Between
1983 and
1986, numerous cases of criminal
child molestation were tried in
Kern County, California. The cases involved claims that
Satanic rituals were performed by pedophilic sex rings
with as many as 60 children testifying they had been abused.
At least eight people were convicted and most of them spent
many years imprisoned. All of the convictions were
eventually overturned on appeal. It was later found that the
child witnesses had been subjected to suggestive
interrogation techniques in the gathering of evidence at
trial. Many of the children recanted their testimony in
adolescence or adulthood, and the cases stand as egregious
examples of injustice in American history.
The first case
involved Alvin and Debbie McCuan. In
1982 the two sisters, coached by their step-grandmother,
who had custody of them, alleged they had been abused by
their parents, and accused them of being part of a sex ring
that included Scott and Brenda Kniffen. The Kniffens' two
sons also claimed to have been abused. No physical evidence
was ever found but the McCuans and Kniffens were convicted
in
1984 and each sentenced to hundreds of years in prison.
In September 1984, an unrelated case was commenced
against Margie Grafton, Tim Palomo, Grant Self, and John
Stoll. They were accused of forming a sex ring to abuse
young boys and produce
child pornography. Various boys testified at the trial.
Again, no physical evidence was presented - and, again, all
four defendants were convicted and sentenced to long prison
terms. The convictions of Margie Grafton and Tim Palomo were
overturned soon afterward.
Six similar cases occurred quickly throughout Kern
county. They were stopped when children began to accuse
police officers and
social workers of being members of sex rings.
The Kern county events marked the beginning of a series
of over forty similar cases all over North America, lasting
until about
1995, when prosecutors across the United States and
Canada began to realise there was something fishy going on.
Many of the cases relied upon so-called "recovered
memories," as well as deliberate exploitation of children's
imaginations, both of which were ultimately found to be
completely unreliable scientifically and legally. The
children did not so much "make up" stories of abuse as have
them planted in their minds by ambitious, and in some cases
ethically questionable, psychologists.
The convictions of the McCuans and Kniffens were
overturned in
1996 and the two couples were released. In
2001, a TV movie about the plight of the Kniffens was
released under the name Just ask my children. John
Stoll had to wait until
2004 for the reversal of his convictions. Stoll was
released but Self remains in a mental hospital for sexual
offenders because he had a prior conviction for child
molestation.
See also
Reference
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New York Times;
September 19,
2004; Who Was Abused? There are several ways to view
the small white house on Center Street in Bakersfield,
Calif. From one perspective it's just another low-slung
home in a working-class neighborhood, with a front yard,
brown carpeting, a TV in the living room. Now consider
it from the standpoint of the Kern County district
attorney's office: 20 years ago, this was a crime scene
of depraved proportions. According to investigators, in
the living room with brown carpeting and a TV, boys
between the ages of 6 and 8 were made to pose for
pornographic photos. On a water bed in the back bedroom,
the boys were sodomized by three men, while a mother had
sex with her own son. But look at the house once again
-- this time, through Ed Sampley's eyes. Twenty years
ago he was one of the boys molested in the house where
sex abuse was part of the weekend fabric. That's what he
told Kern County investigators. That's what he told a
judge, a jury and a courtroom of lawyers. The testimony
of Sampley and five other boys was the prosecution's key
evidence in a trial in which four defendants were
convicted, with John Stoll, a 41-year-old carpenter,
receiving the longest sentence of the group: 40 years
for 17 counts of lewd and lascivious conduct. ...