In new book, Brown University professor aims to discredit ‘witch-hunt narrative’ of child sexual-abuse cases

In new book, Brown University professor aims to discredit ‘witch-hunt narrative’ of child sexual-abuse cases 

March 23, 2014 By Kate Bramson Journal Staff Writer

 

PROVIDENCE — For decades, a view has persisted that a series of child sexual-abuse cases connected with child-care centers during the 1980s were witch hunts, fueled by social hysteria, that ended in wrongful convictions of many innocent people.

 

A new book by Brown University professor Ross E. Cheit, “The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children,” explores the cases at the heart of that belief.

 

After 15 years of research into the history of child sexual-abuse cases, the political science and public policy professor seeks to discredit the “witch-hunt narrative.”

 

In an interview with The Providence Journal, Cheit said that those who believe this theory ignore even credible charges of child abuse and dismiss medical evidence that children were abused.

 

“I want to provoke discussion,” he said.

 

Much of the reason the witch-hunt narrative has prevailed, according to Cheit, is that it’s easier for people to believe that child sexual abuse doesn’t happen because the topic itself is taboo. Cheit cites the work of Dr. Suzanne M. Sgroi, who wrote in 1978 that “the sexual abuse of children is a crime that our society abhors in the abstract but tolerates in reality.”

 

Communities have been known to rally around people convicted of this crime, Cheit writes.

 

“We often minimize and deny so as to allow us to avoid seeing things we would rather not see. Turning a blind eye to the sexual abuse of children has a long history in this country.”

 

According to Cheit, the witch-hunt narrative often includes a “hero,” a journalist perhaps, who helps an innocent person escape a false conviction.

“We love this story,” he said. “My concern is we love it so much even when it isn’t true.”....
http://www.providencejournal.com/breaking-news/content/20140323-in-new-book-brown-university-professor-aims-to-discredit-witch-hunt-narrative-of-child-sexual-abuse-cases.ece 

Unlearned Lessons of the McMartin Preschool case

 

It was the longest criminal trial in American history and it ended without a single conviction. Five people were charged with child sexual abuse based on extremely flimsy evidence. Some parents came to believe outlandish stories about ritual abuse and tunnels underneath the preschool. It is no wonder that the McMartin case, once labeled the largest “mass molestation” case in history, has come to be called a witch-hunt. In a commentary to a Retro Report earlier this month, Clyde Haberman, former Times reporter, repeated the view that the  case was a witch-hunt that spawned a wave of other cases of “dubious provenance.”

 

But does that description do justice to the facts?

 

A careful examination of court records reveals that the witch-hunt narrative about the McMartin case is a powerful but not entirely accurate story. For starters, critics have obscured the facts surrounding the origins of the case....recently asserted that the McMartin case began when Judy Johnson “went to the police” to allege that her child had been molested.

 

....But the Manhattan Beach Police did not begin this case on the word of Judy Johnson. Instead, they were moved by the medical evidence of anal trauma on her son. Johnson did not come to the police station on August 12; she went to her family doctor who, after examining her son, referred him to an Emergency Room. That doctor recommended that the boy be examined by a specialist. The pediatric specialist is the one who reported to the Manhattan Beach Police Department that “the victim’s anus was forcibly entered several days ago.”

 

Although Judy Johnson died of alcohol poisoning in 1986, making her an easy target for those promoting the witch-hunt narrative, there is no evidence that she was “psychotic” three years earlier. A profile in the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, published after Johnson died, made it clear that she was “strong and healthy” in 1983 and that she “jogged constantly and ate health food.” ....

 

The witch-hunt narrative has replaced any complicated truths about the McMartin case....It wasn’t all a witch-hunt....
http://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/2014/03/31/unlearned-lessons-of-the-mcmartin-preschool-case/
https://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/

Mexico finds 370 abandoned immigrant children, The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology and the Sexual Abuse of Children

Mexico finds 370 abandoned immigrant children
MEXICO CITY Sat Mar 29, 2014

(Reuters) - In one week, 370 immigrant children, most of them from Central America, were found abandoned in Mexico, after traffickers promised to take them to the United States but left them to their own devices after being paid thousands of dollars, authorities said.

Almost half of them, 163 children under the age of 18, were found traveling alone, Mexico's National Migration Institute (INM) said in a statement.

Each month, thousands of immigrants, mostly from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, attempt to emigrate to the United States, crossing several borders in the process, despite the threat from drug gangs that kidnap, murder and rape women.

The children told federal migration agents that their 'guides' abandoned them after accepting $3,000 to $5,000 in payments, INM said....

In the week the children were found, a total of 1,895 immigrants from various countries were detected in Mexico from countries as far away as Somalia, Japan and Syria, among others.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/29/us-mexico-immigration-idUSBREA2S0KE20140329


Panel Discussion: The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology and the Sexual Abuse of Children

Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - 4:00pm - 5:30pm Discussion: The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology and the Sexual Abuse of Children

A discussion with Brown professor Ross Cheit, author of The Witch Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children. Cheit's book, released this month by Oxford University Press, examines a series of high-profile child sex abuse cases in the 1980s empirically challenges the view that these cases were hoaxes. The book shows how a narrative based on empirically thin evidence became a theory with real social force, and how that theory stood at odds with the reality of child sexual abuse
http://www.brown.edu/academics/taubman-center/events/panel-discussion-witch-hunt-narrative-politics-psychology-and-sexual-abuse-children

Church diocese sues another over priest accused of sex abuse

Church diocese sues another over priest accused of sex abuse
AP March 27, 2014

NEW ULM, Minn. -- In a rare legal move, a Roman Catholic diocese in Minnesota is suing a diocese in Ireland, alleging it transferred a priest to Minnesota without warning that the man had been accused of sexual abuse.

A report by Minnesota Public Radio News and KARE-TV said the Diocese of New Ulm filed the lawsuit in February against the Diocese of Clogher in Ireland and the Servants of the Paraclete religious order.

In it, the New Ulm Diocese claims it never would have accepted the Rev. Francis Xavier Markey in 1981 if it had been told about the allegations against him.

Markey was ordained in Ireland in 1952, and documents in several court cases show he was accused of sexually abusing boys as early as the 1960s. The documents also show he had gone to treatment before coming to the U.S., and also received treatment at a Paraclete facility in New Mexico.

The New Ulm Diocese said Markey arrived in Willmar in December 1981 and did some temporary parish work. He left the diocese seven months later.

The New Ulm Diocese's lawsuit stems from a claim filed last year by a man who says Markey groped him and his two brothers at their family home in 1982, when Markey was filling in at rural churches in Henderson and Jessenland.

Markey died in 2012 while awaiting trial on child rape charges in Ireland....

But in court documents filed in another Markey case, the Diocese of Clogher said it did not assign Markey to work in Minnesota on its behalf, and it has no record of approving Markey to transfer to any program in Minnesota.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-ulm-minnesota-church-diocese-sues-one-in-ireland-over-priest/

Unlearned lessons from the McMartin Preschool case, The Witch-Hunt Narrative Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children, 4,900 youth death records, Collapsed economy linked to abuse of women and children

- Unlearned lessons from the McMartin Preschool case
- The Witch-Hunt Narrative
Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children
- B.C. to hand over 4,900 youth death records to TRC
- Collapsed economy linked to abuse of women and children

Unlearned lessons from the McMartin Preschool case
Thursday, March 27th, 2014 By Ross E. Cheit

....Judy Johnson did not bring her suspicions to the police; she brought them to her family doctor who, after examining the boy, referred him to an Emergency Room. That doctor recommended that the boy be examined by a child-abuse specialist. The pediatric specialist is the one who reported to the Manhattan Beach Police Department that “the victim’s anus was forcibly entered several days ago.”

Although Judy Johnson died of alcohol poisoning in 1986, making her an easy target for those promoting the witch-hunt narrative, there is no evidence that she was “psychotic” three years earlier. A profile in the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, published after Johnson died, made it clear that she was “strong and healthy” in 1983 and that she “jogged constantly and ate health food.” The case did not begin with a mythical crazy woman.

....But defense lawyer Danny Davis allowed that the genital injuries on one girl were “serious and convincing.” (His primary argument to the jury was that much of the time that this girl attended McMartin was outside the statute of limitations.) The vaginal injuries on another girl, one of the three involved in both McMartin trials, were described by a pediatrician as proving sexual abuse “to a medical certainty.”

