SMART Ritual Abuse Newsletter - Issue 167 – November 2022

SMART Ritual Abuse Newsletter - Issue 167 – November 2022

https://ritualabuse.us/newsletter/   

Evidence that Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder or MPD) is caused by Childhood Trauma

 

False Memories - The Deception That Silenced Millions

 

Satanic Sacrifice, Satanic cult, Satanic Murder

 

Ritual Abuse Evidence

 

The Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Mind Control 2023 Online Conference

 

Survivorship Webinar 2022: Healing the Unimaginable: A Ten-Session Course – PowerPoint Text

https://survivorship.org/survivorship-webinar-2022-healing-the-unimaginable-a-ten-session-course-powerpoint-text

Trauma, Dissociation, Programming, Front Person

Information about Alison Miller and Her Work

 

Information about Alison Miller and Her Work

Dr. Alison Miller has a Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia and is a retired psychologist who worked in private practice in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She worked with survivors of ritual abuse and mind control from 1991 to 2017. She was named a fellow of the ISST-D (International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation) in 2013, and was given the ISST-D President’s Award in 2021. She was the 2009 and 2017 Chair and the 2021 Secretary of the Organized and Extreme Abuse Special Interest Group of the ISST-D, and has been a member of the Board of Directors of Survivorship. Her books include: Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse (for survivors), and Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control (for therapists). She has contributed chapters on ritual abuse and mind control to Noblitt & Noblitt’s Ritual Abuse in the 21st Century (2008), Breitenbach’s Inside Views from the Dissociated Worlds of Extreme Violence: Human Beings as Merchandise (2015), Sinason & van der Merwe’s Shattered: Multiple Selves, Multiple Voices – speaking on behalf of silenced survivors (2016), and (with Heather Gingrich) Gingrich & Gingrich’s Treating Trauma in Christian Counselling (2017).

Focus on ISSTD History
An Interview with Alison Miller
This interview with Alison Miller forms part of ISSTD News’ Focus on History Series. In this series we interview people who have played an important and influential role in the formation and development of ISSTD, or the wider complex trauma and dissociative disorders field. We are delighted in this latest installment of Focus on History to interview Alison Miller, who has been working as a counsellor and psychologist since the 1960’s and is one of ISSTD’s retired members. She has been involved in the development of the Ritual Abuse and Mind Control Special Interest Group, which has grown and evolved over the years to become our Organized and Extreme Abuse SIG. She is also a past Chair and current Secretary of the SIG. She is well known to many for her conference presentations, workshops, journal articles and her books.

“These first DID clients were all members of the local Satanic cult.

KATE: I guess some mental health professionals, hearing stories of extreme abuse, may be tempted to think it is all made up or delusional, but you didn’t get a chance to disbelieve, as your situation was a little unique.

ALISON: Yes. I had these four clients, all abused by the same cult. They unknowingly corroborated each other – they had information about events and abuse… and it was still going on, these were current events … I was followed by these abusers…. I had all kinds of corroboration and evidence. I tried to work with the police, but it didn’t work out the way it should have.”

“KATE: And those who think that children must have been making it up, that these atrocities could not happen, because humans could not do that to each other, must now face the fact that police officers are literally looking at online material and studying it as evidence. The police know these things did happen to children as they see photos and videos of it.

ALISON: I think the production of materials is an important issue. Pretty much all my clients have been involved with that. There was a studio in Toronto (3000 miles away) which three of my clients had been involved with, one of them as a photographer … and this was a long time before all these things came out in the media, in the public. It is a horrible thing, but it is good that it is being discovered and the world is becoming aware that it does exist.”   https://news.isst-d.org/an-interview-with-alison-miller/

Dr. Miller’s Online Videos

Alison Miller – Survivorship Conference 2017 –

Survivors may want to use caution while watching these presentations. These videos are not meant as therapy or to take the place of therapy.

Confronting the Spiritual Issues in Ritual Abuse  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smVS24Fv__k

Survivors of abuse by ritualistic organized perpetrator groups report numerous experiences designed to destroy their spiritual integrity and leave them believing that they are so evil that no one but the perpetrators will accept them. These experiences include simulation of religious figures such as God, Jesus, and Satan, and the afterlife including heaven and hell; designation of certain internal parts of the victim to be demons or have “demonic attachments,” and most chillingly, forced childhood participation in rape and murder followed by systematic shaming of the victim as “evil.” Many parts of each survivor believe the perpetrators’ lies about how evil he or she must be. These experiences raise existential questions for survivors, such as why such things happen, why there is no divine intervention, and why such groups continue to exist without being stopped. We shall look at various ways of making meaning of such experiences, and whether these ways deal effectively with the horror of spiritual abuse.

