himself to taking care of her.
• Sometime in 1945, Gein later recounted, he and his mother visited a man named Smith, who lived nearby, to purchase straw. According to Gein, Augusta witnessed Smith beating a dog. A woman inside the Smith home came outside and yelled to stop. Smith beat the dog to death. Augusta was extremely upset by this scene. What bothered her did not appear to be the brutality toward the dog but the presence of the woman. Augusta told Ed that the woman was not married to Smith so had no business being there. "Smith's harlot", Augusta angrily called her. She had a second stroke soon after, and her health deteriorated rapidly.[16] She died on December 29, 1945, at the age of 67. Ed was devastated by her death; in the words of author Harold Schechter, he had "lost his only friend and one true love. And he was absolutely alone in the world."[13]

Back to Errol Morris:

Unfinished project on Ed Gein

Inspired by Hitchcock's Psycho, Morris visited Plainfield, Wisconsin in 1975. While in Wisconsin, he conducted multiple interviews with Ed Gein, the infamous serial killer who resided at Mendota State Hospital in Madison.

A Wilderness of Error

A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald is a book by Errol Morris, published in September 2012. It reexamines the case of Jeffrey MacDonald, the Green Beret physician accused of killing his wife and two daughters in their home on Fort Bragg on February 17, 1970, and convicted of the crime on August 29, 1979. MacDonald has been in federal prison since 1982.

To be continued...

CRADLE OF FILTH - Blackest Magick In Practice (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

(2/5)

MMPT continued: _{(shortened to save space, please read entire wiki page)}

Initial allegations

In 1983, Judy Johnson, mother of one of the Manhattan Beach, California, preschool's young students, reported to the police that her son had been sodomized by her estranged husband and by McMartin teacher Ray Buckey.[2][3] Ray Buckey was the grandson of school founder Virginia McMartin and son of administrator Peggy McMartin Buckey. Johnson's belief that her son had been abused began when her son had painful bowel movements. What happened next is still disputed. Some sources state that at that time, Johnson's son denied her suggestion that his preschool teachers had molested him, whereas others say he confirmed the abuse.[2][4]

In addition, Johnson also made several more accusations, including that people at the daycare had sexual encounters with animals, that "Peggy drilled a child under the arms" and "Ray flew in the air."[1][5] Ray Buckey was questioned, but was not prosecuted due to lack of evidence. The police then sent a form letter to about 200 parents of students at the McMartin school, stating that their children might have been abused, and asking the parents to question their children. The text of the letter read:[2]

<letter sent to parents: graphic, fear mongering, pre-emptive>

Johnson was diagnosed with and hospitalized for acute paranoid schizophrenia[3][7][8][9] and in 1986 was found dead in her home from complications of chronic alcoholism[2][10] before the preliminary hearing concluded.[11]

Interviewing and examining the children

Several hundred children were then interviewed by the Children's Institute International (CII), a Los Angeles abuse therapy clinic run by Kee MacFarlane. The interviewing techniques used during investigations of the allegations were highly suggestive and invited children to pretend or speculate about supposed events.[12][13] By spring of 1984, it was claimed that 360 children had been abused.[1][7][14] Astrid Heppenstall Heger performed medical examinations and took photos of what she believed to be minute scarring, which she stated was caused by anal penetration. Journalist John Earl believed that her findings were based on unsubstantiated medical histories.[15] Later research demonstrated that the methods of questioning used on the children were extremely suggestive, leading to false accusations.[12] Others believe that the questioning itself may have led to false memory syndrome among the children who were questioned.[2][4] Ultimately only 41 of the original 360 children testified during the grand jury and pre-trial hearings, and fewer than a dozen testified during the actual trial.[16]

Videotapes of the interviews with children were reviewed by Michael Maloney, a British clinical psychologist and professor of psychiatry, as an expert witness regarding the interviewing of children. Maloney was highly critical of the interviewing techniques used, referring to them as improper, coercive, directive, problematic and adult-directed in a way that forced the children to follow a rigid script; he concluded that "many of the kids' statements in the interviews were generated by the examiner."[17] Transcripts and recordings of the interviews contained far more speech from adults than children and demonstrated that, despite the highly coercive interviewing techniques used, initially the children were resistant to interviewers' attempts to elicit disclosures. Recordings of these interviews were instrumental in the jury's refusal to convict, by demonstrating how children could be coerced to giving vivid and dramatic testimonies without having experienced the abuse.[18] The techniques used were contrary to the existing guidelines in California for the investigation of cases involving children and child witnesses.[19]

