Editing Satanic panic (section)

===''Michelle Remembers'' and the McMartin preschool trial===
{{Main |Michelle Remembers |McMartin preschool trial}}
''Michelle Remembers'', written by Canadians Michelle Smith and her husband, psychiatrist [[Lawrence Pazder]], was published in 1980.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-10-31 |title=The origins and lessons of the ‘Satanic Panic’ of the 1980s |url=https://cei.org/blog/the-origins-and-lessons-of-satanic-panic-of-the-1980s/ |access-date=2025-05-02 |website=Competitive Enterprise Institute |language=en-us}}</ref> Now [[Michelle Remembers#Investigation and debunking|discredited]], the book was written in the form of an autobiography, presenting the first modern claim that child abuse was linked to Satanic rituals.{{sfn |Victor |1993 |pp=[https://archive.org/details/satanicpaniccrea00vict/page/14 14–15]}} According to the  “memoir”, at the age of five Michelle was tortured by her mother for days in "elaborate satanic rituals". As the torture reached a climax, a portal to hell opened and Satan himself appeared, only to be driven away by the [[Virgin Mary]] and [[Archangel Michael]]. Explanations for a lack of any evidence of abuse on Michelle’s body were that it had been miraculously removed by St. Mary. Not explained was testimony from Michelle’s father and two sisters, contradicting the memoir, as well as a 1955/56 St. Margaret’s School yearbook. The yearbook includes a photo taken in November 1955 showing Michelle attending school and appearing healthy, when according to Pazder’s book Michelle spent that month imprisoned in a basement.<ref name=JPLS2023:sect.6/>

Pazder was also responsible for coining the term ''ritual abuse''.<ref name=Donner/> ''Michelle Remembers'' provided a model for numerous allegations of SRA that ensued later in the same decade.{{sfn |Victor |1993 |pp=[https://archive.org/details/satanicpaniccrea00vict/page/14 14–15]}}<ref name=Spanos>{{cite book |last=Spanos |first=NP |author-link=Nicholas Spanos |title=Multiple Identities & False Memories: A Sociocognitive Perspective |url=https://archive.org/details/multipleidentiti0000span |url-access=registration |publisher=[[American Psychological Association]] |year=1996 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/multipleidentiti0000span/page/269 269]–85 |isbn=978-1-55798-340-4}}</ref> On the basis of the book's success, Pazder developed a high media profile, gave lectures and training on SRA to law enforcement, and by September 1990 had acted as a consultant on more than 1,000 SRA cases, including the McMartin preschool trial. Prosecutors used ''Michelle Remembers'' as a guide when preparing cases against alleged Satanists.<ref name="Commercial Appeal">{{cite news |last1=Downing |first1=Shirley |last2=Charlier |title=Justice Aborted: A 1980s Witch-Hunt |newspaper=[[The Commercial Appeal]] |date=January 17–23, 1988}}</ref> ''Michelle Remembers'', along with other accounts portrayed as survivor stories, are suspected to have influenced later allegations of SRA,{{sfn |Victor |1993 |pp=[https://archive.org/details/satanicpaniccrea00vict/page/14 14–15]}}{{sfn |Brown |Scheflin |Hammond |1998 |p=55}} and the book has been suggested as a causal factor in the later epidemic of SRA allegations.{{sfn |Frankfurter |2006 |pp=[https://archive.org/details/evilincarnaterum00fran/page/60 60–62]}}<ref name="wenegrat1">{{cite book |title=Theater of Disorder: Patients, Doctors, and the Construction of Illness |last=Wenegrat |first=Brant |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] (OUP) |year=2001 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=o5i5utgOjvgC&pg=PA190 190–92] |isbn=978-0-19-514087-3}}</ref><ref name="Charles">{{cite book |chapter=The Assessment and Investigation of Ritual Abuse |last=Ney |first=Tara |title=True and False Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse: Assessment and Case Management |publisher=Psychology Press |year=1995 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=BggJjhbBJzwC&pg=PA304 304] |isbn=978-0-87630-758-8}}</ref>