Working Through Your Traumatic Memories and Destroying the Mind Control
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5CS_3GqeVU
In the second stage of therapy, survivors of organized abuse involving mind control have to confront the traumatic memories which caused their dissociation. Because such survivors usually have a structured personality system, work with the traumatic memories can be pursued in a systematic way. This workshop covers such issues as: deciding whether and when to pursue memories, dealing with flashbacks, choosing memories to work with, planning memory work, finding alters who hide parts of memories, involving all alters who have parts of a memory, dealing with emotions and bodily sensations during memory work, getting the story clear, and cognitive processing of what has been discovered when a memory has been reconstituted.

Alison Miller’s reply to Evan Anderson, Grey Faction Director of The Satanic Temple (TST)’s Grey Faction

In 2019, Evan Anderson of the Satanic Temple sent a formal complaint letter to Dr. Miller’s licensing board, saying that in her online videos and her book Healing the Unimaginable, she described behaviors by organized abuser groups which could not possibly be true. Shortly after that, Dr. Miller, whose membership with the licensing board was already in the non-practising category, ended her membership. The Satanic Temple claimed online that it was because of their complaint.

“The reason I discontinued my membership in the College of Psychologists has nothing to do with the Grey Faction’s harassing complaint about my writings and online videos. I left the College because I am 78 years old. I retired two years ago.”  – Alison Miller

“That is why I resigned, not because I was about to be found guilty of promoting unscientific conspiracy theories. Anderson has posted his complaint and the College’s response, distorting the story by omitting the College’s letter to me and my response to it. As for not being allowed to call myself a “psychologist,” that is the situation for every retired psychologist. It is similar for other health professions, and it does not indicate that the work I did was inferior or that I was found guilty of unethical behavior.”  – Alison Miller
https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/alison-millers-reply-to-evan-anderson-grey-faction-director-of-the-satanic-temple-tsts-grey-faction/

Here is information on the Grey Faction:

Grey Faction, Satanic Temple and Lucien Greaves Fact Sheet  https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/grey-faction-satanic-temple-and-lucien-greaves-fact-sheet/

 

Books by Dr. Miller

Miller, Alison (2012). Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control is a practical, task-oriented, instructional manual designed to help therapists provide effective treatment for survivors of these most extreme forms of child abuse and mental manipulation. Paperback: 978 1 85575 882 7 Publisher: Karnac Books https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/becoming-yourself-overcoming-mind-control-and-ritual-abuse/34803/

https://books.google.com/books?id=On8cKGyrnfcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Healing+the+Unimaginable:+Treating+Ritual+Abuse+and+Mind+Control+By+Alison+Miller

Miller, Alison (2014). Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse. In contrast to the author’s previous book, Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control, which was for therapists, this book is designed for survivors of these abuses. It takes the survivor systematically through understanding the abuses and how his or her symptoms may be consequences of these abuses, and gives practical advice regarding how a survivor can achieve stability and manage the life issues with which he or she may have difficulty. The book also teaches the survivor how to work with his or her complex personality system and with the traumatic memories, to heal the wounds created by the abuse.
A unique feature of this book is that it addresses the reader as if he or she is dissociative, and directs some information and exercises towards the internal leaders of the personality system, teaching them how to build a cooperative and healing inner community within which information is shared, each part’s needs are met, and traumatic memories can be worked through successfully. https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/becoming-yourself-overcoming-mind-control-and-ritual-abuse/34803/

https://books.google.com/books?id=o3B_AwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Becoming+Yourself:+Overcoming+Mind+Control+and+Ritual+Abuse+By+Alison+Miller

From the Trenches:  A Victim and Therapist Talk about Mind Control and Ritual Abuse
By Wendy Hoffman and Alison Miller
Though desiring retirement, psychologist Alison Miller offered help to the respected mind control and ritual abuse victim Wendy Hoffman. Through Wendy’s internal investigations, they discovered how Illuminati and Nazi programming works, its international goals, as well as finding out new ways to uncover the hidden, and to heal. Their goal was to gain clarity about Wendy’s cult personas, and to learn how to integrate a complicated, tortured brain.https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/from-the-trenches-a-victim-and-therapist-talk-about-mind-control-and-ritual-abuse/40435/

Dr. Miller’s Conference Presentations

The 2019 Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference

 

Deception by Organized Abuser Groups: Helping Yourself and Your Clients Think Through the Issues (from Clinicians’ Conference) PowerPoint is at the link above. Please use caution, this may be triggering.

Sophisticated organized abuser groups use torture to deliberately split a child’s mind into different parts, train all parts to obey, and indoctrinate and train each part to do a specific job assigned by the abusers. Drugs, acted-out scenarios, stage magic, stories and films are used to deceive and control the children and prevent them from remembering or speaking out about their abuse, even in adulthood, so that the abusers can continue perpetrating this abuse without being caught. Abusers’ power over victims depends on their victims believing their lies, and that power can be diminished when victims see through the lies told to their young parts. It is important for therapists to use critical thinking to discern the deceptions, and to help their mind-controlled clients do the same.