....As it turns out, there are credible reasons that jurors in both trials voted in favor of a guilty verdict on some counts. Those facts do not fit the witch-hunt narrative. Instead, they portray the reality of a complicated case....
http://blog.oup.com/2014/03/unlearned-lessons-mcmartin-preschool-child-abuse-case/


The Witch-Hunt Narrative
Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children
Ross E. Cheit  Oxford University Press

    Empirically challenges the view that a series of high-profile cases in the 1980s and early 1990s were hoaxes
    Shows how a narrative based on empirically thin evidence became a theory with real social force, and how that theory stood at odds with the reality of child sexual abuse

....But did the new witch hunt narrative accurately represent reality? As Ross Cheit demonstrates in his exhaustive account of child sex abuse cases in the past two and a half decades, purveyors of the witch hunt narrative never did the hard work of examining court records in the many cases that reached the courts throughout the nation. Instead, they treated a couple of cases as representative and concluded that the issue was blown far out of proportion. Drawing on years of research into cases in a number of states, Cheit shows that the issue had not been blown out of proportion at all. In fact, child sex abuse convictions were regular occurrences, and the crime occurred far more frequently than conventional wisdom would have us believe. Cheit's aim is not to simply prove the narrative wrong, however. He also shows how a narrative based on empirically thin evidence became a theory with real social force, and how that theory stood at odds with a far more grim reality. The belief that the charge of child sex abuse was typically a hoax also left us unprepared to deal with the far greater scandal of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church, which, incidentally, has served to substantiate Cheit's thesis about the pervasiveness of the problem. In sum, The Witch-Hunt Narrative is a magisterial and empirically powerful account of the social dynamics that led to the denial of widespread human tragedy.
http://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-witch-hunt-narrative-9780199931224


B.C. to hand over 4,900 youth death records to TRC
27. Mar, 2014 by APTN National News
EDMONTON–The British Columbia government is expected Friday to give the Truth and Reconciliation Commission 4,900 death certificates of First Nations youth aged from four to 19 who died between 1870 and 1984.

The data, held in a portable digital storage device, will be handed over during a ceremony in Edmonton where the TRC is holding its final national event. Peter Cunningham, B.C.’s assistant deputy minister of partnership and community renewal, will be giving the data to the TRC

The TRC is currently trying to tally the exact number of First Nation children who died in residential schools. So far the TRC has identified 4,100 children as part of its Missing Children Project.

The TRC will sift through B.C.’s data to determine which of the deaths happened in a residential school....
http://aptn.ca/news/2014/03/27/b-c-hand-4900-death-records-trc/


Collapsed economy linked to abuse of women and children
By Nomalanga Moyo  SW Radio Africa  27 March 2014

The deteriorating economic situation in Zimbabwe is exacerbating violence against women and children, leading historian Pathisa Nyathi has said.

In recent months there have been several reported cases across the country, highlighting the brutalisation of women and children through rape or ritualistic killings.

Last week three men from Gwanda appeared in court charged with murdering four women and cutting off some of their body parts for ritual purposes.

ZANU PF activist Lillian Kandemiri was recently jailed for offering her 15-year-old grand-daughter as payment for a $40,000 debt.

This week Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered the State to compensate Mildred Mapingure who was denied an abortion after she was gang-raped in her home eight years ago.

On Wednesday President Robert Mugabe said he receives “disturbing child sexual abuse statistics” and went on to call for a campaign against the rape “epidemic” saying stiffer penalties alone will not help....

Nyathi said...that ritual murderers carry out their crimes in the misinformed hope that body parts that are associated with fertility will help improve their financial status....
http://www.swradioafrica.com/2014/03/27/zimbabwe-collapsed-economy-linked-to-abuse-of-women-and-children/

Child Abuse: The Deadly Cost of Inattention and Inaction

Child Abuse: The Deadly Cost of Inattention and Inaction    
Bruce Lesley  03/26/2014

The Miami Herald series entitled "Innocents Lost" deserves a Pulitzer Prize for its investigation into 477 deaths of children that were a part of the child welfare system in the State of Florida over the past six years. More than 70 percent of the children who died were two years old or younger and completely defenseless.

The series reinforces two critical but basic responsibilities that we, as a society, owe children facing abuse and neglect:

    First, we must strengthen families by preventing abuse and neglect whenever possible.
    Second, we must take swift but thoughtful action that gives children the best possible chance to grow up in a safe, stable, loving and supportive permanent home.

The series also highlights another critical fact: money matters and the lives of our nation's most vulnerable children cannot be protected on the cheap....

However, as the Miami Herald documents, Florida embraced "family preservation" on the cheap. While the number of children in foster care dropped from 30,200 to 18,185 during a period that featured the Great Recession and increased family stress and difficulties, the state simultaneously and tragically slashed family monitoring and support services, resulting in more children left with substance abusing, neglectful, and violent parents. Tough times are the most important times to protect children, but Florida (and as noted later, the federal government) took the opposite approach during the last few years.

According to Audra D.S. Burch and Carol Marbin Miller of the Miami Herald, while Florida's overall state spending increased by $10 billion from 2005 to 2013, child welfare funding was cut by the Legislature by $80 million and grew to $100 million after Governor Rick Scott's vetoes last year. And, while "either drugs or alcohol came up in 323 of the child deaths," the state also "reduced funding for drug treatment."

For children, the consequences were tragic. As the Daytona Beach News-Journal concluded, "...the state tried to do it on the cheap... Hundreds of children paid with their lives."....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-lesley/child-abuse-the-deadly-cost_b_5029768.html

Victim breaks 20-year silence over sex abuse only to be told he'd imagined it

Victim breaks 20-year silence over sex abuse only to be told he'd imagined it          
Mar 23, 2014 By Gemma Aldridge

Simon Whitter reported his years of trauma but was told his children's home had never existed

A brave victim broke his 20-year silence over sex abuse he suffered as a child - only to be told by authorities that he'd imagined it.

Simon Whitter, 40, was removed from his violent home by social services at the age of 12.

He was sent to Burton House children's home in Manchester in 1986. There he was subjected to ritual sex abuse at the government-run home for boys.

Yet when in 2012 he finally reported his years of trauma, Manchester City Council claimed Burton House had never even existed.

In a shocking attempt to whitewash Simon's history, they claimed documents had gone missing and there was no record of where he had lived. Only later did they admit their mistake and allow him to file for compensation.

Simon's story is just one example of the hurdles that have had to be overcome by more than 400 victims of abuse in Manchester's children's homes.

The latest blow has been a High Court ruling that remaining victims must come forward in the next seven weeks or lose any chance of compensation.

This week Simon and another victim Paul Tyler, 49, returned to their children's homes in a bid to encourage others to find justice.

Dad-of-three Simon said: "It took me over 20 years before I was ready to speak out and then they tried to silence me....

Claims of child abuse centre on three main homes run by the City Council - Rose Hill in Northenden, Broome House in Didsbury and Mobberley Boys in Knutsford. A total of 275 cases have so far been settled by Abney Garsden Solicitors for over £2million since the action started in 1997.

Several members of social services have been jailed for their involvement.

Among them was Ronald Hall, who rose to assistant director of social services.

He was jailed in 2001 for 11 years for the sexual and physical abuse of children at Broome House.

Simon says he was forced to perform sex acts from the age of 12. He says the effects of the abuse led him on a trail of destruction which culminated in a six-month prison sentence for alcohol-related offences.

"I had been forced to do things no child should endure and I know so many other people have been through the same thing," he said. "The City Council just want to stop them coming forward to save money. It's disgusting."....
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/simon-whitter-victim-breaks-20-year-3275050 

Mexico: Knights Templar Drug Cartel Initiation Rite, Nigerian police discover ritual killings

has graphic descriptions of violence

- Mexico: Knights Templar Drug Cartel Made Recruits Eat Children's Hearts in Initiation Rite
- Rotting Corpses and Chained Kidnap Victims Found in Nigeria's 'House of Horrors'
- Nigerian police discover ritual killings

Mexico: Knights Templar Drug Cartel Made Recruits Eat Children's Hearts in Initiation Rite     By Umberto Bacchi March 21, 2014

New members of an infamous Mexican drug cartel were forced to eat children's hearts as part of a gruesome initiation rite, informers told authorities in the western state of Michoacan.

Officials investigating an organ trafficking ring allegedly run by the Knights Templar cartel said there is evidence the late gang boss Nazario Moreno demanded that recruits proved their loyalty through an act of cannibalism.

"At [an] initiation ceremony they used the organs, in this case the heart, and forced people going through this initiatory process to eat it," Alfredo Castillo, the federal government's envoy to Michoacan, told a local radio....

Moreno, who founded La Familia cartel before starting up the Knights Templar, was first declared dead by the Mexican government in December 2010 after a shootout with federal police, even though no corpse was found.

Earlier this month, police arrested Manuel Plancarte Gaspar, another member of the Knights Templar, on organ trafficking charges....
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mexico-knights-templar-drug-cartel-made-recruits-eat-children-organ-trafficking-initiation-rite-1441266  
 
Rotting Corpses and Chained Kidnap Victims Found in Nigeria's 'House of Horrors'  By Tom Porter March 23, 2014

Nigerian police have found rotting bodies, skeletons and people bound in chains in a house in Ibadan that has been dubbed the House of Horrors.

They said that emaciated people had also been found wandering in the grounds of the property, reports AFP....

In Nigeria, kidnapping victims are often killed in black magic ritual sacrifices or for their organs or body parts, which are sold on in the southern region of the country.

Corpses are often found abandoned on roadsides near the country's cities with parts of their bodies missing, including their eyes and genitals.