Bizarre allegations

Some of the accusations were described as "bizarre",[5] overlapping with accusations that mirrored the just-starting satanic ritual abuse panic.[4] It was alleged that, in addition to having been sexually abused, they saw witches fly, traveled in a hot-air balloon, and were taken through underground tunnels.[4] When shown a series of photographs by Danny Davis (the McMartins' lawyer), one child identified actor Chuck Norris as one of the abusers.[20]

Some of the abuse was alleged to have occurred in secret tunnels beneath the school. Several excavations turned up evidence of old buildings on the site and other debris from before the school was built, but no evidence of any secret chambers or tunnels was found.[4] There were claims of orgies at car washes and airports, and of children being flushed down toilets to secret rooms where they would be abused, then cleaned up and presented back to their parents. Some interviewed children talked of a game called "naked movie star" suggesting they were forcibly photographed nude.[1][4][21] During the trial, testimony from the children stated that the naked movie star game was actually a rhyming taunt used to tease other children – "What you say is what you are, you're a naked movie star," – and had nothing to do with having naked pictures taken.[4]

Johnson, who made the initial allegations, made bizarre and impossible statements about Raymond Buckey, including that he could fly.[1] Though the prosecution asserted Johnson's mental illness was caused by the events of the trial, Johnson had admitted to them that she was mentally ill beforehand. Evidence of Johnson's mental illness was withheld from the defense for three years and, when provided, was in the form of sanitized reports that excluded Johnson's statements, at the order of the prosecution.[22] One of the original prosecutors, Glenn Stevens, left the case and stated that other prosecutors had withheld evidence from the defense, including the information that Johnson's son did not actually identify Ray Buckey in a series of photographs. Stevens also accused Robert Philibosian, the deputy district attorney on the case, of lying and withholding evidence from the court and defense lawyers in order to keep the Buckeys in jail and prevent access to exonerating evidence.[23]

Kern County child abuse cases:History

In 1982, Alvin and Debbie McCuan's two daughters, coached by their step-grandmother Mary Ann Barbour, who had custody of them, alleged they had been abused by their parents, and accused them of being part of a sex ring that included Scott and Brenda Kniffen. The Kniffens' two sons also claimed to have been abused. No physical evidence was ever found. The McCuans and Kniffens were convicted in 1984 and given a combined sentence of over 1000 years in prison.[5] The convictions were overturned in 1996 and the two couples were released. In 2001, a TV movie about the Kniffens titled Just Ask My Children (2001) was aired on Lifetime.[6]

Six similar cases occurred throughout Kern County. For instance, the testimony of five young boys was the prosecution's key evidence in a trial in which four defendants were convicted. John Stoll, a 41-year-old carpenter, received the longest sentence of the group: 40 years for 17 counts of lewd and lascivious conduct. "It never happened," Ed Sampley, one of the accusers, told a New York Times reporter in 2004. He claimed he had lied about Stoll. Stoll was in prison for 19 years before his conviction was reversed.[7] In 2009, Stoll sued Kern County and was awarded $5 million in compensation.[8] The county paid out nearly $10 million to settle claims made by the former prisoners and the alleged victims.[4] A documentary titled Witch Hunt, which focused primarily on Stoll's case, was produced and released in 2007. MSNBC also made a documentary on John Stoll and the Kern County cases.