Deception by Organized Abuser Groups: Helping Your Front People and Your Insiders Recognize the Lies and Tricks Which Keep You Enslaved by Alison Miller https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/2019-conference/deception-by-organized-abuser-groups-helping-your-front-people-and-your-insiders-recognize-the-lies-and-tricks-which-keep-you-enslaved-by-alison-miller/

Deception by Organized Abuser Groups: Helping Your Front People and Your Insiders Recognize the Lies and Tricks Which Keep You Enslaved by Dr. Alison Miller – PowerPoint is at the link above. Please use caution, this may be triggering.

If you are a survivor of abuse by a mind-controlling abuser group, you have parts who have been trained to obey abusers because they believe lies your abusers told you. The abusers deceived you in childhood, using drugs, acted-out scenarios, stage magic, stories and films to control your child parts and prevent you from speaking out about the abuse. Their power over you depends on your young parts believing the abusers’ lies. If you learn to recognize when your emotions and behavior are influenced by these deceptions, and to discover the ways in which you were deceived, you can increase your freedom from the abuser group.

 

Internal Keys to Safety by Alison Miller – Survivorship Conference 2016
Presented at the Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Child Abuse 2016 Conference – Stop Mind Control and Programs in Oakland, CA

Internal Keys to Safety
Survivors’ safety is endangered both externally by parts who maintain ongoing contact with perpetrators and respond to cues, and internally by parts trained to punish the person for forbidden behavior such as disclosures. She gave practical suggestions for survivors to achieve and maintain safety both externally and internally. https://survivorship.org/internal-keys-to-safety-by-alison-miller-survivorship-conference-2016/

Dr. Alison Miller conference PowerPoint
Overcoming Mind Control: Keys to Recovery
https://survivorship.org/documents/OvercomingMindControl.pptx

Alison Miller’s Second Conference Workshop 2015
Building Internal Cooperation
https://survivorship.org/documents/DevelopingInternalCooperation.pptx

Alison Miller’s conference presentation outline
Overcoming Mind Control: Keys to Recovery
https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/2014-conference/overcoming-mind-control-keys-to-recovery/

Articles and Books on Parenting and Spouse Abuse

Articles by Dr. Alison Miller and Dr. Allison Rees
http://lifeseminars.com/books/

The Parent Child Connection book for parents and professionals
Published in 2008, “The Parent-Child Connection” is the second of our original two LIFE (Living in Families Effectively) books. It’s based on the course of the same name. It contains everything you need to know about the parent-child relationship, including developing a healthy bond with your children, communicating effectively, establishing and respecting boundaries in the family, handling your own and your children’s emotions, and developing their and your self-esteem.

Sidestepping the Power Struggle book for parents and professionals
LIFE Seminars first book published in 2007 and entitled “Sidestepping the Power Struggle” contains everything you need to know about your children’s individual temperaments, their stage of development, behavior at each age, and what events can trigger difficult child behaviors. It teaches you how to help children take responsibility for their own lives as they mature, and how to help them mature into ethical and competent human beings. It discusses effective and ineffective discipline techniques. If you read and practice everything recommended in this book, it will not only empower you to become a more effective parent, but also enrich the lives of those who matter most.

Articles by Dr. Alison Miller on Parenting
http://lifeseminars.com/articles-by-alison-miller/

The Dissociative Dance of Spouse Abuse
by Alison Miller, PhD
Abstract
Cyclical spouse abusers, whether male or female, appear to suffer from a specific type of dissociative disorder that is related to a disturbance of attachment. This disorder is sufficiently common to be designated as a dissociative disorder in its own right. The partner of the spouse abuser appears to develop a parallel dissociative process, developing chains of state-dependent memory for the different phases of the domestic abuse cycle. This dissociative process helps both partners stay in the relationship, while leaving might be the best course of action. This “dissociative dance” facilitates the formation of dissociative splits in their children, enhancing the likelihood that they will be either victims or perpetrators of domestic violence
http://www.academia.edu/4594732/Dissociative_Dance_of_Spouse_Abuse

 

Publications

Miller, A. (2019). Therapeutic neutrality, ritual abuse and maladaptive daydreaming. Frontiers in the Psychotherapy of Trauma and Dissociation, 1(3).

Hoffman, W. & Miller, A. (2018). From the Trenches: A Victim and Therapist Talk about Mind Control and Ritual Abuse. London: Karnac.

Miller, A. & Gingrich, H.D. (2018). The treatment of ritual abuse and mind control. In Gingrich, H.D. & Gingrich, F.C. Treating trauma in Christian counselling. Inter-Varsity Press.

Miller, A. (2017). Dissociation in families experiencing intimate partner violence. Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, 18 (3), The Abused and the Abuser: Victim-Perpetrator Dynamics, 427-440.