Nigeria's Vanguard newspaper last year reported that three dealers in body parts and kidnapped people had revealed a "price list", where a live person could be bought for about £150, a human head for £30 and genitalia for £36.

The Nigerian Tribune newspaper reported that about 15 people were found chained up in the property in Ibadan, and six guns and several cutlasses recovered from a neighbouring house....
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/rotting-corpses-chained-kidnap-victims-found-nigerias-house-horrors-1441494
 
Nigerian police discover ritual killings
Nigerian police have discovered a site where ritual killings were performed and the body parts sold for use in medical potions
23 Mar 2014 Source AAP

Nigerian police rescued 16 people from an underground dungeon believed to be a ritual killing site, the local newspaper Leadership has reported.

The officers also discovered several decomposing bodies and body parts, hundreds of human skulls, old clothes, photographs and voter cards in the chamber located in a forest near Soka in the western state of Oyo....

Every year, hundreds of Nigerians lose their lives to ritual killings. Their body parts are sold for large sums of money to people who believe they will become more powerful through magical potions containing human flesh and blood.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/03/23/nigerian-police-discover-ritual-killings

British children caught up in one of world's worst ever porn rings: More than 250 youngsters worldwide aged as young as three exploited through social networking sites

British children caught up in one of world's worst ever porn rings: More than 250 youngsters worldwide aged as young as three exploited through social networking sites

    British police are preparing to arrest dozens of men who accessed the secret obscene image-sharing website
    It comes after 14 U.S. men were arrested earlier this week as the authorities uncovered one of the world's worst ever pornography rings
    American Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced the major bust in a press conference on Tuesday
    The administrator of the website has been identified as Jonathan Johnson of Abita Springs, Louisiana
    A total of 251 children were connected to the website, and most of them were boys between the ages of of 13 and 15
    Two of the victims were 3 years old or younger

By James Slack, Home Affairs Editor  19 March 2014

....More than 27,000 subscribers to the vile secret network had access to 2,000 videos filmed on computer webcams.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the US said they had arrested 14 American men who operated the member-only site from the southern state of Louisiana.

....They have been charged with running a child exploitation enterprise after allegedly distributing the material through the Tor network, or so-called 'dark web'.

This allows Internet anonymity by hiding online traffic and a user's location.

The network, which was operated for a year from mid-2012 to last June, was unmasked after an item was sent through the US Postal Service to a child.

....Over a period of just 47 working hours - the IWF logged 12,224 sexual images or videos of young people that had been uploaded to the internet.

Of these, 10,776 were later found on so-called 'parasite' websites, often designed solely for the purpose of displaying explicit images of children or teenagers.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2584585/British-children-caught-one-worlds-worst-porn-rings-More-250-youngsters-worldwide-aged-young-two-exploited-social-networking-sites.html

Clergy Abuse Victims Criticize Cardinal Dolan's Lobbying Efforts In Albany, Archdiocese must make priest abuse files public, judge rules, Clergy Abuse Documentary ‘BASTA’ to Premier at Boston International Film Festival on Easter Sunday

"This is a global epidemic which needs, and deserves, global awareness. There are 60 million adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse living in the United States alone. Survivors need to know that they are not alone and above all, there is always hope."

Clergy Abuse Victims Criticize Cardinal Dolan's Lobbying Efforts In Albany  BY Glenn Blain  March 19, 2014

Victims of clergy sex abuse are criticizing  Timothy Cardinal Dolan’s efforts to boost charitable donations to schools.

Mary Caplan, co-director of the New York City chapter of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, issued a statement Wednesday blasting Dolan for lobbying Albany lawmakers this week to approve tax credits for those who donate to schools or other education-related groups.

“When they want money for their institutions, Catholic officials lobby hard and say they care deeply about kids,” Caplan said. “But when kids who were abused want a chance for justice, Catholic officials lobby hard to deny those kids their day in court. All across the US, Dolan and his brother bishops use all their political will and power and resources to block moves to reform archaic, predator-friendly statute of limitations laws that endanger kids and protect those who commit and conceal heinous child sex crimes.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2014/03/clergy-abuse-victims-criticize-cardinal-dolans-lobbying-efforts-in-albany


Archdiocese must make priest abuse files public, judge rules
JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune March 19, 2014

Judge tells the Twin Cities archdiocese to release all info about those credibly accused of sex abuse from 1970 to 1985.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis must reveal hundreds of pages of information on priests accused of sexually abusing children, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Ramsey County District Judge John Van de North rejected church efforts to keep most of the documents under court seal, ordering that all information on priests who were “credibly accused” of abuse between 1970 and 1985 be filed with the court by March 31.

Information on priests whom the church determined were not “credibly” accused will remain sealed, Van de North ruled....
http://www.startribune.com/local/east/250859931.html


Clergy Abuse Documentary ‘BASTA’ to Premier at Boston International Film Festival on Easter Sunday
Merrimack Valley Production has announced that BASTA - No pity - No shame - No silence- has been selected to premiere at the Boston International Film Festival on Easter Sunday April 20th at Loews Theatre/AMC Boston Common on Tremont Street.

"This is a global epidemic which needs, and deserves, global awareness. There are 60 million adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse living in the United States alone. Survivors need to know that they are not alone and above all, there is always hope."

Boston Massachusetts (PRWEB) March 18, 2014

BASTA, a film documenting the emotional journey taken by simple men detailing their attempts to reach into the Vatican walls in search of help, hope and aid in healing a nation reeling from the effects of the clergy abuse crisis, will premiere at the Boston International Film Festival on Sunday, April 20th.

Attempting to battle the cover-up, shame and silence of clergy sexual abuse, three survivors from Boston Massachusetts, travel to Rome reaching behind the secret walls of The Vatican. Their weeklong effort becomes a decade long mission that exposes mind blowing statistics and unexpected worldwide results.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/03/prweb11674500.htm

Basta is a film documenting the story of the emotional journey taken by simple men detailing their attempts to reach behind and beyond the Vatican walls in search of help, hope and aid in healing a nation reeling from the effects of the clergy abuse scandal.
A decade after starting on a personal journey for justice, one man finds that success isn't always defined by achieving his goal, sometimes, it's defined by the attempt itself. And sometimes, in that attempt, you also find out who you are.
http://www.bastathemovie.com/About_The_Film.html

The twisted confessions of pastor from Louisiana who inspired 'True Detective', Babies in black dresses abused while laying in a Pentagram, drinking cat's blood and Satanic writings on church walls, Youth Found Hanged in L.I. Cell after His Arrest in Ritual Killing

EXCLUSIVE: Babies in black dresses abused while laying in a Pentagram, drinking cat's blood and Satanic writings on church walls: The twisted confessions of the pedophile pastor from Louisiana who inspired 'True Detective'

    Writer of hit HBO series this week hinted at a sick pedophile ring in Louisiana as inspiration
    Just like the series it involved a church pastor, a corrupt deputy, Satanic rituals and even shares names
    Pastor Louis Lamonica Jr. of Hosanna Church, Hammond, Louisiana, confessed to being the head of a Satanic ring in 2005. At the time police feared up to 25 children could have fallen victim
    MailOnline has seen his spine-tingling confession to the crime in which he claimed he was one of six who took part in the abuse
    But at his trial his defense said he confessed falsely because he was under the spell of a charismatic woman denounced as a 'false prophet' who wanted to take over the church

By Laura Collins In Amite, Louisiana
17 March 2014

At 1.15pm on 16 May, 2005, Pastor Louis Lamonica Jr strolled into Detective Stan Carpenter’s office in Livingston, Louisiana and made his confession. What he had to say ‘floored’ the detective.

The pastor of Hosanna Church in nearby Hammond claimed he had performed satanic rituals, child abuse and animal sacrifice in the church and that he was not alone.

He named his fellow perpetrators and he named their child victims. It marked the beginning of the Hosanna Church Scandal and exposed a vicious pedophile ring in a case whose shockwaves reverberate in Lamonica’s former parish of Tangipahoe to this day.

In his confession, seen by MailOnline, Lamonica sat down and announced: ‘I want to talk about the dedication (to Satan) of a baby. It was held at the church, upstairs, in what was called the Youth Room.’

He went onto describe a room where all the windows were covered in black, ‘like black paper, keep it dark.’

There was a pentagram in the middle of the floor, he said and a book of ‘Spells and Temptations.’ On this occasion, he claimed, there were five others present: Austin ‘Trey’ Bernard III, then 36, Lamonica’s wife Robin, 45, church member Paul Fontenot, 21, sheriff’s deputy Chris Labat, 24 and Patricia ‘Trish’ Pierson, 56. All but LeBat later pleaded guilty to charges ranging from aggravated rape to sexual battery to obstruction of justice.Labat was charged with child pornography but subsequently the charges were dismissed.

Lamonica stated: ‘They would start off like a church service but it was Satanic music. There were candles burning, dark, red candleholders. And the dedication of baby A into Satan with this Pentagram, she was put in the middle, in a black dress.’

He described chanting around the child – Trey Bernard’s daughter, barely one year old at the time – before killing a cat, draining its blood and each drinking it.

