(book) the witch-hunt narrative, ross e. cheit

[mirrorwitches]

it took me like eighteen months to read the witch-hunt narrative: politics, psychology, and the sexual abuse of children by ross e. cheit for like because it literally made me too mad to read more than a few pages at a time. the “satanic panic” as we think of it was straight up not real…the real satanic panic is the satanic panic about the satanic panic.

cheit’s main and convincing thesis is that basically all the legitimate “satanic ritual abuse” cases (of which, a subthesis, there were not enough to make anything like a mass “panic”) involve originally credible allegations of abuse backed up by strong medical evidence that then spiraled wildly out of control due to a combination of community vigilantism and prosecutorial misconduct/bumbling. like ray buckley was absolutely abusing children at the mcmartin preschool and this was pretty firmly established long before shit about murder tunnels was even mentioned but that has REALLY gotten lost in the pop cultural reception. and this is true across multiple cases. and one of the very clear cases of miscarriage of justice was rank homophobia - the accused was gay, the actual perpetrator was probably the kid’s stepdad (again: abuse is basically always actually happening and the real issue is of degree) and a prosecutor said a gay man in a daycare was like a “chocoholic in a candy store” so like not at all the problem that has been identified and it was literally one guy and no ritual abuse allegations were even involved.

(this is why turn of the screw is so good…my read has always been that it’s about how knowledge of child abuse - that is real and happened - can unhinge you so entirely that you perpetuate harm rather than alleviate it and that is basically what was at play, not entirely unwarranted smear campaigns making up sexual abuse whole cloth.)

one more bit of reflection and some quotes under the cut.

what is so powerfully disturbing is yet another example of how much overlap between conservative and supposedly “leftist” views on the same subjects. conservatives love a narrative about a witch hunt against child abusers because they do think you should be able to rape with impunity and leftists love the narrative because it is supposedly ANTI-conservative - it’s a MORAL PANIC urged on BY CONSERVATIVES who have a problem with women working outside the home and putting their kids in day cares to hide the fact children are being molested in homes by patriarchs!!! and like this turns out to not actually be the case. kids are being molested in day cares and they just think kids should be molested everywhere, indiscriminately, and day cares are fine too. one of like one the big expert witnesses for the defense in a lot of these cases offering “evidence” of child susceptibility wrote articles about how adult-child sex is beautiful and pedophilic love is unfairly maligned for a dutch newspaper. this is the guy BRAVELY speaking out against this totally mythical overeagerness to punish child sexual abuse. it is just genuinely incredibly unsettling how warped the narrative has become that, as people carry water for child molesters, they can cognitively perform this kind of trick. it makes me feel actually nauseous thinking about how the idea of family abolition is again something i have a lot of sympathy for but very clearly NO one is really able to think about how to prevent abuse were we to raise children more communally, because we have to believe it will just vanish with whatever is the chosen target as the root of all abuse (in both cases, either a broad feminism that supports the dismantling of women being tied to the home or communist demands for family abolition). and i guess the revolution isn’t imminent so one is more theoretical than the other but it really does disturb me. i think it should disturb everyone.

1.

Two reporters for a Tennessee newspaper were the first to make an extended argument that there was a national pattern of witch-hunts following the McMartin case. In “Justice Abused: A 1980’s Witch-Hunt,” a six-part series published in the Commercial Appeal in January 1988, Tom Charlier and Shirley Downing purported to identify thirty-six cases around the country that demonstrate this phenomenon. The article had a national map plotting the cases, a full page with abstracts of them, and other graphs and text that seemed to make a convincing argument that investigations across the country had found little or no evidence of sexual abuse but had resulted in a significant number of false accusations or convictions.