Miller, A. (2016). What’s different about ritual abuse and mind control? Chapter 10, pp. 221-232 in Sinason, V. & Van der Merwe, A. P. Shattered but Unbroken: Voices of Triumph and Testimony. London: Karnac.

Miller, A. (2016).Reflections on having my name used. Pp. 24-29 in Sinason, V. & Van der Merwe, A. P. Shattered but Unbroken: Voices of Triumph and Testimony. London:Karnac.

Miller, A. (2015). Foreword to Breitenbach, G. Inside Views from the Dissociated Worlds of Extreme Violence: Human Beings as Merchandise.London: Karnac (translated from German).

Miller, A. (2014). Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse. London: Karnac.

Miller, A. (2012). Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control. London: Karnac.

Miller, A. (2012). Dialogue with the higher-ups. Pp. 111-132 in Vogt, R. & Vogt, I. (Eds.) Perpetrator Introjects: Psychotherapeutic Diagnostics and Treatment Models. Kroning: Asanger Verlag.

Miller, A. (2008). Recognizing and treating survivors of abuse by organized criminal groups. Chapter 17, pp. 479-490 in Noblitt, R. & Noblitt, P. P. (Eds.) Ritual Abuse in the 21st Century. Bandon, Oregon: Robert D. Reed Publishers.

Miller, A. (1998). Treatment of a Young Female Pedophilic Offender with Dissociative Identity Disorder, Treating Abuse Today, 8 (2), 15-23.

Miller, A. (2006). The Role of Dissociation in Spouse Abuse. In Jackson, N.A. (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Domestic Violence. New York: Routledge.

Miller, A. (1998). The Dissociative Dance of Spouse Abuse, Treating Abuse Today, 8 (3), 9-18.

Miller, A. & Rees, A. (2008.)  The Parent-Child Connection:  A Manual for Effective Family Living.  Victoria, B.C.: LIFE Seminars Press.

Miller, A. & Rees, A. (2007.)  Sidestepping the Power Struggle:  A Manual for Effective Parenting.  Victoria, B.C.:  LIFE Seminars Press.

Focus on ISSTD History - An Interview with Alison Miller

 

Focus on ISSTD History
An Interview with Alison Miller

https://news.isst-d.org/an-interview-with-alison-miller/ 

 

....These first DID clients were all members of the local Satanic cult.

 

KATE: I guess some mental health professionals, hearing stories of extreme abuse, may be tempted to think it is all made up or delusional, but you didn’t get a chance to disbelieve, as your situation was a little unique.

 

ALISON: Yes. I had these four clients, all abused by the same cult. They unknowingly corroborated each other – they had information about events and abuse… and it was still going on, these were current events … I was followed by these abusers…. I had all kinds of corroboration and evidence. I tried to work with the police, but it didn’t work out the way it should have.

....At that point ISSTD was talking about ritual abuse. There were professional presentations on the topic.

KATE: What was that like? What did it feel like to be at a conference where other people were treating the same issues you had encountered in therapy?

 

ALISON: It was really exciting … I figured finally there are other people dealing with this. I can learn from them. People talked in the corridors… 

 

KATE: And then something happened for the field. Not so long after that the FMS started and people began talking about ritual abuse, even DID itself, was something that crazy therapists made up.

 

ALISON: Yes, it was very strange. Two years later everything changed. There were no presentations on organized abuse. Bennett Braun had been sued and Judith Peterson, who I had done training with, had criminal charges brought against her. Everyone was frightened about this. What we were being taught at ISSTD now was don’t talk about these things and don’t ever suggest anything to your client. Well, I already knew that you never do suggestive therapy! I had already been taught that. That was just basic! But this went beyond that. It was about shutting it down, and ‘you don’t know if you can believe a client and you need to make it clear to them that you are not taking sides’. It just felt like everything was being discredited and you couldn’t talk about it. But my clients were making really good progress, even those still being harassed, they were still making great progress. And what I was hearing at ISSTD was you know … back track, be careful, cover your arse. That’s what it was all about, but they didn’t use those words.

 

Yet when someone has been through an horrendous experience they need to know that you care. They need you to care about what they have experienced, even if their memories are not 100% accurate, because memories are never 100% accurate. They don’t need you to sit behind your desk and act like these memories don’t matter and they’ve made it all up.

 

KATE: We have launched ourselves straight into the present as that debate around trauma and memory is one which is still alive today. I note that JTD is having a special edition on the issue of false memories. We still write on it and talk about it. Frontiers had a series of articles which you contributed to, where we talked about this issue. And it’s a very, very complex issue as we talk about to what extent we remain therapeutically neutral. I guess the core of the issue is that people feel differently about what therapeutic neutrality means and about believing or disbelieving memories. It is still a hot debate today.

