Episode Transcript
Welcome back, my little demons.
We considered titling this one “Carly Remembers Michelle Remembers” but she raised objections. Sure, we might start there, but we’re on a winding road for this episode. Buckle up.
Fair warning, we’re going to take a look at the Satanic Panic which entails allegations of abuse so if you need to take a step back, uh, yeah, you do you.
First published in 1980, Michelle Remembers recounts the supposedly true tale written by psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and Michelle Smith, his patient and later his wife, for whom the book is named. Now, when Carly was a kid, her father hid this book under his recliner when he had to go to work so she couldn’t get her hands on it, read it, and stop sleeping for the remainder of her formative years. She found it, she read it, and ironically, she is still treated for insomnia some decades later.
So, here's how it goes... Michelle starts seeing Pazder for therapy to treat her depression after she has a miscarriage. During one session, Michelle's personality shifted and she began screaming and wouldn't stop... for 25 minutes. Following this extended "outburst" she then began speaking in a child’s voice.
Over the course of the next 14 months, Pazder and Smith spent roughly 600 hours focused on recovering her memories with the aid of hypnosis. What Michelle "remembered" was the abuse she was subjected to when her mother joined the “Church of Satan”. The book includes some other pretty extraordinary claims. Like, human sacrifices and an 81-day ritual in 1955 where Satan summons himself before Jesus, Mary, and the Archangel Michael decide to intervene. During this divine intervention, the scars of abuse were removed from Michelle’s body and the memory of the events were blocked from her mind.
Since the release of the book, recovered-memory therapy has been discredited. And, when Anton LaVey, the founder of the actual Church of Satan, threatened to sue for libel, Pazder cut that bit. Then we find out Michelle had two sisters who were not mentioned in the book. You know what else isn’t in the book? Any attempt to verify these "recovered memories'' actually happened. I mean, even if we skip past the two sisters, there was a car crash in the book, but no record of the accident anywhere else. Reviewing school records indicates Michelle wasn't absent for lengthy periods of time, unlikely long enough for a ritual that lasts 81 days. In fact, none of the details in Michelle's account could be corroborated.
I could keep going, like a large gathering of hundreds of Satanists in the local cemetery right in the middle of a residential area that absolutely no one noticed, including the people at the cemetery. Let me tell you, I know cemetery grass. You don't spend a whole funeral convention next to Jackson without learning a thing or two. No way, no how, not when hundreds of people tramped around on the grounds of Ross Bay Cemetery. Side note, this cemetery was actually started by and named for Isabella Mainville Ross, an indigenous woman and the first woman to independently own land in British Columbia, where the cemetery is located.
And, just in case you missed it, supernatural beings interceded on Michelle’s behalf after Satan arrived. Not only did they save her, but they removed any scars or memories from this time of abuse. A little sus if you ask me.
Despite these concerns, this book is often considered the beginning of the Satanic Panic and Lawrence Pazder was sought out for his expertise on Satanic ritual abuse.He even appeared on an episode of 20/20, if you've ever heard of that one. I have.
The Satanic Panic got its start in the 1980s. I thought it was an American invention. I mean, it certainly sounds like something we might do, but the events in Michelle Remembers took place in Canada. Both Pazder and Smith are Canadians. So there you go. Take that, Canada. You do weird things too.
For those not yet introduced, the Satanic Panic was a moral panic that really took off in the United States and led to over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse. Unsubstantiated means they weren’t able to uncover viable evidence. In over 12,000 cases.
One of the most famous cases of the Satanic Panic era kicked off in 1983 when a mother accused her son's daycare of sexual abuse. The investigation and arrests took place from 1984 through 1987 before the trials got underway, taking us from 1987 to 1990. That's a seven-year case without a single conviction to follow. All the charges were dropped in 1990. It was the longest and most expensive series of criminal trials in American history at the time, costing roughly $15 million.
The initial report to the police filed by Judy Johnson claimed her son, a student at McMartin Preschool, was sodomized by both her estranged husband AND a teacher from McMartin. Now, this was only the first accusation Judy Johnson lobbed at the daycare workers. She also claimed they participated in sexual encounters with animals and that one of the perpetrators "flew in the air." No charges were filed against the flying teacher due to lack of evidence.