The series has become one of the foundational works in the witch-hunt narrative. It has been referred to as “the most comprehensive” source on the day-care sexual abuse cases of the 1980s. Ellen Willis, Nathan’s editor at the Village Voice, called it “a fine investigative series.” A journal published by defense psychologist Ralph Underwager claimed, incorrectly, that the series won a Pulitzer Prize. Law reviews, academic journal articles, and various books have subsequently relied on this list as authoritative. One book even reproduced the summaries of Charlier and Downing’s thirty-six cases as a long appendix; this single source accounts for more than a dozen footnotes in the chapter of Nathan and Snedeker’s book which also argues that these cases constitute a national trend. None of the sources just mentioned have expressed any doubt about the quality or accuracy of the reporting. To the contrary, the series has been held up as the “most in-depth treatment of these cases.”

[…]

Charlier and Downing’s list also appears to be padded through the inclusion of cases that never involved an arrest, let alone prosecution. What kind of witch-hunt or “justice denied” results in no charges whatsoever? Sixteen of the cases never got to the stage of a trial; charges were dropped in some cases and they were never brought in others. One-third of the cases resulted in a conviction, seemingly undercutting the claim of “justice abused.” Table 3.1 lists the cases by place name, as they are identified by Charlier and Downing. Notably, only a handful of the cases involved charges “taking place on a large scale,” something the article claimed was a feature of these cases. In explaining the series, the authors said that a “pattern emerged … most cases evolved from a single incident involving one child, but investigations often triggered runaway inquiries that fed on publicity and parents” worst fears.” But many of the thirty-six cases involved a single alleged perpetrator, some involved two, and it is impossible to ascertain the number in several. Only four cases clearly involved a large number of alleged perpetrators: the Manhattan Beach case (McMartin); the Kern County cases; the Jordan, Minnesota, cases; and the Memphis case (Georgian Hills). The vast majority of the thirty-six cases in this series do not fit the pattern. Many also do not fit another theme that is repeated throughout the series: day-care abuse. At least ten—almost a third of their evidence—have nothing to do with day-care centers.

The most significant problems, however, are apparent only after doing research. One problem that becomes clear on researching secondary sources is what I call satanic exaggeration. As it turns out, fewer than one-quarter of the thirty-six cases actually fit the primary theme of the series, which combined the idea of witch-hunts over child sexual abuse with claims of ritualistic or satanic overtones. Some of the cases Charlier and Downing discuss had nothing to do with satanic or ritualistic abuse. Moreover, several that did involve such elements were clearly based in reality. The Richmond, Virginia, “case” is described as follows:

“Two children believed to have been sexually abused by family members began telling of rituals they allegedly took part in a year earlier. They said they had been forced to witness the slaying of a child, a friend of theirs whose decomposed body had been discovered in the woods. … The police found burn rings—similar to those left by candles—on the floor of the apartment where the acts were said to have occurred. But the police couldn’t tell whether the children were telling the truth or fantasizing. No charges have been filed in the girl’s slaying.”

The authors never explain why this case was included in their “Justice Abused” series. A dead body was found, the children “were believed to have been sexually abused,” and nobody was charged. The injustice appears to have been to the victims. Similarly, the Atherton, California, “case” allegedly involved wild allegations made by a girl after a dead cat was found in her locker at school. The authors do not contest the fact that the case involved something that would merit investigation—a dead cat in a locker. Moreover, they do not explain why a case in which the district attorney considered the evidence insufficient to prosecute anyone would merit inclusion in a series about “justice abused.”

2.

“Skepticism about widespread claims of satanic and ritual abuse became the dominant position in the 1990s—and for good reason. The idea that a network of organized pedophiles infiltrated day-care centers in the 1980s deserves to be dismissed. As Kenneth Lanning wrote in the FBI’s Investigator’s Guide to Allegations of “Ritual” Child Abuse, “some professionals, in their zeal to make American society more aware of [the sexual victimization of children], tend to exaggerate the problem.” Lanning concluded, after years of reports of widespread satanic ritual abuse, that no evidence “of a well-organized satanic cult” had been found in any of the cases. This report was followed two years later by a study funded by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN). Described in the press as “the first empirical study of [the] actual prevalence” of ritual abuse, its findings were hailed as evidence that “organized satanic cults don’t exist.”