 

ALISON: Yes, it is, and I did contribute it to it most recently. I think the debate reduced for a while when the FMS people managed to shut us down, but it has re-awakened. It’s all still there. Essentially, it is the survivor who needs to figure out what is real and not real in their memories. It is not my job. It was my job to listen to the client, to be compassionate, and to help them open up and talk about what’s important for them to talk about. And that is all. I think as long as I remember the limits to my job, then that’s okay. It was not my job to sit there and say ‘this is all true’ and then suggest more. But (equally) it was not my job to sit back and say, ‘I neither believe you or disbelieve you… and I think your attachment to your father is more important than what you are saying your father did.’ Or some such thing....

 

KATE: Yes, indeed. One of the other things I did want to talk to about is your books. I think pretty much all of us working in organized abuse have them on our bookshelves. There are so few books written in the field and you have been a pioneer, writing to my knowledge, some of the very few books in the field.

ALISON: I think they are still the only books devoted to this issue in such detail. And I published Healing the Unimaginable in 2012. There are a few good articles and the British put out some great compilations, but I think my books are still the only books that talk about what it is in the mind of the victim, how the abuse works, how the abusers set up the personality systems....

 

ALISON: I think it’s really important that therapists understand that this is organized crime. It is psychologically sophisticated organized crime. There is a set up that as soon as the survivor begins to disclose, there will be parts inside that go and tell the group that they have made disclosures. Perpetrator groups will be prepared to shut people down and we have to learn how to handle that. We need to understand the clinical issues, as well as how these groups work… back in the 1930’s people had to learn how the mafia worked before they could deal with it. The same with this situation....

 

I was thinking about what you said about needing to learn about these groups. One thing that seems helpful for our field is that we are beginning to learn more about organized abuse in general. There is research into the production of child sex abuse materials, into trafficking of children and young people across borders and between groups. We’ve had various enquiries into organizational abuse, including the Australian Royal Commission. Through this enquiry, for the first time the average Australian person realised that that big organized and semi organized groups can abuse children for many decades, cover it up, get away with it, pass children from perpetrator to perpetrator, and protect perpetrators. We saw that uncovered here and I am sure other countries have seen this too. I think that all these things have given validity to our field.

 

ALISON: Yes, very much so. And the fact that these groups actually put stuff on the internet and then get caught, you can see it is happening, and now, on some occasions, police have actually rescued children.

 

KATE: And those who think that children must have been making it up, that these atrocities could not happen, because humans could not do that to each other, must now face the fact that police officers are literally looking at online material and studying it as evidence. The police know these things did happen to children as they see photos and videos of it.

 

ALISON: I think the production of materials is an important issue. Pretty much all my clients have been involved with that. There was a studio in Toronto (3000 miles away) which three of my clients had been involved with, one of them as a photographer … and this was a long time before all these things came out in the media, in the public. It is a horrible thing, but it is good that it is being discovered and the world is becoming aware that it does exist....

Son of Sam, Satanic Cult, Satanic Rituals, The Sons of Sam, The Ultimate Evil

 

- What To Know About John & Michael Carr, The Brothers Featured In The Sons Of Sam
A new Netflix docuseries reinvestigates the Son of Sam murders.
"believed that Berkowitz and the Carr brothers were members of a vast satanic cult that carried out the killings"

 

- Did 'Son of Sam' really act alone?
"members of the group, according to Berkowitz, were plotting ritualistic murder, human sacrifices to the devil"

 

- Did convicted Son of Sam killer David Berkowitz act alone?
" there was a satanic cult that was meeting in Untermyer Park in Yonkers and killing dogs. And so I met him down there, he showed me where the cult was meeting. We saw all the satanic graffiti."

What To Know About John & Michael Carr, The Brothers Featured In The Sons Of Sam

A new Netflix docuseries reinvestigates the Son of Sam murders.
'The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness'
By Johnny Brayson May 5, 2021

 

David Berkowitz is one of the most notorious serial killers in history. Convicted for murdering six and injuring several more in the “Son of Sam” shootings that terrorized New York City in the mid-1970s, Berkowitz will forever be known as one of the world’s greatest monsters. But there are some who believe that Berkowitz did not act alone. That’s the impetus for the Netflix docuseries The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness, which explores the theory that Berkowitz was just one member of a group of killers. Included in this group, one independent investigator believed, were John and Michael Carr. So what do we know about these brothers, and their relationship to Berkowitz?

 

The Sons of Sam is based on the work of journalist Maury Terry, who spent decades attempting to prove that David Berkowitz was not the only murderer behind the Son of Sam shootings. Terry, who died in 2015, believed that Berkowitz and the Carr brothers were members of a vast satanic cult that carried out the killings. He was never able to prove his theory of the case — indeed, some of the claims in his sensational book The Ultimate Evil would later be disproven — but in his mind, John and Michael Carr were central to the murders.

 

The Carrs’ father was Berkowitz’s neighbor, Sam Carr — which literally makes Michael and John the sons of Sam. At the time of the killings, Berkowitz claimed that he was directed to kill by Sam — a demonic entity who spoke to him through Sam Carr’s dog. But Terry believed that Berkowitz’s association with the Carrs didn’t stop with the dog or his hallucinations.