Sampley and three other former accusers returned in 2004 to the courthouse where they had testified against Stoll, this time to say that Stoll never molested them. In their late 20s, each of them said he always knew the truth—that Stoll had never touched them.[9] However, Stoll's son has "continued to say that he had been molested."[10] In the case, the only defendant with a previous conviction of molestation was Grant Self, who rented Stoll's pool house briefly.[11] John Stoll had to wait until 2004 for the reversal of his convictions, but was released on the new testimony. Self was sent to a mental hospital for sexual offenders because he had two prior convictions for child molestation. Self was freed in 2009.[12] He was re-arrested in 2012 on suspicion of child molestation in Oregon.[13] In July 2013, Self pleaded guilty to sexually abusing three young boys and was sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison.[14]

Prior to the start of the Kern County child abuse cases, several local social workers had attended a training seminar that foregrounded satanic ritual abuse as a major element in child sexual abuse, and had used the now-debunked memoir Michelle Remembers as training material.[15]

What I'm trying to point out here, is that throughout the last 70+ years, Satanism has constantly been falsely attributed as being the root of 'elite' pedophilia networks and other cases of morbid abuse/murder, which has in turn allowed the actual perpetrators/enablers of such crimes/networks, to operate 'in plain sight', with public funding and consent - while also consistently leading to false arrests/imprisonment and even assault/death of innocent/potentially innocent people.

This will rub some people the wrong way, but: Those who constantly feed into the false narratives by parroting the word "Satanic" whenever they mention ritualistic abuse or other sadistic crimes/abuse, are indeed doing more damage to the investigation than they think...

To be continued...

Avatar - Hail The Apocalypse

(1/5)

McMartin Preschool Trial

The McMartin preschool trial was a day care sexual abuse case in the 1980s, prosecuted by the Los Angeles District Attorney Ira Reiner. Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were charged with numerous acts of sexual abuse of children in their care. Accusations were made in 1983. Arrests and the pretrial investigation ran from 1984 to 1987, and the trial ran from 1987 to 1990. After six years of criminal trials, no convictions were obtained, and all charges were dropped in 1990. When the trial ended in 1990, it had been the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history.[1] The case was part of day-care sex-abuse hysteria, a moral panic over alleged Satanic ritual abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Day-care sex-abuse hysteria:

Day-care sex-abuse hysteria was a moral panic that occurred primarily in the 1980s and early 1990s featuring charges against day-care providers of several forms of child abuse, including Satanic ritual abuse.[1][2] A prominent case in Kern County, California first brought the issue of day-care sexual abuse to the forefront of the public awareness, and the issue figured prominently in news coverage for almost a decade. The Kern County case was followed by cases elsewhere in the United States as well as Canada, New Zealand, Brazil, and various European countries.

Moral panic:

A moral panic is a feeling of fear spread among a large number of people that some evil threatens the well-being of society.[1][2] A Dictionary of Sociology defines a moral panic as "the process of arousing social concern over an issue – usually the work of moral entrepreneurs and the mass media".[3]

The media are key players in the dissemination of moral indignation, even when they do not appear to be consciously engaged in crusading or muckraking. Simply reporting the facts can be enough to generate concern, anxiety, or panic.[4] Stanley Cohen states that moral panic happens when "a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests." Examples of moral panic include the belief in widespread abduction of children by predatory paedophiles,[5][6][7] belief in ritual abuse of women and children by satanic cults,[8] the War on Drugs,[9] and other public health issues.

Satanic ritual abuse: more on this later

Satanic ritual abuse (SRA, sometimes known as ritual abuse, ritualistic abuse, organised abuse, sadistic ritual abuse, and other variants) was the subject of a moral panic that originated in the United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout the country and eventually to many parts of the world by the late 1990s. Allegations of SRA involved reports of physical and sexual abuse of people in the context of occult or Satanic rituals. In its most extreme form, SRA involves a worldwide organisation including the wealthy and powerful of the world elite in which children are abducted or bred for sacrifices, pornography and prostitution.

Nearly every aspect of SRA was controversial, including its definition, the source of the allegations and proof thereof, testimonials of alleged victims, and court cases involving the allegations and criminal investigations. The panic affected lawyers', therapists', and social workers' handling of allegations of child sexual abuse. Allegations initially brought together widely dissimilar groups, including religious fundamentalists, police investigators, child advocates, therapists, and clients in psychotherapy. The movement gradually secularized, dropping or deprecating the "satanic" aspects of the allegations in favor of names that were less overtly religious such as "sadistic" or simply "ritual abuse" and becoming more associated with dissociative identity disorder and anti-government conspiracy theories.