But these two reports were careful to distinguish between conspiratorial claims involving networks of perpetrators that had infiltrated day-care centers and claims of individual cases involving satanic or ritualistic elements. The NCCAN study made it clear that it found “convincing evidence of lone perpetrators or couples who say they are involved with Satan or use the claim to intimidate victims.” The primary author of the report described an intergenerational ritualistic case, including black robes and candles, with medical evidence of chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease, in five children’s throats. So, too, an investigation in Utah uncovered a case in which three adult woman recalled satanic sexual abuse as children involving “robed ceremonies, alters, [sic] candles, animal sacrifices and extreme physical and sexual abuse.” The attorney general’s office interviewed the suspects and reported that “both the mother and father admitted to serious sexual and physical crimes against the children and named several other individuals who were involved.” The statute of limitations prevented prosecution. Those cases did not involve “organized cults” but nevertheless stand for the proposition that children have been sexually abused in ritualistic or satanic ways, and therefore claims involving such elements should not automatically be written off as “fantastic” and unrelated to reality.

The FBI Investigator’s Guide distinguishes between claims that were physically impossible or had never been proven (e.g., cannibalism and the sacrificing of babies) and the ritualistic claims that were “possible and probable” or corroborated (i.e., child pornography, cases involving victim threats and manipulation). This guide also contains an entire section on “Alternative Explanations,” which explores six reasons for a child possibly claiming something fantastic or ritualistic that is not literally true. What is most important about the analysis has been lost entirely in the witch-hunt narrative: some explanations are consistent with the child having been sexually abused, and others are not. The explanation it described as “most controversial and least popular” is one that suggests there was no abuse: “overzealous intervenors” who misinterpreted, embellished, or otherwise subtly affected the child’s statements. Other explanations, however, such as “normal childhood fears,” suggest there was actual abuse; children “might describe their victimization in terms of evil that they understand.” So even though this guide has become best known for its official skepticism of claims of ritual abuse, it actually recognized many activities described as ritual abuse and it cautions that there might be plausible explanations for children making such statements in other cases with sexual abuse. There has been research since publication of the guide bearing out the reality of sexual abuse in cases where children make “fantastic” statements.”

3.

“Many of the elements Charlier and Downing called fantastic have been proven to exist in actual cases. To listen to the most virulent of the denials, however, one would think that no adult has ever committed a sex crime with some of the more extreme items on their list, such as devil worship. But there are many proven cases in the public record. For example, Bradley James Key and Michael Paul Dillard were convicted of child endangerment for satanic rituals that injured three young adolescent boys in Pike County, Ohio. The rituals involved candles, incantation, pentagram drawings, and bloodletting. One boy “had hot candle wax dripped in the shape of a cross on his “chest, back and genitals.” The unacknowledged history of child sexual abuse also includes cultlike cases with multiple perpetrators. In November 1991, a terrified twelve-year-old girl fled to a women’s shelter in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, to escape a group of adults she was convinced had supernatural powers. She told stories of being subjected by her “parents and neighbors to ritualistic torture that included bloodletting with a sword, hot needles under their fingernails, sodomy.” It is precisely the kind of case that would-be skeptics deny. But the evidence proved to be overwhelming. Rickie Jay Gaddis had physically and sexually abused seven children for at least eighteen months. He used “ceremonial swords” to draw blood to pour on the grave of a daughter killed in a fire three years earlier. A boy had been tattooed in one of these “ceremonies,” and the children had been sodomized. The police found everything the girl described, including the swords.

According to Detective Richard Rok, “the thing that still bothers me the most about all of this is that so many people knew about this, yet did nothing.” The county child protective service agency had a file on Gaddis “for years” but had taken no action even though a school nurse reported suspicions about the family almost three years earlier. Several of the defendants pleaded guilty. Gaddis was found guilty of more than 150 counts of “horrific sexual, physical, and emotional abuse” ranging from terrorist threats to rape, incest, and involuntary deviant sexual intercourse. Later upholding these convictions, Judge Tamilia noted that one “victim’s testimony was corroborated by the testimony of three eyewitnesses.” The court rejected the claim that evidence of “terroristic threats” and “instilling fear and menace on the victims” was unfairly prejudicial. To the contrary, the court found it was directly relevant to the charges.