 

Both Carr brothers would die prematurely in the years following Berkowitz’s 1977 arrest....

Berkowitz named both Michael and John Carr as two of his accomplices: he claimed that Michael was the gunman at the June 26, 1977 shooting at Bayside, Queens’ Elephas discotheque, which left two people injured; and he alleged that John pulled the trigger on November 27, 1976 in a shooting that left two teens injured. Witness descriptions of the shooter in the latter case reported seeing a young blonde man — a description that didn’t match Berkowitz, but did bear a resemblance to John Carr. Berkowitz said both men were murdered by the cult to keep them from talking about their involvement.

 

Berkowitz also claimed that the Carrs were involved in a satanic cult — a group that he said instigated the Son of Sam killings. Berkowitz claimed that it was Michael Carr who first introduced him to the cult, while Terry allegedly uncovered evidence linking John to the cult at his home in North Dakota, according to Unsolved Mysteries. Berkowitz is also believed to have made mention of John Carr in the infamous threatening letter he’d sent to journalist Jimmy Breslin, where he referenced a “John Wheaties — rapist and suffocator.” According to Terry, “Wheaties” was John Carr’s nickname.

 

It’s unknown if David Berkowitz acted alone in the Son of Sam slayings, let alone if the Carr brothers or a satanic cult had any involvement. But as The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness shows, Maury Terry certainly believed this was the case.

https://www.bustle.com/entertainment/john-michael-carr-son-of-sam-connection

 

 

Did 'Son of Sam' really act alone?
July 2, 2004
By By John Hockenberry

It isn't just family members who are still haunted by the Son of Sam -- so are some of the original detectives who wonder, even now, if there's something or someone they missed. Now Dateline has learned one police department has never officially closed the Son of Sam case.

....What most don't know about the Son of Sam case is that from the beginning, not everyone bought the idea that Berkowitz acted alone. On the list of skeptics, police who worked the case, even the prosecutor from Queens, where five of the shootings took place. In addition, Berkowitz himself, in a little known interview done years after the killings, claimed there were other shooters, naming names.

 

But perhaps most surprising is what Dateline recently learned, that the arrest of David Berkowitz didn't actually close the Son of Sam case. In Berkowitz's home town it is still not officially closed....

 

Berkowitz: “I had gone to a party in the neighborhood and I met some interesting people there.”

Interesting, Berkowitz claimed, because they were into Satanism.

Berkowitz: “We began to talk about the occult. It just came up.”

 

He said he would go with the group to a park in Yonkers, Untermeyer Park.

 

Berkowitz: “And there'd be people getting high and going through some rituals. They were into the occult. I met some people there who said that they were witches. There were animal sacrifices and other dark and ugly things happening.”

 

He said he got caught up in the rituals. The group, he said, began to take over his very soul.

Berkowitz: “It was a recruitment process. A slow but methodical recruitment process.”

But Berkowitz said it was about more than animal sacrifice.

 

Berkowitz: “They were into child pornography, and there was other people that were into that thing, you know, where they wanted that. And they would provide that.”

 

Maury Terry: “Producing child pornography, is that what you're saying? And providing children?”

Berkowitz: “Yeah.”

Some members of the group, according to Berkowitz, were plotting ritualistic murder, human sacrifices to the devil, which is what this born again Christian was now saying the Son of Sam killings were all about.

 

Berkowitz: “They were working with Satan to try to bring in a lot of chaos.”...

But is there anything definite in this seemingly outlandish story, any facts or recollections that might support the theory of a 20-year-old satanic conspiracy as an explanation for the Son of Sam murders?

 

James Rothstein worked in a vice unit in Manhattan. He recalls leads he picked up years before the Son of Sam killing, a nefarious ring involved in pedophilia, and child pornography.

Rothstein: “We got information that children were being used and in particular there was something strange going on in Van Courtland park and Untermyer park.

 

Untermyer Park, in Yonkers is the same place Berkowitz said the group he ran with was centered. There Rothstein says, he first found evidence of animal sacrifice.

 

Rothstein: “And it came down that somebody was murdering German shepherds.”

Could this have been some kind of boardroom for a Son of Sam conspirators, the place where they planned their brutal crimes?

 

Rothstein: “And here was this building that had all these Satanic ritualistic drawings and stuff of that. So I had a pretty good idea I was looking at some type of a cult activity.”

 

Rothstein found this bizarre place five years before the first Son of Sam shootings. Reports of Satanic activity offer a possible motive for the Son of Sam killings – and a motive is something that the NYPD has never come up with even though they arrested Berkowitz. Cult activity also suggests the possibility of a murder conspiracy, something Maury Terry says there was already evidence for.