Police, however, decided to send a letter to roughly 200 parents of McMartin students to explain that their children may have been subjected to abuse, so they should investigate by asking if your kid was victimized or perhaps witnessed an assault.
According to John Myers, professor at the University of California, Hastings, and attorney for child victims of abuse, the letter sent out was "a model of what not to do” and the interview tactics by law enforcement relied on leading or suggestive questions. Fantastical claims emerged including animal sacrifices and very violent abuse that left no physical evidence behind. Sound familiar?
The approach to the investigation went so far that some experts have claimed more children were likely victims of false memory syndrome rather than actual abuse. In 1984, it was believed that 360 children were victims of the McMartin preschool and satanic cult, but less than a dozen testified at the actual trials.
In fact, a clinical psychologist who was brought in as an expert witness for the trial watched videotapes of the interviews and called the questioning technique, "improper, coercive, directive, problematic and adult-directed'. It didn't help that many of the accounts were pretty out there. We have flying teachers, flying witches, underground tunnels, a hot-air balloon journey, and Chuck Norris was identified by one child as one of the abusers at McMartin. There was even a toilet that doubled as a secret entrance to these underground tunnels. You just had to flush a kid down the toilet and Viola! They land in a secret room. Investigators went so far as to actually seek out these hidden tunnels beneath the school and conducted several excavations, but no secret rooms or tunnels were uncovered.
During the trial, Judy Johnson's mental health was called into question. She admitted to being diagnosed with a mental illness, but this information was intentionally withheld from the defense.
Seven teachers from McMartin were charged 321 counts of child abuse involving 48 children. Charges were dropped for five of those accused due to “incredibly weak evidence” according to district attorney Ira Reiner. The two remaining defendants were Peggy McMartin and Ray Buckey.
Peggy was acquitted on all counts while Ray was cleared of 52 charges out of 65. He had previously been denied bail and consequently spent 5 years in jail without actually being convicted of a crime.
One of the supposed victims came forward as an adult to dispute the claims he made as a child, stating, “Never did anyone do anything to me, and I never saw them doing anything. I said a lot of things that didn't happen. I lied. ... Anytime I would give them an answer that they didn't like, they would ask again and encourage me to give them the answer they were looking for. ... I felt uncomfortable and a little ashamed that I was being dishonest. But at the same time, being the type of person I was, whatever my parents wanted me to do, I would do.”
While the McMartin case stands out as one of the defining investigations of the era, there were other people and other schools subject to “day care sex abuse hysteria”. Yes, that’s an actual thing. Just look up “day care sex abuse hysteria” if you don’t believe me.
Another prominent investigation that helped define this phenomena was the Kern County child abuse cases that led to the conviction of 36 people, most of whom spent time in prison, before 34 of those convictions were overturned. Why weren't the other two cases overturned? Because the individuals involved died in prison before they were exonerated.
The tales that emerged during this time, from this overlap of Satanic Panic and the daycare hysteria included elements like blood-laced Kool-Aid, chainsaw dismemberment, evil clowns, robots, and the dismemberment of animals and babies.
There are too many cases for us to review in just one episode. So many, in fact, it could probably be made into its own show. I mean, we’re not going to do that. I’m just saying someone could.
I just briefly want to mention what happened up in Wenatchee, Washington back in the 1990s. Back in 1994 and 1995, the most extensive child sex-abuse investigation was conducted which resulted in 43 arrests on 29,726 charges. Many parents faced allegations from their own kid. However, investigators were unable to provide any physical evidence. 29,726 charges and 0 corroborating evidence.
Perhaps you remember the West Memphis Three? The men who were teenagers when they were accused and convicted of sacrificing a human, or murder, for satanic purposes. In 2011, the men were freed after spending 20 years behind bars.
So where did all these bizarre beliefs about child-abusing satanists come from? According to Ken Lanning, a former F.B.I. agent who investigated hundreds of abuse cases as part of the behavioral science unit, "When people get emotionally involved in an issue, common sense and reason go out the window. People believe what they want and need to believe.”
You see, childhood sexual abuse was a prevelant problem. It still is. But in the 1980s we start to see this abuse finally being acknowledged by the public rather than just brushing it under the rug like in the decades past. The 1980s also marked the beginning of the religious right’s rise in both politics and popular culture. McCarthyism was out and Satanic Panic was in because spying on your neighbors is always in high fashion for self-righteous moralists.