He claimed they did not make the child drink because she was too young and instead took off her dress and sprinkled the blood over her.

These meetings, according to Lamonica, took place once every two to three months.

On other occasions ‘certain girls would be picked and have sexual relationships with. The guys would line up, one by one, they would come and they would have sex with that girl. And the same if there was a woman…they would have [a] homosex (sic) relationship and oral sex, acting like one was a man and one was a woman.’

He claimed that there was ‘feces laid around. There was urine.’

And he claimed that during these satanic rituals he would become ‘distorted’ by the Devil and that demons would change him into an animal – ‘a snake, a fox, wolf, spiders.’

His words are reminiscent of the notion of Courir de Mardi Gras, central to True Detective’s version of Satanism and the occult and explained by Cohle as ‘a very rural sense of Mardi Gras,  you know, the men on horses, animal masks and such.’

In the show, that Cajun culture is twisted into the killer’s satanic ritual of posing his victims with antlers....

To the prosecutor, District Attorney Don Wall, the case had nothing to do with the occult - any reference to that was simply subterfuge and an attempt by Lamonica to wriggle out of his own guilt by somehow claiming to have been ‘compelled’ by Satan.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2580388/EXCLUSIVE-Babies-abused-laying-Pentagram-Satanic-writings-church-walls-devouring-cats-blood-The-twisted-confessions-pedophile-church-pastor-Louisiana-inspired-True-Detective.html


YOUTH FOUND HANGED IN L.I. CELL AFTER HIS ARREST IN RITUAL KILLING 
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
Published: July 8, 1984

A teen-ager charged with slaying and mutilating a 17-year-old Long Island boy in what authorities said was a ritual carried out before followers of a satanic cult was found hanged early yesterday in his cell at the Suffolk County Jail.

The Suffolk County Sheriff, John Finnerty, listed the death of the suspect, Richard Kasso, 17 years old, of Northport, L.I., as an apparent suicide. A guard had found him hanging from a bedsheet.

The Sheriff ordered that a second youth charged in the case, James Troiano, 18, of East Northport, be placed under a 24-hour suicide watch.

Confessions Are Cited

The suspect's death was the latest development in the murder of Gary Lauwers of East Northport, who vanished June 15. According to what the authorities said were confessions by the two suspects, Mr. Lauwers was stabbed repeatedly and had his eyes gouged out in a four-hour ritual in the light of a campfire in a wooded area near Northport on the night of June 16....

The motive for the killing, investigators said, apparently was revenge over the theft of drugs. Authorities said Mr. Kasso had told them that the victim had stolen from him 10 bags of a powerful illegal hallucinogen, phencyclidine, known popularly as PCP or ''angel dust.'' A white powder, it is often rolled with marijuana and smoked; it is known to produce violent and unpredictable behavior....

Village officials, local clergymen and concerned residents yesterday planned meetings to talk about the murder, and about their children and the strange events and the drug-influenced cult. In recent years, the police recalled, many residents have complained of pets and domestic animals stolen, possibly for use in cult rituals.

The cult, according to Assistant District Attorney Bill Keahon of Suffolk County, is known as the ''Knights of the Black Circle.'' It has about 20 teen-age members and has held gatherings for several years in the Northport area involving ''the sacrifice of animals, the burning and torturing of animals'' in satanic rituals, he said....

Citing the confessions, which the police said were given by the suspects voluntarily without lawyers, the police said that during the ritual some of the victim's clothing was burned as the cult members chanted, and that the dying victim was forced to say, ''I love Satan.'' ....

Mr. Kasso was awaiting trial on a charge of opening a 19th-century grave in April and stealing a skull and a hand, purportedly for use in a ritual. He once underwent treatment at a drug rehabilitation center at South Oaks Hospital in Amityville, the police said....

Simultaneously, Mr. Kasso reportedly told the police, he heard a crow screech ''and this was indication to him, as a Satan worshiper, that the devil had ordered him to kill Lauwers.''....
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/08/nyregion/youth-found-hanged-in-li-cell-after-his-arrest-in-ritual-killing.html

Accused Craigslist killer Miranda Barbour sexually abused by uncle, Sexual Abuse Allegations for Private Boys’ Schools in Britain, Resources to end internet child abuse

- Accused Craigslist killer Miranda Barbour had traumatic start in life
- Childhood sexual abuse may have contributed to Miranda Barbour's issues later in life
- Wave of Sexual Abuse Allegations for Private Boys’ Schools in Britain
- Resources to end internet child abuse 'may be woefully insufficient'

Accused Craigslist killer Miranda Barbour had traumatic start in life Jill Burke March 16, 2014

The sensational headlines surrounding accused Craigslist killer Miranda Barbour portray a deeply troubled young woman. Her claims to be a practicing Satanist and that she killed not just once, but upwards of 22 times, gained immediate attention as people in four states where the supposed victims resided -- including Alaska -- began to question whether the newlywed teen mom’s story could be true.

Is Barbour seeking attention? Aiming for an insanity defense? Or is she earnestly using her confession and incarceration to protect the public from her self-declared murderous proclivities? Only time will tell.

Yet for all of Barbour’s grandiose claims, there is one aspect of her life story that is not in dispute -- the sexual abuse she suffered as a toddler by an uncle....

Miranda often spent weekends at her aunt and uncle’s house. “Uncle Rick” encouraged the sleepovers. Only later would young Miranda’s frequent complaints that her anus hurt, and once that her “pee pee” hurt, come to be understood for what they were -- the aftermath and evidence of multiple attacks in which she had been subject to anal and vaginal sexual penetration and fellatio. She had, in the words of the prosecutor, been “sodomized in every way imaginable.” It was one of the most physically extreme abuse cases the trial judge had ever seen, and it happened to a girl whom the judge described as “hardly more than” a baby....

In Richard Fernandez’s personal belongings, investigators found pornography and a sexual abuse “how-to” manual titled “Fun With My Sister’s Kids.” The book “encouraged uncles, fathers and grandfathers to engage in unclassified felony sex acts with their young nieces, daughters and granddaughters,” according to a prosecutor’s description of it contained in court records.

This book described and recommended the very abuse of which Fernandez was accused of and for which he later accepted punishment. He pleaded no contest, a plea that allowed him to avoid trial and do time but without admitting he’d actually done anything wrong....

Fernandez seemed destined for a revolving door experience between incarceration and free society. According to court records, he wasn’t adequately participating in a sex offender treatment program, had visited a “porn store,” viewed pornography on the internet and failed to find full-time employment. More than once, he’d found ways to get online. He’d used computers at his church and in his room at his halfway house to seek out prohibited material....

By May 2011 he was back in again with more time to serve, and two months later he faced a new case altogether, this time for possession of child pornography. Investigators had found hundreds of images of child pornography on his computer, after probation and parole officers seized and turned Fernandez’s computers over to Alaska State Troopers.

Fernandez is now serving out a 40 year prison term in the pornography case -- 20 years to serve with 20 suspended.  He’s scheduled for release in 2035. He must also remain registered as a sex offender for the rest of his life....
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20140316/accused-craigslist-killer-miranda-barbour-had-traumatic-start-life 


Childhood sexual abuse may have contributed to Miranda Barbour's issues later in life Jill Burke March 17, 2014

Much about the life and recent arrest of former Alaskan Miranda Barbour is discomforting. The troubled young woman, a teen runaway who turned to Satanism, heroin, and has since given birth to a child, stands accused of murder for the stabbing death of a man police say she lured through an ad on the online  bulletin board Craigslist. But one unnerving detail of her bizarre and traumatic story may resonate more profoundly with Alaskans than others: the childhood sexual abuse she suffered as a toddler....

Barbour was preyed upon by a man her family should have been able to trust: her uncle.

That man, Richard Fernandez, has served time in jail, where he remains after unsuccessful releases on parole and getting slapped with a new criminal charge for possession of pornography.

How often child sexual abuse happens in Alaska is difficult to assess. The best estimates are flawed because not all agencies that respond to abuse share uniform data, and it’s widely held that many victims never report the abuse. Those that do come forward sometimes wait years before doing so.

Alaska’s rate of child sexual abuse is six times the national average, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence....

In 2013, a trio of university researchers from Canada published a summary of decades of study on the topic of child sexual abuse and its prevalence, outcomes and prevention strategies. They found that child sexual assault “… alters a child’s cognitive and emotional orientation to the world and causes trauma by distorting their self-concept and affective capacities.” Traumatic sexualization, betrayal, powerlessness, and stigmatization that occur during the abuse may have lasting impacts. Post traumatic stress, dissociation symptoms, mood disorders, depression, behavior problems, inappropriate sexualized behaviors, substance abuse, self harm and suicide are all possible effects on these young victims of abuse, researchers found.