 

Terry: “Makes a hell of a lot more sense than thinking some guy listened to a talking dog and went out and shot people. It's ridiculous.”

 

David Berkowitz does admit to being a part of all eight shootings.

Berkowitz: “I was there, at all of them. And in the area, and scouting, and I had a part. I'm responsible for my involvement in those things, and, you know, definitely guilty.”...

 

ohn Carr lived in a house right behind David Berkowitz' apartment. Carr’s father was a man named Sam. New York police had an explanation for this. Berkowitz had allegedly been obsessed with the Carr's dog and may have even shot the animal. But Terry says there's a lot more to it. Carr's brother was named by Berkowitz as one of the so-called "interesting people" who made up the Satanic cult.

 

Berkowitz said the Carr brothers actually took part in the killings, that Michael Carr was the gunman at the disco shooting in Queens.

 

Michael Carr died in a traffic accident on Manhattan's West Side Highway. Berkowitz said it was Michael's brother John Carr, who was the gunman at another of the Queens shootings.

Maury: “Is it a fact that the shooter that night was John Carr.”

 

Was he the gunman that night?

Berkowitz: “Yeah.”

 

Does anything support these claims? How about the sketches? During the investigation, witnesses frequently seemed to be describing different people. But could there be another explanation for the different hairstyles? In his interview with Terry, Berkowitz claimed he was the gunman at only two of the eight shootings attributed to the Son of Sam, and that he killed three of the six victims, all in the Bronx. The witness sketch from the first Bronx shooting bears a clear resemblance to Berkowitz. The sketches from other shootings, where Berkowitz claimed someone else pulled the trigger, indeed look like someone else. They come from the shooting Berkowitz said John Carr committed.

 

John Carr is also dead, of gunshot wounds he sustained in North Dakota in 1978. Police came to believe it was a probably a homicide.

 

Of course you might say that the death of both Carr brothers conveniently supports the theory of a convicted murderer. Berkowtiz would not name any other accomplices. He claimed some of them are still alive. His family he says would be at the mercy of his former satanic cohorts if he named them....

 

here are other voices who believe this case should never have been closed.

All the tanalizing theories about satanic cults behind the Son of Sam case are worth next to nothing in court without solid evidence. Yet in the late 1970s the Queens D.A., a man with five of the shootings in his jursidiction, who would have loved to say case closed, instead challenged the NYPD'S lone gunman theory.

Santucci: “I believe David Berkowitz did not act alone, that in fact others did cooperate, aid and abet him in the commission of these crimes. In fact, it has crossed my mind that this 44-caliber pistol was passed around among a number of people.”....

 

Even a man who took a Son of Sam bullet, Carl Denero, agrees.

Carl Denero: “There's no way that David Berkowitz did all the shootings. I personally think it was a cult. I don't know that for a fact. But I am convinced that -- and no one can unconvince me -- that more than one person was involved.”

 

And as for columnist and Son of Sam pen-pal Jimmy Breslin, he's heard it all before and doesn't buy any of it. And it's not just Jimmy Breslin. A former FBI profiler who spent hours interviewing Berkowtiz told us he was convinced Berkowitz acted alone, was an "introverted loner, not capable of being involved in group activity."

 

The case in Yonkers has never been brought before a grand jury. The New York City police would not comment on any aspect of the Son of Sam case, but have never wavered from their belief that a lone gunman was the Son of Sam.

 

Berkowitz in his 1997 interview with Maury Terry seemed to shine a light on Terry's conspiracy theory, but he declined to elaborate on his allegations, and would not grant an interview to Dateline. So we're left with these last on-camera words from David Berkowitz.

Berkowitz: “It was a time of foolishness for me, a time of spiritual darkness, a time of a lot of confusion.”....

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna5351509

 

 

Did convicted Son of Sam killer David Berkowitz act alone?

....David Berkowitz confessed to all the shootings. He told police that his neighbor’s barking dog had told him to commit the murders. He pleaded guilty to all the charges and was sentenced to 25 years to life. But to author Maury Terry, his confession seemed too convenient:

 

“After the arrest of Berkowitz, just through fate or whatever, I started poking around into the case because I had some suspicions that maybe there was more to it than the public was being led to believe.”

 

Maury Terry suspected that Berkowitz didn’t act alone, but that he was part of a gang of killers. It was Stacy Moskowitz’s murder that first made Maury suspicious:

“The very early reports on the Moskowitz killing had me concerned. David Berkowitz’s features were widely different from the sketches of the killer that had been done by the police artist. I started seeking out witnesses and found Tommy Zaino, who was a key witness to the shooting.”

 

According to Tommy, he and his girlfriend were parked in front of Stacy Moskowitz and her boyfriend on the night of the murder:

“I was looking in the mirror of the car and I noticed somebody standing in the park. What I saw was that he had long hair and it’s hard to really see the face, but he was thin. He looked like he was in pretty good shape. He walked up to the car as if he was going to get in the car, and then he went into a stance and he shot. And that was it. He turned around and ran. I can’t picture Berkowitz running like that. That’s the thing that confused me after they caught him. In a week, he can’t get that fat. And that’s all I can say. He didn’t look like the type of guy to run and do that.”....

