Satanic panic is so nuts. I had to google it to remember the name, but there was a daycare called McMartin Preschool in SoCal, and a bunch of their daycare providers spent time in jail because of insane claims of satanic ritual abuse (of both a sexual and nonsexual nature). Of course it wasn’t true, there was no evidence. The claims grew and grew in that case and led to so many other cases of supposed satanic abuse being reported, children being interrogated, parents losing rights to their children/having their rights threatened. Another set of daycare providers spent 22 years in jail on satanic abuse claims, only to be declared totally innocent in 2017. Seems crazy that someone, somewhere couldn’t bring just an ounce of sanity to the whole thing and just be like ‘WTF you really believe that your kids preschool has a maze of tunnels underneath it and that witches fly in their classrooms? Are you on crack?’
(police interrogation led to a lot of these claims getting legs to stand on—not really surprised on that)
A no Dr. day at work has finally let me catch up on your blog. This was great as usual. I remember fondly the satanic panic of the 80’s. Good stuff!
Right now, somewhere in the world, there’s a guy drinking beer while wearing Heely’s, and watching Weekend At Bernie’s. I just have to find him.
Popozao is a word I never thought I'd ever hear again, and has awakened some deeply repressed memories.
Satanic panic is so nuts. I had to google it to remember the name, but there was a daycare called McMartin Preschool in SoCal, and a bunch of their daycare providers spent time in jail because of insane claims of satanic ritual abuse (of both a sexual and nonsexual nature). Of course it wasn’t true, there was no evidence. The claims grew and grew in that case and led to so many other cases of supposed satanic abuse being reported, children being interrogated, parents losing rights to their children/having their rights threatened. Another set of daycare providers spent 22 years in jail on satanic abuse claims, only to be declared totally innocent in 2017. Seems crazy that someone, somewhere couldn’t bring just an ounce of sanity to the whole thing and just be like ‘WTF you really believe that your kids preschool has a maze of tunnels underneath it and that witches fly in their classrooms? Are you on crack?’
(police interrogation led to a lot of these claims getting legs to stand on—not really surprised on that)