Additionally, when very young children experience sexual abuse, it can be difficult for them to process the trauma. While turning into a killer isn’t a foretold consequence, aspects of Barbour’s personality and life story appear to parallel the known, lasting impacts on sexually abused children....
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20140317/childhood-sexual-abuse-may-have-contributed-miranda-barbours-issues-later-life  

Wave of Sexual Abuse Allegations for Private Boys’ Schools in Britain
By STEPHEN CASTLE MARCH 16, 2014

LONDON — Prompted by publicity surrounding recent child abuse scandals involving well-known figures, dozens of British men are breaking decades of silence about molestation they say they suffered as boys at expensive private schools, forcing the schools to confront allegations that in the past might have been hushed up, ignored or treated derisively.

In one instance involving Aldwickbury School, which educates boys ages 4 to 13, a former student, who requested anonymity because of the intimate details of the case, said he suffered profound feelings of confusion and guilt after being abused by a teacher in the 1970s. He said the teacher molested him regularly during English lessons over a period of two years.

With the teacher dead, and in the absence of an apology from the school, the former student brought a civil case against Aldwickbury, which was settled with a payment.

Getting the school to face up to what happened more than three decades ago was, the former student said, like “knocking my head against a brick wall.”

Vernon Hales, the current headmaster at Aldwickbury — in Harpenden, about 30 miles north of London — said in a statement that the school had reported the allegations, which do not relate to any current staff members or pupils, to the relevant authorities and been told that no further action would be taken....

Britain’s fee-paying schools have a track record of brutality. These days, most have shed the strictness and austerity of previous eras, but many upper-class Britons remember childhoods of cold showers, inedible food and relentless corporal punishment.

The very nature of boarding schools — closed environments in which teachers can wield enormous power — can make them attractive to child abusers. But in previous decades, parents were often reluctant to challenge teachers’ authority, said Alan Collins, principal lawyer at Slater & Gordon, which represented the former Aldwickbury student. He has 30 to 40 more cases pending against schools across the country.

“You had deference and the attitude that ‘this sort of thing happens,’ ” Mr. Collins said, adding that when teachers were discovered abusing pupils, they tended to be moved on quietly to avoid public embarrassment and damage to the school’s reputation.

“Sexual abuse is a taboo subject,” Mr. Collins said. “People do not want to talk about it for the obvious reason that it’s really gruesome, and in this country there has been a tendency or a temptation to sweep it under the carpet.”....

Mr. Collins added that the victims had suffered significantly. “Child abuse has the potential to affect a person’s functioning, the ability to form and sustain relationships; it can affect the ability to hold down a job,” he said, noting that some of his clients in their 40s had held 30 positions because “they just can’t settle in a job.”....
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/17/world/europe/wave-of-sexual-abuse-allegations-for-private-boys-schools-in-britain.html


Resources to end internet child abuse 'may be woefully insufficient'
Internet Watch Foundation recruit seven extra staff, but MPs warn that more may be required to improve online safety
Press Association  theguardian.com, Tuesday 18 March 2014

Efforts by the internet industry to eradicate images of child sex abuse may prove "woefully insufficient", MPs have warned as they called for action to improve online safety. Members of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) – including Google, which contributed £1m – have funded the recruitment of seven extra full-time staff to track down illegal images.

The move last year to more than double the existing staff came amid severe criticism of internet firms for inaction following a number of child murder cases with porn connections. David Cameron has led demands that they develop better protections to prevent such abuse and to prevent children accessing legal adult material....
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/19/child-sex-abuse-online-insufficient-efforts 

The Problem of Campus Sexual Assault

The Problem of Campus Sexual Assault                                                 
March 14, 2014 by Alison Kahler

"When young women get to college, nearly 20% of them will be victims of attempted or actual sexual assault, as will about 6% of undergraduate men."

"the vast majority of (campus) rapes are committed by serial, violent predators"

Recently, a friend and fellow University of Chicago alumna showed me an open letter to university president Robert Zimmer demanding that the university reevaluate its policy regarding campus sexual assaults. After reporting an assault by her then-partner and being illegally offered a mediation session by Dean of Students Susan Art, current fourth-year student Olivia Ortiz filed a complaint with the United States Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR), prompting a larger investigation of the university for possible violations of Title IX. In response, a coalition of alumni wrote and circulated the letter in question. I gladly added my name.

Though I am heartbroken to read about my beloved alma mater’s betrayal of sexual assault victims, I am not surprised. Campus sexual assaults are chillingly common, according to the Department of Education’s 2011 Dear Colleague Letter: Sexual Violence Background, Summary, and Fast Facts (found on Marsh Law Firm’s roundup of Title IX resources):

When young women get to college, nearly 20% of them will be victims of attempted or actual sexual assault, as will about 6% of undergraduate men.

And yet—despite this reminder of the prevalence of this problem and their responsibilities—when confronted with an incident, colleges all over the country exhibit a pattern of dismissing and covering up sexual assaults....

perpetrators know they can get away with their largely under-reported crimes, and they do so often; according to a report by psychologist David Lisak:

[College rapists] tend to be serial offenders, and most of them commit a variety of different interpersonal offenses. They are accurately and appropriately labeled as predators.

This picture conflicts sharply with the widely-held view that rapes committed on university campuses are typically the result of a basically “decent” young man who, were it not for too much alcohol and too little communication, would never do such a thing. While some campus rapes do fit this more benign view, the evidence points to a far less benign reality, in which the vast majority of rapes are committed by serial, violent predators....
http://www.childlaw.us/the-problem-of-campus-sexual-assault/ 

Lynne Moss-Sharman : Tomorrow A Million Coffins, And One Mourner: The Boys From Thunder Bay

Tomorrow A Million Coffins, And One Mourner: The Boys From Thunder Bay
This transcript is from a presentation by Lynne Moss-Sharman at The Third Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference, August 4 – 6, 2000
http://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/conf2000/tomorrow-a-million-coffins-and-one-mourner-the-boys-from-thunder-bay/

The Lynne Moss-Sharman radio interview about prison experimentation and Rick Carlson at: http://www.whale.to/b/moss1.html

Lynne Moss-Sharman
MKULTRA survivor speaks 1 of 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q-7-MiAau4
MKULTRA survivor speaks 2 of 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjlPJxfmmAU
MKULTRA survivor Lynne talks about experiments she underwent beginning at the age of 3 years old. Survivors please contact aches-mc. org advocacy committee for human experimentation survivors.

CKLN-FM Mind Control Series -- Part 16
Interview with Lynne Moss-Sharman
ACHES-MC Canada Contact
http://www.whale.to/b/moss.html

Hosanna Church Ponchatoula, Louisiana Satanic Ritual Case

Agents graphically describe abuse
By Don Ellzey 11/30/07

In an interview with Bernard at the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office Substation on June 10, 2005....She said Bernard described the rituals at the church, although the rituals were not the point of the FBI investigation. Freitas said he volunteered the information. According to Bernard, the rituals took place in what was called “the room,” which was the church’s youth room. He described how six adults would line up shoulder to shoulder and perform sex acts on his daughter or other children, who were passed down the line. The rule was that there would be no penetration or injury.

The rituals had a Satanic theme, including a Pentagram, the use of animals and animal parts such as chicken feet and the use of animal blood. Freitas said that according to Bernard, Patricia Pierson and Robin Lamonica, two defendants in the case, put animal blood on his daughter during one of the rites. She said Bernard claimed Pierson and Lamonica also sexually abused his daughter. He said animal blood was also put on other children, Freitas said....Using a special chemical, a search team found signs of body fluids all over the carpet, she said. Pieces of the carpet with fluid spots were cut out for evidence. http://www.hammondstar.com/articles/2007/12/03/top_stories/9453.txt  


Satanist paedophile ring ‘ritually raped up to 25 children’
By Tom Leonard in Ponchatoula 6/3/05

“In a case that has horrified Americans way beyond the Bible Belt, Louis Lamonica Jnr and eight members the Hosanna Church are accused of being members of a Satanic paedophile ring who ritually raped up to 25 children, as well as performing animal sacrifices.

Police say some of those charged - who include Lamonica's wife and a deputy sheriff - have already admitted devil worship inside the now defunct church on the outskirts of Ponchatoula, the parish's main town.

The discovery of badly rubbed-out pentagrams on the floor and eight boxes of hooded black costumes - allegedly used both in the abuse and in "morality tales" performed to prepare the young victims - bear out some of the claims.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1491327/Satanist-paedophile-ring-ritually-raped-up-to-25-children.html  


The Devil’s Handiwork? A church laid waste by its pastor’s bizarre behavior.
By Sarah Childress – Newsweek June 6 issue

Louis Lamonica walked into the sheriff’s department in tiny Livingston, La., a few weeks ago and asked to speak with a detective. According to police, for almost the next two hours the middle-aged preacher, dressed casually in a green polo shirt and green slacks, proceeded to tell a story so sickening they could scarcely believe what they were hearing. He explained that he was the former pastor of Hosanna Church, a now defunct house of worship in nearby Ponchatoula.

Matter-of-factly and without remorse, Lamonica said that he and other church members had molested children, and taught them to have sex with each other, as well as with a dog. He told the detectives that he drank cat blood, and poured it on the bodies of his young victims, according to Ponchatoula Police Chief David Vitter....