Maury Terry believes that at least three people, including Berkowitz, were involved in Stacy’s murder. He claims they were members of a satanic cult and were responsible for every one of the “Son of Sam” shootings. According to Maury:

“David Berkowitz was selected to be the fall guy on the Son of Sam killings. He was not a willing fall guy, he wanted it to be another way. But Berkowitz knew that he had been involved in all of the shootings. He has pulled the trigger definitely two times, responsible for three murders. He’s not an innocent man and was on the scene of all the others, as a lookout, a wheel man, whatever.”

 

Several of the people involved in the Son of Sam case backed up Maury’s account. Witness Tommy Zaino:

 

“I didn’t think it was David Berkowitz then and I don’t think it’s him now.”

NYPD Det. Henry Cinotti:

“It’s a strong opinion of mine that David Berkowitz was not the sole killer and was aided by other accomplices.”

John Santucci, Dist. Attorney of Queens County:

 

“I had a statement made to me by someone who allegedly spoke to David Berkowitz, wherein David Berkowitz is supposed to have stated that others were involved.”

Maury says that cryptic references in one of the Son of Sam letters support his theory. One phrase that raised his suspicions was: “John Wheaties … Rapist and Suffocator of Young Girls”. Another was “Wicked King Wicker.” Maury views them as clues that help identify an accomplice of David Berkowitz.

 

Berkowitz lived in a seventh floor apartment in Yonkers. Down the hill was a street named “Wicker.” Could this be the “King Wicker” mentioned in the Breslin letter? According to Maury Terry, Wicker Street was near the home of another character mentioned in the letter — John “Wheaties”:

“I learned that the ‘John Wheaties, rapist and suffocator,’ alias of the killer in the Breslin letter, was not really an alias at all, but it was the name of a real person. That person was John Carr, who was the real-life son of Sam Carr. John Carr’s nickname was Wheaties. And I learned this within a day of the arrest.”

 

Maury Terry believes that there is a resemblance between two composite drawings of the .44 caliber killer and John Carr. Maury tracked down Carr to North Dakota, where he worked as a mechanic at a local Air Force base. He lived there during the mid-70’s, but often visited New York during the time of the “Son of Sam” attacks. Ex-Lieutenant Terry Gardner, of the Ward County, North Dakota Sheriff’s Department, said he was aware of Carr:

 

Maury Terry said John Carr was involved in satanic rituals:

“Through interviews with Carr’s friends and police officials in North Dakota, the picture emerged that John Carr was heavily involved in satanic cult activity, both in Minot, North Dakota, and in Westchester County, New York, where he spent part of his time. It involved blood drinking, urine drinking, the ritualistic sacrifice of animals, specifically German Shepherds.”

 

The Satanic symbol found on the Breslin letter was also found written on Carr’s phone book. One of Carr’s acquaintances was man named Phil Falcon. According to Maury Terry, Falcon claimed he accidentally walked in on Carr and a friend performing a satanic ritual:

 

“Phil Falcon told us that he walked into his own house one night in North Dakota and found John Carr and another friend of Carr’s part of the circle, in the act of ritualistically sacrificing an animal right in Falcon’s house. And Phil Falcon also told us that John Carr belonged to a very, very violent satanic cult.”

 

Prison sources who knew Berkowitz told Maury Terry that Berkowitz had been introduced to the cult by John Carr’s brother, Michael, in the 70’s. According to Maury Terry:

 

“Michael Carr ended up inviting Berkowitz to attend what he called ‘a floating coven party’. And Berkowitz came in and attended the party and symbolically, not literally, but symbolically, the .44 was put into his hand that night. That’s how he got into the cult scene.”

More than two years after Berkowitz was arrested, Michael Carr was killed in a car accident on a New York highway. He died just eighteen months after his brother.

 

Berkowitz admitted during two different court depositions that he knew both John and Michael Carr and that they were part of a satanic cult. And, he said the brothers were killed to keep them from talking. Maury Terry believes that the deaths of the Carr brothers may have been organized by the “22 disciples of Hell” mentioned in the Breslin letter. Maury also says this satanic group performed their rituals in a local park that was just one mile from Berkowitz’s apartment:

 

“I got a call from a young boy in Yonkers, a 15-year old high school sophomore, wanted to know if I knew that there was a satanic cult that was meeting in Untermyer Park in Yonkers and killing dogs. And so I met him down there, he showed me where the cult was meeting. We saw all the satanic graffiti. Saw the remains of probably two or three German Shepherds. It was a very significant development in the case.”

 

https://unsolved.com/gallery/son-of-sam/