The early 1980s, during the implementation of [[mandatory reporting]] laws, saw a large increase in child protection investigations in America, Britain, and other developed countries, along with a heightened public awareness of [[child abuse]]. The investigation of incest allegations in [[California]] was also changed, with cases led by [[social work]]ers who used leading and coercive interviewing techniques that had been avoided by police investigators. Such changes in the prosecution of cases of alleged incest resulted in an increase in confessions by fathers in exchange for [[plea bargain]]s.{{sfn|Nathan|Snedeker|1995|p=24}} Shortly thereafter, some children in child protection cases began making allegations of horrific physical and sexual abuse by caregivers within organized rituals, claiming sexual abuse in Satanic rituals and the use of Satanic symbols. These cases garnered the label ''satanic ritual abuse'' both in the media and among professionals.<ref name=Hechler>{{cite book |last=Hechler |first=D |title=The Battle and the Backlash: The Child Sexual Abuse War |publisher=Macmillan Pub Co |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-669-21362-1}}</ref><ref name=Cozolino1989>{{cite journal |last=Cozolino |first=L. |year=1989 |title=The ritual abuse of children: Implications for clinical practice and research |journal=The Journal of Sex Research |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=131–38 |doi=10.1080/00224498909551497}}</ref> Childhood memories of similar abuse began to appear in the [[psychotherapy]] sessions of adults.<ref name=Van1990>{{cite journal |last=Van Benschoten |first=S.C. |year=1990 |title=Multiple personality disorder and satanic ritual abuse: The issue of credibility |journal=Dissociation |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=13–20 |url=https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/dspace/bitstream/1794/1492/1/Diss_3_1_5_OCR.pdf |access-date=2008-06-11 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080528205615/https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/dspace/bitstream/1794/1492/1/Diss_3_1_5_OCR.pdf |archive-date=2008-05-28 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Conte |first=JR |title=Critical issues in child sexual abuse: historical, legal, and psychological perspectives |publisher=Sage Publications |location=Thousand Oaks |year=2002 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=qBSuIMgJLNYC&pg=PA178 178–79] |isbn=978-0-7619-0912-5}}</ref>

In 1983, charges were laid in the [[McMartin preschool trial]], a major case in California, which received attention throughout the United States and contained allegations of satanic ritual abuse. The case caused tremendous polarization in how to interpret the available evidence.{{sfn |Brown |Scheflin |Hammond |1998 |p=58}}<ref name=lat87/> Shortly afterward, more than 100 preschools across the country became the object of similar sensationalist allegations, which were eagerly and uncritically reported by the press.{{sfn |Victor |1993 |p=[https://archive.org/details/satanicpaniccrea00vict/page/117 117]}} Throughout the McMartin trial, media coverage of the defendants (Peggy McMartin and Ray Buckey) was unrelentingly negative, focusing only on statements by the prosecution.{{sfn |Eberle |Eberle |1993}} Michelle Smith and other alleged survivors met with parents involved in the trial, and it is believed that they influenced testimony against the accused.{{sfn |Victor |1993 |p=[https://archive.org/details/satanicpaniccrea00vict/page/15 15]}}{{sfn |Bibby |1996 |pp=205–13}}{{sfn |Nathan |Snedeker |1995 |p=89}}

[[Kee MacFarlane]], a social worker employed by the [[Children's Institute International]], developed a new way to interrogate children with [[anatomically correct doll]]s and used them in an effort to assist disclosures of abuse with the McMartin children. After asking the children to point to the places on the dolls where they had allegedly been touched and asking [[leading question]]s, MacFarlane diagnosed sexual abuse in virtually all the McMartin children.{{sfn |Nathan |Snedeker |1995 |pp=79–80}} She coerced disclosures by using lengthy interviews that rewarded discussions of abuse and punished denials. The trial testimony that resulted from such methods was often contradictory and vague on all details except for the assertion that the abuse had occurred.{{sfn |Eberle |Eberle |1993}} Although the initial charges in the McMartin case featured allegations of Satanic abuse and a vast conspiracy, these features were dropped relatively early in the trial, and prosecution continued only for non-ritual allegations of child abuse against only two defendants.<ref name=Intimate>{{cite book |last=Jenkins |first=P |title=Intimate enemies: moral panics in contemporary Great Britain |publisher=[[Transaction Publishers|Aldine de Gruyter]] |location=New York |year=1992 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=JQQWfqtES5MC&pg=PA151 151–76] |isbn=978-0-202-30435-9}}</ref> After three years of testimony, McMartin and Buckey were [[acquittal|acquitted]] on 52 of 65 counts, and the jury was deadlocked on the remaining 13 charges against Buckey, with 11 of 13 jurors choosing not guilty. Buckey was re-charged and two years later released without conviction.{{sfn |Eberle |Eberle |1993}}