After Lamonica’s confession, authorities arrested eight other members of the Hosanna Church congregation, including Lamonica’s wife, Robbin, and a Tangipahoa Parish sheriff’s deputy. Police say that church members abused as many as two dozen children, one only a year old, beginning in 1999, in rituals that they say may be tied to devil worship. http://www.religionnewsblog.com/11315/the-devils-handiwork  

[Hosanna Church] Witnesses speak of cult-like activities at Hosanna
The Daily Star, USA 5/25/05 Aimee Yee www.hammondstar.com

People dressed in black clothing stood inside pentagrams and performed blood rituals at the Hosanna Church, according to information coming from an investigation by the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office. The nine suspects now in custody are believed to have been involved in the ritualistic practice of molesting and raping children from 1999 to 2003, when the church disbanded. Since the story broke on May 17, details of the abuse believed to have taken place at the church has become more explicit and graphic.

“The sheriff said there were cult-like activities involved,” Covington said. “Some witnesses said the blood rituals took place inside pentagrams there at the church.”

The pentagrams have been cleaned away, likely by the suspects involved, Covington said, who used solvents and are now reporting to police exactly where the five-pointed stars, usually made with alternate points connected by a continuous line and used as a magic symbol, were located.

Victims have said the suspects wore black clothing while the rituals took place.... http://www.religionnewsblog.com/11276/Witnesses-speak-of-cult-like-activities-at-Hosanna 

7 Members of Louisiana Church Charged With Abuse of Children By Ariel Hart 5/20/05 The pastor of a Louisiana church and six of its members, including the pastor’s wife and a sheriff’s deputy, have been arrested in what the police described as a cult-like sex ring that abused children and animals. All seven are being held on charges of aggravated rape, including rape of a child younger than 13, which can be prosecuted as a capital crime in the state, the authorities said. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/national/20louisiana.html

The witch-hunt narrative challenged, McMartin Preschool trial, Child abuse/ritual abuse podcasts

Oxford University Press to Publish Book
by Professor Ross Cheit
February 5, 2014

Longtime Taubman professor Ross Cheit will discuss his new book and the contributions of his many undergraduate research assistants....

What is your book about? The witch-hunt narrative claims that there was a series of child sexual abuse cases in the 1980s and 1990s that were hoaxes and that children are highly suggestible when questioned about possible sexual abuse. The idea that children are highly suggestible is still with us, and the people who believe that use these cases as the evidence....

In the book you reference your own experience with sexual abuse at a camp for the San Francisco Boys’ Chorus. How do you avoid bias? The way I’ve designed my research, it forces me to confront the best arguments that support the witch-hunt narrative. The McMartin Preschool case....After spending weeks reviewing the original transcript of the case, I concluded that there were plenty of reasons for jurors to conclude that the original defendant, Ray Buckey, was guilty. The rest of the case was deeply flawed, and I lay that out in my book. The book is documented to the max. I don’t make any claims that aren’t documented....

What are the policy implications of the book? What’s most worrisome to me is that the witch-hunt narrative unfairly impugns children. The ongoing challenge in this field is, if you ask children a series of open-ended questions about the alleged abuse and don’t get anywhere, then what do you do? I think there are people who are too worried about being criticized for asking leading questions or interviewing a child a second time.

What that leads to are abused kids who don’t disclose. I’ve seen almost no concern or acknowledgement of that issue in the psychology literature, but a lot of people are worried about false convictions. There is also a claim that there are economic motives to find abuse and that federal programs create the incentive to find abuse. I think this is completely wrong-headed. I worry that there are political forces that want to weaken the Child Abuse Prevention and Training Act, get rid of mandatory reporting, and undermine the credibility of front-line professionals, from pediatricians to forensic interviewers, who serve and protect children....
http://www.brown.edu/academics/taubman-center/news/2014/02/oxford-university-press-publish-book-professor-ross-cheit

Smart-Talks Podcast Blog
This is a collection of talks given at the annual SMART conference in Connecticut. Speakers present to tell their stories of their experiences with ritual abuse and/or mind control, their experiences treating patients with such backgrounds, or to raise awareness of the various issues surrounding recovery from ritual abuse/mind control of efforts made to raise awareness with the general public of this issue.
http://smart-talkspodcastblog.blogspot.com/

McMartin Preschool Case Facts, Physical Evidence, Tunnels

Reporter’s Notebook: 6 Months of California Case By Robert Lindsey February 13, 1985 “Prosecutors say they intend to present as witnesses 41 former pupils of the school, almost all of whom, physicians testified at the hearing, showed physical evidence of having been sexually abused. The second of the children to testify at the hearing, a 10-year-old boy who attended the McMartin Preschool almost five years ago, has now been on the witness stand for nine days, including eight days under intense cross examination by defense lawyers who have been trying to find inconsistencies in his story. So far, often under rapid-fire questioning that might wither some adult witnesses, the child has stuck to his story with only minor contradictions. He described being sodomized or otherwise sexually molested by all seven of the defendants and asserted that children had been made to pose for pornographic pictures. The 10-year-old boy repeated under cross examination an account of how he and other children were taken to a church where he said adults wearing masks and black robes danced and moaned while Mr. Buckey went to the altar and killed pet rabbits, turtles and birds and threatened to kill the children’s parents the same way if the children told of the alleged abuse. http://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/13/us/reporter-s-notebook-6-months-of-california-case.html

"Behind the Playground Walls – Sexual Abuse in Preschools" Jill Waterman, Robert J. Kelly, Mary Kay Oliveri, Jane McCord – Guilford Press New York 1993 “In the most well-known case, involving the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, two juries from successive trials became hopelessly deadlocked and failed to agree on a verdict after 7 years of investigation and trial. At the press conference following the trial, 9 of the 11 jurors who agreed to be interviewed indicated that they believed the children had been molested, but they felt that the evidence presented did not enable them to state beyond a reasonable doubt who had perpetrated the abuse.”

Tunnel report that backed up reports at McMartin:
The project unearthed not one but two tunnel complexes as well as previously unrecognized structural features which defied logical explanation. Both tunnel complexes conformed to locations and functional descriptions established by children's reports. One had been described as providing undetected access to an adjacent building on the east. The other provided outside access under the west wall of the building and contained within it an enlarged, cavernous artifact corresponding to children's descriptions of a "secret room".
http://web.archive.org/web/20010123212200/members.cruzio.com/~ratf/McMartin.html/

Boy, 7, Is Witness in California Child Abuse Case by Robert Lindsey January 23, 1985 A 7-year- old boy testified today that he had played ”naked games” at the Virginia McMartin Preschool near here and that in at least one of the games teachers at the school had touched his genital organs….Prosecutors have asserted that more than 100 children were abused at the school in the past decade.
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/01/23/us/boy-7-is-witness-in-california-child-abuse-case.html

Researchers Say Super Bowl Sex Trafficking Included Minors - Here & Now

Researchers Say Super Bowl Sex Trafficking Included Minors - Here & Now

ROBIN YOUNG, HOST:

It's HERE AND NOW, and our next story may not be appropriate for children. It's about the first comprehensive research on sex trafficking at the Super Bowl. It's being released today by researchers in Arizona, site of next year's Super Bowl, researchers who combed through online sex ads, placed decoy ads and say they identified nearly 2,000 potential sex trafficking victims, including 84 children.

The information was gathered sometimes by former Army intelligence officers using the same type of Internet-sniffing technology used to track militants in Afghanistan. The defense contractor that helped with the research says sex trafficking is a lot like terrorism. It's a problem that's hard to see....

ROE-SEPOWITZ: So we find some similarities between what terrorism may look like in our country and what sex trafficking looks like. More than half of the ads that we identified as potential minors were linked to other ads, other girls, other phone numbers. So we actually think that this sex trafficking world is a network, multiple networks, whether they're gangs, whether they're organized crime.
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/03/06/superbowl-sex-trafficking

High Court judge and the child sex ring: Adviser to Queen was founder of paedophile support group to keep offenders out of jail

High Court judge and the child sex ring: Adviser to Queen was founder of paedophile support group to keep offenders out of jail
    Lord Justice Fulford was named last year as an adviser to the Queen
    He was a key backer of the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange
    Police suspect the group of abusing children on an 'industrial scale'
    He is revealed as a founder member of campaign to defend PIE
    At the time it was calling for the age of consent to be lowered to just four
By Martin Beckford  8 March 2014

One of Britain’s most senior judges actively campaigned to support a vile paedophile group that tried to legalise sex with children, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Lord Justice Fulford, named last year as an adviser to the Queen, was a key backer of the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) which police suspect of abusing children on an ‘industrial scale’....

Last night Fulford said: ‘On reflection the NCCL gay rights committee should never have allowed members of PIE to attend any of its meetings.

'I am very sorry for what happened. I have never espoused or in any way supported the objectives of PIE – the abuse of children – which I consider wholly wrong’....

In October 1979 Fulford wrote a full-page article in gay rights magazine Broadsheet, in which he was described as ‘the founder’ of the PIE support group.

He claimed that classified adverts placed by PIE members, which led to the trial,  were ‘simply to enable paedophiles to make friends and offer each other mutual support’ rather than to contact children or exchange banned images....