Kern County child abuse cases

The Kern County child abuse cases started the day care sexual abuse hysteria of the 1980s in Kern County, California.[1] The cases involved claims of paedophile-sex-ring-performed Satanic ritual abuse, with as many as 60 children testifying they had been abused. At least 36 people were convicted and most of them spent years imprisoned. Thirty-four convictions were overturned on appeal. The district attorney responsible for the convictions was Ed Jagels,[2] who was sued by at least one of those whose conviction was overturned,[3] and who remained in office until 2009.[4] Two convicts died in prison, unable to clear their names.

Ed Jagels

Ed Jagels was an American prosecutor best known for obtaining child sexual abuse convictions as Kern County, California District Attorney against 36 innocent people in the Kern County child abuse cases, and for leading successful conservative efforts to replace liberal California Supreme Court justices in the 1980s.[1][2]

Career

Jagels was first elected to the Kern County prosecutor's office in 1983,[3] at a time when the United States public attention was focused on rumors of child molestation and Satanism, all of which proved to be false. Soon after his election he created a task force to investigate sex crimes against children. The cases eventually brought between 1983 and 1987 involved false claims of satanic ritual abuse performed by eight supposed pedophile groups. The cases, brought without physical evidence, were based solely on the testimony of alleged child victims who had been coached and sometimes tricked into testifying against their parents and other adults. Long prison sentences were obtained against many adults, but the cases began to unravel in the late 1980s as the children recanted their testimony.[3]

Of the 26 convictions, 25 were reversed. One defendant was in prison for 19 years before his conviction was reversed.[4] The county paid out nearly $10 million to settle claims made by the former prisoners and the alleged victims.[5] Actor Sean Penn, who met a man accused of child sex crimes, narrated and served as executive producer for the documentary film, Witch Hunt, concerning the event.[5]

As a "get tough on crime" prosecutor, Jagels was very popular in his conservative town of Bakersfield, California even after his earlier cases unraveled. In the 2000s he prosecuted a man under the three strikes law, which carried a mandatory 25-year prison sentence, for stealing a pack of doughnuts worth less than $1, because the man had been convicted of two felonies in the 1970s.[6] He was unapologetic about the false convictions in the 1980s sex abuse cases, and was re-elected six times as district attorney, before announcing his retirement in 2009.[5] He led a voter campaign to defeat three liberal justices from California's supreme court, and was influential in promoting victims' rights, the death penalty, and California's three strikes law. In 1986, a grand jury released a blistering report on the sex abuse prosecutions, accusing Kern County officials of fostering a "presumption of guilt", concealing exculpatory evidence and bringing charges based on guesswork. California Attorney General John Van de Kamp, a Democrat, released a report that year reaching the same conclusions. By his second term, Jagels had tripled the number of prosecutorial complaints lodged against the District Attorney's office. By 2009, Kern County paid out more than $9 million in wrongful conviction settlements.[5][7]

Personal

Jagels wife, Bryanna Michal Jagels, whom he later divorced, had arrests in 2003 and 2004, for attempting to fill forged narcotics prescriptions.[8][9] On May 17, 2003, Jagels was pulled over by a California Highway Patrol officer for speeding in a 1969 Porsche that had not been registered in three years. The officer did not give him a citation.[10]

Back to MMPT:

Legacy

~

Effects on child abuse research

Shortly after investigation into the McMartin charges began, the funds to research child sexual abuse greatly increased, notably through the budget allocated for the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN). The agency's budget increased from $1.8 million to $7.2 million between 1983 and 1984, increasing to $15 million in 1985, making it the greatest source of funding for child abuse and neglect prevention in the United States. The majority of this budget went toward studies on sexual abuse with only $5 million going towards physical abuse and neglect.

Federal funding was also used to arrange conferences on ritual abuse, providing an aura of respectability as well as allowing prosecutors to exchange tips on the best means of obtaining convictions. A portion of the funds were used to publish the book Behind the Playground Walls, which used a sample of children drawn from the McMartin families. The book claimed to study the effects of "reported" rather than actual abuse but portrayed all of the McMartin children as actual victims of abuse despite a lack of convictions during the trial and without mentioning questions about the reality of the accusations.[40][41] Another grant of $173,000 went to David Finkelhor who used the funds to investigate allegations of day care sexual abuse throughout the country, combining the study of verified crimes by admitted pedophiles and unverified accusations of satanic ritual abuse.[42]

To be continued...

Rob Zombie - Lords of Salem