Another case like this emerged in Florida. Eddie Lee Sexton, Sr., also ran his family like a cult, subjecting them to the kinds of rituals that Nathan and others claim is only imaginary. But the horrors were real, including a nine-month-old child who was murdered and buried on Sexton’s command at a Florida campground, where the family was fleeing from child-abuse charges in Ohio. Skipper Lee’s body was found where Sexton’s daughters said it had been buried. The senior Sexton, who told his children he was the devil, inflicted horrendous tortures on his family, including sexual abuse. Two adult sons testified about rituals in which they drank deer’s blood and joined hands around a dead cat.

Similarly, a “ritual abuse” case with satanic elements was verified in San Diego, where two defendants were charged in 1986 with threatening and sexually abusing seven boys and girls (ages eleven to fourteen) who lived in the same apartment complex. Robert Wilkins was convicted by a jury of multiple counts of “forcible oral copulation” and committing a “lewd and lascivious act with a child under fourteen by force or duress” and sentenced to forty-six years. His conviction was upheld on appeal. Lori Bartz was charged with the same offenses plus false imprisonment and assault with a deadly weapon. As reported in the San Diego Union-Tribune, Bartz “used satanic rituals to frighten and intimidate some of the victims into performing sex acts.” She pleaded guilty to nine charges in exchange for the dropping of sixty-two charges and the state’s agreement not to seek a sentence longer than fifty years. After being sentenced to forty-eight years, she appealed on the grounds that the sentence was cruel and unusual given her “lack of intelligence and emotional immaturity.” The appellate court found although she “‘almost’ believe[ed] true the fantasy world she created,” her sentence was appropriate because the victims were particularly vulnerable, she took advantage of a position of trust, and she engaged in a pattern of violent conduct that indicates a serious danger to society.

In Northern California, there was the case of Daryl Ball, Jr., and Charlotte Mae Thrailkill, with multiple child victims (ages five to eight) and allegations of threats and other kinds of abuse labeled as “ritualistic.” The prosecution described those elements and cited the Finkelhor study specifically to explain that “these cases are distinguished from the incest model by the extreme terror shown by the victims.” The factual allegations are precisely the kind that Nathan disavows, having criticized Finkelhor for “believing” (as she put it) that ritual abuse cases actually exist. This case was classified as ritual abuse primarily because the children were threatened, with several testifying they were tied with rope. The preliminary hearing, which lasted throughout August 1987, was the longest preliminary hearing in Sonoma County history. Some of the children broke down and were removed from the case; medical evidence was presented that corroborated the abuse. Both defendants later pleaded guilty to “forcible lewd and lascivious conduct” involving five children. In 1998, Thrailkill became the first woman in California to be declared a sexually violent predator after she decided not to contest the state’s petition. She asked to be sent to a state hospital.

There are even verified cases of sexual abuse in the context of organized cult activities. The existence of these cases does not prove anything about other cases, of course, but it does demonstrate that such things are possible. Since cases with similar allegations have been uniformly dismissed as fantastic, the existence of proven cases demonstrates that automatic rejection on such grounds is inappropriate. In sum, there is extremism on both sides of the of the ritual abuse controversy. On the side that included the organization Believe the Children, seemingly anything a child said, no matter how implausible, was taken at face value. Prosecutor Kathleen Morris suspected, at least for a time, that there was baby killing in Jordan, Minnesota, without any reports of missing babies or evidence of their death. On the other hand, the witch-hunt narrative has adopted the position that children’s statements involving ritualistic elements that have been proven in real cases are nevertheless so “bizarre” as to discredit the child automatically.”