In 2002 he became the first openly gay High Court judge, being nominated for a knighthood by Tony Blair, and in 2003 took up a prestigious role at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Last year he was nominated as an Appeal Court judge by David Cameron and appointed to the Privy Council, the elite group of senior politicians, judges and clergy who advise the Queen on constitutional matters....

Back in the late 1970s he was a newly qualified Left-wing barrister when he joined the NCCL, now known as Liberty, which had links to known paedophile groups and attempted to lower the age of consent to 14 and water down child pornography laws

Fulford’s involvement with the radical movement to legalise child sex goes even further than that of the Labour Ministers, documents uncovered by The Mail on Sunday show.

He personally set up a group to support the ‘executive committee’ of PIE in the summer of 1979, after they had their homes raided by police....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2576451/High-court-judge-child-sex-ring-Adviser-Queen-founder-paedophile-support-group-offenders-jail.html

Downing Street accused of cover-up over senior aide Patrick Rock's arrest on child abuse images allegations

Downing Street accused of cover-up over senior aide Patrick Rock's arrest on child abuse images allegations

Adam Withnall
Wednesday 05 March 2014

David Cameron has been accused of a cover-up after one of his most senior aides was arrested on suspicion of possessing child abuse images.

Patrick Rock, who had been working on a Downing Street policy committee for internet pornography filters, was reportedly told he was under investigation for possessing the images a number of hours before his arrest on 13 February.

He then quietly resigned, and the matter only came to light when officials at Number 10 were questioned about it directly on Monday.

According to a Labour MP the delay has the appearance of a “cover-up” - and the fact that Mr Rock was given advance warning of the allegations was a Government “interfer[ence] with the justice system”.

A spokesperson for the Prime Minister has confirmed Downing Street was first made aware of the alleged offence regarding child abuse imagery on the evening of 12 February.

But speaking in the West Midlands yesterday, Mr Cameron defended the position his office had taken.

“I don't think it would be right to pre-emptively brief out a criminal investigation and that's why we did not do that,” he said....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/downing-street-accused-of-coverup-over-senior-aide-patrick-rocks-arrest-on-child-abuse-images-allegations-9169818.html

Miranda Barbour "Satanic cult" kept a horror journal detailing murders, Arrest Of Rabbi For Distributing Child P_rn, Action by Campus Rape Victim, One Third Of E.U. Women Suffer Abuse

- ‘My life with the thrill-kill cult’
- 'If I get out of here I'd do it again': Mother admits Craigslist killer kept a horror journal detailing murders
- Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces Arrest Of Brooklyn Rabbi For Distributing Child Pornography
- Landmark Civil Rights Action Filed by Campus Rape Victim to Halt New Federal Law
- World E.U. Study: One Third Of E.U. Women Suffer Abuse


‘My life with the thrill-kill cult’
By Francis Scarcella March 1, 2014

Two months after her arrest for murder, Sunbury, Pennsylvania’s most notorious resident wrote me a letter. “I put you on my visitor’s list,” she wrote in neat handwriting. “The rest is up to you.”
Sideways was her signature: Miranda Barbour....

Now Miranda, all of 19 years old, wanted to tell her side of the story.
It was Valentine’s Day. She sat behind the glass, impassive in an orange prison suit, and gestured for me to pick up the phone. A voice came on the line, warning us that the conversation was being recorded.

“Wish you could have had your pad and pen,” Miranda said.
They didn’t let reporters record conversations, I explained. Memory would have to do. “I have a lot of things I want to say,” she said. “Some of which will be difficult to hear.”

Her voice was very soft and high, like that of a little girl.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve done this.” Lured a man on Craigslist?
“This was the first time on Craigslist, but I’ve killed before.” It took me a moment to absorb that. How many times? “Less than 100.”
Miranda, I said, no one in the world is going to believe you killed 100 people. Give me a number.
“Well,” she said, “I stopped counting at 22.”....

As a teenager, Miranda began to hang out with older men and would run away from home.
“She would be gone for days at a time,” Dean said. “I would be out on the streets looking for her.”

Miranda always returned home, but sometimes with stories that were hard to believe, her mother said. She also was in and out of treatment for cutting herself; “One time she cut herself so deep it was into the tissue,” Dean said.

The family moved to Florida for a year after Miranda’s father took a job. “She told me about things that would happen to her there,” Dean says, crying, “She said she would walk on the docks and piers and smoke weed and sleep with other guys.”....

Miranda fills in the missing days of her childhood with stories of horrors. She was part of a Satanic cult, she says, a gang that would perform occult rituals in the Alaskan woods.

She first killed at age 13.
“I lured a man into an alley that owed the gang leader money,” Miranda said.

“He shot the man and then gave me the gun and told me it was my turn. I hate guns and I couldn’t do it, so he put his hands on my hands and we pulled the trigger,” she said.

Authorities are still trying to find out if there is any truth to what Miranda is claiming. Miranda explained at that point she knew she had something bad inside her and that Satanism let her embrace it.

After that, she said she only targeted “bad people” and those who had hurt children. She says she’s willing to “pinpoint on a map” where she murdered.

An ex-boyfriend, meanwhile, has given Dean an old journal he claims is Miranda’s — a diary the mother will not release but wants to talk to her about.  “There are things in here that just can’t be true,” Dean said. “Some of this I just don’t believe. “I don’t believe she has done any of what she is saying, and I don’t know why she is saying all of these things.”

“Who’s to say how many,” Elytte said about his wife’s claims during a phone call placed to reporters. “I know what she told me was 50-50.”
http://nypost.com/2014/03/01/my-life-with-the-thrill-kill-cult-teen-serial-killer-tells-all/ 

'If I get out of here I'd do it again': Mother admits Craigslist killer kept a horror journal detailing murders as she claims she would have spared her married victim if he'd told her 16 was too young for sex

    Miranda Barbour, 19, says that she is confessing to the killings to keep her behind bars so she won't kill again
    Her mother Elizabeth Dean says she has a diary with stories that 'can't be true,' but would not confirm or deny they were records of murders
    Miranda Barbour said the original plan was to let victim Troy LaFerrara go if he backed when she said she was underage - but he didn't
    The self-confessed serial killer was molested at age 4 and may have decided to kill other child molesters

By Ryan Gorman
1 March 2014
The self-confessed Satanic serial killer who claims to have murdered more than 22 people may have kept a record of the slayings.

Elizabeth Dean confirmed an ex-boyfriend of daughter Miranda Barbour, 19, gave her a diary he claimed was her's just as the teen appears to have revealed a motive for the supposed killings - revenge.

Miranda Barbour told the New York Post from jail that she would have let Troy LaFerrara, 42, of Sudbury, Pennsylvania go had he stopped groping her when she said she told him she was barely 16-years-old - she was molested at age 4.

Dean did not deny the horror journal was filled with details on the murders, but stopped short of confirming exactly what was scrawled on its pages....

'There are things in here that just can’t be true,' she told the paper. 'Some of this I just don’t believe.

'I don’t believe she has done any of what she is saying, and I don’t know why she is saying all of these things,' Dean continued.

The mother also confirmed a claim made by her daughter that she was molested at age 4, saying she immediately went to police and the man was arrested.

Revelations of the murder memoir come as Miranda Barbour claims she is confessing to the killings so she remains behind bars....

'I still love her,' Barbour said over a secure telephone line from the jail where he's awaiting trial for allegedly luring a man through Craigslist, strangling and stabbing him 20 times with his love, three weeks after they were married.

Speaking to CNN Wednesday, heacknowledged, 'Everyone wants to know about her credibility,' but wouldn't comment on whether her confessions were valid.

However, he said she was upfront with him in 'about 50/50' of the alleged slayings, with respect to specific names of victims and the locations of the murders....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2571246/If-I-Id-Mother-admits-Craigslist-killer-kept-horror-journal-detailing-murders-claims-spared-married-victim-hed-told-16-young-sex.html 

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces Arrest Of Brooklyn Rabbi For Distributing Child Pornography
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and James T. Hayes, Jr., the Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (“ICE”) Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”), announced today the arrest of SAMUEL WALDMAN for distributing child pornography. WALDMAN, 52, a rabbi and a teacher at a girl’s seminary, was arrested by HSI agents this morning at his residence in Brooklyn, New York. He was presented today before U.S. Magistrate Judge James L. Cott in Manhattan federal court.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “Samuel Waldman’s position of trust in the community, as both a rabbi and a teacher, makes his alleged distribution of child pornography all the more disturbing. As we have said repeatedly, we have zero tolerance for the exploitation of children and we will prosecute and punish those who engage in this conduct.”....

According to the allegations in the criminal Complaint filed today in Manhattan federal court, in or about November 2013, WALDMAN distributed child pornography over the Internet by making available for downloading through file-sharing software multiple videos depicting minors engaged in sexual acts.
http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/March14/SamuelWaldmanArrestPR.php 

Landmark Civil Rights Action Filed by Campus Rape Victim to Halt New Federal Law

University of Virginia rape victim files suit to stop Campus SaVE Act from undermining federal investigations of UVA’s alleged mishandling of her sexual assault case

A University of Virginia rape victim represented by the Marsh Law Firm has filed a landmark civil rights action to stop a new federal law from undermining pending federal investigations of UVA’s mishandling of a sexual assault case on campus.