So we take rising conservatism, increasing awareness of child abuse, and Michelle Remembers to mix together the perfect cocktail of moral panic. Following movies like The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby, Satan was the preferred scapegoat. And let’s not forget the very real and very disturbing suggestion that it is much easier to accept that sexual abuse against children comes from someone outside your own family. I mean, Satanists are obviously the real problem. Not your own blood or someone under your same roof, but these evil people who walk among us and serve the whims of dark and demonic forces. And, as an added bonus, identify a supernatural evil, i.e. Satan, so the religious right can focus on a shared enemy to help their movement begin to coalesce.
The allegations, arrests, and wrongful incarcerations revealed just how fallible law enforcement can be, intentionally or otherwise. Evidence was hidden or fabricated. Police officers, prosecutors, even the same therapists brought in to help the children who were victimized were hoodwinked by their own fear or driven by their own ambition to make very immoral decisions that ruined innocent lives.
No surprise, but a number of these cases led to large payouts for the victims accused of victimizing others in service to Satan. San Diego County settled with Dale Akiki who was accused of child abuse and kidnapping, as well as killing a giraffe, but was found not guilty in 1994. That same year he was awarded $2 million as a settlement.
Frances and Dan Keller spent 21 years in prison for alleged abuse. According to the accusations, the Kellers would dress up in white robes and light candles before committing their atrocities, but those same accusations included shooting and dismembering someone with a chainsaw, serving up the previously mentioned blood-laced Kool-Aid, and even a number of flights in airplanes to other locations, like Mexico, where the children would face abuse and be back in time for their parents to pick them up from daycare.
Fran and Dan Keller were released from prison in 2013 when they were in their 60s and were later awarded $3.4 million in compensation from the state of Texas. I don't really like the word "awarded" here. That feels like a misrepresentation. An award is something you win in school for a reading challenge or in sports for whatever happens there. $3.4 million in exchange for 21 years of your life does not sound awesome. That's not an award. At best, that's a really crappy consolation prize.
I'd like to say that people came to their senses and let go of these disproven claims of Satanic influence. I guess some people did, sure, but not everyone. Moveover, Americans haven't quite relinquished their love of a good conspiracy theory.
Satanic panic never really went away entirely. I mean, who can forget Pizzagate? This conspiracy went viral during the 2016 presidential election with false claims that the NYPD found a pedophilia ring connected to the Democratic Party and several restaurants, including Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria in Washington, D.C.
Conservatives and other opponents of Hilary Clinton helped spread these false claims across online platforms like 4chan and Twitter. The owner of Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria and his staff started receiving death threats and a man from North Carolina drove up to D.C. to investigate the pizza parlor himself, firing a rifle inside the restaurant three times, before his "investigation" revealed the basement where all the human trafficking supposedly took place didn't exist. Yep, Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria didn't even have a basement despite the internet's conviction that it was a base of operations for a cabal of elite international child sex traffickers.
Edgar Maddison Welch, our 28-year-old would-be vigilante from North Carolina surrendered to police. Welch received a four year prison sentence and was fined almost $6,000 for damages caused to Comet Ping Pong Pizza. Was that the end of the conspiracy theory? Of course not. In fact, Comet Ping Pong faced an arson attack in 2019 from a QAnon believer who was later arrested when he tried to climb a fence at the Washington Monument.
And, for those trying to keep up with the chaos of American politics over the last eight years, Pizzagate gave way to QAnon conspiracy theories and even something called Frazzledrip which accused Clinton of being involved in a ritual sacrifice of a child.
Nevermind that the underground network, like a literal underground network of tunnels, didn't exist. Nevermind that no evidence was ever discovered. No matter how often disproven or debunked. No matter how many dismissed charges and overturned convictions. The moral panic that gripped the country back in the 80s never quite cleared all the political hurdles and pop culture fascination. It remains part of the discussion today... especially on online platforms like Twitter. But this isn't about evidence. This is about viewers.
And this is just about where we part ways. I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief introduction to the Satanic Panic and its present-day incarnations. I’ll be returning to this and related topics in future episodes, but until that day arrives, I hope you remember to have a little fun now and again, but steer clear of Satan. Or don’t. Either way, always fact check your sources.