Two separate cases—each filed as a Petition for a Writ of Mandamus and Equitable Relief—were lodged with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday, February 21, 2014 and docketed today. The cases are:

Jane Doe v. United States Department of Health and Human Services and Kathleen Sebelius, Civil Action No. 14-0366

Jane Doe v. United States Department of Education and Arne Duncan, Civil Action No. 14-0367

The cases were filed in an effort to halt the Campus SaVE Act—a new federal law that will substantially weaken the rights of sexual assault victims on college campuses guaranteed under Title IX—which is scheduled to take effect on March 7....

One in four to one in five women is sexually assaulted during college in the United States, according to recent studies. Under federal civil rights laws, students are guaranteed the right to an education free from violence and harassment....
http://www.childlaw.us/landmark-civil-rights-action-filed-by-campus-rape-victim-to-halt-new-federal-law/ 


World E.U. Study: One Third Of E.U. Women Suffer Abuse
Kharunya Paramaguru March 5, 2014
One in ten claims to have experienced sexual violence by age of 15

A comprehensive and damning report published Wednesday revealed the “extensive” levels of abuse faced by women across the 28-member states in the European Union.

Published by the E.U. Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), the survey of 42,000 women aged 18-74 across the E.U. found a third of women in Europe (62 million) had suffered a physical or sexual assault. 1 in 10 women also said they had experienced some kind of sexual violence from an adult by the time they reached 15. Another 1 in 10 had experienced sexual violence since the age of 15....
http://time.com/12705/study-one-third-of-e-u-women-suffer-abuse/ 

Tony Alamo victims awarded $525 million, Murder brings more calls for national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women, Loretta Saunders' roommates charged with 1st-degree murder

Tony Alamo victims awarded $525 million; L.A. properties may be sold  By Paresh Dave March 1, 2014

Seven women who alleged they were sexually abused as children by former Christian ministry tycoon Tony Alamo were awarded $525 million by an Arkansas judge this week after an Alamo church failed to respond to a lawsuit.

Collecting the largest judgment in Arkansas history, according to one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, will likely require some help from a Los Angeles court, though. Texas attorney David Carter said he would "soon" file paperwork asking that a court here sell at least two Santa Clarita Valley properties connected to Alamo's operation....

Alamo, 79, has been serving a 175-year prison sentence in Tucson after being convicted in 2009 on 10 counts of sex trafficking minors. Attorney Rogers is appealing the conviction on the grounds that a previous lawyer botched the case.

During the 1960s, Alamo and his wife, Susan, founded a Christian organization in Los Angeles. They bused school dropouts and drug users into their shelters and provided food and anti-Catholic, anti-government religious lectures. The street preaching became a multimillion-dollar empire through a television show, events and merchandise cheaply manufactured by their adherents.

After years of evading arrest, Alamo served four years in prison during the 1990s for not paying about $10 million in federal taxes. His ultimate downfall came in 2008.

Authorities raided his Arkansas headquarters after allegations of child abuse, child pornography and polygamy. Alamo has said puberty signified an age of consent and that a godly man could take multiple wives.

The Arkansas lawsuit names Alamo, Twenty First Century Holiness Tabernacle Church and Jeanne Estate Apartments as defendants. The $525-million default judgment in actual and punitive damages was ordered against the church....

The Alamos...used the threat of hell to keep a tight rein on their Christian community, holding power over matters large and small, from approving clothes to selecting jobs and marriage partners. They built dorms, classrooms and play areas to keep children hooked, lawsuits have alleged....
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-tony-alamo-arkansas-victims-20140228,0,2016670.story

Loretta Saunders remembered at vigil on Parliament Hill
Murder brings more calls for national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women
The Canadian Press
Published: March 5, 2014

OTTAWA — It took the disappearance of a cousin to bring Holly Jarrett and her estranged mother together after a year of silence....

Saunders was an honours student at Saint Mary’s University when she disappeared. Two people have been charged with first-degree murder in her death.

One of them, 25-year-old Blake Leggette, appeared recently in a provincial court. The other, Leggette’s 28-year-old girlfriend, Victoria Henneberry, did not appear in court and was instead represented by her lawyer.

In a cruel irony, Saunders was writing a thesis on murdered and missing aboriginal women before she died.

Cheryl Maloney of the Nova Scotia Native Women’s Association, who spoke at the vigil, said she grappled with the question of who, if anyone, should finish Saunders’ work before coming to a realization.

“Maybe it wasn’t up to one person to finish Loretta’s thesis,” she said. “Maybe it was up to all of us as Canadians.”

Maloney and others at the vigil called on the Conservative government to hold a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women.

But while the Conservatives renewed funding to combat violence against aboriginal women and girls in their recent budget, they have so far resisted calls for a formal inquiry.

It is estimated there are hundreds of cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women dating back to the 1960s.

A United Nations human rights investigator called that statistic disturbing last year during a fact-finding visit to Canada in which he also urged the Conservative government to hold an inquiry....
http://o.canada.com/news/loretta-saunders-remembered-at-vigil-on-parliament-hill/

Loretta Saunders' roommates charged with 1st-degree murder
Blake Leggette and Victoria Henneberry accused in Halifax student's death
CBC News Posted: Feb 27, 2014
Police have laid first-degree murder charges against the roommates of Loretta Saunders, a Halifax student whose body was found nearly two weeks after she was reported missing.

Victoria Henneberry, 28, and Blake Leggette, 25, who had been facing charges of being in possession of a stolen vehicle, were charged Thursday in the slaying of the 26-year-old Saint Mary's University student....

Yalcin Surkultay, who dated Saunders for 2½ years, told CBC News that when he last saw his girlfriend, she told him she was going to try to collect rent money from her roommates....
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/loretta-saunders-roommates-charged-with-1st-degree-murder-1.2554052

Hearing in Barbour case to compel discovery evidence

Hearing in Barbour case to compel discovery evidence  
By Mark Gilger March 4, 2014
SUNBURY - A hearing will be held 9:15 a.m. April 1 on a motion filed by Miranda Barbour's attorney to compel discovery evidence from the district attorney's office in a murder case that has drawn international attention.

In a related order issued Friday, Northumerland County Judge Charles Saylor granted permission to the commonwealth to preserve hard drives from Troy LaFerrara's computer and his mother's computer seized by police upon the execution of a search warrant.

LaFerrara was found stabbed to death in a yard in Sunbury in November. Miranda Barbour, 19, and her 22-year-old husband, Elytte Barbour, are charged with homicide in the Port Trevorton man's death.

Saylor said preserving the hard drives will allow the defense attorneys or an expert of their choosing to examine them in the future....

During last week's prison board meeting, Johnson said the international attention about Barbour's claim to The Daily Item that she killed more than 22 people has disrupted security and efficiency at the prison, which among other issues, prompted her transfer.
http://newsitem.com/news/hearing-in-barbour-case-to-compel-discovery-evidence-1.1644398

San Jose Teen: Satanism Allowed Me to Kill Classmate

San Jose Teen: Satanism Allowed Me to Kill Classmate 
By Associated Press Monday, Mar 3, 2014

A Northern California teenager charged in the alleged thrill-killing of a high school classmate told police his religion, Satanism, allowed him to kill and he had already killed a rabbit and a cat, according to a recently released transcript of his interview with investigators.

"I guess I just finally wanted to kill somebody,'' Jae Williams told San Jose police detectives two days after the November 2009 slaying of Michael Russell, 15, according to the transcript. "I had my chance and I took it.''

The transcript was reported by the San Jose Mercury News over the weekend. Williams and a second teen, Randy Thompson, were charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of Russell, a sophomore at San Jose's Santa Teresa High School. They have pleaded not guilty....
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/San-Jose-Teen-Satanism-Allowed-Him-to-Kill-Classmate-248252881.html

Confession reveals chilling details of San Jose boy's slaying
By Tracey Kaplan 03/02/2014

SAN JOSE -- As police probed for answers to why he would fatally stab a high school classmate he'd befriended, 15-year-old Jae Williams struggled to explain. The boys weren't close friends. His religion -- Satanism -- allows killing. And he'd already slain a rabbit and beaten a cat to death.

"I guess I just finally wanted to kill somebody," Williams told detectives two days after the November 2009 slaying of Michael Russell, 15, according to a transcript of the interview. "I had my chance and I took it."

While prosecutors have long claimed that Williams confessed to killing Russell with the help of alleged accomplice Randy Thompson just for thrills, documents recently made public as the case heads for trial reveal chilling new details about the teen's slaying.

The accused young men, now 20, implicated each other in separate statements they gave to police. But Williams also made a full confession, prosecutors allege, revealing the victim's last words and their coldblooded motive....
http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_25260331/confession-reveals-chilling-details-boys-slaying